The Academic Faction and the Adventure Faction

"Why?" Yaxiu asked, somewhat surprised. "Isn't your advisor a Three-Winged Sanctuary Sorcerer? How could she not know about the Time Continent?" "There are two reasons." Sonia raised an index finger. "First, compared to the materials on the Sea of Knowledge, books introducing the Time Continent amount to only a tenth as many. That's not just because there are far fewer Two-Winged Sorcerers than One-Wing Sorcerers, but more importantly, compared to the Void Realm itself, sorcerers place far greater value on their faction realm. They're also much more eager to author silver tomes and golden secret texts on how to advance those faction realms. "For example, in the library, the Swordsmanship Department's books fill thirty rows of shelves, spanning various fields like summoning different sorcery spirits, combat techniques, production, and more. By contrast, books detailing the Sea of Knowledge take up only two rows of shelves, while those about the Time Continent number only a few dozen volumes. "Sorcerers like us who make gains in the Void Realm every single night are exceedingly rare—rare enough to be total anomalies. To an ordinary sorcerer, the Void Realm is merely a place to absorb sorcery power and hone combat skills. They never expect to reap extra harvests in the Void Realm; instead, they acquire more sorcery spirits by advancing their faction realm and utilizing trading platforms, thereby constructing a sorcery spirit system tailored to themselves. "Once their faction realm advances to a higher level, they ascend to the next layer of the Void Realm and repeat the process. If each layer didn't compel sorcerers to explore and keep moving, I'm sure plenty of sorcerers would happily stay put, quietly absorbing sorcery power in peace every night. "Second, my advisor is a genius." Sonia raised a second finger. "She spent only four years leaving the Time Continent and reaching the Distant Sky Realm. She lived at the academy for four years and still occasionally forgets where her own office is, to say nothing of the Time Continent." Yaxiu sighed. He understood this was the gulf between the academic faction and the adventure faction. Just as people with full bellies don't rebel, and far more people deposit savings in fixed-term accounts than play the stock market, sorcerers naturally voted with their feet and settled into their comfort zones. It was easy to understand. Rather than pinning their hopes on the Void Realm, sorcerers preferred investing in themselves—at least they had control over their own progress. For sorcerers of the academic faction, while focusing on advancing faction realms required both effort and talent, the advancement path was reliable and steady. Furthermore, as long as one's faction realm improved, there were essentially no bottlenecks—after all, a fool and a genius absorbed sorcery power at the exact same rate in the Void Realm. By contrast, no matter how well someone fared in the Void Realm, if their faction realm failed to break through, they would remain stuck in place. If the Void Realm was a fulcrum and the faction realm a lever, then the academic faction was constantly reinforcing and lengthening their lever to pry loose more power from the Void Realm. Meanwhile, adventurers like Yaxiu searched for better, easier fulcrums, prying a bit here and nudging a bit there, relying on the inscrutable wonders of serendipity. Whether on an individual, organizational, or societal level, the academic faction was superior to the adventure faction across the board. The sole downside to the academic faction's prosperity was that overemphasizing faction realms led them to overlook the latent value of the Void Realm. After all, they had their hands full just trying to advance their faction realms; they had zero spare energy to unearth the Void Realm's secrets, and naturally, no one compiled materials on the subject. Of course, this didn't mean the two paths were incompatible. The Sword Princess, for instance, balanced both the academic faction and the adventure faction, progressing at breakneck speed. But for a developing sorcerer civilization, they could only prioritize the academic faction's knowledge system, leaving little room to unlock the adventure faction's tech tree. It seemed the Sword Princess's academy was out of the question; they would have to rely on themselves to unearth the treasures of the Time Continent. "Speaking of which, I just remembered something..." "Did you remember another fairy tale even wilder than an adult story?" "No." Diya shook her head and explained what she had noticed at the lumber mill: by all logic, the unused wood continuously produced should have overflowed the entire den, yet there wasn't actually that much timber inside the mill. Yaxiu said thoughtfully, "Come to think of it, in the resource points we searched earlier, if all the ordinary materials had piled up continuously, they should have overflowed long ago..." "Could it be that the ones overflowing got completely blocked off so we couldn't find them, and we've only been finding resource points that haven't hit capacity yet?" Sonia pointed out a blind spot. "Survivorship bias is certainly plausible, but there's another possibility." Yaxiu said, "Namely, seemingly useless ordinary materials are also cleared out periodically." Sonia shook her head. "Apart from you, I've never heard of any sorcerer who can make use of ordinary materials." "Which means whatever can use those ordinary materials might not be a sorcerer..." As they spoke, Yaxiu had already brought up the Void Realm Map, preparing to drive off in search of their next resource point. But right then, he noticed an unmarked red dot popping up at the edge of the map. [Overwhelming the few with the many is a sign of wisdom (Unknown Existence)] An unknown existence meant it wasn't a knowledge creature. And on the Time Continent, the only wandering entities besides knowledge creatures were sorcerer projections! "Looks like there's a sorcerer projection taking a stroll up ahead." "Run him down!" "Smash right through him!" The Sword Princess and the Witch uttered extraordinarily dangerous suggestions. Yaxiu happily obliged and floored the accelerator toward it. Roaming sorcerer projections were currently their favorite prey: the "Wicked Edge" on their sports car could ram right through and kill them instantly, earning them sorcery spirits and sorcerer manuals without needing to lift a finger in battle. Rather than free handouts, it was practically highway robbery. As the distance closed, Yaxiu spotted more details on the Void Realm Map. Then he slammed on the brakes. "Why did you stop?" Yaxiu rubbed his eyes, double-checking the map prompts to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "Behind that sorcerer projection, there's a massive pack of snake-scorpion dragons... and several thousand-feather bird-dragons! It looks like they're marching this way together!" [Everyone else thinks so too (A Few · Thousand-Feather Bird-Dragons)] [The statement below is right (A Pack · Snake-Scorpion Dragons)] [Overwhelming the few with the many is a sign of wisdom (Unknown Existence)] A sorcerer projection moving together with pack creatures? Sonia thought of a terrifying possibility. "Quick, get out of the way! Don't stand in front of them!" Yaxiu quickly steered the car into a neighboring area and asked, "How can a sorcerer projection be mingled with knowledge creatures? Is this a bundle deal?" Diya said, "Or maybe they just happen to be heading the same way?" "No!" Sonia shook her head firmly. "That's not it... They're a single unit!" Even as they spoke, swift predators tore across the land like bulldozers. The groaning of trampled grass and the low rumble of bowing trees intertwined into a symphony of natural catastrophe. Even through the veil of reverse golden rain, Yaxiu and the others could distinctly hear an army of knowledge creatures marching past right beside them with brazen disregard. The sorcerers froze almost completely stiff, as if terrified any slight movement might startle the passing monsters. Yaxiu kept his fingers lightly hovering over the directional controls, his eyes fixed on the glowing dots on the map, ready to flee at a moment's notice. Silently, they all prayed this unknown legion would carry on to hold their party somewhere else and pay zero attention to these few pitiful little creeps. Although Yaxiu and his companions had cleared out three resource points, they still relied on seizing favorable terrain—or even engineering choke points themselves—to blunt the numerical advantage of pack creatures, often ganging up three-on-two in isolated pockets. In other words, they lacked true mass-combat capability. This was no lair or cavern; there was no favorable terrain to be found. If this Void Realm army attacked them, all they could do was pray that four wheels could outrun flying creatures. Only as the wails of battered trees faded into the distance did they finally breathe a sigh of relief. Though one could not sweat in the Void Realm, each of them felt a chill as their dread evaporated. "What was that?" Yaxiu asked. "It's my first time seeing it too," Diya murmured. "Good thing it's the first time, or Little Red would be a goner." Red Apostle: "I knew I'd only get a full appearance in a fight guaranteed to kill us." "That's probably number two on the Time Continent Danger Rankings," Sonia said in a hushed voice. "They are wanderers who harvest life, the nightmare no sorcerer ever wants to encounter, the Void Realm's most unreserved malice toward outsiders—" "The Heroic Spirit Legion."