Three Upperclasswomen

"It's going to unleash Fish-Light Dragon Poetry in three seconds! Back up three paces!" Hearing his warning, Sonia and Diya retreated immediately. Sure enough, three seconds later, the Ragecleaver Dragon unleashed a circular blade of shimmering water. The razor-sharp gale grazed past the operators, blowing their hair back in a hairbreadth escape. "Next, it'll suffer a three-second recovery delay, and then it'll attack the first target in front of it! Sword Princess, I've already buffed you—now go feed!" Miracle: Singular Devotion—Love Sword! Yaxiu casually threw a Love Sword buff onto Sonia. Sonia felt her heart thud violently as a numb, tingling warmth rushed through her entire body. Her waist felt especially ticklish, as if someone were wrapping an arm around it. She glared daggers at Yaxiu, then unleashed Evil Light Ripping Wave Slash at the Ragecleaver Dragon with all her might. The Ragecleaver Dragon swung its tail, which clanged with the ring of tempered steel, and slammed it toward Sonia with everything it had. Right then, the warm yellow Sword Body Barrier firmly shielded the village girl, nearly snapping the dragon's tail from the impact! It might not have broken completely, but Diya seized the opportunity to wrap her Water-Born Lines around its tail, aiming the Fast-Forward sorcery spirit right at it to accelerate the movement! Under normal circumstances, as soon as the Ragecleaver Dragon sensed its tail bound, it would immediately dial back its force to avoid injury, perhaps even using the opening to yank it free—compared to its massive bulk, a mature Ragecleaver Dragon possessed surprising agility and reflexes. But thanks to the acceleration from the Fast-Forward sorcery spirit, it had no time to react at all, and its tail was murdered by its own enormous weight and momentum! A great weapon required no manual manipulation; it was an art that flowed entirely on its own. Although Diya specialized in the "claw-line" technique derived from the unarmed combat faction, her combat style was completely different from Sword Princess and the Watcher. Because Water-Born Line struck multiple areas simultaneously, and knowledge creatures naturally possessed thick defenses, no matter how sharp the lines were, she still found it difficult to shred them into mince. Most of the time, the attacks looked vicious, but in reality amounted to little more than bedroom-level scratching. Her Water-Born Lines were less of a weapon and more of a trap. Whenever she timed a monster's charge just right, she would ensnare it with the lines and then use the Fast-Forward sorcery spirit to accelerate its momentum, using the creature's own bulk and inertia to sever it. Yaxiu's classification of Diya as a crowd-control damage dealer had been a remarkably sound call. Though her control didn't involve stuns or blinds, and even binding knowledge creatures proved difficult, the wonderful synergy between the Fast-Forward sorcery spirit and the Water-Born Line miracle allowed her to disrupt a knowledge creature's rhythm under normal circumstances and deliver a fatal blow when needed. Once the Ragecleaver Dragon lost its tail, its fate ended up no different from that of an adolescent Fishcleaver Dragon. Having dispatched this overlord Ragecleaver Dragon, Sonia turned to Yaxiu. "How do you know the Ragecleaver Dragon's attack patterns so well?" Although the Ragecleaver Dragon was the mature form of the Fishcleaver Dragon, and Sonia could react correctly the instant a Fishcleaver Dragon attacked, predicting its moves several seconds in advance like the Watcher was impossible for her. Fortunately, the Ragecleaver Dragon didn't understand human speech; otherwise, hearing the Watcher call out a full strategy guide at the top of his lungs would surely have provoked it into doing the exact opposite out of spite. "Only the Ragecleaver Dragon," Yaxiu replied with a shrug. "Over the past few days, I studied the syllabus on the Fishcleaver Dragon line in great detail." Leading teams to clear Extreme Cleaver Carp Supreme Duke had hardly been wasted effort. Now, looking at the Ragecleaver Dragon—the prototype of the Extreme Cleaver Carp—Yaxiu could tell whether it was about to take a piss or a crap just from a twitch of its tail. The only reason they were able to speedrun the Ragecleaver Dragon in three minutes now was because the real-world Yaxiu had been wiped out by the Extreme Cleaver Carp three hundred times. "What about other knowledge creatures?" "I only know the Fishcleaver Dragon series. For other knowledge creatures, I'll still have to rely on your explanations." Sonia raised an eyebrow. "Hmph, always relying on me." Diya raised her hand. "Excuse me, the Ragecleaver Dragon dropped two sorcery spirits. Do either of you need them?" Yaxiu laughed. "Witch, why are you suddenly being so polite?" "Because you two..." Diya saw Sonia rest her hand on the hilt of her sword. Without needing any prompting from the White Queen, she pivoted immediately: "...made me realize that I must get along well with my teammates, treat them gently, and definitely not harm them." Even though it was a Ragecleaver Dragon, the sorcery spirits it dropped were somewhat removed from the swordsmanship faction. They were two Two-Winged sorcery spirits: "Keen Determination" and "United Hearts." "Keen Determination" had some connection to swordsmanship, while "United Hearts" was likely a derivative sorcery spirit stemming from the Ragecleaver Dragon's nature as an overlord creature. Compared to other overlord creatures, the Ragecleaver Dragon was noticeably better at rallying other pack creatures against sorcerers, shamelessly bullying through superior numbers. If Yaxiu and the others hadn't been even more shameless—taking high ground and releasing toxic gas to eliminate the pack creatures first—this battle would have been considerably harder. "Keen Determination" "Two-Winged Sorcery Spirit" "Restriction: The sorcerer must possess the capacity for thought." "Base Effect: Generates a surge of keen determination, duration proportional to sorcery power expended." "Passive Effect: The user's everyday willpower becomes firmer." "'Willpower is sharper than any blade.'" .... "United Hearts" "Two-Winged Sorcery Spirit" "Restriction: The sorcerer must possess the capacity for thought." "Base Effect: Establishes a link with a designated target. All creatures within the link can perceive the emotions of the others." "Passive Effect: Others find it easier to empathize with the sorcerer." "'There is no such thing as mutual understanding, only mutual accommodation.'" Clearly, both of these sorcery spirits belonged to the mind faction, and the effect of United Hearts bore some resemblance to Sword Princess's mind miracle, Treat People with Sincerity. It was quite normal for a miracle and a sorcery spirit to share identical effects. For instance, the Fire Sorcery faction's renowned healing miracle, Bathe in Fire, was virtually indistinguishable from the sorcery spirit Water Therapy in terms of healing efficacy. Yet the former was a healing miracle that required at least a Two-Winged Fire Sorcerer to master, whereas the latter was standard starter equipment distributed to every healer. Offense, defense, healing, mobility, reconnaissance... most sorcery factions excelled in only one of these aspects. Enabling an attack-oriented faction to derive miracles capable of reconnaissance or healing was the true testament of a sorcerer's skill. Once Yaxiu and Sonia confirmed they had no use for them, Diya spoke up. "Then I'll take them—I need both of these sorcery spirits." Diya paused. Sensing there was no need to hide it, or perhaps unable to resist showing off, she volunteered, "I'm actually taking them for my other sisters." "Hm?" "Whether in the Void Realm or reality, only one sister needs to control the body. What do you think the other idle sisters are doing?" Yaxiu blinked. "Playing Truth or Dare? Beach volleyball? Dead or Alive?" Sonia realized what she meant. "Are they cultivating sorcery?" "It can't really be called cultivation, since a sorcerer's cultivation has to be tied to practical experience," Diya said. "Still, in their free time, they're usually designing and optimizing miracles. The miracles I'm using now were all conceived by my older sisters." Yaxiu and Sonia instantly recognized just how terrifying the Witch was. Aside from the Secret Princess, there were the White Queen, the Black Butler, and the Red Apostle. That meant that behind the Witch, at least three sorcerers were constantly deducing and constructing miracles! Ordinary sorcerers typically spent their time advancing their faction realms and summoning sorcery spirits, leaving very little time for miracle practice. The consequence of this was that sorcerers varied wildly in practical combat prowess. However, this was an inevitable trade-off. After all, faction realms dictated how much power a sorcerer could possess, while miracles merely determined how effectively they could unleash that power. Sorcerers usually only had the leeway to delve deeply into miracles after hitting their faction realm's ceiling, striving to extract every ounce of potential from what they already possessed—shifting from expanding sources of income to economizing expenses, from slash-and-burn farming to intensive cultivation. Banjie was a classic example: having lingered in the Two-Winged Sorcerer bracket for so long, he had practically turned his Ice Sorcery faction into an art form, handling defense, offense, mobility, and healing with effortless versatility. Even if Banjie conjured an igloo in the wild next time, Yaxiu and the others wouldn't be surprised in the slightest. In a sense, the vast majority of sorcerers started out down the path of "high scores, low ability." Yaxiu was also a prime example—though his scores weren't high, he was just as incompetent in practice. Even with the Heart Pen miracle the Sword Princess had given him, it took him a considerable amount of time just to gain proficiency. As for combining Heart Pen with miracles like Singular Devotion, Rushing Toward, and Severing Self into a cohesive tactical system, or even developing new miracles based on those sorcery spirits... Sword Princess might be able to pull that off, but a student like Yaxiu, who had never even passed his core curriculum, couldn't dream of completing such an elaborate graduation project. And that was precisely where the Witch's strength lay—she wasn't studying alone; she had three upperclasswomen doing her homework for her!