Spectre Manual

Although their sorcery spirits and sorcery power were sealed, the four of them cooperated closely, and with the help of the Collections, Yaxiu and his companions easily cleared out the pack of soul hounds. Upon death, the soul hounds dissolved into pools of pale-blue radiance. Once all the hounds were dead, these motes of light converged into three spheres of varying sizes. Without needing any explanatory text, the sorcerers knew at a glance what each one represented: The fluffy sphere of light on the left was the miracle Soul Restoration, which replenished the soul energy the sorcerers had expended. It was the smallest in size, indicating that the difficulty of the next trial would be easy. The sphere of light in the middle was the two-winged sorcery spirit Initial Soul, meaning that if a sorcerer chose this orb, their Initial Soul sorcery spirit would immediately advance to two wings. It was medium-sized, indicating normal difficulty for the next trial. The sphere on the right shone brilliantly, representing a certain amount of soul faction mastery experience. It was the largest in size, signifying hard difficulty for the next trial! Yaxiu and the others immediately realized that the nature of this legacy was stark, cutthroat survival of the fittest. Among the three options, soul experience was undeniably the most valuable, yet it also carried the greatest risk. If one wanted the safest route, they could only restore their soul energy—which amounted to gaining nothing at all. Moreover, it went without saying that each subsequent stage would inevitably be harder than the last. Simply recovering soul energy without any boost to combat strength was nothing more than drinking poison to quench a thirst—a dead end. Fortunately, Yaxiu and the others were still in fairly good shape. He glanced between the middle and the right before saying after a moment's contemplation, "Weise, go take the reward on the right." Weise was somewhat surprised. "Me?" "You're a genius proficient in over twenty branches of sorcery, after all, so you have the best chance of grasping the soul faction." Yaxiu glanced at Sword Princess and the Witch to seek their opinions, and neither objected. "Resources should go to whoever can make the best use of them." Weise said no more and stepped forward to touch the sphere of light on the right. The moment her fingers brushed it, the other two spheres vanished on the spot. Immediately afterward, eight massive, hideous harpies appeared around the hall. They lunged in unison, accompanied by howling gales, their razor-sharp talons glinting like blades! Yaxiu and the others scrambled to meet the attack. After Weise dominated one of the harpies, she suddenly remarked, "I see. No wonder the Spectre Legacy allows us to team up." "What do you mean?" "Sixteen soul hounds, eight harpies—this is definitely not the standard setup for a legacy trial. The number of enemies likely scales with our party size, yet the reward for clearing a stage remains a single share. That means if sorcerers team up, their consumption won't decrease by much, but only one person gets the reward." Yaxiu and the others understood immediately. The Spectre Legacy didn't care whether four sorcerers entered together or a hundred did. The trial's difficulty scaled directly with numbers, and no matter how many cleared it, only a single person would ever reap the prize. Diya looked puzzled. "If the Spectre Prophet designed it to encourage solo trials, why didn't he force us apart? He should be capable of that, right?" Given that the legacy could seal even sorcery spirits and sorcery power, separating them would hardly be difficult. "We might never know the exact reason, but we can make an educated guess," Weise said. "From his title of Spectre Prophet, it's clear he was a sorcerer who cultivated both the prophecy and soul factions. Compared to head-on combat, he was likely far more adept at scheming and collaboration. Perhaps he believed that someone who could still rally other sorcerers to conquer the trials under unfavorable conditions was precisely the kind of successor he needed." As they spoke, they finished off the harpies, but at the cost of their figures turning noticeably more translucent. Without restoring soul energy and with their Initial Soul sorcery spirits constantly draining them, they had already burnt through half their soul reserves even though less than an hour had passed since they entered the Void Realm. This time, three spheres of light appeared again: Soul Restoration, Spectre Manual, and Leave! Indeed, Leave was an actual reward! While inside the Spectre Legacy, Yaxiu and his companions had no way of returning to reality on their own! "This Spectre Prophet was probably an evil sorcerer," Sonia suddenly remarked. Yaxiu and Weise nodded in silent agreement, while Diya looked confused. "Why? Wouldn't someone who leaves behind a legacy be a good sorcerer?" "If a legacy is left by a benevolent sorcerer, it generally doesn't threaten lives. Even if you fail the trial, the worst that happens is suffering some losses," Sonia explained. "But in this Spectre Legacy, if you don't choose Leave as your reward, dying in the trials probably means you can't return to reality—your soul will be devoured whole by the monsters! Disregard for life is a common trait among evil sorcerers. "The cowardly will stop here, and the reckless will forfeit their lives. Only sorcerers of extraordinary intellect, courage, and capability in every regard are qualified to fight their way through and inherit his legacy!" Yaxiu remarked, "By comparison, even if the Dramatic Poet was a bit eccentric, the legacies he left behind truly only ever helped his successors." Compared to the Spectre Prophet, the Dramatic Poet's trials were vastly more humane. In any of the Dramatic Poet's legacies, sorcerers were given choices: whether to accept, what to pick, and how to proceed—agency always remained in the sorcerer's hands. The Dramatic Poet felt like a mischievous older brother; sorcerers might be left exasperated, but they never feared him. The Spectre Prophet, on the other hand, began by sealing away their sorcery spirits and sorcery power, using the threat of death to weed out candidates like the mastermind behind a deadly battle royale. The design of their legacies alone laid bare the vast chasm in humanity between the two high-ranking sorcerers. Diya grew nervous at once. "Then shouldn't we leave right away?" Among the four of them, the Witch sisters were undoubtedly the most timid—not only out of a desire to survive for Yaxiu's sake, but more importantly because she was certain that by taking things step by step, reaching Legendary rank was only a matter of time. Even more, remaining in the Sanctuary realm for the rest of her life wouldn't matter much to her; after all, she was still the Empress of the Gospel Country! "No." Yaxiu pointed at Spectre Manual. "Don't you all want to pick that?" Sonia and Weise nodded immediately. If they weren't mistaken, this was very likely the sorcerer manual of a demigod angel! Even if they gained nothing practical from it, simply browsing the secrets and gossip of a demigod sorcerer would make it entirely worthwhile! Yet some doubt lingered in everyone's mind. Could the sorcerer manual of a being like a demigod angel truly be obtained so easily? Could it be a knockoff? Once Yaxiu selected the reward, they immediately transitioned into the third trial. Eight Fishcleaver Dragons materialized around them. This instantly invigorated Sword Princess, the Witch, and Yaxiu, who welcomed the dragons with bright smiles. After dispatching the Fishcleaver Dragons, they didn't even look at the new rewards, gathering together instead to read the Spectre Manual. As expected, it wasn't a genuine sorcerer manual, but neither was it a fake. It was simply... incomplete, lacking everything that followed. *** Spectre Manual By taking the Path of Origin, I reached the summit of Ruby Mountain and met the legendary angel. Just as the legends said, the angel wished for me to gift Her the first half of my life—that is, to write the first half of my sorcerer manual. Perhaps She expected a sweeping epic of turbulent waves and great perils, but my prose is utterly dry, so I can only summarize it briefly. This was actually my second life. In my previous life, I did not reach the Sanctuary realm until I was eighty-seven, yet by sheer fortune, I seized the core legacy of the Glazed Time Lord. Regrettably, I was besieged, leaving me no choice but to activate the single-use god "Second Cycle" on the spot to begin a second life. Armed with foreknowledge of the future, I gathered all my family's wealth and slipped away before disaster struck. I then seized the soul legacy of the Soul Walker and the prophecy legacy of the Lookout in succession. Relying on the insights of my previous life, I rapidly amassed cultivation resources and eliminated beforehand the prodigies who might have stood in my way. Unfortunately, the Glazed Time Lord's legacy could only ever be inherited once across all timelines; in the end, I was destined never to claim the greatest of time legacies. During Void Realm Exploration, many claimed that the Path of Origin was a relic of the past, that sorcerers would henceforth have to scale the Void Realm solely by raising their faction masteries, and that the Path of Origin once paved by the Golden Fish, the Seven-Colored Tail, and the Faded Dream was no more. Yet I knew that within the Sea of Knowledge there still remained the very last pod of silver-scaled mermen. After slaying them and condensing their scales into my second silver wing, I successfully found the Golden Fish and traversed the Path of Origin to reach the Time Continent. On the Time Continent, only three colors remained of the Seven-Colored Tail. The other four had been lost, held either by demigods or by gods; theoretically, it was no longer possible to assemble the full Seven-Colored Tail and walk the Path of Origin as the ancient sorcerers had. Yet I knew the four colors had not truly vanished. They had merely taken on different forms of existence and hidden away, and I knew where every single one lay. After smoothly gathering all seven colors, I grasped the Seven-Colored Tail and arrived in the Distant Sky Realm. The Faded Dream was the most difficult of all. In ancient times, the Faded Dream only required obtaining the Dream Entry sorcery spirit from the Kingdom in Dreams, and then feeding it the materials Wind's Scars, Flower's Whispers, Snow's Scattering Petals, and Moon's Crystals to transform it into the Faded Dream sorcery spirit, allowing one to step onto the Path of Origin and reach Ruby Mountain! Now, however, the Kingdom in Dreams has become the exclusive domain of the Nightmare Angel, utterly barred to Sanctuary Sorcerers. Worse still, Wind's Scars and Flower's Whispers no longer form in the world; at best, a sorcerer might find Snow's Scattering Petals and Moon's Crystals, making it completely impossible to nurture a Faded Dream sorcery spirit. Nevertheless, the ancient Four Pillar Cult was certain to possess Wind's Scars and Flower's Whispers. Thus, I joined the Four Pillar Cult, found a way to secure both materials, successfully nurtured the Faded Dream sorcery spirit, walked the Path of Origin, and stood atop the summit of Ruby Mountain. This will likely be my only chance to stand upon this peak; from now on, I can only climb up from below. Seeing my arrival, the angel seemed somewhat surprised, remarking that no one had walked the Path of Origin recently. Given Her perception of time, "recently" likely meant within the last century. And so I set down this half of my manual as a meeting gift for Her. To the Angel of Ruby Mountain. —Spectre Sorcerer, Duroc Mirahorn.