The Explorer

Yaxiu and Sonia sat in the small boat, engrossed in reading the leather-bound sorcerer manual. Just like the previous sorcerer manuals, this one contained no personal information about the sorcerer himself, so they simply referred to him as the "Explorer." Why call him that? Because his greatest passion was exploring various natural wonders, and the contents of this manual were all about the scenic sites he had visited in the past. "Lava Cave" "Spent over a year on the construction site, and Phase Three is finally done. Before the foreman takes on a new job, I should have enough time to visit the Lava Cave." "Arrived at the village closest to the Lava Cave, but the foreman says he's taken on another big project. Sigh." "A few months passed, and I finally squeezed out time to explore the Lava Cave again. Great luck this time; I spent quite a bit of money hiring a local to guide me in." "Incredible! Molten lava just flows right across the ground, the pollen of blooming flowers can actually ignite and explode, yet deep inside the Lava Cave runs an icy, refreshing underground river... What an exquisite wonderland!" "Such bliss, but so terrifying! I actually ran into a female jadefire dragon! It must have escaped from the Void Realm a long time ago and made a lair here in the Lava Cave! Haha, I took pictures! The payment alone from submitting them for publication will be enough to fund another trip to the Lava Cave!" That was the general format. The Explorer usually had to jump through all kinds of hoops just to hit the road, and his journeys were occasionally cut short by work. One could say he managed to shoulder the mundane drudgery of life without forgetting poetry and distant horizons. "He was probably a civil engineer," Sonia remarked. Yaxiu nodded in profound agreement. Living on construction sites for long stretches, working non-stop whenever there was a contract, and remaining idle without an income when there wasn't, compounded by always traveling alone—the Explorer was most likely a bachelor to his dying day... As expected, civil engineers were pretty much the same in every world. The first half of the manual consisted of various sights the Explorer had visited in reality, while the second half documented sights in the Sea of Knowledge—yes, to the Explorer, even the Void Realm counted as a tourist destination. If there were sorcerers who enjoyed fishing, Yaxiu had no doubt they would fish in the Sea of Knowledge. However, fishing in the Sea of Knowledge was clearly high risk and low reward: either the sorcerer came back empty-handed, or the knowledge creatures didn't leave empty-handed. There were quite a few sights in the Sea of Knowledge. Beyond the Vortex, there were permanent landmarks such as the Sea Waterfall, the Great Road, and the Sky Bubble, many of which even Sonia had never heard of. Unlike the Vortex, these sights offered sorcerers neither benefit nor aid, so Sword Flower University naturally never taught them. The Sea Waterfall was exactly as its name implied: a waterfall where the ocean surface abruptly plunged downward. The Great Road was an overland highway running across the entire Sea of Knowledge. The Sky Bubble was a colossal bubble floating in the sky; whenever it appeared, the surrounding white mist thinned considerably. These three were sights the Explorer had witnessed firsthand. He had once leaped into the Sea Waterfall out of curiosity about what lay beneath, only to be killed straight out of the Void Realm. He had run along the Great Road for vast distances until collapsing from exhaustion. He had watched the Sky Bubble drift past, moving far too quickly for him to keep up. The Explorer's text brimmed with joy and excitement at witnessing the wonders of heaven and earth, bringing involuntary, knowing smiles to both Yaxiu and Sonia. At last, they turned to the chapter on the Golden Fish. "The Golden Fish" "I consulted countless records and visited numerous scholars trying to locate the Golden Fish. But true to its reputation as the greatest secret of the Sea of Knowledge, information on it is pathetically scarce. So I went looking through novels about the Golden Fish—maybe someone who actually found it couldn't resist the urge to show off and secretly hid the truth inside fiction? I think that's very likely." "Most sorcerers and scholars believe the Golden Fish must be in the most dangerous core region, but I hold a different view: the back of the Golden Fish carries the Time Continent. Could a fish so massive truly be contained within just the core region?" "Then again, no sorcerer has ever fully explored the core region to this day. Perhaps the Sea of Knowledge is vastly larger than we ever imagined." "Can only a sorcerer who has fully unfurled their Silver Wings find the Golden Fish? Very likely. I'd better finish the ten-thousand-li voyage as quickly as possible." "I've already unfurled my Silver Wings and visited the core region, yet I still can't find the slightest trace of the Golden Fish. Could it be submerged under the sea most of the time, only surfacing on rare occasions?" "Very likely. I've decided to dive into the ocean. I died." "Died." "Died." "It's time I retired... My friends all urge me to stop entering the Void Realm. At my age, dying in the Void Realm inflicts soul damage that drastically shortens my lifespan. My last death in the Void Realm nearly left me brain-dead." "Yet I really want to catch a glimpse of the Golden Fish... Even if I draw my last breath the moment I lay eyes on it, I'd die happy..." "Golden Fish, where are you..." "I think I've found the Golden Fish." Fuck! Yaxiu and Sonia almost wished they could drag the elderly sorcerer they had just dispersed back out and beat him up again. How could you leave out the most crucial piece of information! What we want to know is how you found the Golden Fish! Here are two coins—hurry up and finish the chapter! "If it's real, then the Golden Fish is simply too massive. How could any normal person climb onto it? Fortunately, I'm an earth sorcerer. I can continuously pile earth higher and higher; this little bit of height won't stop me. It looks like I will see the true form of the Golden Fish in my lifetime after all." "Ten stories... fifty stories... a hundred stories... No, I have to redo the foundation. The Golden Fish is just too high." "Two hundred stories... three hundred stories... five hundred stories..." "Sigh, if only I could fly." "When I surpassed eight hundred stories, the mound of earth beneath my feet collapsed. Falling from this height, my entire soul will probably shatter... The gravestone I prepared for myself will finally be put to use." "Though there are some regrets, at least I found the Golden Fish before dying, so I can rest in peace... Wait, I haven't cleared out my collection at home!" The sorcerer manual ended there. The Golden Fish had been the final scenic pursuit of the Explorer's life. "So how did he find the Golden Fish?" Sonia asked, utterly perplexed. "He searched for so long without finding it, so how did he suddenly stumble upon it?" "Maybe because he was so old?" Yaxiu guessed. "Does the Golden Fish only appear before sorcerers who are on the verge of dying of old age?" After debating for a while without reaching any conclusion, Yaxiu and Sonia set the matter aside. In any case, neither of their Silver Wings had fully coalesced yet, so there was no rush to seek out the Golden Fish. The three sorcery spirits dropped by the Explorer were all earth spirits, which happened to combine into a miracle. However, neither Yaxiu nor Sonia had any interest in earth sorcery. After discussing it, Yaxiu took them—the productive occupations tied to the earth sorcery faction paid poorly, making earth spirits rather low in value. Even if Sonia took them to sell, they wouldn't fetch much money. As for the sorcerer manual, Yaxiu felt that the skills of a civil engineer would hardly be useful to him, so he ceded it to the Sword Princess. After all, he had already consumed three sorcerer manuals, whereas this was the first time the Sword Princess had come across one she could use. By every right, it was her turn. To be fair, the skills granted by sorcerer manuals were rarely practical anyway. Things like Counter-reconnaissance, Secret of Pleasure (only effective on females over two meters tall), and Skinning Mastery—they were all pointless little tricks that did nothing to improve one's quality of life and added no value to a résumé, unless the interviewer happened to be a two-meter-tall giantess. Absorbing a sorcerer manual for the first time, Sonia was visibly a bit nervous. "By the way, what did that last sentence in the manual mean—'I haven't cleared out my collection at home'? Why would he care about his collection at home right before dying?" "Well, the Explorer was an elderly bachelor after all, so he was bound to have some unspeakable private collections at home," Yaxiu said, shrugging. "As the saying goes, 'Though crushed to powder and smashed to bone, I fear not, so long as my innocence remains untainted in the world.'" While they spoke, Sonia finished absorbing the sorcerer manual and looked at Yaxiu with a peculiar expression. "What skill did you get? Friction fire? Wilderness survival? Or a bachelor's cookbook?" "No, a very useful skill." "What skill?" "Gaze Insight. It makes it easier for me to read someone's thoughts by meeting their gaze," Sonia said wistfully. "Apparently, because the Explorer met so many different people during his travels, grew old, experienced so many stories in his lifetime, and saw through so many human hearts, this skill formed naturally." Yaxiu nearly fell into the water from sheer frustration. That was precisely the skill he needed for his prison break!