A Bunch of Evil Sorcerers!

Unlike what Yaxiu had expected, no new recruitment event appeared in the Sorcerer Handbook. Because new recruitment events had refreshed immediately upon his arrival in Gospel and Senluo, Yaxiu had assumed that fleeing to a new place would inevitably trigger one. As it turned out, that wasn't an objective law. However, he also understood now that these so-called recruitment events likely had nothing to do with geography or time, but were instead tied to the people around him. He had pulled the Black and White Witch because he was destined to meet Lisdia; he had pulled Yulanweise because he had just met Silver Lantern. So was it because Yaxiu hadn't yet encountered anyone recognized by the Operator System? He had even been hoping that if a new operator joined, it might buffer the clash between Sword Princess and Witch... After all, if you can't solve a problem, create a new one! Thinking this, Yaxiu blinked and tapped the Procurement Center. Seeing that he had enough money left to buy a box of source crystals for a twenty-pull, he considered it for a moment, but ultimately bought just one source crystal. Along with the two source crystals from his daily check-ins over the past two days, he had just enough for a single pull! Miracles come from single pulls! If there really was an operator, they would surely appear in one pull. No need to be wasteful! With unreasonable confidence and wishful anticipation, Yaxiu selected "Recruit Once." The interface immediately shifted, and he could almost hear the system's voice of disdain. A golden glow! Yaxiu snapped to attention and saluted right away—a single pull really had worked a miracle! However, as the golden glow faded, what appeared before Yaxiu was not a new operator, but... "[Lesser Gate of the Four Pillars: A minor artifact forged using the heart's blood of the Four Pillar Gods. It allows sorcerers with identical Void Realm progression to enter the Void Realm together. Requirements: no more than four entrants, and team members cannot be more than five meters away from the bearer. The Lesser Gate of the Four Pillars can be used as a Gate of Truth. Furthermore, entering the Void Realm through the Lesser Gate of the Four Pillars grants up to 5% shared experience among team members. Remark: On the outside, the Lesser Gate of the Four Pillars looks like a cubic frame; small and rather cute. Still, who on earth could possibly take the heart's blood of the Four Pillar Gods to forge an artifact?]" Yaxiu pondered for a moment and came to a conclusion: this was an ultra-budget version of the Void Realm Exploration system. Void Realm Exploration didn't require members to have identical Void Realm progression, allowing veterans to carry rookies; it placed no restriction on distance between members, letting people from different nations team up to explore the Void Realm together; and as for that 5% shared experience from the Lesser Gate of the Four Pillars, it was completely negligible compared to Bonds. The only meaningful aspect was that the Lesser Gate of the Four Pillars could serve as a Gate of Truth, meaning that even without an autonomous sorcery spirit of his own, Yaxiu could now enter the Void Realm alone—though he currently had no interest in voluntarily working overtime. Somewhat useful, but not completely useful. For other sorcerers, however, the Lesser Gate of the Four Pillars was truly worthy of being called an artifact. Except for Yaxiu and his companions, forming a party to explore the Void Realm was extraordinarily difficult for anyone else. A convenient team-up tool like this, if revealed to the outside world, might well trigger a war among the six nations. Yaxiu looked at the recruitment screen. His luck seemed pretty good today; should he... He gave his head a vigorous shake, abandoning the foolish urge to gamble. Standing up, he stretched and pushed the door open to step outside. Yaxiu stayed in a room on the second floor. The outside was completely deserted—not because they had driven out the servants, but because this villa was normally kept without any servants at all. He had only taken a couple of steps when he saw Felix, wearing a scarf, preparing breakfast in the open kitchen. Isn't there a kitchen on the first floor too...? Yaxiu approached and asked, "What's for breakfast?" Felix looked up at him, momentarily dazed—why did this guy ask so naturally? Did he have no shame whatsoever? "...Full Lalafell Pafuni platter." "What drinks are there?" "Only coffee and milk." "Harvey and I want milk; Igola takes coffee." Felix fell silent for a moment. "Aren't you afraid I'll poison it? I'm proficient in the Poison faction." "To quote Igola, I like dealing with smart people." Yaxiu leaned against the counter and said, "As long as there's nothing wrong with your brain, you'll only be thinking of how to send us off as quickly as possible, not steering our relationship toward some unpredictable stage of fate. "If a fight breaks out, we'll just have to continue fleeing, while you of the Four Pillar Cult will be exposed under the starry skies of the Starry Kingdom. Right now, in the entire Starry Kingdom, aside from ourselves, you people are the ones who least want us caught. Felix, you don't want the Four Pillar Cult exposed, do you? "Since we have a basis of mutual trust, why put on an act of mutual hostility? Wouldn't it be nice for everyone to peacefully spend this brief period of living together?" "You're really only this calm because you're a Sanctuary sorcerer," Felix pointed out bluntly. "Not just that—it's also because you aren't one," Yaxiu said with a shrug. "Bullying the weak feels amazing! When will breakfast be ready?" Felix said calmly, "Have you ever heard a saying? When you speak harshly to a server, you should be prepared to swallow spit." Yaxiu blinked and conceded defeat. "Fine, then you only need to make Igola's and Harvey's. Teach me how, and I'll make my own portion." Felix: "...?" Yaxiu truly was a man of his word. After watching Felix prepare the dish once, he made only a single portion for himself. Felix made a silent mental note: *These three are only nominally aligned and have an ordinary relationship; hard to threaten as a unit.* "When you're ready to leave, will you kill me?" she asked suddenly. "Why would you ask that?" Yaxiu asked back. "Because you aren't good people," Felix stated bluntly. "You're all a bunch of evil sorcerers. Evil sorcerers don't need a reason to kill." "You need to watch your words," Yaxiu said, narrowing his eyes. "You can insult me, but if you're going to insult my friends... then you can't insult me." Felix's hand jerked, and a sunny-side-up egg went flying out of the pan. Yaxiu glanced at it. "Don't waste it. Save it for Alice." To Yaxiu's surprise, Felix didn't ask who Alice was, but simply nodded and picked up the sunny-side-up egg with tongs. "Why do you consider us evil sorcerers?" Yaxiu continued the conversation. "Since arriving in the Starry Kingdom, we haven't done anything wicked. In fact, by dragging your Four Pillar Cult into trouble, we're practically doing charity." Felix's face flushed with anger. Her knife came down hard on the luncheon meat as if it were Yaxiu's flesh. "You haven't done anything bad only because you haven't had the time yet. "A person as cautious as Mind Sanctuary Mr. Bogin would definitely build a covert criminal syndicate in Jialesi to shield himself the moment an opportunity arose. Necromancy Sanctuary Mr. Harvey's craving for corpses is obvious to the naked eye; given enough time, every graveyard in Jialesi would become his hunting ground, and it wouldn't even be out of the question for him to personally create slaughter." "What about me, then?" Yaxiu pointed to himself. "No matter how you look at me, I don't seem like an evil sorcerer, do I?" "You're an even heavier hitter," Felix said coldly. "Mr. Bogin's caution stems from his wariness of his environment, and Mr. Harvey's greed stems from his pursuit of sorcery. But you have no needs whatsoever, yet you don't even care about the dire predicament of being wanted by the entire Starry Kingdom. Someone like you, who treats the laws of the realm as nothing and acts purely on whim, is the most unpredictable, dangerous evil sorcerer of all." "While I appreciate your high opinion of me, I'm really not as... breezy and detached as you think," Yaxiu said with a shrug. "If you had spent several months straight in a wildly fantastical, turbulent life of hunting, being hunted, crises, and catastrophic crises, you'd stop caring about anything just like me. Well, it's not even that I don't care—I'm just tired. Too tired to even bother complaining. "Never mind that I'm a Sanctuary sorcerer now; I'd much rather never have gone through any of this and just quietly be an ordinary sorcerer." "Oh... really?" Felix looked at Yaxiu intently and noticed the unmistakable trace of exhaustion between his brows. That detached, conflict-free expression reminded her of her own upbringing, having weathered assassination attempts since childhood—the first attempt was terrifying, the tenth was numbness, and by the hundredth, it was sheer fatigue. Felix believed him a little more, and a pang of pity rose within her. Just what kind of tumultuous, stormy experiences had this man endured to make him unable to summon even the slightest energy over being wanted nationwide? Having finished making his own breakfast, Yaxiu placed it on a tray and lifted it. Felix asked, "Where are you going?" "Downstairs to the first floor to eat," Yaxiu said. "Speaking of which, why did you come up to the second-floor kitchen? Isn't there one on the first floor too?" Felix glanced at him, stepped out, and gestured for him to follow. Walking along the second-floor banister, the two looked down into the first-floor main hall. The hall, which had been clean, tidy, and spacious the night before, was now packed with an endless tide of ants, cockroaches, centipedes, and maggots. A coffin rested in the center of the hall, and every creeping creature was swarming frantically into the corpse inside. At first glance, it looked like the insects were devouring the corpse, but on closer inspection, it seemed as if the corpse was devouring the insects, with countless gu bugs churning inside the coffin like a frothing white ocean. Harvey sat in front of the coffin, eyes closed as if resting his mind. "So do you understand now why I consider you evil sorcerers?" Felix took two steps back, covered her nose and mouth with her right hand, and asked calmly. Yaxiu looked at the hall, then at Felix, tilting his head with a puzzled look. "What's wrong with this?" The corner of Felix's mouth twitched, and she shouted, pointing down at the hall, "Do you really need me to explain?!" Baffled, Yaxiu looked at Felix throwing a temper tantrum, shook his head, and carried both his tray and Harvey's down to the first floor. Dodging the bugs on the floor, he handed a plate to Harvey. "That sunny-side-up egg is for Alice; it fell on the floor." "Thanks." "Your portion was made by Felix." Harvey looked up at Felix, waved a hand in gratitude, and proceeded to eat breakfast right in the epicenter of the surging sea of insects. Yaxiu sat down at a dining table where no bugs were crawling. Utterly oblivious to the nauseating scene and putrid stench beside him, he turned on the living room's light screen to watch a show, enjoying his breakfast in absolute serenity. *So that's how it is. I understand completely now.* Watching the scene from the second floor, Felix experienced a sudden flash of clarity. *These guys are all evil sorcerers whose madness has seeped into their souls and whose sickness has reached the marrow of their bones—yet they genuinely believe they are normal!*