A Wild Sorcerer Appears

The Void Realm, Sea of Knowledge. "A Moon Shadow werewolf who can't transform under the moonlight… There really is no shortage of extraordinary talent in your prison. It truly lives up to being in a multiracial nation." Sonia lay at the bow of the small boat, gazing up at the murky gray sky. "Still, what is with that Gourmet's ritual? I've never heard of anything so brutal and bizarre. Could he be trying to summon a sorcery spirit of the Gluttony faction?" In theory, the sorcery factions most easily mastered by sorcerers were not external factions that were easy to practice—like fire, earth, or swordsmanship. After all, external factions ultimately required deliberate training to accumulate experience. Internal factions, on the other hand, granted experience even if a sorcerer never trained at all. What was an internal faction? It was based on the daily biological functions every sorcerer performed without fail. Eating, sleeping, listening, gazing, excreting… If these unavoidable bodily activities practiced from childhood could be converted into sorcery experience, nearly every sorcerer would have mastered seven or eight factions by now. Unfortunately, that was only true in theory. An internal faction might seem the simplest and least demanding on the surface, but in reality, its threshold was far higher than any external faction. No matter how difficult an external faction was, one could always make a breakthrough through sheer persistence. Internal factions, however, were almost exclusively racial talents. If one wasn't born with the right internal talent, it was impossible to ever master an internal faction independently. The Gluttony faction Sonia mentioned was one such internal faction, typically seen only among ogres. Even among ogres, not all of them could learn it; only a small handful of ogre sorcerers ever experienced the sudden epiphany required to unlock it. Internal factions could not be taught. What was there to instruct about eating, defecating, or sleeping? Furthermore, internal factions were deeply intertwined with inner desires, shifting emotions, and innate temperament. Such knowledge could never be set down in words or recorded in text; it could only be intuitively grasped, never explained. Sonia's guess was reasonably grounded. Eating and the Gluttony faction were practically inseparable, and many believed ogres possessed an innate talent for the Gluttony faction precisely because of their cannibalism. "I also thought Langna was eating just for the sake of eating, but Igola has a different take," Yaxiu said. "He believes that in this ritual, eating is actually the most trivial step. The true core of the ritual isn't food—it's love." "Love?" "Have you ever farmed?" Coming from anyone else, Sonia would have taken that as a double insult. The first insult was suspecting that a youthful, radiant female sorcerer like her had actually worked the fields. The second insult was questioning whether a country girl from an agricultural town had never done farm work! "…Keep going. I'm following you." "Igola thinks Langna is farming," Yaxiu said, lying at the stern while biting his nails. "He plants a seed of love in his target's heart, and through the bloodiest form of intimacy—feeding on them—he causes that seed of love to take root and sprout rapidly. It's the equivalent of fertilizing and cultivating the crop. "Even though Ronald refuses to admit it, he's steadily losing interest in everything else. The only thing that stirs any desire in him now is taking part in Langna's ritual. Even if Langna suddenly changed his menu, Ronald would probably volunteer his own name." Just listening to it gave Sonia a dizzying headache. "Then once that seed of love sprouts and matures, what does Langna harvest? A soul?" "Igola couldn't guess that either. It should be related to the soul, but it's more than just a soul," Yaxiu said. "Still, that's between the two of them. We only need to be sure of one thing: Langna and Ronald share an unbreakable bond, and that is something we can exploit." "So as long as you convince Ronald, you essentially gain Langna as a teammate," Sonia noted. "But both of them are vicious death row convicts. Are you really sure this is safe?" Unlike Igola, who was a Swindler with practically zero combat ability, Ronald was the golden beak of the Woodpecker Gang, well-versed in traps, marksmanship, concealed weapons, and various lethal arts. Langna was even more terrifying—a Moon Shadow werewolf who ranked among the top fighters even among Two-Winged Sorcerers. Compared to them, Yaxiu and Igola were like two bleating little lambs. Once stripped of the prison's protection, facing two hardened death row convicts was unlikely to end well for Yaxiu and Igola. "The prison isn't a job market; I don't exactly have a wide selection," Yaxiu said helplessly. "Finding two people who are capable and willing to break out is already fortunate enough. I can't be picky about their character; I can only hope Shattered Lake Prison's reform programs have been effective." It was quite ironic. Yaxiu hoped the prison's reform wasn't too effective so he could find inmates daring enough to stage an escape with him, but he also hoped it was exceptionally effective, reforming those daring convicts into great humanitarians who broke out solely to contribute to society. "Still, it's not my place to worry. When it comes to self-preservation, Igola cares far more than I do." Yaxiu stretched his legs out across the small boat. "He already planted psychological suggestions in Ronald, heightening his sense of crisis… It wasn't really a lie, just making Ronald clearly realize that as long as he doesn't kill Langna, his craving to be devoured by him will never fade." Sonia kicked Yaxiu's legs back toward him. "Then won't they just tear each other apart the moment you break out?" "Tear each other apart? I'd say it goes beyond that. If possible, Igola will definitely use both of them to draw the Sin Hunting Hall's attention while he slips away in the chaos," Yaxiu replied with a wry smile. "Besides, he's still holding a wish over me. I haven't even figured out how to deal with that yet." A wish couldn't be excessive—it had to be something the other party was capable of doing without triggering an instinctive resistance. Demands like 'commit suicide,' for instance, violated instinct and were invalid. That was why Yaxiu had only asked Igola to 'help him' escape rather than 'ensure his' escape; strict demands like the latter were ineffective. Even so, Igola could still make life miserable for Yaxiu. For example, if he told Yaxiu to 'cover the retreat' during their flight, Yaxiu would have no valid grounds to refuse such a reasonable request. Even if hundreds of Bloodmad Hunters were charging at them, he would have to turn back, 'surround' them for a moment, and at least put on the posture of 'covering the retreat' before he could resume running. "Then what are you going to do? Do you even have a plan for after you escape?" "More or less. First, I'll track down this body's enemy, an elf professor named Xilin. I'll see if I can get my revenge. If not, I'll steal some money from him and figure out how to survive." "Isn't that just making it up as you go? Aren't you worried that outside might be even more dangerous than prison? After all, inside the prison, you're safe most of the time." "This is called leveraging an operational playbook in the adventuring space to achieve sustainable ROI, using abstracted end-to-end attribution analysis as a strategic lever to empower life, refining the jailbreak logic while factoring in resource allocation…" "Say something a child could understand." "It means that whatever path I choose for myself, I'll walk it willingly, no matter how tough it gets," Yaxiu said leisurely. "Regret is a problem for future me to worry about. Present me only needs to focus on avoiding regrets right now. You wouldn't want to see me locked up in prison, crying my eyes out all day, would you?" "Why don't you give me a performance? I love watching people bawl their eyes out—preferably with snot smeared all over their faces." "Besides," Yaxiu sat up, "I still have you, don't I?" "I can't help you with that." Sonia rolled her eyes. Yaxiu said, "Because of our bond, the stronger you get, the stronger I get. So if you don't want to explore the Void Realm all alone in the future, take the initiative to ramp up your training and stop clocking out right on the dot. You're young; don't live in such comfortable complacency. Step boldly outside your comfort zone!" "Hearing you say that just makes me want to slack off even more. Nope, not training, just having fun," Sonia grumbled, sitting up and stretching her arms. "Have you recovered all your sorcery power?" "Pretty much." Earlier, they had crossed paths with a growing Dark Bubble Dragon and had nearly exhausted their sorcery power just to drive it away, which had forced them to lie down in the boat and rest. Times like this were usually when they caught up on each other's daily lives. To be fair, these rest breaks were quite frequent. After forming more than half of their Silver Wings, the difficulty of both the legacy islets and the knowledge creatures had spiked dramatically. More often than not, knowledge creatures would drain all their sorcery power and flee. Yaxiu even suspected that knowledge creatures made a point of showing up just to drain them dry. Sword Princess, however, had told him this was completely normal. They lacked the burst damage to instantly kill knowledge creatures, possessed no crowd-control miracles like stuns, and held no speed advantage, making it difficult to pin knowledge creatures down. This was the dilemma most Silver Sorcerers faced—they were typically only proficient in one area. In the real world, teamwork could compensate, but in the Void Realm, any single shortcoming created a severe tactical flaw. Such issues usually persisted until a sorcerer achieved Two-Winged Gold or even Three-Winged Sanctuary, when they could finally round out their sorcery system. By then, of course, they would be facing new challenges in the Void Realm. Yaxiu opened the Void Realm map, though there wasn't much to see. All twenty-four surrounding tiles were rewardless 'Exercise in Futility' zones. In situations like this, one could only pick a direction at random and test their luck— "Ah!?" Sonia asked in confusion, "What's—" Yaxiu clamped his hand over her mouth, raising an index finger to his own lips. Sonia blinked, understanding instantly. Lowering her voice, she asked, "There's a sorcerer nearby?" Yaxiu nodded and turned toward the fog-shrouded waters nearby. On the Void Realm map, a yellow cursor identical to Yaxiu and Sonia's had suddenly popped up in the adjacent zone! *** In the white mist barely ten meters from their boat, a small Gate of Truth split open in the air, and a figure tumbled out. Just before hitting the sea, the figure abruptly burst into a puff of smoke, transforming into a tiny bat that flapped its wings and flew forward.