The Sorcerer's Handbook

On the Virtual World's Continent of Time.

"What are you thinking about?"

Ashe froze for a moment and turned around, only to find the Swordswoman leaning in close. Their faces were so near that their noses almost touched. At such proximity, the warm air of their exhales brushed against their lips, bridging the tiny gap between them. In her sly eyes, Ashe could see his own reflection.

Ashe suppressed the instinct to pull back through sheer willpower. Widening his eyes, he held her gaze.

A second passed, then two... and three.

A faint blush spread across Sonya's pale cheeks like a thin mist, yet that only made her more stubborn. Refusing to blink, she kept staring right back at him. Then, she stuck out a small pink tongue and lightly licked her lips. A smile curved the corners of her mouth, spreading across her delicate face and leaping into her clear eyes. It mixed with the tension in her pupils and turned into something infectious, slipping through their locked gaze and creeping into Ashe's nerves until he felt a sudden urge to laugh.

Smack!

The moment Sonya turned toward the sound, Ashe raised his fist high. "I win!"

I wasn't even playing a staring game with you! How old are you? How can you still be so childish!

The village girl flared up, her expression darkening as she glared at the Witch who had fallen out of the carriage and interrupted them. "What are you doing?"

"I... I was thinking of moving farther away to give you two some space..." the Witch said awkwardly. "The Ascending Golden Rain is actually great for blocking sight. If I step more than ten paces away, I won't see a thing. Very safe! Sorry for interrupting. I'll leave now!"

Dia had meant to slip away quietly, but she had been a bit too careful. As she stepped out, she lost her balance, tripped on the carriage door, and landed headfirst. She felt deeply regretful. In the fairy-tale picture books she grew up on, romance was always summarized in a brief prologue. She and her sisters had always been curious about the juicy, full-length stories that actually followed between a hero and a heroine. She had just missed her chance to see the real story unfold between the Swordswoman and the Watcher.

At the Witch's words, all the facial acting Sonya had practiced in front of her mirror went entirely out the window. Her cheeks burned fiercely, the heat creeping all the way to the tips of her ears. Quickly grabbing Dia, she insisted, "You didn't interrupt anything! Come back and sit down!"

"Then what were you doing just now?" Dia asked curiously.

Sonya explained, "We... we were just playing a staring game! Whoever looks away or blinks first loses!"

Ashe sighed and shrugged. "Wow, Swordswoman, that's pretty childish. How old are you? Try acting a bit more your age next time."

Her face turned bright red this time, born entirely out of anger. Rage burned in her chest. She felt certain that if she drew her sword right now and unleashed Blood Blossom Watermoon on the Watcher, it would land a perfect critical hit.

"Oh, right, I found some interesting information in that Sorcerer's Handbook earlier," Dia said, changing the subject. "It's about the investigation into the Rainbow Tail."

Earlier, Ashe and the others had run over another clueless sorcerer projection that was treating the road like its private living room and wandering around.

The spirits it dropped went to the Swordswoman to sell, while Dia handled the Sorcerer's Handbooks. Only the especially difficult ones fell to Ashe. Frankly speaking, he quite liked this "recycling system." Dia filtered out most of the ordinary handbooks so that what reached him were the truly explosive ones, with each coming with at least a dozen R18 tags. Every read expanded his understanding of biological diversity.

At the mention of the Rainbow Tail, Sonya immediately suppressed her irritation, while Ashe drove on, chasing the White Ox.

Dia explained, "The handbook's owner collected a lot of information on the Rainbow Tail. After testing it in the field, he ruled out most of the theories. The Three-and-a-Half Sorcerer Hypothesis, the Seven Sorcerer Hypothesis, and the White Ox Hypothesis are the ones left that seem the most likely."

"The Three-and-a-Half and Seven Sorcerer Hypotheses are actually identical at their core. Apparently, the rainbow in Rainbow Wing refers to the combination of colors from the sorcerers' virtual wings. We all have Silver and Gold Wings, but if you look closely, everyone's wings differ slightly in hue and shape. Each person essentially has their own unique colors.

"Some sorcerers believe that if you can gather seven different virtual wings, it might trigger the mechanics of the Virtual World to generate the Rainbow Tail. The Three-and-a-Half Hypothesis is simply a streamlined version of this exact theory. Assuming a sorcerer has fully condensed two virtual wings, three and a half sorcerers would be just enough to gather seven virtual wings.

"There's also a golden seven-sorcerer variant. It states that only a fully formed Gold Wing counts as a color, while Silver Wing doesn't count at all. Therefore, you would need seven sorcerers who have fully condensed their Gold Wing to trigger the Rainbow Tail. This idea also has a theoretical basis. Sorcerers believe that once they gather seven Gold Wings, they will turn into Seven Raindrops and rise upward along with the Ascending Golden Rain."

Ashe and Sonya nodded as they listened. The logic sounded absurd, but compared to the Golden Fish Secret Poison, the Seven-Sorcerer Hypothesis actually felt convincing.

The advanced golden version incorporated the Ascending Golden Rain, the largest-scale mechanism on the Continent of Time, which made it even more persuasive. Even Ashe felt it stood a high chance of being correct.

Ashe had experienced only the Golden Fish Secret Poison, but he had a vague sense that the Virtual World's "smuggling" mechanisms all followed the same pattern. They were like riddles hiding in plain sight, impossible to solve beforehand but absurdly simple once revealed, much like the clever twists in a detective novel.

However, this didn't mean "smuggling" into the Virtual World was easy. On the contrary, sorcerers still had to meet incredibly harsh conditions.

Take the Golden Fish, for example. It had no requirement for a specific area or designated zone. As long as a sorcerer could fly, the location did not matter. However, aside from "childhood-friend" duos like Ashe and the Swordswoman, who had entered the Virtual World together from day one, most Silver Rank sorcerers could only find and persuade a compatible flying partner through sheer luck.

Therefore, while the Rainbow Tail could likely be triggered anywhere on the Continent of Time, its activation conditions were so strict that a lone sorcerer stood almost no chance of meeting them. The Golden Seven-Sorcerer Hypothesis accounted for all of these factors, which was why Ashe felt it might very well be the truth. However...

Ashe frowned. "Three and a half sorcerers might be manageable, but seven? Isn't that a bit too brutal?"

Dia nodded. "The owner of the handbook actually managed to gather three and a half sorcerers once, by coincidence. But no matter what they tried, right up until the Static Zone caught up with them, they couldn't trigger the Rainbow Tail mechanism. The Three-and-a-Half Hypothesis has basically been disproven. The Golden Seven-Sorcerer Hypothesis hasn't been debunked yet, but the handbook's owner only considers it the second most likely option."

"Only second?"

"Because there is another unproven theory considered even more likely," Dia said. "The White Ox Hypothesis. Some sorcerers believe the White Ox's four hooves are the true passageway to the Rainbow Tail."

Ashe and Sonya immediately looked up toward the distant white pillars.

Sonya suddenly remembered. "Oh, right! White light passing through a prism refracts into seven colors. That's basic light knowledge!"

Dia nodded. "Exactly. The handbook's owner noted that as well. The White Ox Hypothesis suggests that its four legs are actually four tails. If a sorcerer can enter the interior of those legs and use their soul as a prism, they can refract the Rainbow Tail. From there, they can ascend to the third layer of the Virtual World along the columns of light."

Ashe immediately retracted his earlier stance. The White Ox Hypothesis definitely sounded more convincing than the Golden Seven-Sorcerer version. After all, the latter required gathering seven sorcerers, something even he couldn't pull off unless he recruited four more operators, and the reward was merely turning into drops of rain ascending into the sky. The White Ox Hypothesis, by contrast, provided a concrete ascent route. Plus, the logic of "white light refracting into seven colors" appealed to Ashe's scientific sensibilities.

"So, what stopped the handbook's owner from testing it?" Sonya asked.

"The White Ox is too fast," Dia explained. "It never stops. For every second that passes, it moves forward by more than ten seconds. Its front hooves are usually located in the breach zones of the River of Flowing Gold, making it almost impossible for sorcerers to bypass the river and reach the interior of the legs."

"Then the back legs..."

"The back legs are trapped within the Static Zone," Sonya murmured. "If a sorcerer fails to maintain relative stillness with them, they'll get swept into the Static Zone, and there's no coming back from that."

Dia continued, "And no one knows if those legs are lethal on their own. The closest the handbook's owner ever got was within ten meters of a front leg. He never saw anyone actually enter the interior. For all we know, approaching them might just mean instant death from being trampled."

Dia paused, her expression turning thoughtful. "And... he also suspected that the White Ox's four legs might not even truly exist."

"What do you mean?"

"We may be able to see those white pillars from here, but they become completely invisible the closer you get. The handbook's owner could only guess the front legs' positions by looking at the density of the River of Flowing Gold. When he tried to approach the back legs, he was instantly thrown into the Static Zone. The closer he got, the less he could see them. It was almost like..."

Sonya finished for her, "Like a rainbow."