The Sorcerer's Handbook

"It's about to release Radiant Fish-Dragon Verse in three seconds. Fall back three paces, now!"

The moment the warning left Ashe's mouth, Sonya and Dia retreated in perfect unison. Right on cue, the Violent Slashing Dragon unleashed a ring of water-infused sword energy. The razor-sharp gale narrowly missed them, sending their hair fluttering violently in the backdraft.

Ashe immediately followed up by casting the Sword of Love on Sonya. Singular Devotion, Sword of Love!

"It's entering a three-second hard recovery, after which it will lock onto whoever is standing directly in front of it. Swordswoman, I've already buffed you! Move in and finish it!"

Upon receiving the buff, Sonya felt her heart skip a beat as a sudden numbness washed over her. Her lower back, in particular, felt oddly itchy and warm, as if someone were gently wrapping their arms around her waist. Shaking off the sensation, she glared fiercely at Ashe before funneling every ounce of her strength into a Darklight Fission Wave Slash, sending it crashing into the beast.

The Violent Slashing Dragon countered by whipping its tail around. With a metallic clang, it brought the massive appendage down toward Sonya with crushing force. But just before impact, a warm, golden barrier woven from countless spectral swords manifested to shield the village girl.

The dragon's tail collided with the barrier so violently that it nearly snapped under its own momentum. Seizing the opening, Dia acted instantly, snaring the staggered tail with her Aqua Line before pairing it with her Fast Forward spirit.

Under normal circumstances, the moment a Violent Slashing Dragon realized its tail was restrained, its high agility and sharp reflexes would allow it to cut its momentum, avoiding self-injury while pulling free. Despite its massive size, a Champion-level Violent Slashing Dragon possessed remarkable reaction speeds.

However, under the sudden acceleration of Fast Forward, it simply had no time to adjust. Its immense bulk became its own undoing, as the sheer, unchecked inertia tore its own tail apart.

A truly well-crafted technique functions like a work of art, excelling even without direct supervision.

As a practitioner of the Claw Line, a branch derived from the Fist and Claw Class, Dia's combat style was fundamentally different from both the Swordswoman and the Watcher. Her Aqua Line targeted multiple points simultaneously. Because Knowledge Creatures possessed immense durability, her threads alone weren't strong enough to shred them to pieces. Usually, the attack looked brutal but only dealt superficial "scraping" damage.

Thus, her Aqua Line was less of a direct weapon and more of a trap. By ensnaring a monster mid-charge and accelerating its movement with the Fast Forward spirit, she forced the creature's own weight and momentum to rip it apart.

Ashe's assessment of Dia as a control-based damage dealer was spot on. Her crowd control didn't rely on traditional status ailments like stun or blind, which were notoriously difficult to land on Knowledge Creatures anyway. Instead, by combining the Fast Forward spirit with the Aqua Line Miracle, she could completely disrupt an enemy's rhythm and deliver a lethal, self-inflicted finishing blow.

With its tail severed, the Champion-level dragon's fate was sealed. At this point, it was no more dangerous than a helpless, Rookie-level Fish-Slaying Dragon.

Once the boss dissolved into smoke, Sonya turned to Ashe, her brow furrowed. "How do you know its attack patterns so well?"

The Violent Slashing Dragon was essentially the evolutionary form of the Fish-Slaying Dragon. Sonya had the reflexes to react to its attacks in real time, but predicting its movements several seconds in advance, just as the Watcher had done, should have been impossible. Fortunately, Knowledge Creatures couldn't understand human speech. Otherwise, hearing Ashe casually lay out its strategy mid-fight would have driven the beast into a frenzy.

Ashe merely shrugged. "I only know this specific line. I've been studying the Fish-Slaying Dragon species inside out for the past few days."

Leading the team through the Extreme-difficulty Sovereign-Blade Carp dungeon hadn't been a waste of time after all. Now, just by watching the twitch of its tail, Ashe knew exactly what the creature was going to do next. He jokingly felt he could even predict its bathroom schedule. Their current three-minute speed-run was a luxury paid for by the three hundred times Ashe had been wiped out by the Sovereign-Blade Carp.

Sonya pressed. "What about other Knowledge Creatures?"

"I only know the Fish-Slaying Dragon line. I'll still need you to carry me through the rest."

Sonya raised an eyebrow, a smug smile tugging at her lips. "Hmph. Just as I thought. You need me."

Dia raised her hand to interrupt the mood. "Excuse me, the dragon dropped two spirits. Do you guys want them?"

Ashe smiled. "Witch, why the sudden politeness?"

"That's because you two..." Dia caught the subtle shift in Sonya's posture as her hand drifted toward her sword hilt. Without needing a warning from White Queen, Dia smoothly pivoted her tone, "...made me realize the value of getting along with my teammates. I shouldn't be rude, and I definitely shouldn't harm the people carrying me."

Despite coming from a variant of the Fish-Slaying Dragon, the dropped spirits weren't particularly tailored to the Sword Class. Instead, they received Sharp Will and Mutual Heart, both Two-Winged spirits.

While Sharp Will held some loose affinity with swordplay, Mutual Heart was likely a unique derivative spirit born from the creature's nature as an overlord creature. Unlike other overlords, the Fish-Slaying Dragon did not fight fair. It excelled at using the notoriously cheap tactic of summoning lesser creatures to overwhelm sorcerers through sheer numbers.

Then again, Ashe and his Virtual World companions were arguably even cheaper. By abusing the map's narrow terrain and choking the area with poison gas, they had once wiped out the Hero's entire troop before the fight even started. Had they fought fair, the battle would have been a nightmare.

[Sharp Will]

Two-Winged Spirit

Requirement

- The sorcerer must possess the capacity for conscious thought.

Basic effect

- Generates a strand of sharpened intent. Conviction duration scales proportionally with mana consumption.

Passive effect

- Permanently fortifies the user's resolve and determination in daily life.

Signature Quote

- An unyielding will cuts sharper than any blade.

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[Mutual Heart]

Two-Winged Spirit

Requirement

- The sorcerer must possess the capacity for conscious thought.

Basic effect

- Establishes a psychic link with a designated target, allowing all connected individuals to sense one another's emotions.

Passive effect

- The sorcerer inherently evokes deeper empathy from those around them.

Signature Quote

- There is no true mutual understanding, only mutual compromise.

Both of these items clearly belonged to the Mind Class. In fact, the basic effect of Mutual Heart was remarkably similar to Sonya's own Mind Class Miracle, Treat Others with Sincerity.

It was common for different Miracles and spirits to share overlapping functions. For instance, the renowned Fire Class healing-type Miracle, Rebirth Through Flame, provided essentially the same recovery function as the spirit Water Therapy. However, the former required at least a Two-Winged Fire Class sorcerer to master, whereas the latter was a beginner-level gift accessible to almost any healer.

Offense, defense, healing, mobility, reconnaissance, most sorcery classes specialized in only one of these aspects. Whenever a sorcerer from a strictly offensive class managed to develop Miracles capable of scouting or healing, it was considered a true testament to their ingenuity.

Once Ashe and Sonya both indicated they had no use for the drops, Dia proactively claimed them. "Then I'll take them. I actually need these two spirits."

She paused briefly. Seemingly seeing no reason to hide her circumstances, or perhaps simply unable to resist showing off, she added, "To be exact, I'm collecting them for my sisters."

"Hm?"

"In both the Virtual World and reality, only one of us can control this body at a time," Dia explained. "So, what do you think the others do in their free time?"

Ashe blinked. "Playing Truth or Dare? Beach volleyball? Gladiator deathmatches?"

Sonya, however, caught on quickly. "They're practicing their sorcery?"

"It can't really be called practicing, since sorcerer cultivation requires real-world application. During their downtime, they usually focus on optimizing Miracles. The offense-type Miracles I use right now were actually designed by my sisters."

The terrifying reality of the Witch's situation immediately dawned on Ashe and Sonya.

Aside from Secret Princess, there was also White Queen, Black Butler, and Red Death Apostle. That meant at least three other distinct minds were constantly calculating, testing, and constructing Miracles behind the scenes to fuel Dia's growth.

Ordinary sorcerers spent the vast majority of their time raising their class ranks and summoning spirits, leaving precious little time to practice Miracles. This inevitably led to massive disparities in combat capability among peers of the same level.

Yet, it was an unavoidable trade-off. A sorcerer's class rank determined the raw power they could possess, while their Miracles determined how effectively that power could actually be deployed.

Typically, sorcerers only began studying Miracles seriously after hitting the ceiling of their current rank. Only then would they shift their focus from expanding raw resources to optimizing efficiency, transitioning from slash-and-burn cultivation to precision farming.

Pankey was a textbook example of this. Having stagnated at the Two-Winged level for far too long, he had refined his Frost Class sorcery into something extraordinary, adapting it for offense, defense, mobility, and healing alike. At this point, even if Pankey suddenly conjured a fully functional ice house in the middle of the wilderness, Ashe and the others wouldn't even bat an eye.

In a sense, most developing sorcerers started as the "high scores, low capability" type.

Ashe was also a textbook example, except he didn't even have the high scores. He just had low capability.

The Heart Pen Miracle that Sonya had gifted him required a massive time investment just to reach basic proficiency. As for combining it with Singular Devotion, Bidirectional Rush, Slash Me, and his other skills into a seamless tactical system, or even inventing brand-new Miracles based on them, that was a feat only a prodigy like Sonya could pull off. For Ashe, a student who barely scraped by in his foundational courses, designing such an elaborate graduation project was simply out of reach.

That was exactly where the Witch held a massive advantage. She wasn't studying alone. She had three brilliant older sisters doing her homework for her.