The Sorcerer's Handbook

When Ashe, Sonya, and Dia sat in the sports car, staring at each other in stunned silence with the endless tide of the Legion of Heroes' cavalry hot on their heels, they couldn't help but wonder. How on earth did things escalate to this point?

Half an hour earlier, Ashe had used the Virtual World Map to locate a golden zone labeled, "You Don't Want to Miss This!" Curious, the trio entered and discovered a small, quaint café. Waiting for them on a table were three books and three cups of coffee, one set precisely laid out for each person.

At first, Ashe thought they had stumbled upon the Destiny Quiz again. But the moment he cracked his book open, he realized he was wrong. This was a far more volatile, love-it-or-hate-it Virtual World mechanic, the Chaotic Shopping Guide of Blessings and Curses.

Congratulations to every sorcerer who opens this book. Fortune favors you beyond measure. Your story will echo across thousands. You are light. You are lightning. You are the myth yet to be written.

The Dramatic Poet compiled this book. Remember his name, for he is the narrator of fate, the master of contradictions, the orchestrator of countless joys and sorrows, and the witness to the world's separations and reunions.

Millions of sorcerers in the Virtual World together could not match even a fraction of him.

To use this book, you must abide by the following rules:

① Every blessing and curse comes with a price. For every blessing you purchase, you will inevitably suffer a random curse of equal value, and vice versa.

② Blessings and curses chosen by the sorcerer do not negate each other. You may eat filth and vomit pristine rice, or eat pristine rice and excrete filth, but eating rice mixed with filth will not cancel out the digestion process.

③ Random curses only last during your current Virtual World exploration and do not affect reality. Conversely, random blessings only manifest in reality and do not affect the Virtual World.

④ Once you open this book, you must purchase at least one blessing or curse. There is no upper limit. Don't let a golden opportunity pass you by!

⑤ As a fee, this book will extract experiences from your life to generate new blessings and curses. Life has only two unavoidable certainties, and those are eating and paying taxes.

Warning: Do not think you can exploit loopholes by selecting only powerful blessings. You might step outside and immediately trigger a curse like Thinking Turns You to Stone, turning you into a statue on the spot. If you try to counter it by choosing a blessing like Immunity to Petrification, the curse might simply mutate into Thinking Turns You into a Lala Fat. In short, anyone trying to cheat the system will have their entire life ruined!

But do not fear. The Dramatic Poet is no villain. This is a welfare benefit for the younger generation. For first-time users, if your Curse Points are ≤10, your random curses will end after this Virtual World exploration. If your Blessing Points are ≤10, your purchased curses will expire within 72 hours in the real world.

The Dramatic Poet! You again!

The Dramatic Poet was the only known entity capable of leaving permanent, specialized mechanisms within the Virtual World. The Legendary Library that Ashe and Dia had encountered previously was also his handiwork. Unfortunately, Sonya had taken a leave of absence that night and missed out on it completely.

Later, when Ashe had asked whether many Legendary sorcerers left such mechanisms on the Continent of Time, the country girl had firmly shaken her head. She confirmed that the Dramatic Poet was truly the only one who had managed it.

While the Dramatic Poet was undoubtedly powerful, what made him truly terrifying was his ability to return to the Continent of Time at all. Sorcerers capable of altering the Virtual World were at least of the Legendary rank, if not Pseudo-God Angels or Divine Lords. Such high-level beings were structurally barred from returning to the lower layer that served as the Virtual World's equivalent of a "starter village."

This was part of the Virtual World's fundamental protective system. Otherwise, a single apex predator targeting seedlings would be all it took to wipe out all new sorcerers across the world.

The fact that the Dramatic Poet had left so many anomalies on the Continent of Time proved he could enter and exit the second layer of the Virtual World almost entirely at will, or at least at a negligible cost. This was precisely why modern sorcerers were so deeply curious about what kind of unspeakable crime he must have committed to have his very name scrubbed from history.

However, not all of his mechanisms were benevolent. The Chaotic Shopping Guide of Blessings and Curses perfectly reflected his mischievous, chaotic nature, leaving people to wonder if his continued existence only served to make life more difficult for everyone else.

As Ashe and the others flipped through the pages, they were met with a dazzling, deeply unsettling array of options.

Physique: Drop Dead at Any Second (+30), Weak and Frail (+10), Immune to All Illness (-10), Regenerative Limbs (-30)

Intelligence: Oblivious to Rain (+30), Slow-Witted (+10), Smart and Insightful (-10), Truth Perception (-30)

Luck: Choking to Death on Water (+30), Out of Toilet Paper (+10), Wish Fulfillment (-10), Blessing of Fate (-30)

Charm: Hated by Gods and Ghosts (+30), Pollutes the Air (+10), Loved by All (-10), Catastrophe of All Races (-30)

These were just the relatively normal options for a sorcerer's attributes. Beyond them lay even more bizarre blessings and curses.

Beautiful Life (-10): Everything you see is beautiful, everything feels wonderful, and every vista is worth stopping for. You will never have a bad day again.

World-Hating Cynicism (+10): Merely watching another person breathe will make you feel like the world is utterly beyond saving.

Mind Reading (-10): You can faintly overhear the inner thoughts of those around you.

Honesty (+10): If everyone in a room is forced to be absolutely honest, is it heaven or hell?

Seeing Through Illusions (-10): You cannot truly pierce through reality, but you will always see exactly what you want to see.

Fatal Sense of Danger (-10): When danger manifests, your perception of time slows down. The greater the threat, the slower time crawls.

Time Disorder (+30): Your perception of time becomes entirely chaotic. Today is the 3rd, tomorrow is the 9th, and yesterday was the 21st. Haha.

Foreseeing Death (-30): You are granted a clear vision of exactly how you will die.

The blessings, strange as they were, could at least be understood. What followed, however, were countless options completely beyond classification.

Childhood Friend (-10): Within three days, a childhood friend of comparable strength will appear in your life. Your relationship will strictly remain platonic.

Lover (-30): Within three days, a person perfectly tailored to your exact preferences will appear. They will match your strength and love only you for the rest of their life.

Arch-Enemy (+10): Within three days, a bitter enemy of similar strength will appear, actively rallying anyone who dislikes you into a unified front against you.

Chat Channel (-30): You will permanently join a chat room created by the Dramatic Poet, allowing instantaneous communication with others.

Fish-Slaying Dragon (-10): Every time you step into the Virtual World, a Fish-Slaying Dragon fully obedient to your commands will materialize at your side.

Random Race Change (+10): You will instantly transform into a randomly selected race.

Beautiful People Do Not Defecate (-10): Your bodily waste will be seamlessly transferred to an anonymous third party for disposal.

Ashe groaned in frustration, "What even is all this... If they're already transferring excrement, why not just send it to a sewer instead of stuffing it into someone else's intestines?!"

Dia offered dryly, "Perhaps defecation is a form of respect for the poop. Besides, Watcher, why do you even care? Don't tell me you want to go pick it up?"

"I heard humans spend half an hour a day on bowel movements. If that time could be saved..." Ashe mused, before his eyes drifted down the page. "But what do Childhood Friend and Lover even mean? If I choose Lover, will someone who loves me just materialize out of thin air?"

"It could also be the Swordswoman descending right next to you," Dia muttered under her breath.

"What was that?"

Dia turned her gaze to Sonya. "I said, I wonder why the Swordswoman isn't speaking."

The latter was staring blankly at the shopping book like a country girl dazzled by a sea of glittering jewels.

Dia asked, "Swordswoman, did you notice something?"

"Sincerity..." Sonya murmured.

"What?"

"Sincerity!" Sonya looked up at Ashe. "These blessings and curses are just surface-level. In essence, they are identical to the Sincerity Ritual!"

Ashe froze slightly, a sudden spark of realization hitting him. He quickly bent back over the shopping book, studying the text with newfound intensity.

Only Dia was left utterly bewildered. What kind of encrypted communication are you two lovebirds running this time?

Realizing she had subconsciously slipped into an overly familiar attitude, the country girl quickly corrected herself. She couldn't afford to appear too close to the Watcher in public, so she leaned closer to the Witch and began explaining the mechanics of the Sincerity Ritual.

The Sincerity Ritual was the summoning ceremony Ashe had once forcibly executed so that the Swordswoman could obtain the Sincerity spirit. Throughout its duration, she had been compelled to speak nothing but the absolute truth until the spirit was summoned. Looking back, the effect was identical to the Honesty curse listed in the shopping book.

By that logic, the vast majority of the blessings and curses in the book weren't random traits at all. They were variations of Spirit Summoning Rituals!

"Wait," Dia reacted as the pieces fell into place. "Then Foreseeing Death, Time Disorder, and Mind Reading..."

Ashe confirmed. "They correspond to the summoning rituals for Prophecy, Time, and Mind Class spirits. Beautiful Life and World-Hating Cynicism are probably tied to the Mind Class as well. Seeing Through Illusions most likely summons a scouting-type spirit... So that's the trick. The true purpose of this shopping book is to let us quickly master an entire sorcery class!"

"But what about Childhood Friend, Lover, and Arch-Enemy?"

"I can guess the logic behind Arch-Enemy," Sonya said thoughtfully. "Your Arch-Enemy will inherently connect all the people who hate you. Meaning, as long as you keep tabs on your arch-enemy, you can effectively map out everyone who dislikes you."

"Random Race is actually incredibly useful, too," Dia interjected.

Ashe frowned, puzzled. "Why? Being human feels perfectly fine to me."

Sonya explained, "If it were permanent, of course it would be a nightmare. But if it only lasts seventy-two hours, it becomes a rare, high-value experience. Other intelligent races possess their own specialized sorcery systems, some of which can only be learned if you belong to that specific race. Take the ogre-exclusive Gluttony Class, for instance. We could potentially break into a completely restricted system within those seventy-two hours."

"But the real prizes are still the three major classes, Prophecy, Fate, and Truth," Dia said, her tone turning solemn. "These three are practically impossible to break into through conventional means. Usually, you can only stumble into them via incredibly rare encounters deep within the Virtual World... and now, those exact encounters are laid out right in front of us. Truth Perception, Blessing of Fate, and Foreseeing Death."

If they selected those blessings, they were guaranteed entry into the most mysterious and powerful sorcery classes in existence.

"But they all cost thirty Curse Points," Ashe pointed out with a shrug. "If we pick any of those, we completely lose the Dramatic Poet's beginner perks."

The rules of the book were strict. Purchasing blessings increased negative Curse Points, while purchasing curses generated positive Blessing Points. If it was their first purchase and their total points remained within a net value of ten, the Dramatic Poet would compress the duration of any acquired curses to a single Virtual World exploration, or seventy-two hours in reality. For a sorcerer, that loophole was an absolute goldmine.

However, once that threshold was crossed, the perks vanished. Every single effect chosen from the shopping book would become permanent. That price was far too heavy, equivalent to locking in the wrong major and being forced to live with it for the rest of one's life.

A permanent curse like Weak and Frail might still be manageable. But a permanent Random Race? Randomly rolling a veela might be tolerable, but turning into a grotesque ogre would mean essentially restarting life entirely. Besides, Ashe was male, meaning a veela was completely off the table anyway. He'd be lucky to even land an elf.

Dia asked, puzzled, "Wait, if it's just a ritual, why is Chat Channel also worth thirty Curse Points? Is that some kind of rare Spirit Summoning Ritual too?"

Ashe explained, "The Chat Channel itself is probably worthless. What's priceless are the people inside it. For all we know, there are Divine Lords, Angels, and Legendary sorcerers holding weekly meetings in there, casually exchanging top-tier intelligence and artifacts."