Sorcerer’s Handbook

May 28, the second-floor manor of Mephila, a weekday.

“Hey, why don’t you just join Belldate?”

Yvaren perched on the statue of the Bewitcher Knight, balancing herself effortlessly on her tiptoes. “Even if you leave Mephila, where do you think you can run to? The latest Family Ranking from the Gospel listed you as an enemy of nine families; the Imperial Royal Family has you on their wanted notice, and Red Hat is eager to catch you for points. Your Pact with Annan is clearly an unequal slave contract—she’s the kind of woman who never lets up. You’ll either end up as dog meat or continue being a dog, so why not be Belldate’s dog? Our benefits are great!”

Ashe was dusting the statue’s most dust-prone crevices and swatted away her skirt that was getting in the way. “But you guys have to work overtime!”

“I can give you weekends off!” Yvaren said earnestly. “Two full days off a month! That’s one more day than others! You can rest one day and spend the other!”

Damn, before I time-traveled, I had two days off a month, and after I time-traveled, it’s still two days off a month. Didn’t I time travel for nothing?

And how do Mephila’s people manage to take loans with just one day off? This consumer cycle is ridiculously efficient—breaking the workplace truth that ‘overtime means you can’t spend money’!

“But can you protect me?” Ashe asked. “I’m a fugitive now.”

“Gospel Book.” Yvaren clasped her face with both hands. “I can use Gospel points to ask the Gospel Book to erase your wanted notice.”

“But isn’t the wanted notice issued by the Empire?” Ashe asked in shock. “Are you saying the Gospel Book can directly manipulate the Empire? Wait, does the Gospel actually influence society?”

“In the hands of ordinary people, sorcerers, and us, Gospel points hold different values,” Yvaren explained. “Ordinary people can only buy fleeting happiness with Gospel points; sorcerers can exchange them for powerful abilities, but in our hands, Gospel points are a Universal resource.”

“Gospel points are like currency. When you have enough circulating currency to rival a nation’s wealth, you can influence prices, move social machinery, spark mass events, and even literally challenge nations. Gospel points can’t circulate, but the Gospel Book, this Universal wishing machine, simplifies your ‘spending avenues’ to the utmost. For instance, if you want to buy a chocolate ball, you need to know where to buy it, then purchase it through a medium, and wait for it to arrive. But the Gospel Book…”

Yvaren summoned the Gospel Book, and suddenly, a bag of cookie chocolate balls appeared in her left hand. “It’s expensive, but it skips all the steps… want one?”

“Give me one unconditionally to try,” Ashe replied smoothly.

Yvaren glared at him and shoved a chocolate ball into his mouth. “Though it surely costs a lot, Belldate can indeed erase your Imperial Wanted Notice.”

“If it’s so powerful, why doesn’t Red Hat just use Gospel points to catch me?”

“The Gospel Book can change the weather, bring the dead back to life, and twist reality, but it can’t fix the ever-changing human heart or directly access personal privacy,” Yvaren said, tossing the chocolate ball in her hand. “For example, these chocolate balls might come from a store, and the Gospel Book just transported them here and paid for them, rather than making a chef instantly prepare them.”

“Changing a wanted notice is similar. The Gospel Book won’t erase people’s desire to catch you, but it will block the Imperial Wanted Notice, cancel the bounty on you, and filter out any news about you from various media channels, effectively canceling your wanted status.”

“So, from this perspective, the Yisuo Royal Family doesn’t really care that much about you,” Yvaren said, munching on a chocolate ball. “If they were truly ruthless, they would plaster your wanted notice everywhere you could see, offering a bounty rich enough to twist the minds of the public. If the temptation were great enough, I couldn’t suppress the greed of Mephila’s people either.”

“In my view, the wanted notice against you is just the Empire’s way of appeasing the major factions, showing they are taking a stance, but they’re not paying much attention to you. After all, the night the Art Ranking came out, I, as the mayor of Mephila, demanded Nabistin to capture you, this arrogant criminal in the apocalypse. And there were at least a dozen other leaders who complained along with me.”

Ashe had a flash of insight. “So, you can maneuver in reality, get other leaders to stop disliking me, and the Empire will cancel the wanted notice?”

“Indeed,” Yvaren said. “As long as you sign this paper…”

“A marriage registration?”

“It’s a promissory note. The amount isn’t that large, just a mere billion gold coins. As for collateral, I only need 90% of your mental capacity, which you don’t use much anyway.”

“No way!” Ashe shook his head. “Why does Igor get such good treatment while I have to mortgage 90% of my brain?”

“Hmm…” Yvaren pondered. “If you want Igor’s treatment, it’s negotiable…”

“Huh?” Ashe was taken aback. “You want to marry me too?”

Suddenly, the blue-haired girl pulled a gold coin from her bag and slipped it into Ashe’s collar, right over his chest. “This is compensation.” Then she delivered a sharp karate chop to his head.

“How dare you humiliate me like this…” Ashe gritted his teeth, pocketing the gold coin.

“Besides the fact that I wouldn’t fancy your unrefined, miracle-unscreened genes, the patriarch of the Belldate family is lifelong unmarried,” Yvaren snorted. “But I understand. Facing someone like me, the top beauty in all of Mephila, it’s inevitable for you to have such delusions.”

“At least it’s not that. This way, the kids won’t blame me for height issues in the future…”

Seeing Yvaren conjure nearly a ton of gold coins with a loud thud on the ground, Ashe defiantly raised his head. “Can I at least wear a helmet?”

“Want to be tough and wear a helmet? Do you think such good fortune exists?”

“Blue-haired Goblin… I wasn’t even talking about you!”

After Yvaren contentedly got off Ashe, who lay in a ravaged state, he stubbornly collected the gold coins into his arms.

Since most of the spirits have been replaced with two-wings and Ashe has been fighting so frequently in the virtual realm, the spirits working full-time are starving rapidly. His gold coins are barely enough to feed them, so he had to trick some money out of Yvaren, the big capitalist, to solve his immediate crisis.

Ashe could have asked Annan for money, but Annan insists on him showing proof of spirit ownership and allocates funds according to the number of spirits. If Ashe frequently asks for money, Annan would question why the spirits are being used so often, suspect if he’s delivering goods somewhere, or if he’s secretly starting his own business. Ashe feels that, sooner or later, this would expose the unusual activity in virtual realm exploration, so he avoids asking Annan for money.

“So, you still refuse to join Belldate?” Yvaren asked. “I can offer you a very lenient Pact.”

“You’ve been harassing me for days,” Ashe replied. “Actually, isn’t Harvey a better choice than me? He’s set to receive your ancestor’s heritage and has even dug up your family’s ancestral grave.”

“His troubles are too great. I never intended to recruit him from the start,” Yvaren shrugged. “As for the Necromancy Angelic Heritage… that’s the angel’s heritage, not the Family’s. Harvey was right in the video; Belldate has no qualifications to inherit the angelic heritage. I just need to maintain the Dominance Sect and Belldate.”

“I only need you and Igor,” Yvaren looked at him. “Name your price. I refuse to believe Belldate can’t satisfy your appetite!”

“As long as the treatment is worse than Igor’s, it’s a no-go,” Ashe said, wetting a rag to continue wiping the statue. Despite being ravaged by the mistress just now, as a lowly butler, he still had to work.

“If you absolutely refuse to budge…” Yvaren hesitated for a moment. “Fine, I can agree to your terms!”

“Didn’t you say you couldn’t marry? Oh, I get it, we can only be paramours?”

“Nonsense! I just thought you’d actually be a good match for Anfel.”

Ashe was shocked. “Wait, but isn’t Anfel currently in a passionate relationship with Igor? You want me to steal Igor’s paramour?”

“Anfel doesn’t have to have just one lover,” Yvaren said, giving Ashe a thorough look. “If you think about it, you and Igor complement each other perfectly. One is smart, the other is a fool. One is aloof, the other is cheerful. One is refined, the other is rough. One for the day, one for the night. Marrying both of you would be ideal.”

“Who’s for the day and who’s for the night—never mind,” Ashe sighed. “Can’t you offer me terms that don’t include delivering a wife?”

“You’re just trying to figure out Igor’s Pact with us,” Yvaren scoffed lightly. “I knew you were stalling me.”

“Who says so? If your terms are good enough, I’d definitely consider it!”

“If you’re so worried about Igor and don’t want him to stay with Belldate, why didn’t you interrupt their date that night?” Yvaren bent down to look at Ashe as he worked. “My original plan was for you guys to successfully cause a scene, making Igor resent you and fully join us. Did you think the remote control was so easy to throw away?”

“You owe Harvey an apology for that!”

Ashe retorted, “I just think Igor is smarter than me. If he thinks it’s okay, why should I act on my own? And besides…”

“What if you guys are sincere about him?”

Yvaren coaxed, “Exactly. If even someone as smart as Igor is willing to join us, why won’t you follow suit?”

Ashe carried his bucket to another statue, wrung out the cloth, and continued working.

“Because he didn’t invite me.”

The Cult Leader shrugged. “Maybe he thinks I’ll have a brighter future following Miss Annan?”