Mage Manual

Chapter 86: Chapter 79: A Wild Mage Appears (Sixth Update)

Void Realm, Sea of Knowledge.

“Those Moon Shadow Werewolves who can’t transform under the moonlight… your prison really does have a wide variety of talents, fitting for a multiracial nation.”

Sonia lay at the bow of the small boat, gazing at the murky sky, “But what on earth is the Gourmet’s ritual? I’ve never heard of such a brutal and bizarre ceremony. Could it be that he wants to summon the Technique Spirit of the Gluttony Faction?”

In fact, the type of Magic Faction that Mages theoretically are most likely to master is not Fire Technique, Earth Magic, or swordsmanship—those external Magic Factions that are easily accessible. After all, external Magic still ultimately requires the Mage to train intentionally to gain experience.

The Internal Magic Faction, however, is one in which a Mage will gain experience even without training.

What is the Internal Magic Faction? It is the physiological activities that Mages must carry out every day.

...

Eating, sleeping, listening, watching, excreting… These physiological activities that one can hardly avoid from childhood could, if converted into Magic experience, make almost every Mage proficient in seven or eight Magic Factions.

Sadly, this is only theoretical.

The seemingly most effortless and comfortable Internal Magic Factions are actually much harder to attain than the external Magic Factions. No matter how difficult the External Magic Factions are, with hard work it is always possible to get started, but Internal Magic Factions are almost always racial talents. If you are not born with the talent for Internal Magic, it means you cannot independently master an Internal Magic Faction in your lifetime.

The ‘Gluttony Faction’ that Sonia mentioned is one of the Internal Magic Factions, typically found only among ogre tribes. And not every ogre can learn it; only a few ogre Mages might suddenly have a break-through and master the Gluttony Faction.

Internal Magic Factions cannot be taught; what would you teach about eating, sleeping, and defecating?

Moreover, Internal Magic Factions are closely related to inner desires, emotional changes, and temperament. It’s a kind of knowledge that cannot be easily conveyed through narrative, aptly described by ‘intuition can’t be taught through words.’

Sonia’s conjecture was not unreasonable, as eating is almost synonymous with the Gluttony Faction; many believe ogres possess the Gluttony Faction talent because they are cannibals.

“I also think that Lanna eats for the sake of eating, but Igula has a different opinion—he thinks that in this ritual, eating is just the most trivial step. The true core of the ritual is not consumption, but love.”

“Love?”

“Have you ever farmed?”

If it were anyone else, Sonia would definitely feel insulted on two levels.

The first insult would be the doubt that a youthful and beautiful Female Mage had ever farmed.

The second insult would be the doubt that a village girl from an agricultural town had never farmed!

“…Go on, I can understand.”

“Igula thinks that Lanna is farming,” Ash lay at the stern, biting his fingernails, “He sows the seeds of love in the target’s heart, and through the bloodiest form of intimacy—eating—he lets the seeds of love quickly take root and sprout, which is akin to the fertilization and cultivation process.”

“Although Ronate is reluctant to admit it, he definitely is losing interest in everything else. The only thing that ignites his desire is participating in Lanna’s rituals. Even if Lanna were to suddenly change his menu, Ronate would probably still volunteer his name to be added to it.”

Sonia felt a sense of chaos just by listening, “So what will Lanna harvest once the seeds of love have blossomed and matured? Their souls?”

“Igula hasn’t figured it out yet. It probably has to do with the soul, but not exclusively,” Ash said, “However, that’s between the two of them—we just need to be certain of one thing: Lanna and Ronald have indissoluble bonds, and that’s something we can utilize.”

“So if you persuade Ronald, it’s like adding Lanna as an ally,” Sonia reminded, “But both of them are murderous death row inmates; are you sure this is okay?”

Unlike Igula, the Swindler with hardly any combat power, Ronald is the golden-tongued member of the Woodpecker gang, adept in traps, gun techniques, and hidden weapons; and Lanna is even more fearsome, being a Moon Shadow Werewolf whose combat power is high even among Two-winged Mages.

Compared to them, Ash and Igula were but two little sheep capable only of bleating.

Once they lost the protection of the prison, facing these two evil death row inmates, Ash and Igula were unlikely to come out on top.

“The prison isn’t a talent market; I don’t have much choice,” Ash said helplessly, “Finding two people with decent strength who are willing to escape is already lucky. One can’t expect their character to be good, only hope that Shattered Lake Prison has successfully reformed its inmates.”

It was quite an irony; Ash wished for the prison’s reformation to be less successful, so he could find inmates who dared to escape with him; yet he also hoped the reformation was successful enough that those who dared to escape were committed to contributing to society once outside.

“But, actually, I don’t need to worry about it. When it comes to safety, Igula is much more concerned than I am.”

Ash stretched his legs out on the boat, “He’s already suggested to Ronald, enhancing his sense of crisis… It’s not exactly deception but making Ronald clearly aware that as long as he doesn’t kill Lanna, his desire to be devoured by Lanna will never fade.”

Sonia pushed Ash’s legs back, “So once they escape, won’t they end up killing each other?”

“Mutual destruction? I think that’s the least of it. Given the chance, Igula would definitely have those two attract the attention of the Crime Hunting Hall, then he’d slip away while they’re busy,” Ash said with a bitter smile, “Plus, he still has one of my wishes in his grasp, and I haven’t even figured out how to deal with that yet.”

Even though wishes couldn’t be too outrageous, they had to be something within the other party’s abilities and not something that would cause an instinctual resistance. For example, a demand like ‘commit suicide’ would be an unreasonable request against nature.

That’s why Ash only made Igula ‘help him’ escape from prison, instead of having Igula ‘make him’ escape; the latter kind of strict wish would be invalid.

But even so, Igula could still give Ash a run for his money. For instance, if during their escape Igula demanded Ash to ‘cover their rear,’ Ash couldn’t refuse such a reasonable request.

Even if there were hundreds of Blood Frenzy Hunters charging at them, he would have to turn back and encircle them, showing a ‘covering rear’ posture before he could continue to flee.

“So what do you plan to do? And do you have a plan for after you escape from prison?”

“There might be one. First, I’d find this body’s nemesis, an elf professor named Selin. See if I can get revenge; if not, I’ll just steal some money from him and figure out a way to survive.”

“Isn’t that just taking it one step at a time? Aren’t you afraid that the outside world is even more dangerous than prison? After all, you’re at least safe in prison most of the time.”

“That’s called adopting a risk-managed approach in the adventurous field to achieve sustainable benefits, leveraging through-put envelope backcasting as a lever for life empowerment, and perfecting escape logic to consider resource allocation…”

“Speak in a way that kids can understand, please.”

“It means the path I chose for myself, no matter how tough, I am willing to walk it,” Ash said leisurely. “Regret is something for the future me to worry about; the me now only needs to think about how not to have regrets. You wouldn’t want to see me spending my days in tears because I’m locked up in prison, would you?”

“Why don’t you give it a try? I love to see people cry their eyes out, especially when they’re smearing their faces with snot.”

“Besides,” Ash sat up, “I have you, don’t I?”

“I can’t help you,” Sonia rolled her eyes.

Ash continued, “Thanks to our bond, the stronger you are, the stronger I am, so if you don’t want to be all alone exploring the Void Realm in the future, you better start training more conscientiously; don’t always leave on the dot. Don’t live too comfortably at such a young age; be brave and step out of your comfort zone!”

“The way you said that just gives me the urge to slack off. Ah, I’m just not going to practice. I’m going to play,” Sonia muttered, sitting up and stretching lazily, “Have your Magic Power fully recovered?”

“Almost there.”

They had just encountered a grown-up Miasma Dragon, and it took almost all of Ash’s Magic Power to barely drive it away, so they had to lie down on the small boat to rest. Times like these were often when they shared their daily goings-on.

Honestly, there were quite a lot of these rest times, because after gathering more than half of the Silver Wings, both the strength of the creatures on Inheritance Island and the knowledge beings increased significantly. The most common situation was the knowledge creatures running away after exhausting their Magic Power.

Ash even suspected that the knowledge beings were deliberately trying to drain them.

But the Sword Maiden said this was normal. They couldn’t instantly kill the knowledge beings, nor did they have any control Miracles like stun, nor the advantage in speed. It was difficult to keep the knowledge beings from escaping.

This was the plight of most Silver Mages—they often excelled only in certain areas. In reality, they could work in teams, but in the Void Realm, any weakness became a severe tactical flaw.

In most cases, Mages had to wait until they reached the Gold or even Three-winged Holy Realm to perfect their Magic System. By then, they would also face new challenges in the Void Realm.

Ash opened the Void Realm Map, not that there was much to see. The surrounding 24 blocks were all ‘wasted effort’ zones with no rewards. In such cases, they could usually only pick a direction and try their luck—

“Ah!?”

Sonia looked puzzled, “What’s the—”

In an instant, Ash put his hand over Sonia’s mouth and placed his index finger to his lips. @@novelbin@@

Sonia blinked her eyes, immediately understood, and asked in a lowered voice, “Is there a Mage nearby?”

Ash nodded and turned his head towards the mist-covered sea beside them.

On the Void Realm Map, a yellow marker like Ash and Sonia’s suddenly popped up in a neighboring block!

From the mist about ten meters away from the small boat, a small Gate of Truth appeared in space, and a figure fell out.

Just before hitting the sea, she burst into a puff of smoke and turned into a tiny bat, flapping its wings and flying onward.

PS: It seems like 7000 might be possible, so here’s Chapter 6. Whether we can get to 8 or even 10 updates today will depend on everyone!