Sorcerer’s Handbook

One day later, in Black Robe Town.

The market was bustling, lights flashing, and music blaring. A young girl in exotic clothing darted between neon lights, while a voluptuous beauty boldly showcased her charm, her allure undimmed by the night, laughter flowing freely and painting a scene of opulence that seemed out of this era.

Ashe felt a bump on his arm and turned to see a woman whose figure could only be described as miraculous, with wavy long hair and a deep V-neck dress that seemed designed to captivate any onlooker’s gaze. Even a slight brush, even through clothing, let Ashe feel the smooth and elastic touch of her supposedly accidental nudge.

She gave Ashe a slight smile, unconcerned, and continued walking down the street. Beauties like her were common here, the street was lined with them, dazzling and countless, like heaven itself.

And that was the most regrettable part.

The entire street was like this, without exception.

Including him and Igor beside him.

“People from the Bluebird Divine Era are all like Little Trumpets…” Ashe covered his face and sighed, “How can anyone follow such a Demi-God!?”

“The Blood Moon also has a trend towards extreme beauty standards. If you’ve ever been to Blood Moon University, you’d rarely see any unattractive students, even the Ogres there are pleasing to the eye,” Igor responded calmly. “If the Bluebird Divine Era is more developed and advanced than Blood Moon, it’s not hard to understand the overflow of the aesthetics obsession.”

“Did you know, before I was arrested by the Blood Hunters, none of my partners knew my true identity. Guess how I interacted with them?”

“If you’re so familiar, then you go shop alone, I’m heading back to the hotel-“

“I can’t handle everything alone,” Igor said as he caught Ashe by the back of his collar and pulled him along, “Tamashi needs healing, Harvey can’t stop eating, and we’re the only ones left who can move freely.”

After accepting a gift from the Transcendent Cult and riding away on a Transcendent brand motorcycle, Ashe and his companions arrived at the bustling trade hub of Black Robe Town, the most vibrant center of commerce in the Qinyi Alliance.

Black Robe Town is one of the largest cults in the Senlo Wasteland, directly governed by the War Temple. Although named the War Temple, their ideal is to pursue peace by using war to destroy all other wars. This is a seemingly feasible ideal, as unifying Senlo would naturally fulfill the War Temple’s aspirations.

In the Senlo Wasteland, there is a definite desire for unification and peace, making the prosperity of the War Temple almost inevitable, regardless of the presence of war or peace cults, or even ruling cults.

However, Black Robe Town has little to do with the War Temple. Its uniqueness lies in its heritage from the Third Divine Era, the Blue Bird Era.

As mentioned earlier, during the Fire Cat Divine Era, the divine fire system was created to peacefully transition to the next divine era. The Fire Cat sorcerers were successful, transitioning from the Fire Cat to the Blue Bird without triggering wars. However, due to the absence of bloody conflicts, some of the ideals from the Blue Bird heritage are quite fanciful.

In Black Robe Town, there exists a legacy called “Kaleidoscope,” stemming from the Blue Bird Era’s Kaleidoscope Demi-God. This Demi-God’s ideal was for everyone to become a beautiful girl.

Ashe is quite certain that this ideal originally had a prefix of “everyone but me,” but since a Demi-God’s obsession is with the dead, no such prefix is necessary.

The Kaleidoscope is exactly this legacy derived from the Blue Bird heritage. Within its influence, regardless of age or gender, everyone transforms into various forms of beautiful girls. Men, needless to say, and women too would undergo transformations in hairstyle, makeup, and even clothing, effectively a one-click makeover.

Although Ashe admits this is somewhat interesting, as Igor mentioned, the Blood Moon Kingdom also trends towards this. Some people from the Blue Bird Era, having full bellies and nothing better to do, might find this understandable.

However, Senlo is currently in the wasteland era, where everyone is busy dealing with heresy and not yet at a point where they can indulge in such luxuries. So why has Black Robe Town, with its Kaleidoscope, become a trading hub?

This is because the Kaleidoscope has another feature: spirit sleep. Within the range of the Kaleidoscope, all spirits fall asleep, and no amount of spellforce input by a sorcerer can make them work. Moreover, with bodies transformed into soft and fragrant beautiful girls, even the most flawless physical sorcerers can only act cute here.

It is said that even the Four-winged Spirit cannot resist the hypnotic allure of the Kaleidoscope, leading many to suspect that its original is actually a deity from the Virtual Realm.

When everyone lacks combat power, it equates to security; when everyone transforms into different beautiful young women, it ensures anonymity.

These two points are exactly what are needed for transactions.

In the past, the Kaleidoscope Black Robe Town might have been just a wonderland where people sought beauty, but in the Senlo wasteland, it has become a trusted trading venue among different cults.

Some sorcerers might consider sniping people from outside Black Robe Town, but the Kaleidoscope only activates at night. The outskirts of the town at night are safely managed by the Choking Green, who deal with any Uninvited Guests.

Once daylight comes and the Kaleidoscope deactivates, everyone reverts to their original form. Whether to conceal identities or out of sheer embarrassment, everyone dons black robes or other garments to cover themselves completely, which is how Black Robe Town got its name.

As the largest distribution hub in Senlo, Ashe and his group come here not just to replenish supplies but also to seize the opportunity to purchase sorcerers. Trading sorcerers is common in other Kingdoms, but it’s a rarity in Senlo, where most sorcerers circulate only within their own cults.

After all, if you dare sell sorcerers to other cults, you couldn’t cope mentally-how could you trade with heresy? Are you aiding the enemy? Is your loyalty not absolute?

Even the Qinyi Alliance is no different; they merely cooperate to jointly oppose the Four Pillars Cult but are not a community with aligned interests. In the divine era, there are only so many positions, and the interaction between them is a zero-sum game of life and death, not a win-win cooperation.

Thus, the flow of goods between cults relies on caravans-formal cults barter goods, like the Transcendent Cult; informal cults simply take by force, like the Tribulation Fire Temple.

But Black Robe Town is different. Here, as long as you don’t tell and I don’t tell, everyone is an anonymous beautiful young woman, and different cults trade directly without middlemen making a profit. Many cults have their stalls here, and even the War Temple tacitly allows their presence.

In Igor’s words, this place is like an underground Black Market where everyone uses a beautiful young woman’s avatar.

However, the nature of the transactions…

Ashe glanced at the stores along the roadside. Weapons like bombs and swords were expected, and the sale of strong potions was understandable, but selling corpses? Had he known, he would’ve called Harvey over.

Aside from that, Black Robe Town indeed had many items that surprised Ashe and his companions. For instance, the Transcendent Cult still maintained production lines for fantasy creations like solar-powered motorcycles and musical instruments. Other cults also preserved various types of heritage, such as the “Eternal Clean Water Source,” “Eagle Eye Glasses,” and the “Senlo Locator Map.”

There were even entertainment products like the “Gray Fox Holographic Screen.” However, since they couldn’t connect to the Gray Fox server anymore, they were limited to basic functions such as checking the time, recording videos, computing, and note-taking (with 1,000 Gray Fox series episodes included).

“Ice cream cone!”

“Lemon tea!”

“Lala Fatty skewers!”

Before long, Ashe’s mouth never stopped moving. He kept switching the food in his hands, darting from one snack stall to another, ordering this and that, then gesturing for Igor to pay.

“Has your brain been affected by hormones because your body changed?” the Con Artist remarked while fishing out his wallet. “We’re not here for a stroll.”

“Here, try this.”

“I’m not as gluttonous as you.”

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“Open your mouth, ah-ah-how’s it taste?”

“Just okay.”

“Let’s buy some to take back for Harvey and Tamashi to try,” Ashe said cheerfully. “We’ve been tangled with the Silver Lantern at the Four Pillars Cult, the Food Factory Town, the Transcendence Building for the past few days, and haven’t really gotten a proper break. Even if you all are holding up, I’m not. At least back in Gospel, I had Lise with me; now it’s just you guys…”

“What,” Igor chuckled, “do you want us to coddle you like Lise did? You could try Harvey; he might not be as childlike as Lise, but I’m sure he could manage without it being weird.”

“Do you think Lise was the only one being coddled?” Ashe laughed. “I was actually leaning on Lise, too. Adults are just children who have to act grown-up.”

“That’s just you.”

“Humph, you’ll understand when you have a daughter,” Ashe grunted slightly. “Besides, Mercury Trojan Horse hasn’t told us anything about the Silver Lantern yet, so rushing won’t do us any good-“

“Are you looking for me?”

Ashe and Igor swiftly turned around to see a silver-haired beauty standing behind them. She gestured toward an open-air bar nearby, indicating for them to follow, and then walked over to sit down and order.

It wasn’t the first time Mercury Trojan Horse had personally controlled a Four Pillars disciple to meet with them, so Ashe and his team were used to these sudden meetings and joined her at the table.

The open-air bar was quite crowded, with many people drinking heavily and enjoying the carefree feeling of being drunk. For sorcerers, it was typically hard to achieve a drunken state because spellforce nourishes the body. After practicing for a year or two, sorcerers become immune to minor issues like alcohol and diarrhea. However, under the Kaleidoscope’s influence, sorcerers became vulnerable again, allowing them to enjoy the bliss of relaxing their minds.

But Ashe and Igor were there for business, so they only ordered two soft drinks.

“Good evening, Ashe,” the silver-haired beauty said. “I heard the Silver Lantern snatched the Resonance String Demi-God from the Transcendent Cult. I thought you’d be caught up in it… Where’s the necromancer?”

“At the inn,” Ashe replied. “He’s turned into a dark-skinned loli and doesn’t dare come out.”

Harvey apparently didn’t care much about his appearance, but because he had lost several pounds from his original body weight and was parasitized by the Blood Seed, he had to eat constantly and use spirits to speed up absorption to compensate for the loss of life energy.

“So, Ashe, tell us about your experience at the Transcendence Building,” the silver-haired beauty said, not hiding her curiosity. “How did you get out? Did you fight your way out?”

“Curious,” Igor suddenly said. “How can you tell which of us is which? We’re both under the Kaleidoscope’s influence; Ashe is now red-haired with red eyes, totally different from his original self. Or rather, how did you recognize us?”

“It’s probably your aura,” the silver-haired beauty smiled. “There’s still a big difference between you two. As for how I recognized you… if you’re willing to satisfy my curiosity, I might just tell you.”

Ashe and Igor exchanged a glance, then Ashe said, “We almost got dragged into it by the Silver Lantern, but the Transcendent Cult is sharp-eyed. They knew I was a hero helping them-“

The silver-haired beauty remained expressionless. “If you’re going to lie, could you at least let a mental sorcerer do it? At least then it would be a bit challenging.”

“Simply put, the Transcendent Cult needed me,” Ashe shrugged, “and also…”

“They’re quite fond of Harvey.”