“Apocalypse Observer”
“Human-Male-25 years old”
“Trust Level: ∞”
“Job: Socially Unemployed Individual”
“Job Trait: The appetite of spirits is reduced, feeding requirements are reduced by 50%.”
“Innate Talent-Sorcerer Handbook (Median): Log other operators into the handbook, the experience gained by other operators will be shared with this character according to the proportion of Trust Level. The current number of pages in the handbook is 1/2 (the talent limit can be unlocked after strength improvement).”
“Personal Skill-Exotic Wandering Soul: Effect unknown.”
“Silver Blessing: Observer’s Visage: Your appearance is deceptive, unless you make an unusual move, others will unconsciously ignore your existence. In the Virtual Realm, this blessing is strengthened, unless there is intimate trust, others can’t see your face clearly.”
“Held Items: Honeyed Words, Dagger in Heart, Virtual World Telescope, Alchemist’s Refining Bottle.”
“Controlling Spirits: Sword Heart, Substitute, Circulate, Earth Sword, Wind Barrier…”
“Sword Art Faction: Silver Level”
“Light Faction: Silver Level”
“Water Art Faction: Silver Level”
“Heart Sect: Silver Level”
“Virtual Realm Exploration: 1.022%”
“Curse of Knowledge: Whirlpool Venom, Eviction Venom, Golden Fish Secret Poison”
Ashe sat in Sylin’s place, staring at the words floating in mid-air, lost in thought.
After losing the chip, he naturally couldn’t call up the light screen, but the game “Aurora’s Sorcerer Handbook” is not bound to the light screen, but to Ashe.
He could still call up the Sorcerer Handbook interface, but the resolution dropped from 4K ultra-clear to 360P. Apart from the Sword Princess’s portrait becoming a bit more cartoonish from pure and desire, there was no significant impact.
Although Ashe felt that Sylin’s miracle had not affected him, when he opened his operator file, he noticed a change after a while – his job had changed from “Cult Leader/Ancient Historian” to “Socially Unemployed Individual”!
But the game did not pop up any prompts, and Ashe had not been paying constant attention to his status information. After all, the Sword Princess’s portrait had become so cartoonish, he had been too lazy to open the game interface these days, let alone open his own operator file.
Ashe couldn’t determine whether the change in his job was the effect of Sylin’s miracle, or the consequence of his jailbreak – after all, after his jailbreak, he did indeed change from a full-board employee of a state-owned unit to a socially unemployed individual, which makes perfect sense.
After pondering for a moment, Ashe decided to give up thinking about this issue.
However, compared to the useless “Cult Leader/Ancient Historian” luck check +10 and ancient relic identification ability +5, the new job trait is clearly much more practical – the feeding cost of spirits is halved!
It seems as if the spirits knew that Ashe had lost his iron rice bowl, so they happily welcomed the salary reduction – “I eat very little and am easy to raise.”
Closing the game panel, Ashe looked at his resume file.
This is the “Ashe-Heath Resume” compiled by Sylin, which includes the awards Heath received in the foster home, middle school, and university, the part-time jobs he had done, friends’ evaluations of Heath, Heath’s photos at different ages, and even Heath’s Canopy browsing records, which can be described as comprehensive and detailed.
The file was well organized, reading it didn’t feel dull at all, soon Ashe had a clear picture of Heath’s life trajectory in his mind: His talent was judged as ‘elite level’ at birth and sent to the city-level demonstrative foster home; He got into middle school with the 36th place in the entrance exam and entered the History Department under the Time Department of Caimon Comprehensive University with a mediocre performance in the college entrance exam; After graduation, he started a business and began to preach based on a pyramid scheme.
He didn’t eat candy, didn’t gamble, didn’t go to the Tea Café, nor had he ever worked part-time at Mud Cafe; his voting record in the Blood Moon Tribunal was zero.
Apart from his apartment and school, Heath’s favorite place to go was the convenience store downstairs. Apart from daily necessities, the most items Heath purchased were all sorts of books. Ashe noticed several familiar titles in there: “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, “How to Induce a Virtual Realm Storm with Bare Hands”, “Criminal Law”. Many friends who knew Heath thought of him as ‘low-profile (unimpressive)’, ‘respectful and polite (boring in conversation)’, ‘strong individual capability (doesn’t socialize)’.
But there was one thing about Heath that terrified Ashe — in Heath’s browsing history on the Canopy, all he found were political, historical, military, sorcerer, religious, and racial information. There was absolutely no record of browsing any erotic videos, pictures, or novels!
Forget about human females, even if it were a beastman and an ogre, Ashe might not agree but he could understand. However, there were no such records!
The only thing that could remotely be associated with lust was the rumored female beastman army, the ‘Tyrant Flower Troop’. They were said to go on a mating hunt during their breeding season, turning captured male beastmen into fuel stations after chopping off their limbs. They were formidable with terrifying brutality.
But female beastmen… Heath couldn’t possibly have a truck driver’s license, could he?
In conclusion, a fine young man of 25 who didn’t indulge in adult content and never exerted any effort to satisfy his sexual desires, was definitely not a normal person.
However, the documents also showed that Heath didn’t have any abnormal experiences. It seemed like he had suddenly started a business out of nowhere. The records didn’t mention how Heath had obtained the data on the Four Pillars Religion. Ashe originally thought that Professor Sylin was the puppet master behind the scenes and that he had given the information to Heath. But Sylin was only concerned with the Blood Moon, so it was clearly not the Elves causing trouble.
Ashe found a record highlighted in red by Sylin in the file. It was Heath’s leave record. Eight years ago, when Heath was still a middle school student, he had taken a half-month study leave, during which there were no eyewitness accounts.
Eight years…eight years ago?
Igor once mentioned that Sylin had participated in archaeological excavations of ruins eight years ago and had unearthed some ritual texts of the Four Pillars Religion. However, in the same year, the ruins suffered a Virtual Realm storm, resulting in the loss of most of the findings.
But Heath was only 17 years old eight years ago…
Ashe had thought that he would be able to get revenge this time and solve the mystery of Heath. However, Heath turned out to be like a matryoshka doll, revealing another layer as soon as one was removed.
Ashe also had to consider another possibility: Sylin was telling the truth, but they were all lies to deal with the Heresy Court.
After all, in this world, ‘memory modification’ existed. Knowing that Heath might betray him at any moment, Sylin could modify his own memory, blame everything on Heath, and portray himself as a devout believer who only thought of the country and the two moons. This was also a possible scenario, and the likelihood was high.
Although the situation was still shrouded in mystery, Ashe decided to temporarily stop investigating Heath’s background. As Heath’s number one hater and secret fan, the information that Sylin had collected was probably the most detailed and comprehensive to date. This was all there was to Heath in ‘reality’.
If Heath did have unknown adventures, they were either in dreams or… the Virtual Realm.
To be honest, Ashe was about to leave the Blood Moon Realm, and no matter how complicated Heath’s background was, it was nothing more than someone else’s story to him.
But Ashe had a strong premonition that even if he left the Blood Moon, Heath’s past would still haunt him like a shadow. It was like seeing an author mention a gun in a detective story; the gun was bound to go off in the story. Heath had put in so much effort, surely it wasn’t just to send Ashe to enjoy life in Shattered Lake Prison?
Four Pillars, Heath, Touch, ceremony… Ashe noted down these bits of information in his little notebook. If he didn’t run into related characters, fine, but if he did in the Virtual Realm, they could not blame him for being ruthless together with the Swordswoman.
Next up was the time to collect the spoils. Ashe rummaged through everything, and in total, found 4 Gold Coins, 5 Silver Coins, a large number of luxurious items that looked like they could be sold for money, and 5 spirit cocoons.
This is where the credit currency system destroys the traditional “robbery” industry. Although physical currency is still in circulation, the vast majority of people are accustomed to making payments using Chips and only carry a small amount of emergency cash in their daily lives.
Sylin’s total assets were probably calculated in tens of thousands of Gold Coins, but he only needed to carry a few Gold and Silver Coins to satisfy the feeding of spirits. There wouldn’t be that much cash at home. Compared to these few Gold and Silver Coins, the luminescent watch that Sylin wore was probably worth more.
Among the 5 spirit cocoons, there were 3 Two-wing spirits, 1 single-wing spirit, and 1 three-wing spirit! This was an excellent harvest. However, Ashe couldn’t bring himself to be happy.
Because these spirit cocoons had chastity locks.
Due to various trade and other needs, sorcerers invented many ways to seal spirits. The Glowing Sphere is the most common technique, which directly stuffs the spirit into the sphere. The spirit enters a dormant state and the feeding frequency decreases by 70%. It’s a good choice to seal it in a Glowing Sphere to reduce feeding costs when a sorcerer acquires extra spirits but doesn’t need them at the moment.
However, the downside of the Glowing Sphere is also severe. There are no defensive measures. Once the sphere is damaged, it will cause the spirit to escape. Furthermore, anyone who gets the sphere can directly control the ownerless spirit. The spirit in the sphere is like money taken out of the bank, with the possibility of being stolen or damaged.
The spirit cocoons in front of Ashe are a more advanced sealing method. Spirits sealed in the cocoon stop all activities, do not need feeding, and most importantly, there are three wheel locks on them. Only by inputting arcane energy under the correct password can the spirit cocoon be dissolved.
If the password is wrong, the spirit cocoon will automatically lock and can only be unlocked by finding the sorcerer who cast the spell. It’s said to be a miracle equivalent to that of the Saint level, so a Two-wing Sorcerer has almost no chance to violently break it. Even if it can be broken by force, the spirit cocoon will most likely self-destruct along with the spirit inside.
Perhaps some people find it strange. Is it necessary to use a three-wing Saint’s miracle to store spirits? But in a stable civilized society, spirits not only have use value, but they also have the potential to become luxury items.
The only single-wing spirit in the spirit cocoons is such a luxury item. It looks like a cicada, with a green exterior hiding a golden interior. This is a ‘Reverse Moon’ spirit.
The Reverse Moon is a consumption spirit that will disappear once used. Its effect is simple return the real state of a designated object to a month ago.
If used on an old sorcerer, the physical state of the sorcerer will return to a month ago, but the arcane energy, memories, and spirits wrapped in their soul will not change. That is, it can extend the subject’s life by a month to a certain extent.
Aside from the ‘Reverse Day’ spirit, which is used as an emergency healing spirit, the ‘Reverse Moon’ and ‘Reverse Year’ spirits are considered side-effect-free life-extending spirits and are very popular in the market with extremely high prices. Ashe heard about this from the Sword Princess during casual conversations. In her words, it was “You can really make a fortune by picking up trash in the land of time spirits”.
This ‘Reverse Moon’ spirit was clearly stored as a gift, and the other spirits should have a similar purpose. There’s even a dual-winged sword spirit, which is quite rare. However, after some thought, Ashe made a decision that was contrary to the principles of the Sword Princess.
“Successful recharge! You’ve gained 8 points.”
“Successful recharge! You’ve gained 20 points.” ×3
“Successful recharge! You’ve gained 40 points.”
Spirit cocoons can’t be taken away. They’re too big to fit in a pocket. Even if they could be moved, Ashe didn’t have the means to dissolve them, so feeding them to the greedy Operator system was the best choice.
But getting only 40 points for a triple-winged spirit is such a rip-off…
After another round of searching without finding anything new, Ashe began to comb through the information Sylin had left behind. To kill ‘Ashe Heath’, Sylin must have racked his brains guessing Heath’s escape route, trying to block all possible loopholes. Therefore–
Sylin might have ‘helped’ him plan the most successful escape route!
Ashe quickly found what he was looking for.
“Report of the 49th virtual gateway observation point (Top Secret)”
“April 21, 1668, 13:11, observed a water surge phenomenon, the other side of the gateway is an underground river, abandoned.”
“Report of the 53rd virtual gateway observation point (Top Secret)”
“April 30, 1668, 17:36, ‘Rabbit’ returned, the other side of the gateway is a deserted wilderness, safe, can hold a hunting festival.”
“Apocalypse Observer”
“Human-Male-25 years old”
“Trust Level: ∞”
“Job: Socially Unemployed Individual”
“Job Trait: The appetite of spirits is reduced, feeding requirements are reduced by 50%.”
“Innate Talent-Sorcerer Handbook (Median): Log other operators into the handbook, the experience gained by other operators will be shared with this character according to the proportion of Trust Level. The current number of pages in the handbook is 1/2 (the talent limit can be unlocked after strength improvement).”
“Personal Skill-Exotic Wandering Soul: Effect unknown.”
“Silver Blessing: Observer’s Visage: Your appearance is deceptive, unless you make an unusual move, others will unconsciously ignore your existence. In the Virtual Realm, this blessing is strengthened, unless there is intimate trust, others can’t see your face clearly.”
“Held Items: Honeyed Words, Dagger in Heart, Virtual World Telescope, Alchemist’s Refining Bottle.”
“Controlling Spirits: Sword Heart, Substitute, Circulate, Earth Sword, Wind Barrier…”
“Sword Art Faction: Silver Level”
“Light Faction: Silver Level”
“Water Art Faction: Silver Level”
“Heart Sect: Silver Level”
“Virtual Realm Exploration: 1.022%”
“Curse of Knowledge: Whirlpool Venom, Eviction Venom, Golden Fish Secret Poison”
Ashe sat in Sylin’s place, staring at the words floating in mid-air, lost in thought.
After losing the chip, he naturally couldn’t call up the light screen, but the game “Aurora’s Sorcerer Handbook” is not bound to the light screen, but to Ashe.
He could still call up the Sorcerer Handbook interface, but the resolution dropped from 4K ultra-clear to 360P. Apart from the Sword Princess’s portrait becoming a bit more cartoonish from pure and desire, there was no significant impact.
Although Ashe felt that Sylin’s miracle had not affected him, when he opened his operator file, he noticed a change after a while – his job had changed from “Cult Leader/Ancient Historian” to “Socially Unemployed Individual”!
But the game did not pop up any prompts, and Ashe had not been paying constant attention to his status information. After all, the Sword Princess’s portrait had become so cartoonish, he had been too lazy to open the game interface these days, let alone open his own operator file.
Ashe couldn’t determine whether the change in his job was the effect of Sylin’s miracle, or the consequence of his jailbreak – after all, after his jailbreak, he did indeed change from a full-board employee of a state-owned unit to a socially unemployed individual, which makes perfect sense.
After pondering for a moment, Ashe decided to give up thinking about this issue.
However, compared to the useless “Cult Leader/Ancient Historian” luck check +10 and ancient relic identification ability +5, the new job trait is clearly much more practical – the feeding cost of spirits is halved!
It seems as if the spirits knew that Ashe had lost his iron rice bowl, so they happily welcomed the salary reduction – “I eat very little and am easy to raise.”
Closing the game panel, Ashe looked at his resume file.
This is the “Ashe-Heath Resume” compiled by Sylin, which includes the awards Heath received in the foster home, middle school, and university, the part-time jobs he had done, friends’ evaluations of Heath, Heath’s photos at different ages, and even Heath’s Canopy browsing records, which can be described as comprehensive and detailed.
The file was well organized, reading it didn’t feel dull at all, soon Ashe had a clear picture of Heath’s life trajectory in his mind: His talent was judged as ‘elite level’ at birth and sent to the city-level demonstrative foster home; He got into middle school with the 36th place in the entrance exam and entered the History Department under the Time Department of Caimon Comprehensive University with a mediocre performance in the college entrance exam; After graduation, he started a business and began to preach based on a pyramid scheme.
He didn’t eat candy, didn’t gamble, didn’t go to the Tea Café, nor had he ever worked part-time at Mud Cafe; his voting record in the Blood Moon Tribunal was zero.
Apart from his apartment and school, Heath’s favorite place to go was the convenience store downstairs. Apart from daily necessities, the most items Heath purchased were all sorts of books. Ashe noticed several familiar titles in there: “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”, “How to Induce a Virtual Realm Storm with Bare Hands”, “Criminal Law”. Many friends who knew Heath thought of him as ‘low-profile (unimpressive)’, ‘respectful and polite (boring in conversation)’, ‘strong individual capability (doesn’t socialize)’.
But there was one thing about Heath that terrified Ashe — in Heath’s browsing history on the Canopy, all he found were political, historical, military, sorcerer, religious, and racial information. There was absolutely no record of browsing any erotic videos, pictures, or novels!
Forget about human females, even if it were a beastman and an ogre, Ashe might not agree but he could understand. However, there were no such records!
The only thing that could remotely be associated with lust was the rumored female beastman army, the ‘Tyrant Flower Troop’. They were said to go on a mating hunt during their breeding season, turning captured male beastmen into fuel stations after chopping off their limbs. They were formidable with terrifying brutality.
But female beastmen… Heath couldn’t possibly have a truck driver’s license, could he?
In conclusion, a fine young man of 25 who didn’t indulge in adult content and never exerted any effort to satisfy his sexual desires, was definitely not a normal person.
However, the documents also showed that Heath didn’t have any abnormal experiences. It seemed like he had suddenly started a business out of nowhere. The records didn’t mention how Heath had obtained the data on the Four Pillars Religion. Ashe originally thought that Professor Sylin was the puppet master behind the scenes and that he had given the information to Heath. But Sylin was only concerned with the Blood Moon, so it was clearly not the Elves causing trouble.
Ashe found a record highlighted in red by Sylin in the file. It was Heath’s leave record. Eight years ago, when Heath was still a middle school student, he had taken a half-month study leave, during which there were no eyewitness accounts.
Eight years…eight years ago?
Igor once mentioned that Sylin had participated in archaeological excavations of ruins eight years ago and had unearthed some ritual texts of the Four Pillars Religion. However, in the same year, the ruins suffered a Virtual Realm storm, resulting in the loss of most of the findings.
But Heath was only 17 years old eight years ago…
Ashe had thought that he would be able to get revenge this time and solve the mystery of Heath. However, Heath turned out to be like a matryoshka doll, revealing another layer as soon as one was removed.
Ashe also had to consider another possibility: Sylin was telling the truth, but they were all lies to deal with the Heresy Court.
After all, in this world, ‘memory modification’ existed. Knowing that Heath might betray him at any moment, Sylin could modify his own memory, blame everything on Heath, and portray himself as a devout believer who only thought of the country and the two moons. This was also a possible scenario, and the likelihood was high.
Although the situation was still shrouded in mystery, Ashe decided to temporarily stop investigating Heath’s background. As Heath’s number one hater and secret fan, the information that Sylin had collected was probably the most detailed and comprehensive to date. This was all there was to Heath in ‘reality’.
If Heath did have unknown adventures, they were either in dreams or… the Virtual Realm.
To be honest, Ashe was about to leave the Blood Moon Realm, and no matter how complicated Heath’s background was, it was nothing more than someone else’s story to him.
But Ashe had a strong premonition that even if he left the Blood Moon, Heath’s past would still haunt him like a shadow. It was like seeing an author mention a gun in a detective story; the gun was bound to go off in the story. Heath had put in so much effort, surely it wasn’t just to send Ashe to enjoy life in Shattered Lake Prison?
Four Pillars, Heath, Touch, ceremony… Ashe noted down these bits of information in his little notebook. If he didn’t run into related characters, fine, but if he did in the Virtual Realm, they could not blame him for being ruthless together with the Swordswoman.
Next up was the time to collect the spoils. Ashe rummaged through everything, and in total, found 4 Gold Coins, 5 Silver Coins, a large number of luxurious items that looked like they could be sold for money, and 5 spirit cocoons.
This is where the credit currency system destroys the traditional “robbery” industry. Although physical currency is still in circulation, the vast majority of people are accustomed to making payments using Chips and only carry a small amount of emergency cash in their daily lives.
Sylin’s total assets were probably calculated in tens of thousands of Gold Coins, but he only needed to carry a few Gold and Silver Coins to satisfy the feeding of spirits. There wouldn’t be that much cash at home. Compared to these few Gold and Silver Coins, the luminescent watch that Sylin wore was probably worth more.
Among the 5 spirit cocoons, there were 3 Two-wing spirits, 1 single-wing spirit, and 1 three-wing spirit! This was an excellent harvest. However, Ashe couldn’t bring himself to be happy.
Because these spirit cocoons had chastity locks.
Due to various trade and other needs, sorcerers invented many ways to seal spirits. The Glowing Sphere is the most common technique, which directly stuffs the spirit into the sphere. The spirit enters a dormant state and the feeding frequency decreases by 70%. It’s a good choice to seal it in a Glowing Sphere to reduce feeding costs when a sorcerer acquires extra spirits but doesn’t need them at the moment.
However, the downside of the Glowing Sphere is also severe. There are no defensive measures. Once the sphere is damaged, it will cause the spirit to escape. Furthermore, anyone who gets the sphere can directly control the ownerless spirit. The spirit in the sphere is like money taken out of the bank, with the possibility of being stolen or damaged.
The spirit cocoons in front of Ashe are a more advanced sealing method. Spirits sealed in the cocoon stop all activities, do not need feeding, and most importantly, there are three wheel locks on them. Only by inputting arcane energy under the correct password can the spirit cocoon be dissolved.
If the password is wrong, the spirit cocoon will automatically lock and can only be unlocked by finding the sorcerer who cast the spell. It’s said to be a miracle equivalent to that of the Saint level, so a Two-wing Sorcerer has almost no chance to violently break it. Even if it can be broken by force, the spirit cocoon will most likely self-destruct along with the spirit inside.
Perhaps some people find it strange. Is it necessary to use a three-wing Saint’s miracle to store spirits? But in a stable civilized society, spirits not only have use value, but they also have the potential to become luxury items.
The only single-wing spirit in the spirit cocoons is such a luxury item. It looks like a cicada, with a green exterior hiding a golden interior. This is a ‘Reverse Moon’ spirit.
The Reverse Moon is a consumption spirit that will disappear once used. Its effect is simple return the real state of a designated object to a month ago.
If used on an old sorcerer, the physical state of the sorcerer will return to a month ago, but the arcane energy, memories, and spirits wrapped in their soul will not change. That is, it can extend the subject’s life by a month to a certain extent.
Aside from the ‘Reverse Day’ spirit, which is used as an emergency healing spirit, the ‘Reverse Moon’ and ‘Reverse Year’ spirits are considered side-effect-free life-extending spirits and are very popular in the market with extremely high prices. Ashe heard about this from the Sword Princess during casual conversations. In her words, it was “You can really make a fortune by picking up trash in the land of time spirits”.
This ‘Reverse Moon’ spirit was clearly stored as a gift, and the other spirits should have a similar purpose. There’s even a dual-winged sword spirit, which is quite rare. However, after some thought, Ashe made a decision that was contrary to the principles of the Sword Princess.
“Successful recharge! You’ve gained 8 points.”
“Successful recharge! You’ve gained 20 points.” ×3
“Successful recharge! You’ve gained 40 points.”
Spirit cocoons can’t be taken away. They’re too big to fit in a pocket. Even if they could be moved, Ashe didn’t have the means to dissolve them, so feeding them to the greedy Operator system was the best choice.
But getting only 40 points for a triple-winged spirit is such a rip-off…
After another round of searching without finding anything new, Ashe began to comb through the information Sylin had left behind. To kill ‘Ashe Heath’, Sylin must have racked his brains guessing Heath’s escape route, trying to block all possible loopholes. Therefore–
Sylin might have ‘helped’ him plan the most successful escape route!
Ashe quickly found what he was looking for.
“Report of the 49th virtual gateway observation point (Top Secret)”
“April 21, 1668, 13:11, observed a water surge phenomenon, the other side of the gateway is an underground river, abandoned.”
“Report of the 53rd virtual gateway observation point (Top Secret)”
“April 30, 1668, 17:36, ‘Rabbit’ returned, the other side of the gateway is a deserted wilderness, safe, can hold a hunting festival.”
