The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 180: Four Pillars Cult!

When Ashe woke, he saw Harvey and Iger tucking into sandwiches.

”Are you not afraid they might be poisoned?” he asked.

”Then I’ll take your share—”

”I mean, you should have woken me up so I could test them first,” Ashe interrupted. He quickly grabbed the last sandwich and licked it to claim it, earning a look of pure disgust from Iger.

”How long were we asleep?”

Ashe opened the game interface. ”It’s 2 a.m. We slept for less than an hour.”

Iger muttered, ”So that means we’ll have to stay here for the next day...”

”Why?”

”If the remaining travel time were under six hours, they wouldn’t bother providing food. But since we’re injured and sleep-deprived, skipping a day’s meals could trigger sudden death. That’s why they gave us food.”

The sandwiches were barely enough to stave off hunger. They only made Ashe feel even hungrier. He tapped the padded wall gloomily. ”Are we going back to prison? I’m starting to wonder if, after I die, the title of my Sorcerer’s Handbook will be A Popular Review of Public Prisons...”

Iger said faintly, ”We would have been lucky to be in prison. What I truly fear is that this might be a slave society. Sorcerers would form the slave-owning class, ordinary people would be enslaved, and with sorcerer technology, they could push a slave society into becoming a near-modern, developed nation...”

Harvey asked, ”Isn’t being a slave better than being a prisoner?”

Iger said with clear disgust, ”Not at all. The biggest problem with a slave society is that it’s ruled by people, not law. When conflicts arise, slave owners focus on punishing the person causing the problem rather than resolving it. They favor violence, obsess over bloodlines, and marginalize outsiders. Everyone’s social position is assigned at birth, with zero mobility. Even feudal superstition would be preferable to slavery.”

Harvey chuckled. ”So we escaped the Blood Moon Kingdom only to land somewhere worse. Sigh... thinking about it, the Blood Moon Kingdom wasn’t that bad. If the Church had let ordinary people study necromancy, I wouldn’t have bothered escaping. But I couldn’t afford schooling back then. Later, I failed graduate entry, and without becoming part of the Blood Saint lineage, I had no right to study necromancy...”

”Maybe it’s not a slave society,” Ashe said, dipping his tongue into his water bottle. ”Perhaps this is a civilization even more advanced than the Blood Moon Kingdom, one that isn’t hostile toward refugees from other lands—”

Iger tapped the padded wall behind him. ”What kind of civilized nation builds specialized prisoner transport vehicles like these? Harvey, if you were kidnapping someone, how would you transport them?”

”Why ask me?”

”You don’t know?”

Harvey muttered, ”Well... I do know. I have a friend, a real friend. For me, I’d turn the person into a corpse and let them walk back themselves... But that friend usually uses drugs with spirits to hypnotize the target, ties them up, and tosses them into a small cargo vehicle for transport.”

”Could any company in the Blood Moon Kingdom make a carriage like this?”

”Impossible. The closest would be a camper van, but kidnapping is a low-value sector. No one would customize a vehicle just for that.”

Iger looked at Ashe. ”Do you understand now, cult leader? Anyone with such a carriage must be a specialist whose main business is kidnapping, most likely a slave-catching team. And if there are slave catchers, then slavery exists...”

Ashe raised a hand. ”Wait. Couldn’t they be human traffickers?”

”Sex slaves are still slaves—”

”They could be child abductors.”

Iger and Harvey both froze. ”Abduct children? Why? Who would buy them? For what purpose?”

Ashe recalled that the notion of family had long ceased to exist in the Blood Moon Kingdom. Without buyers, there would be no traffickers. He spent time describing the vile trade, yet Iger and Harvey still couldn’t grasp it. It was like explaining the thrill of exercise to someone who never moves.

They might have escaped the Blood Moon Kingdom, but its culture remained deeply branded into their souls. They found it difficult to understand that anyone would go to any length for descendants or even someone else’s children, to the point of creating a criminal industry. In their worldview, descendants might feel closer than outsiders, yet ultimately, they would still only care for themselves.

In a sense, the Blood Moon Kingdom hadn’t erased emotions. It had simply refined and amplified one valid thought pattern to the extreme. When selfishness became the highest guiding principle, emotional commitment became incomprehensible.

That was one reason Ashe remained wary of them. It wasn’t just because they were death row criminals. The Blood Moon’s education had also eroded their moral baseline to an alarming degree, reaching a level that could rival a project manager who wakes people at 3 a.m. to rush a PPT.

Humans were creatures with severe limitations. They couldn’t comprehend what they had never witnessed. Only by experiencing enough could one grasp the truths of the world. Without experience, even a gem might appear as a mere stone to them. To claim the gem, one must first witness the ups and downs of life.

A strange thought struck Ashe, and he shook his head, suppressing the sudden surge of melodrama. ”Even if they are slave catchers, at least our safety is guaranteed. And being slaves would help us quickly understand this world. At worst, we become runaway slaves. We’re jailbreak veterans. When it comes to escaping, we’re professionals.”

Iger looked at Ashe in surprise, remaining silent for a long moment.

Ashe grew uncomfortable under his gaze. ”What is it?”

Iger said, ”I had a vague feeling back in prison. I don’t know whether it was ignorance that bred fearlessness, or the blind confidence you gained leading a cult, but you’ve never seemed afraid of fate’s malice.”

”We barely escaped the Blood Moon, only to get captured again. Even I can’t help cursing the world. You, on the other hand, are like a fish with a seven-second memory, already thinking, ’If I become a slave, how can I turn it to my advantage?’

”Do you have some secret trump card?”

A trump card?

Ashe wondered if the Black-White Witch counted. Scratching his head, he shrugged. ”Isn’t this just normal mental resilience? Like when your boss suddenly gives you a task that must be done by tomorrow morning. You curse a little inside, order takeout, and work overtime.”

Harvey scoffed. ”I don’t think ordinary people equate overtime with being captured by slave catchers... Here.”

He tossed them a small object. Ashe and Iger caught it, only to find that it was Snow White Moon Candy.

Harvey explained, ”When we get out of the vehicle, we’ll be at our weakest. That’s also when they’ll be at their most careless. This candy stimulates your mind, counters exhaustion from sleeplessness, and even accelerates mana recovery.”

Iger responded, ”Now that we’ve left the Blood Moon, you won’t be able to buy it anywhere. Physical sugar cravings can be suppressed with spirits, but I’ve never heard of anyone curing the psychological addiction. In Shattered Lake Prison, countless death row inmates spent all their Contribution Points just to buy Moon Candy.”

Harvey tapped the padded wall. ”This kingdom likely has similar substances. The more advanced a nation, the more popular these ways of filling inner emptiness become. Every race has a self-destructive tendency. When survival is no longer a pressure, they seek out activities that are more dangerous, yet more pleasurable.”

Iger pocketed the candy. ”A necromancer’s strange theory. I won’t eat it, but I’ll cooperate.”

Ashe had no interest in testing his poison resistance either. ”Same here.”

After thinking it over, he slipped it into his bag. Perhaps he could let his substitute eat it and observe the reaction. Thinking of the substitute first whenever there’s something tasty... classic me.

***

After the long journey, the vehicle finally stopped at six in the evening, Blood Moon time. The trio exchanged exhausted glances, aware that their first challenge was about to begin. Harvey silently popped a Moon Candy, and his energy surged instantly.

The side door opened. ”Out you come, the three of you.”

Ashe suddenly realized he could understand the language of this country. The accent sounded odd, reminiscent of English and French, but he could still comprehend it. Even within the same language, different cities have different accents, so that part makes sense. But we’re already in another country. How can we still understand them?

Stepping outside, they saw a sky divided between the half-setting sun and emerging stars, and a landscape resembling an abandoned industrial park. Such a sight was rare in the Blood Moon Kingdom, where the Blood Moon always proclaimed its presence before the sun even set.

The vehicle transporting them was highly advanced. Its body was silver-white. It still had four wheels, yet the tires had no tread for friction or anti-skid grip. A single brake could send it drifting dozens of meters. It looked less like a real vehicle and more like a concept car from a fantasy world.

Seeing all this, the three of them simultaneously concluded that this kingdom’s sorcerer technology was far superior to the Blood Moon Kingdom’s.

”These three are the outsiders you requested. You may verify them with the Book of Gospel.”

Before Ashe stood a youthful boy butler and a striking girl with purple hair and green eyes. The girl held a luxurious orange velvet folding fan and wore a purple coat, instantly bringing to Ashe’s mind a phrase from gossip columns: ”She outshone everyone present.”

Ashe instinctively glanced at Iger. This girl’s beauty rivaled his, but because she was new and unfamiliar, she left an even stronger impression. In Ashe’s mind, she easily outshone Iger.

On their own, neither of them seemed ordinary, yet beside the others, they appeared almost insignificant. Six black-robed figures stood nearby, their gazes fixed grimly on the trio.

The leading figure nodded. ”Confirmed. They are outlanders. There is no time to waste. Let’s complete the transaction.”

The boy butler stepped forward and held out three controller-like keys. The black-robed figure presented a box. Meanwhile, Harvey lowered his gaze, ready to act.

However, until the exchange concluded, none of the trio moved. The purple-clad girl stood beside them, smiling as she watched. Ashe’s Savage Instinct flared, warning him that she was even more formidable than he was. Subconsciously, a flicker of fear ran through him.

The butler handed the box to the girl. She opened it and removed a violet octahedral crystal. A warm, gentle glow emanated from it, illuminating her face and enhancing her already dazzling beauty.

Stepping aside, the girl and butler announced, ”Transaction complete. These three will now be handed over to the Four Pillars Cult.”

The words hit Ashe like a shockwave. Four Pillars Cult?

Harvey and Iger instantly turned to him, and he was just as stunned.

Before losing consciousness earlier, Ashe had vaguely heard the term, but the speaker’s accent was thick, and he had been half-asleep, so he thought he had misheard.

Before Ashe could react, dozens of chains shot from the sleeves of the black-robed figures, binding the trio tightly. They were stuffed into prepared body bags and thrown into the vehicle.

The leader turned to the purple-clad girl. ”We’ll return to begin the sacrificial ritual. We hope to cooperate again in the future, Funeral Agency.”

The girl gave a slight nod. ”Azura Task Ranking Number Nine, the Funeral Agency is ready for your commission at any time.”