The Sorcerer's Handbook

No sorcerer would ever question the existence of the Ascending Golden Rain, just as Ashe would never question why this world contained spirits and Lala Fat. These were simply the fundamental laws of the world, axioms that those living within it could only accept.

Besides, the Virtual World was already filled with countless bizarre phenomena, like the eternal white mist of the Sea of Knowledge, the Whirlpools capable of carrying a traveler thousands of miles in an instant, and the Grand Road that never sank no matter how much time passed. In the Continent of Time, there was even the River of Flowing Gold, which possessed the power to influence time itself. Compared to these extraordinary sights, rain flowing upward seemed almost ordinary.

During this past month, aside from training, Sonya had spent her days reading books about the Continent of Time in the Forest and Flower Halls. Countless studies existed on the Rainbow Tail, the River of Flowing Gold, the Destiny Quiz, and Knowledge Creatures. Some scholars had even researched the Legion of Heroes. Yet very few had ever investigated why the rain flowed upward.

It was just like how no one in the mundane world would wonder why an apple fell toward the ground. Perhaps someone had researched it in the past, but because they failed to produce any meaningful results, nothing was ever recorded.

Therefore, when Ashe brought up this possibility, Sonya’s first instinct was to reject it. ”How is that possible? What about the White Ox? Are you saying the White Ox is upside down as well?”

”It is!” Ashe said with absolute certainty. ”We aren’t standing beside the White Ox’s hooves. We are standing on its belly.”

”That’s absurd—”

Dia suddenly interrupted. ”It’s true that no one has actually seen the White Ox’s belly... The owners of several Sorcerer’s Handbooks once tried flying upward to search for the Rainbow Tail. They were killed by Knowledge Creatures before they could get far, but when they looked up from the sky, all they saw was the golden firmament. They never saw the White Ox’s belly.”

The Witch quickly accepted Ashe’s hypothesis. ”In fairy tales, this kind of upside-down world trick is quite uncommon. Think about it carefully. Is the River of Flowing Gold really a river of time extending from the White Ox’s hooves? If we are actually standing on the White Ox’s belly, the River of Flowing Gold has nothing to do with its legs. It is fixed onto the belly instead. As the belly moves across the Continent of Time, combined with the constant movement of the four hooves, it creates the illusion that the River of Flowing Gold is connected to them.”

Sonya’s eyes widened. ”What do you mean? Are you saying the White Ox’s true body overlaps with the Continent of Time? That it doesn’t have a physical form?”

Ashe smiled. ”Swordswoman, does the Golden Fish have a physical form? Is the Golden Fish really a fish?”

Sonya froze.

Ashe’s thoughts became clearer as he spoke. ”Yes, the White Ox is walking across the Continent of Time, but it isn’t walking upright. It is walking upside down! As for what’s beneath the White Ox...”

He suddenly cursed and slammed his fist against his head in frustration. ”Damn, why didn’t I notice this before!? I’ve seen the Golden Fish with my own eyes. Why didn’t I connect the dots earlier? Swordswoman, do you remember what the Golden Fish’s true form was?”

”The Golden Fish’s true form was a golden sea. It only looked like a fish because it reflected the feathers of our virtual wings. The scales were actually our reflections, and the endless golden ocean became the belly of the Golden Fish...”

At that point, Sonya finally caught on. ”A golden sea!?”

Ashe rubbed his forehead. ”Exactly! Others might not have noticed because they’ve never seen it, but we witnessed it ourselves! The golden sea and the golden rain. The Ascending Golden Rain eventually gathers into the golden ocean. That means directly above us is the Golden Fish, which is the Sea of Knowledge!

”If someone in the Sea of Knowledge looked upward, and their vision could pierce through the white mist, the golden ocean, and the golden rain, they would be able to see us hanging upside down on the Continent of Time. The Continent of Time and the Sea of Knowledge aren’t two separate layers stacked on top of each other. They are the ceiling and floor of the same space, separated only by the Golden Fish. And the White Ox steps on the Golden Fish while walking upside down across the Continent of Time!”

”I remember now...” Sonya murmured. ”When we passed through the Golden Fish, it didn’t feel like we were rising upward from below. It felt like we were falling downward from above... I was simply too excited back then to notice.”

Ashe lowered his voice. ”There were too many things we overlooked. So many clues were always right in front of us, such as the ascending rain and the Golden Fish, and...”

He paused. ”The Continent of Time had too many new and fascinating things distracting us. The Legion of Heroes, the Legendary Library, the Miracle Paradise, the White Ox’s hooves. We were far more interested in these rare wonders. In the end, we ignored the miracles that had always been right before our eyes.”

Dia added from the side, ”If that’s true... then the so-called Rainbow Tail isn’t above us, but below us?”

Ashe nodded. ”The River of Flowing Gold. The only passage downward from the Continent of Time is the River of Flowing Gold.”

Sonya and Dia turned the concept over in their minds, and neither could find a single flaw in his reasoning.

The River of Flowing Gold also matched the characteristic Ashe had mentioned before. It could be found anywhere, completely free of geographical restrictions. Even an ordinary sorcerer only needed to walk in one direction long enough to eventually stumble upon a branch of the river.

Yet no one had ever attempted to explore it. They feared death, certainly, but they feared aging even more.

Birth, aging, sickness, and death all carried their own terrors, yet ordinary sorcerers had already escaped the first three. The only inevitable end they could not escape was death.

The River of Flowing Gold, however, could make a sorcerer experience the crushing weight of centuries within mere seconds. Their reactions would slow, their thoughts would rust, their souls would wither, and their consciousness would sink into absolute silence.

Those who had never experienced it could hardly understand the deep terror sorcerers held toward the River of Flowing Gold. The reason Ashe and the others never went there to search for spirits was not merely because the rewards failed to justify the effort. They stayed away because they were afraid, and because they were entirely unwilling to go.

The helplessness of being crushed by time was overwhelming, as if one’s entire body had turned into withered branches and fallen leaves, powerless, fragile, and ready to scatter at the slightest touch.

Unless they were sorcerers who specifically studied the Time Class, no one would ever bathe in the River of Flowing Gold, let alone dive into it. Under normal circumstances, sorcerers would dissolve into the waters. A few seconds inside would be enough for them to completely melt away.

Ashe said, ”We have the Six-Colored Anchor. Its 100% anchoring effect allows us to become immune to all damage, including the erosion of time from the River of Flowing Gold.”

Dia suddenly noticed an inconsistency. ”Yet wouldn’t this make it far too difficult? The Golden Fish was also difficult to find, but that difficulty came from the mind. Once someone saw through the Golden Fish’s trick and found another sorcerer to help them, they could easily fly across it.”

She frowned. ”The Six-Colored Anchor was only obtained because you plundered the Conjuring spirits from six different factions, Watcher. Normally, this is a reward that can only be obtained by killing Hero commanders. Can other sorcerers really satisfy this prerequisite? If no one in the past was able to achieve this condition, how did the legend of the Rainbow Tail ever spread?”

”There are two possibilities,” Sonya replied. ”The first is that the Hero commanders existed during a period when they were extremely weakened. At that time, ordinary sorcerers might have had a chance to kill them...”

She paused. ”This possibility is not unlikely. After they finish this war, their military strength will inevitably fall to its lowest point. Killing them then would definitely be much easier than it is now.”

”And the second possibility...” Sonya hesitated. ”The legend of the Rainbow Tail might have existed long before the Hero commanders appeared.”

Ashe and Dia both looked confused. Dia asked, ”Without Hero commanders, how could they obtain the Conjuring spirits? Without those, how could they obtain the Six-Colored Anchor?”

Sonya asked, ”Do you remember the Chaotic Shopping Guide of Blessings and Curses? I went back and looked into the Dramatic Poet. I discovered that many sorcerers had encountered the legacies he left behind. After careful research, they concluded that the Dramatic Poet did not truly create new Virtual World structures out of nothing. Instead, he modified existing Virtual World structures and used them as his own.”

”Modified?”

”The Dramatic Poet’s buildings might have originally been Resource Points, Miracle Paradises, windmills, arenas, and Amnesia Cabins. Because the foundations of his creations were originally Virtual World structures, the Virtual World itself continued maintaining them. That is why his creations still remain intact and continue to exist, decades after his disappearance.”

Ashe caught on. ”You mean the six colors of the Six-Colored Anchor...”

Sonya grabbed onto Ashe’s sleeve, calmly analyzing the situation. ”The six Divine Lords each seized control of one color. They used those colors as their foundation to develop their faction capitals and the Legion of Heroes. That is why we need to kill Hero commanders to obtain their colors. Before the Legion of Heroes’ factions appeared, those six colors might have been common mechanisms scattered throughout the Continent of Time.”

The Era Calendar only recorded 1,668 years of history, so Sonya naturally did not believe that the Divine Lords had existed since ancient times. Yet imagining a past before even the Divine Lords existed was still extremely difficult for her. It gave her an inexplicable sense of panic, as if it contradicted everything she knew about the world.

Dia added, ”Ah, I once read a fairy tale that described a very interesting concept. There was a Nameless Purple Monument, and anyone who appeared before it would have their past displayed on the monument in the form of purple words. Everyone except the person themselves would forget those memories, yet that person could imprint those purple words onto their own body. Each word would transform into an equal amount of golden sand...”

”In the sorcerer world, gold usually represents Gold Wing,” Sonya said. ”If this was truly a Virtual World mechanism, the meaning of this setting would be that someone could exchange their own past for a rapid increase in Gold Mana. It is an effect similar to the Whirlpool!”

Ashe responded, ”Speaking of which, I’ve always wondered why the Continent of Time doesn’t have a mechanism similar to the Whirlpool. If the Divine Lords stole these mechanisms, everything makes sense.

”Compared to the Divine Lords, the Dramatic Poet’s work is nothing. The Dramatic Poet merely left behind legacies for future generations, while the Divine Lords left behind an eternal war within the Virtual World that has continued for thousands of years and may continue forever!”

”River of Flowing Gold, Nameless Purple Monument...” Ashe could not help but laugh, a strange light flashing in his eyes. ”The Continent of Time we see now is merely a world shattered into fragments. Exactly. The Virtual World is like a table filled with countless delicacies at a grand feast. How could it possibly be that nobody has touched anything?”

Dia summarized, ”In other words... long ago, the Continent of Time had six mechanisms similar to the River of Flowing Gold. At that time, sorcerers only needed to find a way to gather all six colors and then jump into the River of Flowing Gold to discover the Rainbow Tail. It’s not until the Divine Lords arrived that the Continent of Time became what it is now.”

Sonya said, ”That is the most reasonable explanation, and the best one we can come up with for now.”

”Then...” Ashe stepped out of the car and waved toward them. ”Let’s go.”

A veil-like armor of six colors gently wrapped around their bodies, making them appear even more dazzling and beautiful. As for Ashe, wearing the six-colored armor made him look rather strange. He resembled an infamous cult leader who committed countless crimes yet had somehow developed a liking for sparkling, colorful capes.

The three of them crossed through the rain curtain and arrived beside the River of Flowing Gold.

The Time Class spirits swimming within the river looked at them curiously. Dazzled by the light radiating from their bodies, the creatures quietly slipped away along the current.

Ashe had originally planned to casually capture a few Time Class spirits. Seeing how they had abandoned their usual hospitality and fled from them, he lost the desire to chase after them. Without looking at his companions, he walked directly to the edge of the River of Flowing Gold. Seeing that the armor around him continued functioning normally and his senses remained unaffected, he let out a quiet breath of relief.

He lightly touched the surface of the river with his toes, creating ripples, before stepping into the River of Flowing Gold.

As he sank entirely into the water, the river itself became tainted by the armor surrounding him. Like paint spreading across a canvas, the entire River of Flowing Gold gradually transformed into a dazzling spectrum of colors.

At a glance, it looked exactly like a Rainbow Tail.