Sorcerer’s Handbook

When Ashe jumped up from the bed, his first reaction was to keep rubbing his eyes, almost wishing he could dig out his eyeballs and wash them a few times.

“Ashe, you’re awake? Then I’ll open the curtains.”

Harvey’s voice came from the top bunk, and then the bay window’s curtains were pulled open, letting the piercing morning light wake up the dust on the desk. The pure golden text echoed in the cramped, dim room.

Igor was sitting on the opposite bottom bunk, reading the Gospel Book. Sunlight, scattered by the small flower-patterned curtains, trickled down onto his pajamas, making the scene look serene and tranquil. Speaking of which, Ashe remembered that the Con Artist’s Gospel Book used to be dazzlingly golden, almost engraining the word “gold-digger” in its title. However, recently, the Con Artist’s Gospel Book had started to change. Although it was still in gold and silver tones, the pattern style had become quite similar to Ashe’s Gospel Book.

What does this indicate?

It indicates that Ashe has better taste, so much so that even Igor couldn’t resist copying his social media cover.

“Where’s Banjeet?” Ashe glanced at the opposite top bunk, noting the neatly folded quilt and pillow.

“He’s gone to prepare breakfast.” Igor noticed Ashe looking thoughtfully at him. He raised an eyebrow, “Can you stop looking at me like that? It’s kind of gross.”

“No, I was just looking at beautiful women for a long time, and I feel like I’ve thoroughly understood all their features.” Ashe offered a very professional suggestion, “Igor, if you let your blonde hair grow a bit longer, your hardware would be perfect… No, you don’t need to grow it long, just cut it a bit more stylishly, and that should be enough… Igor, you get what I mean, right?”

Having watched sword Princesses and Witches for a full hour, Ashe now saw remnants of them in everything he looked at. He began overlapping their images with the Con Artist and quickly found room for improvement in Igor’s appearance.

“I get it, absolutely. You just woke up and want to pick a fight, trying to trick me into shaving my head, right?” Igor said. “Harvey, why don’t you show Ashe your spoils from tonight?”

“Hm? Ashe, do you want to see?”

Harvey handed down a box from the top bunk, and Ashe took one look at it. The lingering images of the sword Princess and the Witch in his eyes instantly vanished, leaving only the horrifying scene of densely packed cockroaches entangled together in his mind!

Bang!

Honey Sword pierced directly into the opposite wall. The next second, Ashe transformed into a streak of light and fled to Igor’s bed, sticking to the wall like a startled cat, eyes fixed unblinkingly on the necromancer with the cockroaches, as if ready to teleport away at the slightest movement.

“You’re afraid of cockroaches?” Igor couldn’t help but laugh, his mouth twitching. He threw a blanket towards Ashe.

Ashe immediately pulled up the blanket to form a three-dimensional defense: “Anything in large quantities can scare me, even Lala Fatty and gold coins… Harvey, could you please use your invincible Frostfire to burn them to ashes! What are you keeping them for, a midnight snack?!”

“First, Frostfire can’t ignite any material,” the necromancer said, closing the cockroach box. “Second, you are on the right track; I’m going to pickle them in venom and turn them into food.”

“I-Igor, I feel a bit weak. Could you inform the Red Hat and report this perverted necromancer here…?”

“Calm down,” Harvey replied with a look of exasperation. “It’s not like I’m feeding them to you.”

“Why does that sound so much like a threat… I’m still trembling with fear!” Ashe said. “Can’t you do something more normal?”

“They’re for Alice,” Harvey shrugged. “I’m preparing her for a ghoul enhancement. One of the necessary steps in the Ritual Track is to consume decomposers. Ideally, I should use scarabs, blood maggots, or corpse beetles, but given our current situation, cockroaches will have to do.”

Ashe looked at Igor in bewilderment. The Con Artist explained, “Scarabs can burrow into bodies and crawl to the brain, blood maggots can squeeze into blood vessels and flow to the heart, and corpse beetles have extremely potent corpse poison… They are common scavenger pets under the Blood Moon.”

“Pets?” Ashe was genuinely shocked. “Are… we Blood Moon people that incredible? Why don’t we keep cats or dogs as pets?”

“The result of self-destruction, worshiping the grotesque, and seeking filth, all entangled and corroding each other,” Igor said as he tucked his hair behind his ear. “In a Kingdom where everyone has a psychological disorder, you need to lower your expectations of them.”

“I’ve already lowered them to the ground!”

“If you had worked as a psychologist for just a few days, you would know to dig the ground with a shovel, unearthing those rotten, foul-smelling, twisted plant roots. Only then would you see the true Blood Moon.”

“So, Igor, what pet would you keep if you had one?” Ashe suddenly asked.

“Hmm?” Igor was slightly taken aback. “Probably… a cat?”

“Aha, just as I thought,” Ashe said, looking triumphant, which made Igor feel a bit confused.

“See, collecting cockroaches is considered normal for me,” Harvey sighed. “Ah, why can’t cockroaches be as big as my palm? Their current size is simply not enough to eat.”

“If cockroaches were as big as my palm, they still wouldn’t be enough to eat—I mean, I wouldn’t be enough for them to eat,” Ashe suddenly realized something. “Wait, Harvey, how did you catch so many cockroaches?”

“I have a spirit specialized in gathering scavengers. I returned from the Virtual Realm around midnight tonight, and since I had nothing else to do, I collected them. This amount is from the entire building,” the necromancer said. “After all, the Ritual Track in the Necromancy Sect requires the consumption of a lot of scavengers.”

“W-wait, when the cockroaches were being gathered,” Ashe swallowed hard, “did they… crawl over us?”

“No.”

Igor said calmly, “I returned early tonight as well and watched Harvey collect the cockroaches. They all moved along the ceiling and dropped into his box, without coming near our beds.”

“Exactly,” Harvey said, waving his hand. “Despite appearances, I’m actually careful. I wouldn’t let food come into contact with you guys.”

“Watched all night…?” The Cult Leader looked at the Con Artist with awe.

“Self-destruction, worshiping the grotesque, seeking filth.” Igor closed the Gospel Book with a slight smile. “Take a guess which ones apply to me.”

“Breakfast is ready!” came Banjeet’s voice from outside.

Ashe saw Harvey coming down with the cockroach box and immediately shouted, “If you dare bring that box outside, I’ll fight you to the death!”

The necromancer gave him a strange look and nodded. “As you wish.”

He summoned a dark green spirit, which squeezed murky purple-blue liquid from the air into the box. Then he covered it, sealed it, and stuffed it under the bed—since Harvey and Ashe had bunk beds, it meant it went under Ashe’s bed.

“The transformation process needs to connect to the floor. I was going to put it on the balcony, but under the bed works too,” Harvey shrugged.

Looking at the quiet box in the shadow under the bed, Ashe felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Igor, how about we trade beds?”

“No way.”

“Your bed looks pretty big, how about—”

“You can either squeeze in with Banjeet or sleep with Annan and Lise,” Igor firmly refused. “I’m allergic to humans.”

“You weren’t this picky when you were in prison!”

“Getting to know you gave me this allergy. Reflect on that.”

The three of them left the bedroom and entered a roughly twenty-square-meter living room. The kitchen was separated by a wall, and Banjeet, not wearing his butler attire but casually donning an apron, was placing six breakfasts on a folding round table. He looked like the gentle high schooler from a dating sim.

Lise, wearing oversized pajamas, was yawning and sitting on a stool, her long white hair all tangled. Ashe and Harvey were about to go to the bathroom to brush their teeth when Annan chased them out: “Boss first.”

The Cult Leader walked out to see the Con Artist brushing his daughter’s hair and asked curiously, “Igor, why aren’t you brushing your teeth?”

“I’ve already had my bath.” Igor pressed Lise’s shoulders to keep her still. “Avoiding doing things with you all is a simple technique to improve my quality of life.”

Ashe and Harvey had no choice but to brush their teeth on the balcony. Just three meters away, across from them, was the balcony of a typical mixed-race family: an orc grandfather, an elf grandmother, an orc dad, a siren mom, and a siren son. The siren son seemed to be refusing to get out of bed, while the orc grandfather sat in a rocking chair on their balcony, sipping tea and reading a Gospel Book. When he saw Ashe and Harvey, he raised his teacup slightly in greeting.

Ashe and Harvey nodded in return, then took big gulps of water, gargled noisily, and spat directly into the balcony drain.

Although roaming the Virtual Realm was equivalent to resting, the latest Ritual made Ashe feel even more alert. He looked up and saw the bright sky fragmented by the wires strung between the residential buildings. Early-rising office workers stood on balancing scooters, weaving through the streets. In the distance, chaotically expanded residential buildings created an uneven, post-modern forest. Drunken goblins lay on the far streets, stripped of their clothes, as everyone walked around them while stray dogs urinated on them.

The morning light poured over the city like oil paint, coloring this chaotic yet vibrant metropolis. Here, advanced technological gadgets were ubiquitous, but so were the grotesque, distorted cityscapes and disorderly public safety. It looked like a golden-edged toilet bowl.

This was Fidrola, a chaotic city that had consistently ranked last in every city ranking, yet boasted one of the top five populations in the nation. Known as ‘The Noise of the Gospel,’ it was a city famous for its freedom.