The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 112: The Me from Another Time Isn’t Really Me

For Ashe and Sonya, asking about the Golden Fish was, without a doubt, the most cost-effective choice. They lacked useful spirits, true, but a Destiny Quiz would never casually hand one out. It was a question-and-answer mechanism, not a wish-granting machine.

As for Miracles, they were not short on it. Besides, since each of them had only answered a single question correctly, the Virtual World was unlikely to provide a detailed formula for mastering one; at most, it might point them toward a research direction.

Clearly, the fastest way to increase a sorcerer’s rank in a sorcery class was by consuming experience orbs. These orbs came from Knowledge Creatures, and the Virtual World would only reveal where such creatures could be found. It would never pluck an orb from a creature and hand it to them.

At the end of the day, spirits, Miracles, and a sorcerer’s rank in their sorcery class were little more than icing on the cake. True combat strength depended on just two factors: the number of virtual wings a sorcerer possessed and the level of their mana.

With a second wing, a sorcerer could venture into the Continent of Time, acquire Two-Winged spirits, and further expand their mana. Additionally, for Ashe, attaining his second wing also meant that he could use his Gold Mana to unleash the full power of the Two-Winged spirit, Earth Sword, greatly strengthening the Sword Barrier’s defenses. Attempting a prison break by then would be far more secure.

Ashe’s obsession with pushing the Swordswoman’s swordsmanship to Gold Rank followed the same logic. Once she gained her second wing, he could ride on her coattails to the Continent of Time.

Still, directly asking about the Golden Fish would likely yield only vague answers. Fortunately, the Destiny Quiz mechanism contained a loophole. Regardless of how many questions a sorcerer had answered correctly, if they asked a yes-or-no question, the Virtual World would always respond with one of the two possible answers.

For example, a sorcerer researching a Miracle might reach a bottleneck with only two possible paths, A or B. By asking whether path A was correct, the Virtual World would be forced to respond with yes or no. This allowed the sorcerer to determine the correct path by elimination. A master logician could even chain multiple yes-or-no questions together to resolve several uncertainties at once.

Indulging in wishful thinking, Ashe might ask, ”Ten years from now, when I wake up, will I see the Swordswoman sleeping beside me?”

Here, ”waking up” was inevitable, and since he could simply ask her to act it out, ”the Swordswoman sleeping beside me” had become a controllable variable. That left ”ten years from now” as the only true unknown.

If the answer was yes, he could confidently call her his wife. If not, two possibilities remained: either they had fallen out, and she would refuse to even play along, or the Virtual World predicted he would not live to see that day.

In situations where the Virtual World was unlikely to provide high-quality guidance, yes-or-no questions offered the greatest value. They never produced useless information.

After a brief discussion, Ashe and Sonya started asking the Virtual World questions in sequence.

”Does seeing the Golden Fish require a specific ritual?”

Questions like ”Where is the Golden Fish?” or ”How do you find it?” would only yield vague or misleading answers, such as ”in the Sea of Knowledge” or ”look with your eyes.”

The question they had asked was based on Ashe and Sonya’s assumptions. Professor Trosan had taught that the Continent of Time was as vast as the Sea of Knowledge. If the Golden Fish truly existed there, it should be enormous, but sorcerers had never seen it in the Sea of Knowledge. Precedents like the Whirlpool and the Exile Secret Poison only reinforced their doubts. Perhaps the Golden Fish did not actually reside in the Sea of Knowledge and appeared only after a specific Virtual World mechanism was triggered.

However, the answer soon stunned them.

[No]

Is no ritual needed? Does this mean the Golden Fish already exists in the Sea of Knowledge at this very moment?

After another brief discussion, they asked their second question.

”When does the Golden Fish surface from the seabed?”

They were certain that normal exploration would never reveal it. Even with a Virtual World map, Ashe had never spotted a trace of it. If it wasn’t visible, it had to lie beneath the sea. Since no ritual was required, they guessed it might rise periodically, and knowing the timing could help them tremendously in finding it.

Since this was not a yes-or-no question, they feared the Virtual World would give them a useless answer. Instead, the reply shocked them once more.

[The Golden Fish always floats on the surface.]

No ritual or hidden mechanisms. It just floats there!?

The outcome contradicted everything they had experienced in the Virtual World, yet there was no denying it. The ”future” in the Destiny Quiz might be uncertain, but the Golden Fish was information the Virtual World definitely possessed. Here, it was the ultimate authority.

”Could it really be that our luck has just been that bad that we never ran into it?” Ashe murmured.

As unbelievable as it seemed, he had no choice but to accept it.

Then, the paper dissolved into wisps of smoke. Their chairs vanished, and they were nearly dumped to the ground.

***

Back on the small boat.

Sonya watched the Destiny Quiz Island sink beneath the sea and complained, ”It feels like such a loss. We barely gained anything useful.”

Ashe, on the other hand, looked relaxed. ”At least I know I can escape the Blood Moon Kingdom alive.”

To him, the Destiny Quiz had been a free opportunity. Any gain was a bonus, and even without concrete results, it still counted as broadening his horizons. ”And now I also know that someday, for one reason or another, I’ll have a falling-out with you, and then later reconcile with you for some equally inexplicable reason.”

Sonya shot him a glare. ”After going through the Destiny Quiz, that future might not happen at all. Besides, there’s a long-standing theory that many prophecies from the Destiny Quiz never actually came true. The people who knew about them simply died before they could be verified. Since no one survived to confirm the failure, no records were left behind.”

She paused, then added coolly, ”If you die, I’ll submit this precious Destiny Quiz case to the university. I might even earn some credits from it.”

So this is survivor bias, huh...

Ashe spread his hands. ”Then what do you want? Do you hope the prophecy comes true, or that it doesn’t?”

Sonya snorted. ”I only believe prophecies that benefit me. Anything else is a lie.”

”Very on brand.”

”And you?”

”As for me... I don’t really care about the prophecy itself. What I’m interested in is facing it.”

”Facing it? What do you mean?”

Ashe looked at her. ”Let me put it this way. Swordswoman, do you think the you of today and the you thirty years from now will still be the same in personality, values, ideals, and habits?”

Sonya considered it, then shook her head. ”Probably not. I’m not even twenty yet. Thirty years is longer than my entire life so far. A lot is bound to change.”

Ashe nodded. ”Then, if the soul of you from thirty years later suddenly possessed your current body, would that count as the future you killing the present you?”

Sonya frowned, unease flickering across her face. ”I suppose... You could see it that way.”

”Now stretch that possession across thirty years. If a prophecy tells you that thirty years from now, there will be a Swordswoman completely different from who you are now, and that you are destined to become her, couldn’t you say that the Swordswoman in the prophecy slowly kills the present you over those thirty years?”

”Most people wouldn’t think about it like that.”

Ashe shrugged. ”But isn’t it interesting? If you never hear the prophecy, then so be it. But once you do, it’s as if a future version of you has shown up, and only one of you can survive. Either she kills you, or you kill her. There’s no third option.

”The only difference between a prophecy and a possession is time. Possession happens instantly, so you see it as murder. A prophecy unfolds over countless days and nights, with the future you using time itself to reshape the present you into who she will become.”

Sonya’s lips parted slightly, as if to offer a rebuttal, but she quickly closed them again.

Ashe went on. ”Have you heard of that game where children write letters to their future, grown-up selves?”

”I have. I even wrote one.”

”Then tell me. When an adult reads that letter, doesn’t it feel a bit like reading a will?”

”Why would it?”

”Because they’re completely different people. Their thoughts, habits, values, and ideals have all diverged. Yet they once lived in the same body. Isn’t that the latter killing the former?”

Sonya shook her head vigorously. ”No. They’re the same person in a continuous sense. That change is called growth, not possession.”

Ashe smiled. ”The moment the child writes that letter, they freeze themselves in that instant. The soul sealed in the letter breaks free from continuous time and becomes an independent, unchanging entity.

”Isn’t that similar to a prophecy? A prophecy plucks your future self from a specific moment and shows it to you. Isn’t that just your future self writing a letter to your present self?”

Sonya responded, ”The me from another time isn’t really me.”

”That’s exactly why I don’t care about prophecies. But I do look forward to confronting them. Of course, things like me chasing Syrin after escaping prison don’t count. That’s obviously about to happen. But if we truly have a falling-out in the future for those vague reasons, then it means the Watcher in the prophecy killed me, and the Swordswoman in the prophecy killed you.”

He suddenly fell silent, lost in thought. ”Come to think of it, why does love appear among the reasons for reconciliation, but never among the reasons for breaking apart? Does that mean love only emerges after the split, when both sides finally realize how irreplaceable the other is?”

Sonya snapped back to her senses, her face heating up as she ground her teeth. ”That just means it wasn’t because of love at all. It was reconciliation for the sake of surviving a shared crisis!”

”Alright, alright. No need to get so worked up.”

”I’m not worked up!”

”Mm-hmm. Sure. Let’s go kill a Fish-Slaying Dragon and liven things up.”

They went on to hunt two more Knowledge Creatures, but still failed to obtain a single Experience Orb. Sonya even spaced out and missed one that escaped. That kind of mistake was normal, so Ashe did not mind. After saying their goodbyes, they exited the Virtual World at the same time.

***

When her consciousness returned to her body in the meditation room, Sonya remained distracted for a long while. The Watcher’s words kept echoing in her mind.

Ever since they had grown closer, a question had lingered within her. Is the Watcher really the reborn powerhouse I imagined?

He bore no resemblance to a legendary figure. He did not pursue power, disliked studying, and his desires were shallow. If he attended Sword and Roses University, she would not spare him a second glance. He would be nothing more than a dull, low-potential background character.

Yet what he had said earlier made her realize that he could never truly be ordinary. Even if he was now, he would not remain so.

That madness wrapped in logic, that twisted mindset so far removed from common sense, she had seen it many times in Psychological Analysis of Criminal Sorcerers. Criminal sorcerers were not all villains. Many lived quietly, with families of their own. But once an accident shattered their lives, they shed their old selves like a cocoon breaking open and trampled over the laws of the world to pursue the light in their hearts, like moths drawn to a flame.

She remembered the book’s opening line. They did not change. They simply awakened.