Chapter 545: Affixes

Though it was somewhat hard to believe, Dia actually had the greatest need for raw strength. Her Aqua Line Miracle was an extension of the Fist and Claw Class, which naturally demanded tremendous strength as its prerequisite. Ashe and Sonya's swordsmanship, by contrast, placed greater emphasis on technique and speed. Thus, the Ogre Gloves went to Dia.

The Spirit Coffin, on the other hand, did not matter much who held it. However, perhaps wary of his record of openly favoring the Swordswoman in front of everyone, he gave the artifact to Weiser instead.

After drinking the two bottles of Umbral Sacred Realm Potion, both Ashe and Weiser were able to channel their mana to conjure a Sacred Realm.

Ashe couldn't really put it into words, but it felt different from using spirits and Miracles. The Umbral Sacred Realm was practically a black box. Ashe had no idea how it actually worked. All he knew was that once he supplied it with mana, a Sacred Realm would rise around him.

Unless they eventually entered the Space Class, their Sacred Realms could only remain at this rudimentary stage.

Now that everyone was ready, they officially began exploring the Virtual World.

"As much as I hate to say it..." Ashe looked around at the surrounding streets. "How exactly do we explore the Distant Sky Domain?"

Sonya answered immediately, "Discover the world traits and deduce the corresponding affixes!"

She had researched countless records about the place. "Every Mirage Bubble has different affixes. If sorcerers want to obtain knowledge, spirits, mana, or other resources, they have to find these affixes!"

Unlike the Sea of Knowledge and the Continent of Time, where sorcerers still had certain shortcuts around the trials of the path, the Distant Sky Domain presented them with an entirely new test of studying the world.

"Mirage Bubbles are based on reality, but depending on the nature of their owners, the laws of each world can be different. For instance, water might flow uphill, insects could fall from the sky, or people might bleed pink or even green blood. As sorcerers, our job is to figure out the rules within them and deduce the corresponding affixes. Only then can we seize the power of a Mirage Bubble.

"Once we deduce all the affixes within a Mirage Bubble, it will stabilize completely and no longer be at risk of rupturing. It would only disappear after all of us left."

Ashe looked at the surrounding buildings. "Then how do we discover these world traits? Do we just study everything one by one?"

"There are generally two ways to do it," Sonya said. "The first is to use reconnaissance-type Miracles to spot the differences between the Mirage Bubble and the real world.

"But this method is somewhat inefficient, since many affixes have no effect on the external environment. Instead, they affect the sorcerer themselves, or even their spirits. As for the second—"

Dia pulled out the Aqua Line and cut her off. "We cause some destruction.

"Besides these passersby, there are Virtual World creatures and sorcerer projections inside Mirage Bubbles. If we cause enough destruction to force them out and defeat them, they'll drop information about the affixes.

Ashe froze. "Huh?"

He glanced at the shopkeeper working inside a nearby bakery. "Isn't that a little cruel?"

"What is so cruel about it?" Weiser suddenly reached out and shoved a young man who happened to be walking past them.

The young man fell to the ground, but he did not even look at them. He simply got back up and continued walking.

"This is only a dream. Everyone here is nothing more than a projection. For all we know, this dream could shatter in the next second, and everything would disappear. They say that in dreams, fate is an illusion, and anything can happen. The Distant Sky Domain isn't merely asking us to comprehend the boundlessness of space. It also expects us to understand the true nature of Mirage Bubbles. Any sorcerer who fails to grasp that will never progress any further."

So they were all just NPCs.

Ashe let out a sigh of relief and tightened his grip on his sword. "I understand now. Anything else we need to watch out for?"

"Oh, right," Dia suddenly said. "The first Mirage Bubble sorcerers descend into is generally a peaceful setting. In other words, the people around us will not show any hostility toward sorcerers.

"But there are plenty of dangerous settings where, the moment a sorcerer behaves differently from everyone else, they can awaken the Virtual World creatures and trigger a battle.

"Even in a peaceful setting, if we stay here for too long, Virtual World creatures may still be drawn here to attack u—"

Her words were cut short by a deafening boom from the second floor of a building behind them. A creature covered in glowing, lava-colored scales burst through the wall, hurtling straight toward them.

Almost simultaneously, a cloaked figure passing by suddenly thrust a palm in their direction. In an instant, the surrounding air was sucked away, sealing them inside a suffocating vacuum trap while a shimmering transparent barrier erected itself around the caster.

It was a Lava-Scaled Violent Slashing Dragon—a Champion-level, mutated variant of the standard Violent Slashing Dragon. Each of its scales was primed to trigger a miniature explosion, and even a glancing blow from its tail could inflict devastating slashing wounds while driving explosive force deep into its victim.

Opposing them was a Wind-class Sacred Realm sorcerer.

While the initial vacuum trap was meant to hold them for only a few breaths, that brief window was more than enough for a master of the Wind Class to weave a gale capable of shredding them to pieces.

Yet, to Ashe and his companions' astonishment, the danger wasn't just the absence of air. As the displaced atmosphere rushed violently back inward, the rushing current cut into their very souls like invisible blades.

Had they not raised their own Sacred Realms just in time, that single technique would have killed them on the spot.

In the blink of an eye, the sorcerer team found themselves plunged into a desperate struggle for survival.

Ashe had known they would face Sacred Realm-level threats in the Distant Sky Domain, but he had never imagined the onslaught would be this ferociously overwhelming.

It made sense, though. Back on the Continent of Time, a Two-Winged sorcerer could mask a lack of combat proficiency by taking the easy route of absorbing mana without ever provoking packs of Knowledge Creatures. The Distant Sky Domain, in contrast, made it brutally clear through its mechanics that there were no shortcuts left.

If Sacred Realm sorcerers wanted to obtain resources from the Distant Sky Domain, they had to fight their way through the Mirage Bubbles.

After enduring battles of such intensity, every Sacred Realm sorcerer was, without exception, a tactical weapon. Naturally, the sorcerer projections left behind in the Distant Sky Domain were also one Sacred Realm berserker after another.

Unlike Ashe, who had not yet been prepared for the attack, the others had anticipated this from the beginning.

Weiser's notebook opened on its own. She had placed a mental suggestion on herself that the moment any unexpected curse or attack struck, she would instantly trigger the defensive Miracle stored inside the notebook.

It was a Truth Class Miracle powered by an Illusion spirit as its core, named Nothing Happened.

The instant she activated it, the vacuum trap's pull vanished entirely. After a brief hesitation, she extended the Miracle to cover Ashe and the others as well.

That was the terrifying power of Nothing Happened. The illusion made its targets feel as though nothing had ever touched them. It neutralized the vast majority of outside interference, and it could even deceive death itself, letting the user keep fighting normally straight through a fatal wound.

Two days ago in the Food Factory Town, she had fallen into a trap set by a Mind Class sorcerer, which gave Tahmas the opening to pierce her heart. Had it not been for the death protection of Nothing Happened, she would have died on the spot.

Shielded by Nothing Happened, Sonya quickly steadied herself. Then, with water threads swirling around her, she charged straight at the descending dragon.

Meteor Calamity!

The moment the Lava-Scaled Violent Slashing Dragon touched the threads, it was met with the Hidden Hand Secret Blade and sliced cleanly in half.

At the same time, Dia made a pulling gesture toward the Wind Class Sacred Realm sorcerer, and the Aqua Lines instantly wrapped around it.

Among the members of this team, Dia possessed the most complete spirit system. This was only natural. After all, she was the Empress of the Gospel Kingdom, and the resources of an entire kingdom were at her disposal. Over the past few days, she had carefully assembled a new set of spirits for herself.

While the Aqua Lines remained her primary means of attack, she now held three additional core spirits named Witness, Soul Suppression, and Space Severance.

The Witness spirit allowed any of her Miracles to launch attacks along her line of sight. She no longer needed to shoot out the Aqua Lines herself. As long as an enemy was within her field of vision, the threads could sprout directly from their eye sockets, mouths, earlobes, hearts, and other parts of their body.

The Soul Suppression spirit exerted a powerful suppressive effect on souls. Its effects included dizziness, blindness, sluggishness, an inability to think, and more. This spirit might not have been particularly useful in reality since sorcerers still maintained their physical bodies to protect them, but inside the Virtual World, it functioned as an unquestionably devastating weapon.

The Space Severance spirit granted Dia the ability to cut through Sacred Realms. Combined with Witness and Soul Suppression, she could instantly subdue a Sacred Realm sorcerer projection.

While none of these spirits belonged to a mysterious sorcery class, Witness, Soul Suppression, and Space Severance remained extraordinarily precious even within the Isa Imperial Treasury. Together, they delivered a qualitative leap in Dia's combat power.

Her attack range surpassed even that of Firearm Class while her destructive power exceeded that of Sword Class sorcerers. With the acceleration provided by her Time Class spirits, she could tear every enemy apart in an instant.

Boom!

Slash!

By the time Ashe recovered from his surprise, the Lava-Scaled Violent Slashing Dragon had already been split in two. The Wind Class Sacred Realm sorcerer suffered an even more miserable fate. If anything, the stir-fried Lala Fat Ashe had eaten earlier today remained more intact.

A moment later, the Lava-Scaled Violent Slashing Dragon dissolved into wisps of smoke, leaving behind an Experience Orb and a Two-Winged spirit. The Wind Class Sacred Realm sorcerer dropped only a Sorcerer's Handbook.

The drop rate here was terribly low.

Ashe and the others did not immediately collect their spoils. Instead, they watched the wisps of smoke form two lines of text.

Through all creation runs an unyielding current; where even a goose feather yields the power to cleave steel.

"These are the clues left behind by the Virtual World creatures," Sonya explained. "We need to analyze these clues and determine the true affixes of this Mirage Bubble. If the clues aren't enough, we will have to keep looking for other Virtual World creatures in this dream—"

"Space," Weiser suddenly spoke. "The vacuum trap just now should only have restricted our movements, yet the airflow itself was able to injure us. I was wondering whether it was some kind of Miracle. But now it seems that it was actually caused by the affix. Every impact in this world produces a spatial cutting effect."

Whoosh.

As if time had been reversed, all the destruction the prior battle had caused was restored. The passersby torn apart by the aftermath of the battle were resurrected fully, and everyone resumed their activities as if nothing had happened.

Along with it, a stream of information flowed into the sorcerers' minds.

[Spatial Trajectory: The Glass Cannon is a thing of the past. Welcome the era of the Glass Space Annihilation Cannon. All attacks can penetrate space.]

[Affix Identification Reward: A small amount of Space Class experience and a small amount of mana.]

[Limited Affix Privilege: Your next attack is guaranteed to trigger Spatial Trajectory.]

Looking at the tiny fragments of Rainbow Wing condensing behind their backs, Ashe and the others finally understood how exploration in the Distant Sky Domain worked.

Kill! Brute force our way through every Mirage Bubble and every world affix!

In the first and second layers of the Virtual World, mana could be obtained simply through traveling. But on the third layer, failing to identify world affixes meant failing to even condense mana.

If they had previously functioned as workers who could still slack off while earning a basic salary, they were now independent creators whose income depended entirely on the effort they put in.

Even as a shut-in Sacred Realm sorcerer, fully condensing a Rainbow Wing inevitably turned anyone into a battle-hardened tactical weapon who had experienced countless fights and encountered countless affixes.

Ashe sighed. "I still prefer exploring the Continent of Time. It was much more relaxing."

"Mm-hmm!" Dia nodded enthusiastically. "Every Mirage Bubble is different. The Distant Sky Domain is exhausting."

Sonya sighed as well. "The path of a sorcerer only gets harder."

Seeing the three of them sigh and complain, Weiser was dumbfounded. An ordinary Sacred Realm sorcerer would have had to fight for quite some time to deal with the ambush they had just faced. These three had dealt with it so easily, yet they were still complaining that things weren't simple enough.

Unable to hold herself back, she asked, "Were your battles on the Continent of Time really that much easier?"

Ashe nodded. "We had a car there. We could just run over the sorcerer projections."

Sonya added, "We ran over quite a few Virtual World creatures too."

Dia made sure to note, "We even ran over Hero commanders before."

Weiser stared at them. "Are you sure that thing was actually a car? Because it sounds more like a weapon of war."

"It was a sports car," Ashe said. "But if I keep upgrading it, I don't think punching straight through a Legion of Heroes will be a problem either."

***

On the Continent of Time.

Following the screech of tires under hard braking, the sports car spun into a perfect arc before coming to a stop. Its front end was fitted with savage blades dripping with blood, while thick poisonous fumes billowed from the rear.

Around the car lay a battlefield littered with corpses.

With one final charge, the staggering purple figure was sent flying once more after being struck by the vehicle.

The veela inside the vehicle stood up and craned her neck out to take a look. "Looks like it is dead."

The Blood Saint asked, "Is it really? That was a Hero commander! The number-one disaster on the Continent of Time! The very thing my teacher repeatedly warned me never to approach, the embodiment of despair!"

"Yet he even lost his shoes and dropped his spirit," the Purple Moth said. "We... We really crushed an entire Legion of Heroes with nothing but this car."