“Has the Angel’s mood been this stable this month?”
Mica, Director of the Blood Prison Research Institute, sat atop a pile of rubies, gazing at the star-filled sky and recalling the torrential rain he encountered on his first day at Ruby Mountain.
Ruby Mountain exhibits a ‘gravity accumulation phenomenon’: gravity is lowest on the mountain’s surface, but once you leave the surface, gravity rapidly increases-the higher you go, the greater the gravity. In fact, as long as you’re more than three meters above ground, a sorcerer’s virtual wings will plummet instantly.
That sensation is as if you’re being crushed by an invisible, immense terror.
This phenomenon doesn’t just affect sorcerers; all natural phenomena on Ruby Mountain are influenced by gravity accumulation. The wind becomes piercing, hail turns into explosive rain, sunlight intensifies into a scorching blaze, and rainwater transforms into soul-melting showers.
When Mica first climbed Ruby Mountain, he was so excited he thought the torrential rain was some kind of Trial mechanism. He didn’t even unfold his Sanctuary, braving it head-on, only to have nearly half his soul corroded before realizing something was wrong. It took him three years of recovery in reality to get back to normal.
The Ruby Mountain, longed for by billions of sorcerers throughout history, is nothing more than a crucible-like prison.
Yet sorcerers still flock to climb Ruby Mountain, standing atop the Virtual Realm and gazing skyward. Their vision isn’t blocked by the silver mist, nor by the Reverse Golden Rain, nor filled by dream phantom illusions. They see everything clearly, but cannot see… the path.
Mica had long since condensed his own blood-gun-colored virtual wings-the perfect 7-gun, 3-blood ratio. As the oldest gun sorcerer, pure gun color was too extreme, pure blood color didn’t suit him, and only Composite Color could fully unleash his strength. By rights, he’d already reached the theoretical limit for sorcerers and had no need to push further, but he still insisted on logging into the Virtual Realm, no matter how harsh the weather.
No one knows how the weather on Ruby Mountain forms; even the most skilled Meteorologist can’t figure it out. Legendary sorcerers joke that Ruby Mountain’s weather is connected to the Ruby Angel, whose mood is notoriously unstable-sometimes sunny, sometimes gloomy, sometimes sobbing, sometimes howling winds, just like a heartbroken little girl.So when Mica spent a month staring at the stars, he vaguely sensed something was happening out of sight.
Maybe the weather on Ruby Mountain has nothing to do with the Ruby Angel, but for the chaotic weather system to suddenly stabilize is clearly a sign of some dramatic change.
Still, he wasn’t too worried. No matter how the Virtual Realm changes, could it ever shut down?
Besides, Mica’s focus had long since shifted from the Virtual Realm; compared to the starry sky of Ruby Mountain, he cared more about the upcoming annual financial meeting.
With the explosion of the Void Gate concept, all research institutes in the Blood Moon Kingdom would inevitably focus on exploring the potential of the Void Gate concept. But Void Gate Spirits are a scarce resource, so resource allocation and national support in the financial meeting would be especially crucial.
As Director of the Blood Prison Research Institute, Mica’s only real competitors were the other Four Great Institutes.
Among them, the Sanguil Research Institute was nothing to worry about; after all, Deputy Director Abyssalith had performed poorly in the Specter’s Inheritance, disgracing Sanguil. Only the Bloodcry Institute posed a real challenge, mainly because Bloodcry had produced an Empress candidate-a genius sorcerer, Sivirin Gwenn, who ascended from silver straight to Sanctuary in less than half a year!
Even though the Blood Saint’s early cultivation speed is famously fast, this kind of leap was unheard of.
Because Sivirin’s Blood Embrace Ritual was conducted in Shattered Lake Prison, all the institutes had been sending Healers there in hopes of replicating the birth of a genius. Sivirin’s Healer number “222” became a hot commodity, and at one point, the number of Healers in Shattered Lake Prison even surpassed the number of inmates.
Geniuses always receive special treatment, and even those around them benefit.
Not only were living legends like Mica stirred, but even ‘pre-Era’ old relics rose from their graves. After thorough investigation, they found that aside from once releasing a Death Row Inmate-a minor lapse-this genius had no major issues; overall, she was a good girl.
Not to mention, Sivirin was the personal student of the Bloodcry Institute’s Director. During her investigation, Deputy Director Selene was present for full supervision, showing Bloodcry’s protective stance. When the old relics lay back down, they praised Bloodcry three times, their gaze toward Sivirin brimming with doting affection, clearly ready to love her and all she cared for.
Mica’s Blood Prison Research Institute hadn’t disgraced itself like Sanguil, but compared to the spotlight-stealing Bloodcry, it was clearly overshadowed. The more Bloodcry gained, the less Blood Prison would get. If Bloodcry used this chance to secure the lead in Void Gate research, the Four Great Institutes might become one dominant and three strong.
But the birth of a genius is a random black swan event; Mica could only accept his bad luck.
However, he wasn’t entirely helpless.
Because he discovered that genius wasn’t just a coincidence.
Funny enough, Mica only noticed the loophole because of Bloodcry Institute’s protectiveness. Bloodcry allowed everyone to scrutinize their genius, but demanded compensation-the Blood Moon should open its reserves to reward Sivirin.
Everyone agreed, but Mica, ever cautious, checked Sivirin’s spirit reward list and found something odd-she actually requested a three-wing Mental Spirit!
The Blood Saint is skilled in blood spells, mental, and illusion Sects, but according to the investigation, Sivirin was purely a blood sorcerer.
Of course, that doesn’t mean much; after all, Sivirin’s senior, Selene, is a sanctuary mental sorcerer, and her mentor, though not specializing in mental, also has Sanctuary realm in it. The Mental Sect is a traditional craft in their lineage, so Sivirin wanting to dual-train in mental is perfectly reasonable.
Moreover, even if she doesn’t train in the Mental Sect, she can still use a Mental Spirit.
She just wants it for fun, to eat the spirit, and Mica can’t stop her.
But Mica recalled a small detail: Sivirin had a Bewitcher subordinate, who happened to be a two-wing mental sorcerer.
He did a little digging and found this Bewitcher was also quite extraordinary-achieving two-wing sorcerer from scratch in half a year. Compared to Blood Saint sorcerers, this wasn’t especially eye-catching, since Blood Saints have a maximum spellforce absorption rate in the Sea of Knowledge of 830% compared to ordinary sorcerers. Even without encountering a Whirlpool, Blood Saints can quickly accumulate silver spellforce.
Mica himself only took seven months to reach the Time Continent from zero, and was even killed by a Blade Fish Dragon once along the way.
While birds of a feather flock together, the fact that these two rapid cultivators were inseparable friends made Mica wonder-was that three-wing Mental Spirit a gift from Sivirin to the Bewitcher?
It couldn’t possibly have been prepared in advance; who can guarantee when they’ll reach Sanctuary? Stories of geniuses surging ahead early, only to be stuck at the Sanctuary threshold for a lifetime, were tales Mica had grown tired of hearing a century ago.
Of course, it could be Sivirin’s mad declaration of love, falling at the Bewitcher’s feet-after all, pillow talk works on women too. But Mica preferred to believe another, crazier possibility-the Bewitcher was actually a sanctuary sorcerer too.
The two of them shared the secret of rapid advancement.
If this were exposed, headquarters would definitely reopen the investigation. When a secret is important enough, even a genius can be sacrificed as a sacrificial offering.
Mica wasn’t hesitating about offending Bloodcry, but about whether using this trump card just for the annual financial meeting would be a waste. Besides, he hadn’t confirmed the truth yet; if he brought it up rashly and it turned out to be a misunderstanding, then Blood Prison would be the one embarrassed.
Better to secretly capture the Bewitcher first, Mica thought.
If she revealed Sanctuary-level resistance, she’d expose the secret; if not, then she was hiding it well.
Anyway, it’s just a Bewitcher.
As he pondered, Mica suddenly felt a faint tremor from the ground.
The gravity of Ruby Mountain is related to the number of sorcerers present. Whenever a sorcerer enters Ruby Mountain, the change in gravity coefficient causes the mountain to shake.
He casually picked up a ruby and crushed it.
A list appeared before him, with no names, only rows of colors. Some colors were bright, some dim, and the higher up the list, the more vivid the color; the lower, the more monotonous.
Mica stroked his right hand over the list, and about a tenth of the colors instantly displayed names. But aside from a handful of true names, most were nicknames, like “Stars Alchemist King,” “Gospel Flame Dragon,” “Wonderland Binder,” and so on…
“Hmm?”
He scrolled through the list and found three lines of extremely pale colors at the very bottom, standing out starkly from all the others, catching Mica’s eye.
“Newcomers? Or weaklings?”