In the palace of the veil on the hillside, Wakey watched as Tamashi flailed wildly at the air.
In fact, this place originally only had a few pillars surrounding the Wishing Pool, hardly worthy of being called a palace. But after seeing Tamashi and the others build houses, Wakey suddenly felt she needed a house too, so she tinkered around, summoned a bunch of Dream Spell spirits, and draped pink veils around the Wishing Pool.
Of course, only spirits serving Wakey would do so willingly. If anyone else tried to catch them, they would vanish with a pop.
Tamashi was the only one who could enter the palace of the veil, and he ate and slept here as well. Precisely because he lived here, he held absolute deterrent power over the people of Senlo-in everyone’s eyes, Raven Annihilation was a mortal who could command deities at any time.
And in fact, that was true.
This was also why Tamashi was called “Your Highness,” because he really did live in a palace now.
Pa!
With the sound of fists and feet breaking the sound barrier, Tamashi’s fight looked extremely intense, but from beginning to end, he was the only one there. Yet as Wakey watched, she felt as if Tamashi was sparring with someone else, and as time passed, that “invisible person” became clearer and clearer.
When Tamashi struck out with his right hand, Wakey seemed to see “that person’s” sword hand being grabbed by Tamashi, then Tamashi twisted hard, pressing the right-hand sword blade against “that person’s” neck, completely subduing his opponent.
He held the pose for ten seconds before ending his training. Wakey immediately stood up and applauded, “Great fight! So awesome! Hey, hey!”Wakey imitated Tamashi’s punches, making Tamashi laugh. “Don’t move your feet when you punch, move your waist first, then rotate your shoulders…”
“No, no, Wakey’s too tired, need to rest!”
After practicing a bit, Wakey knelt down, panting, looking pitifully exhausted. Tamashi couldn’t tell if she was faking or not, so he squatted down and tapped Wakey’s forehead. Suddenly, Wakey jumped up, grabbed the three-winged raven on Tamashi’s shoulder, hugged it to her chest, and started petting it all over.
The three-winged raven struggled constantly, calling out to Tamashi, but Tamashi could only spread his hands helplessly.
Unlike others, Tamashi felt no reverence for deities. Maybe it was because he had arranged the fate of the Silver Lantern deity, or because Wakey was so close to him, or perhaps because of the vast, undigested heritage of Chasm Sovereign knowledge in his mind.
While Wakey was playing with the raven, Tamashi walked to the Wishing Pool, lifted her hood, took off the Black Feather cloak, removed her armor, belt, steel boots, vest, shirt, trousers, pants, and underpants, and finally untied her chest bindings one by one, the tightness trembling impatiently as it sprang free.
She first undid her low ponytail, swept her hair up to reveal her smooth nape, held the hair tie in her mouth, tied her long hair into a high ponytail, then wrapped it into a bun around the high ponytail, and finally tied the outside, so her hair wouldn’t get wet when she soaked in the Wishing Pool.
Yes, sorcerers couldn’t soak in the Wishing Pool, but mortals could. Without spellforce, the wish power in the Wishing Pool wouldn’t react at all.
After Wakey had dragged Tamashi into the Wishing Pool once, she would soak for a while every day after training.
But tonight would be the last time.
She touched the milky white water of the Wishing Pool with her toes. The temperature and color of the Wishing Pool changed every night; tonight it was icy cold. She sat confidently at the edge, dipped her calves in, stirring up ripples, then gently slid her hips in until the waterline floated over her chest, rippling softly at her collarbone.
The chill seeped into her soul through every limb and bone, clearing her mind and washing away fatigue. The cold was so refreshing that Tamashi let out a lazy sigh. She stretched her arms behind her back, toes pointed and tense, just breaking the surface. Watching her toes ripple the water, she suddenly found it amusing.
After resting a while, she picked up the towel beside her, slowly washed her face, then carefully cleaned the outside and inside of her ears, slid along her jaw and neck, roughly wiped the usual areas, and focused on the sweaty spots-underarms, inner thighs, behind the knees, inside the arms, under the breasts.
She always felt embarrassed at this point. After all, she always bathed after sweating, afraid she’d pollute the Wishing Pool and upset the spirits and Wakey. But the spirits in the Wishing Pool had no objections, and Wakey said the Wishing Pool’s cleansing power could easily Melt a sorcerer, so bathing was no big deal.
“Gwaa!”
The three-winged raven finally escaped Wakey’s clutches, flapped its wings, and landed on Tamashi’s shoulder. Seeing this, Wakey didn’t chase after it, but instantly stripped off all her clothes, jumped into the Wishing Pool with a splash, and swam over to Tamashi, waving her five tails.
“Press my head, press my head!” Wakey raised both hands and shouted.
There was one time when Tamashi helped Wakey wash her hair and gave her a massage, and Wakey became addicted to that irresistible feeling. She never expected that one day, by frequently helping Tanomoo wash his hair, she would win the favor of a deity.
Tamashi’s fingers were long and slender, her pressure perfectly controlled, and as soon as she started, Wakey shivered, her tail fur puffing up. While Tamashi was massaging her head, Wakey suddenly asked, “Were you just imagining fighting with Master?”
“Yeah.” Tamashi naturally knew who Wakey meant by Master. “Do you have any news about him?”
“Nope, Wakey can’t contact Master, only if Master comes to Wishflux Celestium.” Wakey sounded a bit down. “Wakey really misses Master too, but the Heart of Wishes Command is in your hands, so Master can’t come to Wishflux Celestium.”
“I’ll return it to him soon,” Tamashi said calmly. “I promise.”
“Mm, I believe in Tamashi!” Wakey nodded seriously, then added, “But when you train to the end, why does your mood go ‘thump thump thump’?”
Tamashi asked in return, “You know my mood?”
“I’m a Dreamwake deity, and also the temporary Governor of Wishflux Celestium!” Wakey put her hands on her hips. “How could I not know your mental state? In all of Wishflux Celestium, I know everyone’s mental state!”
Tamashi nodded thoughtfully and asked, “Then what kind of mood is ‘thump thump thump’?”
“Huh?” Wakey tilted her head. “It’s just… thump? Ah, don’t ask such hard questions, Wakey doesn’t know!”
“I don’t really understand it myself.” Tamashi shrugged. “I heard someone say there’s a kind of liking where you really want to get close to the other person. Thinking back, when I used to train with Ashe in Dead City, sometimes when we got too close, I’d get a strange feeling, so I wondered if that was another kind of liking, so I just tested it, imagining subduing him at close range.”
“Was it?”
“Maybe not.”
“Maybe?” Wakey blinked.
“Because when I get close to him, I want to push him away,” Tamashi said. “But after pushing him away, I kind of want to get close again.”
“So I think I must have a third kind of liking,” Tamashi punched forward, casually unleashing a supersonic cloudburst that made the Wishing Pool surge, “liking him so much I want to hit him. Yeah, that’s definitely it.”
Wakey stared blankly at Tamashi, feeling like Master was in danger.
“Speaking of which, since you can sense everyone’s mental state, can you do this,” Tamashi suddenly asked, “score and deduct points for everyone based on their behavior?”
Tamashi suddenly remembered, back in Black Robe Town, one night everyone started debating politics, and because Ashe casually criticized the Blood Moon, Gospel, and Senlo systems, Igor asked him, ‘You look down on all systems, so you must have a brilliant idea, right?’ Ashe then proposed a very unique plan: moral points.
He said it was a clichéd fantasy setting he’d seen in other books. Simply put, many actions in this world aren’t illegal, or are illegal but cause little harm-even if you enforce the law every time, normal penalties are too mild, and harsh penalties are unreasonable.
For the social machine, heinous crimes like murder are jarring but can be singled out, while these little conflicts and minor misdeeds, like fish bones stuck in the throat, are what ultimately corrode and wear down the social machine. Blood Moon, Gospel, and Senlo all have their own solutions, but they all use external force to reduce corrosion. The moral points system is about people reducing wear and tear on their own initiative.
“Just like in games, do well and you get points, do poorly and you lose points. You can even farm points, as long as it’s helpful to society, this system encourages farming points, truly rewarding good people. The score should be visible to everyone. High scores get privileges, and low scores don’t need punishment, because a low score is punishment enough.”
Tamashi had no other options now. She didn’t want the Blood Moon system, couldn’t implement the Gospel system even with the help of a Dreamwake deity, and had no interest in a faith-based system for now. So the only system she knew left was the moral system Ashe had brought up during idle chatter after a meal.
She was already prepared to fail, but being a fool who does the wrong thing is still better than being an idiot who does nothing.
Wakey thought seriously. “I should be able to do it, but I’ll need some time to plan. But doing this will consume Source Crystal. I have Source Crystal left by Master, but I won’t use it for you.”
Tamashi asked, “But what if I provide the Source Crystal?”
“Then that’s fine,” Wakey said. “But I’ll take a commission for Master, about 10%.”
“Deal!”
Tamashi left the Wishing Pool. She took one last look at the pool of water, thinking that from now on, she’d never have this kind of bathing experience again.
She put on her clothes, sat cross-legged, and stretched out her arm. The three-winged raven immediately perched on her arm.
“Death Raven.” Tamashi looked at the raven and said seriously, “I’m counting on you.”
The three-winged raven let out a cry, then turned into a stream of light and merged into Tamashi’s soul. Tamashi found it within her soul, and soon discovered within its body the door that would change her life-
Gate of Truth.
In that instant, Tamashi’s heart overflowed with indescribable emotions-grievance, sorrow, and also joy. Back then, she had accepted the verdict that she could not become a sorcerer in just one day, then fought her way to where she was now, making everyone who had doubted her look at her with new eyes… She thought she had already made peace with fate, but looking at this Gate of Truth that belonged to her, she realized she never had.
That little girl who, at four years old, couldn’t recognize a single character and only dared to cry at night after her younger sister had fallen asleep, had never really left.
But after leaving Senlo and escaping the shroud of Sky-Revolving Scale Powder, she completely recovered. It took her only seven days to learn all two thousand common characters, and on the tenth day, she summoned her first spirit.
Three-winged Spirit: Death.
Since it was a three-winged spirit, Tamashi naturally could only go to the Distant Sky Domain, directly skipping over the Sea of Knowledge and the Time Continent. Normally, this kind of “skipping the lower level of the Virtual Realm” was already rare, but Tamashi also possessed even rarer knowledge-how to supplement her missing virtual wings.
Among the vast knowledge in her mind was “how the Chasm Sovereign should quickly regain power after resurrection.” For an existence like the Chasm Sovereign, although He could not directly summon a deity, summoning a Four-winged Spirit was a breeze.
Of course, He could also summon a One-Winged Spirit first and slowly ascend from the Sea of Knowledge. But if one advanced at a normal pace-a year in the Sea of Knowledge, a year on the Time Continent, a year in the Distant Sky Domain… After resurrection, how precious was time? How could it possibly be wasted on leveling up? Naturally, He would find a way to make up for the missing virtual wings.
Besides that, the Chasm Sovereign had also hidden treasures on every level of the Virtual Realm. Though not many, they all included Source Crystals and important spirits! As long as Tamashi could obtain the Chasm Sovereign’s heritage, she could not only support Wakey the spirit, but among the spirits the Chasm Sovereign mastered, there was one that could directly connect to the most mysterious trading platform in this world-
Sanctuary!
All the clients in the Sanctuary were Demigods or even Divine Sovereigns!
There, Tamashi could buy resources of high enough grade to develop the Wishflux Celestium, and even alleviate the curse of the Wishflux Celestium, turning it into a true Celestium!
Now Tamashi was about to become a sanctuary sorcerer, which meant she could meet Ashe and the others in the Virtual Realm and return the Heart of Wishes Command to Ashe.
Once she found them, she wanted Igor and Harvey to see that she really had protected Ashe’s Celestium well!
With such hopes, Tamashi’s consciousness sank into the Gate of Truth.
Her consciousness connected to the Virtual Realm, and her soul descended into the Phantom.
When Tamashi slowly opened her eyes, the dazzling lights and bustling nightlife before her, the familiar clamor filling her ears, made her feel for a moment as if she were dreaming.
In the night, the pedestrian street of the small town was packed with people, countless beauties brushing past each other shoulder to shoulder. The snack shops on both sides were crowded with diners, and drunken women lay right on the roadside, snoring away.
She turned her head and saw the “Foxlamp Ice Room” not far away.
She recognized this place.
This was the dream phantom of Black Robe Town.
This was the dream of the Senlo Sanctuary.
But all the Senlo Sanctuary sorcerers were already dead. Now, the only sanctuary sorcerers who still knew of Black Robe Town were Ashe and the others-
‘That’s not right…’
Suddenly, Tamashi once again heard the Chasm Sovereign’s faint whisper. A piece of hidden knowledge flowed into her mind, and she learned that not all dream phantoms in the Distant Sky Domain were the dreams of the “living.”
After a sanctuary sorcerer dies, their dreams will also intermittently appear in the domain, but the refresh interval grows longer and longer, until after ten years, they disappear completely and never appear again.
So, this Black Robe Town phantom was probably the lingering dream of some deceased Senlo sanctuary sorcerer.
She stood dazed on the street for a long time, gazing at every passing face, knowing that everyone here was already dead. After a while, she let out a gentle sigh, and as she took a step and stepped into a puddle on the street, she saw her own reflection in the water.
No cloak, no mask, no hood-she saw only a girl in a strappy tube top and semi-transparent arm guards, ultra-short athletic shorts with a transparent short skirt over them, and over-the-knee socks with short boots-a sporty, energetic outfit.
Why am I wearing these clothes?
Tamashi searched her mind for a while before finally recalling the origin-one night, while she and Ashe were strolling down the main street of Black Robe Town, Ashe suddenly pointed at a passerby and said their outfit looked nice. She took a closer look and found that the person’s outfit really was well put together, completely different from everyone else-it was clear a lot of thought had gone into it, which was extremely rare in Senlo-very few people would spend time on their clothes.
That outfit was exactly what she was wearing now, a fashion design carefully coordinated by some now-deceased Senlo resident.
She didn’t know who that person was, but both she and Ashe remembered their work.
Tamashi looked down to examine herself, stretched her body a little, and found it was easier to exert force than with her equipment in reality, though her defense was lower and she had fewer artifacts-but in the future, she would possess a Sanctuary, so she wouldn’t need that armor for defense, and with a spirit, she wouldn’t need artifacts either-so she had no complaints.
It’s just that her appearance was quite different from reality, which she wasn’t very used to…
Just as Tamashi was about to explore this Phantom, she suddenly overheard a sensitive word from nearby: “…Could it be that Ashe didn’t realize that was a woman?”
Tamashi whipped her head around and saw three women walking past her.
Among the three, the one in the middle was a Bewitcher with pale pink hair and a thin layer of soft fur on her forearms; on the left was a black-haired, red-eyed girl, and on the right was a mature woman with a purple aura.
“How do you know that’s a woman?” the red-eyed girl asked. “She didn’t show her face, her figure isn’t obvious, there are no feminine features at all!”
“She refused to show her face and wouldn’t eat with us-that’s the biggest evidence!” The Bewitcher declared confidently, clutching her diary.
“But didn’t she say it was for religious reasons?” the woman in purple said.
“But she insisted on having Ashe’s Sorcerer’s Handbook remember her! Listen to that, how scheming is that!” The Bewitcher lamented, “I’m not even sure if Ashe’s Sorcerer’s Handbook has remembered me!”
“Wasn’t that to spread the Raven Annihilation faith…” The red-eyed girl was speechless. “Don’t just say Ashe remembered, I remembered too. Tamashi Raven Annihilation really is an interesting person. I wonder if she succeeded in her revenge in the end. I hope Ashe writes faster.”
The woman in purple nodded as well. “If Ashe hadn’t written it, I definitely wouldn’t believe it-an ordinary person actually reached sanctuary level combat power… I really want to see what kind of person she is.”
“Just wait, in a few more chapters Ashe will realize she’s a woman.” The Bewitcher snorted. “From the moment she appeared, my radar sensed she was definitely a woman, and she’ll get entangled with Ashe in the future!”
Red-eyed girl: “What kind of radar is that…”
Bewitcher: “Affair radar!”
Woman in purple: “But aren’t you Ashe’s affair yourself…”
“I’m the first, of course it’s different!”
There’s even a hierarchy of disdain for this!?
At this moment, the red-eyed girl suddenly turned her head. “Why are you following us?”
The Bewitcher and the woman in purple looked back, only to realize that at some point, a beautiful and alluring black-haired girl with a single ponytail had been following them. The latter was clearly startled, took a step back, and said, “I mean no harm, I, I just…”
“You saw we’re sorcerers and want to join us?” the woman in purple guessed.
“Yes!” Tamashi nodded vigorously. They clearly knew a lot of intelligence about Ashe-following them might help her find Ashe sooner.
The red-eyed girl and the woman in purple were clearly troubled; their team wasn’t one you could just join at will-
“Sure!”
The Bewitcher pounced over and hugged Tamashi, rubbing her cheek against Tamashi’s face, giggling, “Yay~ Another beautiful girl has joined us!”
“What’s with that middle-aged uncle tone of yours!” The red-eyed girl smacked the Bewitcher’s butt hard. “It’s not your harem, what’s the use of having beautiful girls!?”
“Can’t it just be pleasing to the eye?” The Bewitcher hugged Tamashi tightly, “She’s the first one to actively join us! And she’s pretty! And hugging her feels so nice! Say yes, say yes, please~”
The red-eyed girl and the woman in purple exchanged a glance, and the woman in purple said, “Although we can agree, we don’t know if you can actually join us. Maybe you won’t even meet us tomorrow. We log into the Virtual Realm every night at 11. If you can meet us again tomorrow when you log in, then you’re officially one of us.”
Or rather, if they ran into each other two nights in a row, even if they didn’t want to, they’d have to let her join.
Tamashi nodded to show she understood. The Bewitcher cheered, “Great!”
Seeing the Bewitcher so happy, Tamashi felt a bit dazed-this was the first time she’d ever been welcomed like this. Was it because of her looks, because she was a sorcerer, or just fate?
But no matter what, Senlo was gone, and everything she’d once fought for had vanished like smoke. Wishflux Celestium and the Virtual Realm were both brand new beginnings for her.
It was time to start over.
Just then, she heard the Bewitcher ask, “By the way, what’s your name?”
(PS: Tamashi had always disguised herself as a man, so in others’ eyes, she was a man. That’s why people referred to her using the male pronoun ‘he’.)