Chapter 29: Ashe the Stowaway

Inside his cell in the Shattered Lake Prison, Ashe watched the little spirit sleeping soundly in his palm. "So this is... a spirit."

The spirit was dressed in blue-striped pajamas and had the appearance of a human child. Ashe could feel a strange, almost blood-bound connection to it.

During the final adventure of the night in the Virtual World, he and Sonya had sailed into a white-mist zone marked

Welcome

, where they stumbled onto Serendipity Island. Unlike the Inheritance Islands, this one held no danger and offered no trials. It only had wild spirits playing and laughing along the shore.

The moment they set foot on the island, the spirits scattered in panic. Even with sharp eyes and quick reflexes, Ashe and Sonya only managed to catch two. Once captured, the spirits accepted their fate and willingly acknowledged them as masters.

Ashe and Sonya each took one spirit. Ashe received the small childlike spirit now sleeping in his palm, named Substitute.

[Substitute]

- One-Winged Spirit

Requirement

- Sorcerer must be a primate-class intelligent being.

Basic Effect

- Creates a phantom identical to the target, which shatters on impact. If the target is an intelligent being, the phantom obeys the sorcerer's commands.

Passive Effect

- Slightly reduces pain.

Signature Quote

- If it hurts, imagine you're someone else. Then it won't hurt as much.

Sonya received a Water Class spirit called Torrent.

[Torrent]

One-Winged Spirit

Requirement

- Must be near unclaimed liquid.

Basic Effect

- Fires a high-impact stream of water.

Passive Effect

- Enhances control over liquids.

Signature Quote

- Gentle flow brings life, violent flow brings change. Nothing remains constant, and only the flow persists.

According to Sonya, Torrent was extremely valuable at her school. It was a rare, high-damage Water Sorcery spirit capable of developing powerful Miracles. However, summoning it was notoriously difficult, which made its price skyrocket, sometimes even exceeding that of certain Two-Winged spirits.

Ashe thought,

What would an in-game character like you even use money for?

He almost said it out loud, but then stopped himself, suspecting it might have been part of the game's automatic progression system. He thought,

I still need the Swordswoman on my side. This isn't the time to piss her off, not with the project at such a critical stage! She's the only "technician" I've got, and she's definitely the last person I want to cross.

Hence, they divided their spoils without argument. Sonya was happy, and Ashe even more so. Substitute was one of the key spirits he needed for his Slash Me Miracle project.

His immediate goal was to gather several essential spirits to develop that Miracle. Only then could he completely break free from the control of the chip embedded at the back of his neck. Without it, escape was impossible.

He looked down at Substitute in his palm and quietly activated the strange mental energy within his mind.

After returning from the Virtual World, he noticed that his consciousness had become tangible, as though his imagination had taken on physical form. For Ashe, it was like gaining a pair of invisible limbs, allowing him to interact directly with the real world with his mind

He was well aware that this mental energy was the mana the Swordswoman had been talking about. It was the universal energy of sorcerers and the very foundation for activating spirits. Without mana, a sorcerer was no different from an ordinary person. With it, even the clumsiest novice could be considered a sorcerer.

Before entering the Virtual World, Ashe hadn't had any mana.

He understood exactly where it had come from. His mind had been strengthened with each layer of white mist he broke through with Sonya. At the same time, he gathered drifting knowledge along the journey. Through the combined effect of these two factors, the universal energy known as mana was generated.

So when he returned, he had both spirits and mana. In other words, he had become a genuine sorcerer.

However, when he attempted to analyze Substitute with his mind, he couldn't make sense of anything. Ashe felt like he was sitting in on a Level Six foreign-language exam, where he couldn't understand even a single sentence. It lined up perfectly with what Sonya told him, "

Unless you personally summon a spirit, you can't decipher even its structure

."

Since he couldn't analyze Substitute, he naturally couldn't find the Gate of Truth within it. This meant Ashe was a sorcerer who couldn't enter the Virtual World on his own!

This ran completely counter to the established sorcerer system, where every sorcerer, regardless of their talent or background, was always trained to summon a spirit first before entering the Virtual World.

From ancient times until now, there had never been such a thing as an untrained sorcerer.

A sorcerer, in the literal sense, was someone who mastered sorcery. Every sorcerer should have enough knowledge to teach a craft and pass down their techniques. Yet now, an exception had appeared.

Ashe Heath, a soul who had crossed over from another world with no training and no learning, had somehow stepped past the threshold of knowledge and become a legitimate sorcerer.

He suddenly recalled Sonya mentioning the legends of the Golden Fish and the stowaway.

A Silver Rank sorcerer who finds the Golden Fish can stow away to the Continent of Time and become a Gold Rank sorcerer. And I... I rode the Swordswoman's lucky wind and stowed away into the Sea of Knowledge to become a Silver Rank sorcerer...

For others, "stowing away" was simply movement within the sorcerer hierarchy, akin to traveling between regions of varying economic development within the same country. Ashe's case was nothing like that. His stowaway was more like climbing over the walls of a primitive tribe and sneaking into a developed nation. In essence, it was a species invading a foreign land.

This absolutely could not be revealed. Ashe knew that if other sorcerers discovered he was a stowaway, they would never allow him to live, all under the excuse of "protecting biodiversity."

He muttered inwardly,

Substitute.

Nothing happened. The Substitute spirit continued to sleep peacefully in his palm.

A message suddenly popped up before him.

[Warning: You are attempting to output mana! This is prohibited!]

Ashe smacked his forehead.

Of course... the chip that stopped me from entering the Virtual World would obviously also restrict me from using mana.

To activate a spirit and perform a Miracle, I have to bypass the chip. But to bypass the chip, I need a spirit to purify it. Damn it! I'm stuck in a perfect, inescapable loop again!

"Swordswoman, my Doraemon, save me... Swordswoman?"

He called twice, but she didn't appear. The Swordswoman remained absent.

Then he thought,

She stayed with me the whole night in the Virtual World. She must be exhausted. Even an in-game character probably needs rest. Fine. I won't bother her today.

If it hurts enough, grip with both hands,

Cut it open, let yesterday's curse expand.

Through endless night and day it flows,

Leaving behind only scars that show.

Ashe looked up and realized it was already 8 a.m. The prison's morning wake-up song rang through the halls.

Time for breakfast, and then... the Death Match Club.

***

In the meditation room of the Sword and Roses University, Sonya slowly opened her eyes.

She raised her hand, and a spirit with the appearance of a girl dressed in white appeared in her palm.

If this spirit were shown to others, it would immediately draw attention. Achieving results on one's very first day in the Virtual World was already rare, and Sonya had gone a step further by obtaining an exceptionally valuable spirit.

She hadn't lied to the Watcher. Torrent was indeed highly sought after on the Sword and Roses University spirit-trading platform. Even across all of Cailleach, it ranked as a first-tier, One-Winged spirit.

But she hadn't told him the whole truth, which was that Substitute was also extremely valuable.

Universal spirits were inherently priced a tier above specialized ones. Unless a spirit's use was very limited, a One-Winged universal spirit could sell for the price of a specialized Two-Winged spirit.

Specialized spirits were needed only by sorcerers of a particular class, while universal spirits were in demand by all sorcerers. High demand naturally meant higher prices.

So why had she hidden the truth? Because she wanted the Watcher to notice her "little scheme."

Back in the Virtual World, Sonya had already realized that the Watcher could no longer read her thoughts. At the time, she had dismissed it as a mere limitation of the Virtual World, assuming that once she returned to reality, he would be able to hear her again.

When they obtained the Substitute and Torrent spirits, Sonya didn't even need to see the Watcher's expression to know how much he coveted the Substitute spirit. She went along and let him have it.

She planned that once they returned to reality and the Watcher could read her thoughts again, he would realize she had always known the value of the Substitute spirit. The reason she revealed only half the truth and pretended that acquiring the Torrent spirit had been her real triumph was so she could ensure the Watcher accepted the Substitute spirit without feeling any guilt. This clever, almost naïve trick might not strike a critical blow, but it could at least increase the Watcher's favor toward her.

You thought you saw through me, but that was my plan all along.

The premise, of course, was that Sonya had to hide her actual thoughts. After two days of training her mind, she could now manage with ease. She had learned to control her mind so perfectly that she could convince herself of whatever she wanted to be true.

Sonya summoned back the Torrent spirit and stepped out of the meditation room. "Watcher, I'm going to shower. Give me some space.

"Watcher?"

She glanced around and confirmed that Ashe was nowhere to be seen. For the past two days, he had appeared the instant she called, every single time, from some unseen corner. But now, several minutes had passed with no sign of him. She concluded that even the Watcher needed rest after exploring the Virtual World, and his constant surveillance of her had temporarily paused.

But Sonya didn't feel the rush of freedom she had imagined. Instead, frustration gnawed at her, like bringing a cake back to the dorm only to find the bathroom had exploded.

I finally had a chance to set a sweet little trap, and he just ate the sugar coating and ran off!