Sorcerer’s Handbook

Ashe momentarily froze, then changed the topic: “The Tea Café is tolerable, after all, I enjoy watching beautiful women. But the problem is, why are there so many scantily clad men posing provocatively in places named ‘Mud Café’? It’s a real assault on my eyes. If I weren’t a fugitive, I would report them to the Heresy Court for ruining the cityscape. There should be legislation specifically prohibiting this—”

“I advise you not to meddle,” Freya warned. “You may not enjoy it, but we do. So men can ogle beautiful women, but we women can’t appreciate handsome men?”

“That’s not the main issue, after all, it’s a traditional profession, albeit on a larger scale, so it’s not entirely beyond comprehension.” Ashe’s face darkened. “I wandered a bit further and saw some workers at a construction site.”

“What about the workers?”

“They… over half of their bodies had become mechanical. Their legs turned into wheels, their hands into multi-toolboxes, and even their eyes had become mechanical… If I hadn’t seen them drinking and heard them chatting, I would have thought they were robots.”

“They can’t possibly be robots,” Freya dismissed with a wave of her hand. “Fully automated robots are expensive and require regular maintenance, hiring these mechanical workers is much cheaper. I recall you haven’t been in prison for long, mechanical workers have been popular in Caimon City for over a decade, how come you seem like you’ve never seen them before?”

“…Are there many such mechanical workers in Caimon City?”

“Not necessarily on construction sites, their hands can change components, and with some simple training, they can take on jobs as assemblers, maintenance workers, and other technical professions.”

Freya took a big bite of her spicy Lala Fatty, her lips smeared with yolk sauce. “Generally speaking, most ordinary people who have no hope of becoming sorcerers would change their jobs to become mechanical workers, even clerks are no exception, the only difference is the degree of mechanization.”

Ashe was stunned. “Non-technical labor is also mechanized?”

“Of course, not to mention limbs and spine, replacing the organs with mechanical implants has many advantages.” Freya poked at her bun. “The heart can be replaced with a more powerful ‘Fire Seed’, the lungs with a ‘Combustion Engine’ with stronger circulation, and the stomach with a ‘Energy Pool’ with stronger digestion and absorption power…”

“Nowadays, mechanical modification is very cheap, a standard set of mechanical implants can be paid off in three or four years with diligent work, but the effect is excellent: it allows you to have a longer endurance and be more energy efficient.”

“In times of hardship, you can barely survive by just drinking water, while maintaining a high level of energy; in times of wealth, you can have more physical strength for enjoyment and experience more exciting sensory experiences.”

“If it weren’t for the fact that mechanical implants would reduce the efficiency of a sorcerer’s arcane energy absorption in the Virtual Realm, many sorcerers might choose mechanical implants instead of the more expensive biological ones.”

Freya shrugged. “But now for ordinary people, the ‘Universal’ mechanical hand and the ‘Energy Pool’ mechanical stomach are almost necessities, otherwise no company would be willing to hire them. Most practical tools are designed with the mechanical hand as an interface, without a mechanical hand, you can hardly use any tool. Like the head chef in my college cafeteria, his mechanical hand can be connected to a spatula, which can automatically heat up, cool down, and add seasonings. His steak is particularly delicious.”

“And a mechanical stomach can eat a whole day’s food in the morning and then digest it slowly, not only increasing work time but also saving on food costs—like our meal right now, it could be replaced with 30 servings of ‘feed’.”

“A mechanical worker only needs to eat one serving of feed to support a day’s work. In other words, we’ve eaten a month’s worth of a mechanical worker’s food.”

Ashe couldn’t comprehend. “What about the Human Rights Association? The Racial Rights Association? Don’t they care?”

Freya furrowed her brows, “What does it have to do with the Human Rights Association? No one is forcing them to undergo mechanical transformations. They’re doing it voluntarily. The Human Rights Association can’t limit their freedom to transform themselves mechanically, let alone stop them from pursuing a better life.”

Pursuing a better life.

Ashe was stunned by what he heard.

He remained silent for a while, waiting for Freya to finish her meal and wipe her mouth before he suddenly posed a question.

“If mechanical workers save so much money, where do they spend their wages?”

Freya counted on her fingers, “Mud Cafe, Tea Café, Casino, Candy Store, drama voting, clothes and jewelry, bio-modification, chip version updates, Screen of Knowledge updates, ‘Rise of the Sorcerer’, ‘Virtual Realm Fantasy 14’, ‘World of Miracle’…”

After a day of surfing, Ashe knew that the last three were the most popular multiplayer games in the Canopy. The Canopy is a world of information jointly constructed by all citizens, similar to the internet. It’s called the Canopy because it has a high degree of concealment. Apart from the Heresy Court that manages the chips, ordinary people can’t find others in the Canopy. Everyone in the information world is an ‘invisible person behind the Canopy.’

Because of the anonymity, people’s comments in the Canopy are utterly unrestrained. In just one day, Ashe learned various types of racial, gender, educational, and occupational slurs.

Even though there are no mothers in the Blood Moon Realm, their proficiency in swearing still astounded Ashe, making him wish for a pair of eyes that had never seen such obscenities.

There was even a moment when he thought that rules like ‘speech restrictions’ in Shattered Lake Prison actually made sense, and that these unrestrained slanderers should be caught and reformed.

As for drama voting, it’s a special charging mode for TV dramas in the Blood Moon Realm. Simply put, after viewers watch the first half of a series, the producers will provide multiple ending choices. Viewers can vote (pay money) for their preferred ending, and then the producers will make it happen.

For example, in the comic Ashe read, “It’s Weird That I Said I Like Married Women,” after it was adapted into a TV show, there might be more than ten different endings like ‘the male lead lives a happy life with the female lead,’ ‘the male lead lives a shameless life with both female leads,’ ‘the two female leads together,’ ‘the male lead and the second male lead,’ etc. After the audience watches the first half of the series, the ending is in their hands!

As for clothes and jewelry, Ashe noticed today that even though Freya’s house isn’t big, she has three wardrobes filled with all sorts of beautiful clothes and accessories. He thought it was a female hobby, but when he walked on the street, everyone was dressed luxuriously. Even the male counter staff in the grocery store dressed like wealthy young masters.

And apart from the middle-aged and elderly, most young people are very beautiful, regardless of gender. Even the goblins are handsome, and some people even have starlight in their eyes — real starlight, the kind that twinkles in their pupils.

Obviously, everyone’s appearance has been artistically processed by a medic. But Ashe couldn’t say anything about that — his face was also sculpted by Medic 222.

The reason for purchasing the Screen of Knowledge is that updating the chip version also costs money. Most people are born with a Miracle 1 chip, which is slow, has limited storage space, and can only be considered ‘usable.’ Most adults update their chips to version 10 or higher. The newer the chip version, the stronger the functions, the better the experience, not to mention many applications require a certain version. Lower version chips cannot use higher version applications.

The Screen of Knowledge is the glass display screen they were looking at. Compared to the narrow light screen displayed by the chip, the Screen of Knowledge has higher resolution, bigger size, better colors, larger storage space, and stronger performance.

Even though they were both information entertainment terminals, the Chip was equivalent to an implanted smartphone, while the Screen of Knowledge was equivalent to a personal computer.

“So, are you saying that most people, once they earn money, invest it in sex, gambling, drugs, body modifications, clothing and jewelry, and virtual entertainment?”

“That’s right.”

Ashe opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again.

Only when he had eaten the last piece of milk egg cake did he could not help but ask, “And what about you? Are you the same?”

“Yes, but I have no interest in gambling or drugs, and since I’m aiming to become a Sorcerer in the future, I can’t do any biological modifications at the moment.”

“Are you happy then?”

Freya gave him a strange look.contemporary romance

“Very happy.”

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