Sorcerer’s Handbook

“Adventurer code name?”

“Death Maniac Swordswoman.”

“Gender?”

“Male.”

The camp registrar paused for a moment, expression unchanged, “Please read and confirm your compliance with the ‘430 Adventurer Agreement’ and the ‘Confidentiality Agreement.’ Here is the printout…”

“Accepted.”

“Please present your Adventurer’s Badge.”

Ashe, with a mask on his face, pulled out a round badge and swiped it across the glass panel of the check-in device. The screen lit up green. The recorder nodded: “Mission registration complete. Please enter.”

Ashe stepped into the Observation Point 53 camp with almost no obstruction. A rough earthen wall, thirty meters high, isolated the interior from the exterior. At the very center of the camp stood a tall tower, and at the top of the tower was a deep blue Whirlpool – Ashe’s target for this visit: the Level 2 Virtual Realm Turbulence passage.

All vegetation within the camp had been cleared, replaced with rows of benches. Many adventurers gathered to chat leisurely, pulling out bottles of liquor to shoot the breeze, and then popping a piece of Moon Sugar, their bodies convulsing – the combination of alcohol and sweets was a euphoric escape.

Occasionally, calls rang out loudly:

“Flame Brigade, over here!”

“Wolves of Hunger, assemble with me!”

“Falgar, Falgar, has the Coffin Carriers’ Falgar not arrived yet?”

Amidst the clamor, there were also many lone wanderers like Ashe, draped in standard-issue cloaks and wearing masks, silently observing the chaos with detached interest.

This was the eclectic scene of life amongst Warzone adventurers.

When Ashe found his adventurer details on the Curtain, he almost wanted to applaud the Blood Moon Kingdom for its superb level of exploitation – because under the guise of ‘human rights and freedom’ and ‘racial equality,’ the cost of the Conscription System was simply too high. Consequently, the Blood Moon Kingdom did some calculations and decided to dispense with an army altogether!

The Blood Moon Kingdom abolished its military 300 years ago, shifting entirely to the Adventurer System for the Warzone.

The Adventurer System is straightforward: the Warzone provides missions, adventurers complete them, and then receive compensation from the Warzone. The relationship between the Warzone and adventurers is purely contractual; adventurers come and go as they please, and in theory, they can indeed share some of the military’s functions.

The greatest advantage of the Adventurer System is that it does not require the provision of training costs, is not responsible for logistics, and does not have to provide compensation for casualties.

If an adventurer dies, it’s of no concern to the Warzone. Adventurers can take it or leave it; if they don’t want to work, they can go, and there are plenty of others waiting to take on missions. The Warzone doesn’t have to care about ‘human rights’ because their relationship isn’t even considered employment; it’s just a temporary contract based on mutual willingness.

Simply put, forming an army is expensive because soldiers need to be treated as humans. Recruiting adventurers, however, is about treating them as tools, eliminating the need to spend extra on ‘race’ or ‘human rights’ factors that don’t apply to tools, thus significantly reducing costs.

In the first year of implementing the Adventurer System, 80% of military expenses were saved.

And the most wonderful part is that the transition from the Conscription System to the Adventurer System had no negative impact on the Blood Moon Kingdom.

The reason for this is the lack of collective military demands such as suppressing rebellions, defending borders, or disaster relief in the Blood Moon Kingdom.

Rebellions are not an issue to begin with, not to mention the ‘Anti-Love Education’ practiced in the Blood Moon Kingdom. Just the neck chips everyone wears ensure that large-scale rebellions are virtually impossible.

The absence of natural disasters is also normal as the Meteorological Bureau resolves everything before disasters can occur. As for disasters caused by sorcerers in the Virtual Realm, it’s only natural that sorcerers should resolve them, as the military would be of no help.

Regarding borders, as it’s stated in the Curtain, ‘the Blood Moon Sovereign has already defended us against foreign enemies,’ so there’s no need for border troops.

Tasks such as maintaining public safety, capturing prisoners, and preventing cults are the responsibilities of the Sin Hunter’s Hall.

Thus, the military is left with only two functions: emergency troops and suppression of the Abyss in various locations. These functions can be entirely assumed by adventurers, so although efficiency hasn’t increased after the military system transitioned to the Adventurer System, it hasn’t decreased either. Consequently, adventurer groups have also stepped onto the historical stage.

As a violent group, adventurers are a diverse bunch. There are Battle Sorcerers who are dedicated to protecting the Blood Moon and honing their skills, opportunists seeking to benefit from Warzone resources, and even fugitives who come to the Warzone to make a living and evade capture.

Yes, the Warzone is willing to harbor fugitives, and the Sin Hunter’s Hall does not pursue them there. For evildoers who are desperate after committing heinous crimes in the city, the Warzone is almost their only refuge.

For instance, the Woodpecker Gang controlled by Sylin also has a Subordinate in the Lakeview Warzone, specifically responsible for sheltering members who have caused trouble. If ‘Golden Beak’ Ronald hadn’t been caught just in time, he would most likely have gone to Lakeview to become an adventurer.

Ashe, hearing about the Adventurer System from Igor in Prison, also asked if they could make a living in the Warzone after an escape from prison, embarking on a grand adventure, earning Merit while attempting to cleanse their names, and steering the bizarre journey of the Cult Leader back to the path of fantasy.

But Igor coldly dismissed this fantasy— the Warzone does not care if you are a major villain with heinous crimes or a little stinker guilty of Racial discrimination due to bad breath, but the prerequisite is that you must have a Chip.

Without a Chip, a fugitive simply cannot enter the ‘safe Rest Area’ provided by the Warzone— as the name suggests, this Area will activate the ‘attack Restriction’ in the adventurer’s Chip, forbidding all forms of attack within the safe zone.

Not to mention that Ashe is unwilling to have a Chip implanted, even if he were willing, he wouldn’t know how to get one. Chip implantation is a monopoly of the Beloved Church, and even the black market only offers purification services, not implantation.

Therefore, after the five major criminals escaped from prison and had their Chips removed, there was no turning back for them.

Moreover, being an adventurer is not as glorious as Ashe imagined, because the Warzone only accepts Merit for transactions. No matter how much money you have, it is impossible to live comfortably in the Warzone without eventually being fleeced by others, and you will inevitably have to take on tasks and go to the Aqueduct Abyss to slay creatures for a living.

According to statistics, only 25% of new adventurers survive their first year in the Warzone. Even though many of them choose to flee back to the city for work because they cannot endure, this survival rate is still quite alarming.

To accommodate such a diverse group of adventurers, the Warzone also introduced the ‘Adventurer Merit’ system. All task rewards are in Merit, and adventurers can exchange Merit for any reward in the Warzone, including but not limited to spirits, Miracle Procedures, Faction knowledge, and so on.

The most ingenious aspect is that Merit is not recorded on the Chip but on the Adventurer’s Badge carried by individuals.

The Adventurer’s Badge is unregistered.

As long as you can produce an Adventurer’s Badge, the Warzone will honor the Merit exchange, no matter if the badge is originally yours, found, or… obtained through murder and theft.

When Ashe discovered this system, he fully realized the deep intentions behind the Blood Moon Kingdom’s implementation of the Adventurer System—this mechanism alone ensures that cohesive Adventure Groups with a common cause are impossible to form in the Warzone. Large-scale violent organizations are eradicated from the root. As long as the Warzone continues to offer Merit exchange rewards, distrust will always exist among adventurers.

How could the Blood Moon Kingdom, which even prohibits family units, allow military groups, which are essentially violent organizations, to exist?

While large groups are non-existent, small Adventure Groups of five or six members are countless. Just in this camp alone, there are seven or eight.

Seeing these varied Adventure Groups, Ashe couldn’t help but get teary-eyed—he too longed for this kind of fantasy adventure life. He dreamed of forming an Adventure Group with a few friends who shared his ideals, embarking on an unknown journey, experiencing epic stories, and then retiring to a quiet life in the countryside before the age of 35.

Ideally, he hoped to meet a beautiful and sexy lover, a kind and considerate wife, a close and understanding confidante, and an energetic and cute girlfriend.

And it would be even better if they never met each other.

That is the essence of a fantasy story.

Yet, his current situation was arrest → escape from prison → fleeing the country. How is this a fantasy story? It’s clearly a crime thriller!

He didn’t even need transmigration to experience this process; he could have done it by embezzling company funds!

Just as Ashe was sinking into the melancholy of adulthood, friction seemed to arise among the adventurers.

A Masked Adventurer in a cloak claimed to have lost their badge and suspected that it was stolen by a trio that had just passed by; the accused trio, of course, denied it, even willing to be searched by the Masked Adventurer.

As the Masked Adventurer searched the first person, that individual raised their hands high, passing the Adventurer’s Badge from the right hand, discreetly tossing it to the second person while remaining in the Masked Adventurer’s blind spot.

The crowd saw the whole act, but no one spoke up; everyone was just watching. Those with malicious intent need not be mentioned, and even those with kind hearts wouldn’t intervene—after all, if someone’s Badge could be stolen that easily, they might as well give up being an adventurer and obediently return to the city to become a cog in society.

The Masked Adventurer searched the second person, who also raised their hands high and tossed the Badge to the third person. When it was the third person’s turn to be searched, they threw the Badge back to the first person.

The Badge had effectively made a full circle among the three of them, eliciting laughter from the onlooking crowd.

The trio was simply toying with the Masked Adventurer, who eventually left with nothing and could only accept their misfortune.

Just as Ashe thought this was just another typical harsh reality check, the three adventurers suddenly cried out in alarm.

“Where’s my Badge? My Badge is gone!”

“Mine’s gone too! Damn, it must have been that Goblin bastard!”

“Where did he go!? Find him quick, my Badge has all the Merit I saved to buy a spirit!”

The trio, unable to contain their anger, started searching everywhere for the Masked Adventurer, but there were too many cloaked and masked individuals around; the Masked Adventurer had blended into the crowd and disappeared. They even turned their attention to Ashe, who fearlessly met their gazes.

“Ha ha ha, I’m dying of laughter—I saw him take your bunch of fools’ Badges while pretending to search you, but I just won’t say it, ha ha ha!”

“What are you glaring at? You can’t out-steal someone, and now you’re losing face here? Looking for a fight?”

“We’ve had our laugh, now you can all get lost.”

Members of nearby Adventure Groups loudly mocked them as the sounds of their teasing echoed around. The three, shoulders shaking with anger and on the verge of tears, could only mutter a few harsh words under their breath that no one could hear before skulking away to the edge of the Area.

At that moment, a Goblin dressed in formal attire stepped onto the high platform. Tall and with a clear complexion, he wore silver-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose and a top hat that covered his bald head, making him appear like a glowing green Elf at first glance.

A mere Goblin exuding an aura of elegance (Ashe was completely unaware of his racial discrimination) — it’s unclear whether it was due to cosmetic surgery or a natural trait — but the genetic optimization technology of the Blood Moon Kingdom was second to none.

“Good evening, Adventurers. I am the Scribe for this mission, Gibot Mantlas,” the Goblin said calmly. “There are only 90 minutes left until midnight, and the camp is now closed to entry and exit. We will now move into the preparation phase for combat.”

“Being put in charge of a risk-free, gold-plating task like defending against an Outer Realm invasion, it seems this Goblin is angling for a councilor seat.”

Suddenly, a familiar sound of political commentary came from beside Ashe, who turned his head curiously to look at the cloaked Adventurers nearby but could not determine who had spoken.

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