According to the situation of Asho and Sonia, asking the Golden Fish is undoubtedly the most cost-effective choice.

Although they lack Artisans, fate cannot directly throw an Artisan at them. This is a Q&A session, not a wish-granting machine.

As for Miracles, they don’t really lack them, and based on their number of answers, the Virtual Realm is unlikely to provide a detailed Miracle spell. At most, it will point them in a specific direction for Miracle research.

As for how to quickly improve their proficiency in the Artificing faction, the fastest method is undoubtedly to absorb Experience Pearls. However, Experience Pearls come from Knowledge Beasts, and the Virtual Realm can only point out where suitable Knowledge Beasts can be found. It cannot directly take out a pearl from a Knowledge Beast.

After much thought, they realized that Artisans, Miracles, and faction proficiency were all just icing on the cake. What truly determines an Artificer’s combat power is the number of Virtual Wings and the level of Artificing!

As long as they reach the Second Wing, they can adventure in the Time Continent and obtain Second Wing Artisans!

As long as they reach the Second Wing, their Artificing power will continue to grow!

As long as they reach the Second Wing, Asho can use his Golden Artificing power to greatly enhance the defense of the Miracle “Sword Body Barrier” by fully activating the Second Wing Artisan “Earth Sword”. This will provide more security for their escape!

Asho is so eager to feed the Sword Girl’s Sword faction to the Golden level because he hopes that she will take him to the Time Continent after reaching the Second Wing. And now, there is an even better opportunity for them to escape!

However, directly asking about the Golden Fish’s situation, the Virtual Realm will definitely not provide a detailed answer.

However, there is an obvious loophole in the Q&A session: regardless of the number of correct answers given by the Artificer, if the question asked belongs to a true or false judgment, the Virtual Realm will definitely provide the correct answer!

For example, if an Artificer is researching a certain Miracle and encounters a bottleneck, and has tried all possibilities and only two research directions, A and B, are left, then if they ask the Virtual Realm if direction A is correct, the Virtual Realm can only answer “yes” or “no”, and they will naturally know the correctness of direction B as well.

If one is a master of logic, they can even construct a complex true or false question to eliminate multiple doubts for themselves.

For example, if Asho wants to know if he will wake up one day ten years later and see the Sword Girl sleeping next to him, the key elements are “one day ten years later,” “wake up,” and “Sword Girl sleeping next to him.”

“Waking up” is a necessary element, as Asho cannot stay in the Virtual Realm every night. Sleeping in is a luxurious and wonderful enjoyment, and Asho definitely wants to experience it occasionally.

And “Sword Girl sleeping next to him” is a controllable element. Asho can remember this and ask her to act and sleep next to him in the future.

The only uncontrollable element is “one day ten years later.”

If the Virtual Realm answers “yes,” then there is nothing more to say. Asho can confidently call the Sword Girl his wife.

If the answer is “no,” then there are two possibilities: either Asho and the Sword Girl have already fallen out by then, so the Sword Girl refuses to act; or the Virtual Realm believes that Asho will not live to see that day.

Therefore, when the Virtual Realm is stingy with the quality of its answers, asking true or false questions is the most cost-effective choice, as it will at least not provide invalid information.

After a brief discussion, they decided to ask different questions to the Virtual Realm:

“Does the Golden Fish need a specific ritual to be seen?”

Questions like “Where is the Golden Fish?” or “How can we find the Golden Fish?” are absolutely impossible to get detailed answers to. The Virtual Realm will most likely answer with correct but useless information like “in the Knowledge Sea” or “look with your eyes.”

These two questions actually stem from Asho and Sonia’s speculation. Sonia asked Professor Teluozan and learned that the Time Continent is also a very vast place, not much smaller than the Knowledge Sea. Logically speaking, if the Time Continent is so big, then the Golden Fish must also be very large. But why can’t Artificers see the Golden Fish in the Knowledge Sea?

Based on the lessons of “Vortex Poison” and “Exile Poison,” they naturally thought that the Golden Fish probably “does not exist” in the Knowledge Sea. Only when an Artificer activates the Virtual Realm mechanism through a specific ritual will the Golden Fish appear before them.

However, the answer surprised them: “No.”

The Golden Fish doesn’t need a specific ritual to be seen? Does that mean the Golden Fish is currently present in the Knowledge Sea?

After a brief discussion, they asked a second question:

“When does the Golden Fish float up from the sea floor?”

Regardless, Asho and Sonia were certain that it was impossible to encounter the Golden Fish through normal navigation. After all, even Asho, who held the “Virtual Realm Map,” had never seen the Golden Fish. It was even more impossible for other Artificers to find it.

If it’s not on the surface, then it must be submerged. Plus, since the Golden Fish doesn’t require a specific ritual to be seen, they speculated that the Golden Fish might periodically float from the deep sea to the surface. So they directly asked when the Golden Fish floats up, and they would try their luck then.

Because it wasn’t a true or false question, they were nervous that the Virtual Realm might give a random answer.

The result once again surprised them: “The Golden Fish is always floating on the sea surface.”

The Golden Fish is always floating on the sea surface, and it can be seen without a specific ritual?

Although this conclusion completely contradicted Asho and Sonia’s experience in exploring the Virtual Realm, they had no choice but to believe it. If the “future” mentioned by fate might not happen, but the Golden Fish they asked about is information that the Virtual Realm must know, and the Virtual Realm is an authority in this regard!

“Could it be that we just have bad luck, so we’ve never encountered the Golden Fish?”

Although it was hard to believe, Asho could only accept this conclusion. At this moment, the paper turned into light smoke and dissipated, and their chairs suddenly disappeared, almost causing them to fall to the ground.Back on the boat, Sonia looked at the sinking Fate Q&A Island and sighed, “I feel like we gained nothing useful.”

“At least I know I can escape from the Blood Moon Kingdom alive,” Asho said with a relaxed expression. In his eyes, the Fate Q&A was just an opportunity that came for free. It was good to gain something from it, but if not, it was still an eye-opening experience. “And in the future, we might break up for various reasons and then reconcile again—”

“After experiencing the Fate Q&A, the future is uncertain!” Sonia glared at him. “There is a saying that many prophecies in the Fate Q&A have not come true because the people who knew about them died before they were fulfilled, so no one knows about these failed prophecies, and there are no records.”

“If you die, I will report this precious case about the Fate Q&A to the school. Maybe I can earn some credits…”

The Survivor Theory is not bad… Asho shrugged. “So, do you want the prophecies to come true or not?”

Sonia snorted. “I only believe in prophecies that benefit me. Anything that is not beneficial is a lie.”

“No wonder it’s you.”

“What about you?”

“As for me… how should I put it… I don’t care about the prophecies themselves, but I look forward to confronting them.”

“Confronting? What do you mean?”

“Well, let me think about how to explain it to you… Sword Girl, do you think the current you and the you thirty years from now will be the same in terms of personality, values, ideals, and habits?”

Sonia thought for a moment and shook her head. “They should be different. I’m not even twenty now, and thirty years is longer than the time I’ve been alive. There will definitely be many changes.”

Asho nodded. “Then, if the soul of the you thirty years from now suddenly occupies your current body, can it be considered that the you thirty years from now has killed the present you?”

Sonia furrowed her brows slightly, feeling a little uneasy. “Can it be counted like that?”

“Extend the ‘occupation process’ to thirty years. Through the prophecy, you know that there will be a Sword Girl in thirty years who is completely different from you in all aspects. And you will inevitably become the Sword Girl in the prophecy. Can it be considered that the prophecy’s Sword Girl slowly kills you over thirty years?”

“…Generally speaking, no one would think like that.”

“But don’t you find it interesting?” Asho spread his hands. “If you didn’t know about the prophecy, it would be fine. But now that you know, it’s like there is a ‘future you’ appearing. Only one of you can survive, either he kills you or you kill him. There is no second possibility.”

“The only difference between ‘prophecy’ and ‘occupation’ is the length of time. ‘Occupation’ is instantaneous, so you think it’s the ‘future Sword Girl’ killing the ‘present you.’ But ‘prophecy’ is a long process of days and nights, where the ‘future you’ uses time to carve the ‘present you’ into their own image.”

Sonia’s lips moved, wanting to say something but didn’t. It seemed like she was thinking about how to refute it. Asho continued to ask:

“Have you heard of a game where children write a letter to their future selves when they are young?”

“Yes, I have written one too.”

“Do you think that when the grown-up receives the letter, they would consider it a farewell letter?”

“Why would they think that?”

“Because they are completely different people, with different thoughts, habits, values, and ideals. But they once lived in the same body. Isn’t it the latter killing the former?”

Sonia shook her head repeatedly. “But they are the same person in continuous time. This kind of change is called growth, not occupation!”

Asho smiled. “When a child writes the letter, it freezes the current moment of themselves on the paper. The soul on the letter separates from the continuous time and becomes an independent and unchanging individual.”

“Isn’t this similar to prophecies? Prophecies take the future you from a certain point in time and show it to you. Isn’t that the future you writing a letter to the present you?”

“Different versions of yourself are not yourself.”

“So, I don’t care about prophecies, but I look forward to confronting them. Of course, things like me causing trouble for Xilin after escaping from prison are not considered prophecies. But if we really break up for those inexplicable reasons in the future, it means that the observer in the prophecy killed me, and the Sword Girl in the prophecy killed you.”

Suddenly, Asho fell into deep thought. “It’s strange. Why is there love in the reasons for reconciliation, but no broken feelings in the reasons for breaking up? Does it mean that love only emerges after the break-up, and both sides realize that they are indispensable to each other—”

Sonia blushed and gritted her teeth. “That means it’s not because of love, but because of the common crisis that we reconcile!”

“Okay, okay, don’t be so impatient.”

“I’m not impatient!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re right. Let’s go hunt a fish dragon to liven up the atmosphere.”

They hunted two knowledge creatures, but they didn’t drop any experience pearls. Sonia also missed intercepting the fleeing knowledge creature due to her distraction. However, Asho didn’t mind this kind of mistake, and after bidding farewell, they both exited the Virtual Realm at the same time.

…

…

Back in the meditation room, Sonia took a long time to recover. The words of the observer kept echoing in her mind.

In fact, after getting closer to the observer, Sonia couldn’t help but have doubts—was the observer really the powerful resurrected being she imagined?

Mainly because the observer didn’t resemble a legendary figure in any aspect. They didn’t pursue power, didn’t love learning, and didn’t even have deep desires. If they were placed in Sword Flower University, this kind of person with no potential would not even be given a second glance by Sonia.But the comments from the observer just now made Sonia realize that he could never be an ordinary person. Even if he is now, he won’t be in the future.

That madness wrapped in logic, the wickedness that is vastly different from common sense, Sonia had seen many times in “Psychoanalysis of Sinful Artificers”. Sinful artificers are not all villains, many of them are even willing to lead a mundane life with a family. But once their lives are disrupted by accidents, they would shed their ‘old selves’ like a pupa transforming into a butterfly, daring to trample all laws of the world and chase the light in their hearts like a moth to a flame.

She recalled the opening words of that book—

“They haven’t changed, they’ve just awakened.”