Do we know each other?

Sonia blinked and leaned over to take a look, but quickly shrank back: “Introduce it, I’m too pure to look.”

The record mode of this sorcerer’s manual is a task log. It can be seen that the owner should be a very organized sorcerer who likes to set small goals and is very good at struggling. He recorded every major event in his life as a task, and even summarized and reflected on it. It can be seen that he is an excellent worker.

Let’s call him the ‘Task Sorcerer’ for now.

Task Name: “Competition for the Robbery Fire Seed”, Importance ★★★★★

Task Goal: Become a Robbery Fire Seed

Task Restriction: Only become a Temple Sorcerer within three years

Task Reward: Become a Robbery Fire Seed, and get the opportunity to enter the Silent Spiral. Note that every Robbery Fire Seed that comes out of the Silent Spiral becomes a three-winged sorcerer without exception, and becomes a high-level member of the Temple.

Task Failure: Lose the opportunity to become a Robbery Fire Seed. If there are no accidents, the highest position in the future can only be a temple assistant.

Task Process: With the rise of the Silent Spiral, the biennial selection of the Robbery Fire Seed quietly opened.

There are two other candidates who have the same qualifications as me, a woman and Frank. Frank is older than me, mature and stable, and is loved by the believers. He is the most powerful candidate; the woman is too young, but she took the initiative to expose her boyfriend who was hoarding spoils of war, proving her loyalty to the Robbery Fire. She was also promoted to a two-winged sorcerer within a year, which cannot be underestimated. Frank is the captain of the Silver Fire Knights. In order to gain more votes, he increased the frequency of the knights’ looting and successfully captured the Longfeng Castle, bringing more believers and funds to the Temple. He is highly respected among the people and the clergy, like the midday sun in the desert, dazzling and intense.

As for me, as the deputy leader of the Discipline Priest Group, I decided to increase the frequency of patrols and severely punish the lawless people in the area to gain the recognition of the believers and the high priests.

Compared to us who hold important positions, the woman is just an ordinary nun in the missionary group, with no power or influence, and no ability other than her beautiful appearance. If there are no accidents, she should be the first to be eliminated.

Until she found me.

She said that someone reported to her that Frank had intimate contact with his team members.

My first reaction was that it was impossible: we temple sorcerers have been trained to resist the contamination of the Robbery Fire since childhood, and our spirits have long been tempered to be desireless. Most of us also practice the ascetic sect, and eating sand and sleeping on sand is enough to satisfy basic survival needs, and there is no more desire. Moreover, the most important rule in the temple discipline is that the clergy are not allowed to engage in any behavior that releases desire, because once the desire is ignited, the heart will become hot, and the hot heart is the easiest thing to burn for the Robbery Fire.

Even the love between the clergy must be kept in a state of no contact. On the contrary, those relationships that require intimate contact are contaminated, disgusting, and depraved love. Therefore, the love between the clergy is the purest and can transcend all kinds of barriers such as gender, race, and age. Beasts that follow their bodily desires are not qualified to be guardians of the Robbery Fire.

I refuted her like this, and she did not continue to say anything, but admitted her mistake convincingly and apologized for her suspicion. But after she left, I couldn’t help but think, what if Frank really had intimate contact with his team members?

If that were true, then he definitely could not become a Robbery Fire Seed. A sorcerer whose body cannot guard against desires cannot possibly survive in the Silent Spiral. With this expectation, I asked many people for information about Frank and found more and more doubts. And my suspicion began to spread with my inquiries, and soon the entire temple was discussing Frank’s affairs.

When the Silver Fire Knights returned next time, Frank found me and almost beat me to death. But after verification, Frank did have intimate contact with his team member Arlancus and was removed from the clergy by the bishop. I thought I was almost certain, but on the day of the vote, the woman overwhelmingly won the majority of the votes, and almost no one except my friends voted for me. It was only then that I realized that my behavior of slandering Frank behind his back had been abhorred by everyone, and being beaten by Frank in public without fighting back had further damaged my image.

I was like the night in the desert, cold and chilling, dark and frightening. No believers were willing to vote for me.

In contrast, the woman had been quietly working, not participating in quarrels and discussions, faithfully performing her duties, and gradually gaining the approval of many people, in addition to her beautiful appearance.

The sun is too scorching to tolerate any flaws; the night is too dark to be daunting. Only the water of the Crescent Spring is sweet to everyone.

I seemed to understand something, but it was too late.

Task Result: Failure.Reflection Summary: Don’t trust women, especially beautiful ones.

Sonia reacted halfway through, “The ‘that woman’ mentioned here, could it be the same ‘her’ we encountered before, the one referred to in ‘that Sorcerer’s Manual’?”

Although Sonia’s words were disjointed, Asho understood.

He gave Diya a brief explanation of the background—The reason Asho and his companion remembered this character was because the Vortex Secret Poison originated from ‘that Sorcerer’s Manual’; naturally, it left a deep impression on them. After all, the Vortex Secret Poison could be considered a turning point in their exploration of the Virtual Realm, with their fortunes soaring like a new energy fund ever since.

In that manual, the owner had finally made an eternal pact with ‘her’, entrusting her with the labyrinth toy that contained information on the Vortex Secret Poison.

But as soon as ‘she’ advanced to a two-winged Artificer using the Vortex Secret Poison, ‘she’ immediately betrayed the manual’s owner to the temple in exchange for glory and wealth.

And the manual’s owner, until the very end, never betrayed ‘her’, a testament to a deep affection wasted like water flowing away.

“It’s very likely. Becoming a two-winged Artificer within a year, reporting a boyfriend who hoarded spoils of war, and the incident with the Fire Temple… all the details match.”

Asho crossed his arms and furrowed his brows, “It’s understandable for that manual, as the entire text uses ‘I’ or ‘she’, with no need to specifically record names. But why does this manual’s Artificer also not record her name, instead referring to her as ‘that woman’? Especially when the character Frank is directly named.”