Mage Manual
Chapter 314 - Chapter 314 Chapter 270 Life Difficulty - Easy Mode

Chapter 314: Chapter 270: Life Difficulty – Easy Mode Chapter 314: Chapter 270: Life Difficulty – Easy Mode “They should have seen my message by now…”

Sitting in the backseat of the lady’s luxury car, Ash slid his finger ring, summoning his Gospel Book and flipped to the “Mage’s Handbook” interface, where he could see the current team information in “Void Realm Exploration”:

“Team composition: Death Mad Sword Maiden, Black and White Witch”

“Location: Time Continent”

“Status: Exploring”

Before leaving home, Ash had arranged for the two of them to explore the Void Realm.

Of course, even if he hadn’t organized it, the two would have explored on their own, but with Ash’s approval, the Sword Maiden duo could use his sports car.

However, the map seemed to be tied to Ash’s game system and couldn’t be lent to them.

And, just like ‘Sword Maiden’s leave request slip’, although Ash wasn’t in the team, the team still had to allocate a share to him. Thirty percent of the Magic Power experience gained by the Sword Maiden and Witch would be shared with Ash, and they might trigger special mechanics he encountered.

The only difference from operators is that Ash’s leave had no limits!

If he wanted, he could spend his whole life not entering the Void Realm, simply freeload off the Sword Maiden and Witch and still get stronger!

But when Ash confirmed he wouldn’t participate in the exploration tonight, the game issued a reminder, “Interacting with operators is an important way to maintain Bonds. If the operators think you are avoiding meeting them, it will gradually reduce their affinity and cause the Bonds Level to drop.”

Only then did Ash realize that the game’s affinity was actually variable and not fixed once it rose. In other words, taking a leave once or twice was fine, but constantly taking leaves and staying away from the crowd for a long time would understandably cause complaints from front-line workers.

No, going to work was for income, while Ash’s entry into the Void Realm was primarily to enhance Bonds with operators.

Rather than calling it work, it might be more appropriate to say… team building?

Realizing this, Ash suddenly developed a resistance to entering the Void Realm.

Ying–

With a slight tremor, the floating car switched to another lane, but Ash, sitting in the car, remained as steady as Mount Tai. He looked at Hanna in the driver’s seat, his thoughts quickly brought back to reality.

Although Harvey and Igula hadn’t revealed a hint of information to him, the tasks involving people like them usually involved gang vendettas, deception, robbery, and theft–after all, their scope of operations was quite narrow and could be completely covered by a single book of Criminal Law.

Despite Ash’s usual calm demeanor, he had secretly investigated Azura’s underworld forces, mainly by asking around in online games. Many enthusiastic folks from Azura had educated him that there were currently ten major underworld forces in Azura, identified as one palace, two offices, three families, and four major companies.

The first palace referred to the Mermaid Palace. The Sea Demon Clan was known as the ‘sewer royalty’ of the Kingdom of Gospel, with chain stores in all major cities. Almost all murders, smuggling, illegal drug trafficking, and racial trading had to get the nod from the Sea Demon Clan, making them the indisputable underworld leaders.

The two offices were naturally the top two ranked in Azura’s local list and squeezed into the national top ten list. Hanna’s office, squeezed out of the local top ten, received only the cases that the two major offices didn’t want, the leftovers and scraps.

The three families were ancient families that had roots in the Azura region for years. Ash didn’t remember the specific surname emblems, only that they intermarried among each other, with their connections deeply embedded in important departments like Bluebeard, Red Hat, and the Government Affairs Hall, even the mayor came from these three families.

The four major companies were companies that accounted for over 75% of Azura’s GDP and had squeezed into the national Enterprise List, large enough to be considered too big to fail. Although these companies had close ties to the three families, having received investments from them, the overall relationship was still one of conflict and friction. After all, capital naturally resisted the feudal system of families–if you think investing a bit of money early on can control a successful enterprise, then you’re underestimating the alienating power of capital.

Therefore, as Ash sat in Hanna’s car, he thought about which of the top ten underworld forces they were looking to trouble. When they reached their destination, despite being prepared, Ash was still shocked by this particular underworld stronghold.

“Azura Fourth Medium Education Base”

“This is…”

“The Fourth High School, you can call it Number Four.”

Hanna stepped out of the car, pressed the car key, and the mature floating car found its own parking space.

Although it was called a high school, Number Four looked more like a business center, with each floor radiating warm and bright light, the glass revolving door wide open, with no security measures or guards checking visitors.

Ash followed Hanna inside, changing his impression again. Inside, there were no classrooms in sight, nor any teaching sounds. Through the windows, Ash saw rooms filled with coffin-like full-coverage pods, each pod’s surface displaying a holographic projection of the occupant’s name and information.

Rather than calling it a classroom, it was more like an experimental base conducting human experiments.

However, these full-coverage pods looked very familiar to Ash–it wasn’t…

“Looks like the virtual game pods you frequently play in, right?” Hanna said, “Or rather, the game pods are modeled after these.”

Ash was momentarily stunned, then realized, “Right, if consciousness immersion technology is already applied to private virtual games, then it must have been applied to more important areas like education, medicine, and research long ago!”