Mage Manual
Chapter 477 - 393 Hypothesis

Chapter 477: Chapter 393 Hypothesis

Void Realm, Time Continent.

"What are you thinking about?"

Ash was slightly startled and turned his head to see Sword Maiden up close, almost nose-to-nose with him. Their warm breaths touched each other first, and Ash could see his own reflection in her sly eyes.

In a flash, Ash suppressed his instinct to dodge with his strong mental fortitude and simply stared back at her with wide eyes.

second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds—Sonia’s egg-white cheeks began to blush like a faint mist, but she seemed to be getting into it, not blinking once as she locked eyes with Ash. She suddenly stuck out the tip of her pink tongue to lightly lick her lips, with a smile spreading across her upturned mouth, leaping over her cute cheeks and into her clear, large eyes, mixing with the tension in her pupils to create a chemical reaction that, like a virus entering through sight, made Ash almost want to laugh too.

Snap!

Just as Sonia turned her head towards the source of the sound, Ash immediately raised his fist and declared his victory, "I won!"

I’m not playing a staring game with you! How can you still act so childish at your age!

The Village Girl turned away in frustration, giving the Witch who had fallen out of the car and interrupted them an unhappy look, "What are you doing?"

"I... I was just wondering if I should step away to give you some space..." the Witch said embarrassedly, "You see, the Rain Curtain from the Golden Rain does have a pretty strong blocking ability. If I just step ten paces away, I won’t see you at all, it’s very safe! Sorry for disturbing you, I’ll leave right now!"

Diya had intended to sneak away quietly, but precisely because she was being too careful, she lost her balance when leaving and tripped on the door, unexpectedly landing headfirst. She was actually quite regretful—after all, she and her sisters had only seen glimpses of Fairy Tale prologues and were curious about the epic Sword Maiden and Observer would play out afterward.

Even though Sonia had practiced acting in front of the mirror, the Witch’s words still made her cheeks burn hot, and her ears grew warm. She quickly went over to pull her back, "You’re not disturbing! Come back and sit down!"

"What were you two actually doing?" Diya asked curiously.

"We... We were just playing a staring game!" Sonia defended, "Whoever looks away or blinks first loses!"

"Ah, Sword Maiden, you’re so childish," Ash sighed, helplessly shrugging his shoulders, "You’re a grown-up, can’t you act a bit more mature?"

The Village Girl’s face turned beet red—this time from anger. She felt her rage burning, almost tearing through her stomach, confident that a swing of her sword at the Observer would definitely score a critical hit with a Blood Flower Moon pattern.

"By the way, I found some interesting information in this Mage’s Handbook just now," Diya said. "It’s about an investigation into the Seven-colored Tail."

Just earlier, Ash and the others had rolled over another Mage Projection that didn’t watch where it was going, treating the main road like its own living room.

Sword Maiden was left to sell the Technique Spirit that burst out of the Mage Projection, while Diya usually read through the Mage’s Handbooks. Only the particularly tough ones were left for Ash to deal with. Honestly, Ash was quite satisfied with the current trash disposal system. After all, Diya filtered out most of the ’ordinary’ Mage’s Handbooks, so Ash only got to read the extra thrilling ones. Each book contained at least a dozen R18 tags, refreshing his understanding of biodiversify with every read.

Hearing about the Seven-colored Tail, Sonia immediately extinguished the fireworks in her heart, and Ash drove off to chase the White Bull.

"The owner of the handbook collected a lot of information about the Seven-colored Tail, and after onsite verification and investigations, debunked most of the hypotheses," Diya explained. "Of the known Seven-colored Tail theories, the most likely ones are the Half Mage hypothesis, the Seven Mage hypothesis, and the White Bull hypothesis."

"The Half Mage and Seven Mage hypotheses are actually the same. Mages believe that the ’seven-colored’ aspect of the Seven-colored Tail refers to the color of a Mage’s Void Wings. While we are all Silver Wings or Golden Wings, if you look closely, each person’s Void Wings in terms of color and shape are unique, so claiming they are different colors isn’t too far-fetched."

"Some Mages believe that by gathering seven different Void Wings, it might trigger the Void Realm mechanism to produce a Seven-colored Tail. The Half Mage hypothesis is an offshoot of this concept, a simplified version—if everyone were full-fledged Two-winged Mages, then three and a half Mages could gather seven Void Wings."

"There is another version of the Golden Seven Technique Spirit: only fully condensed Golden Illusion Wings can be counted as ’one color,’ and Silver Illusion Wings are not included. Therefore, seven Two-winged Mages with condensed wings are necessary to trigger the ’Seven-colored Tail.’ This speculation has its basis—Mages believe that once they’ve assembled seven Golden Wings, they will transform into ’seven drops of rain,’ falling upward with the Flowing Gold River."

Ash and Sonia nodded repeatedly as they listened. Although the reasoning process was absurd, compared to the hypothesis of the Golden Fish Poison, this Seven Technique Spirit Theory already seemed quite convincing.

Furthermore, the advanced version of the Golden Seven Technique Spirit Theory took into account the mechanism of the Flowing Gold River, the largest scope on the Time Continent, making it very persuasive. Even Ash felt the possibility was very high.

Although he had only gone through the baptism of the Golden Fish Poison, Ash had a vague feeling: the stowaway mechanisms in the Void Realm probably belonged to the ’brain teaser,’ ’obvious in hindsight,’ or ’surprisingly simple once you know the answer’ type, similar to the ingenious yet conspicuous methods of murder in detective novels.

But this did not mean it was easy to stowaway in the Void Realm; on the contrary, the Mage still had to meet some extremely harsh conditions. Like the golden fish, which didn’t require a specific location from you, as long as you could fly. But aside from Mages like Ash and the Sword Maiden, who grew up together like ’childhood sweethearts,’ other Silver Mages needed extreme luck to encounter and persuade another Mage to team up for flight.

Therefore, the Seven-colored Tail was also likely to be triggered anywhere on the Time Continent, but its conditions were particularly harsh, nearly impossible for a single Mage to attain. The Golden Seven Technique Spirit Theory encompassed all the aforementioned factors, and Ash thought this might indeed be the truth, however...

"Three and a half is manageable, but seven Mages... Isn’t that threshold too high?"

Diya nodded, "The Master of the Handbook encountered three and a half Mages by a fortunate coincidence, but despite trying everything, by the time the Static Domain caught up to them, they still hadn’t been able to trigger the Seven-colored Tail mechanism, so the three and a half hypothesis is basically incorrect. The Golden Seven Technique Spirit Theory has yet to be disproven and is considered by the Master of the Handbook to be a highly likely second option."

"Only second?"

"Because there’s another yet to be disproven hypothesis that’s even more likely—the White Bull Hypothesis," Diya said. "Mages believe that the four legs of the White Bull are the passage to the Seven-colored Tail."

Ash and Sonia immediately looked up, gazing towards the distant white pillars.

"That’s right," Sonia suddenly remembered something. "When white light enters a prism, it refracts into seven colors... That’s common knowledge among the Light Magic Faction!"

"Yes, the Master of the Handbook also wrote about this," Diya nodded. "The White Bull Hypothesis refers to the idea that the four legs of the White Bull are actually four tails. If a Mage could enter the interior of the White Bull’s legs, using their own soul as a prism, they could refract the Seven-colored Tail, and then the Mage could ascend along the legs’ light pillars to the third layer of the Void Realm."

Ash decided to retract his previous statement: the White Bull Hypothesis was indeed more convincing than the Golden Seven Technique Spirit Theory. After all, the latter required the gathering of seven Mages, something even Ash couldn’t do, unless he was willing to invest heavily in four operators, and the ending of this hypothesis was just turning into raindrops falling towards the sky; but the White Bull Hypothesis had even prepared an ascending channel, and the scientifically logical deduction of ’white light refracting into seven colors’ also greatly appealed to Ash.

"So what factors prevented the Master of the Handbook from verifying the hypothesis?" Sonia asked.

"The White Bull moves too fast," Diya said. "The White Bull never stays still, it moves forward tens of seconds every second, and its front legs are often in the breach area of the Flowing Gold River, making it nearly impossible for Mages to bypass the Flowing Gold River and enter the interior of the front legs."

Ash: "Then the hind legs..."

"There’s the Static Domain," Sonia mused. "Once a Mage fails to maintain relative stillness with the hind legs, being flung into the Static Domain, there’s no saving them."

"And no one knows whether the White Bull’s legs have any lethal power," Diya continued. "The most successful exploration by the Master of the Handbook was only getting ten meters away from the front legs. He never saw the outcome of someone else entering the interior of the White Bull’s legs; maybe they’d be directly trampled to death by the White Bull."

"And... he felt that, perhaps, the White Bull’s legs don’t actually exist."

"What do you mean?"

"Although we can see the obvious white pillars from here," Diya said. "Once you get close to the legs, the white pillars become invisible. The Master of the Handbook only speculated the position of the front legs by the density of the Flowing Gold River. He once pursued the hind legs, but turned around and was flung into the Static Domain. The closer he got, the less he could see the hind legs, it was as if..."

"It’s just like a rainbow," Sonia said.