This battle with the Heroic Soul Legion really exhausted Ash and his men.
Not only Ash, who led the battle from the beginning to the end, but also Sonya and Diya, who spent most of the time as cheerleaders, were equally tired. They hid in the car, enduring the danger of sudden death at any time, and had to fight the dizziness and shock brought by the speeding car. Their minds had no time to relax... just like a spring that has been stretched tight, the aftermath of the potential energy has not yet ended, and they have not yet walked out of the thrilling battle just now.
Even though Ash and the others had experienced dangerous battles before, they were only dangerous at best, and the magicians still had room to maneuver. However, this time, there was no room for error in the battle with the Heroic Soul Legion. As long as the sports car exploded, they would not be able to fight against the Heroic Soul Legion.
They have been testing the brink of death.
Using the terrain to set traps, poisoning the Thousand-Feathered Bird Dragon in the midst of thousands of troops, grinding down the Serpent Star Swordsman, fighting with the Heroic Spirit until the last second... Compared to this battle, beheading fish dragons can be regarded as a leisure activity to relax.
After sitting for a while, Ash and Sonia recovered. But they still sat against the sports car, not thinking of standing up, like slacking off employees who need to go to the toilet for 15 minutes at a time.
They were not lazy, of course. Exploring the virtual world was like working for yourself, and self-employed entrepreneurs who earned more for more work were very enthusiastic about their work. The reason they sat still was because they were waiting for the witch to rest.
Sonia, who usually loves to chatter, didn't say a word at this time. Her legs wrapped in black stockings were folded lazily, and she hummed softly from her nose, as if she was lying in bed.
But she kept observing Diya's colorful clothes like a clown's out of the corner of her eye, with a hint of worry in her eyes.
Yaxiu's acting skills were not as good as Sonia's, so he sat very stiffly, trying to observe Diya's chaotic hair color that looked like a paint tray had been overturned with the corner of his eyes. His left hand was still holding Diya's wrist to prevent any accidents.
After killing the Heroic Spirit, Ash and Sonia reached a consensus through eye contact - the witch's condition was not good.
They saw clearly that as the battle became more and more critical, the witch's hair color became more and more mixed, and even her voice changed. The witch spoke in a quartet, as if four different people were talking, and her hair kept changing colors. No matter how you look at it, it was a very bad sign.
Resting is certainly a way to relax after the battle, but it is also a natural way to treat the witch. They can all guess that the witch's strange condition must be related to her "sisters", but the spiritual problem is completely beyond their ability, and their magic miracles are useless.
Fortunately, both Ash and the other man have reached the silver level of the psychological faction realm. Even though they have not read many psychology books, when they encounter such special events involving mental changes, they can generate the correct action intuition - do not disturb the witch, let her calm down slowly.
If it were the old Sonia, she would definitely ask the witch indirectly how she felt; as for Ash, he would be even more amazing, he would most likely ask "Have you ever considered shaving your head?"
But because of the knowledge intuition brought by the realm of the mind faction, they were able to nip in the bud those thoughts that would have made the situation even more irreversible.
Only the ignorant are fearless; knowledge teaches people to be reverent.
Perhaps the atmosphere they created was really good, the witch also sat down lazily, closed her eyes next to the sports car. Her clothes slowly turned back to black, and her long hair gradually faded away from the cheap fantasy colors, and soon returned to the pure color of the secret princess.
She fell asleep.
It was the first time for Ash and Sonia to see someone sleeping in the virtual world. The two of them quietly surrounded the witch and looked at her eyebrows, lips, nose, eyelashes, and glasses for a long time. You don't know until you see it, and you will be shocked. Although the witch is usually very beautiful, the sleeping witch looks more quiet, like a timid little deer, making people want to pinch her cheeks.
When Ash tried to look over her neck to explore the curves under her clothes, Sonia reached out and grabbed his chin, turning his gaze to meet hers.
You come and wake her up.
Why, you come?
I just met her, you are more suitable.
You are a woman, you are more suitable.
It's not suitable for women.
Why?
Are you a woman or am I a woman? Don't women know women yet?
You... what you said does make a lot of sense.
Ash was completely defeated in this eye-to-eye debate and had to perform his hated alarm clock duties. But since Sword Princess was so unwilling, he would not be polite!
Pinch~
Ash reached out and pinched the witch's chubby face, which felt very good. It is said that the virtual body will accurately reflect the real body, so you can feel the soft flesh. Apart from anything else, this touch completely healed Ash's fatigue from the previous round of battle... It turns out that a girl's face is so soft!
"Hello!"
Sonia chopped Ash's hand off with her knife: "You are harassing me!"
"I'm waking her up! According to relevant research, attacking the face is the most effective way to wake someone up. For example, a slap in the face will definitely wake someone up."
"Then slap her!"
My goodness, even the dumbest, most stubborn and most loyal college roommate I knew was not as cruel as you. Only my brother could do such a thing.
"ah?"
Diya, who was woken up by the pinch, rubbed her eyes subconsciously and looked at the two of them blankly: "Hey? You... are here... but why... am I dreaming?"
Sonia immediately reached out and pinched her face hard into a big pancake: "You just fell asleep! Wake up, we are still in the virtual world!"
“Oh oh oh!” Diya nodded heavily: “Yes, I remember now, we defeated the Heroic Soul Legion… We actually won, great, great!”
The witch immediately got excited and hugged Sword Girl to celebrate. Ash was very moved and stretched out his hands, trying to join the girls' celebration hug, but Sword Girl pushed him away. However, the witch noticed Ash's action and came over to hug Ash: "Your driving skills are so strong! Super amazing! It's even better than the villain in the fairy tale! Sword Girl is also very powerful, completing the final kill. Of course, I am also very powerful, I was the one who pulled that heroic spirit!"
"Yes, yes, witch, you did a great job this time. Thank you for your hard work."
Ash gently rubbed Diya's head with his right hand, pressing down her proud ahoge, and raised his left hand high to show that all his actions were in line with the broadcast standards of the children's channel. Sonia snorted, stood up and said, "Then we should go pick up the spoils we deserve - I hope they won't run away thinking that no one wants them."
At this time, the poisonous fog in the cave had dissipated. They looked around and found that there was no loot to speak of. They didn't know if there was something wrong with the killing method or because those knowledge creatures were part of the Heroic Soul Legion. After they died, not only did they not drop experience orbs, they didn't even drop magic spirits.
There are only three pieces of loot on the battlefield, all dropped by heroic spirits.
The first thing was a manual, but when Ash picked it up, he found that it was not the magician's manual they imagined -
"Demilo's Commander's Manual"
"After reading, you will receive a reward (optional)——"
"Sword Command Technique - Elementary: You know how to coordinate sword faction troops in combat, and gain a large amount of sword faction experience."
"Shooting Command Technique - Intermediate: You are good at using long-range troops to achieve tactical goals, and gain a large amount of shooting faction experience."
"Offensive Skills: Elementary: You will be more threatening when commanding an attack, and gain a small amount of experience from each faction."
"Logistics - Intermediate: Your troops will march faster and gain a moderate amount of experience from each faction."
How to describe the shock that this Commander's Handbook brought to the magicians? Just look at Fiora and you will understand - after she learned about the reward options in it, she blurted out "small trumpet" directly, and was so shocked that she couldn't even maintain her self-cultivation.
If the Wizard's Manual is a nutritious but unpalatable vegetable, then the Commander's Manual is a highly nutritious ice cream cake with 0 calories, 0 sugar, and 0 protein, which can be said to reverse the laws of matter. First of all, its rewards are not random, but can be selected by yourself; secondly, in addition to rewarding command skills, it also comes with faction experience, which is equivalent to giving extra experience gems.
Of course the most important thing is that there is no reading threshold!
Not every vegetable is suitable for magicians, but who can resist 0-calorie ice cream cake? Ash and his friends don't even need to open the manual to read the command experience, they can get rewards directly by using it, so even Sonia, who has a more rigid moral bottom line, can use it!
Although this commander's manual is not of great value, after all, it is just "an unused command skill" + "experience orb". The loot they get from killing a ichthyosaur is not much different from this.
But the emergence of the Commander's Manual broadened their horizons and made them realize that the Magician's Manual was not just a hard-to-chew vegetable. There might be other flavors of Magician's Manuals in the virtual world that were more nutritious.
If they encounter a mutant wizard projection like the Hero's Soul next time, Sword Princess will definitely not stop Ash from getting into danger. They bravely took a step into the unknown, and the Commander's Manual is a positive feedback reward for the unknown, so their first reaction when they encounter the unknown and danger in the future will not be to run away, but to test and collect intelligence.
A magician who has tasted the sweetness will gladly lick any unknown secret, even if it may contain bitterness or even poison.
Quietly, the experience of success influenced their way of thinking. Just as the Flowing Gold River fostered their ambitions, hunting heroic souls also amplified their greed.
There is no doubt that this commander's manual is naturally for Sonia. After all, none of the three of them need the shooting faction, and the most urgent task now is to feed Sonia's sword faction to the gold level.
Sonia also felt deeply powerless in the battle just now. Although she delivered the final fatal blow, 99% of the credit for the entire battle went to Ash and his sports car that was almost burned out.
The MVP who really deserves praise and a hug is Che Che!
But the sports car belongs to Ash's power, and with this point he is far superior to herself; and the witch also has a gold-level magic faction, the aquatic line has both output and control, plus the witch can read most magician manuals... Sonia thought about it calmly, and found that she was about to become the one who dragged down the team without realizing it.
The viewer had clearly stated that if one could not keep up with the team, then one would not receive any resources or favoritism. If the team wanted to optimize its member structure, naturally, those who were lagging behind would be the first to be optimized...
So, this time, Sonia didn't hesitate and reached out to take the commander's manual.
She is not a woman who will admit defeat easily. If she really cannot keep up with the team's progress, then she will bankrupt the spectators, use up all their resources, and force them to continue to increase their investment in order to avoid wasting their previous investment!
As long as she owes the viewers enough, then it won’t be her who will be panicking, but the viewers!
What is this called... Yes, sunk cost, a term that the viewer has explained before when complaining about work. Sonia likes this term very much.
The more you give, the harder it is to give up.
Time, energy, emotions, experience, everything will become shackles that affect current decisions.
She set a small goal in her mind - to become a sunk cost that the viewers cannot give up!
Before using the commander's manual, Sonia quickly glanced through the contents. As expected, it was very boring. It was all about the experience and examples of commanding battles, without any information about the person named 'Demilo'.
No wonder everyone can use the Commander's Manual. There is no imprint of the magician's values and opinions in it, and it is just like an ordinary reference book. Of course, there is no threshold for reading.
But isn't the magician's manual the condensation of a magician's life? Why isn't there any privacy about Demilo?
This thought flashed through the village girl's mind for a moment and then disappeared - maybe it was the special mechanism of the virtual world, so if there was nothing to see, then there was nothing to see.
When Sonia turned to the last page, she saw a photo that looked familiar.
It was a star map, a deep night sky, twinkling stars, three of which were connected by a line. The bottom one was marked with the name "Demilo", but the other two had no names.
She showed the page to the others, and Ash made an accurate assessment:
"It looks like a message given by the victim to the murderer before he died."