Sorcerer’s Handbook

Working in Nabistin is indeed a wonderful experience.

At 9 AM, Harvey, Igor, and Annan arrived at Ark Square, in front of the city’s elevator. As the name suggests, the city’s elevator is a series of elevators connecting the lower level, middle level, and surface. Although elevators are available in other places, the ones in Ark Square are undoubtedly the most numerous, capable of transporting thousands of people within half an hour.

Ark Square is the largest “talent market” in the underground city, but interestingly, there are no staff present-only an array of ‘doors.’

Each door has listed requirements and wages. For example, one door set up by Belldate’s Wonderland World displays the following information:

“Requirements: Work for 7 hours, height 170 cm, appearance rating above 67, physical fitness rating above 70…”

“Wages: 30 brass per hour, total 210 brass. An additional 1 Gospel point can be earned after accumulating 70 work hours.”

When workers who meet the requirements pass through the door, they automatically become Gospel employees and work at Belldate’s Wonderland World. Seven hours later, they return to Ark Square with 210 brass added to their account.

So, when Harvey and his group arrived at Ark Square, they saw countless people lining up to pass through the doors. There was no sign of work-related anxiety on their faces; they stepped through the doors with ease and then appeared calm. Everyone marched in sync to the elevators to work elsewhere, as if part of a grand symphony.

Simultaneously, countless others finished their day’s work and returned from the elevators. They would instinctively avoid the crowd, sit on the benches around the square, then stand up as if waking from a dream. They checked their balances in their Gospel Books and left content.

People came and went, never ceasing. With no day or night in the underground city, people were always coming to and going from work at any hour. Ark Square ebbed and flowed with this endless stream of people, carrying the three interconnected cities toward a future woven by the Gospel.

They were both free humans and efficient tools; they embraced the Gospel’s mercy and were stained by its cruelty. To Harvey, Ark Square was akin to the Blood Moon Tribunal, with an artistic sense that seemed to seep from the very seams of the bricks. Each individual acted like a precise cog, ingeniously driving the machinery of society, and the entire system exuded a chilling, bone-deep aesthetic of cold efficiency.

However, while the Blood Moon’s bone-crushing impact was physical, here it was a total replacement of free will. Although the Gospel Kingdom was more civilized and developed, Harvey believed neither was superior; both were artistic masterpieces crafted by their respective Divine Sovereigns, tailored to their environments.

Every visit to Ark Square sparked a burst of advanced inspiration in Harvey’s mind. Just as he could glean the tenets of the Blood Moon Sovereign from the Blood Moon Tribunal, watching Ark Square now gave him a faint grasp of the Omniscient Weaver’s supreme realm.

“Yesterday I wanted to ask, Harvey, why do you seem… unfazed?”

At 3 PM, on a bench in Ark Square, a dizzy and nauseous Igor couldn’t help but ask, seeing Harvey observing the crowd with keen interest: “Don’t you feel a bit suffocated in your soul after your memories return?”

Work had only been a matter of moments. Apart from feeling physically tired, Igor and the others hardly sensed anything, not even the loss of memory.

The quicker their memories returned, the better. Moreover, Annan didn’t want Banjeet to see her discomfort upon regaining her memories. So, Igor used a spirit to awaken their work memories, which had been sealed by the Pact.

Even though it was their second time regaining work memory, Igor was still overwhelmed by the suffocating sensation from the memories.

Narrow.

Claustrophobic.

Oppressive.

There was a reason their work memories were blocked. When they returned, Igor felt his soul confined within the prison of his body. This prison was so tight that his soul had no extra space to move, not even to breathe deeply. He could only stay trapped in this narrow shell, bombarded by the near-noise high-frequency commands of the Gospel, watching helplessly as this flesh machine worked under the Gospel’s relentless drive—efficiently, tirelessly, endlessly.

Even though the work environment was out in the bright surface of Nabistin, Igor still felt suffocated, and being able to alleviate the pressure by vomiting was a testament to his high mastery in the Mental Sect. In contrast, Annan, sitting beside him, was so distressed that she bit her own index finger until it bled, using pain to forcibly divert her focus.

Compared to them, Harvey seemed at ease, merely lighting a catnip cigarette. Igor even felt he didn’t need it to relieve any sense of suffocation; perhaps he just wanted something to occupy his mouth.

“Hmm?” Harvey blew out a smoke ring, “What suffocation?”

“Didn’t you restore your working memory?” Igor asked.

“I did.”

“And you didn’t feel anything special? Like suffocation, oppression, despair?”

“No,” Harvey glanced at the two of them thoughtfully, “I was wondering why you both looked so miserable… I thought you were admiring the artistic presentation of Ark Square like I was.”

Igor no longer had the strength to mock him, “How are you immune to the negative effects of memory restoration? Don’t you feel very… inhuman in your working memory?”

“Oh,” Harvey finally understood what he meant, “You mean that sensation of being like a puppet, almost as if your whole body is crawling with maggots?”

“Ugh, ugh!”

The necromancer’s vivid description made the Con Artist retch once more. Weakly, he looked at Harvey, “Exactly… how do you cope with that feeling?”

“I don’t deal with it; I’m just used to it.”

“Used to it?”

“Yeah,” Harvey nodded, “Do you remember when I merged with Alice in the battle at Belldate’s manor? When my soul integrated with Alice, the sensation she gave me was identical to what’s in my working memory.”

“Put it this way: Undead Corpses always exist in that state. I just occasionally experience it. And compared to the sensation inside an Undead, the negative effect of working memory is like a few flies buzzing around a rotting body—not nearly the level of crawling maggots.”

“And what about the Noise of the Gospel?” Igor asked, “Does it not make you feel nauseous and overwhelmed?”

“That’s a living person’s mindset talking,” Harvey shrugged, “Living people try to discern useful intelligence from noise, which is why you feel overwhelmed and nauseous. Undead don’t possess such advanced intelligence-gathering capabilities. To the Undead, noise and silence are indistinguishable. If you treat yourself as an Undead, then neither working memory nor the Gospel will bother you.”

How could I, a living person, possibly see myself as an Undead!?

Do you think everyone shares your quirk of enjoying sleeping in coffins with corpses!?

Igor and Annan turned their heads away in disappointment, left to cope with the negative effects of their working memory. After a good while, once they had rested enough, they stood up, ready to leave, only to find Harvey staring at Ark Square, dazed and deep in thought.

“Time to go, Harvey,” Igor called out, “Or do you want to stay here a bit longer?”

“Undead… Gospel… hmm, so that’s it.” Harvey murmured softly. He then stood up, smiling, “No, I’ve understood everything completely. Let’s go back.”

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