Sorcerer’s Handbook

“Blame Ashe!”

In Belldate’s main residence, Yvaren stomped in anger after reading the ranking: “If it weren’t for Ashe’s interference, we would have received two sets of ranking rewards this time!”

Leia is nowhere to be found now, and the rewards would definitely go to her parents, Anfel and Igor; plus, Yvaren herself also made it onto the Happiness Ranking as the ‘The Happiest Merchant.’ Hence, Belldate really had a big harvest, making it onto the list twice in a row.

However, Ashe’s appearance rendered the rankings invalid, nullifying the rewards!

To Yvaren, this was even more infuriating than being taken as Ashe’s concubine on the list — two rewards lost! When she is not making decisions, Yvaren is actually quite meticulous; other family patriarchs would definitely value the ranking information more than the rewards, but Yvaren couldn’t stop thinking about the rewards.

After all, to her, everything came from Belldate, and she didn’t own a single thing. The reason she left home in her youth, longing for real love, was this. Now, the Gospel acknowledged her personal value, and she was so close to getting a reward that was ‘exclusively hers,’ only to lose it because of Ashe—it was infuriating!

“No, I need to manipulate Igor to lure Ashe over too!” Yvaren sulked at the table, “Then you take care of Igor, and I’ll handle Ashe. We must squeeze the rewards back!”

Anfel glanced curiously at Yvaren—her sister’s focus on Ashe seemed a bit intense, and Ashe was not a debtor. Technically, he shouldn’t factor into her sister’s decision-making process. Speaking of which, although her sister wanted to pursue ordinary love, deep down, she liked the bossy CEO drama. However, the most bossy CEO in the Gospel was herself…

“Yvaren, the reason our ranking rewards were nullified actually has nothing to do with Ashe.”

“Huh?” Yvaren tilted her head, “How is it unrelated to him? If he hadn’t enchanted me, how could I have lost the title of The Happiest Merchant?”

Anfel said, “Think about it, Ashe is just an influencing factor, or rather, he’s just an excuse. Just like I can only give you suggestions, but the one making the actual decisions is you, Yvaren.”

Yvaren blinked, “You mean…”

“Ashe Heath is just the Gospel’s scapegoat.”

“But why does the Gospel keep causing my character to break into other people’s stories as the Source of Calamity, even if it’s just fan fiction?”

Ashe puzzledly asked, “And it’s been ten times in a row—in its storyline, I ended up as an anti-Gospel anarchist. Every ranked individual on the Happiness Ranking had their lives changed by me, leading to the rankings becoming invalid… If I had that much free time, why wouldn’t I just go back to sleep with my wife?”

“Ashe, aren’t you an anarchist?” Harvey asked curiously, cutting a small piece of lamb and putting it in his mouth. “I’ve never seen you do any good orderly deed.”

Ashe wanted to vehemently refute the necromancer with examples, but as he recalled his good deeds: prison break, smuggling, deceiving the Gospel, fleeing from a bounty… Not to mention, he had just instigated a legion war in the Virtual Realm.

Source of Calamity—when you think about it, the title wasn’t entirely wrong!

“I adopted Lise! Isn’t that an orderly good deed?” Ashe lifted Lise up, and Lise nodded repeatedly.

Harvey was momentarily confused—hadn’t Lise initially latched onto Ashe because she found him easy to bully, using him as a scapegoat? Was his memory wrong, or had Ashe and Lise started rewriting history?

“Ashe, you’re mistaken,” Igor said after sipping some hot milk. “The Gospel needs you to be the Source of Calamity, so it writes stories about the people around you.”

“What do you mean?” Ashe asked, looking baffled as he stroked Lise’s little white furry head to soothe his nerves. “Did I insult the Gospel? Why is it retaliating against me in this way?”

“Speaking of which, I haven’t explained why you guys are like meteorites.”

Annan flicked her earring and said, “The significance of a meteorite is its ability to destroy all characters, thus ending the story immediately—for the Gospel, rushing updates, ‘completion’ is exactly what it needs.”

“In fact, if you look at the ranking list, the Gospel does have a lot of ‘original content’—besides Leia and Harvey’s wife, Daphne, Cleos, Yvaren, and Qenna are all characters that have already been born within the Gospel. Therefore, it can’t just make up their futures.”

“But,” Annan paused, “the Gospel has only projected a tiny bit of their futures. When there’s not enough time to continue the projections, what does it do? At this point, it needs a meteorite to destroy them, ending their storylines directly.”

“Ashe, Igor, Harvey—you are that meteorite.”

“As long as you all intervene in their lives and reckless destroy their fates, the Gospel doesn’t need to weave their futures anymore, and the ranking becomes invalid. As for why you would do this in the future…”

“Because we possess ‘infinite possibilities,’” Ashe said bitterly. “The Gospel is using us as its cleanup crew!”

If the Gospel were a real writer, Ashe would want to charge in and yell at it: “Stopping updates would be better than producing this kind of garbage! Trying to rush through updates with such lousy plots—do you even care about your readers? Give me a refund!”

The current situation is that the Gospel, in its rush to update, inserted a scene midway through the storyline where “a sudden meteorite crashes down and wipes out all the characters,” abruptly ending the story, and then submitted it for publication.

As for why the meteorite crashes down, it’s actually a long-laid plan: this meteorite is from an exotic land. Although it currently appears to be an ordinary migrant worker meteorite, there’s a chance it could grow into a demon king meteorite, even if that chance is only 1%.

The Gospel might find this method convenient, but has it considered how the meteorite feels!?

“I can understand the meteorite part,” Harvey said while eating his mashed potatoes, “but why does the Gospel have to invalidate the rankings?”

“Because the rankings are actually invalid,” Igor explained. “Not only is Ashe’s intervention storyline made up, but even the ranked individuals themselves are fabricated—they are only ranked because they are connected to Ashe. The Gospel filled in their futures on the list, making Ashe’s interference appear more reasonable.”

“So the Gospel has to disqualify their rankings. If it were a true Happiness Ranking, they wouldn’t even make the list!”

Annan shook her head. “Not necessarily. I think only the 10th spot might be valid, but that’s about it. After all, you don’t know Daphne or her brother… But to align with Ashe’s ‘destructive nature,’ even The Happiest Wedding had to be sacrificed.”

“As for the ranks after that, they were probably set up to make Ashe’s involvement seem more reasonable. Most of the people in those ranks are familiar to Ashe. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

Ashe felt his blood vessels harden with frustration!

The Gospel’s tricks run deep. I need a Blood Moon!

With Ashe as the perfect scapegoat, the Gospel managed to update a trashy chapter but can put all the blame on Ashe. Moreover, it can later invalidate these plots as if nothing ever happened!

This doesn’t even affect the accuracy of the Weaving Festival!

So, the Gospel managed to churn out an update, the readers had to endure a filler chapter, and the only world left damaged was the one belonging to the innocent Ashe.

The living room fell silent as everyone contemplated the changes brought by the Gospel until Banjeet finally spoke: “Let’s eat— the soup is getting cold.”

Everyone then remembered they were in the middle of a meal, which had been abruptly interrupted by the Happiness Ranking.

Ashe turned his head and saw that Harvey had already eaten nearly half of the food—he had spent the whole day working like a beast at the construction site without using his spellcaster abilities and was famished.

“Uncle Harvey, could you please stop eating? There’s hardly anything left for me!”

“Butler Banjeet, could you get me a bowl of soup, please?”

“The lamb is tender and delicious. Ashe, your Substitute’s cooking skills are impressive.”

“Mmhmm!” Lise, in her hurry to compete with Harvey for food, ended up choking. Ashe couldn’t help but laugh, patting her back and offering her some soup.

After everyone had eaten and felt satisfied, Ashe suddenly realized that while the Happiness Ranking might be outlandish, it didn’t really affect him much. As Harvey mentioned, even if his reputation wasn’t already infamously bad, any further tarnish was insignificant. He didn’t need the extra punishment.

“As long as I’m useless enough, no one can exploit me!”

What Happiness Ranking? Being full is more important to him.

Until Igor suddenly broke the warmth of the moment: “Young Lady, you seem quite happy.”

Everyone turned to look at Annan and noticed that the corner of her mouth, smudged with a bit of black pepper sauce, was indeed slightly upturned. Annan paused and then smiled, “Well, I worked all day, and the dinner is so delicious. I couldn’t help but feel a bit happy.”

“Is that so?” The Con Artist lowered his eyelids. “I thought you were happy because the ranking list is invalid.”

Huh?

Ashe, Harvey, Lise, and the others looked confused. Why would Annan be happy about the ranking list being invalid?

However, Annan sighed and spread her hands, saying, “Actually, I’m not certain yet, and it’s not like I was deliberately hiding it. Igor, you’re just too suspicious.”

“If you want me to trust you completely, you’d have to be as foolish as Ashe,” Igor replied coolly.

“Alright, can we stop picking on me for a moment?” Ashe said. “What are you all talking about?”

“If the Gospel is rushing to conclude the Weaving Festival, it means this kind of ‘ranking list invalidation’ could happen again. It’s possible that even the next six ranking lists might all be invalid,” Igor explained. “This way, only the first three ranking lists would genuinely count.”

“Then the winner of the Divine Sovereign’s Wish would be chosen only from the top three ranking lists.”

Ashe and Lise were momentarily stunned and then stared intently at Annan!

Their minds raced back to recall the top achievements of the Funeral Firm in the first three rankings:

1st place in the Art Ranking, Annan Dolan.

1st place in the Family Ranking, Archibald Harvey.

1st place in the Ranking of Schemes, Igor Bukin, and… 10th place, Annan Dolan!

In the Funeral Firm, Annan alone held two rankings!