Condition Three: Bathed in Fire

The little notebook before him was probably the thing that had left the deepest impression in the original owner's memories.

Xu Le knew the original owner's personality very well.

Aside from a few childhood playmates, almost nothing else seemed worth remembering to him.

Even his memories of his parents were faint.

Except for this...

Although he already knew its contents by heart from those memories, he still wanted to read it.

After arriving here, Xu Le couldn't help leafing through it.

After all, this was a notebook that documented the supernatural.

The first page of the notebook.

[Calamity, as the name suggests, means disaster and harm.

And Calamity Sorcerers possess the greatest destructive power of all sorcerers.

Their abilities are as straightforward as their name: they can create calamities as individuals and through books.

They command frost, flames, thunder, earth, storms, and other forces. Their raging energy can tear everything apart.

They possess terrifying lethality, explosive power, and attacks with an immense area of effect.

Destruction is their defining trait.

Of course, the drawbacks of Calamity Sorcerers are equally obvious.

Compared with other sorcerers, most of their abilities are relatively direct and straightforward.

As a result, Calamity Sorcerers have poor defensive capabilities and few unusual abilities.

Their advancement process is rather extreme, and so on...]

The notebook contained little information, only a few pages or so.

Most of it introduced the abilities of Calamity Sorcerers and evaluated their strengths and weaknesses.

As Xu Le read through the manual, his fingers unconsciously tightened their grip.

When he reached the final page, he took another deep breath.

[Calamity Sorcerer-Flame LV1 advancement-Sacrificial Method. Specific requirements are as follows.]

LV1-Flame Secret Sorcerer.

Requirements for sacrificial advancement:

One: consume a Guyinduo product. The purer and more potent its energy, the higher the chance of success.

Two: weave ten Flame Flowers into a wreath using oddity thread. Wear it on your head at noon on Monday and feel the lingering glow of the blazing sun.

Three: bathe in fire.

Successfully bathe in fire to advance.

When Xu Le finished reading, the corner of his mouth still couldn't help twitching.

There was nothing written about failure, but the original owner's own notes were filled with accounts of failed advancement.

Consuming a Guyinduo contaminant would most likely cause instant death, with a small chance of mutating into an Oddity.

Either outcome meant the person was gone, so there was no need to consider any other consequences of failure.

Then came the second requirement: feel the lingering glow of the blazing sun.

That was basically just a resource requirement and a ritual procedure. He had no idea whether anything else might happen.

The last requirement was also very simple and straightforward-the core of the sacrifice.

Bathe in fire.

There was no need to consider the outcome of bathing in fire, either.

Didn't it say "successfully bathe in fire"? They hadn't even bothered writing down what happened if you failed.

Once you reached this step, success was success. If you failed, you were probably dead, so there was no need to worry about anything else.

As he digested the manual's contents, Xu Le remained speechless for a long time.

Was he curious? Yes.

Did he yearn for it? Also yes.

But if he actually had to try it, Xu Le felt he should hold off for a while!

Besides, he harbored a trace of doubt about the contents of this Flame Secret Sorcerer advancement manual.

Was this manual genuine?

There was no way to answer that question, but the original owner had believed its contents without reservation.

It was precisely because of that unwavering belief that the original owner had killed Old Zhou and stolen the Seed of Gundo.

Consuming Guyinduo contaminants was extremely dangerous. Calling it a one-in-ten chance of survival was no exaggeration.

Guyinduo fruits were different, however. They were pure Guyinduo products. Most people who ate them suffered no problems, and some even awakened additional powers.

Their only drawback was the price. They were expensive-unbelievably expensive.

Even half a Seed of Gundo would have been beyond the original owner's means after ten years, given his existing qualifications and finances.

The original owner's longing for supernatural power had been so intense that he had taken this path of no return.

"Ah, life is always full of choices! Make one wrong choice, and there's no turning back."

With that sigh, Xu Le glanced at the final page again.

The manual specifically emphasized the Sacrificial Method.

Then were there other methods besides the Sacrificial Method?

If there were, would those other methods be much safer than the Sacrificial Method?

These were all questions in Xu Le's mind, but there was no one who could answer them now.

"It's Tuesday today. I'll take another look in a few days."

Xu Le put the manual away and walked over to the window.

Looking down at the narrow passage between the two single-story houses beneath his window, Xu Le fell silent for a long time.

Paper. So much paper, all crumpled into little balls. Any man could probably guess what was inside them.

There was so much of it that it almost covered the entire passage.

There were no windows on the opposite side, so the original owner had probably thrown all this paper out...

"I think I know why I have so many lust fruits now. But why can't I remember the details? What was he getting off to?"

The question troubled Xu Le for a long time, but even late into the night, he still had no answer.

He walked to the doorway. At this hour, the streets of the lower district were already deserted.

White moonlight mingled with the glow of the streetlights and spilled over his face.

"The moonlight is white. Then why is the moon always red in the original owner's memories?"

Suddenly, an intense, restless heat surged inside him. This time, the sensation was stronger than ever before.

It nearly drove him into a frenzy.

Fighting back the discomfort, Xu Le clutched his head. Everything around him became like a distorted kaleidoscope.

Xu Le looked around, but there were no notifications or mutations.

But where was this intense sensation coming from?

Puzzled, Xu Le suddenly stopped, then snapped his gaze toward the sky.

The formerly flawless white moon had now turned blood-red.

In this state, everything else looked blurry, yet the red moon appeared exceptionally clear.

The red moon was rotating, and the air around it was rotating along with it.

That air resembled gears covered in grooves.

Like a countdown!

[The Red Moon Calamity will arrive in 1 day and 1 hour.]

"The Red Moon Calamity!" Xu Le murmured.

This notification had appeared when he first arrived in this world. He remembered it clearly.

Two days had seemed a long way off to him back then.

Compared with the Oddity that would respawn in the cabin in ten minutes, it really hadn't warranted any extra attention.

But things were different now. He had entered a safe area.

Yet even in this safe situation, the notification for the Red Moon Calamity still appeared.

That meant this would not change even in a city with sufficient light and safety.

Tomorrow was June 30, the end of the scorching season in his memories.

That night was also when the Guyinduo black tide would descend.

"The Red Moon Calamity... is the Guyinduo black tide?"