Chapter 351: "Game" of Question and Answer
After a full half hour of uninterrupted silence, Klein opened his eyes
and slowly rose to his feet.
He took his cane, put on his hat, and left the cathedral, taking a
rental carriage back to Minsk Street in the dark.
At this moment, the vigilance and surveillance of the surrounding area
had inevitably relaxed, turning into the shadows under the light of the
gas lamps.
Shortly after midnight, Klein took out his key, opened the door to his
house, and entered the empty guest rooms to search for the Book of
Secrets.
It didn't take him much effort to find the old book, bound in thick
goatskin, in the wardrobe in a room on the first floor.
The hardcover of the book was dark black, with two lines of Hermes
written in crimson:
"Book of Secrets.
"Klarman."
Phew... Klein exhaled but was in no rush to read the book.
Instead, he quickly constructed a wall of spirituality in the room,
summoning and responding to himself via a ritual, and then he threw
Azik's copper whistle, the Master Key, the All-Black Eye, the Beyonder
bullets, the bottle of biological poison, the Werewolf Beyonder
characteristic, the Book of Secrets, and even all the vessels above the
gray fog. He planned on waiting for the commotion to subside before
deciding on which to take out and which to carry.
After doing all this, he didn't even bother to study the Werewolf
Beyonder characteristic or the bottle of biological poison. He simply
washed up and laid in bed.
There were two reasons for doing so. Firstly, reading the book was too
time consuming. It was very easy to bring trouble to his body in the
real world on this rather uncalm night. Secondly, Klein was aware of his
current weakness, which was that the speed at which his spirituality was
growing wasn't enough to satisfy his ever-increasing Beyonder powers and
mystical items.
After such an intense battle, his spirituality was already drained. His
head was aching, and he was drowsy.
*Yes, the one thing that places the greatest burden on my spirituality
are the Paper Figurine Substitutes, followed by the creation of "Sun
Holy Water" with the Sun Brooch, but it wasn't used tonight. Next in the
list is Holy Water Creation and Flaming Jump...* Klein yawned
and used Cogitation to get rid of the state of extreme tiredness and
tenseness that prevented him from falling asleep.
In less than ten seconds, he entered the land of dreams as various
fragmented scenes appeared alternately before him.
In the clearing surrounded by the abandoned warehouses, the Machinery
Hivemind came and went before coming again. The person in charge of
investigating this incident went from being a team captain to an expert
at the rank of deacon.
Ikanser Bernard's brown hair remained unkempt and stuck out stubbornly,
making it impossible to hide them even with a hat on.
This led to many members of the Machinery Hivemind to secretly joke that
the deacon probably used a bomb to style his hair.
At this moment, Ikanser, with his cut jaw and facial features, was
holding a silver mirror with ancient patterns on it.
On each side of the mirror was an eye-like ornament. They were built on
the foundation of a black gem which looked serene and charming.
Ikanser surveyed the area and said, "Although the rats in the sewers are
experts at interfering with divination and mediumship and had already
dealt with the scene effectively, this is a mysterious Beyonder world,
and there is no way to guarantee a one hundred percent success."
As he spoke, he looked at the silver mirror in his hand as he used his
right hand to touch its surface thrice.
After pausing for two seconds, Ikanser took a deep breath and said in a
deep voice, "Honorable Arrodes, my question is 'Who were the
participants in the incident that just happened here?'"
The surrounding darkness suddenly thickened, and the surface of the
silver mirror began to ripple with aqueous light.
Soon, a scene appeared in the silver mirror.
Amidst the rising flames, there was a figure floating in the air. He was
wearing a black double-breasted frock coat and a half top hat. His body
was distorted, and his face was indistinct. Furthermore, his face was
smeared with paint.
Beneath his feet, flames rose up and engulfed him.
As the aqueous light flashed, the scene changed. A middle-aged man in a
dark red cloak appeared. His arm was burning with resplendent flames,
but his head was hidden in the darkness.
Scene after scene was played out in front of their eyes. They saw a
woman with a complicated black regal dress and messy blonde hair.
However, her face was completely transparent, as if she didn't exist.
Beside this lady were two men with black fur all over their bodies. Only
their backs could be seen as they were being pulled by strange arms.
Finally, the changes came to an end as it fixed onto the blazing flames
that soared into the sky. The "fireworks" bloomed in a splendid and
resplendent fashion as they lit up the entire scene.
In this dreamlike scene, the man in the black double-breasted frock coat
appeared once again.
Twisting and retracting, he faced forward, pressed his hat to his chest,
and bowed slightly.
Not only was his face extremely blurry after being interfered with, but
it also presented a glisten of oil.
Just as Ikanser was about to ask his teammates for their opinions,
several lines of text in ancient Feysac appeared on the surface of the
mirror.
"Based on the principle of reciprocity, it's my turn to ask the
question.
"If you answer wrong or lie, you will be punished."
The word "punished" was blood-red, as if it were dripping with liquid!
The expression on Ikanser's face was twisted at first before it turned
abnormally serious.
Soon after, the mirror's aqueous light flashed and a new line of text
appeared.
"What's your sexual orientation?"
Ikanser was stunned as he felt the gazes of his surrounding team members
all land on him.
Six in the morning. The sky was just beginning to brighten.
The sleeping Klein awoke to the punctual church bells.
According to his usual habits, he would just turn around and continue
sleeping until it was almost 8 o'clock. But this time, he immediately
sat up and looked around.
"Yeah, I didn't get raided on the pretext of checking my gas meter..."
He let out a sigh of relief, and without even bothering to clean
himself, he got off the bed and took four steps counterclockwise to go
above the gray fog.
He wanted to study his spoils from last night!
Sitting in The Fool's seat, Klein started from the simplest.
He picked up the dark-green fang and observed it for a few seconds.
Then, he conjured a pen and paper and wrote the divination sentence:
"Its effects."
This didn't mean that divination could be used as a substitute for
experimentation. With the fact that he held the item in his possession,
and how he knew a lot about Prisoner, Lunatic, and Werewolf from Sharron
and Maric, he believed that it was enough for him to attempt to gain
some revelations from it.
After reciting the statement, he quickly entered the dreamland and
witnessed one scene after another.
A vicious wound appeared on Werewolf Tyre's stomach, and his intestines
flowed out as they were dragged across the ground. However, he only
washed it with water and stuffed the intestines back into his stomach.
He pinched both sides of the wound, and in the end, the wound actually
healed...
Under the perfect red moon, he faced the sky and let out a long howl.
Black fur grew out of his body, inch by inch, and the fangs in his mouth
were distinct...
He waved his claws and cracked the steel plate that wasn't considered
thin...
He ran wildly through the wilderness, increasing the gap between him and
the group of pursuing gray wolves as he ran further and further away...
He made the attendants, whose eyes were glazed but cold, charge at their
enemies without fear of death...
He also used a variety of weapons to kill people, including bombs, and
he became stronger as he lost his reasoning while in his enraged
state...
Opening his eyes, Klein roughly understood the characteristics of a
Werewolf and grasped the hidden dangers of this Beyonder characteristic.
Werewolf Tyre had been under the full moon's illumination, allowing him
to be unrestrained towards his desires. After his death, he left a
relatively strong spiritual mark, so those Beyonders, who would use this
Beyonder characteristic to concoct a potion to advance themselves to the
next Sequence, had to resist this kind of effect at an early stage;
otherwise, they would show signs of losing control.
However, the negative effects had yet to reach the level of a Sealed
Artifact, and the Beyonder characteristic left behind by the Werewolf
could still be used as the main ingredient for a potion.
*That's good... Unfortunately, Zombie Jason's Beyonder characteristic
has been swallowed by that strange door... I wonder where it leads to
and if there's a way to get it back...* Klein put down the
dark-green fang, feeling both regret and sadness for his loss, before
picking up the bottom of brown translucent biological poison.
He repeated the same procedure and performed a dream divination, but
this time he didn't have the confidence to gain a detailed revelation.
Therefore, he changed the divination statement to: "Its positive and
negative effects."
In the gray gloom of the dream world, Klein once again saw tragic
scenes.
Someone fell to the ground, scratching himself and ripping off his skin,
flesh, and even bones...
Another person held his head, his eyes losing focus while his auras
weakened...
One kept vomiting. Towards the end, the person who died was
convulsing...
Someone burst out laughing, laughing so hard that he couldn't even
breathe...
Some people stopped fighting and looked at each other. Then, they hugged
and kissed each other...
When the scene reached the end, the translucent brown bottle was placed
into a cup with water. The transparent liquid inside gradually turned
amber in color and was drunk... The person holding onto the bottle of
biological poison was weakened at first before coughing. Then, he
touched his forehead. He found himself scalding as his condition turned
for the worse...
The dream quickly ended. Klein tapped his finger on the edge of the long
table as he attempted to interpret the revelation with great difficulty.
*According to Steve, the earlier revelations mean that after the
biological poison's bottle lid is removed, it would keep emanating its
poison. As for which poison the opponents gets inflicted by, it's
completely random, and even the wielder is unable to control it? The
poison inside is really quite abominable...*
*The effective range of the poison cannot be deciphered via a
revelation... Hmm, soaking it in water and drinking the amber liquid in
advance would prevent one from getting poisoned? But how many minutes
should the soaking take? Even if the person holding the Biological
Poison Bottle doesn't open the lid, their bodies would get worse as they
slowly get infected, and the ailments become serious? Uh, what's the
exact cut-off time?*
Klein rubbed his forehead, intending to do some experiments above the
gray fog when he was free, but he didn't know if the Biological Poison
Bottle was effective in there.
For example, in his current Spirit Body state, he wasn't afraid of being
poisoned at all.
*I'll leave it at this. I'll study it in detail in the
future...* Klein turned his attention to the Book of Secrets,
which was bound in goatskin. He then casually flipped to the first page.
It was a title page with simple patterns on it but with nothing written
on it...
Flipping another page, Klein finally saw the opening line of the Book of
Secrets: "We worship the moon, not the Evernight Goddess."