"Look, she’s coming out."
As soon as Mossance saw Nephthys exit through the bank’s side door, his expression hardened, and he warned his subordinates. Immediately, all eyes followed his gaze.
"Oh, look at that figure—she’s a beauty."
"Boss, looks like besides the goods, we might get some extra rewards this time."
Mossance’s subordinates couldn’t help but brighten up upon seeing Nephthys, as if they had discovered treasure. At that moment, they watched her flag down a carriage by the roadside and get in.
"She’s leaving. We need to follow her."
Without hesitation, Mossance and his men quickly boarded their own carriage, and the driver steered it to tail Nephthys’ vehicle.
"We’re on her tail, boss. What do you think we’ll be able to rob this time?" one of Mossance’s subordinates asked as he gazed at the carriage ahead.
Mossance replied slowly, "Hopefully, there will be some storage resources. If there’s a mystical text, even better. Of course, the best case would be if she knows some other methods of spiritual accumulation."
"Boss, that chick has a really fine body. After we rob her, should we... hehe..."One of the subordinates, recalling Nephthys’ figure, drooled as he spoke. However, Mossance immediately slapped him on the head and scolded him harshly.
"How many times have I told you?! We only rob things related to mysticism! If you steal money or attack someone, they’ll call the authorities. But if they lose a mystical item, they can only suffer in silence! Do you understand?!"
"Uh… Sorry, boss, I got it now," the subordinate who got hit shrank back, apologizing.
Mossance snorted coldly and ignored him, refocusing on the carriage ahead.
Mossance and his crew were a gang specializing in robbing novice mystic practitioners. They lurked around mystic gatherings and institutions like the Gold Covenant Bank, which provided secret services, identifying fresh newcomers to the mysticism world. Their usual targets were rookies—easy prey with no background to rely on, carrying rare mystical resources due to fortunate encounters. These novices couldn’t turn to the authorities when robbed, making them ideal victims.
Target selection was the most crucial part of their operations, and this task always fell to Mossance. He would frequent mystic gatherings and institutions, closely observing attendees. By casually engaging in conversation and slipping in false mystical knowledge, he could gauge whether someone was a beginner.
Thus, when Mossance saw Nephthys being led into the Gold Covenant Bank by a staff member, he immediately realized she was unfamiliar with the place—likely a first-timer and therefore a prime target. He struck up a conversation with her and deliberately inserted common mystical knowledge errors into his speech. When she failed to notice these mistakes, Mossance was convinced she was a rookie.
Across the vast city of Tivian, numerous groups preyed on such newcomers. Mossance’s gang was among the most skilled.
…
On the bustling street ahead of Mossance’s carriage…
Inside her rented carriage, Nephthys glanced around before retrieving an oil-paper package from her satchel. It contained a mystical text she had previously purchased at the Craftsmen’s Guild outpost.
She unwrapped the package, revealing a thin booklet with no title on the cover, containing only a few pages.
Remembering Vania’s instructions, Nephthys did not open the booklet. Instead, she followed Dorothy’s advice—closing her eyes, placing her hand on the booklet, and silently praying to Akasha.
"Great Aka, I offer this knowledge to You."
As soon as she finished her prayer, the booklet in her hands crumbled into ash, completely disintegrating. At the same time, its contents were transmitted through the information channel to a distant location.
Sacrificing the text itself—destroying its physical medium in exchange for instant data upload—was one of the functions of the information channel. Vania had used the same method in the Dietrich Tomb to offer up the Blazing Quickstrike Sword book. Since Dorothy didn’t want to wait in the chamber for long, she instructed Nephthys to sacrifice the text this way.
"It… turned to ash? That’s incredible… it disappeared in an instant..."
Staring at the gray remains on the oil paper, Nephthys couldn’t help but ponder.
"With this, I’ve completed everything Miss Dorothy asked. I wonder how this will help her?"
…
Beneath the King’s Campus, deep within the ruins…
Inside the Hall of Ascension, several gas lamps placed on the ground cast dim light over the surroundings. In the gloomy space, numerous corpses lay scattered, each displaying a different cause of death.
At the center of these corpses sat two figures facing each other—Brandon and Edrick. Between them was a chessboard, with Brandon playing white and Edrick playing black.
Both men were fully focused on the chessboard, carefully contemplating the current endgame. Nearby, Dorothy sat on a cushion, watching their match while eating a slice of cake, serving as their referee.
Beside Dorothy was a piece of paper outlining a simple tournament bracket. Out of eight contestants, six had already been eliminated. The match before her was the grand final.
After a long moment of deep thought, Edrick, playing black, finally made his move. He slid his queen diagonally across the board, coordinating with his knight to checkmate the white king in the upper-left corner—securing his victory.
Seeing this, Dorothy immediately clapped her hands excitedly.
"Oh! He won! Congratulations, Mr. Edrick, on becoming the champion of the First Dorothy Chess Tournament~~!"
She clapped enthusiastically, but after a few moments, her applause slowed, and eventually, she let out a long sigh.
"Sigh… This is so boring..."
Dorothy had been stuck in this chamber for over ten hours, so bored that she had resorted to organizing a chess tournament for her corpse marionettes.
Now that the game was over, she released her control over the marionettes, causing both the champion and runner-up to collapse. Resting her chin on her hand, she idly gazed around the chamber.
"I wonder how Nephthys and Vanya are doing. By my estimate, they should be about done by now..."
Just as she muttered to herself, her expression suddenly changed. She felt new information being transmitted into her consciousness, and for a moment, she nearly clapped her hands in excitement again.
"Finally, it’s here!"
Sensing the arrival of the distant transmission, Dorothy immediately sat upright and began reviewing its contents.
The text was titled Fouren’s Elegy—a poetic mystical text. Its author, Fouren, was an employee at a nursing home. His job was to care for the elderly as they gradually faded away—a process that fascinated him.
At some point, Fouren’s fascination turned into obsession. He started poisoning, tripping, and otherwise accelerating the deaths of the elderly in his care. After each death, he would compose an eulogy in their honor. Eventually, his crimes were exposed, and he was found hanged in his own home, leaving behind these poems.
Dorothy didn’t bother analyzing the contents of the text. Instead, she directly extracted its spiritual essence, gaining 3 points of Silence and 1 point of Revelation.
With this, her current spirituality was 11 points of Chalice, 12 points of Stone, 8 points of Shadow, 6 points of Lantern, 6 points of Silence, and 20 points of Revelation.
After extracting Eulogy of Fouren, she had officially met the requirements for advancing to Scholar.
Feeling a surge of excitement, Dorothy quickly got up and hurried to the center of the chamber’s ritual array. Kneeling at the array’s center, she steadied her breath, preparing for her advancement.
"I have not abandoned this path… I still follow this oath… May I sail deep into the sea of knowledge… in pursuit of all truths…”
"I beseech the great divine beings beyond this world—clear the fog before me and illuminate the way forward..."