Nicholas, who was sitting on a chair, slowly opened his eyes.
There was neither malice nor goodwill in his calm lake green eyes but deity-like gentleness and compassion.
He stretched his neck, slightly soothing the stiff neck from sitting still for a long time.
Nicholas exhaled lightly. He reached out, pulled his long white hair back, and tied it into a ponytail. Then, he pushed the instruments on the table aside, picked up a pinky-thumb-sized bottle containing a sky blue reagent from the reagent rack, and drank it.
At this moment, a calm and dull middle-aged male voice came from behind Nicholas, “Where have you been?”
“I just went out for a while.” Nicholas reached out, wiped the corner of his mouth, then turned around and replied softly.
There was no living person behind him.
There was only one plaster statue of human height sitting on the ground. The distressed expression on its face was reminiscent of a philosopher whose eyes were slightly closed, thinking about something.
But, the statue looked up and glanced at Nicholas.
The dull middle-aged voice poured out of its mouth, “You drank the ‘Soul Healing Potion’. Is your soul hurt?”
“En, I was injured by the ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ of the Paper Princess. But, it’s not a big problem. Although She also took out the ‘blue’ pen, She didn’t use it to attack me.”
Nicholas replied calmly, “My soul is orange. So it’s not a big problem to sustain a ‘red’ attack.”
“How did you irritate the Paper Princess?” The stone statue made a dull voice, “She has a good temper.”
“I saw Annan.” Nicholas smiled slightly, took out another tube of pale yellow oily reagent, drank it, and said softly, “So, I went and greeted him.”
“Annan Austere-Winter?” The stone statue paused before continuing, “Has he come to Noah?”
“En, just recently. But unlike what you told me before, Lord Father Stone, his soul is not snow-colored but rainbow-colored.”
“That means his ritual was successful.” Father Stone said calmly, “But it has nothing to do with your work.
“Work in peace, and don’t get in touch with Annan.”
“But my job is to make poison dust. Annan is the most well-known other-worldly being, right? I’ll need some of his blood and soul fragments to be sure that poison dust is also effective against outsiders.”
“Don’t think about it too much. Your job is to make poison dust, and that’s all. Regardless of Annan’s special circumstance, even if the poison dust is effective against other-worldly beings, it’s not an excuse for you to attack them. Swordsmiths won’t use people to try their product. You’re close to offending the taboos.”
Father Stone said flatly, “Also, even if you got his blood and soul, are you only going to use it for experiments? Don’t forget how your creator died. Don’t forget how the inheritance of Hermes was cut off. Don’t underestimate the memory of the deities.
“—Don’t try to overstep into the taboo.”
“Okay, I get it. I won’t make the mistake that my Father made.” Nicholas sighed helplessly, “So tell me, Lord Father Stone. So what are you going to use for the poison dust? You asked me to make this thing, constantly changing the formula but never telling me your purpose. It’s unnecessarily increasing my workload.
“I need to know its use and purpose. It’s a very legitimate demand. You don’t know much about Hermetic alchemy, but I do.” Hearing this, the statue behind him was silent for a long time.
Then, the humanoid statue stood up and walked behind Nicholas.
“Speaking of which, it’s time.” Father Stone said in a deep voice, “Do you know how the elves perished?”
“Is it because of the magic power?” Nicholas replied fluently, “Using the curse as a transmission medium, we want to extract the world’s power as an energy source. It is an incomplete power of creation, a limited degree of ‘the ability to achieve what you want’.
“What the curse energy can extract is the blood of the world. The curse energy can be recovered naturally, but with the expansion of the elves and the use of curse energy, it gradually weakens the world’s barriers. Consequently, our world gradually overlaps with another word, and thus is cursed by the world.”
“So, that’s all you have learned?” Father Stone nodded and said calmly, “It’s mostly accurate. I want to make some corrections.
“This world is originally colliding and overlapping with other worlds. Nightmares are not something that only these epochs have. Our world has many [Book of Truths] as the backbone of the world, and Father Flint let us imbue the power of the elements into our flesh. Thus, it is even more difficult for other worlds to oppose us.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s the immaterial world, the dream world, or the other worlds at the end of the dream world. Only after the curse can weaken the barriers of our world will there be occasional ‘world collapse’ accidents that permanently banish a creature from our world to another world. That means—”
“In other words, without using the curse energy, there will be creatures from other worlds that are exiled to our world?” Nicholas quickly realized the meaning Father Stone hinted at.
It was like the collision of two ships.
If it would inevitably lead to damage to one part, then the mist world would gradually recover after stopping the curse of curse energy. Then, the creatures in the immaterial world or the dream world might be exiled here from the fragmented world. It worked just like the creatures here being exiled to other worlds.
For the world, this was undoubtedly a victory.
But for the mortal creatures living in the world, compared to “losing a few strangers forever”, “terrifying creatures descended from another world” were a terrifying disaster related to their vital interests.
“It’s better if you understand.” Father Stone glanced at Nicholas, extended a hand made of stone, and patted his shoulder, “The dream world is still relatively stable. But the immaterial world has gradually begun to break down in recent years. The scale of the current invasion is still relatively small, so the Red Knight and the Silent Lady can still stop it. However, as the immaterial world is broken, more and more immaterial world creatures will fall into the dream world and the real world.
“But this may also be an opportunity for us. You know, the ‘real Sage’s Stone’ is the blood of the immaterial world.”
“That’s why you woke me up?” Nicholas said in a low voice with a complicated expression, “Because I inherited the memory and ability of my father?”
“Because he is the ‘Second Hermes’ and you are the ‘Second Nicholas’.”
Father Stone replied flatly. His tone did not change in the slightest, just like a real stone statue, “Hermes was able to collect the power of elements and artificially create Sage’s Stone. You may also be able to transform the invaders from the immaterial world into Sage’s Stone. What we need is not a Hermes poisonous dust that can effectively kill all other-worldly beings, but a portable device that can ‘extract the power of the immaterial world through these other-worldly creature corpses’.
“Since immaterial world creatures will inevitably fall into our world, then what we have to do is not to think about how to reduce the impact, reduce the disaster but whether this matter can be turned into a favorable situation. In the end, the answer we concluded is — yes.
“If the remains of immaterial world creatures can be made into something similar to the Sage’s Stone and feedback to our current world through the curse shaft of the elves, the power of the elements flowing in the world can be further enhanced. In the future, not only the Gold Rank Transcended, it’s possible to kick start the element’s power at the Silver Rank.
“Even, maybe… someday, we’ll be able to dispel these mists and let the sun bathe the earth again.”