“Writing it like that makes it even more suspicious, you idiot!”
Elias snatched the slip of paper, his face written all over with speechlessness.
The previous two letters at least had some sense of weight, of passing the torch across time.
But the moment this slip of paper unfolded, the atmosphere instantly shifted from a predecessor's last testament to a street vendor peddling ancestral miracle medicine.
“What does it say?”
Jack curiously leaned over.
Elias raised a hand to block the slip.
“A credit guarantee.”
“Is that actually useful?”
“In my hometown, this phrase usually appears right when someone is planning to scam you.”
Jack nodded thoughtfully.
The bizarre mailman was clearly not planning to join in on this discussion of hometown customs.
The silver signpost inside its hood rotated half a turn, and having confirmed the letter was delivered, it turned and stepped into a rift of shadow on the wall.
The dark blue uniform quickly disappeared into the depths of the dim path.
The rift closed, leaving only the soft sound of the sea breeze squeezing through the window cracks in the cottage.
Elias stopped joking.
He laid out the two sheets of letter paper, the credit guarantee, and the newly brewed potion on the table in sequence.
This letter was, of course, suspicious.
He didn't know who the sender was, what era it had been sent from, or even what kind of creature that mailman was.
Yet the method written on the second page happened to align perfectly with Galahad's advice to seek a second Scale One potion.
Even the predecessor who left the specific ritual behind had explicitly stated they had "drunk the second cup."
This at least proved that more than one person had reached this step.
The second letter might not be entirely unrelated to Galahad either.
It wasn't completely impossible that the man had arranged a messenger to deliver it across the path in advance.
What was more, although the two fellow countrymen had written in different tones, their directions were identical: the second cup was not meant for restoring spirituality to them, but for opening another door.
And the potion in his hand indeed reflected two shadows that were always half a beat apart.
“I still have to do it.”
Elias stared at the potion bottle for a moment.
“I just need some insurance.”
He had no way to seek verification from the church.
If he explained his situation clearly, the identity of the person the Ascetic Society was searching for tonight and the secret of the two souls inside him would be laid bare on someone else's desk.
Rather than waiting for some powerful figure to decide his fate, he would rather hold the risk in his own hands first.
Elias quickly cleared the clutter around the dining table and used glow-amber powder to draw the geometric structure of a simple 【Sanctuary】 on the floor.
Silver-gray lines locked into one another, eventually forming an area in the center of the cottage just large enough for one person to sit.
According to the 《Introduction to Mysticism》, this simplified ritual could not withstand strong external forces, but it was enough to isolate ordinary spiritual bodies, mental spying, and most ritual leakages.
Elias thought for a moment, then used his ritual dagger to carve a ring of shallow grooves around the Sanctuary, filling them segment by segment with the spiritual medium required for a sanity barrier.
Finally, he took a moonlight stone from his supply chest and placed it squarely in the center of the Sanctuary array beneath his feet.
“Is this also a ritual requirement?”
Jack asked.
“No.”
Elias brushed the glow-amber powder off his hands.
“This is to prevent some trickster from being mixed in among those predecessors who wrote the letters.”
Just because it wasn't recorded didn't mean he couldn't add it.
Anyway, the letter only said not to set offerings or recite divine names; it didn't say he couldn't wear a helmet.
Insurance was like carrying an extra rope when going out to sea.
It was best if it wasn't needed.
But when it was actually needed, those who complained about having too much usually no longer had the chance to voice their opinions.
“Don't worry.”
Jack stood outside the barrier and took out a 【Mind Shield】 scroll.
“If anything goes wrong in a bit, I'll definitely use this to block it for you.”
Elias looked at the scroll, then at him.
“You're willing to let me use your precious treasure?”
“Hey! Sir!”
Jack was instantly offended.
“I was even willing to lend you the 【Spell Reversal】 scroll!”
“Were you really lending it to me?”
Elias shouted testily.
“You were lending it to your family heirloom!”
Jack opened his mouth, then scratched his head in embarrassment.
“Consider it lent to both of you.”
“Fine, fine, fine.”
Elias waved his hand.
“You guard there first. If anything happens, I'm relying on you.”
Once Jack was in position, Elias walked into the washroom and took down the old shaving mirror with blackened edges from the wall.
The frame had long since warped from the dampness, and the wooden board behind it had gone soft.
But it had been hanging there since before Elias arrived at this reef, and since then, it had repeatedly reflected this body washing, shaving, and questioning its life choices in the sea breeze.
It satisfied the condition in the letter of "an old mirror that has reflected this body."
Elias placed the mirror directly in front of the Sanctuary, with the front facing himself and the back facing the window.
He adjusted the angle repeatedly until the moonlight crossing the window frame fell only on the back of the mirror, with not a trace of silver-white luster visible on the glass.
A white candle that had never been lit was fixed behind the mirror.
With everything prepared, Elias dipped a small amount of ink and wrote in the Velen script on the center of the mirror face.
Elias Rockland.
Then he turned the mirror over and wrote two Chinese characters, stroke by stroke, on the back.
Jiang Huan.
The moment the pen tip left the wooden board, his fingers paused involuntarily.
Two names.
One belonged to this body.
One belonged to himself.
In the past, he had never seriously thought about who was borrowing whose identity to survive.
But tonight, this mirror seemed determined to demand a clear answer from him.
Elias repositioned the mirror, confirming there were no issues with the white candle, the moonlight, or the names, before sitting down in the center of the Sanctuary.
“I'll say it one more time.”
He pointed to the white candle behind the mirror.
“If the white candle doesn't light itself, or if the me in the mirror opens his eyes at the exact same time as me, shatter the mirror immediately.”
Jack nodded.
“What if you look back?”
“Stop me.”
Jack silently picked up the frying pan beside him.
Elias's eyelid twitched.
“Have you been waiting for me to say that?”
“I'm just choosing my most familiar tool.”
“You'd better be.”
This kid was looking for any opportunity to give him a physical reboot.
If this continued, before the dream demon's curse could wear him down, he would develop PTSD from frying pans first.
But things had already come to this, so there was no use hesitating.
Elias picked up the potion bottle.
The clear liquid swayed gently inside, and the two shadows on the tabletop remained one behind the other.
He took one last look at himself in the mirror, tilted his head back, and drank the potion in one gulp.
The cold liquid slid down his throat.
In the next instant, a dense wave of spirituality exploded within him.
In his sea of consciousness, the silver Rational Circuit belonging to the Moon Lord lit up first. The moonlight on the circuit flowed rapidly, reaching toward this spiritual power just as it usually did when absorbing spirituality.
But just as the two were about to make contact, the name "Jiang Huan" on the back of the mirror suddenly grew hot.
That heat did not remain on the back of the mirror. Instead, crossing through the glass, it fell directly into the depths of Elias's spiritual body.
He let out a low groan.
An indescribable pulling sensation emerged from within his body.
It was not his flesh being torn apart.
Rather, two existences that had been tightly squeezed together without a gap were suddenly cleaved by an invisible crevice.
The spirituality rushing toward the silver circuit deflected, completely drawn toward the mirror.
The white candle behind the mirror lit up silently.
There was no match, nor was there any fluctuation of spirituality.
A pale flame simply appeared out of thin air on the wick, so quiet that it sent a chill down one's spine.
Elias kept his eyes closed and did not move.
Jack also held his breath, gripping the scroll and the frying pan tightly.
After a few breaths, the sensation of being divided within his body gradually stabilized.
Elias slowly opened his eyes.
The person in the mirror still had his eyes closed.
Did it work?
The moment this thought appeared, the pale face in the mirror opened its eyes a beat slower.
But those eyes did not look at him.
The reflection's gaze crossed Elias's shoulder, landing on whatever was behind him.
His back instantly tensed.
Humans clearly possessed an unlearned fear of something being behind them.
Elias forced down his instinct to look back and stared at his reflection, asking:
“Where do you come from?”
The cottage fell silent for an instant.
Immediately after, a voice identical to his own sounded from behind him.
“From you.”
Elias's scalp tingled.
The answer was practically no answer at all, yet it was far more chilling than any specific place name.
He did not look back, nor did he ask anything else.
A few breaths later, a second breath sounded right against the back of his neck.
An inhale.
An exhale.
Elias closed his eyes immediately.
His consciousness lost all weight, and he felt as if he had been cast into an endless darkness, falling all the way down.
There was no wind, nor was there any sound.
Only that breath that did not belong to him followed behind, constantly keeping a short distance.
Before he knew it, the sensation of falling abruptly vanished.
Elias opened his eyes.
A boundless sea of grass rolled under the starlight, with continuous snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the mirror-like lake reflected the single moon overhead.
A giant wolf lay by the lakeside drinking water, while a herd of wild horses scattered on the other side, swishing their tails and occasionally stepping on the dew-kissed grass.
Elias was stunned for a few seconds.
“What the hell?”
He had been to this place before.
The last time he held the Dream Prayer Ritual, he had met that old horse on this very grassland.
How did drinking the second potion send him to the exact same scene?
He looked at the herd of horses not far away and subconsciously took a few steps in the opposite direction.
Keep some distance first.
In case his body couldn't move again when leaving, at least he wouldn't get kicked by a hoof for nothing.
But what now?
Was he supposed to follow the steps of the Dream Prayer Ritual again and ask a question by the lake?
Elias thought about it, then felt that wasn't right.
This time, he didn't have anything to ask.
What he was performing was the promotion ritual for the second potion.
This place was supposed to be for an Audience.
But who, exactly, was this Audience with?
Rate on N.U.
