The moment he stepped through the 【Moon Gate】, the musty smell of the warehouse rushed to meet him.
Elias did not leave the ring of light immediately.
With one hand resting on the grip of his elemental revolver and the other holding The Roaring Cane, he first activated 【Moon Vision】 to scan Warehouse Forty-Seven on the East Bank once again.
On the inside of the warehouse door, the bronze token was still nailed in its original place.
The empty wooden crates stacked against the wall had not been moved, and there were only the tiny footprints of rats on the ground.
Aside from the Moon Lord's spirituality he had just brought in, there were no unfamiliar supernatural traces around.
Excellent.
For now, this new stronghold had not yet developed into an East Bank office for the Ascetic Society.
Only then did Elias step out of the 【Moon Gate】 and check the two exits respectively.
The main door led to Wharf Street.
Outside the side door was a narrow alley cluttered with old ropes and broken wooden barrels, requiring a detour of two blocks to reach the main road.
There were no footsteps on either side, nor any signs of an ambush.
Since both routes were clear, it was the perfect opportunity to test his new spell again.
Elias connected to a node in the inverted mirror corridor, and a translucent coin immediately emerged from his fingertips.
“Smiling face, main door. Crying face, side alley.”
He flicked the coin into the air.
The spiritual coin flipped a few times and landed steadily on the back of his hand.
The crying face was up.
“Alright.”
Elias glanced at the side alley, which was darker, narrower, and obviously more of a detour.
“Your call.”
However, as it turned out, favorable and easy to walk were two entirely different things.
The moment Elias stepped into the side alley, his boot sank into a puddle of dirty water.
The water seeped over the top of his shoe, and a rustling sound of fleeing rats echoed from a broken wooden barrel nearby.
He looked down at his soaked boot toe, then at the coin that had not yet dispersed in his hand.
“You'd better actually be useful.”
“Otherwise, once your trial period is over, I'm going to 'optimize' you right into the sea.”
The coin could only lean slightly toward a favorable choice.
It was not a divination spell, and it was even less capable of spotting enemies for him from several streets away.
Thus, Elias did not let his guard down just because of a single toss.
He first maintained the 【Cloak of Mediocrity】, then pulled down his derby hat and slipped out the side door into the alley.
His clothing, expression, and spiritual fluctuations subsided simultaneously.
John Constantine still had that blond, stubbly face.
But he had transformed from a stranger who looked like he had a story to tell into an ordinary passerby whom even a debt collector wouldn't bother to glance at twice.
The utterly unremarkable John Constantine was back online.
A dockworker carrying a fish basket entered from the mouth of the alley, nearly colliding with him head-on.
The man looked up at him, didn't even bother to complain, and simply stepped aside to continue walking inward.
Yet Elias was highly satisfied.
Last night, John Constantine had at least drawn a couple of extra glances from the night-shift scribe.
Now, standing in a crowd, his presence was probably about the same as a wooden mooring post on the pier.
As long as he didn't block the way, no one would make an effort to remember him.
Elias walked along the alley for two blocks, then used the unboarded window of a seafood shop to check behind him.
No one was following.
Just as he was about to turn onto the main road, several figures passed by from another street.
Black and silver robes.
A crescent holy emblem hung on their chests.
One of them held a brass disc that was constantly trembling.
People from the Ascetic Society.
Elias didn't stop his pace; he simply blended into a group of off-work dockworkers nearby, following them out of the intersection.
Whether those ascetics had noticed anything, he didn't know.
Their appearance here wasn't necessarily directed at him, either.
But if he had chosen the main door earlier, he would have likely run right into them on Wharf Street.
As for now, though he had stepped in a puddle of dirty water, he was able to hide at the corner and spot them first.
Calculated this way, the coin's understanding of 'favorable' was quite reasonable.
At least it hadn't led him straight into the sewers just to avoid the ascetics.
Only when the distance between them had completely widened did Elias condense the lucky coin in his pocket once more.
“One time doesn't prove anything yet.”
He looked at those black and silver figures in the distance and said softly,
“But at least you've passed your trial period.”
The coin dispersed silently.
The 【Cloak of Mediocrity】 continued to be maintained.
The spiritual consumption of this spell wasn't too extravagant, but Elias was planning to keep it active all the way to the Society of Freemen.
Fortunately, the one thing he didn't lack was spirituality.
Compared to the already exposed West Bank Third Supply Depot, Warehouse Forty-Seven on the East Bank was indeed much farther from the Society of Freemen.
Elias took a public carriage along the streets, which had not been fully cleared after the disaster. It took nearly half an hour before he spotted the gas lamp burning all night in front of the society.
The patrolling police officers on the road glanced at him once, and the harbor personnel guarding the temporary barricades also glanced at him once.
Both gazes only lingered on him for a brief moment before naturally sliding to the group of workers behind him who had just finished their night shift.
The 【Cloak of Mediocrity】 did not make him disappear.
It simply made everyone feel that such an ordinary person wasn't worth a second look.
For the current Elias, this was much more convenient than invisibility.
Once an invisible person showed a flaw, they would immediately become the most conspicuous target around.
An ordinary person, however, could walk right into the Society of Freemen in broad daylight.
The night-shift scribe in the lobby was the same one from last night.
He was organizing the commission records. Hearing the door open, he only looked up at Elias once before his gaze instinctively drifted to the clock on the wall.
His expression was somewhat strange.
He probably couldn't fathom why this Mr. Constantine chose the night shift every time he visited the society, as if he were allergic to the sun.
Elias didn't give him a chance to study his daily routine. Walking up to the counter, he said directly,
“I'll take Commission 793.”
The night-shift scribe's hand, reaching for the registry, froze in midair.
“Seven-ninety-three?”
“Yes.”
He looked down and flipped through a few pages, then checked the commission index beside him. His brow quickly furrowed.
“Someone has already taken it.”
Half of the anticipation on Elias's face vanished on the spot.
“No one wanted it last night.”
“It was taken just half an hour ago.”
The night-shift scribe turned the index around. In the claim column, there was already a fresh spiritual imprint.
Elias stared at the imprint for two seconds.
The clue to the Twelve Earth Veins was gone.
And the one thousand eight hundred gold crowns had run off on long legs as well.
It was hard to say which of the two was more heartbreaking.
“One thousand eight hundred gold crowns really is highly persuasive.”
He could only sigh with regret.
Just as he was planning to ask if there were any other suitable commissions, the door to the society was suddenly slammed open from the outside.
Bang!
Elias immediately turned sideways, the elemental revolver in his trickster's fingertips already prepared.
A man stumbled inside, clutching the door frame.
His face was completely devoid of color, his coat collar was torn open, and his right shoulder was bleeding.
The blood had already soaked through his inner shirt, dripping down his wrist onto the floor.
Elias first glanced behind the man.
There was only an empty street outside.
At least for now, nothing was following him into the society.
The man shut the door behind him, rushed to the counter in a few steps, and slapped down a sweat-crumpled commission document.
The night-shift scribe instinctively reached out to steady the ink bottle next to him.
Judging by his practiced movements, this door had clearly been slammed open by failing free transcendents more than a few times.
Horne himself didn't care about the minor disturbance.
He leaned against the counter, panting for a few breaths. Only when he confirmed he was within the society's protective perimeter did his tense shoulders relax slightly.
“I want to abandon Commission 793!”
Hmm?
There was actually such a stroke of good luck?!
Elias couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
The night-shift scribe looked at the document, then at the wound on the man's shoulder.
“Mr. Horne, you took this commission less than half an hour ago.”
“Half an hour was plenty of time for me to face reality.”
This Mr. Horne, who had just snatched away Elias's one thousand eight hundred gold crowns, clutched his shoulder, his breathing still ragged.
“The commission only said to find a notebook.”
“It didn't say I'd have to fight a vampire for it!”
“A vampire?”
Elias couldn't help but let out a gasp of surprise.
When he was flipping through the 《Velen Supernatural Race Study》 a few days ago, he still felt that such creatures were far removed from his life.
He hadn't expected that only a few days after turning the page, the real thing would find its way onto his schedule.
Velen people were more accustomed to calling rational, bloodline-stable vampires the Kindred.
They replenished their spirituality with blood, and could also use it to repair physical damage.
Compared to those monsters that only retained a bloodthirsty instinct after being polluted, true Kindred could not only speak and think, but were also highly adept at hiding themselves in human society.
They didn't necessarily bite everyone they saw.
But meeting a strange vampire alone in the dead of night was by no means a stroke of good luck.
The book divided vampires into progenitors and spawn.
Progenitors could walk naturally in the sunlight, whereas spawn could not.
Both feared pure silver and wooden stakes, though reality was not as simple as in stories.
Pure silver would continuously burn a vampire.
A wooden stake, on the other hand, had to be driven in after the target was already incapacitated to plunge them into an indefinite paralysis.
To put it bluntly, a wooden stake was not a one-click kill.
It was more like putting a defeated vampire into a long-term standby mode.
Aside from the Kindred, the 《Velen Supernatural Encyclopedia》 also grouped a large number of things that feared sunlight, holy water, or pure silver under 'shadow creatures'.
When dealing with these kinds of things, bringing plenty of pure silver was usually a safe bet.
Elias quickly pushed the contents of the book to the back of his mind, his gaze landing on Horne's shoulder once more.
“Yeah!”
Horne pressed down hard on his wound, his voice tight with pain.
“These one thousand eight hundred gold crowns are not mine to earn!”
“Did you get bitten?”
Elias glanced at the blood continuously seeping through his fingers.
“No.”
“Then why did you run?”
Horne looked up, the lingering panic on his face instantly hardening into an offended solemnity.
“Fearing death and staying alive do not conflict with each other.”
“This isn't called being a coward.”
He emphasized solemnly,
“It's called re-evaluating the risk.”
Elias curled his lips and nodded.
“Mhm.”
“Very professional.
Rate on N.U.
