The needle tip pierced his flesh. Lu Yuan didn't feel any pain; instead, a cool sensation seeped in through the puncture point.
The moment the coolness spread, he immediately understood what Margaret was doing.
That water vapor, merging into his bloodstream via the copper needle, was being guided by her will to probe through his entire body.
He was no stranger to this method; it was essentially the same principle as when he sent the Knowledge Worm into someone else's body to investigate.
However, Lu Yuan's entire body stiffened a moment later because he had too many things hidden inside him.
But on second thought, the water vapor was probing his flesh and bones, as well as unhealed old wounds—it stayed at the physical level. The truly important things were hidden deep within his left eye; those were matters of consciousness, where blood could not reach.
He monitored it mentally for a couple of breaths, and only after confirming that the probing stream of water never went behind his eye did he slowly relax.
The cool sensation flowed through his body, circuit after circuit.
Lu Yuan suddenly felt a wave of comfort. The string that had been pulled taut for days finally slackened. His eyelids became too heavy to lift, and a sudden, mindless drowsiness surged over him. He felt so comfortable he just wanted to drift off to sleep right then and there.
The moment the copper needle was withdrawn, the coolness receded. The suppressed exhaustion came roiling back all at once, making his temples throb.
"No major issues with the body," Margaret said as she rinsed the copper needle in the water vapor and returned it to its case. "There were a few old wounds that weren't properly cleared out, leaving some internal damage. They weren't serious, so I took the liberty of dispersing them for you."
As she spoke, however, her brow furrowed.
"The trouble lies with your Sanity." She stared at him for two seconds. "Setting aside everything else, your Sanity capacity is absurdly large—not something a Rank 2 should have. Furthermore, you've depleted it far too severely. I can roughly sense that what you have left... I'm afraid it's less than twenty percent."
Lu Yuan silently cross-checked her assessment.
The line of text floated quietly in the corner of his vision: 【Sanity: 27/140】. It was over eighty percent empty. Margaret's comment about "less than twenty percent" was indeed very close to the mark.
"If you were an ordinary person," Margaret continued, "by the time you reached this level of depletion, you would have ceased to be human long ago. You'd either have turned into an eerie entity or started a mutation, becoming a source of pollution that people would have to purge."
She paused briefly.
"Know your limits next time."
Lu Yuan nodded, saying nothing more.
Margaret didn't elaborate further, turning to the long table to begin working.
She picked a cup of holy water from the shelf as a base, then took two herbs Lu Yuan didn't recognize and ground them in. Following that, she selected several bottles and added a few drops of differently colored medicinal liquids.
She swirled the glass a few times until the liquid blended into a pale greenish-white.
Once it was prepared, she walked over with the cup.
Lu Yuan reached out to take it. "Is this for me to drink?"
"Drinking it is too slow." Margaret didn't hand him the cup.
In her other hand, the copper needle lit up again. With a flick across Lu Yuan's wrist, she opened a tiny slit in his skin. As soon as beads of blood appeared, they were supported by a layer of water vapor, suspended outside the wound without falling.
Her water control had reached a point where even blood obeyed her will, let alone Lu Yuan, who was currently a Rank 2 too weak to move.
Tipping the glass, the pale greenish-white medicinal liquid left the rim and stretched into a fine thread in mid-air, steadily flowing into his wrist through the wound.
Lu Yuan didn't feel the slightest discomfort; there was only a warmth spreading from his wrist, flowing through his blood to his limbs. It was very pleasant.
The grey-white text jumped out accordingly.
【Your body is ingesting a special potion; your Sanity is continuously recovering...】
【Sanity: +5... 32/140】
【Sanity: +5... 37/140】
The grey-white text began to emerge, and after flickering twice in succession, it finally stopped.
However, it immediately showed signs of continuing to rise; clearly, this potion was of the long-acting recovery variety.
At the same time, Lu Yuan could clearly sense his condition gradually improving. His originally dazed head regained some clarity.
‘Does the potion seem to have the effect of alleviating the discomfort of a Sanity collapse?’
Margaret watched as the deathly pallor on Lu Yuan's face faded bit by bit, and his tense shoulders relaxed.
Once the thread of medicine was exhausted, she wiped her hand across his wrist. The water vapor smoothed over the small cut, leaving not even a trace of blood.
"Alright, you've recovered somewhat." She placed the empty cup on the table. "Go back to your room and sleep. Put everything else aside."
Just as Lu Yuan was about to push himself up, a small object was tossed his way.
He caught it instinctively. It was a thumb-sized stone, translucent white throughout and cool to the touch, with extremely fine light-patterns drifting across its surface.
"Keep it on you." Margaret had already turned to walk toward the door, her words thrown back over her shoulder. "If it ever turns red, no matter how late it is, come find me immediately. Remember that."
She stepped out as soon as she finished speaking.
Lu Yuan opened his hand and turned the stone over to inspect it.
【Target Detected: Holy Light Stone】
【A type of stone that can reflect pollution and eerie entities. It turns from white to red upon touching an anomaly.】
He wasn't in a hurry to put the stone in his pocket.
It reflects pollution and eerie entities... Lu Yuan's gaze lingered on that line of text, and a thought suddenly occurred to him—would the Knowledge Worm he was harboring in his left eye count as an eerie entity or pollution in the eyes of this stone?
Previously, there had been no way to verify this, but now he had stumbled upon a ready-made method.
Lu Yuan didn't leave the room immediately. Holding the stone, he raised it to his left eye, wanting to give it a try.
On the translucent white surface of the stone, several strands of faint red emerged without warning. They were subtle, slowly drifting along the extremely fine light-patterns.
Lu Yuan stared at the few streaks of red and froze for a moment.
Had the worm really been detected? But if it was truly the worm, why was the red so faint?
His thoughts deepened. Or was it not the Knowledge Worm? Was there some other eerie entity in this room? That seemed impossible.
Lu Yuan closed his left eye and channeled a sliver of strength into it. The recovering Knowledge Worm stirred, and its multicolored shimmer glowed weakly.
The moment he opened his eye, the world transformed into a collection of mottled color blocks.
The bottles and jars filling the room all floated with various shades of color, stacked row upon row, looking much more pleasant than usual.
But the surroundings were normal and clean; it didn't look like an eerie entity was present at all.
Just as Lu Yuan frowned, wondering what was happening, a thought suddenly struck him.
Lu Yuan looked down at himself, because there truly was an eerie entity on his person...
The Suspended Drowner he had brought back from the Sea of Knowledge.
Lu Yuan looked toward his own shadow, but with this look, the pale face that had been hanging upside down at the top of his shadow for dozens of days was actually gone.
Lu Yuan's breath hitched. He scanned his body from top to bottom—his feet and shins were clean—and finally stopped at his left leg.
The face was stuck right there, its complexion deathly pale, its mouth slightly agape. Inside the two hollow eye sockets, something seemed to be slowly rotating and flowing.
It had crawled out of his shadow and onto his body.
Previously, this thing had been tucked away in his shadow, and he had needed the Inner Vision of his Guard technique to see it.
This time, he had seen it using only the sliver of strength channeled from the Knowledge Worm. The mutation of the Knowledge Worm was real.
But that wasn't the point right now. The point was, why had this thing crawled onto his leg?
Lu Yuan's brow tightened as his gaze locked onto that face.
A line of grey-white text emerged, the characters tinged with a very faint layer of red.
【Suspended Drowner (Parasitizing) (?)】
【A craving for knowledge led someone to step into that endless Sea of Knowledge with their physical body, but unfortunately, they ultimately drowned within that infinite knowledge. When you fled that great sea, his resentment fell into your shadow.】
【It seems to have undergone some kind of unknown change.】
Lu Yuan stared at that final line—"some kind of unknown change"—and his frown didn't relax.
The grey-white text didn't say what the change referred to. It could mean trouble was coming, or it could mean nothing at all. Fortunately, it wasn't followed by "Threat" or "High Risk."
Lu Yuan remained silent for a while before finally deciding not to touch it.
The Key to the Sea of Knowledge was still embedded deep within his left eye—the thing the five entities called an "Authority."
Truth be told, the Suspended Drowner was at most a bit of dregs scooped out from that great sea, a mass of a drowned man's resentment. It couldn't stir up any waves in front of the Authority—at least for now, it wouldn't dare.
Thinking of this, Lu Yuan's heart settled slightly.
He looked down at the Holy Light Stone in his palm again; the faint red was still there.
Margaret's words were still in his ears: if it turns red, go to her immediately. But this red was drawn out by the thing on his leg; if he actually handed the stone over, he wouldn't be able to explain it at all.
Lu Yuan stuffed the stone into the tool bag he wore close to his body.
He couldn't hand this thing over for now—at least not yet. He thought that once his Sanity had recovered a bit more, he would use this stone to conduct a thorough test.
Lu Yuan pushed himself up, preparing to return to his room.
But before that, he wanted to take one look at the Old Dean.
The door to the side room was ajar. Lu Yuan pushed it open and entered.
Margaret was busy by the tank. A row of small bottles was spread out on the long table. She was grinding something with one hand, while the other occasionally picked up a thin syringe to probe down into the tank's opening, injecting it into the side of the Old Dean's neck and shoulder.
One after another, they were injected and left there, with pale blue water vapor flowing inward bit by bit along the tube walls.
Hearing the door, Margaret turned back, looking startled for a moment.
"Aren't you going to rest?"
"Your potion worked; I feel much better." Lu Yuan stopped at the doorway, not going further inside. "I was planning to go back to my quarters to sleep and just stopped by for a look."
He paused, his gaze falling on the old man in the tank.
"How is he right now?"
Margaret didn't stop her work, merely sighing softly.
"Not optimistic," she continued. "However, his life is being sustained for now, and he's stable overall. Don't worry yourself over this; I can handle things here."
Lu Yuan nodded and didn't ask further.
Given his current state, he couldn't help at all. Not being a nuisance was help enough.
He took one last look at the old man, then turned and left the room.
By the time he returned to his quarters, the sky was completely bright.
Lu Yuan changed out of his dirty Nightwatcher captain's coat and tossed it into the basket by the door, where someone would eventually take it away for cleaning. Picking out a set of clothes from the room, he tidied himself up briefly, drew the curtains, and then fell into a deep sleep.
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