To be precise, the knocking sound occurred at two twenty-seven AM on Saturday. Xia De, who was sound asleep, wasn't woken by the noise downstairs, but by the cat sleeping by his pillow.
This timid cat was extremely alert when sleeping; after the knocking downstairs startled her awake, she kept her head down and continuously scratched the pillow with her paws to make noise. When Xia De woke up, Mia immediately burrowed into the thin blanket covering him, only peeking her small head out to look around cautiously.
"It's alright, there's nothing to be afraid of... Oh, who would be looking for me this late?"
Xia De took the revolver from the nightstand, yawned, and shuffled downstairs in his slippers. The timid cat crawled out from under the blanket and followed at his heels, but when Xia De reached the entryway, the orange cat stood at the corner of the stairs, peeking down cautiously with a worried expression.
"Who is it?"
The gas lamp in the entryway cast a faint yellow glow. Xia De stood behind the door and called out to the outside. He hadn't lost his vigilance due to sleep; while holding the gun in his right hand, the silver Moonlight in his left hand also lit up.
"Xia De, it's me."
He recognized Miss Annette's voice and only then opened the door a crack, pressing his body against the door, peeking out from the side. After confirming it was indeed the brown-haired Diviner, he yawned while unlatching the security chain:
"Good evening, Miss Annette."
Even a Ring術士 needs sleep, and Xia De currently really wanted to go back to bed.
"Good evening, Xia De."
Miss Annette was clearly full of energy. She had an excited expression on her face and, after Xia De welcomed her inside, she smiled and pointed to the paper bag she was holding.
"Look, I got it."
"Got what?"
"A relic with the power of an ancient god; Old John and I just picked it up from the train station."
This immediately made Xia De no longer sleepy.
The gas lamp in the living room was turned to its brightest setting. Miss Annette and Xia De sat on opposite sofas. Miss Annette draped her coat over the back of the sofa, wearing a white ruffled-sleeve blouse, and excitedly took out the cuboid metal box from the paper bag.
"Xia De, I remember you saying you could understand any text, which is why I came to you so late. Please, quickly help me see what's written on the box?"
The metal box wasn't the relic; the item inside was. The box itself was a special container for relics, sold to Miss Annette along with the relic, and it was also an antique.
Xia De carefully examined it under the gas lamp. The six faces of the box each had different scenes, and in the corner of each drawing were tiny, tadpole-like ancient characters.
After reading them in detail, he arranged the six faces in the correct order before beginning to explain:
"This roughly describes the process by which ancient people sealed this item. The first two pictures depict a god holding a Balance falling from the sky, causing all statues of this god in the material world to crumble."
"This should be the ancient god - the hanged judge, and the process of its fall."
Miss Annette analyzed, her eyes full of expectation, urging Xia De to continue explaining.
"The next two pictures describe the item's loss of control. This box shouldn't be the original one; it was a replica made by later discoverers, so some of the language was inscribed incorrectly. As I understand it, the general meaning is that the item inside was originally a weapon bestowed by the god upon mortals, but with the god's departure, the weapon's power went out of control, causing great destruction... Is it a long-handled bell inside?"
"Yes, that's right, it's a bell."
Miss Annette nodded with a smile. It was the first time Xia De had seen her so excited since he met her:
"It's my good fortune to have been able to buy this relic. This is a Secret keeper-level relic, the Holy Bell of the Judge. Its main body is a bell. Its effect is that after ringing the bell, the power of the next Miracle and spell used by the Ring術士 will be greatly enhanced."
"And the negative characteristic?"
Xia De asked while observing the characters against the light. The cat was lying beside him, feigning sleep... or perhaps she was truly asleep.
"Prolonged contact with the bell will cause a shift in the user's personality. Calm people will gradually become irritable, easily angered people will become calm, greedy people will become indifferent to fame and fortune, and kind people will lean towards evil. In short, it reverses the more prominent traits in one's personality, and then reverses them again after three lunar cycles. Each reversal makes extreme emotions even more extreme. However, this is ineffective against Iluna Bayas; her Balance talent counters this negative characteristic."
Xia De also deciphered the meaning of the last two scenes at this point. The final two scenes depicted the process of the Holy Bell of the Judge being hidden by ancient people:
"The god's departure caused the church to collapse, and the original divine artifact became a disaster. People paid with their lives to have the ancient... this word has no modern equivalent, it roughly means wise person. To have the ancient wise person create this box to contain the Holy Bell, and to warn future generations not to easily seek the truth of the ancient god's fall..."
The text at the end was very faint, almost unreadable even when held up to the light. He could only take a pencil and paper, press the paper against the surface, and quickly sweep the pencil over it to obtain clearer traces:
"The truth of the ancient god's fall is not that they encountered enemies; they left voluntarily... Hmm?"
"What's wrong?"
Miss Annette asked in confusion, seeing the surprise on Xia De's face. Xia De also read the last sentence at that moment:
"The ancient gods left voluntarily... for this world."
He looked at Miss Annette:
"What does this mean?"
"The era of the ancient gods' fall is too far in the past; no one can speak in detail about the stories of the thirteen original deities. But one interpretation of the whispering chapters suggests that the Thirteen Witch Emperors left the whispering chapters, having received inspiration from the residual power of the thirteen ancient gods. As for the reason for the ancient gods' departure, this is the first time I've heard that they left voluntarily."
Miss Annette answered cautiously. Xia De understood that she didn't know much either, so he stopped pondering and opened the box lid, taking out the bell nestled in soft straw.
This wasn't a small ornamental bell, but a golden handbell about one and a half palms in size. The surface of the long-handled bell had curious spiral engravings, but these were merely decorative, not text, and thus could not be deciphered.
When he picked up the bell, it made no sound. This bell could only produce a sound when its long handle was gripped and shaken.
"May I try it?"
He asked the bell's owner, and upon receiving permission, he gripped it with his right hand and gave it a gentle shake:
Ding-dong~
The sound in the quiet night seemed to spread to a much more distant place, and the Echo made the cat lying beside Xia De look around curiously.
The sense of power flowing through him made Xia De feel as if his spirit had materialized and was surging within him. He then actively activated the Miracle, Mystic Lock - the little match girl, which was a Miracle he couldn't fully use himself.
Snowflakes drifted down from the sky. As Miss Annette reached out in surprise to touch the fluttering snowflakes, she saw a faint illusion of a little girl with a basket appear beside Xia De. But it vanished in less than a second.
Snowflakes floated down from the ceiling. Xia De looked at the bell in surprise:
"How amazing! It not only enhances the effect of Miracles, but can even allow a Ring術士 to use Miracles beyond their level."
But it was still not enough for Xia De to fully use the Mystic Lock.
Miss Annette clasped her hands, feeling the cold sensation, and was about to ask what kind of Miracle it was, but she suddenly paused, then tilted her head and looked towards Xia De's open study door:
"Xia De, something in your study is glowing."
Xia De turned his head and saw that it was coming from the desk drawer. A faint white light pulsed like a breathing rhythm, soft and quiet.
"Glowing? What is it?"
He wondered in surprise, carefully walked into the study, and upon opening the drawer, saw that the glowing item was the page of the Poet Koen's Manuscript that could be used to contact the academy.
A line of text had appeared on the page:
"Xia De, when you go to Bill Schneider's study group tomorrow afternoon, please dress a bit more formally. Your request to view the codex of sublime has been approved, and the Library administrator, Miss Daniste, wishes to see you. —Hessenger Garcia"
As Xia De finished reading the last letter, all the text on the page disappeared, and the page stopped glowing.
He paused, relocked the drawer, and then turned back to the living room. Miss Annette was putting the Holy Bell back into its box. She looked very curious, but out of politeness, she didn't ask Xia De about his private matters.
Instead, it was Xia De, after picking up Mia again, who asked very seriously:
"Miss Annette, did the academy give you a task to monitor the other members of the team?"
"Monitor? The others?"
Miss Annette looked at him and asked back in confusion:
"Why would we monitor the others?"
"This... let me tell you a story I haven't told before. Actually, until today, I always thought it was possible that they had said those words to all five of us."
When he first accepted the task to monitor the other four members, Xia De didn't fully trust the four members of the team, so he hadn't mentioned it. But two weeks of interacting had gradually built his trust in Miss Annette, Miss Louisa, Priest Augustus, and Doctor Schneider, and he intended to reveal this matter at an appropriate time.
And now was a good opportunity to reveal it to Miss Annette.
He didn't hide anything about the content of that night's conversation, recounting the issues with the other four, including Miss Annette, one by one.
Miss Annette had some awareness of Miss Louisa's "abnormality," was completely unaware of Doctor Schneider's issue, and as for Priest Augustus's issue, she pondered for a moment before offering an explanation:
"The academy's view is correct; Priest Augustus's joining Saint Byron's is indeed related to that incident of the unknown-level (Level 0) relic losing control, and he indeed wants to investigate the truth of that incident. But what kind of power the Priest truly possesses, even I don't know... I only know that the Priest's self-healing ability is very strong."
"How strong?"
Xia De asked curiously.
"Conservatively estimated, as long as he doesn't die, any injury can fully recover within ten minutes."
Xia De was shocked by this "conservative" estimate. He wasn't the ignorant person he was three weeks ago; he clearly understood that this level of self-healing ability was beyond the normal range.
