“That’s truly interesting.”
Xia De gave a dry assessment, not continuing the topic. However, Priest Augustus remembered something else and asked Xia De, holding his pipe,
“Tomorrow, which is Tuesday evening, there’s a large banquet in the City. The venue is the courtyard and a part of the castle of Middirburg Mechanical College. Nobles and merchants from the City, and even the Church, have been invited. I’ve also received an invitation. Detective, are you interested in going together? I can get another invitation.”
“A banquet, who’s hosting it? What’s the theme?”
Xia De asked.
“It’s hosted by the local Chamber of Commerce. This week is the local traditional Fire Worship Festival, so the Middirburg Chamber of Commerce is holding its autumn charity gala as usual. There will be an auction of some items, which will then be donated equally to the charities of the Five Gods Church. Among the auction items, there might even be a relic. That would be very interesting.”
Priest Augustus said with a smile.
“A charity gala? In the summer, I attended a charity auction in Tobesk and seemed to have met Doctor Schneider.”
Xia De thought to himself,
“Then…”
【…Then you left the banquet to confront the Silver-Eyed One, and the banquet was actually a ritual for the Blood Feast Lord to descend.】
“She” supplemented the event from a few months ago.
Xia De couldn't help but show a worried expression:
“Priest, I think I won’t go. In Middirburg, it’s not appropriate for me to appear before too many people.”
“Alright then.”
The Old Priest nodded, not insisting, and then brought up another matter:
“Also, I heard a rumor in the Church that the City seems to be troubled by Vampires recently.”
“Priest, are you too idle in the church? How do you know everything?”
Xia De teased, then confirmed Priest Augustus’s information:
“I know about this too. The Nuns of the Spiritual Cultivation Order mentioned that the local Vampires already possess three sage-level relics, and they seem to be planning something big.”
“At a time like this, those blood-sucking filthy things shouldn’t cause more trouble.”
The Priest grumbled. Vampires, in the eyes of the Orthodox Church, are not a benevolent race.
After lunch, the Priest gave Xia De an envelope containing new information he had compiled over the past half-month regarding the death Gap. Although the Priest did not re-enter the Gap, he learned more during the period he followed the Natural Church in setting up rituals, thereby understanding even more things that the Church itself did not know.
And as the two shook hands to bid farewell, another unexpected thing happened.
Xia De’s hand touched Priest Augustus’s palm, and then the Miracle 【Ancient Voice】 activated on its own, bringing Xia De a piece of information about the initial epoch:
【Angels were the first Gods created by God in the First Epoch. The first Angels were also the first creations. They knew those ancient secrets but were forced to diminish their power due to the departure of the Old Gods.】
“What’s going on? Could it be that the Level 0 relic Priest Augustus encountered when he was young is really related to the first Angel, and that relic is actually inside Priest Augustus’s body… Speaking of which, over a month ago, the Priest and I met members of The Society of Truth who were attempting to fuse with a relic in the cemetery outside Tobesk.”
Xia De controlled his expression, not letting the Priest see what he was thinking. After this, Xia De sent the documents to the House of the Blind, which were then handed over to the Church by the Spiritual Cultivation Order. Afterward, he set off to return to his home in Tobesk, and with the cat and the coin in his hand, on the pretext of being a “Fortune-telling Cat,” he met Luvia again at the Prophet Association on Silver Cross Avenue.
First, he briefly explained the news he heard about Iluna and the steam airship, and then he recounted what he had seen this morning with the Boy, Sister Devlin, and Priest Augustus.
Finally, he took out the blood money and the standing coin, pushing them together to the purple-eyed girl across the table:
“Just like last time when I had Darkness divined, please divine if I met a Chosen One today.”
Luvia’s “Cost Divination” could not directly divine the identity of a Chosen One, or rather, the cost they would have to pay was something they simply couldn’t afford. However, it was possible to divine from the side, for example, this time it was divining “Xia De’s observations,” rather than directly tracing back to the Chosen One themselves.
“Don’t easily consume the blood money. This is the only relic we have that can detect similar special coins. Look at this, before Iluna left, she left me the 【diviner's silver coin】 and the Document-level relic 【Dragon Blood Treasure Coin】, which is said to be able to find dragon treasures.”
Luvia took out a silver coin with a smiling face on one side and a crying face on the other, and a blood-red coin, which was three times the diameter of a shilling coin.
She picked up the 【standing coin】 and tossed it into the air along with the silver coin and the blood-colored coin. But they did not turn into Ashes in the air; instead, they fell back down perfectly intact.
“The ‘currency’ attribute of these three coins isn’t very strong.”
Xia De said without surprise:
“Luvia, consume the blood money. Now is not the time to be frugal.”
Luvia thought for a moment, bit her lip somewhat reluctantly, but still tossed all four coins into the air. But the situation was still the same as last time; the four coins could not be used for divination.
“That’s strange. I remember when we divined Darkness, we only used one 【Kolmor Empire Gold Coin】 and one 【death’s Atonement Coin】. Why can’t four coins work this time? Is it because the Chosen One of death is stronger, being the eleventh-ring Sister Devlin?”
“No, it could also be other circumstances.”
Luvia squeezed the coins, narrowing her eyes slightly:
“For example, the Chosen One is someone else among the three you know, but you accidentally touched them. Or, Xia De, have you ever considered that there might be more than one candidate among those three?”
Before a Chosen One performs the ritual, they can only be called a Chosen One candidate, and candidates have a priority order, not just one. Only when the higher-priority candidates have all died before the ritual can the lower-priority candidates be eligible to perform the ritual. If a higher-priority candidate still exists, or if someone has successfully performed the ritual and then died, then the lower-priority candidates can never succeed.
If the candidates for a certain qualified Chosen One were to know each other’s identities, then a high-intensity hunt would probably be unavoidable.
The characteristics of the Chosen One described in the whispering chapters all point to the first candidate, but other higher-priority candidates would also have similar traits to the first-priority candidate.
However, when the Chosen Ones of Balance and Darkness appeared, Xia De and Luvia immediately locked onto the first candidates, namely Iluna and Darkness, so there was no need to consider other candidates at that time. And now that he thinks about it, Xia De even suspects that Doctor Schneider was one of the candidates for the “Darkness” Chosen One, but unfortunately, Darkness died after performing the ritual.
“Among the Nun, the Priest, and that Boy, more than one is qualified, right?”
“Yes, so the difficulty of divination has increased.”
Luvia nodded and added:
“Of course, that’s just a possibility. But at least I can confirm that among the Ring術士 you’ve encountered so far today, there is definitely at least one candidate, and they are basically among Priest Augustus, Sister Devlin, and that Boy.”
“I really hope it’s the Priest, but never mind. When Iluna arrives in Middirburg on Tuesday, I’ll find a way to tell her this news.”
Xia De sighed:
“The trouble in that City is truly not small.”
After bidding farewell to Luvia, Xia De didn’t even have time to send the cat home before immediately taking a carriage to Doctor Schneider’s psychological clinic.
He truly had a lot of things to do today. Tonight, he still had to go with the doctor to deal with that sealed Flame Demon. Xia De was now preparing to pick up the key to the Document-level relic 【traveler's travel door】.
