“Mr. Hamilton, please heal me too. I still need to find my way back to the camp later. I don't have your ability to face a great one directly.”
Ms. Violet extended her hand to Xia De. Xia De nodded and took her soft, fair right hand. The Silver Moon's light flickered, and a steady output of Ling acted upon reality in the form of the four elements. The Great Witch of the Thirteenth Ring closed her eyes and let out a long breath:
“Regarding the sacrificial offering, I'm afraid I'll need your help. I'm quite certain we don't have anything suitable to offer to a great one.”
“But what kind of offering does that great one actually need? I don't believe a great one only asks us for lake water, dew, and tears.”
Xia De thought for a moment:
“Let me think... Is there any special liquid that can increase wisdom after drinking it?”
“Of course there is.”
It was Ms. Teresa who gave the answer:
“Before exam week every year, people in the academy would sell similar things, but I think those illegal drugs shouldn't be the answer.”
“Yes, yes, 'wisdom Potion,' 'Clever Potion'—these are all fake; they're not one's own wisdom.”
Xia De immediately nodded. During exam week, he had also heard Doctor Schneider mention similar potions.
“Besides potions, there is also a special liquid called 'Water of Wisdom,' which is a rather rare alchemical ingredient.”
Ms. Teresa added.
“Then where can this liquid be found?”
“Where the great one of the lake appears, the surrounding living water will spontaneously transform into 'Water of Wisdom.' And the closer it is to the great one, the stronger the water's extraordinary effect.”
Ms. Violet gave the answer. Xia De looked back at the tower. It was common for special materials to appear at the site of a great one's descent, but unfortunately, he couldn't take the special materials back to his own time:
“Then it definitely isn't this. What sense is there in offering water from under a great one's feet as a sacrifice?”
“Yes, the test of the wise should require wisdom to solve. The offering a great one needs must be very rare, but a great one will not give an impossible test.”
Ms. Violet looked around:
“Mr. Hamilton, I think you can find the answer where you are going to return, and we should be able to find the answer here as well.”
“Perhaps this is related to the ancient great ones?”
The Witch Emperor raised her eyebrows:
“You actually know about the ancient great ones?”
“Yes, that great one in the tower is related to the ancient great one of wisdom and Knowledge. Long, long ago, the thirteen ancient great ones had already left us, but the material world still retains items containing their power. Perhaps I should seek 'water' containing the power of the ancient great ones.”
“That certainly sounds like it could be the answer.”
Ms. Violet said, then saw white mist already swirling around Xia De:
“You're leaving again.”
Xia De looked down:
“Half a minute left. Let's keep talking. Be careful by the lake. Although you should be able to find the answer to the trial in the Lost Lake area, there's no need to take too many risks. My side of things is much safer than yours.”
“Since I advanced to Thirteen-Tier, I haven't heard anyone tell me to be careful in a long time.”
Ms. Violet said with a laugh, then reminded him:
“Since you are from... then remember to use your information to check if the great one's cult has offered any other sacrifices.”
“Yes, I will look up the information.”
Xia De's vision was almost completely enveloped by white mist, and the witch's voice became extremely blurry:
“I don't know when I'll be able to come next time, Ms. Violet, Ms. Teresa, be careful, see you next time!”
“Next time, remember to bring your cat again. Although I can't have it, seeing it again can also...”
The thick white mist disappeared between the two witches, and at the same time, Xia De's hands, which had been resting on them, also vanished. Xia De didn't hear the latter half of the sentence, but he had already nodded in agreement.
Ms. Teresa sighed softly, feeling a sense of loss, then reached up and covered her forehead.
“Your face is very red.”
Ms. Violet reminded her, then looked at her right hand and tried to grip it a few times:
“How interesting.”
“Blushing is a very normal thing.”
Ms. Teresa immediately retorted, but the Witch Emperor scoffed:
“I didn't say you were interesting. Why are you so anxious?”
She looked deeply at where Xia De had disappeared:
“Just now, when he held my hand, I felt... a very special feeling.”
“You're interested in him?”
Ms. Teresa asked cautiously. Ms. Violet hummed again:
“Schultz, you really don't understand anything. This is why you haven't been able to graduate smoothly yet.”
“I...”
“If you only judge a person by their appearance, then at most, you can only become someone like me.”
Ms. Teresa pursed her lips:
“Aunt, what do you want to say?”
“Holding his hand, I felt a peculiar... Echo? It was like striking a large bell and then pressing your hand against its surface.”
Ms. Violet looked at her palm:
“But that was an incomplete Echo; it should be called a lingering sound. He possesses peculiar power, reflecting the past, discerning history, traversing time... An Outsider who witnesses stories, truly interesting. Next time should be his last time here.”
She answered before Ms. Teresa could ask:
“I know this because he asked if the great one could also tell us the third trial. It's truly a pity that I can't keep him here forever. But that's fine too; a man like him isn't suitable to appear in our era.”
Ms. Teresa stood by, not knowing what to say. Although she had long guessed that the strange man would eventually leave forever, when she truly learned of it, there was still an indescribable emotion in her heart.
“Speaking of which, Teresa, he, like you, pursues far more than just the power of the Thirteenth Ring. Can't you see that?”
Ms. Violet pulled out the Night Watchman, preparing to return to the lakeside camp.
“I...”
Ms. Teresa lowered her head slightly, afraid her thoughts would be seen.
“Both I and that cat possess supreme beauty, and you have enough ambition, Schultz. But sometimes you still lack some insight and wisdom. This is the difference between you and that man; he has seen many things, and you have not.”
The Witch Emperor looked at her distant niece:
“But you are still young, and you still have a chance. This is your luckiest aspect. Fate has actually made us encounter such things, which means fate has arranged more for you in the future.”
She gripped the Night Watchman tightly, frowning slightly, and saw Xia De and a middle-aged man fighting an infernal demon.
At the current point in time, the Night Watchman had not yet been placed under Sicar Mountain to suppress the infernal demon, so Ms. Violet did not know what this scene meant.
She raised an eyebrow, praising with a light tone:
“Of course, I also admit that he is a very charming man. The witch he just mentioned who helped him with his thesis is truly a lucky fellow.”
(Priest Augustus is in morning prayer...)
The second return in Fifth Epoch 5177 meant Xia De had a new task. However, he had completed many such tasks of finding an uncertain item, so he didn't find it particularly difficult.
Especially since, theoretically, there was no deadline for this kind of task.
After returning home, it was still Sunday morning. After Mia transformed back, the cat immediately continued gnawing on the dried sausage, but after only one bite, it made a strange sound from its throat. It disdainfully pushed the dried sausage aside with its small paws, then meowed, urging Xia De to make breakfast.
Any item not belonging to this era, whether it came to the present as a toy or a physical object, would be worn down by time. The dried sausage was completely inedible. The traces of time once again reminded Xia De of what he was doing. And this dried sausage from the fifth epoch, in his opinion, was not worthy of being compared to the “souvenirs” he had obtained in the past, so he casually threw it into a kitchen cabinet, waiting for a time to destroy it.
“Hmm?”
When he went downstairs to get milk and the newspaper, opening the door immediately brought the chill of a winter morning, and then he saw a large wooden box placed at the doorway. Xia De immediately recalled the “wooden box theft method” discussed with Doctor Schneider yesterday. He sharply recoiled, exposing Mia, who had been following at his heels.
Mia looked back at Xia De, then immediately followed him back inside the door, finding it very amusing.
“No whisper element. Speaking of which, how could I be so unlucky as to be stolen from my house?”
Xia De thought to himself, walking to the door to examine the wooden box amidst “her” laughter:
“Sent by Taylor & Wanda United Mining Company?”
He remembered that when the academy mailed him poetry manuscript pages, the sender was also this company. Afterwards, Xia De had investigated and found that it was a large mining company in the central and southern parts of the kingdom, mainly extracting gold and some rare metal ores. It was a large company with little fame but considerable wealth.
He first retrieved the newspaper and goat's milk, then looked left and right to see no one in Saint Delan Square, before embracing the heavy wooden box with both hands and moving it into the hallway.
Perhaps the sound of going upstairs was too loud and woke Dorothy. When Xia De carried the wooden box, with the excited cat perched on it, and arrived on the second floor, the sleepy Golden-haired girl, wearing slippers and pajamas, walked out of her bedroom:
“Good morning, Xia De. Oh, what's this?”
“Mission items sent to me by Ms. Daniste. Remember? That high-value academy commission given to me by the Library administrator.”
Xia De said, but he kept his promise and did not tell anyone the truth of that commission.
The wooden box was exceptionally heavy, as if it contained metal blocks. And in fact, it did. Dorothy went to heat milk and prepare bread. After Xia De pried open the wooden box with a crowbar, he found a standard silver-gray cuboid at the bottom of the square wooden box, with its long side matching the length of the box's side, and the top covered with straw:
“An alchemical item for detecting spiritual light, and it's this big?”
Xia De was startled, but then realized that the silver-gray cuboid was just a container.
There was also a letter for Xia De in the straw. The letter had no text, and only revealed Ms. Daniste's handwriting when illuminated by Xia De's core Ling Rune, the Silver Moon.
The letter explained how to use this alchemical item. Its main body was a palm-sized mirror confined within the silver-gray cuboid. Because a derivative of the angel-level relic, the Evil Mirror of Burgundy, specifically broken mirror fragments, was used in its creation, this alchemical item for collecting spiritual light had to be carefully contained.
When Xia De needed to use it, he could take the mirror out of the silver-gray cuboid container, but he had to put it back into the silver-gray metal block within 17 hours and keep it contained for more than 11 hours before taking it out again. The method of using the mirror was also very simple: point the mirror surface at the Ling Rune from which spiritual light needed to be collected, keeping the distance no more than 15 feet (about 4.6 meters), and maintain the action for 30 seconds.
This basically meant that Xia De couldn't hide in a corner and secretly collect spiritual light. But fortunately, he now knew that Sir Prisha, the Guiding Moon, was suspected of being an academic spy. As long as he found concrete evidence, Xia De had many negotiation options at hand.
