Chapter 43: In-Home Tutoring

Chapter 43: In-Home Tutoring

After the Dawn circled the primitive island three times, it finally sailed toward the distant region shrouded in storms.

Bernadette slowly withdrew her gaze and looked toward the Sage’s Forehead Ornament floating in midair.

As a Prophet, she had clearly seen the opportunity for advancement. She understood that she had already completed the corresponding ritual: preventing a disaster involving high-level powers.

But the price had been personally sealing her own father—the father she had missed for more than a hundred years and pursued for more than a hundred years.

“What exquisite irony…” Bernadette looked at the vertical eye inlaid with diamonds and let out a nearly inaudible sigh.

After leaving Intis, her two greatest wishes had been to investigate the truth of those events and determine whether she had misunderstood her father; and to follow the traces he had left behind, to see what he had once experienced and whether there was any possibility of his resurrection.

Her first wish had already been fulfilled. The truth was that she had indeed misunderstood her father. This made her less tormented, less conflicted, and caused the resentment she had once held toward him to completely dissolve. Yet it also added a great deal of guilt.

Carrying that guilt and the longing accumulated over so many years, she had worked hard to fulfill the second wish, only for the final result to be far from beautiful.

Had there never been hope, perhaps her emotional reaction would not have been so intense. But she had clearly seen the dawn. She had clearly seen her father. Yet she had no choice but to personally make him return to slumber.

After remaining silent for quite some time, Bernadette’s eyes, which had slightly lost focus, became clear once more.

She no longer hesitated, blamed herself, or allowed all kinds of negative emotions to arise. Resolutely, she raised her right hand and outlined one ancient word after another, each flickering with starlight, in the void. She summoned the spirit world creature with a human upper body and a lower body of wind, retrieving from it part of the supplementary ingredients for the Sage potion.

As for the remaining portion, because it did not need any special preservation, it was inside the Dawn’s collection room.

Before long, Bernadette used Pale Death to shatter the Sage’s Forehead Ornament and prepare the bottle of potion that could let her advance to Sequence 2.

She glanced at the Sage potion, which bubbled with a gurgling sound, each bubble hiding a transparent eye. With an unwavering expression, Bernadette raised her right hand and brought the glass bottle to her lips.

She knew that what she needed at this moment was not grief, not sentimentality, but a firm heart and the will to move forward. To help her father, Emperor Roselle, break free of his corruption and truly revive, she needed a higher Sequence and greater strength.

For that, she was willing to bury the pain in the deepest part of her heart, preventing it from affecting her mental state. Only in the night, when no one was around, would she take it out again and savor it alone.

As the Sage potion entered her mouth, Bernadette’s body visibly turned illusory.

She decomposed into one vast stream of complex knowledge after another, transforming toward the existence form of an information torrent.

The entire Dawn, as well as the surrounding violent winds, torrential rain, lightning, seawater, and waves, lost their sense of reality, as though all had been reduced to the most fundamental, truest forms of information.

For the overwhelming majority of Sequence 3 Beyonders of the Mystery Pryer pathway, such a state was extremely dangerous. If their will was not firm enough, their luck not good enough, or their preparations not sufficient, the torrent of knowledge formed from themselves would be penetrated, washed away, and assimilated by all kinds of external information within only a few seconds. Their consciousness would be lost rapidly, and they would never be able to reconstruct their body again, becoming one of the strangest and most difficult monsters in mysticism:

A Knowledge Fairy.

This was also called an information creature.

Relying on the Sage’s Forehead Ornament, Bernadette had several times transformed into an information torrent before. Although each time had been limited to two or three seconds and never lasted long, it still counted as experience. At this moment, she did her utmost to maintain the existence of her own consciousness and establish a certain connection with the spirit world information corresponding to the prevention of a high-level disaster.

That information bore her clear imprint and involved an extremely high level, making it abnormally “solid.” It would not be scattered by other information in a short time. This helped her initially stabilize her consciousness and bit by bit draw together the dispersing, fading information torrent of her original body.

During this process, above the gray fog, Klein, through the specially marked prayer light, lightly tapped the edge of the mottled long table. He used a Miracle Invoker’s ability to alter the probability of certain matters and certain actions to a degree, granting Bernadette a measure of good luck.

Time passed second by second. More than once, Bernadette hovered at the edge of losing consciousness, but in the end, she endured and gathered together all the information belonging to herself, beginning to reconstruct her body.

At that moment, she gradually sensed the concern of Admiral of Stars Cattleya. She sensed the members of the Element Dawn, her crew, and her sailors conducting their daily prayers.

This made her state increasingly stable, allowing her to resist the ancient will slowly forming inside her.

Just then, streams of hidden information came from nowhere, seizing the opportunity as Bernadette reconstructed her body and attempting to fuse with her.

This was interference from the Hidden Sage!

As a certain embodiment of knowledge and information in this world, and as something close to Sequence 0 of the Mystery Pryer pathway, the Hidden Sage could exert a degree of influence over Sequence Beyonders of the same pathway who were below It.

Without giving Bernadette a chance to use the pale mask, the “curtain” draped over Klein gently lifted.

Around Bernadette, spacetime instantly twisted, causing the region she occupied to become completely isolated from the outside world. Even information could no longer be exchanged.

Seizing this sudden tranquility, Bernadette completely reconstructed her body and, relying on her anchors, initially balanced the terrifying will that had arisen inside her.

At that moment, she had truly become a “Her.” She had become a Sequence 2 angel of the Mystery Pryer pathway, a major figure who could be respectfully called a “hidden existence” in the mysterious world.

Immediately afterward, she saw the distorted spacetime around her return to normal, and streams of hidden information surge toward her.

She then stretched out her right hand and easily grasped that information, extracting the useful knowledge contained within.

Just as Bernadette prepared to return from the spirit world to reality, an orange light suddenly rose before her eyes.

The light instantly condensed into a plump old man with a short white beard.

With a smile, the old man spoke.

“Madam, I am Hilarion, the Orange Light.”

The Orange Light… Bernadette was puzzled. She did not understand why the Orange Light Hilarion had appeared before her. They had not had many interactions before this.

As leader of the Element Dawn and a former Mysticologist, she was no stranger to the Seven Lights of the spirit world. She even knew how to pray to them and obtain the corresponding guidance. She knew that the seven pure lights were certain symbols of the spirit world, encompassing endless knowledge in different domains, and that their status had absolutely reached the angelic level.

The Orange Light Hilarion smiled and added,

“A certain great existence has instructed me to tell you knowledge related to the Old Ones, Outer Deities, and the starry sky, so that you may accurately grasp the state of this world and the corresponding corruption.”

“Which existence?” Bernadette asked, both puzzled and cautious.

She vaguely foresaw the answer, yet still found it somewhat difficult to believe. After all, the Seven Lights of the spirit world were likewise major figures in the mysterious world. Even for Sequence 0 true gods, driving Them would not be so simple or easy.

With a cheerful smile, the Orange Light Hilarion answered,

“The Great Ruler Above the Spirit World.”

The Great Ruler Above the Spirit World… Bernadette repeated the honorific title, her thoughts surging like a tide for a moment.

Hilarion glanced at her and smiled.

“He has another title:

“Mr. Fool.”

…

In a certain stretch of sea, aboard the Future, which sailed along a safe route.

Cattleya suddenly woke from a dream, cold sweat covering her forehead.

In the dream just now, she had seen the Queen collapse, covered in blood. Her chest and abdomen had been torn open, and an infant-shaped monster had crawled out.

As a Mysticologist—and a Mysticologist who had advanced using a drop of blood from the Snake of Fate—Cattleya believed that her dream could not be without reason. It had to foretell something.

And clearly, the dream she had just had was not a good one.

Unable to calm herself, Cattleya sat up, draped a cloak over her shoulders, and tried praying to Mr. Fool, hoping this great existence could give her some hint or protect the Queen.

Very soon, a scene appeared before her eyes:

The Queen of Mysteries Bernadette stepped out of the spirit world and returned to the Dawn, causing the ship to gradually move away from the faintly visible nameless island.

Cattleya immediately breathed out in relief and sincerely thanked Mr. Fool.

After finishing the prayer, she felt extremely pleasant. She opened the captain’s cabin window, letting starlight condense into a long bridge that fell upon the deck.

She then put on the rather heavy pair of glasses and walked step by step along the resplendent bridge of starlight to the deck, strolling leisurely in the peaceful night atmosphere.

When she reached the bow, Cattleya saw Frank Lee fiddling with bottles and jars there.

“What are you doing?” Cattleya frowned without realizing it.

Frank looked up and gave a bright smile.

“The previous idea ran into a setback and can’t proceed for now, so I asked Nina to get me some soil from the seabed. I’m studying the microbes inside.”

At this point, Frank said with great yearning,

“During my next vacation, I want to go deep into the Northern Sea, or to the icy world of the polar regions, and take a look. Beneath those thick layers of ice, there might be ancient microorganisms from the Fourth Epoch, the Third Epoch, or even the Second and First Epochs. That would let me gain so, so much.”

You will not have a vacation for the time being… Cattleya silently said inwardly.

…

Klein manifested a box, placed all four Cards of Blasphemy inside it, and sealed it layer after layer. Then he immediately returned to the real world and headed straight for the nearest Church of Evernight.

He planned to use a prayer to inform the Evernight Goddess about the hidden dangers of the Cards of Blasphemy, reminding Her to pay attention to the related problem and not let Earth Mother Lilith obtain the Mother card or the Moon card.