Lord of Mysteries: Starting As A Reader

Hearing Daly's words, Dunn, who had his arm around her shoulders, showed a look of joy, but more than that, he seemed dazed.

Not getting the expected reaction, Daly raised her slender eyebrows, her sparkling green eyes sweeping over Dunn, and asked with a strange tone, "My dear, you don't seem surprised?"

As if sensing "danger," Dunn finally came to his senses. He organized his thoughts and said hesitantly, "I suddenly 'fell asleep' just now... You know, for a 'Soul Assurer,' that's not normal."

"Suddenly fell asleep?" Daly also grew serious upon hearing this. She casually summoned the nearby specters who were on "alert" and asked them if there had been any intruders...

After receiving a negative answer, she thoughtfully asked, "What did you encounter in your dream? Did you learn about my pregnancy?"

Dunn nodded, then, after a moment of hesitation, said in a very complex tone, "I... I heard the Goddess's oracle in my dream."

"The Goddess..." Daly was immediately startled, then became fearful... After all, she, who privately prayed to "The Fool," and Dunn, who had left the Nighthawks after his resurrection, had theoretically both betrayed the Church of Evernight...

Although they still believed in the great "Queen of Calamity and Terror."

After a long while, she gradually came to realize that the Goddess might not have blamed them, otherwise, She wouldn't have given Dunn an oracle.

Daly forced herself to calm down, took a deep breath, and asked, "Can you be sure it was the Goddess's oracle?"

This was very important.

"There's no mistake!" As the former captain of the Nighthawks squad, as a "Soul Assurer" of the "Darkness" pathway, Dunn could still distinguish truth from falsehood.

"Goddess... did She have any commands?" Daly couldn't help but feel nervous, knowing that the message Dunn had just revealed might involve her child.

Could it be that this child shouldn't be born?

Just as Daly's mind raced, Dunn finally recovered from the shock of receiving the oracle. He saw his beloved's fear, and after a moment's thought, understood the reason. He quickly reassured her:

"Don't worry... In fact, the Goddess also provided a solution to our marriage problem..."

Daly, sensing that her beloved wasn't telling a well-intentioned lie, let out a long breath and asked curiously, "What solution?"

"The solution is for you to pray to Mr. Fool... and convey a message to that existence..."

.....

In the "Ritual Chamber" beneath the Surrey family estate in Tosk.

Klein, Edwina, and Ebner, holding the Blasphemy cards of "Black Emperor," "Error," and "Door" respectively, once again opened the door to the world of imagination, leading Sharon and Taylors back to reality.

Upon seeing their "masters" return, "Chessia," who had been waiting there, immediately came forward, and Ebner took the opportunity to have the Magic Mirror release the demon, re-occupying her body.

—Relying solely on "hypnosis" to replace personalities was, after all, not entirely reassuring.

Having reached this point, and thus out of the "dangerous" territory, Ebner distributed the rewards Lilith had entrusted him with to the others.

Without dwelling on Edwina's oil lamp and Sharon's parasol, Klein, after receiving the "Moon" card, merely glanced at it, and his mouth couldn't help but twitch. To maintain Gehrman's persona, he swallowed the question that was on the tip of his tongue: "Does the 'Apothecary' pathway also change a person's gender?"

It was Ebner who, discerning a clue from Klein's prolonged stare at the card, regretted not distributing the rewards before the Hall of Honesty. He briefly explained:

"Sequence 1 of the 'Apothecary' pathway is called the 'Beauty Goddess.'"

Hearing this, Klein jumped, thinking his inner thoughts had accidentally leaked again. When he remembered that they had already left "Groselle's Travels," he relaxed and then mused:

"Beauty Goddess"... I've heard that name before. I didn't expect it to be a gender-changing sequence too... So, Emlyn will become Emeline later?

But this is Sequence 1; it actually has nothing to do with most Beyonders of the 'Apothecary' pathway...

However, with the "Demoness" card first, and now the "Moon" card, is this helping me complete my acting as quickly as possible?

Could it be that acting as a "female" is more conducive to the digestion of a "Faceless"?

Hmm, overcoming psychological barriers and creating a mental state that is both integrated and detached might be one of the "Faceless" acting principles.

Just as Klein was habitually summarizing, the "Prophet" Taylors, on the other side, held the ruby-transformed "Blood Fairy" in his palm, staring at her intently, making the newly born, thumb-sized "little girl" incredibly shy.

"You should restrain yourself... Although she is a reward from a deity, she is also a favored one of that entity," Ebner couldn't help but "threaten" him.

Taylors then noticed his loss of composure and, to avoid misunderstanding, quickly explained: "She can actually display a partial, incomplete mythical form even in her normal state... This is a very attractive research topic for me."

"Although some 'Devils' can also do it, they are clearly not as cooperative."

Hearing this, Ebner's heart stirred. Recalling the information Lilith had revealed when she handed him the "Blood Fairy," he tentatively asked: "Is studying 'incomplete mythical forms' important for a 'Prophet'?"

Upon being asked, Taylors first made the "Blood Fairy" revert to a ruby, then looked at Ebner with a half-smile for a few moments, and finally organized his words:

"If it were anyone else asking, I definitely wouldn't answer easily...

"But since it's Your Excellency, the 'Favored One,' this is not an unspeakable secret. Telling you also counts as fostering our friendship...

"Hmm, as far as I know, the ritual for advancing to a 'Prophet' requires a deep understanding of the essence of at least three 'incomplete mythical creatures.' Only after fully analyzing their models can one consume the potion."

"And the more 'incomplete mythical creatures' one masters, and the broader the scope of knowledge, the higher the probability of successful advancement."

Fully analyze at least three "incomplete mythical creatures"? This sounds simple, but the difficulty is not low at all! After all, no demigod would willingly let others "deeply" study them, right?

So, one either has to possess powerful strength to capture target demigods and forcibly detain them for "analysis," or one must have the charm to make others willingly submit to your research...

No wonder most "Readers" have the persona of "having a wide circle of friends," and no wonder the "Church of Knowledge" even encourages its members to make friends with people from other organizations and churches.

From this perspective, "Readers" and "Seers" are quite similar; they are both pathways that apply "Relationship Studies" and "Interpersonal Communication Studies"!