Chapter 33: Spoils Brought by the Raven

Lei Kedun and the butler each, with thoughts on their minds, finished tonight's dinner, and the atmosphere in the house was unusually silent.

Lei Kedun wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, "I slept too long and feel a bit dizzy. I'll go to the study to read for a while. Uncle Sean, after you finish your work, go rest first; if anything comes up I'll handle it myself."

After saying that, without waiting for the butler's reply, Lei Kedun got up and headed to the study.

"Very well, young master," the butler's response came from behind.

In the study, Lei Kedun took one book after another from the shelf, but couldn't settle down to read. He simply gave up on reading, got up, and went to the second floor.

He took down the coat he had thrown on his room's cabinet, along with the sealed Great Magician's top hat wrapped inside.

Lei Kedun removed the feather from the angelic raven, examined it for a moment, then pinned it onto the red silk scarf on the top hat.

As the crimson feather was fixed onto the tall hat, the hat seemed to come alive, twisting on the table as if trying to shake the feather off.

No matter how hard the hat twisted, it could not fling off the crimson feather; finally it settled back into calm, flattening even the slightly curled front and back brims, as if the whole hat were lying flat.

After confirming that the Great Magician's top hat was fully sealed by the raven's crimson feather, Lei Kedun took the hat into his hands and, using divination, re‑examined the effects of the seal:

Wearing the hat grants extraordinary bodily coordination and balance, precise body control, and makes one's lies more readily believed.

It still allows the use of a few tricks—mist creation, flash, combustion, freezing, and wind‑calling—but each can now be used only five times per day, with low potency and little combat value.

The hat's capabilities as a magical tool and weapon have been enhanced; besides the original ability to launch the hat like a flying dagger at foes, it now gains a disciple‑path skill that lets one place the hat against a wall or table and reach through it to touch objects on the other side.

Its negative effects were also greatly reduced; the hat's intense urge to perform no longer heavily influences the wearer, requiring only a few daily performances of magic and tricks before an audience.

The hat still retains a degree of liveliness, but it no longer constantly beguiles its user; inserting different books into it at intervals each day greatly weakens its bewitching power.

Understanding the sealed effects, Lei Kedun could only remark that the angel of the White Tower Path lived up to its name—having sealed away most of the hat's drawbacks while enhancing its benefits.

Even scarier, a sealed item now has to be forced to study; he silently mourned the poor hat, then casually shoved a book from his desk into it.

Though he doesn't need the hat now, enjoying it is pleasant; after all, the Knowledge Church never lacks books, and even if he feeds the hat a different book each day, he could keep it up for centuries.

Lei Kedun noticed a bright copper‑colored ornament peeking out from where a book had been pressing it, set the book‑filled hat aside, and examined the ornament for a moment.

"Damn! How could I forget it? I haven't returned it yet!" Lei Kedun finally recalled the forgotten item.

He had been stunned for a moment before remembering that the ornament was a relic of a Morse Ascetic Society member; the captain had asked him to bring it back for research, yet he had simply forgotten it.

"But its purpose must be to help me sketch that pattern during meditation!" Lei Kedun guessed, recalling his prior meditative experience.

"Fine, I'll take it back to the captain tomorrow and say I found nothing," he decided, then slipped it into his coat pocket.

"Pat! Pat!!"

A thudding sound came from the room's window. Following it, Lei Kedun saw the angelic raven arriving.

He hurried over, opened the window, and let the raven inside.

"Caw~" the raven chirped twice, then tipped its head back and spat out two globules that resembled frozen fruit.

One globule was pale green, slowly inflating and contracting as if alive; the other was a deep green, constantly deforming irregularly, as if struggling to grow limbs.

"Extraordinary trait?" was the first thought that flashed through Lei Kedun's mind.

"A Sequence 9 Sower trait, a Sequence 8 Physician trait, both from the same path," the raven's voice echoed directly in Lei Kedun's mind.

"Is this one of the traits that emerged from that blood clan back in Yas?" Lei Kedun asked curiously.

"Yes, this is part of a deal I made with that blood clan Viscount whose path‑jump failed; I took his child away, and he gave me the surplus trait from an ancient alchemist's repertoire," the raven replied.

"Wasn't he already contaminated at that time?" Lei Kedun asked, puzzled.

That a contaminated blood clan Viscount could still bargain with an angel at the last moment to have his child rescued seemed unbelievable to Lei Kedun.

"His chaotic traits and heavy contamination actually gave him a delicate balance, preserving part of his consciousness for the trade," the raven's voice in Lei Kedun's mind added, sounding equally astonishing.

Lei Kedun thought that, were conditions different, the angel might still wish to study how that subtle balance was achieved.

"If he weren't already polluted, the Viscount would have poured even his blood‑clan traits into his child," the angelic embodiment said, eager to speak.

"Then why didn't he do that? Can't you shatter the trait and let it recombine slowly, thereby cleansing the contamination?" Lei Kedun asked, somewhat confused.

"It's possible, but do ordinary people know this method of clearing residual contamination within a trait?" the voice retorted in Lei Kedun's mind.

"Uh, I assumed so," Lei Kedun admitted, realizing his question was foolish.

Apart from angels or those of sufficiently high status, this method is virtually unknown; even Mr. Fool, who hangs at Source Fortress, spent a long time searching before learning it from Little Sun.

"May I ask if you know any way to speed up my digestion of the Reader trait inside me?" Lei Kedun hesitated, then asked.

Lei Kedun felt helpless; the Sequence Eight portion of the trait had been digested after reasoning out the cause of the incident, yet the Sequence Nine trait showed no sign of digestion.

The angelic raven stared at Lei Kedun for a while before saying, "Reading and mastering knowledge—does such a simple question still need to be asked of me?"

"I want to know if there's a faster method," Lei Kedun replied, feeling speechless.

"Use extraordinary ability to accelerate," the raven said, then flew off the table.

Lei Kedun's mouth twitched slightly; he felt the raven had taken him for a fool, so speechless it directly mocked him.

"Looks like there truly is no shortcut; from now on I'll have to study earnestly," Lei Kedun sighed, feeling a bit disappointed.

He went to his father's room, retrieved two iron cigarette cases, placed each trait into one, and sealed them off from the world with a Spiritual Wall.

Afterwards he cleared a cabinet in his own room for collectibles, storing the sealed Great Magician's top hat and the two extraordinary traits inside it separately.

"From now on I must keep a copy of the sealed items and traits of all twenty‑two paths," he thought, his collecting habit rekindled as he surveyed the now‑empty cabinet.

(End of Chapter)