Chapter 200: Clues

Kraft flipped through the book from the carriage to his residence, trying to find some metaphorical hints between the lines, but the Holy Scripture was ultimately not historical fact; it emphasized a fusion of the illusory and the real.

To make an inappropriate analogy, just like "a dragon enters the room before birth," "the whole room glows red at birth," or "slaying the white snake to start a rebellion," there are similar stories here of being extraordinary from birth and slaying evil dragons; by increasing their proportion in the narrative and emphasizing the nature of being chosen by heaven and the unchangeable will of fate, it becomes a Holy Scripture-style record.

Especially for practical needs, generally the length of Holy Scripture stories is limited, ensuring this sacred book is not split into upper, middle, and lower volumes, and must be able to be copied and understood by someone with the average literacy level of an educated person, so the narrative structure also tends to be straightforward.

The beginning of the story basically reveals the history of the Church's development in North.

North was once in a state of extreme fragmentation where rulers in various regions refused to submit to one another; vibrant social organizations were everywhere, ranging in scale from villages to territories centered on cities; everyone fought endlessly, attempting to swallow each other, and the largest was likely no bigger than the current Duke of Westmin.

There were too many specific forces and their titles, most of which are untraceable to this day; one only needs to know it was an era full of kings, ancient and glorious, where the land of North was teeming with life and all things were flourishing.

In such an environment, the Church landed on this offshore, secluded land, began its missionary journey, and quickly realized that life in this ghostly place was truly unbearable. The unstable environment was filled with various orders issued in the morning and changed by evening, village brawls, and regime changes—if they could even be called regimes.

They encountered some problems of acclimatization, and they also competed with various local primitive beliefs.

A bishop of the Church, namely Saint Yager, received a revelation from the Heavenly Father, guiding him to a certain place to find the child chosen by the Heavenly Father, to teach him from a young age, and to guide him to draw that sword which was destined to be drawn only by the chosen one.

Interpreting this personally and without authorization, it can roughly be understood as: the Church found a well-controllable younger son of a minor noble to support as a secular power representative, attempting to carve out a theocracy.

This chosen one, namely the First King, was very promising. Not only were there strange phenomena at his birth, but he was also extraordinarily intelligent; at three years old, he could memorize the priest's sermon content, and by the time Saint Yager discovered him, he could recite the Holy Canon from memory; he was born with all the noble virtues a knight should possess, and these virtues were all verified later.

Brave and benevolent, no one could stop the treasure sword drawn from the stone, whether it was the army of a great lord, the legendary evil dragon with scales impenetrable to blades and spewing flames, or the heretics who believed in demons. And for those willing to submit, he converted them with the Holy Canon.

Simply put, this chosen representative truly had outstanding professional capabilities and was unexpectedly good at slashing; for anyone or anything that encountered him, there were only two possibilities: complete submission or silence in fragments.

Generally, this can be understood as unifying secular forces and eliminating the various primitive belief worships that grew wildly like weeds across the land.

Honestly, this is a bit scary; this emerging super-large military group formed under the First King swept across the entire North in a short time. In Kraft's Special perspective, there is reason to suspect that in the later stages, the Church realized the development of events had long been out of control, and the leader of the secular power had gained prestige no less than that of the religion.

All the momentum created for others before had become part of an unshakable status; a theocracy was out of the question; let's split the world equally, the spiritual belongs to the Church, and the worldly belongs to the King.

So the question arises, why did Mo Lisen want to read this?

Judging purely by the rich suspicious elements, if interpreted in an abnormal direction, the supernatural components inside never decreased from beginning to end, including the clouds parting at birth to send down a pillar of light, flocks of sheep following automatically while herding, drawing a sword that no one else could draw, killing an evil dragon, and so on.

"Give it up, who knows which parts are purely fabricated." Kraft waved the lamp flame, desperately trying to see if he could roast out some hidden text; considering he had to return the book, he abandoned the impulsive idea and slammed the Holy Scripture shut.

After slumping in the chair for a while, he took out the bottommost coin from his money bag. The story of the Sword in the Stone and the First King was known to every household, and related elements were visible everywhere; the kingdom's gold coins were the most common manifestation.

Well, not too common either; gold coins were mostly used for bottom-of-the-chest storage most of the time; this was the first time he had taken one out after getting it. As for a certain poor-raised heir before achieving financial independence, he would never have had the chance to touch the family's small treasury.

Flipping over the double-tower face, the other side was the royal sword emblem. Because it had to adapt to the shield-shaped coat of arms and the resolution of the casting pattern, the sword was designed short and wide, closer to a broadsword; if the King really used it to chop hard objects, that would be quite reasonable.

Kraft put the gold coin back in his pocket, tied the bag opening tight, and was convinced he had no ability to interpret any effective information from it.

Even if it could be confirmed which element Mo Lisen was interested in, blindly groping without further guidance conditions would make it difficult to link it with existing information.

"Forget it, it was an unexpected gain in the first place; it is reasonable that there is no causal connection to advance." He pressed his forehead and began to list investigation directions.

The fire in the laboratory was simply too ill-timed, or rather, too timely. Relevant experimental information and Mo Lisen himself were all consumed by the flames; no one could investigate further, as both human and material evidence were lost. Just like the death of Lecturer Petrie, everyone understood there was a problem; Kraft could even judge that he was dragged into the Deep, but he had absolutely no way to do anything about it.

Vaguely, there was a society revolving around the so-called Black Liquid, with its main structure likely located between Dunling and Westmin; among the involved personnel, there were many scholars, and they had a tenuous relationship with the heretics.

In Westmin, they instructed Brimmer to kill Petrie, who was under heavy protection; in Dunling, they silenced Mo Lisen and Kalman, creating such a huge spectacle to protect their secrets.

Recalling the few members of the Inquisition seen in the academy that day, perhaps the Church people knew something? Or was it merely their instinct to investigate heresy that led them to investigate abnormal activities, forcing the other side to destroy the bodies and cover up the tracks?

Moreover, there was a common point in all of this.

【Leave no bodies】

The fire could be understood as setting a fire to burn everything clean for convenience, but going to such great lengths to drag Petrie into the Deep was a bit hard to explain.

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The water inside the assassin's pot was poured into the cup; after death, the data was naturally collected by Professor Brimmer. If they just wanted Lecturer Petrie to remain silent forever, what was the difference between putting in belladonna and putting in Black Liquid?

No difference at all; it couldn't be that they had just learned "magic" and couldn't suppress the impulse to show it off, could it?

【Of course there is a difference】

They seemed to have some obsession or necessary requirement regarding destroying bodies and covering up tracks, making it so that Petrie's corpse absolutely could not fall into the hands of Rivers University outside their control range, especially not into the hands of the Rivers University School of Medicine.

The more Kraft thought about it, the more something felt wrong; he lowered his left hand pressing his forehead, and the rich, dense sensation of hard angular edges brushed across the table through his sleeve. Judging others by oneself, many seen who were deeply affected by the Deep exhibited a certain degree of anatomical abnormalities.

"Kup, go downstairs and ask Professor Fernando and Professor Lin Deng if they want to go to the cemetery of the fire victims to pay their respects together! Just say it is to ease relations between the two schools and pave the way for technical exchanges and borrowing instruments and equipment to be carried out next."

"Yes, Mr. Kraft, I will go immediately." Kup closed the vocabulary book and ran downstairs.