Chapter 157

As Wu Chang confirmed his class change to Mystic Knight, the "New Mystic Knight Code" in his hand stirred without wind, pages flipping rapidly as the history and knowledge of the Mystic Knights flooded his mind.

Mystic Knight is a class between wizard and knight, born from a coincidence.

In the Moonlight Sanatorium dimension, for a long time, the task of combating the evil god's followers had fallen to priests within the Church and free-spirited wizards.

Priests and wizards with high sensitivity and mastery of mysticism could resist the evil god's temptations, as well as the curses and spells of the evil god's demons.

Knights belonging to the kingdom and the Church served more as bodyguards, protecting priests and wizards from attacks by demons and the evil god's followers.

After all, studying mysticism is an energy-draining task, requiring long hours reading books, researching history, and experimenting with rituals—no time for physical training.

Priests and wizards who avoided cervical and lumbar problems, and didn't suffer malnutrition or osteoporosis from poor diet and sleep, were already among the best; asking them to fight demons was simply too much.

Yet even with knight protection, priests and wizards remained high-risk professions; most lived past forty, and the deeper their mysticism study, the shorter their lives.

After prolonged research, the kingdom's scholars discovered that priests and wizards who wielded mysticism suffered energy contamination within their bodies, and during combat against the evil god, the evil god's malevolent thoughts corroded their flesh.

Only a powerful physique could resist mysticism's contamination and withstand the evil god's corrosion.

While promoting swimming and fitness among young priests, the kingdom turned its gaze toward its knight order.

Medical experts, through autopsies of deceased priests, found that the stronger the priest, the deeper the mysticism contamination in their body, and the higher their energy absorption and utilization rates.

Mysticism contamination was a death sentence for priests and wizards—but might it differ when applied to knights?

After repeated experiments, the Mystic Knights emerged naturally, capable of harnessing mysticism contamination as a source of power.

Mystic Knights lacked theoretical mastery of mysticism, but the flow of mystic energy within their bodies had become part of their physical being, far surpassing traditional priests and wizards in practical energy application.

With their formidable combat strength, Mystic Knights quickly became the main force against the evil god, and under Commander Anderson's leadership, they successfully slew the evil god's manifested avatar.

Yet after the evil god's avatar was slain, the Mystic Knight Order declined; powerful yet short-lived priests and wizards, and physically strong but energy-inefficient knights, returned to dominance.

To this day, the Mystic Knight class has vanished entirely, its transformation method lost, buried in history.

Ding!

As Wu Chang witnessed the rise and fall of the Mystic Knights, a notification chimed in his ear.

"You have discovered the hidden Mystic Knight training method and successfully activated the class transformation quest."

"Quest Description: Resisting mysticism contamination requires not only a powerful physique but also unwavering conviction. You must locate sufficient anchors in the real world to prevent yourself from being lost in mysticism contamination."

"Transformation Quest One: In the real world, locate at least three areas contaminated by mysticism and establish anchor points for the real world."

"Upon completion of Transformation Quest One, the next stage of the transformation quest will unlock."

Before initiating the class transformation, Wu Chang had researched transformation methods; only low-tier white, blue, and green transformations could be activated directly by using an item.

Some rare green transformations, and higher-tier red and gold transformations, required transformation quests.

The more transformation quests, the stronger the class—like the Sword Star's transformation into Sword Sect, which had three transformation quests.

The Sword Sect's advanced transformation, Sword Cultivator, required completing multiple dungeons for its final stage.

From the current situation, the Mystic Knight transformation quest has at least two stages; if it reaches three, its strength ranks among the upper tier of hidden classes.

Wu Chang cast aside distractions and refocused on Transformation Quest One.

When he activated the transformation quest, he saw the history of the Mystic Knights: during training, new recruits would swear loyalty to the order's flag and the king's emblem as anchor objects.

By swearing oaths to these two items, they pledged allegiance to the order and the royal house.

If Wu Chang had taken the king's emblem or the Mystic emblem out of the dungeon, Transformation Quest One would have been simple; without both relics, completion would be difficult.

To contaminate the real world with mysticism, a mysticism master—or at least a quasi-master—must perform a mystic array, gathering vast amounts of energy.

The quest is limited to the real world, yet finding a mysticism master there is not easy.

The Administration might have one; his acquaintance Shi Ning might be one—but he couldn't seek help; his actions wouldn't escape a mysticism master's eyes.

Fortunately, the transformation quest accounted for this: after accepting it, he gained a compass-like item.

"Item Name: Mysticism Detector"

"Item Type: Timed Item"

"Item Description: Detects nearby mysticism-contaminated areas and guides the user toward them. Usage interval: 15 days. Mysticism Detector will be destroyed in 46 days."

If calculated by usage interval, he'd need at least 30 days to complete the quest; combined with subsequent stages, he wasn't sure if he could finish before the World Dungeon arrived.

He chose to use the Mysticism Detector; the compass spun twice, then a prompt appeared before him.

"Mysticism-contaminated zone detected nearby. Current distance to target: 3,000 meters. Follow the needle to the target area."

Wu Chang left home and followed the needle toward the target.

In the era of the Mystic Knights, no navigation systems existed; the needle pointed directly at the target, ignoring terrain or route conditions.

For just 3,000 meters, he detoured for an hour and a half before stopping before a bar.

He circled the bar three times; the needle never wavered. He was certain: this was it.

The bar stood in a narrow alley, its exterior ordinary, plain as a residential house, as if trying to avoid being found.

No eye-catching sign hung at the entrance; only a few neon-lit characters spelled out the name.

Night Song Bar.

He had assumed the detector's target would be an Administration facility or a zone left behind by an invasion dungeon; he never expected it to point to a bar.

This meant it wasn't a wild mysticism contamination zone, but a deliberately constructed site by a skilled mysticism player.

After becoming an Explorer, he had access to the Wanghai City Branch's personnel structure and the list of registered free players in Wanghai City.

He didn't recall any master-level mysticism researchers among them—was this a fugitive, or someone with ill intent?

He sat down at a corner of Five Elements Street and tried to send his spirit form into the bar—but found it shielded by a barrier preventing his spirit from entering.

The creator had clearly implemented specific protections to prevent skill-based surveillance of the bar's interior.

Something strange is afoot; he'd only intended to complete a transformation quest, yet stumbled upon a big fish.

This made him even more curious about what lay inside. Unable to enter, he settled outside the bar, observing those who entered.

He waited at the entrance for half an hour, watching several groups of patrons.

Night Song Bar was a members-only establishment; entrants presented a membership card or showed membership permission on their phone app, and were then let through by the bouncer.

A few college students out for a late-night stroll passed by and wanted to go in for a look, but were turned away at the door by security. None of them were short on money, so they immediately offered to sign up for a card, only to be told that membership cards required referral from an existing member and outsiders couldn't apply.

While squatting at the entrance, Wu Chang opened Little Yellow Tuber, Bean Block, and Dou Sheng, and found no information about Night Song Bar at all, which further confirmed the abnormality of this place.

If he were an ordinary player, at this point there would only be two choices: give up, or find a way to force their way in or sneak in.

But Wu Chang was different—he was a government man, an Explorer of the Management Bureau.

With his clearance level, Wanghai City held no secrets from him.

After logging into the Management Bureau system backend, he directly looked up the founder of Night Song Bar, and followed the trail from the founder onward.

If it turned out to be one of his own people, he'd find a way to pull strings and get a membership card.

If it wasn't one of his own people, then an anti-vice sweep and a fire safety check would be in order.

!

One look and sure enough, a problem turned up. The founder of Night Song Bar was named Tang Renquan, a famous young entrepreneur in Wanghai City, with relatives in government holding no small a position.

More importantly, he was also a player.

A year ago, several deaths had occurred at Night Song's venue. The corpses were bizarre—dead of heart failure triggered by mental collapse. The Management Bureau suspected he was behind it and sent people to infiltrate Night Song to investigate.

Only the follow-up investigation turned up nothing. Around the same time, they caught an evil god cultist who confessed to having a hand in the deaths. On top of that, Tang Renquan was on good terms with several local power players in Wanghai City, and his own family background was extraordinary, so the matter was dropped.

But what's worth noting is that among the two Management Bureau members who infiltrated to investigate back then, one of them was Zhao Yan.

Wu Chang immediately gave Zhao Yan a call, asking to borrow Night Song Bar's VIP.

Zhao Yan had been plied with quite a bit of alcohol at the victory banquet and had already gone to sleep. Hearing Wu Chang's call, he picked up the phone in a daze.

Hearing that Wu Chang wanted Night Song's VIP, he first zoned out for a moment, then his drunkenness snapped awake by half, and he sat up in bed.

"Conghua, you're investigating Night Song?"

Wu Chang knew Zhao Yan would press him for details, so he said, "I went out for a walk tonight, and when I passed Night Song I sensed something was off. I want to go in and check it out."

"Where are you right now?" Zhao Yan asked.

"At Night Song's entrance."

"Wait there, I'm coming right over!"

Half an hour later, Wu Chang saw Zhao Yan get out of a ride-hailing car and waved at him.

By now Zhao Yan's drunkenness had mostly worn off. He squatted down beside Wu Chang, lit a cigarette, took a hard drag, then said, "I do have Night Song's VIP, but if you're going to investigate, I have to come with you."

Wu Chang shot Zhao Yan a sideways glance and laughed, "Instructor doesn't trust me? Worried I'll do something shady?"

Zhao Yan sniffed, glanced toward the alley where Night Song Bar was, and said, "That place is creepy. I don't feel right letting you go in alone."

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow and asked, "How so?"

Zhao Yan said, "Your clearance is higher than mine now. You came to me, so you must have looked at the files in the Management Bureau backend."

Wu Chang nodded.

Zhao Yan: "There are some things I didn't write into the files. Back when we infiltrated Night Song to investigate, we went in for seven nights in total and didn't turn up anything."

"The guy who investigated with me had the codename Monkey—wickedly sharp, real smart brain. Half a year after the Night Song incident, one night he suddenly called me and said he'd just come out of an Instance, and because of certain reasons his Inspiration had surged, and relying on that Inspiration he'd realized there was a problem with the investigation back then."

"What problem?" Wu Chang pressed.

"He said that relying on his Inspiration, he recalled many details from his memories. The memory of the seventh night was largely pieced together from memory fragments of the other six nights—in other words, his memory of the seventh night was missing a chunk."

Zhao Yan pinched out the cigarette butt in his hand, lit a fresh one, and went on:

"I don't have memory as good as his, and I don't have any surging Inspiration. Let alone recalling a missing chunk of memory, I can't even clearly remember what happened during those seven days."

"So I told Monkey to go find Director Gao and get his memory examined."

Just as he got to the most critical part, Zhao Yan took a drag of his cigarette. Wu Chang, impatient, clicked his tongue and asked, "And then?"

Zhao Yan shook his head and said, "Then Monkey died—died of Inspiration runaway and will collapse, right there on the phone with me."

"The Management Bureau didn't take any follow-up action?" Wu Chang frowned, unable to believe the Bureau would sit idle after losing a member.

"What action could they take?" Zhao Yan countered.

"Monkey died of will collapse, cause of death being excessive stimulation in an Instance triggering Inspiration runaway. He was alone at home when he died—no signs of anyone entering the house, no traces of skill influence."

"And you know, when someone's will collapses and their Inspiration runs wild, they hallucinate. Anything said during that period can't be used as evidence."

Zhao Yan sighed and said, "You can't exactly claim someone planted a bomb in Monkey's brain that would make his Inspiration run wild the moment he remembered something."

Wu Chang narrowed his eyes. Believe it or not, that was actually possible.

The person who hired Lei Hu could sign a contract with Lei Hu, and the moment Lei Hu tried to leak information, the hidden force within the contract would detonate.

If the one who moved against Monkey was a Master of Mysticism, and a player of far higher level than Monkey, it wasn't beyond them to pull this off.

"No problem found in the examination, but you don't buy it?"

Zhao Yan nodded. "Monkey had great memory, with plenty of important things stored in his head. Even if it really was Inspiration runaway hallucinations, they wouldn't just happen to center on the Night Song matter."

"Plenty of people didn't buy it. We conducted multiple infiltration investigations of Night Song afterward, but the other side was well-prepared and we never turned up anything. Big Sis even went so far as to put a sack over Tang Renquan's head, drag him into the Countermeasures Bureau, and test him directly with a lie detector—and still nothing."

"Because of that, Big Sis even got a demerit. If Big Sis's background weren't solid enough, and it had been me, I'd probably have gotten a major demerit and been sent to stand as a doorman at the Fighting Club entrance."

Wu Chang shook his head after hearing this, thinking to himself that the woman Meng Yawen was way too fierce—daring to put a sack over a local power player like Tang Renquan and kidnap him. If this kid Fang Hui ever crossed Meng Yawen in the future, he'd be in for a world of suffering.

Still, he didn't dislike that kind of approach—protective of her own people, he liked that.

They were players, not police—no need to gather witness testimony and physical evidence before making a move.

Originally he only wanted to sneak into Night Song Bar and complete one anchoring, with no intention of meddling. But when he first joined the Management Bureau, he owed Meng Yawen a favor, and Tang Renquan had caused her to take a demerit—so this debt, he had to settle properly.

(End of chapter)