Chapter 13

The deceased detective Spiro Hamilton, roughly half a year ago, took on a rather thorny commission. Baron Huntington, who resided in the city of Tobesk, commissioned the detective to search for a missing maidservant. That maidservant had served the Baron's household for many years, and had recently resigned of her own accord.

The Baron had his butler take gifts to invite the maidservant back, only to discover she had already gone missing. Although the Baron held a certain social standing, he was after all not the maidservant's family, and he himself apparently did not trust the police much, which was why he commissioned multiple detectives to investigate.

Detective Spiro was actually not some famous detective; his usual commissions were nothing more than small matters like looking into affairs. This time a nobleman came with a commission, and only because of an introduction from an old client.

Spiro Hamilton took this matter very seriously—even a Baron was a great personage an ordinary citizen could not reach. He investigated very diligently, and this spring spent a month, through various clues, locating an abandoned sanatorium on the banks of the Ousair River, and concluded that this was the cause of the disappearance case.

"This sanatorium was abandoned roughly thirty years ago; at the time I was still just a child, and I heard my family mention it."

The local Bill Shi Nai De explained, pointing toward the building complex gradually coming into view not far away. Although the mist outside the city was also hazy, one could already make out the clock tower beside the main building, as well as the spires and cross-shaped decorative pinnacles.

"At the time, the royal family instructed the Tobesk City Hall to redo the municipal planning, to accommodate the influx of a huge population and the development of steam industry. The policy at the time was roughly that infrastructure like hospitals should move inward into the city, and factories should move outward. This place was originally a nobleman's sanatorium—I hope you get my meaning—for the great personages we couldn't even imagine. In response to the call, the sanatorium moved entirely out of Tobesk, to a neighboring city, half an hour by train, which was actually more convenient than here.

So, this sanatorium was abandoned, and even tramps wouldn't live here; the surroundings are deserted, and if you died here no one would ever know."

Around them were large patches of farmland and wasteland; the nearest country town required a full hour's walk to reach. There was, however, an estate and horse farm nearby, belonging to some Earl. During horse-racing season, people would use this very path the two were walking as a track, but at present there was hardly anyone about.

Although industry was developing very fast in this era, traces of the steam age could only be seen in the big cities. Far from the city, everything was regressing toward the past—Xia De understood the meaning of this saying.

The two soon followed the path to the vicinity of the abandoned sanatorium; the doctor had not mentioned its name, which was presumably unimportant.

Seen from the outside, the plaster had completely peeled off, and all the windows and doors were gone. The sanatorium's perimeter wall was actually still standing, but the courtyard inside the wall was almost the same as the wasteland outside, with no trace of the former garden to be seen.

The tall building and spires simply stood towering in the wilderness, and only the ornamentation of the gate could faintly hint at the past grandeur.

"Stay behind me; we'll talk as we walk."

The doctor said, and kicked open the two gate panels that seemed rusted together. The gate crashed to the ground, startling birds into flight from the nearby woods.

Even at the city's edge, the fog had only thinned somewhat. The gloomy sky looked about to rain, and Xia De somewhat regretted not bringing an umbrella.

The two walked into the sanatorium's courtyard, two pairs of boots trudging through the overgrown grass:

"A so-called Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi is one who possesses a 【Ring of Fate】."

The doctor said, glancing around, then leading Xia De toward the main building's front entrance.

"Ring of Fate?"

"The rings forged for us by time, years, destiny, eras, civilization, the world—symbols of who we are. Attention! I am about to show you the complete Wheel of Fate, not merely a corner. Please watch carefully—"

Walking through the overgrown grass, the doctor spread both arms slightly, palms up as if holding something aloft, hands raised level with his shoulders.

Everything behind him grew hazy, as if a layer of white mist had been added. But he himself was unchanged, save for a faint smile on his face.

Then, in this empty abandoned courtyard, Xia De actually heard the sound and echo of a train whistle.

"What?"

He hurriedly looked around through the waist-deep grass, and at this moment his skin actually began to sense heat.

Turning to look, what was behind the doctor was not white mist—it was steam. Scorching steam, steam that for some reason made one shudder; that steam seemed to blur distance and space, rendering everything behind the doctor indistinct.

Within that steam, a massive black shadow was approaching; the cloud of steam behind the doctor seemed to contain infinite time and space.

The whistle shrieked, the steam burst, and the black shadow drew closer and closer. The tremendous speed drove a wind pressure that sent the hem of the doctor's coat, the courtyard's wild grass, and the lapels of Xia De's overcoat fluttering; he had to squint.

And more serious still was the sense of crisis rising within him.

"What on earth is in that cloud of steam?"

Closer and closer, deep within that cloud of steam behind the doctor, a giant hammer materialized bearing momentum and energy. It was silver-gray, as tall as the entire building, and amid a tremendous crash it struck the doctor.

The impact made Xia De's ears ring, his vision swim; an intense urge to vomit forced him to clutch his chest. The ground shook, gale howled, lightning flashed—through this whole series of illusions, that hammer-blow seemed to cleave heaven and earth, and seemed to crash into Xia De's very soul.

But it was only the doctor who was struck by the giant hammer; the doctor did not stir, yet Xia De somehow felt he had seen Doctor Shi Nai De flattened into a copper cake.

"Copper?"

He felt he was increasingly unable to make sense of his own perceptions.

It really was a piece of copper—after being hammered by the giant hammer, a huge rotating copper ring appeared behind the doctor, a brass-colored metal ring.

The steam gradually dispersed, and a brass-colored metal ring with a pentagonal cross-section rotated slowly behind the doctor. Strange light, accompanied by over twenty spirit runes, drifted across this Fate Ring.

The halo shone on Xia De's face; the outsider heard the soft laugh of the woman in his mind, and in his eyes was reflected this magnificent, wondrous, powerful ring.

"This is the Fate Ring. A Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi only summons it in its entirety when fighting at full strength. Otherwise, one need not summon the Fate Ring, or only summon part of it... Do you have any questions?"

The doctor halted in the sanatorium courtyard's wild grass and asked the dumbfounded Xia De. Xia De could still feel the heat of the dispersing steam behind the doctor, and the high temperature of that huge brass ring.

The Fate Ring was no illusion; it was solid:

"Why steam? Why brass?"

He did not even notice the urgency in his own tone.

The middle-aged doctor laughed:

"Young man, a person's success depends not only on his own struggle, but also on the course of history.

I told you—the Fate Ring represents the self and the world. This era is the era of steam and machinery, so the Fate Ring emerges from steam, forged by the hammer's blow, and takes on a brass hue. If this were the era of rainbows, the Fate Ring might be rainbow-colored; if it were the era of the deep sea, the Fate Ring would be water. Do you understand?"

Xia De managed a nod, his heartbeat quickened from witnessing that heart-stopping scene:

"I understand."

He was unwilling even to blink, wanting to brand the full appearance of the ring behind the doctor into his eyes. But the doctor waved his hand behind him, and the Fate Ring slowly turned transparent and vanished, leaving Xia De with only a few of the runes memorized.

As for the Northern Kingdom common tongue, even without the knowledge granted by the woman's voice in his mind, Xia De could read and understand it, though he could not speak or write it. And now, Xia De had somehow inexplicably also read the meaning of those powerful spirit runes; the few he had glimpsed were 【Joy】, 【Hound】, and 【Mote】......

Suddenly his head ached, as if someone had struck the back of his skull, so he gave up trying to memorize more of those powerful runes.

In this world, knowledge truly is power. So, the extraordinary organization the doctor invited Xia De to join being an academy seemed understandable enough.

"But if my special trait is being able to read and understand all writing... in this dangerous world, is that really a good thing?"

Xia De pondered his own secret, while the doctor continued forward through the wild grass, explaining:

"The cross-sectional shape of my Fate Ring is currently a pentagon, meaning I am a five-ring Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi, and also a fifth-year correspondence adult-education student at the Academy. A one-ring Fate Ring is a flat ring, with spirit runes inscribed on one face. A two-ring is also flat, but both faces can bear spirit runes. A three-ring has a triangular cross-section, a four-ring a quadrilateral... and so on. Do you understand? The higher the ring count, the closer to the most standard circle."

"Yes, I understand."

The two talked as they entered the building's interior; over so many years, countless people must have visited this place. Not a stick of furniture remained, and a layer of dust covered the floor, kicked up into the air the moment they stepped on it.

They did not linger on the first floor, but climbed a staircase that looked none too sturdy toward the second; Xia De was very worried about the safety of such a dilapidated building.

"Spirit runes are the core of the Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi system. By inscribing spirit runes upon our Rings of Fate, we accumulate spirit, sense the four elements 【Miracle】, 【Blasphemy】, 【Enlightenment】, and 【Whisper】, and advance continuously."

"Spirit? Elements?"

Xia De asked, puzzled, his heart filled with excitement; he was finally going to learn these things.

The doctor led Xia De up the stairs:

"Regarding the Spirit, in past eras, it had many names: Magic, Aether, Mana, Spirituality, Light of the Mind. But in the current era, it is uniformly called Spirit. It is information, it is elements, it is energy, it is the sum total of everything in the world you can understand, and it is one manifestation of a Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi's mind interfering with matter. The means to accumulate Spirit is to contact the Elements, and the safest means to contact the Elements is to read pre-epoch stories and knowledge—culture, customs, heroic legends, and myths passed down orally.

Contacting this knowledge is equally dangerous; a slight carelessness will plunge one into madness. Therefore, we generally read original transcripts or translated versions."

Xia De simply translated 'Spirit' as the Blue Bar.

"But accumulating enough Spirit does not allow one to enter the next Ring. The most important thing for a Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi is not Spirit, but the Elements. By accumulating the four Great Element Spirit Runes, one effectively raises the upper limit of Spirit, sublimates the soul, and tempers the body. The four Great Elements can be felt from many aspects..."

Xia De recalled the woman's voice in his mind had hinted that he had contacted 'Whispers', 'Enlightenment', and 'Miracles', corresponding to witnessing Spairo's death, stepping onto the street to see the world, and contemplating the meaning of the gods.

"Mere feeling and contact are not enough; one must engrave the Elements onto one's own Wheel of Fate, thereby proving one's fusion with the Elements. Every level-up for a Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi requires a different combination of 【Miracle】, 【Blasphemy】, 【Enlightenment】, and 【Whisper】 Spirit Runes. I will answer this for you once you decide to join the Academy. For now, let me introduce the differences between the four Elements."

The doctor paused, looked ahead, and smiled:

"I think the person we are looking for should be right here."