Chapter 913: The Stone Tablet of Time

The purpose of Xia De's late visit to Mr. Beinhart was, of course, not to brag about what he had done at the banquet, but to commission Mr. Beinhart's priest friend in the Church of Peace to use the church's connections to look into whether anything strange had happened in the city around the time Professor Deleike went to seek the Lady of the Lake more than ten years ago.

This was quite easy for the church's ring warlock, since such basic records were not restricted from inquiry. Mr. Beinhart agreed at once, and promised Xia De he could have the results by Sunday:

"But are you still investigating the matter of the Lady of the Lake? It's a legend I heard in my childhood, but our family has lived here for generations, and no one has ever detected any truth to the story."

When saying goodbye to Xia De at the manor gate, the gentleman asked again, and Xia De shook his head, swung himself up onto the horse:

"It's something else. Some things have happened in Huntington City before, some things are happening now, and in the future... some things will happen too."

Having said that, he waved his hand, then rode off and vanished into the night. The middle-aged vampire species watched Xia De's back with suspicion, then recalled the series of events they had experienced in autumn at Midhill Fort:

"Could something big be about to happen in Huntington too... Oh, Lord above, should I perhaps go out of town to lie low for a while?"

After returning home from Huntington City, at the appointed time Xia De projected from his home to the Saint Byrons Library, met Miss Dannister, and informed her that he had already seen the matter of the "Moon of Guidance."

Miss Dannister attached great importance to this matter. Upon learning that Xia De had already made contact with the other party, and confirmed that the other party had connected with the local Tobesk Sexus correspondence ring warlock group, the thirteen-ring female warlock praised Xia De without stint.

She had already prepared the alchemical item capable of collecting spiritual light. Because this matter could not be known to the Academy, it could not be delivered to Xia De via poetry manuscript pages. The item would be mailed over the weekend, through ordinary postal means, from an industry under the Academy's control in Delarion, to Xia De's home.

What Xia De needed to do was, when the "Moon of Guidance" revealed its ring of fate, manipulate that alchemical item to take effect and gather the spiritual light. If the core spirit rune "Moon of Guidance" truly could substitute for the core spirit rune "Yellow Moon," then the 【Silver Moon Library】 left behind by the ancient Silver Moon god might be found before the end of this year.

"Speaking of which, Miss Dannister, when will I be able to come to the library in person again?"

Xia De asked before leaving, which was of course for the sake of the one-third "Time Perception" stone tablet suspected to exist in the Academy library. Although his spell 【Library Retrieval】 could not exert its full effect in projection state, coming in person and casting the spell might allow him to find that stone tablet.

"Wait until the function of the Moon of Guidance is confirmed."

The thirteen-ring female warlock propped her face in her hands and sighed with some vexation:

"Hopefully it truly works, otherwise we can only pin our hopes on the 'Yellow Moon' core spirit rune taking the initiative to appear before us."

(Leaving Xiao Xiao Miya running...)

At the end of the Cadis Library adventure in the Valley of the Dead, the knowledge promised and left behind by the old god 【Grey Robe Sage】 is now suspected to have split into three parts. After the cult's collapse, they are held respectively by the Saint Byrons Comprehensive Academy Library, the Apuna Library, and the Light-Guiding Hermitage.

The stone tablet in the Hermitage's hands was obtained by Xia De from Mr. Edmond of Cold Water Harbor, in exchange for the content of the poetry chapter fragment from the 《Undying Secret Arts》. That stone tablet took most of a week to be delivered into Mr. Edmond's hands, and when Xia De saw that stone tablet, it was early Friday morning.

Interestingly, probably because he had slept too well at Miss Jia Lin Na's manor on Wednesday, on Friday morning Xia De actually defied his own biological clock and, before six o'clock, opened his eyes to see the familiar ceiling of his bedroom.

Tilting his head, he glanced at the cat beside his pillow. That cat was still sleeping curled up into a cat ball, and because of its breathing the "cat ball" was rhythmically contracting and restoring itself in small increments. Only when Xia De got up did the startled cat open its eyes, groggily rise and discover it was not yet breakfast time—it knew the milkman had not yet arrived, so after a "Meow~," it collapsed back onto the bed.

Because he had risen very early, after breakfast Xia De went alone to Cold Water Harbor. He first went to the Aurora Manor to change out of the clothes soaked through with seawater. When he saw Mr. Edmond, it was only eight o'clock, but by then there were already other guests who had come to trade in the old lighthouse.

Xia De stood on the sea cliff, gazed at the ocean and let the wind blow on him, and only entered the tower after that three-ring warlock wearing a ridiculous monkey mask had left.

"Good morning, Mr. Edmond, has the stone tablet I wanted arrived?"

Xia De greeted him and sat down at the same time. The old gentleman appeared to have already had breakfast; there was the smell of boiled eggs inside the tower.

"It's here. I thought you would only come over the weekend. Wait a moment, I'll go get the goods."

Saying so, he went up the spiral staircase to the upper level of the lighthouse. While Xia De was looking at the newly appeared fish specimens inside the tower, the old man came back carrying a rosewood box. The box had a lift-off design, and a small clasp bore a copper lock.

This design seemed quite unnecessary; after all, there was no great difficulty in breaking a wooden box. But Xia De, whose knowledge of the occult was gradually growing richer, could see clearly that the lock itself and the patterns on the wooden box formed an ingenious ritual. Without opening the lock, even if the box were destroyed, one absolutely could not "take" what was inside.

Mr. Edmond opened the box with a key and pushed it across the table to Xia De. When Xia De opened it, he immediately raised an eyebrow. Inside the wooden box, which was larger than a palm, was a thick lining, and lying on the lining were four stone tablets, each only the size of an adult's palm, with silver corner protectors at the four corners—large enough, perhaps, for Leaving Xiao Xiao Miya to use as a surfboard.

Specifically, they were about the size of the portable little books people carry on long train journeys. The Light-Guiding Hermitage had preserved theirs very well; almost no trace of age could be seen. The stone surfaces were smooth, with only a few scratches that were hard to notice.

"Leaving Xiao Xiao Miya wouldn't like surfing."

Xia De thought to himself, then said with a smile:

"Just by its appearance, this is also quite a fine piece of art."

He reached out and took the stone tablet from the box. He had expected that the upward-facing side would have no text or pattern, and the other side would, but the result greatly exceeded expectations: the other side had only an ancient rune representing the number "two."

"Since this item passed from the collapsed old god cult into our hands, apart from a few lucky fellows who obtained spirit runes or thaumaturgy by touching it, to this day we have not been able to parse out any more specific function. We can only confirm that this is a book. If you can find a way to learn its function, don't forget to tell us the method of decipherment."

Mr. Edmond said. Xia De, meanwhile, frowned. He had originally assumed that this kind of stone tablet, like the First Era ancient texts in the Cadis Library, would reveal its content once its name was spoken. Now it seemed his thinking had still been too simple.

Hurrying home with the stone tablet, he had originally been worrying about how to obtain the knowledge within the stone tablet, but when he swam from the seabed to the cave beneath the sea cliff and saw the statue of the ancient god 【Primordial Rift】 behind the hidden wall, Xia De gained new inspiration.

That great sage in the grey robe had once said in person that although He appeared to have inherited the power of the ancient god 【Secret-Keeping Tutor】, in reality this great sage's power came from the moon's ancient god 【Silver Moon Sage】, because this ancient god possessed the authority of the "Recorder."

Moreover, on the stone tablet in the Cadis Library that recorded the "Poem of Summoning the God" within the shrine when the god was summoned, there were also symbols representing the phases of the moon (Chapter 672).

"Could it be that, to unlock the content of the stone tablet, what's needed is..."

Carrying his own thoughts, Xia De, who was drenched all over, returned home. He first took a simple shower, then sat down on the sofa and solemnly opened the wooden box.

"Meow~"

Leaving Xiao Xiao Miya, curious as usual, stretched her head in to sniff. After the cat lost interest and wandered off, Xia De summoned his own ring of fate. Amid the whistle and the tolling of bells, the ring of fate emerged from the scalding steam. The spiritual light radiating from that enormous ring of fate made the orange cat's fur reflect a strange sheen.

Xia De controlled his core spirit rune "Silver Moon" to radiate light. When the enlightenment spiritual light shone upon the stone tablet with silver corner protectors at its four corners, the stone tablet, which had originally lain in the box, as if responding to the spiritual light, emitted silver light particles all over its body, and, to the cat's astonished expression, floated up on its own:

"Oh, just as I thought!"

Xia De excitedly grabbed the cat from the coffee table and placed it on his lap:

"That old sage also saw that I possessed the power of the moon, which is why the unlocking method was set up like this—it's the same as how the spiritual light of 【Time-Space】 opened the hidden wall... But over all these years, has no one tried shining spiritual light on it?"

He wondered suspiciously, and "her" murmur resolved the doubt:

【Perhaps it's simply because other people's spiritual light wouldn't work.】

"Yes, the 【Grey Robe Sage】 prepared this gift for me."

Under the enlightenment spiritual light of 【Silver Moon】, the stone tablet emitted a faint silver moonlight. Originally it possessed only very thin miracle elements, but now the miracle elements it exuded were simply like that of a divine art item in a church.

"Very well, next we shall reveal the answer—whether this truly contains the knowledge of time."

Xia De tried reaching his hand toward that stone tablet. When his hand touched the glowing stone tablet, silver streams of light surged toward Xia De's fingers, and at the same time, silver moon engravings abruptly appeared on the originally smooth surface of the stone tablet.

Surrounded by olive branch patterns was the clearest silver full moon. Those engravings merely flickered once and then vanished. And the light-traces surging into his fingers had already delivered that complex and disordered knowledge into Xia De's mind.

7017k