Klein unscrewed the cap of the small metal bottle, brought it close to his nose, and smelled a slightly stimulating but invigorating scent.
This was the "Holy Night Powder" made from deep sleep flowers, dragon blood grass, deep red sandalwood, and mint, among other herbs. Because of its simple preparation, Klein had obtained a bottle after completing the materials in the underground trading market and seized the opportunity to acquire one at that time. Now it was exactly useful.
He poured a portion of the "Holy Night Powder" onto his palm, allowing his spirit to settle and making his eyes darken.
Then, Klein put away the small metal bottle, picked up the powder, infused the spirituality into it, and sprinkled it on the ground.
As he sprinkled, he walked around Sirius's body, making a complete circle.
The intangible walls suddenly rose, isolating this place from the outside world.
Klein shook off the remaining "Holy Night Powder", then took out another small metal bottle and dropped the "Anmanda" pure liquid and other liquids inside in sequence around.
The order of his ritual setup was different from that of Old Neil at Rael Bibber's house because the things he wanted to pray for were different, and the goals he hoped to achieve were also different.
For example, Old Neil first sprinkled the liquid and then used the "Holy Night Powder", which could create a tranquility and sanctity second only to a formal altar. But Klein did it in the opposite order, using the "Holy Night Powder" first and then sprinkling the liquid, because his purpose was simply to prevent the residual spirituality of Sirius from being disturbed by the surrounding things and to have a barely satisfactory environment for the ritual.
—If he had used Old Neil's method, the residual spirituality of Sirius would have been expelled, and there would be no communication at all.
After completing all this, Klein gathered the materials, maintained the state of meditation, and softly recited the incantation written in Hermes' language:
"I pray for the power of the night;"
"I pray for the power of secrecy;"
"I pray for the goddess's favor."
"I pray that you allow me to communicate with the spiritual beings within the altar."
...
As the incantation echoed in the sealed environment, Klein suddenly felt a tremendous, terrifying and mysterious force descending upon him.
His eyes turned completely black, as if his pupils and the whites of his eyes had vanished.
Taking advantage of this moment, Klein silently recited the "Divination Sentence" in his mind:
"The recipe for the Clown Potion."
"The recipe for the Clown Potion." ...
While meditating, he used meditation to briefly enter a dream state and stood up and entered the dream.
In a world without the greyish sky and earth, Klein stared unusually clearly at a transparent, illusory figure.
He extended his right hand and touched the remaining spirit of Sirius.
With a loud bang, the scene in front of him suddenly changed.
It was a desk painted in dark red, with a silver candlestick holding three candles, and a blank sheet of letter paper placed there.
Sirius was holding a pen and writing in common Rhuunese:
"This is the second formula. The note records the name as 'The Clown'."
"Pure water 80 milliliters, mandorla juice 5 drops, black-edge sunflower powder 7 grams, golden cape grass powder 10 grams, poison violet juice 3 drops. These are auxiliary materials."
"The main, extraordinary materials are: a single crystal of the adult Horanix gray mountain goat horn, and a complete human face rose."
Sirius seemed not to need to recall, and quickly finished writing the formula for the Clown potion.
At this point, he paused slightly, took a sip of coffee, and then removed the silver pendant wrapped around his wrist.
He held the pendant, half-closed his eyes, and murmured words and sentences such as "Day of Destruction", "Peace of the Heart", "May the Lord protect", "I repent to you" and so on.
When Sirius finished praying, Klein finally saw the appearance of that pendant clearly.
Under the silver bracelet with loops, there was a thumb-sized figurine.
This figurine had the unique vertical single eye of a giant, its head facing down, its feet bound by chains, connected to the top.
At this moment, the vertical single eye of the giant suddenly flashed a blood-red glimmer.
Click!
The scene that Klein saw instantly shattered, his legs gave way, and he nearly fell to the ground.
The pain of being hit hard in the head came, and in his eyes, there was only red. His hands involuntarily rested on his knees.
After a few seconds, he recovered, stood straight again, and felt his own spirituality was extremely weak, as if he heard piercing whispers in his mind.
However, thanks to the progress of his "digestion" of the potion, the abnormal reaction quickly returned to calm.
"The hanging giant, the true creator... Is Sirius and Hainas members of the Aurora Society? But, the captain saw in Hainas. Vanesent's dream a huge cross, a terrifying existence hanging upside down on the cross, not the 'hanging giant' of the Aurora Society..." Klein took two deep breaths, waiting for the slow recovery of his spirituality.
The Aurora Society is a secretive organization that emerged in the last two hundred years or so. They worship the "True Creator" and use the hanging giant as the symbol of that being. They believe that everyone has divinity, as long as the spirit is strong enough to withstand one more test, then one can accumulate abundant divinity and become an angel.
According to the internal records of the night watchmen, the sequence 9 of the Aurora Society is called "Secret Prayers", these extraordinary individuals can perceive certain mysterious and terrifying existences, have some knowledge of sacrifices and a small amount of ritual magic, and there is sufficient evidence to show that senior "Secret Prayers" will more or less experience cognitive distortions and tend to lose control.
The sequence 7 of the Aurora Society is unknown, and sequence 8 is "Listener". This belongs to a rather terrifying extraordinary "occupation":
Each "Listener" can directly hear the whispers of the corresponding hidden existence, so they often obtain many powerful, distorted, and unique abilities, but correspondingly, if a "Listener" cannot be promoted, it is difficult for them to survive for more than five years. Moreover, the internal evaluation of the night watchmen is that all "Listeners" are lunatics, even if they usually behave normally, they are undoubtedly hidden lunatics.
Klein quickly went through the information of the Aurora Society in his mind and preliminarily judged that Sirius was a "Secret Prayers".
"From the description, the Seekers and the diviners performed equally poorly in the battle. This is in line with Sirius's performance. Was it the severe injury that caused the loss of control? Well, Fry said that after the death of each extraordinary being, there are usually some strange changes... " Klein thought as he tapped his chest four times, praising the goddess.
Then, with his spiritual strength slightly restored, he followed the sequence to finish the ritual and unlocked the sealed spiritual wall.
The wind whistled, and Klein forced himself to look again at the corpse of Sirius.
He noticed that on Sirius's disfigured face, there was still a distinct tumor, a deep purple almost black tumor, with liquid and light flickering inside.
"What kind of change is this?" Klein rubbed his temples and refrained from touching it.
He bent down and picked up the staff, allowing the other party to bear the weight of the body.
After the previous counter-effect change, he knew that the residual spirit of Sirius had been completely destroyed. Even "the Seer" Dahlia couldn't communicate with the other party anymore.
After waiting for a while, Klein received Captain Dunn and his teammates Leonard and Cohen-Lee.
"I feel that you and the extraordinary beings, and the evil forces have a fateful connection. The extraordinary events you have encountered this period are more than what we saw in the previous quarter." Leonard glanced at the corpses on the ground and casually joked.
"Perhaps it's not a coincidence." Klein suddenly thought of the red chimney seen in the "Dream Divination", as well as the majestic palace on the summit of the Horncise Mountains and the invisible gaze seen last time. So, he took the opportunity to add a sentence.
Dunn looked around and with deep gray eyes, looked at Klein:
"Have you tried communicating with spirits?"
The "Holy Night Pink" and the pure essence oil smell still remained.
"Yes." Klein replied calmly, "I'm worried that your arrival was too late, and the residual spirit is showing signs of dissipation."
"Judging from your condition, it's not too good?" Short Cohen-Lee asked concernedly.
While handing the letter that Sirius had not yet sent to Captain Dunn, Klein began to speak from the beginning:
"When I went to the underground trading market to purchase ritual materials, I suddenly thought that Selina had been to the Evil Dragon Bar, and it was Harnas Vanisseur who led her in. This indicates that Harnas is a regular customer there, so I suspect the gentleman in the portrait, the gentleman related to Harnas, might have also been to the underground trading market."
"I asked the boss Swain about the portrait, and he gave a positive reply, telling me that this gentleman was trying to purchase artifacts and ancient books related to the summit of the Horncise Mountains. This made me think of this place, and when I was borrowing the corresponding periodicals and magazines, someone just returned them..."
Leonard smiled and listened in, suddenly interrupting:
"So you came here with the apprentice inspector's ID and the special operations department's emblem to investigate the borrowing records of those periodicals? Actually, I'm curious, why did you have a conflict with this gentleman? Even if you encountered each other directly, with your style of doing things, you should have pretended not to know and leave the library as soon as possible to find us on Zorteland Street for help."
"Yes, you don't need to take risks. As long as you have a clear target, as long as he hasn't left Tinggen, there will always be a way to find it later." Dunn added after browsing the letters.
Klein suddenly felt a bit embarrassed:
"The librarian recognized him and shouted for the police to help."
"I can't pretend not to have heard..."
Leonard and Cohen-Lee exchanged glances, one without concealing the smile, the other turning his head to the side.
Dunn nodded gently and moved his gaze away from the letter:
"What did you gain from communicating with spirits?"
"I saw a pendant engraved with a hanging giant, saw the giant's single eye flash red, and then it withdrew from the ritual." Klein described truthfully.
He didn't mention the "Jester" potion for the time being. This was based on two considerations: On the one hand, if Dunn and his team can find the corresponding records in the subsequent investigation at Sirius' hiding place, then whether he says it or not makes no difference; it won't add any extra credit.
On the other hand, if Dunn and his team don't find it, he can report it at a later time to accumulate more credit for applying for materials and preparing potions. This is a way of receiving credit twice, derived from the teachings of Elder Neil over this period of time.
"Is it the Aurora Society?" Dunn murmured thoughtfully and then asked some related questions.
When Klein answered one by one, he looked at the tired expression on the other's face and raised his staff, saying:
"Right, you disrupted a conspiracy targeting Tinggen City. You can go rest now, Cohen-Lee. Go find Elder Neil."
After giving the order, Dunn shook his head and smiled bitterly:
"Before Sequence 6, the extraordinary individuals of the 'Non-Sleeping' path lacked many auxiliary abilities. They could only master the simplest and most basic few rituals and magic spells."
"Captain, do you mean that starting from Sequence 6, the extraordinary individuals of the 'Non-Sleeping' path will receive corresponding enhancements?" Klein asked inquisitively.
"Yes," Dunn gave a positive reply. ......
After leaving the Dever Library, Klein, who was returning to Narcissus Street by public carriage, nearly fell asleep several times on the way.
He forced himself to enter the door, took off his hat and coat, and fell asleep on the sofa.
After an unknown period of time, he suddenly woke up, took out his watch and snapped it open.
"Melissa will be back in half an hour, and Benson in forty-five minutes... They have to wait for an hour and a half before having dinner... " Klein rubbed his forehead and walked into the kitchen.
He first washed his face with cold water, then took out the ingredients he had bought at noon, such as beef tails, tomatoes, carrots and onions.
After making the preparations, he suddenly became stunned, feeling that this was not quite related to the incident he had encountered in the afternoon.
"I was just the man who saved the city of Tinggen... " Klein said to himself with a smile, put on a white apron, picked up the kitchen knife, and began to work busily.