Chapter 22: Preparations Before the Second Transmigration
Omitting his identity as a Transmigrator, Klein recounted his recent experiences to Dunn in as much detail as possible.
He spoke of meeting Ning Lu by chance at the Divination Club, of sitting in a café and reminiscing with Ning Lu, of Ning Lu telling him the identity of 'Mr. L' and then handing him a business card... along with what was written on it.
Listening to Klein, Dunn couldn't help but knit his brows.
"An envoy of the Aurora Order... It seems he approached you deliberately, though his intentions are still unclear. Regardless, we must treat someone this dangerous as a hostile enemy."
Dunn offered his analysis, his gray eyes regaining their usual calm. He paused briefly, then said:
"Alright, I now know what you've been through. For the time being, continue your usual routine outside, but I'll have Nighthawks tail you in secret."
Dunn paused.
"Yes, it's surveillance, but it's also protection. Anything involving the True Creator must be handled with utmost caution. I'll file an urgent request with the Cathedral today to have one or two Nighthawks reassigned here to Tingen City for reinforcement. After that, you may have to face a test from the Cathedral."
"A test?"
Though Klein had a rough idea of what Dunn meant, he still cooperatively asked—he wanted the details so he could prepare in advance.
"A test to determine whether you've been tainted by an evil god."
Dunn said in a heavy tone:
"Klein, I don't want you to become a second Old Neil—do you understand?"
Hearing Dunn's words, Klein fell silent for a moment. "I understand, Captain."
...Monday noon, July 9th.
After wrapping up Aurora Order business, Ning Lu sat in his room at the Order's safehouse, patiently counting out the Beyonder ingredients before him and slipping them one by one into the specially tailored coat that Cyril had commissioned for him.
Compared with ordinary garments, this coat boasted far more pockets—rather like the pocket-laden robes used by Warlocks.
He had chosen it because, at low Sequences, the Marauder Pathway's combat strength was frankly embarrassing. Unlike the Door Pathway with its many tricks or the Fool Pathway (Magician) with its top-tier escape skills, the three Sequences of Marauder offered almost no real fighting power.
A Sequence 9 Marauder's main ability was Theft, along with the physical boost from the potion and proficiency with small weapons. At this stage Theft was weak—even an ordinary master thief without a Beyonder characteristic could reach the same level.
Swindler, meanwhile, offered eloquence and rhetoric, enhanced reasoning, and a sort of mental interference similar to Illusion.
Thanks to his unique circumstances, after fully digesting the Swindler potion, Ning Lu had regained the qualitative change of Superior Observation that Amon had deleted from the formula; it was now instinctive, making him practically a miniature Spectator.
Likewise, Cryptologist's improvements were mostly in spiritual intuition, observation, and reasoning—seemingly plain, but powerful.
Looks like I need to advance to Prometheus as soon as possible; that's when my abilities will truly transform... he thought, raising the revolver in front of him and flicking out the cylinder with a crisp metallic click.
My front-line combat may be weak, but the times have changed.
Because Amon had swept this Aurora Order safehouse clean of all Beyonder items and characteristics, the revolver in Ning Lu's hand was only an ordinary gun.
That was no problem: over the past two days the Order's members had churned out Beyonder bullets on an assembly line.
Most of the Order's Beyonders were Secrets Supplicants, and for them it wasn't hard to petition their deity to create Beyonder items.
What the Secrets Supplicants produced were uniformly Whisper Bullets imbued with Hanged Man abilities. Though only Sequence 9 in power, something was better than nothing.
A dozen Whisper Bullets could cripple even an opponent one or two Sequences higher, and in the circlet timeline they were even more potent.
"I'm not having it easy either—go tell that to my True Creator and Grisha Adam."
Of the ingredients, one portion consisted of auxiliary materials for the Hunter potion that could be stored; luckily, everything but the wine traveled well. The rest were dangerous ritual components or reactive substances that took effect the moment they were mixed.
A Marauder Beyonder was agile enough to pull out, mix, and deploy materials in seconds.
After stashing every ingredient and weapon into the coat's pockets, the time had crept past three in the afternoon. Ning Lu gave a languid stretch.
Just then he noticed wispy gray fog forming around him; it seemed intent on tugging at his spirit, but after several futile attempts it failed.
"—Celestial Worthy, what are you stirring up now?"
Ning Lu's gaze flickered. His first thought was that the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings was making trouble again, but the next instant he realized what was happening and slowly lifted his eyes toward the sky.
He stared at the gray mist that seemed to hang in the infinitely high heavens—though in truth there was nothing there—and said in a low voice:
"...Klein?"
The surrounding fog dispersed as if startled. Ning Lu considered for a moment, relaxed, and shifted his attention to the gray mist at his side.
At once, the layers of chanting he had blocked out—"Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings"—returned to his ears, and the nearly vanished fog rolled back toward him.
He closed his eyes; when he opened them again, all he saw was dense gray mist.
Inside a swaying luminous cocoon, the Celestial Worthy, reclining in an armchair, extended a black tentacle to lift off his sunglasses and greeted Ning Lu casually:
"Yo, fellow countryman—haven't seen you up here in days."
"Only a week." Ning Lu pulled a clump of gray fog from nearby, rolled it into a rough sphere, and set it beside the Celestial Worthy:
"Klein's Tarot Club still deserves a taste every now and then."