Seeing Lloyd's firm attitude, the Drunkard administrator let out a strange, mocking laugh.
"Hee hee, just like a loyal little puppy."
"You!"
Lloyd's fists clenched instantly. 'If her Attributes weren't all '??', I'd have to teach her a lesson about what a Key Immortal from Earth is all about.'
"Hee hee, try your best to stay alive. Maybe that venomous bitch will give you a second glance."
As she spoke, the Drunkard tilted her head back and chugged a few more big gulps of liquor before staggering drunkenly out the door.
"What exactly did Miss Weiya do to you?"
Lloyd called after her.
"She didn't do anything to me. It's just, as the worst and most vicious woman in this world, isn't it only natural for me to hate a pretty woman like her?"
The Drunkard said without turning back, stumbling and swaying as she disappeared through the doorway.
In the empty prayer room, Lloyd was left alone.
He looked back at the statue of the maiden Saint in the depths of the room and asked in a low voice:
"You'd entrust your power to someone like her?"
Naturally, the statue did not respond to such a meaningless question.
'Forget it. She's already in a state of [Mild Madness], so it's only natural her brain isn't working right.'
Lloyd shook his head and walked out of the prayer room, taking the elevator back to the first floor.
Outside Tower Nine, it looked even more bustling than usual. A large group of Priests in black were busy cordoning off the scene, moving supplies, and drawing various lines and patterns on the ground. It seemed they were setting up a large-scale Orbit to handle the aftermath.
'Such a huge hassle? It seems the Holy Judgment Court is extremely cautious about this kind of Forbidden Knowledge. If they found out I've already come into contact with that stuff and was led astray because of it...'
A series of thoughts ran through Lloyd's mind, and the sense of ease he'd just felt was replaced by anxiety. He didn't dare linger to watch, and instead hurried off to take the 'subway'.
A moment later, he walked out of Pastor Madd's church. Thanks to his Level 3 [Dizziness Resistance], not only did he not feel dizzy, but he actually felt quite refreshed and clear-headed. He wasn't even coughing hard anymore.
COUGH! COUGH!
But a notification still sounded in Lloyd's ear:
[Ding~ Madness Value +50]
'The skill fragments are gone. This means I can't increase my Dizziness Resistance this way anymore.'
'But why hasn't my Madness Value decreased at all?'
'How strange...'
Lloyd pondered this as he took out his pocket watch to check the time.
It wasn't even 4 PM yet. He'd gotten off work early.
'Anyway, I have the next two days off at home. I'll just treat it as a weekend. It's a perfect chance to spend more time with my sister.'
He thought to himself as he walked briskly home.
At this hour, it was still early for Evelor to be home, so Lloyd casually flopped onto the sofa. He called up his panel to look at his [Divination] and [Dizziness Resistance], which had both suddenly risen to Level 3.
[Divination (LV3) — An advanced Mysticism skill. Allows the use of two divination techniques. Can be performed with only a few simple tools. Accuracy is affected by the Mysteriousness of the target and the question. Continue studying to increase skill level.]
[Dizziness Resistance (LV3) — A passive enhancement to one's physical constitution. Grants resistance to most physiological dizziness and some physical dizziness. Continue training to increase skill level.]
The text descriptions for the two skills hadn't changed much, not even the fine print below. But the actual effects were tangibly stronger.
'[Dizziness Resistance] had substantially improved his experience riding the 'subway'. It could even resist physical dizziness now. Blocking a sap to the head or something like that should be no problem, right? In any case, it was much stronger than at Level 1.'
The text description for [Divination] was similarly unchanged and still very simple. However, the related knowledge that had appeared in Lloyd's mind was vast, amounting to a qualitative change.
He could now use two divination techniques.
One was still the type that involved spinning a pencil or tossing an eraser. It could still only be used for things like guessing multiple-choice answers or choosing a path at a fork in the road, or for divining slightly more complex problems. The accuracy was just higher now, and the simpler the question, the higher the accuracy.
If he used it to guess a multiple-choice question, the first attempt would have an accuracy of over 90%.
But he had to wait a certain amount of time between uses. Using it a second or third time in quick succession would cause the accuracy to plummet. If he really wanted to rely on this for an exam, his score probably wouldn't be much higher than if he'd just answered 'C' for everything.
Still, it was much more useful than it had been at Level 1. The main change, however, was the addition of a second divination technique—[Medium Divination].
Simply put, he had to create a [Medium] and give it to the target of the divination. Then, he had to find a [Spiritual Object] to use for divining various things about the target.
The accuracy was also variable: the simpler the target and the simpler the question, the more accurate the answer would be.
This was also a divination technique with a wide range of applications, often used to monitor important people or items.
'My sister won't be home until after 7, so I might as well try out this new [Divination] skill...'
After some thought, Lloyd got up from the sofa, took the hush money he had just received, and went out.
He wandered the streets for a while before finally walking into a toy store on a nearby street.
When he came out, he was carrying a fluffy Hammerhead Shark Puppet.
The puppet was round and chubby, with a dusty gray back and a snow-white belly. It looked charmingly naive and adorably silly.
Lloyd, still carrying the Hammerhead Shark Puppet, deliberately stood on a busy street corner and infused a wisp of Spiritual Power into the puppet's soft belly.
He then used his inspiration to guide and control the Spiritual Power, forming a simple pictograph inside the puppet's belly:
o(ﾟДﾟ)っ!
This formed a simple [Mark] that could point back to him and create a connection, much like leaving behind a 'signature'.
And just like that, the 'Medium' required for [Medium Divination] was ready.
But Lloyd scratched his head, a puzzled look on his face.
'It was simple, but something feels off. I remember the books on Mysticism specifically emphasizing that anything related to Divination should be done in a sparsely populated place—ideally, somewhere so isolated there's practically no air—in order to reduce interference and increase accuracy...'
'But the knowledge in my head is telling me to find the most bustling and noisy place possible? That's the opposite of what the books say.'
However, he didn't dwell on it. When faced with a contradiction between book knowledge and the panel's knowledge, he would definitely choose to trust the panel.
With the [Medium] ready, the next step was to find a suitable [Spiritual Object]—an item that possessed a certain Extraordinary Attribute, or Mysteriousness, or some other unique Spiritual Energy.
But Spiritual Objects weren't something you could find just anywhere. Some required money, and some required a bit of fate.
So, Lloyd decided to try using [Simple Divination] to see if he could find a Spiritual Object he was fated to encounter.