“Oh, that was recovered by my guard from Southwatch Fort. It carries the Forbidden Aura of the Calamity.”
Aisia obediently sat beside Truth, beginning to consider how to ask about the old lady connected to her.
But she noticed Truth seemed deeply interested in the Calamity Magic Staff.
“What Forbidden Aura? As long as the stats are high enough, that’s all that matters!” Truth immediately started fiddling with the excellent-grade staff, noticing its build was quite extreme.
Only boosts attack power, huh? Interesting…
This setup, although it would consume less mana and improve casting precision, seemed perfectly suited for AOE attacks, since those already have high mana costs and don’t rely much on casting accuracy.
You can tell the staff’s owner was quite particular.
“Hey, Truth, can I ask you about that old lady senior you mentioned…”
“Can I have this!”
Just as Aisia was about to ask the real question, Truth hugged the staff and shouted at her.
“Give it to you? Well… okay, but can you at least listen to what I’m saying first!”
“Oj8k.”
Only then did Truth sit more seriously on the bed and listen to Aisia’s question.
So it turned out the Goddess of Life was interested in that old lady?
But Truth had just made the story up on the spot… Luckily, she still remembered some of the plot:
“The senior inside me is named Yao…**? No, Yaocheng! Two hundred years ago, she was a herbalist trapped in an underground Mist Dungeon by her own student and a demon.
In the end, her fragmented soul hid inside a magical item that I found.
She said if I’m willing to help her take down that student and the demon who betrayed her, she’d teach me everything she knows!”
Truth briefly summarized the parts of the story she could recall.
“Really?!”
What an exciting story! Aisia was immediately drawn in by the mix of teacher-student bonds, betrayal, demons, and revenge:
“And then? What’s Senior Yaocheng’s ultimate skill? Who is her target for revenge?”
“Well… it’s herbalism! And the revenge target… unfortunately, she said I’m too low-level to know yet. I have to reach at least level eight before I find out.”
Truth shrugged, using the excuse of insufficient level to shut down Aisia’s further questions. She didn’t want to recite another episode of ‘Battle X Azure Sky’ here.
“Then… you’d better hurry up and level up! Go to the nearest Adventurer’s Association or—no, that’s too slow. Just come with me to Wangdu, the dungeons there have more quests!”
Aisia was eager to know what happened to Senior Yaocheng later but Truth wasn’t planning to rush to Wangdu.
She still had to manage the Mist and Deya City.
“Oh right, you still have promises to fulfill here…” Aisia looked disappointed but continued, “If you want to use that staff, remember to purify it with Faith power several times. If anyone finds out a Saintess is using a magic item with Forbidden Aura, it’ll be hard to explain.
In serious cases, it could even affect the stance of major powers—like making it seem like the Church of the Goddess of Life is cooperating with the Calamity.”
“Got it.”
Truth replied casually. She said so, but she actually had no intention of purifying away the Heavenly Fire’s Forbidden Aura on the staff.
Purifying it would greatly reduce its power, and besides, it wasn’t like she was the one using it.
She still planned to visit the Heavenly Fire sometime and see if she could get a King-Tier Heavenly Fire Gem to strengthen it. Wait, huh… why is there a bundle of bandages wrapped here?
Only then did Truth notice the staff’s shaft was shaking slightly. After removing the bandages holding it together, the staff immediately snapped in two, revealing a shocking break.
It looked as if an incredibly powerful claw had torn it apart. Damn it—who could be so wasteful!
If it were intact, this staff would be priceless to a mid-tier magician. Luckily, the break didn’t affect the core rune area or the most important Calamity gem, only reducing its damage by about ten percent.
That was more than enough for a weakling like Suna, and might even be too powerful for her to handle.
“The herbalist from two hundred years ago?”
While Truth and Aisia were talking, the level nine Elementalist Omili was lying on Aisia’s big bed inside Shadow Space, quietly eavesdropping.
She didn’t know if Truth’s story was true or not—her only task was to relay Truth’s exact words to the Goddess of Life.
After Truth left the carriage with the staff, Omili popped out of Shadow Space, wrapping her arms around Aisia’s waist from behind. Aisia jumped.
“The demon who betrayed the herbalist is coming!”
“Wah!”…
Ten minutes later, the two returned to the Divine Domain of the Goddess of Life to report. Aisia deliberately kept her distance from Omili, faithfully recounting Truth’s story.
“Only from two hundred years ago? That’s a relief…”
The Goddess of Life exhaled. If it had been from five hundred years ago, she would have personally come down to reduce them to ash.
And thinking about it, players from five hundred years ago had no souls anyway.
The Order God had researched it; players were just “code,” viruses spawned by the “server” body.
Now that the server was long gone, players naturally no longer existed.
“Looks like I was just worrying needlessly. I should listen less to Order’s stories, or I’ll start jumping at shadows like a god. But just to be safe, if I encounter anything from five hundred years ago, I’ll deal with it immediately.”
The Goddess of Life waved her hand, signaling Aisia and Omili to leave. She then began absorbing the vast Faith power already converted.
But soon she noticed something was off.
“Why… is the Faith power from this divine selection ritual nearly a third less than usual?”
Stolen by the Ninth Saintess? No, that couldn’t be—she was too frail to sustain even a thousand points of Faith power.
Could it be people from Wangsheng City? But they still didn’t understand Faith power yet. Or maybe demons were meddling?
After some thought, the Goddess of Life reached a solid conclusion: Faith in the Deya Plateau was showing signs of disloyalty!
Previously, when she personally inspected demon miracles in Deya City, she had noticed these scoundrels barely believed in her anymore, producing on average only a point of Faith power for every two people. Ridiculous!
Fortunately, with the Ninth Saintess now present, she would have her address the low Faith levels in Deya.
As for Wangsheng City and the demons—since she suspected them, they certainly had something to hide!
Without hesitation, the Goddess of Life issued an Oracle to Truth. Oh right, she nearly forgot—she had also selected a Hero Candidate and would assign him a mission…
In the Mist, Reg, who had been hiding here for a while, suddenly felt movement in his right hand.
He immediately unwrapped the bandages to see the faint black-gold mark of the Goddess of Life reacting.
Both his hands were wrapped in bandages: the left bore an unknown black magic mark from Truth, and the right carried the Hero Candidate’s Mark from the Goddess of Life.
He still hid his Hero Candidate mark to avoid awkward questions like, “You’re a Hero Candidate? Why are you doing so poorly?”
After touching the black-gold Hero Candidate mark with his other hand, the Goddess of Life’s Oracle entered his mind:
“Proceed now to Southwatch Fort and receive Demon Hunter Kavier’s guidance until the Demon-Hunting Campaign ends. Afterwards, report immediately to the Sylvania Magic Academy in Wangdu.”