Although she has been an old acquaintance with Morris for many years, in fact, in Vanna's eyes, Morris has always been just a gentle and elegant scholar - when he was still in the city-state of Puland, this old gentleman devoted most of his energy to I spent my time in school classes, and the rest of my time was either spent in the library or being invited to give lectures in some schools.
Vanna didn't have much chance to understand this elder's "excellence" in the extraordinary field.
But since boarding the Lost Home, she finally began to see another side of Maurice, and realized what the seemingly harmless scholars who followed Lachem, the god of wisdom, relied on to complete their work. ——
That's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: the pursuit of knowledge.
But if you think about it carefully, this is normal. Scholars should have unique and powerful powers. After all, there are many people chasing knowledge in this world. There are everything from deep demons to spiritual phantoms, but in the end, most of the knowledge is lost. Mortals catch up, on what basis? It is based on the strong academic level of mortal scholars
Fanna rubbed her forehead, tried her best to control the random thoughts in her head, and muttered casually: "So you are so powerful... If I had known that I had also taken classes seriously back then, maybe..."
"No, there's too many points difference," Morris shook his head expressionlessly, "It's better for you to exercise seriously."
Fanna suddenly felt a little embarrassed: "At least I successfully graduated from City State University..."
Morris glanced at her: "One-third of the credits are for sports expertise, and one-third for academic studies."
point. "
Fanna remained silent. After a few seconds of silence, she looked at the thick fog around her and abruptly changed the subject: "The cultists you eliminated were probably the controllers of those fake freaks?"
"At most one of the controllers," Morris shook his head, "Have you heard the noise from other neighborhoods? The entire city-state is now full of monsters like that, and I don't know how many cultists have taken advantage of the thick fog to enter the real world. ·····I’m afraid we won’t be able to eliminate them all by ourselves.”
Fanna nodded solemnly, but just when she was about to say something more, she suddenly noticed something out of the corner of her eye, and she let out a soft "Huh".
She came to the dead Annihilation Cultist, squatted down to check the condition of the body, stretched out her hand, grabbed the other person's collar, and tore it open casually.
The flesh and blood under the clothes is melting and squirming, appearing to be contaminated and infiltrated by black mud. As the body dies, the speed of the mud squirming slows down visibly to the naked eye, and gradually appears to dry up.
"...This is also a fake!?" Fanna opened her eyes wide in shock, unable to believe what she found, "These cultists... have even made their own people fake?!"
"No, it's not that simple," Morris frowned. He was also carefully examining the cultist's body and recalling the details of the battle. After a moment, he slowly shook his head, "I have sensed his thoughts. Fluctuations are different from fakes - there are gaps in the thinking process of those fakes that are obviously different from human beings. Even if they can behave like ordinary people, they will not be able to maintain a stable consciousness due to the instability of their elements. , but this cultist has no such problem.”
As he spoke, he pointed at the piece of flesh and blood on the cultist's chest that was covered in black mud.
"And what's more important is this part. You see, it is not made of elements - elements and normal flesh and blood exist at the same time. This is more like a kind of symbiosis, or... self-pollution."
Vanna stared at that position for a long time, and her brows gradually furrowed: "These heretics actively pollute themselves with elements? They even use elements to replace part of their own flesh and blood... This is a bit disgusting, even if it is placed on Annihilation cultists, It’s also an impressive level of perversion.”
Morris' tone was quite calm: "I think it's not much different from those Annihilation cultists who transformed themselves into deep demons. These madmen hate the flesh and blood in the world, and they never mind using the craziest ways to transform themselves. .”
As he spoke, his attention was focused elsewhere.
He looked at the one that the cultist had been holding in his hand.
A big black book.
After a slight hesitation, the old scholar stretched out his hand and pulled out the book from the cultist's fingers.
"Be careful," Vanna immediately warned upon seeing this, "this book may contain blasphemous and filthy content! Now that the power of the sun has weakened, if you touch it rashly..."
"Scholars always open new and mysterious books. For us, every reading is a process of challenge and adventure." Morris shook his head slightly, "Don't worry, the Lachem sect is designed to deal with this situation. There are special training and coping skills for the reading behavior below. You just need to be there to help me guard against it, and if something is attracted to this book, help me get rid of it."
Fanna hesitated for a moment and nodded with a serious expression: "...Okay."
Morris hummed, completed a quick prayer in his heart, then took out a small bottle of herbal powder from his arms, poured half of it on the ground and lit it, and sprinkled the other half on the book in front of him, and then checked the string on his wrist. In the state of the colorful stone bracelet, he sat down on the floor solemnly and put the book on his lap.
The cover of this book is pitch black, with no words or symbols on the surface. You can only vaguely see fine mesh patterns printed on the hard cover, making it impossible to determine its origin.
Morris opened the cover of the book and looked at the contents on the inside pages.
Fanna on the side looked away, trying to avoid being affected by the book.
Some messy lines and symbols caught Morris's eyes.
At first, he couldn't understand what he saw at all. Those messy matches and lines did not match any language or ancient writing he knew. But when he tried to open the next page, the traces on the pages suddenly began to appear. Moved - the ink marks turned into living crawling things, moving quickly through the cage made of paper. The jumping characters stimulated the old scholar's vision. In just a few seconds, he felt that he had begun Understand the narrative on the page.
The symbols and lines were twisting rapidly, everything on the page was trembling before his eyes, and the "knowledge" was directly mapped into his mind!
Morris's heart moved, and the protection and stress measures set in advance in his consciousness were instantly activated. The next second, his main consciousness was withdrawn, and his rationality was solidified. He seemed to have become a bystander in an instant, standing on the scene from a detached and illusory perspective. Behind "myself" in the real world, I calmly and soberly read what is emerging in my mind.
"...The meetings of the Forsaken Kings were held again and again, and the initial plan was decided..."
"Those who were abandoned, their flesh and blood will melt in the light..."
After just two sentences, Morris's illusory "self-projection" suddenly frowned.
This is what was written on the note that the young informant named "Crow" brought back when the captain led a team to explore the Second Waterway for the first time! It's a "history" description with unclear words and unknown origin, which is suspected to be some kind of ancient record!
Morris's eyes changed slightly, and he immediately controlled his body to turn the pages of the book, allowing his eyes to read the blasphemous and twisted words, and formed corresponding knowledge memories in his mind, and then read the contents of his mind from the perspective of a bystander.
He saw more hieroglyphic records, and after the content copied by the crow, there were indeed some fragmented sentences:
"...After the abandoned clan left, the creation of all things continued as planned, and the abandoned kings began to design the initial and final blueprint...
"However, that first blueprint was quickly abandoned, as the aftermath of the Great Annihilation roiled the world... The kings gathered dust into stones, and stones into stars, but the stars disintegrated and shattered, unable to long······
"Salmir, the king of the pale giants, fell on the first long night of creation...
"...The kings began to design the second blueprint. They selected one of themselves to be the Creator. The first one selected was the King of Dreams, also known as the 'King of Knowledge and Memory." A stalwart one, because this stalwart one has indeed shown the miracle of creation...
"But the second blueprint also failed, so the dream
The King of Realm was torn apart during the second long night of creation, and part of him drifted at the border of the real world.
"The third blueprint is handed over to another king for execution. His name is the 'Creep King', also known as the 'Lord of the Cluster.' He is the co-owner of countless invisible and small things, and holds the authority of creation. He also has authority over creation's reverse side...and there is truth, which is called 'the wise brother'.
"...The Creeping King began her work on the third long night, giving the blueprint to the cluster and seeking help from the remaining clans. In order to avoid the mistakes of the Dream King and the Pale Giant King, The blueprint was divided so that there would no longer be kingdoms in the world, and the kingdoms were turned into 1,200 cities. It also made the clan take charge of the first ten cities, giving them the name of Crete.
"The third long night passed peacefully like this. This is good.
"But the Forsaken Kings were dissatisfied with the Creeping King's change of blueprint, so they blocked the way back to the Holy Seat. However, the clans of the Ten Cities were grateful to the Creeping King. They did not dare to praise this king in front of the kings. So they gave him another revered name, and they called him Holy, also known as "Holy Lord of the Deep."