The air had a bitter, mind-numbing smell. Many people burn expensive tobacco just to taste the bad taste. It's so puzzling. To be honest, every action of the adults puzzled her. Wizards could have lived in gorgeous courtyards and huge castles, enjoying the service of servants and the compliments of mortals, but they would rather hide themselves in rocks and soil, playing with bottles and pots all day long, and instructing their apprentices to do this and that. It's generally not a heavy job.
If someone was too stupid or slow, the wizard would have him copy an old book three inches thick. This punishment is nothing short of engineering. Legla said that there were magic words on them, and the wizard apprentice couldn't understand them at all. No one knows why. Anyway, I just have to copy it, over and over again, one after another. When he was taking care of the bookshelf, Hitarian had seen a whole wall of books, and they looked as similar to each other as the leaves on the tree.
She squirmed uncomfortably. Waiting for the call is a tedious process, but if you don't want your fingers to go numb while writing, you must sit patiently. From the top of the stone tower, he could see the honeycomb-like grotto below. Hitarian put his feet on the edge of the window sill and imagined himself sitting boldly on it, with his legs dangling outside. The cold wind blew through her socks and fur corsets, but the sun caught her hair and lit them like torches.
I burned it. I burned it, she heard herself saying, and it reappeared on the other side of the world. A wave of panic went through my heart. A second career sounds like rekindling the fire. Will it be brighter, hotter, burning brighter? She still always associated the soul flame with the fire in the fireplace. Hitarian sometimes wished that he could be reborn like the "Confessions" by walking into the fire. Can I choose where I show up? Back to Byrne, back to Lady Liana's attic?
"Lingot." Her one-legged owl said, but the voice of the old wizard Janakos came out. Hitarian quickly stood upright and listened to the instructions. "Go to Durdupa's ladder. The first door on the left is where someone is waiting for you."
"Is it Mr. Cranky?"
"Don't ask questions! Go quickly."
She went back to the house and grabbed some dried meat and gave it to Ruth before hurried across the corridor. Regla said that mysterious rituals often take a long time, which can delay up to three days, and Hitarian has to stock up on food for the birds. She hadn't thought of it before, entirely because the ceremony at Bain didn't take long.
"Kitarian." Behind the door is really Ozzie Cranky, the "eccentric expert" of the Silent School. Previously he always came to ask Hitarian about various details of the Confessions. Because of his inner ulterior motives, Hitarian didn't like him very much until one day the person who asked him turned out to be a "tattooed" Jizuk dressed as a pope.
There was a purple balloon on Cranky's hat that was bigger than his head. It was floating, and the silk thread tied to the edge of the hat was stretched straight. He looked as if he could take off at any moment. Otherwise, the "eccentric expert" looks like a completely normal person.
"I come to receive the rite, your lord," Hitarian said.
"You're here to put on a show for that lunatic." Cranky's tone was very melancholy. "I suggest you turn around and go back to the room and build a tent with sticks." She stayed where she was at a loss. "The last guy who underwent a double ceremony inflated like a balloon on my head. This project has long been confirmed to have failed."
"You are adding to her panic, Your Excellency," someone pointed out. "This will create a bias in the results."
Only then did Hitarian notice a wizard standing in the corner of the room. His face was pale, with wrinkles all around his features, and he was holding a gloomy long-handled umbrella in his hand. Even so, his shoulders were still half wet. This is not surprising. It rains one-third of the year in Honey Collar. But Khitarian remembered that it was a sunny day.
"What can affect the outcome more than allowing a mysterious creature to undergo a second job transfer ceremony? Okay, Linde. Use the deviation factor as a variable? I'm afraid I'm still a novice on the road to truth."
Wizard Lind said nothing.
Cranky waved his hand, and the balloon on his hat swayed. "Let's do it. Get in the middle, Ringot."
"here?"
"Move to the left. No, to the right. It's your left, not mine. Okay, now go to the left." The process of adjusting the position made Hitarian feel a little worried. But the strange thing is that this uneasiness is completely different from the mood she felt when she was canonized as a knight in the Byrne Palace. "Okay, don't move." Ozzie Cranky patted the balloon. "Kitarian, you know what's going to happen next, don't you?"
"I think I understand very well, Your Excellency." She didn't bite her tongue. "I would fall asleep and see eleven roads in my dreams."
"It's eleven caves."
"Yes, Your Excellency. I will choose the sixth one."
"Who told you that?"
"That's what Lord Tattoo said. He wanted me to choose between the sixth and eleventh caves, but eleven is too far."
"You are very wise. Illusions and magic texts help reconstruct memory, but the truth is not easy to explore...I remember that you are still literate? Do you recognize numbers?"
Hitarian blushed. "I know most of the numbers, Your Excellency."
"Don't be ashamed. Most mortals can only speak but not write in their entire lives. It's already remarkable that you can recognize Lucia's divine text. When Jizuk loses interest, the theological sect will welcome you."
The School of Silence is composed of many small factions, the leader of which is the Sect of Truth founded by "Second Truth". This type of wizard studies runes, spells, and pharmacology in order to decipher mysterious laws. They believed that shortening the spells of witchcraft would help bring them closer to order, so they studied silent spellcasting day and night. This is where the “silent” school of thought comes from. Hitarian wasn't interested. To be honest, she found it really fun to say magic spells out loud. Isn't that what they did in operas? What will the audience listen to if they are silent?
But Legla said that the people of Moniantoros did not like to listen to opera. The Durdus created a mysterious object that could capture motion. Unfortunately, before the achievement became popular, the Oath Keepers invented "video recording" that could simultaneously save and display sound and images. The alliance's alchemical creations seized the entire market in a short period of time, and the wizards of the Durdu sect had no choice but to change the subject and ponder the stable runes that had been unpopular for many years. However, in Hitarian's eyes, the topics studied by these wizards are not currently fashionable at all. Two days ago she saw a strange machine that used lard to generate electricity. Hitarian would rather have a pig than that meager light.
"Tattooed" Jizuk's faction is all monks. The Church of Gaia is completely under his command, and even a quarter of the ascetics are trainee wizard apprentices. If you were to ask which sect Hitarian disliked the most, it would have to be the Ascetic sect. It is said that the Dervish sect is also the demon hunter of the Silent School, and each wizard among them has burned at least two unknown people to death. Thinking of himself and his sister fleeing from their homeland, Hitarian simply hated them.
Ozzie Cranky is a Durdu sect wizard whose research on mysterious objects ranks first in the entire occult field. Hitarian's initial worry was unreasonable, because he didn't care about any other details except the "Confessions" itself. She suspected that even if her identity was revealed and she was about to be burned to death, the "weird expert" would come to the prison cell and make a bed with her on straw before the execution.
But even then, Shitarion thought, I wouldn't say a word. She was originally an immigrant in Byrne, but now she is a knight of the starless night. The undead lord personally placed the sword on her shoulder.
"According to religious gospel records, in the era when gods still walked the earth, mystery did not belong to mortals. The magic in the air was comparable to toxins, and people could only live for forty years at most." Cranky said as he opened his mobile phone box, from which comes a shiny blue powder. "But this is actually a metaphor. People lived like humans forty years ago, but they live like stones forty years later - slow in pace, confused in thinking, and unable to speak. This is a mystery, and we still don't understand it today. Know why our ancestors were like this. The ancestors generally believed that wisdom was won from the gods by the great hero Haro Endor, but because he died at the age of forty, people lost the gift."
"From which god did Harondor win his wisdom, sir?" Hitarian asked.
"I think it's probably Gaia. Other gods won't be so kind." Cranky replied, "Your question is very profound, Hitarian. After listening to the story, my apprentice only wanted to know who Haroldo was. How did he die? It's easy for mortals to die, so why ask? Even now, a mortal can live a long life until he reaches forty. Mysterious creatures should look for the source of things - if we find out who gave him wisdom, You will know how to win life and health, and knowledge. Channels are better than results, Ringot, just remember my words."
"I remember it, Your Excellency."
"But don't tell Jizuk. Otherwise he will definitely tell Roxanne." A smile appeared on his face. "Our theologian Your Excellency will think that I have tampered with legends and come to argue with me."
I see you are looking forward to it. "My mother said that any story is changed as it is passed down, but only the words of God remain the same." This was actually what Lady Liana told her, but of course Hitarian would not be stupid enough to tell the truth. “So the Bible is a gift from God, and the gospel is a blessing that people give to each other.”
"What a tender bedtime story. It's a pity that mortals no longer worship the old scriptures. Gaia has no Bible, and neither does Lucia. Astrologers claim that their gods record the future in the stars, and the gifts they receive are Disaster." He shook his head, "To this day, the only one who still has the Bible is the stele of Saint Valorin."
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