"Annie, don't run around."
"Sorry, Uncle Manuel, I picked some dandelions from the cemetery." Annie held up a handful of dandelions and blew them away.
She immediately hummed the ditty "Where is the Lord," which is a hymn that all children know.
The cemetery is next to the church.
Manuel was a serious man. He knelt down, grabbed Annie's shoulders, and warned: "Listen, Annie, you don't want and can't run around. If you want dandelions, you can ask the monk to pick them up for you. If you can't, Go out of the church, and don’t go into the hall.”
Anne nodded obediently and said, "I understand, Father."
"Alas." Manuel sighed, "May the angels love you, Anne... I will take you by boat to Sola's monastery some time later."
"Do I want to leave here?" Annie scratched her little head.
"Yes, my boy."
"Can you wait until I see the angel coming to pick up my mother? Uncle Manuel, please." Annie threw away the dandelion branch, clasped her hands together, and begged.
Manuel's wrinkled, dry face stiffened.
He slid his Adam's apple, and after a long time, he said slowly: "Annie... maybe you are still young and can't understand, but... I am preparing a defense draft, you know? I want to speak to the pagans about the things that the court will use. Go to the seminary, for your mother and Christopher, I will defend them. Make a last effort for our God. Annie, you stay here."
Anne listened to this in a daze. In this long and difficult sentence, there were many words that she could not understand, such as "defense", "script", "lecture school"... She only knew Manuel I used the most adult tone and asked her to stay here obediently.
"I know, Uncle Manuel."
Manuel nodded slightly.
............
At the now-disbanded Magic Academy, Kasim held an oil lamp and climbed up the wooden spiral staircase.
This magic tower located to the west of the chapel is made of bricks and stones. It is the tallest of the four magic towers, with five floors. Books, magic instruments and alchemy materials are placed on the second and third floors. It is configured differently from ordinary magic towers. No different, Qasim had no intention of stopping in it, so he climbed up the stairs two steps at a time.
The fourth floor contains maps, secret manuscripts, contact information of large and small mysterious gatherings from all over the world, and even methods for summoning heretical gods that his father, the Creator, has accumulated over the years.
Qasim pulled out a velvet book from one of the bookshelves with ease. The strong sour smell of paper hit his nostrils, and he wrinkled his nose under the linen towel.
The cover of the cowhide book is carefully woven with a relief. In the middle, two sheepskin rolled into a cylinder are sewn on it, shaped like a gentle mouth with full curvature. The dark cowhide in it looks like an abyss swallowing everything.
Qasim sat down at the desk beside him, with the oil lamp placed on the corner of the table.
He slowly stretched out his left hand from his robe, exposing the rotten skin of his upper arm. On his left back arm, two lumps of squeezed flesh separated slowly, stringy mucus dripped on the table, and a naked eye protruded. .
This is Qasim’s clairvoyant eye.
He was originally a puppet, but because he fit so closely with the image of his younger son in Lucius's memory, he even acted as his patron, inducing spirituality.
Kasim opened his eyes and awakened his own free will.
"It's been two days since the first ceremony, and tonight is the second ceremony." Kasim muttered, opening the cowhide book in front of him.
Because it is made of cowhide, each page is made of very thick material. As a result, the thick-looking cowhide book actually only has more than forty pages to flip through.
Qasim turned to the page he wanted in one go.
There is a string of spells on it, using the ancient Platinum script grammar, but the words are the current Platinum script words.
"From beyond the celestial realm,"
Qasim rearranged the string of incantations according to the grammar of the current white gold script, chanted, and called,
"The lonely shadow, the great one who suffered for the sake of humanity, his holy disciple."
He felt a cold wind suddenly swirling around him and continued to chant,
"This is a place known only to you and me. I summon you, please contact me! I summon you to deliver the letter to the ghost."
Closing the book, the mouth rolled out of the parchment on the cover opened wide.
The black cowhide in his mouth rolled like a spiral abyss.
After a while, a hand as bony as a baby stretched out from the center of the spiral.
Clutching the letter between the paper bones.
After Qasim twisted the letter with his fingers, the bone hand stood there, waiting quietly.
He picked up the paint with a knife and picked out the letter paper inside.
It is in Yavin.
"Pious Qasim, we already know your devotion to the Lord of Suffering, so from the moment you read this letter, you are our dear brother and co-worker. We hope that you will continue to serve us devoutly. Lord of Suffering, tempered by worldly austerity, welcome to join the Exiled Order.”
Qasim skimmed over the compliments, looking for the letter's most noteworthy message.
He saw the penultimate paragraph.
"My colleagues, we have obtained a strange manuscript. It was obtained by our equally devout informant and believer. The language on it is ancient and strange. Even the most knowledgeable scholars of our order cannot decipher all of them. They can only confirm the same It is related to the Resurrection Town where you are located. If you know anything about it, please write to us."
The last paragraph is a customary greeting and compliment.
A manuscript?
Kasim frowned, knowing nothing about it.
In accordance with the divine inspiration of the King of Kings, he still maintained contact with this heretical order, so Qasim grabbed a reed pen, dipped it in iron gall ink, and wrote a reply.
After writing, he covered it with fire paint and placed it between the phalanges of his bony hand.
The bone hand slowly retracted.
"Kasim."
He was frightened. Hearing that the voice was Kerim, he quickly put the book back on the shelf, stood up and walked to the railing. He leaned over and saw a short body standing on the first floor.
"Sage Kerim, are you preparing for the second ceremony?"
"It's time, Kasim, follow me to the alchemy room. We are going to prepare the elixir." Kerim's voice did not allow for hesitation.
Qasim walked quickly down the stairs.
.....................
As the afternoon approached, Chen Yi went home hastily and had dinner. After ordering Hedwig to go to bed early, she pushed out the door and gathered at the Magic Academy in time.
The bells of the lecture hall and the church resounded through the sky of the town one after another.
Chen Yi arrived quite early, and there were only Kasim and Kerim in the academy. The three of them waited for a long time, and Roman and Idelai arrived belatedly.
The five people gathered together and rushed outside of Resurrection Town non-stop. It was still the same mound.
The sky is getting dark, and the earth is like beating a broken drum, letting the cold wind beat on its chest.
Taking advantage of the gap when the stars were not in the best position, Kerim turned around, faced Roman and Chen Yi, and explained the affairs of the celestial kingdom.
"At that time, we must drink the elixir and fully open our spiritual eyes. Remember, the celestial kingdom is extremely dangerous, and time is broken. Different stars or gods live in different stars, and there are countless filthy and blasphemous ones among them. The power is also beyond imagination, and there must be no slacking off.
Specifically, you must follow me closely. We will enter the cracks in the celestial realm as a spiritual body, and then pass through the spiritual torrent. Do not be affected by the emotions that do not belong to you. Whose name of God I recite, you must also Follow now or you will be torn apart by the spiritual torrent.
Then, we will meet the "historical stars", walk through the historical corridor, and experience the tip of the iceberg of the grand narrative.
Finally, I came to the constellations and asked all the gods and spirits in the world to grant me spirituality with my knowledge! "
