This was a novel experience Xitan Pulan had never had before.
She was not moving by walking on her legs but floating above the ground with the power of her thoughts.
Xitan Pulan felt it very clearly that she could still stride, pretending to move.
She could even stand still or maintain a sitting or even a lying position and move forward... anyway, the maximum speed was constant. It was just that doing so would make her feel awkward and her field of vision would be less broad.
...Is this what they call a ghostlike form?
For some reason, a thought surfaced in Xitan Pulan’s mind.
She stealthily passed through the walls and entered the interior of Xiushui Street No. 35.
After entering, she did not act rashly but avoided the people around her at first and carefully observed the interior environment of the target.
— Yes, Xiushui Street No. 35 was not a residential building.
Rather, it was a comparably spacious warehouse.
The space inside was about as large as a track that circles four hundred meters. The area from one-third to half the distance from the main entrance was filled with huge wooden crates. The crates were about a meter high, some piled in two layers, and some in three layers. Those with three layers were covered with thick cloth on top, while those with two were not.
Without a doubt, these crates were used as cover.
The stacked rows of crates formed trenches that perfectly blocked the line of sight. From halfway through the warehouse to the very back, there was no one to be seen.
There was no back door here, but there were several observation holes plugged with iron rods.
Xitan Pulan’s pupils suddenly constricted.
She clearly saw... In the empty space at the back half of the warehouse, there were many things that looked amiss scattered around!
The most conspicuous was an altar similar to a three-layered Hanoi tower. The top layer was carved with many grooves as wide as a finger, inside which remained thick, muddied dark traces.
On the ground, she also saw several runes carved into it—she could clearly see the trails of dragging.
Around these runes was a circle of marks free of dust. Obviously, they had just lifted the crates that were pressing down on the runes and piled them elsewhere.
Apart from that, there were many strange components that Xitan Pulan did not know the use for.
But luckily, she had graduated from medical school, and she could recognize more clearly what these things probably were:
For example, a bovine skull with all flesh meticulously scraped off yet retaining its horns;
A canine skeleton with the spine and ribs separated, hanging in three rows on the wall;
The hearts of rats, bats, frogs, and a certain bird species, preserved in some kind of antiseptic fluid;
Feces fermenting in a copper vessel...
Besides these animal-derived items, there were also ground crystals, rubies, sapphires, lead, and silver—the reason she could clearly identify them was because the containers of different materials all had labels, and Xitan Pulan seemed to recognize this written language.
After all, most of these containers were opaque. Without labels, it was impossible to discern what was inside.
In addition, there were some very strange, obviously handmade "tools".
For example, a triangular frame made of glass or crystal; male and female dolls with their chest and abdomen cut open to reveal cotton stuffing; a peculiar balance scale composed of two weights of different mass and two ropes of different lengths...
...What’s going on here?
Upon seeing these objects, Xitan Pulan did not act carelessly.
She just crouched in the corner, quietly counting heads.
...Seventeen people in total.
Thankfully, the Suiko did not come straight over.
"It’s time," said the gaunt old man standing in the middle of the crowd in a soft voice, putting his pocket watch back into his chest pocket: "It seems Bob has decided not to come."
"Should we just retreat now?"
A bald man, standing over two meters tall with exceptionally strong muscles and two small mustaches, asked in a deep voice, "Bob and the others might have been caught or betrayed us... Now the Crow might have noticed us."
"It’s also possible that old Mike finally decided to run."
A tanned woman with a terrible scar on her face and dark green tattoos covering her shoulders sneered, "The Bob brothers are all cowards. They’ve been reluctant from the start, as if we were forcing them to their deaths."
"Enough," the bald man retorted in a deep voice. "You can say old Mike and Joseph might run, but Bob is not that kind of person. He may be Joseph’s cousin, but he’s different."
"Bob is ambitious... He’s gifted, unlike us. He could very well set foot on the path of the Transcendent—so he’s the last person who’d need to run."
"That’s not necessarily true."
The woman scoffed, "The path of the Transcendent... it’s not like we’re the only ones who have it. Who’s to say he hasn’t taken our intelligence to the Crow?"
"—The legacy of the Transcendent is indeed found everywhere."
The gaunt old man slowly began to speak, interrupting their conversation: "But apart from us, who else would lead the son of a convicted felon onto the path of the Transcendent?"
The strong man respectfully nodded to the elder, not saying anything more.
"Father, you decide."
The defiant tanned woman also chose to yield to the old man.
The elderly man known as "father" slowly said, "Moreover, I need to correct a mistake of yours. You are not without the gift to set foot on the path of the Transcendent... it’s that you don’t need to.
"The power of the Transcendent isn’t strictly limited to the Transcendents and Priests. In fact, a Transcendent might go their whole life using that power only a few times.
"So since it’s just those few times... the path of the Ritualist is much the same."
As he spoke, he slowly walked over to a cupboard and took down two brownish clay bottles.
Xitan Pulan noticed that these were the bottles labelled "Silver" and "Pearl."
This made her uneasy.
Then, the old man nonchalantly poured some of the powder from the bottles onto the altar.
The strong man consciously dragged a small, short, and skinny man with sneaky eyes to the altar—he could even grasp the other man’s neck directly.
Next, as if slaughtering a chicken, he used the short man’s own dagger to make a cut on his wrist.
Xitan Pulan suddenly realized something.
Without hesitation, she backed up and crawled through the wall, escaping the warehouse.
As the blood gushed out, it instantly soaked the silver and pearl powders.
The old man placed his hand on one of the runes and began to chant in a low voice:
"Silver allows me to see clearly..."
The next moment, silver flames suddenly burst forth from the altar.
Those flames had a peculiar metallic sheen, dancing like mercury.
The light lasted only three seconds before extinguishing.
The old man furrowed his brows deeply.
"Was it an illusion..."
After a moment of silence, the old man walked towards the bottles containing metals and commanded in a low voice, "You go get me a rat’s heart, a cat’s heel, and a frog’s heart.
"I need to summon something."