"...Could it be that there was some special item or event that caused me to be left behind, uninvolved in the ritual, and smoothly offering my devotion, yet we failed to notice?"
Bofis struggled to repeat Xitan Pulan’s words, effortfully.
This complex, lengthy sentence was too difficult for a specter who was only a little over a thousand years old to understand.
After all, Xitan Pulan did not speak Elvish.
The two of them were able to have a conversation only because, as a demi-spectre, Xitan Pulan could speak with all ghosts and spirits. But this conversation itself was quite forced...
As a user of a descendant language, Xitan Pulan could basically understand what Bofis was saying; the converse was like Bofis listening to an artificial intelligence translation software doing simultaneous interpretation of Xitan Pulan’s words.
Xitan Pulan repeated herself twice, and only then did Bofis finally grasp what she meant.
Bofis tilted her head thoughtfully, "If I must say..."
"There really is something?"
Seeing Bofis deep in thought, Xitan Pulan asked with some surprise.
She was just following the instructions from the Four Dark Deities, probing with her question.
Did she actually stumble upon something with her very first attempt?
Bofis bit her thumb, frowning in concern, "I don’t remember clearly... Follow me."
Xitan Pulan, striking while the iron was hot, said, "I’m here to collect a cursed material called ’Permafrost Blood of the Frostspeaker.’ Do you know where I can find it?"
"Do you have a friend who’s advancing to Frostspeaker?"
Bofis looked somewhat surprised, "That would require affinity with the essence of the frost domain, right?"
Xitan Pulan responded with lack of certainty, "He is the heir of the Winter principality..."
"Stop, stop, stop! Don’t tell me about the Winter principality, I don’t even recognize a Winter kingdom..."
Bofis said helplessly, "My knowledge of the outside world comes from the casual chats of the little wizards who come here..."
"Then, do you know about the Grandmother?"
"...The Coldblooded Lady, of course, I know about her."
Bofis spoke with a touch of nostalgia, "My mother even used to have a portrait of the Grandmother in her collection. I saw it when I was young. In the painting, the Grandmother could move, talk, and roar. Those kinds of moving paintings, in our era, could only be made by Yawen... Can you do that now?"
"...No, at least I have not seen it."
Xitan Pulan fell silent for a while, reluctantly replying with a "no".
She almost blurted out, "Sure, we see it every day, but we generally call this kind of moving painting a ’gif idiot figure.’"
Bofis, somewhat skeptical, looked at Xitan Pulan. She obviously noticed Xitan Pulan’s hesitation and doubt but wisely dodged the topic, continuing on, "Later, in order to store the sacred remains, my mother sold the painting to a dragon... in exchange for forty portions of active Dragon Blood."
"What are the sacred remains?"
Xitan Pulan suddenly heard a term she had neither heard before nor even seen discussed on forums.
And with the prompt from Defu and the Four Dark Deities, the number of players watching her livestream suddenly spiked.
Annan, organizing several windows in front of him like an old man in a surveillance room, also concentrated his attention.
— He had never heard of this term either.
It sounded like it could be some sort of holy relic...
"It’s normal for you not to have heard of it; I’ve only heard it once or twice myself."
Bofis replied without hesitation.
She looked at Xitan Pulan, pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Do you know about the saints of your era?"
"...No, I don’t understand at all."
Xitan Pulan shook his head.
Bofis made a bitter face, "Do I really have to start from the beginning... You do know the principle of Curse Binding, don’t you?"
Should I know... or should I not know?
"...Ah, I roughly know."
Xitan Pulan hesitated for a moment, then answered softly.
Bofis breathed a sigh of relief and then explained, "Generally speaking, Saints are those who make their Curse Bindings public to everyone. Because they have a vast number of Secret Keepers, their souls are hardly ever eroded.
"But not everyone who makes their Curse Binding public can become a Saint... Because many people do not disclose their Curse Bindings due to exceptional willpower or excellent virtues. More often, it’s because they themselves are insignificant or even because their Curse Bindings are difficult to exploit.
"To become a Saint, one must first reach the position of ’Stigmatization’ and complete the stigmatization of the soul. After that, they perform the Rite of the Saint, integrating the sacred bones into their body.
"For every tenfold increase in the number of Secret Keepers, the erosion they suffer in nightmares or when using forbidden powers is halved; and due to the power of their oaths, they have enhanced resistance to curses from rituals. Transcendents born from the power of curses also find it difficult to harm Saints.
"In this technology, the sacred bones themselves also provide Saints with great power—the power stored in the sacred bones by former Saints."
"...It sounds very powerful."
Xitan Pulan was somewhat tempted.
It’s a bit like... a magical engraving?
But Bofis shook her head, "Indeed, it is powerful, but the sacred bones are very rare. In our era, there were only six pieces of sacred bones... and the sacred bones do not acknowledge everyone.
"If the Saints betray the Rite of the Saint, they will lose the power they obtained from the sacred bones. And if the Saints continue to follow the Rite, they will... gradually become feared by people."
Xitan Pulan found this statement somewhat strange.
If the Saints are the strongest Transcendents who expose their own vulnerabilities to the public to purify nightmares and walk the earth... People should love them even more than fear them.
Bofis sighed and explained, "The theme of the sacred bones does not change, but to gain recognition by the sacred bones, you have to make a Rite that can convince the sacred bones. You can think of it as... a ’heritable’ divine position.
"The first sacred bones were left by a Saint whose truth had been completely perfected after death, who had chosen to make his Curse Binding public instead of holding a sublimation ceremony. The sacred bones are the crystallization of the soul and the Book of Truth. The subsequent sacred bones were merely later Saints reenacting the deeds of the Saints.
"As a result, the concept held by the sacred bones themselves cannot be entirely positive. And the Rite is the highest level of Curse Binding... the ultimate form of the ’oath’ power, created to constrain this curse.
"During the final stage of sublimation, gods also make a Rite. But they usually only tell their Pope, and it is passed down from Pope to Pope. Whereas the Saints make their Rite public... No matter how beloved a Saint is, there will always be opponents.
"For example, in our era, there was a Saint whose theme was ’mercy’. And he was indeed a good person... one could even say too good to be true. He would forgive and attempt to save even his enemies; he would rather suffer hardships himself to rescue others from hell... He crossed the Living Desert to reach the Empire, with the purpose of helping more people."
"Sounds like a really good person."
Xitan Pulan remarked.
She added silently to herself, "I always feel like there should’re been three disciples following him around."
"But the Rite he made was ’I swear never to harbor the intent to kill’. And ultimately, he was provoked by an extremely unbearable villain... The moment he harbored a murderous intent, the sacred bones abandoned him."
...It sounds like the sacred bones’ judgment is somewhat dumb.
Or should one blame the merciful Saint for setting the bar too high for himself?
Xitan Pulan frowned slightly, unsure what to say.
She was silent for a moment, then asked, "So, about the sacred bones here..."
"...Do you remember what I just said about the origin of the first sacred bones?"
Miss Bofis countered in response.
Xitan Pulan had a stirring in her heart and was taken aback, "You don’t mean to say..."
Bofis nodded, bluntly acknowledging it.
"What Mother had obtained was the very first sacred bones in history.
"— Its attribute is, ’Justice’."