“The Dolgoruky family?” Annan repeated in a low voice, “Are they the only ones involved with the Fallen?”
“To be precise, we only have evidence against that one family.” Longjing Tea calmly explained, “Of course, it is not ruled out that the Northern Alliance chooses only to let the family take the forefront. If that is the case, they might have prepared to distance themselves from this family. Striking at this point might not spread the impact throughout the entire North.”
“So, it’s a scapegoat…” Annan sneered, “I don’t really care.”
Holding the scepter in his right hand, Annan sat in front of a standing mirror.
In front of Annan was a feather quill dancing in the air, jotting down the ‘contents of the meeting’ by itself. It reminded him of the time in Joseph Buckel’s bakery back then, where an Edict Spell seemed to suggest, ‘You’re already a bag of flour. You should find a way to bake yourself into bread’.”
This spell was called [Echo Servant]. It was a basic Edict spell, which even a wizard apprentice could use.
Its previous name was [Action Replay], and it was a demanding spell like Longjing Tea’s [Dodge It Now] that could be used to cosplay Ash from Pokemon.
This spell was initially created for investigative purposes.
It bypassed the limitations of the Prophet School and Idol School on retracing abilities — meaning it didn’t attempt to glimpse “what happened in the past”. Instead, it allowed objects from the crime scene to re-enact recent events independently.
Later, with the further development of ritual studies, this troublesome problem could already be solved with simpler rituals.
The ability was modified slightly — the underlying logic was changed to ‘replicate the actions of the item’s owner.’ For example, Backer just had to perform an action once; then, by immediately using this spell, objects would mechanically repeat the action based on Backer’s logic.
This spell had been applied to industries. That was why the prices of firearms and glass were relatively low back then. It indirectly achieved the effect of an ‘assembly line’… The same actions could be repeated with just a few wizard apprentices throughout the day.
Although someone in the Papal Kingdom had already invented the concept of “machinery”, for other countries — and even local factory owners within the Papal Kingdom, it was still cheaper to hire a wizard apprentice.
It was not easy to become a transcender.
However, becoming just a wizard apprentice — or learning just one or two spells — wasn’t all that challenging. If one was smart enough, they could even master it in months.
Their focus wasn’t to study magic at all.
They wouldn’t care about the principles of magic and transcendence. Their only goal was to learn a specific spell.
The wizard tower would not recruit this kind of apprentice.
But wizards who graduate from the Wizard Tower also can take on apprentices’ roles — as seen from the students who were murdered by Benjamin years ago. Many came to the Wizard Tower to study, with their main goal simply to make money.
For the Austere-Winter Dukedom, which lacked labor, many local factories and farms must be maintained this way. Although this spell could only replace the simplest mechanical work, it excelled in precision.
Austere-Winter Dukedom had further developed this spell — using the technology of the golem and optimizing it.
For example, the magic pen “carrying the clerk’s soul” in front of Annan, and the magic armor made of “guard’s soul”.
Of course… a true transcender would know that this was a gimmick for the seller to fool the nobles.
After all, mortals’ souls didn’t work at that level.
In fact, it was a curse vessel produced through complex logic optimization. It was possible to translate the “specified dialogue” heard into text.
It was like a primitive form of programming… the result was similar to a voice-to-text artificial intelligence.
In other words, the technology tree of this world was wildly skewed. On the one hand, the locals had internal combustion engines, with Annan personally unlocking them; on the other hand, the locals already unlocked programming, androids, and artificial intelligence.
This machinery was also a gift Annan would give to Salvatore and Kafni.
It could be considered a specialty of the Austere-Winter Dukedom.
At least only the nobles of Austere-Winter had access to buy it.
While flipping through the notes, Longjing Tea read slowly so that Annan could jot them down, “The organization the Dolgoruki family belongs to… which you referred to as the Northern Alliance… they are internally called the Northern Brotherhood.”
“En, go on.” Annan replied deeply, “You may speak a little faster.”
“You wrote this on the paper… They chose the Fallen Path because there was a definite way out of it. What does this refer to?”
Annan was lying on the chair, curled up in a ball.
Longjing Tea also used the [Ally Reflecting Mirror] ritual.
Annan temporarily taught Longjing Tea this ritual as an advance payment.
Longjing Tea, who had studied in Swamp’s Black Tower, also knew Salvatore’s “letter delivery ritual”. He sent letters to Annan directly through the ritual.
However, considering the potential error in information transmission, Longjing Tea chose to activate this ritual and then explained the situation to Annan carefully in voice form to ensure that Annan received the information the players had interrogated accurately.
Longjing Tea typically operated professionally.
Longjing Tea found it inappropriate just to send a “text message” or an “email”. He wanted to have a phone call or face-to-face communication to ensure the accuracy of the information.
When Longjing Tea became a corporate slave, serving under other leaders—like serving Annan, Longjing Tea still believed in the same approach.
However, Annan could turn off the other party’s visual and auditory access.
Even though Salvatore could see Annan during the ritual, it was because Annan knew that Salvatore had missed him after being apart for so long.”
However, Annan didn’t believe Longjing Tea was eager to see him.
You don’t miss me at all. You are just greedy to get missions from me.jpg
When Longjing Tea called, Annan had already changed into pajamas and was half asleep — he was too lazy to change clothes, so he simply turned on the voice permission and used the “Tyrant” form to wake up.
All Longjing Tea could hear on his end was the sound of writing, having no idea that Annan wasn’t actually writing anything.
“To put it simply, the [Northern Brotherhood] learned a key ritual from them — a ritual that can completely reverse the Fallen path.”
“Um?” Annan perked up upon hearing this, “Reversing the Fallen path? That’s impossible—”
He thought of Kafni.
If there is such a technology…
Longjing Tea replied, “This is a new technology that is still experimental.”
“To put it simply… as long as there is enough gold, the curse in the soul can be purified; then if gold with a purity of more than 100% can be produced, it is also possible to purify the fallen soul.”
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