77: Chapter 15 A New Direction

On the third day after the full moon faded, in a narrow apartment unit, Lu Li sat by the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, checking off all his recent expenses one by one.

The cheap single room in Backlund's East Borough cost two shillings a week; a loaf of black bread to fill his stomach was only one penny, yet it was his primary daily ration.

The bulk of his expenses went entirely toward spirituality-related consumables: he had purchased over twenty fragments of space charms, each costing three pennies. Holy water copper bottles and spirituality detection needles were high-frequency consumables; they needed to be refilled after every use, and as they added up, the expenses were staggering.

Besides this, the money advanced for Old Kohler's rations, the remuneration for entrusting Abraham to gather intelligence, and the social expenses of occasionally buying ale at taverns in the Dock District to scout for information—all these accumulated, and the savings he had brought from Tingen were already more than half gone.

As the final figure on the ledger was recorded, Lu Li frowned slightly.

If he couldn't find a stable source of income soon, within a month, he wouldn't even be able to afford the most basic rent.

The scattered charm reselling and small-scale intelligence trading in the underground market could barely keep him fed and clothed. But if he wanted to regain his goal and collect the full set of potion materials for Sequence 9 of the Apprentice Pathway, this income was far from enough.

As a Sequence 7: Swindler, his core was never about earning a living by reselling scraps and consumables, but rather information theft, the construction of illusions, and mental deception rooted in his Beyonder characteristic. This was the true ability adapted to the current environment, capable of quickly leveraging resources, and it was his greatest reliance for establishing a foothold in the Backlund underground world.

Lu Li took out the Underground Commercial Street distribution atlas gifted by Old Eye and circled several fixed shops with stable reputations that specialized in high-level intelligence trading.

He then composed his mind, activating the Beyonder ability of the Swindler to weave a layer of perfect disguise on the spiritual level.

He did not forge paper documents; that was the clumsiest and easiest method to be seen through.

He precisely simulated the spiritual fluctuation of the holy emblem exclusive to the orthodox Nighthawks. This unique frequency had long been recorded in the secret registry of the underground market administration office and was the official marker defaulted to and trusted by all intelligence peddlers, far more convincing than fake documents.

Relying on this spiritual disguise that no one could distinguish as fake, he posted intelligence consignment requests at various shops. He set the prices with restraint and moderation, not seeking exorbitant profits, but only hoping to steadily earn half a month's rent and stabilize his current livelihood.

Over the next few days, Lu Li shuttled back and forth between the dock shipping companies and the second-hand markets in the River Bay District. Relying on his information theft ability, he precisely screened and collected a large number of scattered traces of the Aurora Order's remnants, including personnel movements, traces of temporary strongholds, and patterns of material transport, among other fragmented clues.

He integrated and organized the fragmented intelligence, packaging it for sale. The earnings were not substantial, but they were just enough for him to secure the first core main material for Apprentice Sequence 9 in the black market—a small bag of pure Spirit World dust.

Compared to the complex and harsh formula of the Marauder Pathway, the potion formula for Sequence 9 of the Apprentice Pathway was more than a notch simpler.

The entire formula required only two main materials: Spirit World dust and ghost candle wax tears; the auxiliary materials were even easier to obtain, requiring only rainwater collected on the night of a lunar eclipse and black cat whisker ash.

As for the latter two consumables, he had already stockpiled enough back in the Tingen period and did not need to purchase them again.

Among the main materials, ghost candle wax tears could be bought as finished products directly on the black market, and Spirit World dust was affordably priced. The real difficulty was never the materials, but the venue conditions for the advancement ritual.

The advancement for Apprentice Sequence 9 did not require stealing a wisp of starlight in absolute Darkness like a Prometheus; one only needed to be positioned in the rift between reality and the Spirit World to complete the potion consumption and ritual guidance.

The edge of the Sea of Wraith, abandoned ancient seal nodes, or the end of the pier where the ghost ship docked were all excellent venues.

He had long decided on the optimal choice—the third berth of the Old Wharf.

Since the ghost ship left last time, the lingering ghost mist in this sea area had not dissipated for a long time, and the spiritual density was completely up to standard, sufficient to support the Sequence 9 advancement ritual.

Moreover, this place was remote and desolate, rarely visited by people, so there was no need to worry about being disturbed during the ritual, making it far safer than other locations.

For the sake of caution, Lu Li made a special trip to the old bookstore on Water Pump Street to verify the status of the lingering spirituality at the venue with Old Eye.

Upon hearing this, Old Eye took a small object wrapped in lead paper from the depths of a drawer and gently pushed it onto the counter. Peeling back the lead paper, a fragment of a ghost candle with burn marks lay quietly; although it had been burned halfway, its internal complete spiritual structure remained undamaged.

"The seal runes you helped me reinforce on the storage cabinet were tough and stable; the people from the Aurora Order tried to break through several times but failed."

Old Eye picked up a feather duster and nonchalantly brushed the dust off the bookshelf, his tone flat, "This is a token of gratitude, enough to prepare one Sequence 9 potion; no need to pay."

He looked up at Lu Li and revealed a key detail: "The Apprentice Pathway is a niche Pathway to begin with, and there are very few characteristic fragments circulating on the black market. But you don't need to purchase any extra—the Apprentice characteristic you once stripped away originated from yourself; it was only temporarily mortgaged to the ruins' seal. This time, for your re-advancement, you don't need to find new fragments; you only need to re-prepare the potion and complete the ritual in the spiritual rift at the Old Wharf."

These words completely dispelled Lu Li's last remaining worries.

After returning to the apartment, he properly stored the ghost candle fragment and the Spirit World dust in his waist pouch; the two core main materials were now ready.

Although the ghost mist at the Old Wharf pier was slowly dissipating after the full moon, the speed was far slower than estimated. At least for the next two weeks, the spiritual density would remain stable enough to maintain the conditions for advancement, giving him ample time to prepare everything.

While his livelihood and advancement matters were progressing steadily, the digestion progress of his Sequence 7: Swindler potion had also quietly climbed to nearly half.

The several actions he had taken in the Backlund underground world during this time were all training that best fit the acting method of a "Swindler."

Utilizing the spiritual identity of a Nighthawk to coax intelligence peddlers into completing transactions—this type of deception was shallow and only involved ordinary merchants, offering limited benefits to his own acting;

But he had infiltrated the gray areas of the docks several times, extracting key intelligence from low-Sequence remnants of the Aurora Order and misleading their judgment. Every successful mental manipulation directly interfered with the other party's safe house selection, material transport, and personnel contact.

This type of deception, which affected Beyonder forces and influenced the direction of the situation, carried enough "weight" and perfectly fit the core of the Swindler's digestion, allowing his acting progress to steadily advance.

Days passed peacefully; Lu Li continued to organize and archive intelligence on the movements of the Aurora Order remnants, while simultaneously receiving a tip from Abraham.

On the night of the full moon, the black sail ship docked at Storm Cape did not trigger any blood sacrifice pulses; it had already retreated to the deep reef area in the waters outside Storm Cape, temporarily hiding its tracks.

Inside Backlund city, the raids by the Mandated Punishers were highly effective, and at least three secret safe houses of the Aurora Order were uprooted. However, there were still a large number of low-Sequence remnants scattered and hiding in the Dock District and East Borough, secretly reorganizing their contact networks and waiting for an opportunity to counterattack.

Lu Li marked all the clues one by one on his hand-drawn map; the situation was clear at a glance.

The Aurora Order's ground forces in Backlund had already been severely damaged and would not stir up large-scale disturbances in the short term. However, the main force of the black sail ship in the waters outside Storm Cape remained, and this hidden time bomb had never truly disappeared.

He became increasingly determined about his own pace: first complete the Apprentice Pathway Sequence 9 to fortify his foundation, and then deeply investigate the secret connection between the Aurora Order and the bloodline imprint of the Antigonus Family.

In the evening, Lu Li went to the Water Pump Street black market as usual to purchase holy water consumables. Passing by Old Eye's old bookstore, he noticed a new batch of second-hand books at the shop entrance. On the cover of one ancient volume was a printed replica of the snake-shaped family emblem of the Antigonus Family.

The patterns, composition, and the replica brushwork were highly consistent with the style of the title page of the imitation notes tucked inside the "Outline of Loen's Modern History" he treasured.

Lu Li casually took down the book to browse. The title page also had a line of imitation Hermes script, and the font style was almost identical to the one he obtained in Tingen, except that the pages of this book were more aged, and the binding craftsmanship matched the characteristics of the fourth epoch, clearly indicating it was from an earlier period.

Old Eye, who was brewing hot tea behind the counter, glanced at it and said casually, "Some goods sent by a retired teacher from Tingen yesterday; he said it was an old book passed down by his ancestors, pressed in the attic for two generations. They are all worthless imitations; if you like it, just take it."

After thanking him, Lu Li put the old book into his backpack and returned to the apartment.

The kerosene lamp lit up again, and he laid the two imitation notes obtained from the two different places side by side, comparing them meticulously.

The handwriting on the title page of the Tingen version had sharp, upward-hooking strokes at the end; while the one from Backlund had more rounded strokes. But setting aside the differences in writing feel, the subtle patterns of the spacing and arrangement deviations of the Hermes script letters in both books matched perfectly—it was certain, they came from the hand of the same scribe, only the time of creation was different.

Lu Li took out the spirituality detection lamp and swept the title page of the Backlund version with the transmitted glimmer.

The hidden encrypted patterns slowly emerged, and the secret message pieced together from the offset letter spacing completely overlapped with the inscription on the back of his personal pendant: ring of the snake, Blood Key.

And on this earlier notebook, at the very bottom of the page, hidden was a line of almost imperceptible light-colored pencil text, sealed by time for a long time, only now seeing the light of day again: Elliott Hoy, proofread in 1342.

This short line of handwriting connected a complete, secret thread.

The history professor of the Hoy Family, Old Eye's mysterious ghostwriting employer, Welch's mentor, and the former custodian of the debt token from the Roselle era—Elliott Hoy—had personally proofread this imitation note twenty years ago.

With his status and experience, he must have seen through the encrypted information hidden on the title page, yet he chose to completely seal the truth and keep it a secret.

As a member of the Hoy Family, he was clear about the existence of the debt left by Roselle and knew that the secret of the Blood Key and the ring of the snake was a taboo secret capable of stirring up the era, so he could only bury it deep in the shadows.

After his death, this notebook became an ordinary second-hand book and circulated, eventually falling into his own hands by a twist of fate.

Lu Li gently closed the ancient book, his eyes deep in thought.

This clue currently could not directly advance the investigation into the Aurora Order and the bloodline imprint, but it provided crucial corroboration for the interpersonal relationships.

It confirmed Elliott Hoy's deep knowledge of the Roselle debt and the secret tokens; it was an important piece of evidence for digging into the network of contacts and secret transactions behind him in the future, and it had great preservation value.

Properly storing and archiving the two notebooks, Lu Li blew out the flickering kerosene lamp.

Outside the window, the night was deep, and the ghost mist in the direction of the Old Wharf was still slowly dissipating; the entire city of Backlund seemed to be in a state of calm.

The Aurora Order's ground forces were dormant and keeping a low profile, the surrounding disturbances had temporarily ceased, the Apprentice advancement materials only needed final preparations, the Swindler potion digestion was progressing steadily, and everything was in a rare, stable interval.

But Lu Li knew clearly that this was only the brief calm before the storm.

Following the established timeline, the formation of the Tarot Club was already close at hand; Klein was about to connect with Audrey and Alger one after another, stirring up the landscape of the entire Loen upper class and the Beyonder world.

And the main force of the Aurora Order hiding in the outer seas, along with the various forces lurking in the shadows, would eventually stir up waves once again.

He must seize this final window of opportunity.

Before the new wave of the era's storm swept in, he had to completely complete the foundation of the Apprentice Pathway Sequence 9, digest the Swindler potion to perfection, accumulate sufficient substance, and make thorough preparations for all the upcoming changes.