Chapter 137: There’s Also a Defeat CG Segment |
The search results came back quickly.
The answer was no.
There was no standard, no fixed rule that once you felt you had fully contained it you could try to inscribe the next Law Mark.
And even if you hadn’t absorbed the previous one perfectly, it didn’t matter if you inscribed the next Law Mark.
To be precise, there was no such thing as completely absorbing.
Because what people called completely digesting or fully mastering the previous Law Mark really meant that it had basically merged with you, so the prior Law Mark wouldn’t interfere with the next inscription.
Or at least would reduce the interference.
So the difficulty for a Law Seeker’s advancement was never about how to digest and absorb after inscribing a Law Mark. The hard part was that inscribing Law Marks became increasingly difficult.
Take the methods the Travel Guide mentioned at the very start as examples.
That made getting a second Law Mark extremely uncertain.
You might never get a second chance in your entire life.
The second type: obtaining Law Marks through meditation.
Whether you could understand what you saw or remember it was another matter.
Even if you could understand and remember—and didn’t faint halfway through—you’d have to stare, think, and spend time, meditating again and again.
But using meditation to inscribe Law Marks becomes harder each time.
If the first inscription took an hour or two, the second might take ten, twenty hours.
But the most important point, as mentioned before, is that Law Marks were constantly changing.
The Law Mark fixed on paper was only its appearance at a single moment. Its validity lasted only about three days.
As time slipped by, the progress bar became harder and harder to push. If you couldn’t inscribe it within three days, the progress bar would reset.
The third way, the “old-to-new” approach, basically made getting a second Law Mark impossible.
The essence of this method was that the Law Seeker polluted ordinary people; in essence it was a kind of harm.
A second “old-to-new” attempt would very likely cause the original and the new Law Mark to fight each other.
This was why being dragged along the path of Law by others didn’t get you far. To advance, you needed ten times or even nine times the effort of the one who led you.
After reading, and knowing that Falson probably wouldn’t understand much anyway, Celt and Samuel started talking directly.
“Looks like your game still has a long way to go before it shows results,” Celt said.
“No, I don’t think so,” Samuel answered. “I think it’ll probably show results very soon.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” Celt perked up curiously.
“You guess,” Samuel replied with a smile. “I’m not telling you.”
Celt glanced at Falson, switched to the Party Voice Chat, and asked, “Is it because of his mother?”
“Mm-hmm.” Samuel gave a light hum of amusement, looking pleased.
“So you still plan to give him the new Law Mark directly?” Celt asked.
“No need, not necessary.” Samuel waved casually. “When he needs it, he’ll get it himself.”
“That makes sense.” Celt nodded.
Indeed, Falson’s situation was special.
His innate charisma would pull the things he needed toward him.
When the time came for him to inscribe a second Law Mark, he would encounter it on his own — Samuel didn’t need to worry.
“Maybe even today,” Samuel said with a smile.
Celt nodded.
He understood Samuel’s implication.
Since the theater was founded last week, Celt had discussed with the Fifth Prince Allenay the uses of the theater.
Allenay said he actually had an underground gathering and hoped to move it to the theater’s underground first floor.
Celt, of course, understood what that meant.
Another show of goodwill.
Saying it was just to take a spot, but essentially it was about sharing profits.
Whether intelligence or other trades, Celt and company would get first-hand information immediately.
As for whether this was spying or surveillance, Celt didn’t care at all.
He had to admit that the staff who could actually do things right now were all sent by Allenay to help.
The troupe was practically riddled with infiltration; in name it belonged to them, but in reality none of the employees were truly on Samuel’s side.
Until Evina’s recruits proved useful, Samuel was at most an “acting troupe leader.”
And a totally hollowed-out one at that.
If Allenay didn’t have this plan, Samuel wouldn’t even have to worry about it.
No need to put matters both understood between them out in the open.
After they finished, Samuel ended the private chat with Celt and turned to Falson, who was studying script format.
“Falson.” Samuel called softly.
“Huh?” Falson, looking down at his book, immediately looked up.
“There’s a gathering in the theater’s underground first floor later. Are you interested in attending?” Samuel asked with a smile.
“I’ll pass,” Falson answered with clear self-awareness. “I don’t understand any of that, and I have no money.”
“It’s not a social salon,” Samuel explained. “It’s an extraordinary gathering among Law Seekers.”
“As for not having money…”
“Then don’t buy anything. Going to broaden your horizons isn’t bad either.”
Falson reconsidered and felt Samuel made sense.
He didn’t find anything strange about there being a gathering just when he happened to come.
Putting aside that he’d long been used to all sorts of coincidences, even without his talent the timing was reasonable.
Samuel chose the day for his report; arranging the report on the same day as the gathering to expand his experience was also logical.
“All right, what time exactly is the gathering?” Falson asked.
“This afternoon at 3:30.” Samuel glanced at the clock on the wall; it was just past eleven. “Four hours from now.”
“Don’t bring your mother. Find a time to take her back later.” Samuel turned his gaze back to Falson. “As for saving your mother…”
He paused, his smile on his face growing more pronounced.
“You might still be a long way off.”
“It’ll be a heavy task.”
Falson, oblivious, nodded earnestly.
“I know.”
Celt stood up from the sofa, glanced at Falson, and shrugged at Samuel. “I’ll go take a walk outside. You two talk.”
He patted Falson’s shoulder, carried Sereia under his arm, and pushed the door open.
Samuel made a “do as you please” gesture to Falson, then leaned back in his chair, pulled out his phone, and relaxed as he played.
Falson felt something odd but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
He lowered his head and continued reading the script in his hands.
...
Ten minutes later.
Theater, underground third floor.
Celt, carrying the jellyfish, descended the long spiral staircase and arrived at the theater’s underground third floor.
At the bottom, he faced a heavy-looking iron door.
He put Sereia back on his head like a hat, reached for the door handle,
pressed, and pushed.
The door did not open.
[This door cannot be opened from this side.]
“Huh?”
Celt quickly realized and looked to the side of the iron door.
There was a doorbell.
He pressed it, and a faint bell sound could be heard beyond the heavy door.
Then came the subtle scrape of chairs and the soft thud of things being tossed onto the floor.
Once these sounds reached his ear, they grew very quiet. Even Celt, whose hearing was not weaker than an ordinary Law Contemplator’s, could barely make them out.
It was clear the room’s soundproofing was excellent.
After a few seconds, sounds of chains sliding and mechanisms moving rang out from behind the door.
“So cloak-and-dagger.” Celt mumbled.
But he wasn’t complaining.
After all, if what was happening inside the room could be seen by ordinary people, it would be easily misunderstood.
Very soon,
the iron door opened.
Evina, cheeks slightly flushed, opened it from within.
Today Evina wore a full-body leather suit that wrapped her entirely. Her hair hung loosely behind her head, not tied up, and her hands still held the decorative handcuffs.
The middle chain of the handcuffs had been unclipped, the side chains drawn up short as if to prevent interfering with wide movements.
She held a small riding crop in her hand.
“Well, what brings you here?” she greeted in a lazily seductive voice.
“I came to deliver something.” Celt handed her a collar.
“Couldn’t you have had the Travel Guide deliver it?” Evina said with an ambiguous smile, then looked up at Sereia perched on Celt’s head and teased.
“And why bring this little fellow along? Aren’t you afraid she’ll pick up bad habits?”
She pretended to shake her head and sighed dramatically.
“Sigh... honestly, how are you a parent? How could you do such a thing?”
“I told you I’m not a male mom.” Celt walked around Evina and stepped into the room.
“Have you prepared the plans for founding a whole new church?” he asked.
This was what Samuel had decided to do after he first learned of the Harvest Church’s creed; both Celt and Evina hadn’t forgotten.
“Of course.” Evina stretched lazily. “The doctrine and the church have been designed.”
“That’s good,” Celt nodded. “You have quite the artistic sense.”
“Mhm~,” Evina hummed contentedly, twirling the collar on her fingertip twice.
“Let me see what you’ve done.” Celt answered Evina’s initial question and walked to the center of the room.
The room’s design favored dark tones, walls painted black, with only a few kerosene lamps emitting light.
Being underground, there were no windows; aside from the large door, there was no passage to the outside.
Whoever built this must have used some technique, because ventilation here was surprisingly good—no stuffiness despite being belowground.
But the atmosphere still felt slightly oppressive.
A chair sat in the center of the room, and on it was a woman with her hands bound behind her back.
She was the scholar from the Fate Rectification School who had once attempted to assassinate Samuel and later been defeated by Pride.
At that time, Pride Wyatt had ordered that she and another Sacred Law Knight be given over to Samuel’s disposal.
Now this tall scholar wore a black blindfold, her head drooping, her hands bound behind her as she sat.
Her black robe had been replaced with a full-body suit more to Evina’s taste—seemingly a “couple set” with Evina’s own outfit.
Hearing the unfamiliar voices stirred unease; she twisted slightly.
“Law Contemplators recover noticeably faster than ordinary people, huh.”
At Evina’s words, the scholar’s already flushed face went even redder. She kept panting, her legs tightly pressed together.
Evina casually shut the door, lightly flicked the riding crop in her hand, then swayed her hips to the scholar and pointed at the scholar’s full-body suit.
Those black suits bore slashes that looked as if whipped into being. But the skin beneath the suit was intact.
To be precise, it had already healed.
“Her recovery speed is even faster than this Law Object’s self-repair,” Evina explained.
Her hand ran gently over what should have been wounds.
The scholar trembled more intensely.
As Evina spoke, the black suit gradually restored itself; the parts Evina touched quickly became whole.
Celt’s expression remained comparatively calm.
“Is this whole procedure necessary?” he asked, curious more than anything.
“Of course not,” Evina said matter-of-factly.
She walked behind the scholar, wrapped her arms lightly around the scholar’s neck, and rested her head against her cheek.
“But she did try to kill us~.”
“At that time, I hadn’t been categorized yet.”
“What’s the difference between her trying to kill Samuel and trying to kill me?”
“That knife back then was stuck right into my heart. It didn’t kill me, but the pain was no less.”
She placed her hand over the scholar’s “heart” and pinched.
But she was not a professional; a slipped pinch was forgivable.
“Since she tried to kill me, what’s wrong with me extracting some compensation?” Evina’s hand grew less obedient.
Even now that she had become female, her tendencies hadn’t changed.
“Ah...” The scholar reacted strongly.
Yet she curiously did not struggle at all.
“Heh heh~.”
“How is it?” Evina tilted her head at Celt.
“As long as you had fun.” Celt kept a gentle smile as he watched Evina fasten the collar around the scholar’s neck.
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