Book 2: Chapter 19: An Accident Arising From Many Causes
The fingerprints on the winecups used by Baron Albert and Tony were different from the ones on the test tubes in the medical box. In other words, it wasn’t the old baron or Tony that entered his room. The person that wanted to check his medical box remained a mystery.
But there wasn’t much disappointment on Qin Lun’s face. Back when he first entered Albert’s Castle, he had merely wanted to use this small trap to make a breakthrough. Now that he had become an exorcist and obtained a better trail, the identity of that person was already insignificant. Whether or not he made a breakthrough here didn’t matter.
Qin Lun stood up and went out to hand the two cups to a female servant. He returned back to his room to think about the information the Death Notice had given.
The mystery behind Steven Albert’s death involved the region’s history; there was nothing strange about that point. The things that the Albert Family, the actual rulers of the region, did everything to hide would naturally not be so simple.
As for activating Shattered Starry Sky’s World Storyline Mode, turning a newcomer mission, that was originally made to test preparatory apostles, into a satellite-level world storyline, it should probably be considered as Qin Lun’s harvest for diligently investigating the Albert Family’s secret.
Compared to his harvest, Qin Lun was more interested in the permission to plunder the world’s origin, mentioned in line 100 and 700 of the Shattered Laws, as well as the World Exploration Degree function.
These two lines of Shattered Laws allowed Qin Lun to faintly guess why Shattered Starry Sky needed to send apostles to all these different worlds and go on these so-called “otherworld missions”. Even now, he still remembered the matter that the goblin elder had mentioned when they stayed at the “Scavengers” camp.
At that time, the goblin elder had mentioned how there were all sorts of civilizations in Shattered Starry Sky. Machine civilizations, magical civilizations, scientific civilizations, Eastern fairytale-based civilizations, and so on. When one looked at it, it was as if Shattered Starry Sky was an experiment done by some creator. And the goblin elder had compared the place to a “landfill of the Creation God’s abandoned things”.
Since it was a landfill with numerous intelligent civilizations, the little independent, universe-like Shattered Starry Sky naturally did not have the laws of universes from other spaces and time. To put it in another way, Shattered Starry Sky did not have the law resources of a normal universe for sustaining life. Its fictional or non-fictional Creator only considered it a landfill.
Then Shattered Starry Sky, forced under the pressure of possible destruction, had no choice but to survive by plundering the law resources of other worlds. Then, what kind of resources does a space-time world need to survive? It was extremely possible that it was the world origin that was mentioned in the Shattered Laws, which means pushing a world to develop all sorts of historical storylines.
Shattered Starry Sky sent large numbers of apostles to other worlds and assigned them all sorts of different rank missions. They would explore and excavate the historical storyline of the world they were sent to through means such as speeding up events, postponing events or simply changing the development of history. It could then plunder the origin that belonged to the world.
The higher the rank of the otherworld mission the apostle completes is, and the higher their degree of world exploration, the more Shattered Starry Sky could plunder from the world’s origin. And naturally, the reward for the apostle’s mission would become more generous.
Although these were only Qin Lun’s guesses, it was enough to convince him.
After pondering over his conjecture, Qin Lun quickly shifted his attention to the other point that really interested him.
And that had to do with the explanation for satellite-level world storylines.
A satellite-level world’s storyline directly involves the entire history of the Odia region. Then the planet-level and star-level world storylines that the Death Notice mentioned, would they involve the entire Maize Dukedom, perhaps even the entire continent or the entire world’s future history?
The mystery behind Steven Albert’s death would not have such a result. The Albert Family itself does not possess that much influence.
Then, of the events he had experienced and touched upon, there were only two events that could develop into something that would affect the whole country and perhaps even the entire continent. One was the gargoyle event, and the other was that strange plague.
The gargoyle event connected to the witches. Although Qin Lun had not experienced the witches’ black magic before, based on the gargoyle’s fighting ability, if there were thousands of gargoyles in the Great Maize Forest, then they would have the ability to influence the whole country.
As for the plague that could spread through the air, once it left the vast and sparsely populated mountain area of the Odia region and entered a major developing city, where the population concentration was dense, it would merely be a matter of time before the plague would spread worldwide.
Although there was an exorcist organization in this world and civilization had slowly begun the development of modernizing science and technology, therefore having many ways to suppress the plague from spreading, it could not be denied that the gravest consequence of the plague spreading would be a profound influence on the historical development of the entire world.
Bearing a multitude of wild thoughts for this world’s future history, Qin Lun slowly entered the land of dreams.
At that moment, a white figure floated outside Qin Lun’s window, the one facing the overhanging cliff. The figure looked at the sleeping youth and slowly shook its head in disappointment, disappearing into the darkness.
Qin Lun would never know that the Exorcist Oath he had signed with Wellington Stein’s name would make him lose an opportunity. The opportunity to thoroughly understand the mystery behind Steven Albert’s death and unravel the biggest secret of the Albert Family.
Ever since Qin Lun entered the Albert Castle, this white figure had always observed and tested him, the young doctor of the Odia Region, the only one that could cure the plague virus.
It observed until the night when Qin Lun and Frank had killed the gargoyle, deciding to take the chance to truly come in contact with the youth. So that it could entrust the young doctor that could cure the plague with the great secret that continued to worry him.
However, ever since Qin Lun signed the Exorcist Oath, it believed that the doctor’s position was already connected together with the Albert Family. They could no longer trust each other. So it would naturally no longer meet Qin Lun again.
The body of the lying Qin Lun emitted a divine light that could not be seen with the naked eye. This was the “longevity,” gained through the Believer’s Faith combined with the protective power of the exorcists.
That Exorcist Oath that Qin Lun randomly signed was not a joke. Within it was the “Life” attribute faith the Believers had permanently bestowed. At the same time, it also contained much of the Albert Family Exorcists’ inheritance of thousands of years.
This was the fundamental power that exorcists needed to be able to contend with witches and their magic organisms. It was also the biggest difference between exorcists and normal humans.
Qin Lun slept very peacefully that night, even making faint snoring sounds. This was the first time he did not need to feel worried that he would be attacked for no reason ever since he entered the Albert Castle.
The next morning, Tony made a private invite to him after breakfast.
“Is something the matter, Sire Tony?” Qin Lun asked as he followed Tony to the other secondary fortress.
Different from the other secondary fortress, there was no informational books about exorcists in this one; it was more spacious, like an arena. There were many weapons and crossbows set up around the place, along with a couple of flintlock pistols of the time period.
“Dr. Stein, we will enter Great Maize Forest in a few days when the local exorcists arrive.” Tony took down two knight swords from the wall and tossed one to Qin Lun, saying with a smile, “Although we don’t wish for a doctor to fight, if you have the ability to defend yourself, it would help us a lot.”
“Clang!” The intense sound of metal colliding echoed. Tony nimbly jumped to the side and hooked his right foot, causing Qin Lun to immediately stagger and fall to the ground.
Tony shook his head in disappointment. Although firearms had already been developed, there were still bows and crossbows. Fencing was still the first choice of exorcists during battle.
Qin Lun simply didn’t know fencing and hid nothing. Tony, who had received the fencing training of exorcists since young, could be called a fencing master. He could tell with one look the doctor’s experience was.
Although Qin Lun’s body was rather nimble and his power wasn’t bad, his martial skills really were nothing worth showing. He merely tested him with fencing and didn’t even need to look at the doctor use a weapon to conclude that Qin Lun did not learn any martial arts. He was just a normal human with a better body foundation.
After the quick test, Tony no longer continued to clash swords with Qin Lun. Instead, he started to seriously instruct the doctor in some dodging motions for defending himself.
“Trying to make you learn some kind of high level skill in just these few days is much too hard.” Tony smiled and said to Qin Lun, “However, I will teach you some dodging techniques. Most of the witches’ black magic are range attacks, and the magic organisms they use most often are gargoyles. Grasping and becoming familiar with the dodging techniques I teach you can, at least, increase a bit of your ability to defend yourself.”
Of course, there was something else Tony didn’t say. If Qin Lun had some ability to defend himself, then he wouldn’t drag them down. Thinking up to there, the blond youth harbored a lot of complaints. Having a doctor become a member of the investigation team was not his idea.
Once an intense battle happens, Qin Lun, this normal person, would definitely drag them down. He still had to ensure that the doctor lived, after all, in the entire Odia region, it was only Qin Lun who could cure that damn plague.
Although he was covered in dust, Qin Lun still wore a bright smile as he practiced the techniques Tony taught him in high spirits. The battle techniques of the exorcists were a new and completely different experience than when he was taught by the professor from Iveli Light Academy.
In the half month at Iveli Light Academy, the fairies mainly taught the preparatory apostles some gentle body movements and shooting techniques. They had not started their formal martial skills.
This was also very normal. Most of the preparatory apostles were normal people. Compared to the greatly time consuming martial skills, learning some gentle body movements that could increase the body’s nimbleness and some shooting techniques would help raise their ability to survive more.
For the next few days, Qin Lun, pretty much, was always with Tony until the afternoon of the fifth day…