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*****
"Understood. If there's a need, I'll cooperate with you."
George gave an "OK" gesture.
He felt that Klein was a very smart fellow. With a mere Sequence 9, he had managed to rely entirely on the characteristics of the gray fog space to forcibly disguise himself as an ancient, awakened deity without being discovered.
This wasn't something an ordinary person could achieve.
It required extraordinary psychological fortitude, solid acting skills, a thick skin, and incredibly sharp reaction speed.
Having received George's affirmation, Klein sat back in his position as "The Fool." He reached out toward a deep red star; first, he pulled in the soul of that youth from the Land Forsaken by God from a few days ago.
"'The Sun,' we meet again."
After a brief communication with the youth, he reached out and pressed two other deep red stars. Two blurry figures slowly appeared amidst a flash of light.
Although their specific features couldn't be seen clearly, one could tell from their silhouettes that they were a man and a woman.
The man had deep blue long hair, and his clothing style leaned toward the islands.
The woman had a slender figure, wore luxurious clothes, and possessed an elegant temperament; she clearly came from a distinguished background.
According to Klein's guesses, the man codenamed "The Hanged Man" was likely from the Church of the Lord of Storms, and his current strength should be Sequence 7, "Seafarer."
As for the lady codenamed "Justice," she was most likely a young miss from a great noble family in Backlund. She started as an ordinary person and, after being pulled into the gray fog by him, traded with The Hanged Man to obtain the Spectator potion formula.
By now, she had already promoted to Sequence 9, "Spectator."
"These two are the new members, codenamed 'Strength' and 'The Sun'."
"This is Miss 'Justice,' and this is Mr. 'Hanged Man'."
Klein, in his identity as The Fool, introduced them respectively.
Justice and The Hanged Man were quite surprised by the appearance of new members.
However, Justice's surprise was followed by delight, while The Hanged Man briefly showed a hint of dissatisfaction before quickly adjusting his mindset.
After brief greetings, the two sat in their corresponding seats and began observing George and The Sun.
One was nervous and cramped, seemingly quite young; the other was extremely relaxed, appearing even more at ease than the two veteran members.
"Mr. Fool, I have collected two more pages of Emperor Roselle's diary."
Miss Justice reported to Klein in a lighthearted tone.
George knew that Klein was using these two to collect the notes of Roselle—a fellow countryman who had been "released" over two hundred years earlier than him—hoping to obtain relevant intelligence through the diary entries recorded in simplified Chinese.
This was also his primary source of information for maintaining the "Fool" persona's high status.
Once Klein finished reading Roselle's notes, it was time for the free exchange and trading session between the new and old members of the Tarot Club.
Miss Justice needed the potion formula for the next stage of Spectator, "Telepathist," while The Sun needed the formula for the Sequence 9 of the Sun pathway, "Bard."
The Sun could provide the Telepathist formula, but Miss Justice did not have the Bard formula.
Thus, Klein provided the Bard formula, which happened to serve as payment for the two diary pages he had just received from Miss Justice.
The deal was struck.
George didn't interrupt throughout the process; he just watched with a smile, picking up useful information from their conversation along the way.
For instance, the evil organization known as the Aurora Order harbor extreme hatred for the Church of the Lord of Storms, the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun, and the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom.
The Aurora Order has five Saints and twenty-two Oracles, all using letters as codenames.
The weakest are Sequence 7 and are quite adept at concealing themselves. Whenever an Oracle dies, a new one quickly takes their place.
It wasn't until later, when The Hanged Man expressed a desire to find and deal with Qilangos—one of the Seven Pirate Admirals—who had infiltrated Backlund, that George finally spoke up:
"What is the strength of this Vice Admiral Hurricane, Qilangos?"
"Sequence 6, 'Wind-Blessed.' However, he possesses a Sealed Artifact called 'Creeping Hunger,' which can graze and use the abilities of other Sequence Beyonders. He is very difficult to deal with."
"Oh, so he's at most a Sequence 5. I'll be moving to live in Backlund in a couple of days. If there's news of him, you can notify me."
George nodded, not paying it much mind.
A mere Sequence 5—he could slap several of them to death with one hand. If it were a Sequence 4 demigod, that might warrant a bit of his attention.
"At most a Sequence 5?"
Hearing George's response, Justice, The Hanged Man, and The Sun all showed expressions of shock.
They hadn't expected the new member, "Strength," who hadn't spoken until now, to be so powerful.
From his tone, he didn't seem to care about Sequence 5 at all. Could he already be a Sequence 4?
Sequence 4 is a demigod-level existence, a true high-ranking member even within a Church. Was the strength of the Tarot Club's new member really this formidable?
Of the two new members, one likely came from the legendary Land Forsaken by God, and the other's strength might have already reached Sequence 4.
"Forget Sequence 5, even a Sequence 4 is no match for him. He just defeated two high-ranking Church deacons who had the strength of Sequence 4," Klein, sitting above and playing The Fool, couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
"Alright, no problem. What reward do you require?"
Seeing George accept the task, The Hanged Man was ecstatic inwardly but also somewhat worried, fearing he wouldn't be able to afford the price.
George thought for a moment and said:
"Help me collect more information about the previous Epochs and the prehistoric era. Same goes for the rest of you; if you discover anything, I will reward you."
What he wanted now was to understand more about this world's history and find some clues regarding the Original Creator.
The exchange ended, and the other three dispersed, while George remained behind.
"Was there any useful intelligence in Roselle's notes?"
"See for yourself."
Klein handed the two pages of notes to George. George glanced at them and raised an eyebrow.
These two pages truly contained a lot of useful information.
Aside from the decadent aristocratic life Roselle shared with various young misses and madams, it also recorded that Beyonders can switch to a neighboring pathway after Sequence 4.
For example, the Sleepless pathway and the Corpse Collector pathway, or Mystery Pryer and Savant, can be switched at Sequence 4.
However, it must be a neighboring pathway; if one switches randomly, they will basically lose control and go mad immediately.
Furthermore, Roselle had joined an ancient organization that actually possessed the second Blasphemy Slate, which recorded twenty-two complete Sequence pathways.
In his later years, Roselle used that Blasphemy Slate to create a deck of cards containing the twenty-two Sequence pathways.
However, the notes didn't state where that deck of twenty-two Sequence pathway cards was hidden.
"By the way, how do you have the potion formula for the Sun sequence?"
After finishing the notes, George asked Klein.
He remembered from their last exchange that Klein didn't know about the Sun sequence yet; clearly, there had been new gains over the past few days.
One must know that the Sun sequence belongs to the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun, one of the seven Orthodox Churches. Usually, it is not that easy to obtain the corresponding potion formulas.
The Churches guard the formulas for their own Sequence pathways with extreme vigilance.
(End of Chapter)