Klein leaned back in the high-backed chair, sighed silently, and after a long moment of silence, he suddenly spoke: "I want to purchase a Savant potion formula and materials."
Klein's sudden words surprised Leyton. He tilted his head, carefully scrutinizing Klein's expression, and said like a detective: "For Melissa? Buying both materials and the formula, are you planning to let her slowly come into contact with the mystical world?"
"Yes, I suddenly realized that I actually don't have the ability to protect them well; I can only constantly evade and watch them from a distance."
"Instead of that, as you said before, it's better to let Melissa, who is willing to learn more, come into contact with the mystical world. With my help, she won't encounter too many dangers, and as long as she maintains a lower Sequence, the risk of losing control won't be too great."
Klein tilted his head slightly as he replied, as if he had undergone a journey and suddenly matured a great deal.
Leyton nodded calmly: "Then who do you plan to have as her teacher to guide her in understanding the mystical world? Will you go yourself in a different identity?"
Klein remained silent, not answering the question, which was also a form of tacit agreement.
Leyton, leaning back in the high-backed chair, chuckled softly. He lightly tapped the armrest with his right index finger as he spoke: "How about I recommend a few candidates for you."
He paused, then, meeting Klein's scrutinizing gaze, continued: "The 'Vice Admiral Iceberg,' who loves to teach. He possesses enough knowledge and can obtain potion formulas below Sequence 6 of the Savant pathway. You also have some understanding of his character, but as a captain, he cannot leave the Golden Dream for long."
"The second candidate is in Backlund, and you know him—Leopold, who invented the bicycle. He has already become an Archaeologist of Sequence 8. He can let Melissa serve as his laboratory assistant, which will not only allow her to learn some knowledge of the mystical world but also provide her with a well-paying job."
"The third candidate is Bernadette. She has mastered all Savant pathway formulas except for Sequence 1. Oravi Island itself also cultivates its own Artisans. Simply put: you can trust Huang Tao."
"Although her whereabouts are mostly unpredictable, it is still possible to have Melissa join Oravi Island and train her."
"Your speaking style still retains the habits of the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom," Klein said, half-sighing, half-complaining.
After a second of silence, he continued: "Each of them involves certain factions..."
"I haven't officially left the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom yet," Leyton explained, shrugging his hands, then followed up on Klein's previous words: "This is unavoidable. Or, you could also choose to teach her yourself, since you're returning to Backlund anyway."
After a long silence, Klein spoke again: "Help me write a letter of recommendation for Leopold. A well-paying job is also very important for Benson and Melissa."
"You can find my avatar and have him send you a letter," Leyton said, leaning lazily against the back of the chair.
Klein nodded calmly. After two seconds of silence, he whispered: "That's it then."
Leyton hummed in response, and a crimson light suddenly surged before his eyes. After a brief daze, when he came to his senses, he was already back in front of the bonfire in the ruins of the Forsaken Land of the Gods city.
Exhaling deeply, he stood up from the ground, patted the dust from his clothes, then pulled out a stack of light yellow paper figures and tossed them into the air.
The paper figures rapidly expanded, distorted, and stuck together in mid-air, forming a human figure of normal size, dressed in a coarse cloth coat, with simple facial features.
This was a solid paper figure. Under Leyton's control, it stiffly bent down and picked up the dark bronze lantern from the ground.
Under the dim yellow light, Leyton and the paper figure's forms suddenly distorted, disappearing from their original spot, then reappearing dozens of meters away.
Snap! He suddenly raised his hand and snapped his fingers. A layer of tranquil night curtain slowly fell, enveloping the spot where he had just rested, miraculously concealing all the traces he had left behind.
Following his intuition, he continued to approach the eastern part of the Forsaken Land of the Gods.
After several alternations of frequent lightning and calm, a familiar grayish-white mist appeared at the end of his vision, identical to the Gray Fog beneath their feet during every Monday gathering.
This Gray Fog stretched endlessly to the horizon, with no discernible beginning or end.
The next moment, his figure suddenly became transparent, as if turning into a statue formed by countless starlight.
The statue shattered, transforming into brilliant specks of starlight that surged, enveloping the paper figure holding the dark bronze lantern, assimilating it into specks of brilliant starlight, and approaching the distant Gray Fog.
Beneath the endless Gray Fog, specks of starlight reformed within, revealing Leyton's figure.
He held a dark bronze lantern in his right hand, standing before the boundless Gray Fog, with frequent flashes of lightning behind him, the dazzling silvery-white flickering, illuminating this desolate land.
Whoosh~~
A ethereal and hollow wailing sound suddenly echoed in Leyton's ears. The sound seemed to come from an infinite distance, yet also seemed close at hand.
Behind him, a fragmented ring made of countless gears and chains appeared. In the center of the ring, an ethereal book continuously flipped, and specks of shimmering, brilliant starlight peeled off from it, circling around him.
The starlight gathered more and more, like a vast river of stars, each star within it operating according to a peculiar rhythm, like an embodiment of some kind of knowledge.
Opposite him, the previously calm Gray Fog suddenly surged, flickering with points of hazy light that were constantly obscured by the Gray Fog, yet constantly revealed, as if a tug-of-war was taking place.
As the constantly flickering lights within the Gray Fog moved, countless voices gradually echoed in Leyton's ears. They were sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes distant, sometimes near, all carrying extremely devout and fanatical faith, shouting and chanting something loudly. Whenever he tried to listen carefully, these voices would become chaotic and indistinguishable.
Around him, the vast and brilliant river of stars slowly began to rotate, faster and faster...
Stirring up a pale blue, brilliant Hurricane of Light!
Star after star twinkled in the air, casting down rays of brilliant light, and Leyton, at the very center of it all, fell into a brief trance.
An ethereal sound, as if something was breaking, echoed in his ears.
At this moment, he felt completely fused with the Beyonder characteristic on him. The rapidly rotating stars in mid-air, shimmering with brilliant light, slowly contracted inward, merging into his body.
His aura rapidly ascended, his spirit seemed to be infinitely elevated, and his flesh and blood continuously churned and distorted, appearing sinister and terrifying.
Vaguely, he seemed to grasp something, seeing the positions of those ethereal stars in the void and understanding what they represented.
During this process, his body and consciousness were gradually decomposed, transforming into countless complex and pure pieces of information, surging freely in reality and the Spirit World.
More and more information was attracted, merging into the vast information flow. The originally ethereal knowledge gradually solidified, turning into a hazy glow, difficult to see with the naked eye, surging like a flood between the Spirit World and reality.
On the other side, the grayish-white mist churned even more violently, as if something inside the Gray Fog was constantly crashing outwards, attempting to break through the blockade and unleash its power.
Within the Gray Fog, countless hazy points of light flickered, as if there was a hidden, brilliant cosmos containing infinite knowledge.
In a hotel in Hillston Borough, Backlund, Klein, who had just finished the lunch delivered by the hotel waiter and was about to go out, suddenly paused.
A dense Gray Fog suddenly surged in his eyes. This Gray Fog churned restlessly, causing his own spirituality to produce a certain premonition.
"This is... some kind of change occurred above that Gray Fog, which then stimulated me, who has a direct connection to that place?"
As he murmured to himself, he released the doorknob, turned, and walked into the washroom on the other side of the room, skillfully chanting an incantation while taking four counter-clockwise steps.
Inside the magnificent and ancient palace above the Gray Fog, Klein looked at the continuously surging Gray Fog before him, feeling somewhat bewildered.
There was no aura of other existences; it seemed to be merely the Gray Fog here reacting spontaneously to something it sensed. As long as it wasn't the former owner of the Sefirah Castle returning, it would be fine. Otherwise, he would discover that his home had been stolen, and by a weak Sequence 5 at that.
After sighing for a moment in his mind, he immediately materialized paper and pen, wrote down a divination statement, and attempted to divine the source of this anomaly.
In a hazy dream, he suddenly woke up and saw boundless Gray Fog. Inside the Gray Fog, countless things like brilliant stars flickered, surged, and continuously impacted this Gray Fog.
An indescribable power was unleashed, attempting to break through the Gray Fog's blockade, but it always fell just short, never truly breaking through this layer of Gray Fog.
Suddenly, specks of brilliant starlight appeared outside the Gray Fog, densely packed and dazzling.
"Hoo," Klein suddenly opened his eyes, leaned forward, his hands resting on the edge of the mottled long table, breathing heavily.
The moment he saw those brilliant stars, he felt as if countless complex, pure, and useless pieces of knowledge had been poured into his head, and his entire head felt as if it was about to explode from the inside.
After gasping for a moment, he leaned back against the chair again, closed his eyes, and recovered his state through meditation.
About a minute later, he opened his eyes again and looked at the now calm Gray Fog around him. He suddenly sighed: "That just now was a bit like the Hidden Sage's knowledge pursuit. Did I see an angel from the Mystery Pryer pathway?"