Through the secret passage in Buck's mansion, Dorothy finally escaped from a hidden beach on the Silver Riverbank. She then used the Corpse Puppet Ring to remotely awaken the backup Corpse Puppet still in the carriage in a hidden alley somewhere on the Silver Riverbank, having him drive the carriage back to Buck's mansion. Finally, at the beach entrance, he picked up both Dorothy and the Corpse Puppet Brandon.
Riding in the carriage, Dorothy immediately rushed to a riverbank downstream of the Iron Mud River to retrieve the Corpse Puppet Edrick. After dealing with the Corpse Puppet and the carriage, Dorothy took a regular rental carriage and headed towards home.
Finally, when the carriage stopped by the Nanyang Flower Road, Dorothy got out with two suitcases and then entered the apartment building, climbing all the way up. By the time she reached the fifth floor, she was out of breath.
"Huff… huff… The fact that the Extraordinary of 'Qi' doesn't add any physical strength is truly a huge pitfall. Without the Corpse Puppet Ring and Dragon Roar, their frontal combat ability is simply terrible."
After entering her home, Dorothy immediately ran into her room, locked the door completely, then collapsed onto the bed, letting out a long sigh.
"Phew… It's finally over. I was almost scared to death at the end…"
Lying on the bed, Dorothy muttered to herself, lamenting that the sudden arrival of the Hunter at the end was indeed very unexpected, the biggest variable in her plan at that moment. If it wasn't for relying on Edrick to distract them and buy enough time for her to try the password and open the door, she really wouldn't have known what to do next.
Edrick was a backup piece Dorothy had arranged in the attic beforehand. When Turner started banging on the door, she had no choice but to use Edrick as a decoy, luring the trio who were studying the secret room to the rooftop to stall them.
As for how to stall them, that was naturally through deception, bluffing, and speaking in riddles.
As long as she could confuse the other party, make herself seem mysterious and profound, and make them dare not act rashly, buying herself time, then it would be a success.
Dorothy had an intelligence advantage. Through the Corpse Puppet's detection, she could know the Hunter's deployment situation. In addition, Dorothy had given Edrick the Cloaking Ring infused with "Shadow", allowing him to block the Hunter's Extraordinary detection. Furthermore, Grego and the others believed that the bloody case in the study was committed by Edrick.
The suppression of information asymmetry was the foundation for Dorothy to speak in riddles. The riddles being convoluted, confusing, and nonsensical was the key to deterring the Hunter.
Using Edrick to stall the Hunter made Dorothy realize how tiring it was to be such a nonsensical riddle-speaker. After this experience, Dorothy began to sincerely admire characters in some works who could speak in riddles from beginning to end, taking a long detour to explain something that could be said clearly in two or three sentences. How tiring must that be? It must consume at least half a pound of saliva.
As for the end, when Grego asked for the name of her society, Dorothy just casually said one to deal with it. After all, if you're going to make someone set up a phantom target, it needs a name, right?
Of course, although the name was said casually, it wasn't made up out of thin air.
Rose Cross, this name came from a hidden society that appeared in a work called "Trinity Blood" from Dorothy's distant past memory. It was the main antagonist of the entire series, an antagonistic organization aiming to renew the world with fire, with the full name being the Rose Cross Knights. And it is said that the name itself also holds significant meaning in the occult studies of Dorothy's original world.
Grego asked for the name of the society, and the first name that popped into Dorothy's mind was this one, so she just used it. After all, it's just a name, no big deal.
After lying on the bed for a while and resting enough, Dorothy immediately got up and sat down by her seat, starting to examine the spoils of war from this time.
First, Dorothy opened the box she had looted from Buck's house and began to examine the contents one by one. First, there were a few pieces of decent-looking ordinary jewelry. These could be sold for cash after the commotion died down. Then there was about 120 pounds in cash. Adding to Dorothy's original 215 pounds, Dorothy now had 335 pounds in cash.
Next were some Symbols. Dorothy found 4 normal Raw Consumption Symbols, and two rather strange Raw Consumption Symbols. They looked somewhat similar to normal Raw Consumption Symbols, both being "Cup" Symbols, but the spell patterns on them were several times denser, making it difficult for Dorothy to figure out what they were for a while.
'Strange 'Cup' Symbols, could they be related to Buck's sudden burst of power at the time? I'll ask Aldrich about it later.'
Thinking this, Dorothy put down the two complex versions of the "Cup" Symbols in her hand and then picked up the last, somewhat special Symbol.
Dorothy didn't find this Symbol in the secret room, but in the study, by the wall where Buck was struck by the Dragon Roar earlier. This clearly fell off him directly.
From the symbols on it, this Symbol was not of "Cup". It depicted two overlapping symbols. After identifying them, Dorothy found they were the symbols for "Shadow" and "Qi".
'Heh… It's even a double-domain Symbol. I wonder what it's for. That's another question to ask Aldrich later. If I remember correctly, the combination of 'Shadow' and 'Qi' seems to mean dreams, right?'
After thinking this, Dorothy put away this special Symbol in her hand and then looked at the next spoils of war, which were two secret transmissions. One of them was "The Taste of Crimson," which she had already read before. It was a secret transmission in the form of a novel, suitable for corrupting others. Now Dorothy had an extra copy, and reading it again wouldn't yield any Spirituality, so she considered selling it when she had the chance.
Then, Dorothy looked at the other secret transmission. Its name was "Praise of the Cup Mother."
After a quick flip through, Dorothy found that this book was a collection of poems, mainly containing hymns of praise to a deity.
This deity had various names in the poems, such as "Cup Mother," "Blood Cup," "Womb of All Flesh," "Goddess of Desire's Proliferation"... She was a goddess purely of the "Cup" domain, said to be the deity who best represented the "Cup" attribute.
'Is this the deity worshipped by the Red Communion Society? Since the Holy Communion Society is like this, is there a high possibility that this is also an evil god? But it's not necessarily the case…'
While thinking this, Dorothy glanced at the cover of "Praise of the Cup Mother" again and continued to think.
'But it's a pity that this secret transmission is in the form of poetry. It would probably be a great loss to exchange it for knowledge from another world. I can only treat it as Spirituality accumulation.'
Dorothy thought this. She had asked the system before, and the exchange of knowledge from another world was categorized. What kind of local knowledge was exchanged for what kind of knowledge from another world, such as language for language, appraisal techniques for appraisal techniques. This was why Dorothy didn't exchange "The Taste of Crimson," because Dorothy felt that exchanging it for a novel might not be very useful. She preferred to exchange for specific skills. Similarly, this book "Praise of the Cup Mother" is poetry, and she didn't know what kind of poetry would be exchanged for it.
Now Dorothy's Book of Souls didn't have much left. Before the next promotion, she could only make one exchange at most, so she needed to carefully consider what knowledge to use for the exchange.