WTYTIAAN Chapter 155

Chapter 155

The old man, addressed as the honorable Ambrosius by Teacher Lucy, spoke a few words with her before leaving Yan Yunqing behind and allowing Teacher Lucy to depart first.

Seeing Teacher Lucy leave, Yan Yunqing dropped his respectful facade and unceremoniously sat down across from Merlin, picking up the cup of tea that was clearly prepared for him and gulping it down in one go.

The next second, he choked on the tea, covering his mouth and coughing violently.

“Am I that exciting to see?” Merlin refilled Yan Yunqing’s teacup. “Lucy said you can’t control your magic very well?”

As he said this, Merlin wore a strange expression, as if saying, “Really? You of all people can’t control your magic?”

Yan Yunqing tried to suppress the itch in his throat, barely managing to calm down and stop coughing. Hearing Merlin’s question, he waved his hand, “It was just a little accident.”

Seeing that Yan Yunqing was unwilling to elaborate, Merlin didn’t pursue the topic.

Yan Yunqing took a deep breath, not daring to drink any more tea. He was genuinely worried that another sip would choke him to death. The [Unlucky Star] debuff was truly terrifying.

“What brings you here to see me?” Yan Yunqing asked.

Merlin raised an eyebrow, picked up his teacup, took a sip, and leisurely said, “What makes you so sure I came to see you?”

Yan Yunqing shrugged. “If you weren’t here to see me, why would you agree to Teacher Lucy’s request to let her student meet you?”

He didn’t believe Merlin couldn’t guess who that student was.

Merlin chuckled, “Alright, alright, I admit it, I did come to see you. Nolan, you’re still as clever as ever; nothing escapes you.”

He put down his teacup and looked in Yan Yunqing’s direction. “I heard from Penelope that this year’s freshmen encountered an organization called the Eternal God Cult during their external training?”

Yan Yunqing also sat up straight. “Yes, do you know about the Eternal God Cult?”

This time, he had a direct encounter with the Eternal God Cult. They were doing evil in the name of the Demon King, and he had destroyed one of their strongholds as Joker. There was no possibility of reconciliation between the two sides. If Yan Yunqing encountered their people again, he would fight them to the death.

Merlin’s expression turned grave. “I do have some understanding of this organization.”

“I told you before, right? Isabel and I are investigating the missing dragonkin, as well as that young Amos who Isabel is very fond of.”

“Recently, we found a clue. Someone traded a very fresh dragon bone at an auction, as if it had just been stripped off. Isabel and I followed this lead and learned that the person who sold the dragon bone was from the Eternal God Cult, a small leader within the organization.”

“Isabel and I started investigating the Eternal God Cult again, but this organization is very well hidden. Even we had to spend a lot of effort to find a few of their openly known strongholds. But when we went to investigate, we found only outer members of level eleven or twelve.”

“Even the leaders were only in their thirties; they didn’t know anything.” Merlin’s expression was serious. “The only thing we managed to find out was that ‘this Eternal God Cult seems to have also besieged a dragon before’.”

As Yan Yunqing listened, his face gradually darkened.

If even the outer members knew about it, it probably wasn’t an internal secret. The most likely explanation was that this organization frequently besieged and hunted dragonkin.

The individual strength of the dragonkin was very strong. In human form, they could easily take on a hundred enemies, let alone when they transformed back into their dragon forms. Their combat capabilities wouldn’t just double, but increase by much more.

Killing a dragon was definitely not an easy task.

If this Eternal God Cult frequently besieged and hunted dragonkin, then the true elite of the cult, hidden behind these level eleven or twelve outer members, must possess formidable strength.

Generally, these kinds of powerhouses would have some reputation on the Ermann Continent. It wouldn’t be so easy for them to hide their whereabouts. As a powerhouse of the same level, Merlin would have some understanding of their movements.

Yet, Merlin had never even heard of the Eternal God Cult before. It was only when a member of the Eternal God Cult secretly traded a dragon bone that they were able to trace their origins.

Was this Eternal God Cult hiding too deeply?

No, that wasn’t right.

Yan Yunqing keenly noticed the oddity of the situation. The Eternal God Cult wasn’t hiding too deeply, but rather, the scope of their information dissemination completely excluded Merlin and Penelope’s echelon.

It was like an information cocoon created by big data recommendations. If Merlin and the others hadn’t known about the existence of the Eternal God Cult and started tracking them, their information wouldn’t have contained the keyword “Eternal God Cult” at all.

Someone was intentionally concealing the existence of the Eternal God Cult from these powerhouses. They were only preaching among the lower classes and manipulating the flow of information.

Yan Yunqing’s Adam’s apple bobbed involuntarily. He understood what Merlin was trying to convey.

“Are you saying…”

Merlin seemed to foresee an impending storm.

“Penelope said you disrupted the Eternal God Cult’s ritual. I think you should have seen the ritual process. Did you notice the patterns carved on the ground of the altar? The patterns that looked like magic arrays?”

Yan Yunqing recalled that there were too many black-robed figures in the altar at the time, making it difficult for him to pay attention to whether there were magic arrays carved on the entire altar floor. But he vaguely remembered that the ground beneath his feet was indeed a bit uneven when he infiltrated the black-robed figures.

And the strange [Sorrow Resonance] debuff at the time also seemed to be controlled through the magic array.

“What exactly is the effect of that magic array?”

“It’s a very sinister magic array… No, it would be more appropriate to call it an alchemy array,” Merlin said in a heavy voice. “It uses blood to steal a person’s ‘talent’.”

“‘Talent’?” Yan Yunqing asked strangely. “What do you mean? Are you referring to the talent to become a mage or a swordsman?”

Merlin nodded. “You can understand it that way. People with ‘talent’ can become mages, swordsmen, and many other branch professions through learning and training.”

“And a more obvious and direct manifestation of ‘talent,’ as you should know, is ‘talent skills’.”

“Those alchemy arrays essentially use blood as a medium to steal a person’s ‘talent’ and ‘talent skills’.”

Yan Yunqing’s pupils shook.

Wait… Talent skills?

Yan Yunqing’s mind was a bit chaotic. “Talent skills? This array can steal other people’s talent skills? And after stealing them? Can they be used by others?”

Merlin nodded. “This alchemy array was actually researched by a genius alchemist more than nine hundred years ago. His wife left him with only one son, who was born weak and sickly, unable to inherit his abilities and showing signs of premature death. So he devoted himself to research for ten years, and in the year his son was about to die, he researched this magic array through ancient manuscripts.”

“You’re also familiar with that ancient manuscript, the Soul Locking Array used by the necromancer Keen during the God War.”

Yan Yunqing was familiar with that. The necromancer Keen had caused many tragedies, and the Soul Locking Array was one of the most sinister.

He used the Soul Locking Array to torture living humans and other races to death. Because these lives harbored deep resentment before their deaths, the undead they condensed after death would be more powerful than ordinary undead.

Necromancer Keen had an undead army entirely created using this method. The reason the Elf King Sylph came out of Celinval and ultimately joined the Demon King’s team to participate in the God War was also because Keen had used this method to brutally kill several elves and trap their souls, preventing them from returning to the Mother Tree for reincarnation.

But two thousand years ago, after the Demon King killed Keen, he destroyed all books recording the Soul Locking Array. It was impossible for ancient books recording the Soul Locking Array to still be in circulation.

As Yan Yunqing thought this, he asked the question.

Merlin shook his head. “I’m not sure about that, but that alchemist didn’t ultimately succeed. Both he and his son died in that ‘talent’ conversion array. Later, the notes recording this array were inherited by several of his students as his legacy, and it didn’t spread widely.”

“Within the alchemist’s small circle, it was generally believed that his array was actually a failure. It was only when I saw the altar’s array that I consulted many manuscripts and ultimately found the same array in the student’s manuscript.”

As Merlin spoke, he rubbed his brow. “The student’s descendant is also one of the academy’s teachers. It was thanks to him donating the family’s inherited manuscripts to the academy that I was able to quickly find relevant clues and compare the similarities between the two arrays.”

“Because there were many similarities in the arrays, and the effect did match what the Eternal God Cult was doing, I treated the two as the same array.”

Yan Yunqing closed his eyes and began to replay the entire event in his mind, reviewing everything he had experienced before. Every detail passed through his mind.

He suddenly remembered a very important clue.

“So, according to you, these people from the Eternal God Cult are using the Demon King’s name to collect other people’s ‘talents’ all over the world?” Yan Yunqing said. “So they definitely won’t let go of anyone with ‘talent skills,’ right?”

Merlin nodded.

Yan Yunqing said gravely, “Mantipel and the Light Church are also doing the same thing.”

Merlin was taken aback. “What?”

Yan Yunqing repeated, “Mantipel, the underground casino where we reunited before, they are also doing the same thing, collecting children with ‘talent skills’.”

“Do you remember the child I entrusted to you named Nana?” Yan Yunqing’s expression was complicated. “She had just awakened her ‘talent skill’ not long before she was imprisoned by Mantipel.”

Merlin also remembered, “Yes, when you handed that child over to me, her collarbone was pierced by the Soul Locking Chain – I thought that was just a coincidence?”

Yan Yunqing pursed his lips. “I got some information when I was inquiring with those children.”

“First, Mantipel once tried to buy ‘Nika’ and ‘Rocco’ from Jeff, the leader of the children’s group. These two children were among the few in the group who had awakened ‘talent skills’.”

“Second, the timing of Mantipel’s attempt to buy the children was shortly after these two children awakened their talents. Those two children had gone to the priest ‘Paul’ in Freedom City to check their bodies because of the appearance of their ‘talent skills,’ and ‘Paul’ was from the Light Church, a priest sent by the Light Church to be stationed in Freedom City.”

“Third, Mantipel and the Light Church had transactions in private. The specific transaction was probably that Mantipel provided certain ‘goods’ to the Light Church, and the Light Church provided Mantipel with protection and some information channels.”

“Fourth, in the dark cell where Nana was imprisoned, there was a very strange magic array carved on the ground. When I stood on it, that magic array actively absorbed the magic power from my body, and I couldn’t even stop the loss of magic power.”

Yan Yunqing took a deep breath. “Before this, this information was very fragmented, and I couldn’t piece it together into a complete clue. But after you told me about the alchemy array that steals ‘talent,’ I was able to connect the two.”

“This Eternal God Cult – perhaps it’s related to Mantipel and the Light Church.”