The Whispering Verses Chapter 13: The Ring Warlock and the Ring of Life
The dead Detective Sparrow Hamilton took over a more difficult commission about half a year ago. Baron Huntington, who lives in Tobesk City, commissioned a detective to find the missing maid. The maid had served the Baron's family for many years and resigned voluntarily a few days ago.
The baron asked his butler to invite the maid back with gifts, only to find that she had disappeared. Although the baron has a certain social status, he is not the maid's family after all, and he himself does not seem to trust the police very much, so he commissioned multiple detectives to investigate.
Detective Sparrow is not actually a famous detective, and his usual commissions are just trivial matters such as finding extramarital affairs. This time a noble came to make a commission, and it was because of the introduction of an old customer.
Sparrow Hamilton takes this matter very seriously. Even if he is just a baron, he is a big shot that ordinary citizens cannot reach. He investigated very diligently, and spent a month this spring, through various clues, to find the abandoned sanatorium located on the banks of the Auxerre River, and determined that this was the cause of the missing persons case.
"This nursing home was abandoned about thirty years ago. I was just a child at the time and heard my family mention it."
Local Bill Schneider introduced, pointing to the building complex that was gradually becoming clearer not far away. Although it was also hazy outside the city, one could already see the bell tower next to the main building, as well as the spire and cross-shaped decorative spire.
"At that time, the royal family instructed the Tobesk City Hall to reorganize municipal planning to adapt to the huge foreign population and the development of the steam industry. The policy at that time was probably to relocate hospitals and other infrastructure to the interior of the city, and factories to relocate outside the city . This was originally a sanatorium for nobles, I hope you know what I mean. It was only for the big shots that we couldn’t imagine. After responding to the call, the sanatorium completely moved away from Tobesk City and went to a nearby city, which is only half an hour away by train. If you can get there, it's more convenient than here.
So, this sanatorium was abandoned. Even homeless people would not live here. The area was deserted, and no one would know if they died. ”
Surrounded by large areas of farmland and wasteland, it takes an hour's walk to see the nearest rural town. There is a manor and horse farm nearby, belonging to a certain earl. During the horse racing season, people would choose the road the two were walking on as a track, but there were no people there yet.
Although industry developed rapidly in this era, traces of the steam age can only be seen in big cities. Far away from the city, everything was regressing towards the past era. Shade understood the meaning of this sentence.
The two quickly followed the path to the vicinity of the abandoned sanatorium. The doctor did not mention the name of this place, and it was not important to come here.
From the outside, the walls have completely peeled off and all the windows and doors are missing. However, the wall of the sanatorium is still there, but the courtyard inside the wall is almost the same as the wasteland outside, with no trace of the past garden.
Tall buildings and spires just stand in the wilderness, and only the decoration of fence gates can vaguely reveal the prosperity of the past.
"Follow me and we'll talk as we walk."
The doctor said, kicking open the two fence doors that seemed to be rusted together. The fence gate fell to the ground with a crash, startling the birds in the nearby woods.
Even at the edge of the city, the fog only dissipated a little. The gloomy sky seemed to be raining, and Shade regretted not bringing an umbrella out.
The two walked into the courtyard of the sanatorium, walking on the grass with two pairs of boots:
"The so-called ring magician means that we have the [Wheel of Fortune]."
The doctor said, looked around, and led Shade towards the main entrance of the main building.
"The Wheel of Fortune?"
"Time, years, destiny, era, civilization, the world, the rings cast for us symbolize ourselves. Pay attention! I want to show you the complete wheel of destiny, not just a corner. Please look carefully - ―”
The doctor walking in the grass has his arms slightly spread out, his hands open and palms facing upward, as if he is holding something up, and his hands are raised at the same level as his shoulders.
Everything behind him became hazy, like an extra layer of white mist. But there was no change in him, except for a faint smile on his face.
Subsequently, Shade actually heard the sound and echo of the train whistle in this empty abandoned courtyard.
"What?"
He hurriedly looked around in the waist-deep grass, and at this moment, his skin gradually felt the heat.
Looking around, what was behind the doctor was not white mist, but steam. The scorching steam, the steam that makes people shudder for some reason, the steam seems to blur the distance and space, making everything behind the doctor blur.
In the steam, a huge black shadow was approaching, and the steam behind the doctor seemed to contain infinite time and space.
The whistle roared, the steam exploded, and the black shadow got closer and closer. The extremely fast speed caused wind pressure, causing the doctor's clothes, the grass in the courtyard, and the hem of Shade's coat to fly, and he had to squint his eyes.
What is even more serious is the sense of crisis rising in my heart.
"What's in that steam?"
Getting closer and closer, behind the doctor, deep in the steam, a huge hammer appeared with momentum and energy. All I saw was a silver-grey object, as high as a whole building, and it hit the doctor with a loud noise.
The sound of the bombardment made Shade's ears ringing slightly, his eyes dizzy, and the strong feeling of vomiting forced him to reach out and cover his chest. The ground shook, the wind roared, and the thunder flashed. In this series of hallucinations, the hammer seemed to open up the world, and seemed to bombard Shade's soul.
But it was only the doctor who was bombarded by the giant hammer. The doctor did not move at all, but Shade thought he saw Dr. Schneider being smashed into a copper cake.
"Copper?"
He felt that he was becoming increasingly unclear about his perception.
It was indeed a piece of copper. After being hit with a giant hammer, a huge rotating copper ring appeared behind the doctor. It was a brass-colored metal ring.
The steam gradually dissipated, and the brass metal ring with a pentagonal cross-section slowly rotated behind the doctor. A strange light accompanied by more than twenty spiritual runes wandered around this life ring.
The halo shone on Shade's face, and the outsider heard the woman's chuckle in his mind, and his eyes reflected this magnificent, magical, and powerful ring.
"This is the life ring. The ring sorcerer can only call out the life ring completely when fighting with all his strength. Otherwise, he can not call out the life ring, or just call out part of it... What's the point? Did you ask?"
The doctor stopped in the grass in the courtyard of the sanatorium and asked the stunned Shade. Shade could still feel the heat of the dissipating steam behind the doctor, as well as the high temperature on the huge brass ring.
The life ring is not a phantom, it is an entity:
"Why steam? Why brass?"
He didn't even notice the anxiety in his tone.
The middle-aged doctor smiled:
“Young people, a person’s success depends not only on personal struggle, but also on the process of history.
I said that the life ring represents oneself and the world. This era is the age of steam and machinery, so the life ring emerges from the steam and is forged by giant hammers, showing a brass color. If this was the age of the rainbow, then the ring of life might be rainbow-colored; if it was the age of the deep sea, then the ring of life would be water. do you understand? ”
Xia De reluctantly nodded, his heart beating faster because he witnessed the shocking scene just now:
"Understood."
He didn't even want to blink, wanting to imprint the full view of the ring behind the doctor in his eyes. But the doctor waved his hand behind him, and the life ring slowly became transparent and disappeared, leaving only Shade to record a few runes in it.
As for the common language of the Northern Kingdom, even without the knowledge given by the woman's voice in his head, Shade could read and understand it, but he could not speak or write it. And now, Shade has somehow understood the meaning of those powerful spiritual runes. The ones he glimpsed are [Joy], [Hound] and [Mote]...
Suddenly, I felt a pain in my head, as if someone had hit the back of my head, so I gave up on memorizing those powerful runes.
In this world, knowledge is really power. Therefore, it seems understandable that the extraordinary organization that the doctor invited Shade to join is an academy.
"But if my special characteristic is that I can read and understand all words...is this a good thing in this dangerous world?"
Shad thought about his secret, while the doctor continued to walk forward in the grass and introduced:
"The cross-sectional shape of my life ring is currently a pentagon, which means that I am a five-ring ring wizard and a fifth-year correspondence adult education student at the college. The first ring of life is a flat circle with one side The second ring is also a flat surface, but the cross section of the third ring is a triangle, and the cross section of the fourth ring is a quadrilateral... Do you understand? The closer it is to the most standard ring."
"Yes, understood."
The two of them entered the building while talking. Over the years, countless people may have cared about this place. There is no furniture left, and there is a layer of dust on the ground. If you step on it, dust will rise immediately.
They did not stop on the first floor, but walked to the second floor along the unstable-looking stairs. Shade was worried about the safety of such a dangerous building.
"Spirit runes are the core of the Ring Warlock system. By engraving spiritual runes on our destiny wheels, we accumulate spirits and experience the four elements [miracle], [blasphemy], [enlightenment] and [whisper], and continue to advance. ”
"Spirit? Element?"
Xia De wondered, his heart filled with excitement, he was finally going to know these things.
The doctor led Sha Demai up the stairs:
"About the spirit, in the past era, it had many names. Magic, ether, mana, spirituality, spiritual light, but in the current era, it is uniformly called spirit. It is information, it is element, it is energy, it is you The sum total of everything that can be understood in the world is one of the manifestations of the Ring Warlock's mind interfering with matter. The way to accumulate spirits is to contact the elements, and the safest way to contact the elements is to read the stories and knowledge from before the era - culture and customs. , heroic legends, myths passed down by word of mouth
Contacting this knowledge is also dangerous, and you will fall into madness if you are not careful. So what we usually look at is the original copy, or the translation. ”
Xia De simply translated ‘spirit’ as blue stripe.
"But it does not mean that you can enter the next level by accumulating enough spirits. The most important thing for a ring warlock is not the spirit, but the elements. By accumulating the four elemental spirit runes, you can effectively increase the upper limit of the spirit, sublimate the soul, and temper the spirit. Refining the body. The four elements can be felt in many ways..."
Shad thought of the reminder from the woman's voice in his mind that he was exposed to "whispers", "enlightenment" and "miracles", which were respectively seeing Sparrow's death, walking on the streets to see the world, and thinking about God. significance.
"Mere feeling and contact are not enough. The elements need to be engraved on one's destiny wheel to prove the integration of oneself and the elements. Each upgrade of the ring warlock requires a different [miracle] [blasphemy] [ Enlightenment] [Whisper] Spirit runes are combined to form specific sentences to sublimate. I will answer this for you now, let me introduce to you the differences between the four elements."
The doctor paused, looked forward and smiled:
"I think the person we are looking for should be here."