About six months ago, the dead detective Sparrow Hamilton took over a more difficult commission. Baron Huntington, who lived in Tobesk City, commissioned the detective to find the missing maid. The maid had served the baron's family for many years.
I took the initiative to resign a few days ago.
The baron asked his butler to invite the maid back with a gift, only to find that she had disappeared. Although the baron had a certain social status, he was not the maid's family after all, and he himself did not seem to trust the police very much, so he commissioned
Multiple detectives investigate.
Detective Sparrow is actually not a famous detective, and his usual commissions are just to find trivial matters such as extramarital affairs. This time, a noble came to perform the commission because of the introduction of an old client.
Sparrow Hamilton took this matter very seriously. Even though he was just a baron, he was also a big figure that ordinary citizens could not contact. He investigated very carefully. He spent a month this spring and used various clues to find the location on the banks of the Auxerre River.
abandoned sanatorium, 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 it, pointing to the building complex that was gradually becoming clearer not far away. Although it was also hazy outside the city, the bell tower next to the main building, as well as the spire and cross-shaped decorative spire could already be seen.
"At that time, the royal family instructed the Tobesk City Hall to re-organize 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 inside of the city, and factories to outside the city. This place was originally
It’s a sanatorium for nobles, I hope you understand what I mean. It’s only for the big shots that we can’t even imagine. After responding to the call, the sanatorium completely moved out of Tobesk City and went to a nearby city, which can be reached in half an hour by train.
On the contrary, it is more convenient than here.
Therefore, this sanatorium is abandoned, and even homeless people will not live here. The area is deserted, and no one will know if it dies."
It is surrounded by large blocks of farmland and wasteland, and the nearest country town can only be seen by walking for an hour. However, there is a manor and a horse farm nearby, which belong to a certain earl. During the horse racing season, people will choose this time to walk together.
This road is used as a runway, but there is no one there yet.
Although industry developed rapidly in this era, traces of the steam age can only be seen in big cities. Away from cities, everything is regressing towards the past era. Shade understood the meaning of this sentence.
The two of them soon followed the path to the vicinity of the abandoned sanatorium. The doctor didn't mention the name of this place, and it wasn't important to think about it.
From the outside, the wall has 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, and no trace of the past garden can be seen.
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 two fence doors that seemed to be rusted together. The fence doors fell to the ground with a bang, startling the birds in the nearby woods.
Even when they reached the edge of the city, the fog only dissipated a little. The gloomy sky looked like it was going to rain, and Shade regretted not bringing an umbrella with him.
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 Destiny]."
The doctor said, looked around, and led Shade towards the main entrance of the main building.
"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, as if there was an extra layer of white mist. But he himself remained unchanged, except for a faint smile on his face.
Later, 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.
Turning around and looking, what was behind the doctor was not white mist, but steam. Hot steam, steam that made people tremble for some reason. The steam seemed 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 brought about 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 that arises 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. It was silver-gray, as high as the entire building, and struck with a loud noise.
Hit the doctor.
The sound of the bombardment made Shade's ears ringing slightly and his eyes dizzy. The strong sense of vomiting made him have to reach out and cover his chest. The ground shook, the wind howled, and the thunder flashed. In this series of hallucinations, the hammering
It seemed as if the world had been opened up, and it seemed as if it had bombarded Xia De'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 the 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... Do you have any questions?
?”
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 steam dissipating behind the doctor and the high temperature on the huge brass ring.
The life ring is not an illusion, this is the entity:
"Why steam? Why brass?"
He didn't even notice the anxiety in his voice.
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 have said that the Ring of Life represents oneself and the world. This era is the age of steam and machinery, so the Ring of Life emerges from the steam and is forged by a giant hammer, showing a brass color. If this is the age of the rainbow
, then the life ring may be rainbow-colored. If it is the age of the deep sea, then the life ring is water. Do you understand?"
Shade reluctantly nodded, his heart beating faster because he witnessed the shocking scene just now:
"clear."
He didn't even want to blink, wanting to imprint the full picture 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 Shade to only write down a few of them.
A few runes.
Regarding the lingua franca of the Northern Kingdom, even without the knowledge given by the woman's voice in his mind, Shade could read and understand it, but he could not speak or write it. And now, Shade could inexplicably understand those words with power.
The meaning of the spiritual runes, the ones he glimpsed were [Joy], [Hound] and [Mote]...
Suddenly I felt pain in my head, as if someone had hit me on the back of my head, so I gave up on memorizing those powerful runes.
In this world, knowledge really is 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?"
Shade 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 ring warlock with five rings and a fifth-year correspondence adult education student at the college. The first ring of life is a flat ring with spiritual runes imprinted on one side.
The second ring is also flat, but spiritual runes can be imprinted on both sides. The cross section of the third ring is a triangle, the cross section of the fourth ring is a quadrilateral... and so on. Do you understand? The higher the ring, the closer it is.
The most standard ring."
"Yes, understand."
The two of them entered the building while talking. Over the years, countless people may have cared about this place. There was no furniture left, and there was 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 rings, we accumulate spirits, experience the four elements [miracle], [blasphemy], [enlightenment] and [whisper], and continue to advance."
"Spiritual elements?"
Shade wondered, his heart filled with excitement, he was finally going to know these things.
The doctor led Shademai up the stairs:
"Regarding 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. This is information, element, energy, and you can understand it.
The sum total of everything 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, customs, heroic legends
, a myth passed down by word of mouth.
It is also dangerous to come into contact with this knowledge, and you will fall into madness if you are not careful. So we usually read the original copy or the translation."
Shade simply translated 'ling' 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 major elemental spirit runes, you can effectively increase the upper limit of the spirit, sublimate the soul, and temper the body.
The four elements can be felt in many ways..."
Shade 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, stepping onto the streets to see the world, and thinking about the meaning of God.
"Merely feeling and contacting is not enough. You need to engrave the elements on your destiny wheel to prove your integration with the elements. Each upgrade of the Ring Warlock requires a different [Miracle] [Desecration] [Enlightenment] [
Whisper] Spirit runes are combined to form specific sentences to sublimate. I will answer this for you when you decide to join the academy. 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."