"Honored Name?"
Sitting at the tea house table, Miss Adele couldn't help but raise an eyebrow upon hearing Ed's suggestion, a clear look of surprise appearing on her face.
"Detective, the Honored Name you mentioned... could it belong to a divine existence? What do you think I could gain from praying to it?"
"Yes, this is the Honored Name of a divine existence from the reverse side. Miss Adele, you may not have heard of it because its name generally only circulates within our Rose Cross. If you pray to it, I can share the vision of my Corpse Puppet with you, so you can observe the scene inside the Police Station from here."
Taking a sip of tea, Ed responded to Miss Adele across from him, and Miss Adele continued to reply with interest.
"A divine existence secretly honored within your Rose Cross? That's interesting... May I ask if I can learn more specific information about this existence? You know, praying to an unfamiliar Honored Name is a very dangerous thing."
Miss Adele continued speaking to Ed, seemingly wanting to learn more information about this Honored Name or the Rose Cross, while Ed responded calmly to Miss Adele's inquiry.
"Ah... it's not that I can't tell you, Miss Adele, but the detailed information about this Honored Name contains quite a bit of Spirit Sight. Without sufficient preparation, it would likely be dangerous for Miss Adele to suddenly hear this information. However, just the Honored Name itself is fine."
Ed said this. Dorothy's meaning was simple: Little Dai, the matter of this Honored Name is very deep, you can't handle it! This Spirit Sight is very potent, you can't bear it!
The truth was that the Honored Name Dorothy was thinking of didn't have much detailed information at all. Given that her understanding of the hidden world and ancient knowledge might even be less than Miss Adele's, fabricating things randomly would likely lead to absurd errors. So she simply didn't bother fabricating anything, telling Miss Adele that the detailed information contained a lot of Spirit Sight, and if she wasn't prepared, she shouldn't ask. And the situation was somewhat urgent now, with no time for all that.
"A divine existence whose detailed information contains potent Spirit Sight? Heh... It seems this is an important secret of your Rose Cross. To be able to partially reveal such a secret to me... Thank you for your trust. However... chanting the Honored Name of an unfamiliar divine being is always dangerous. Can you guarantee my safety, Detective?"
Miss Adele said this, and Dorothy immediately controlled Ed to respond again.
"You can completely trust me, Miss Adele. If I wanted to harm you, there were many opportunities before. I have absolutely no intention of harming you. If you're unwilling to trust me, that's also fine. I can continue to monitor the Police Station using small Corpse Puppets and wait for the eyes and ears inside to reveal flaws on their own. But we don't know how long that will take. If it takes too long, we have no way of predicting what changes will occur in the situation we face."
Ed said this to Miss Adele with a rather serious expression. Miss Adele paused for a moment after hearing his words, then slowly spoke again.
"Hoo... The Detective is right. This matter concerns my teacher, and now is not the time to delay. Detective, you've already helped me a lot. Since I've hired you, it would be meaningless if I didn't trust you... Please give me the Honored Name of that divine existence."
Miss Adele said this to Ed. Hearing Miss Adele's words, Ed smiled slightly, then took a small piece of paper from his pocket and carefully handed it to Miss Adele.
Miss Adele took the paper Ed handed over, then slowly opened it, carefully examining it bit by bit, seemingly using some method to verify if there were any mental influences or Spirit Sight. Not long after, she finally finished reading all the information on the paper steadily, then slightly furrowed her brow.
"It really is a divine existence I've never heard of... Named A..."
Miss Adele was about to read out the Honored Name on the paper, but Ed placed his index finger before his lips, making a shushing gesture, then murmured.
"No need to say it aloud, just pray silently in your heart. As long as you pray to that one, and as long as we can simultaneously show respect to that one, our senses can be connected."
Ed spoke mysteriously like this. After hearing Ed's words, Miss Adele hesitated for a moment. Finally, thinking of her teacher, she decided to close her eyes and silently recite the Honored Name she had just seen on the paper in her heart.
'Upon this world of infinite ends...'
On the other side, inside the carriage, after hearing Miss Adele's prayer, Dorothy immediately used the system to establish an information channel to her. Then, using this channel, she shared the vision of her Corpse Puppet inside the Police Station with her. In an instant, Miss Adele felt as if she suddenly had four or five extra pairs of eyes and ears, seeing more images, hearing more sounds. A flood of new information suddenly surged into Miss Adele's mind, making it difficult for her to process for a moment. It took her quite a while to barely recover.
"Heh... This really is... a wondrous experience..."
Covering her forehead, Miss Adele said with a sigh of relief. At this moment, she already felt herself simultaneously observing several perspectives, monitoring the scenes within several rooms from different angles. There were views from above and below, from narrow cracks and inside round holes. She just stared at the scene within the bustling room, seeing countless police officers in uniform busily working here and there. Listening to their words, it seemed the entire Coal Ash District was in turmoil because of the recent strong winds and dust.
"How is it? Can you confirm if any of those police officers are having issues now?"
At this moment, Ed asked Miss Adele, and Miss Adele immediately began using her ability, leveraging the perspective provided by Dorothy, to sense the desires within the hearts of the police officers inside the Police Station, perceiving their most urgent thoughts at the moment.
"These police officers... seem very flustered right now, because the sandstorm stirred up by that Black Dog seems to have caused panic. There are many people coming to the Police Station to report incidents, and most of the police officers are very irritable. Their desire is focused on the civilians coming to report incidents; they desire peace to be restored and want to quickly send the people reporting away... Some police officers haven't seen such an unusual sandstorm, and their desire is also focused on the sandstorm itself, seemingly hoping it will end quickly..."
Sitting at the tea house table, Miss Adele used the small Corpse Puppets Dorothy had placed inside the Coal Ash District Police Station to observe the crowd within: the overwhelmed police officers and the civilians coming to report incidents due to panic. She used her ability to secretly examine these police officers one by one, then reported the results. Listening to Miss Adele's words, Ed's expression was calm, and he continued to speak.
"Is there anything unusual about these people?"
"No, these desires are typical reactions of ordinary people facing the current situation. I haven't seen anyone unusual. You should move the Corpse Puppets inside, so I can see more places and more people."
Miss Adele responded, her meaning clear: there was no one unusual within the current perspective, and the angle needed to be changed. Dorothy also listened to Miss Adele's words and began controlling the small Corpse Puppets inside the Police Station to change positions and angles, looking at other police officers.
Just like that, Dorothy and Miss Adele cooperated to search the personnel throughout the Coal Ash District Police Station. Soon, Miss Adele discovered an anomaly.
"Wait, I think I see someone interesting. That guy is sitting in a separate office. Judging by his clothes and office environment, he seems to be the chief of this Police Station. He's sitting alone behind his desk in the office. He's not paying any attention to the sandstorm outside or the civilians flooding into the Police Station to report incidents... He seems completely unconcerned..."
"This guy also seems a bit anxious, but his desire is not focused on the sandstorm or the reporting civilians. He doesn't care about these things. His desire... is actually a desire to communicate and understand. Who does he want to communicate with? Understand what? And even weirder is... this communication target is actually himself?"
Analyzing the desires of the Police Station chief in his office from afar, Miss Adele murmured. Having searched the entire Police Station, this chief's desires were the most unusual. Hearing Miss Adele's words, Dorothy was slightly startled, then had Ed speak with a laugh.
"A desire to communicate... but the target of communication is himself? That's interesting... It seems we've found the person. Miss Adele, can you stimulate his desire now, so he doesn't have any reservations and does what he wants to do?"
"Yes."
Miss Adele responded simply, then began using her ability to influence the Police Station chief in the office.
...
Inside the Coal Ash District Police Station, in the empty office, the neatly dressed Police Station chief sat behind his desk, looking somewhat worriedly at the dust outside the window that hadn't completely dispersed. Although he appeared calm on the surface, a faint hint of worry was still revealed between his brows.
The man, as the Police Station chief, just sat in his seat like this, doing nothing and seemingly unaware of what he was thinking internally. However, visibly, the worry between his brows was still slowly increasing. He began to unconsciously tap his foot, pound the table, and finally even stood up directly from his seat and started pacing in the office, becoming increasingly agitated.
Finally, after pacing around the office a few times, the man who couldn't suppress the urgent thought in his heart walked back to his desk, reached into his inner garment pocket, and after feeling around, finally pulled out a small mouse. He placed the small mouse on the desk and spoke softly to it.
"Mr. Alex, what's the situation now? Have all those Black Dogs been led into the trap? How is my mission progressing?"
The man spoke to the small mouse on the desk. After a moment's pause, the small mouse began to move. After scurrying around the man's desk for a while, it knocked over an ink bottle. Dipping a paw in, it managed to scrawl a crooked, distorted, and awkward phrase on a blank piece of paper.
"Don't disturb me now!"
"Yes, yes, yes! I won't disturb you anymore, I was just nervous. I will continue to wait for your news here!"
The man, as the Police Station chief, hurriedly apologized to the small mouse on the desk. Listening to the other party's words, the mouse stopped moving again and lay motionless on the desk. The man immediately picked up the mouse, put it back into his inner garment pocket, and then sat back down at his desk with a sigh of relief.
...
Inside the tea house not far from the Coal Ash District Police Station, Miss Adele and Ed were still sitting there. Through the vision provided by the Corpse Puppets inside the Police Station, both of them had just witnessed the scene that occurred in the chief's office. At this moment, a hint of amused expression appeared on both their faces.
"That mouse... is a Corpse Puppet? He was talking to the Corpse Puppet, and through the Corpse Puppet, he was transmitting his words to the Corpse Puppet's controller?"
Stroking her chin, Miss Adele analyzed the scene that had just occurred, while Ed in front of her also nodded and spoke.
"Correct. Because those guys know you have 'Cup' Spirituality perception and can detect Corpse Puppets not protected by'Shadow' items, and small Corpse Puppets cannot wear or use extraordinary items, that chief first put on a'Shadow' item himself, and then carried the small Corpse Puppet close to his body. This way, it could block your Spirituality perception."
Drinking tea, Ed looked towards the Police Station in the distance outside the window and continued to speak.
"The Police Station is a public place, not one's home, so it's difficult to build altars or anything inside for remote contact. Dream anchor talismans require both parties to enter dreams simultaneously to communicate. If there's no other way to notify the other party to go to sleep and enter a dream beforehand, using it to transmit information would be less timely. Using a telegram would also take a long time for encoding and translation, and if you don't understand it yourself, you'd need to arrange additional personnel."
"Therefore, the best way for this chief, serving as eyes and ears, to timely transmit information from his side to the mastermind behind the scenes is probably to carry a small Corpse Puppet controlled by the mastermind with him. If there's anything to say, just take out the Corpse Puppet and say it to it. It's quite convenient, just like making a call with a mobile phone, a flesh phone."
"Mobile phone? Phone?" Hearing the unfamiliar terms that popped out of Ed's mouth, Miss Adele tilted her head and said. After hearing her words, Dorothy was slightly taken aback, then controlled Ed to continue explaining.
"Hmm... I saw this in a secret transmission ancient text. It's an extraordinary item used by an ancient civilization, capable of transmitting information very efficiently across thousands of miles. It's extremely reliable and highly efficient, more powerful than most extraordinary items and methods available now."
Dorothy had Ed explain it like this. What she said was basically true; many extraordinary communication methods in this world were indeed not as efficient as mobile phones. Her own "wen hai hang zhi" was actually equivalent to the functions of WeChat or QQ.
And considering that inventions like the internal combustion engine have Spirit Sight, the technology for this phone probably also has Spirit Sight. If she were to actually create a phone, there would be nothing wrong with calling it an extraordinary item.
"Phone... mobile phone... an extraordinary item capable of efficiently transmitting information? Interesting... I hope I can witness one someday. But now is the critical time, Detective... The opponent's eyes and ears have been found now. How do you plan to use him?" Miss Adele said to Ed again, while Ed also slightly furrowed his brow and replied thoughtfully.
"As of now, he's not very easy to utilize. The mastermind behind the scenes doesn't seem to want to bother with this chief right now. He didn't answer the chief's question at all just now, so we can't extract any key information from it."
"Although I could try to seize control of that mouse phone and pretend to be the mastermind trying to extract information from the chief, the mastermind would detect the interruption in control. Startling the snake by beating the grass is not a good choice right now."
Ed said this with difficulty. He also stated Dorothy's predicament. Although they had found the mastermind's eyes and ears now, since the mastermind hadn't revealed any valuable information, they still had no way to find his location.
'So... what method is there now to find that guy?'
Sitting in the carriage, Dorothy pondered in her mind. However, after only a moment, she had an idea.
'Got it... Maybe we can try this...'