In the afternoon, on the balcony of number 17, Green Shade Town, Dorothy was silently contemplating while holding the ""wen hai hang zhi"" in her hand. Looking at Adele's response just now, she wondered if there was some hidden conflict and contradiction between the Holy Mother Light faction and the Gluttonous Wolf.cup mother's Placenta faction. After all, they both involved the realm of the ""Cup"", and perhaps there were some unknown disputes hidden within.
'Of course, it's also possible that I'm overthinking things. There might not be any high-level disputes between deities here. The Shining Light Church, being the largest official Extraordinary organization, should naturally step forward to resist cults like the Wolf Blood Society.'
Dorothy thought this way again. After thinking for a while longer, she decided to temporarily stop thinking about these questions that wouldn't yield results anytime soon. Therefore, she closed the ""wen hai hang zhi"" in front of her and began to enjoy the surrounding scenery, savoring the coffee and sunshine of this leisure time.
Just as Dorothy was enjoying her coffee, she suddenly heard a familiar voice.
"Hey~ over there~"
Hearing this voice, Dorothy was slightly startled, then looked towards the direction the voice came from, the street downstairs from her house, and saw a familiar figure: a young girl with short gray hair, wearing loose casual clothes, an apron, and carrying some kind of bag. It was none other than Beverly.
"Beverly? Why are you here?" Seeing her downstairs neighbor from the balcony, Dorothy asked somewhat unexpectedly, while Beverly waved the small rectangular bag in her hand expressionlessly and continued to call out.
"Your package, come down and get it quickly. I'm still simmering soup at home."
'Simmering soup? Learning to make coffee as a clockwork person wasn't enough, and now you're learning to cook too?' Hearing Beverly's words, Dorothy thought with some surprise inwardly, but she didn't delay her actions. She immediately got up and went back into the house to go downstairs. After arriving at the door, Beverly quickly handed the package to Dorothy. After receiving it, Beverly continued to speak.
"Alright, I'm going back to continue recording data. If you have time, remember to come over and taste the soup."
"Uh... Okay, I'll come if I have time."
Dorothy replied to Beverly, who immediately turned around and left, still wearing her apron. Looking at Beverly's back, Dorothy wondered why this clockwork person was so lively. Last time it was making coffee, now it's cooking. Was she recording this data to develop some kind of domestic service robot?
Dorothy's confusion lasted only a moment, and then her attention immediately shifted back to the long rectangular package in her hand. Although there was no information written on it, since Beverly brought it, there could only be one sender.
Holding the newly arrived package, Dorothy turned around and returned to her house. After closing the door, she went straight to the study. After sitting down in her chair, she placed the package on the table and opened it. What appeared before Dorothy was an old notebook with a yellowed cover. There was also a note on the notebook, written in Adele's handwriting.
'As expected...' Dorothy thought with understanding. The only person she knew who would send her something through the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild was Adele. So, this was undoubtedly the research material of her teacher, Dalena, sent by Adele.
Without thinking too much, Dorothy picked up the note and looked at its content.
"This is the first piece of information I've found. It seems to be my teacher's early research notes on The Path of 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment). Because it contains Spirit Sight, I haven't looked at it closely, so I don't know if there's anything you're interested in. I'm currently dealing with some troublesome matters. After I'm done, I will look for other information and send it to you. Please keep these materials safe, Detective Mr.. Finally, please be careful with Spirit Sight protection."
'Spirit Sight? That's great. I just used the heart-devouring staff-sword to deal with this matter last time, and lost 7 points of '""Cup"" at once. That's not a small number, so I can replenish it this time.'
Dorothy thought so, then put Adele's note aside and picked up Dalena's old notebook. She opened it and read it carefully.
Under the powerful learning ability brought by the Erudite, Dorothy quickly finished reading the entire notebook, which was not thick. After finishing, she let out a long sigh.
"I didn't expect Adele's teacher to have such a background... The Path of Depravity, so that's how it came about..."
Dorothy murmured, then began to organize the contents of the notebook in her mind. As Adele said, this notebook was an early research notebook of Dalena. At that time, she was just an Apprentice and had not truly stepped onto The Path of Depravity, but the reason she took this branch path surprised Dorothy.
According to the records in the notebook, Dalena was born a common farmer's daughter in a remote mountain village in Farano on the Main Continent. The mountain village where she lived was isolated from the world, rarely communicating with the outside, and maintained very unique customs and habits.
In Dalena's hometown, there was a unique belief. The people there worshipped a deity named Fertility Goddess. According to the description in the notebook, this Goddess could bring bountiful harvests to the land and was also the protector of love, marriage, and childbirth. Dalena's hometown had worshipped this Goddess for generations, unaffected by the expansion of the Shining Light Church from the outside world.
Dalena was born into a family of Fertility Goddess priests. From a young age, she learned a ritual dance to worship the deity during various ceremonies. The main form of worship was dance, and it was a secret transmission dance that included specific preparations, psychological hints, incantations, and many other hidden methods. During the process of learning the dance, Dalena felt herself growing stronger day by day and also becoming more loved by the other villagers, just like her ancestors.
Dalena wrote in her notes that she later discovered this ancestral ritual dance was the Dance of Desire. She had unknowingly become a ""Cup"" Apprentice by relying on the accumulation of Spirituality from the Dance of Desire and family rituals. After her mother's death, she formally inherited the position of priestess of the Fertility Goddess in the village.
However, not long after Dalena's inheritance, their peaceful life was quickly interrupted. Due to industrial development, a railway was built near their village, and their long-term hidden worship was exposed. The Shining Light Church's inquisitors soon led the Church army to their village, forcing the people here to change their beliefs. Under the pressure of the Shining Light Church, the villagers had no choice but to accept.
Fortunately, at that time, the most fanatical period of the Shining Light Church's trials had passed, and their methods were much more "civilized" now. Heretics could avoid any punishment as long as they converted in time, unlike before when they would be burned at the stake at the slightest provocation. As long as they didn't resist and obediently converted, they wouldn't use force. However, all traces of the original old beliefs had to be erased. Books in the village's shrine were confiscated, murals were torn down, and the Fertility Goddess statue was transformed into a Holy Mother statue.
No one dared to resist the immense pressure of belief from the Shining Light Church. As a young priestess, Dalena was angry at the desecration of her faith but did not dare to resist. Thus, she secretly fled with the most precious treasure from the temple, the secret transmission about the Fertility Goddess faith passed down through generations.
After escaping the village, Dalena finally saw the outside world, other religions, and the hidden world and mysticism. As someone born into a priestly family, after her life stabilized, she naturally immersed herself in the study of the hidden and the Fertility Secret Transmission. Dalena's notebook is mainly a research notebook on that secret transmission.
This notebook was written by Dalena after she had been exposed to a lot of outside mystical knowledge and had been in the hidden world for many years. Therefore, she had her own views on the Fertility Goddess, not entirely from the perspective of a priestess. In her opinion, the Fertility Goddess was very likely an ancient Goddess in the ""Cup"" realm who was active around the time of the Dawn War and the Empire period, and was now likely fallen. The belief she worshipped was very likely one of the remnants of His former faith.
And Dalena believed that this Fertility Goddess was likely quite powerful when she was active. This is because after her long-term research on the anti-Spirit Sight in the secret transmission, she discovered that it actually recorded that the scale of this Fertility Goddess's Church back then was quite large, so large that it could even be divided into five major branches, and the priests of each branch mastered an Extraordinary branch path that could gradually approach the Goddess through continuous advancement. Her family belonged to the Dancer branch, which mastered the Extraordinary branch path that could manipulate desire.
After confirming this point, Dalena was very excited. She began to travel according to the clues provided in the secret transmission, looking for a way to continue climbing the branch path of her family. The clue given in the secret transmission was to find the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) at several designated strongholds for cooperation, and obtain the method of accumulating 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment) Spirituality from them.
However, the secret transmission did not indicate the location of the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) ruins, which made Dalena complain in her notes, but she also made up her mind to find those ruins herself.
"Phew... In the end, I still don't know the location of the ruins..."
Sitting in the chair in the study, after organizing Dalena's early notes, Dorothy sighed with a long breath. Although there were some clues about the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) in this notebook, there were not many. Most importantly, she could not find the specific location of the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) ruins.
'It seems I can only wait for Adele to find the remaining information to get clues. This notebook is Dalena's notes on her own secret transmission, written when she first entered the Extraordinary realm. The other materials she left from other periods should contain information about the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) ruins.'
Dorothy thought so. While regretting, she glanced at the notebook in front of her again. Although the information she got about the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) was only a little, there was a lot of information about the ""Cup"" realm, especially the so-called Fertility Goddess Church.
'During the Dawn War and the Empire period, this so-called Fertility Goddess Church seemed to be very powerful, holding five branch paths, with the Church divided into five factions, including pure ""Cup"" and auxiliary 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment), mastering all the branch paths in the ""Cup"" realm. It was even stronger than the current Shining Light Church, which only overtly controls three paths in the "Light" realm. This Fertility Church basically unified the ""Cup"" back then...
'Another point worth noting is that Dalena said that according to the secret transmission she held, if there were Extraordinary individuals in the Church at that time who wanted to take The Path of Depravity, they needed to go to several specific strongholds to learn the method of accumulating 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment) from the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society). This means that at least for a considerable period, the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society) and the Fertility Church coexisted, and they even cooperated.'
Dorothy thought so, and there were many other points in the notebook that interested her. She flipped through Dalena's notebook again and turned to a page on which an inverted pattern was drawn.
The main body of this pattern is an inverted triangle, with a circle inscribed within this inverted triangle. Outside the inverted triangle, a circle of wheat ears is drawn around it, and below there are branches, flowers, and birds, forming an overall emblem. According to Dalena's annotation below, this emblem is the symbol of the Fertility Goddess Church, and this symbol is also the symbol of the Fertility Goddess herself. And Dorothy has seen similar symbols.
That is the symbol of the Fetal Garment Cult's Wolf Blood Society. The symbol of the Wolf Blood Society is an inverted triangle, but inside it is not a normal circle but a wolf's head. Dorothy, who has read many secret transmissions about the Fetal Garment Cult, knows the symbolism of these symbols. The inverted triangle represents not only the symbol of ""Cup"" Spirituality but also the womb of the Cup Mother. The wolf's head in the inverted triangle symbolizes the Gluttonous Wolf as the blood descendant of the Cup Mother.
Seeing the symbol of the Wolf Blood Society, Dorothy also clearly knew what the symbols of the other two branches of the Fetal Garment Cult were: they must be replacing the wolf inside the inverted triangle with a snake or a vulture.
The symbol of the ancient Fertility Goddess Church has similarities with the symbols of the three current Fetal Garment Cults. Is this a coincidence? Or is it a necessity within the ""Cup"" lineage of Churches... As powerful Goddesses in the ""Cup"" realm, is there any connection between the former Fertility Goddess and the current Cup Mother?... But according to Dalena's research on the secret transmission, the Fertility Goddess Church was not a cult at all, but more like a universal Church similar to the current Shining Light Church.
"Hiss... I feel like the history of this world is really a bit messy..."
Thinking about these various possibilities, Dorothy couldn't help but scratch her head and murmur. Due to Spirit Sight, too much of the past history of this world is hidden, and the information Dorothy obtained is very fragmented. Thinking about these historical issues made her feel a headache for a while.
"Never mind, after reading so much, let's extract Spirituality first."
Dorothy temporarily stopped thinking about other things and decided to get the Spirituality out first. Under her extraction, this notebook of Dalena's yielded a total of 4 points of ""Cup"" and 3 points of 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment). Adding up all of Dorothy's previous Spirituality, her current Spirituality status is:
9 Cup, 11 Stone, 6 Shadow, 1 Light, 11 Silence, 18 Qi (Awakening/Enlightenment).
'Hmm... The 7 points of ""Cup"" I invested last time have returned 4 points now, and there will be other information later. Overall, I didn't lose out on Spirituality in the end.
'But I still hope Adele can find the information faster. I need to accumulate more ""Cup"" Spirituality soon to recharge the heart-devouring staff-sword. This kind of life-saving equipment is too important.
'And now I actually have 18 points of 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment), which is more than half of the 30 points required by Chalk. Considering that I can extract a considerable amount of Spirituality at once after finding the advancement ritual for Chalk, the current Spirituality requirement for Chalk is actually not far off. The key is to find the advancement ritual.'
Checking her Spirituality accumulation status, Dorothy thought to herself. Afterward, she stretched herself greatly, put away the notebook, and began to prepare to enjoy her leisurely afternoon.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side of the distant Prit Island, at the train station in the southwestern town of Igwinte, a young man in a trench coat and hat was buying a train ticket from the ticket office.
Looking at the words "Igwinte Station—Tivian West Station" on the ticket, Grego smiled.