Iweig, Adria.
In a cafe along the waterway in Adria in the morning, Dorothy and Naifnis were sitting together at a secluded table. Dorothy was drinking a cup of coffee while watching Neff in front of her.
In front of Neff was an open thick book. Naifnis was holding a fountain pen and writing quickly on the pages of the thick book, stopping and starting, writing while observing the contents of the book.
The book in front of Naifnis at this moment was Dorothy's """wen hai hang zhi""". At this very moment, she was using this book to communicate with Nu Nuo Te who was far away in Tivian. After all, the only person Nu Nuo Te could completely trust was her, the eldest Miss of Boyle. Only she could persuade the rescued Nu Nuo Te to cooperate with Adele's side.
As time passed, Naifnis, sitting in her seat, wrote on the """wen hai hang zhi""" with increasing seriousness and speed, while Dorothy silently sipped her coffee and enjoyed the scenery outside the window. Finally, after a burst of frantic writing, Naifnis threw the fountain pen she was holding aside and let out a sigh of relief.
"Alright... I have successfully persuaded Grandpa Nu Nuo Te. He will cooperate with their work as much as possible from now on." Saying this, Naifnis picked up the """wen hai hang zhi""" in front of her and handed it back to Dorothy. Dorothy, who was admiring the small boats outside the window, turned her gaze over after hearing this and took the """wen hai hang zhi""" that was handed to her.
"Oh, it's done? That was really hard work, thank you."
After giving a simple reply, Dorothy took the """wen hai hang zhi""", glanced at it, and then spoke like this, while Naifnis opposite her also continued to speak.
"Not at all... This time, it is I who really need to thank Miss Dorothy. If it weren't for you, Grandpa Nu Nuo Te would have been in grave danger by now. I am so far away and couldn't help at all." Naifnis continued to say to Dorothy. After listening to Naifnis's words, Dorothy replied casually.
"It's nothing, just a small matter. Your Grandpa's notes are still with your family's butler, so naturally, I wouldn't want anything to happen to him. This is something related to Senior Nefelnis's promotion ritual, isn't it?"
Dorothy said this to Naifnis. Listening to Dorothy's words, Naifnis's heart couldn't help but stir. She hadn't expected that she actually held such importance within Rose Cross. To think that a Chalk was eliminated for her promotion ritual... she seemed to be just a Black Earth newcomer, was she worth so much attention? Could it be that she was on Rose Cross's key cultivation list or something?
Suddenly realizing that she might be a focus of attention for the higher-ups of Rose Cross, Naifnis couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. At this moment, Dorothy took another sip of coffee and then spoke to Naifnis.
"By the way, besides persuading your butler to cooperate with the work, did you also ask him how exactly he provoked that group of bandits? What was their purpose in kidnapping him? It wasn't your family's scepter, was it?"
"It was the Golden scepter. I asked Grandpa Nu Nuo Te, and he said that the group of treasure robbers who kidnapped him were driven here by that ancient undead. They seemed to have encountered that ancient undead while robbing a tomb in North Africa, and then they were cursed by it. That undead used the curse to threaten them to come to Tivian to steal my family's scepter. Since they couldn't find the secret chamber, they kidnapped Grandpa Nu Nuo Te."
"It really is related to that guy?"
Naifnis answered Dorothy directly. Her words confirmed Dorothy's previous guess. This group was indeed sent by that Tomb Sand Prince, but they were not the Tomb Sand Prince's subordinates, but were forced to come by the Tomb Sand Prince using a curse.
'That undead prince knows the specific location of Neff's family... It seems he sensed it when the Golden scepter's power weakened last time and his curse took effect. His curse can even pinpoint the location of the cursed person, it is indeed very powerful.'
'And even knowing the specific location of Neff's family, that undead prince did not choose to come in person to claim lives, but instead, after a long time, relied on cursing a group of treasure robbers to force them to work for him. From this, it seems that the undead prince either fears the Light Archbishop's vision of rank, or he himself is unable to travel far for some reason and can only let others do things for him.'
'Among these... the possibility that the undead prince is not free is greater, because if he simply feared the vision of rank, he would only be afraid to enter large cities where a Light Archbishop is present. He could very well develop his own power in other places and then send more loyal subordinates to find Boyle, instead of relying on a curse to force a few treasure robbers to travel thousands of miles to get here.'
'So... the current state of that undead prince should also be problematic. He should lack a certain degree of freedom, and it is even difficult for him to build his own power.'
Dorothy thought this in her mind. In her opinion, it would be completely possible for that undead prince to form a powerful extraordinary society with his strength. If he had his own power and several Chalk subordinates, he could send all these forces to Tivian at the first moment he discovered Boyle, making the greatest effort to seize the Golden scepter.
But he did not do that. After confirming the location of Boyle, that undead prince waited for several months before using a curse to force a group of treasure robbers to steal the scepter for him. This clearly indicates that the undead prince does not have the ability to form a society and can only rely on cursing some treasure robbers who mistakenly entered his domain to do things for him.
Dorothy estimated that the range of activity of this undead prince is currently very limited. Not only can he not leave North Africa, he might even be confined to some ruins and tombs, far from civilized areas. The only living people he might see normally are unlucky treasure robbers who mistakenly enter his area of activity, such as Azamu of Hai Sha Society, or the guys who kidnapped Nu Nuo Te.
After confirming this point in her heart, Dorothy couldn't help but feel a wave of relief. After all, she was also going to North Africa soon, and she didn't want to encounter such a formidable figure there. Now, after confirming that the other party's activity range is very small, she instantly felt much more relaxed. As long as she wasn't as unlucky as Azamu's group, and the ruins she entered didn't happen to be that undead prince's area of activity, then she wouldn't see him.
Thinking this in her heart, Dorothy took another satisfied sip of coffee. At this moment, Naifnis continued to speak to Dorothy.
"By the way, Miss Dorothy, there's one more thing. Grandpa Nu Nuo Te agreed to give me the rest of Grandpa's notes. He said that at this point, it's not good for him to interfere with my extraordinary path anymore. Unlike before, he now hopes that I can improve as quickly as possible."
"He actually agreed to give you the remaining notes? Oh... that's good. With these upcoming notes, you can focus on preparing for advancement."
Listening to Naifnis's words, Dorothy couldn't help but reply with a smile. She was not surprised by the change in Nu Nuo Te's attitude, or rather, she had already anticipated it.
Originally, Nu Nuo Te was unwilling to give Davis's subsequent notes to Naifnis because he was scared by Neff's promotion speed and feared that something would go wrong with such rapid promotion, so he didn't give her the items. This mindset was essentially a distrust of Rose Cross.
Nu Nuo Te was worried about the rapid promotion method provided by Rose Cross for his Miss, so he was uncertain whether to fully support Nefelnis in practicing secret transmission within the Rose Cross system. But now that he himself had been saved by Rose Cross, this attitude had softened considerably. Coupled with the increasingly urgent threat from that Lich King, he naturally had no reason to hinder Nefelnis's progress any longer.
"Preparing for promotion to Chalk... Hmm... It seems it hasn't even been three months since I became Black Earth, and now I'm already preparing for Chalk..."
"Hey, Miss Dorothy, although I don't know much about the secret world, isn't my promotion speed a bit fast?" Tapping her chin, Nefelnis asked Miss Dorothy curiously, with a hint of excitement in her expression. Seeing her like this, Miss Dorothy responded directly.
"Fast? Is it fast? It's been three months and you're only just starting to prepare for the Chalk promotion. Many people are already Chalk by now. Don't relax, Senior Nefelnis."
"Hmm... I see."
Listening to Miss Dorothy's words, Nefelnis lowered her head slightly and said. Looking at Nefelnis's appearance, Miss Dorothy took another sip of coffee and thought to herself that given Nefelnis's personality, as long as she thought she was far superior to others and amazing enough, she would definitely relax immediately and likely return to her previous lazy state, not studying secret transmission properly. Therefore, she absolutely had to give her a sense of urgency.
After all, appropriate tension can stimulate the motivation to learn. Anyway, Nefelnis didn't know the general situation of the secret world, so whatever she said was what it was. It wasn't a bad thing to let her think the average level of the secret world was a bit higher.
...
After finishing coffee with Nefelnis, Miss Dorothy returned to her hotel. In the following days, she did not leave Adria but stayed here, continuously monitoring and keeping track of the follow-up situation on Tivian's side.
After Nu Nuo Te's injuries had initially recovered, he finally had to return to the Boyle home. Because the previous Boyle case had attracted considerable attention from the East District police, Nu Nuo Te's reappearance also had to consider the situation with the police and even the An Yin Bureau.
Therefore, Miss Dorothy asked Adele for help, having her use Corpse Puppet props to control two of the bodies of the treasure thieves. She had them act as bandits again, "tying" Nu Nuo Te into a car, and then driving around the East District at night, deliberately running into patrolling police.
Since many police officers in the East District had received instructions to pay attention to foreigners with North Africa faces, the patrol officers stopped the car driven by the Corpse Puppets for inspection. They then naturally discovered the "kidnapped" old butler. Afterwards, the two Corpse Puppet kidnappers quickly fled upon realizing their exposure, and one was shot dead by the police.
Next, it was the segment where the kidnapped butler sincerely thanked the police for their efforts in rescuing him. A relatively impactful robbery and kidnapping case was solved within just a few days, and the police in the responsible district were also very happy. This was a significant achievement.
Of course, the police in charge of this case did not forget the secret police officer who helped them solve the case with his exceptional insight. It was his accurate deduction of the old suspect's characteristics that allowed the patrol officers to identify the person and successfully solve the case. Their police chief had previously contacted the An-Yin Main Bureau and confirmed that the secret police officer who helped them solve their case was named Grego.
Prit's secret police can forcibly intervene in investigations by presenting their identity if they believe a mundane case involves the extraordinary. Grego had previously intervened in the Boyle case using this authority.
Afterwards, when Grego reported to the Main Bureau, he said that he had intervened in the investigation because he passed by the vicinity of the Boyle home while on vacation and found ashes suspected to be from a burned-out Sigil there. After Nu Nuo Te returned, the An Yin Bureau also sent a small number of people to confirm the extent of the case's involvement with the secret. Ultimately, based on Nu Nuo Te's testimony and clues from the two bodies, they determined that although this group of robbers was involved with the secret, it was not deep. Their method of crime was likely to obtain some extraordinary knowledge and Sigil by stealing collectors' antiques and selling them to merchants who specialize in collecting antiques to find extraordinary items. The An Yin Bureau had caught such criminals before.
In the eyes of the An Yin Bureau, this group of robbers must have recently flowed into Prit from abroad to commit crimes, and the Boyle home was the first collector they targeted. In Nu Nuo Te's testimony, he stated that he was originally supposed to be killed by these robbers, but he had the quick wit to say that he knew the locations of more collections, which caused the robbers to spare him and instead kidnap him, until he was rescued not long ago.
In Nu Nuo Te's testimony, the Boyle home had no connection with the secret; they were just targeted by this group because their ancestors liked collecting antiques. And the An Yin Bureau people naturally didn't fully believe Nu Nuo Te's words; they conducted extraordinary detection on the Boyle home and Nu Nuo Te. In the Boyle mansion, they found no trace of the extraordinary. And after Nu Nuo Te had all items removed from his body and was subjected to Hui Jian Lamp illumination, he was also confirmed as an ordinary person by the An Yin Bureau.
After the examination, they were convinced that the Boyle home had no connection with the extraordinary, but was just coincidentally targeted by this group of robbers who wanted to find extraordinary items from ordinary antiques.
The secret hidden within the Boyle mansion was meticulously designed by Davis. Even A Tiff, a Chalk-level treasure thief with years of experience, couldn't find it, and the few highest Black Earth-level dispatchers from the An Yin Bureau naturally couldn't find it either. As for Nu Nuo Te, Miss Dorothy helped him so he avoided the Hui Jian Lamp's illumination. Nu Nuo Te had drawn the puppet mark under his tongue beforehand, and then Miss Dorothy transmitted the effect of the ring of concealment to Nu Nuo Te with spirits silk, allowing him to not be exposed by the Hui Jian Lamp without carrying any items.
After classifying the Boyle robbery case, the Boyle home was not overly suspected, and Grego was commended and credited for solving the case and exposing a criminal group that had come to Tivian with a slight connection to the extraordinary. Grego certainly accepted this merit gladly, and what made him happier than the merit was the spoils of war from Adele's side.
After defeating A Tiff, most of the spoils of war, except for the soul-hiding bone fragments, were given to Grego. This included a small amount of storage items of Stone, Light, and Shadow. A small number of Sigil such as spirit expulsion, spirit sealing, ground listening, ground trapping, and figure. Some strange treasure hunting tools. Several bottles of potent poison. Several hundred pounds in cash.
Among this series of spoils of war, what Grego was most interested in and most intricate was A Tiff's hidden dart mechanism. After carefully studying the small, long box mechanism that could be equipped under the arm and concealed by sleeves, he found that this thing could actually transform.
This mechanism box was some kind of extraordinary item. Although it looked very small, the things stuffed inside were unexpectedly numerous, seemingly adopting a manufacturing process similar to that of a magic box.
Not only could this mechanism box store and shoot many hidden darts, but it could also eject a sleeve sword over an inch long, which could be used for close combat. In addition to the sleeve sword and hidden darts, it even contained a grappling hook, which could be used to hook onto objects to facilitate climbing for the user. This was a multi-functional mechanism box.