Inland North Ufga, Adis, the capital of Ados.
On the outskirts of Adis, inside the Temple of Inscriptions, which had become the Church of Illumination, Dorothy remained in a secret space seemingly separated from reality by a single line, consulting ancient knowledge that had been sealed for thousands of years.
At the request of Dorothy, the only "Enlightenment" visitor in thousands of years, the long-dormant library system of the Temple of Inscriptions began to work again. The characters suspended throughout the secret space constantly transformed and swam, combining into new articles before Dorothy, revealing to her the secrets of the latter half of the Path of Enlightenment... The Path of Enlightenment, the advancement ritual from Chalk to Crimson.
Enlightenment by Cup, Path of Spirit Silk, Spirit Thread Weaver — Fate Spinning Wheel.
Enlightenment by Stone, Path of Roaring Fury, Thunder Summoner — Heavenly Edict Envoy.
Enlightenment by Shadow, Path of Bewilderment, Dream Traveler — Deceptive Writer.
Enlightenment by Lamp, Path of Foresight, Prophet — Light Gazer.
Enlightenment by Body, Path of Pure Reason, Professor of Mysticism — Truth Mentor... In Dorothy's eyes, the moving characters arranged themselves into Common Script that she could understand. The five advancement rituals from Chalk to Crimson within the Path of Enlightenment were all reflected in Dorothy's eyes. Looking at the densely packed, lengthy article before her, Dorothy couldn't help but be engrossed. After roughly scanning the entire article twice, she focused her attention on the end of the article, carefully looking at the content she needed most, the advancement ritual for the Path of Pure Reason... In the advancement ritual from Chalk to Crimson for the Path of Pure Reason, from Professor of Mysticism to Truth Mentor, the Professor of Mysticism's "Enlightenment" spiritual energy, beyond its inherent spiritual energy, must be at full capacity. That is 50 points. As for the other five types of spiritual energy besides "Enlightenment," each needs to accumulate to two-fifths of its capacity, which is 20 points.
Beyond the spiritual energy requirements, a Professor of Mysticism must also acquire six ritual tools. These six tools must each be blessed by a different deity from six different domains.
These six deities can be either pure-colored or mixed-colored gods, but they must belong to six different spiritual domains. By arranging the ritual with tools blessed by six different divine boons, one can set up the ritual array for promotion to Truth Mentor. Through this array, one can enter the ranks of Crimson, truly becoming a high-level extraordinary... In the distorted temple hall, Dorothy gazed at the floating text before her, her expression falling into deep thought. After finally obtaining the promotion ritual for the Crimson Stage, various thoughts began to churn in her mind.
'Truth Mentor... Is this the name of the next stage I am to advance to? As expected, the spiritual energy requirement is unusually high.'
'50 points of Enlightenment is manageable; I already have 42 points of 'Enlightenment' accumulated, and a little more accumulation will meet the requirement. The key is the requirement of 20 points for each of the other five types of spiritual energy. So far, only 'Cup' and'Shadow' barely meet the requirement, with'Shadow' being exactly 20 points, which will drop if I use even a little. Considering'Shadow' is a commonly used spiritual energy, it can be consumed quite quickly if I'm not careful.'
'Then there are the other spiritual energies, which are currently not up to standard.'Silence' is manageable; it's not commonly used and I've already accumulated 14 points, so reading two more books will meet the standard. However, the situation with the other spiritual energies besides'Silence' is not as good. 'Lamp' and'Stone' are currently both below 10 points, and it will take a lot of effort to fill them up...'
Dorothy thought to herself as she looked at the many floating characters before her. After reviewing her spiritual energy situation, she focused her main attention on the specific requirements of the promotion ritual.
'The ritual for advancing to the Crimson Stage, like before, also requires items from six spiritual domains. Black Earth required reading six secret traditions, Chalk required six holy emblems, and now the Crimson requirement is even higher, directly demanding six tools blessed by deities...'
'Secret traditions and holy emblems were actually fine, after all, these things are not essentially too important. As long as you spend time looking for them, you can always find them. But tools blessed by deities are different. These are divine artifacts, and for every large extraordinary organization that believes in deities, they are extremely important items...'
Dorothy frowned slightly, thinking to herself, 'A God-blessed Item is an object that has been influenced by a divine blessing after a high-ranking religious leader in a secret cult church personally prayed for divine grace, and the deity bestowed a blessing.
This is different from the commonly seen Holy Emblems.
God-blessed Items are very precious artifacts in every secret cult church; although they don't reach the level of God-given Items or Holy Relics, they are still considered important.
They can't be obtained just by donating some money.'
'Six God-blessed Items from different spiritual domains... Tsk, this is not easy to get.
God-blessed Items are the kind of things that the Glorious Church would build a small cathedral just to preserve.
Ordinary methods simply won't get them...
However, the good news is that this time the requirement is not limited to pure-colored main gods, which means even if I get God-blessed Items from multicolored gods, I can still perform the ritual.
This lowers the difficulty a bit.
If he asked me to find six God-blessed Items from pure-colored main gods, that would be as hard as ascending to heaven...'
Dorothy continued to think to herself, 'The faith in pure-colored gods is already dwindling now.
If I were to try and get God-blessed Items from pure-colored gods, the difficulty would be ridiculously high.
So when I saw that the divine requirement for God-blessed Items wasn't limited to pure-colored gods, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
If the requirement is for multicolored gods, these things, though difficult to obtain, at least have known avenues to pursue.
For pure-colored gods, I probably wouldn't even know where to start.'
Six God-blessed Items, for Dorothy right now, would take a considerable amount of effort to acquire all of them, but there's good news: she already has one in her possession, the Deep Blue Heart obtained from the Abyssal Sea Cult.
That blue gem, capable of summoning the divine scion Mohoyve, is precisely a God-blessed Item blessed by the divinity of the "Cup"!
'Although I don't know if the god who blessed this Deep Blue Heart is the Mother of Cups or the Abyssal Serpent... at least it's confirmed to be a God-blessed Item, and that's enough.
One of the six challenges is solved before I even start.
This is all thanks to the Abyssal Sea Cult...'
Recalling the Deep Blue Heart still stored in her magic box, Dorothy thought to herself, 'Initially, I was annoyed about encountering the Abyssal Sea Cult during my travels, but now I just want to thank them properly.
Thank them for taking out their own God-blessed Item for a ritual, only for me to stumble upon it.'
'Six God-blessed Items, the 'Cup' is already resolved, now I need five more.
For'Stone', I can only, as always, ask Beverly if the Artisans' Guild has any God-blessed Items available for rent.
Dealing with these profiteers, as long as there's enough money, many things can be negotiated, but renting something like a God-blessed Item would surely be expensive, and my current wallet probably can't handle it.
'As for a'Shadow' God-blessed Item, I can try to find a way through the little fox.
She is a descendant of the Dream Knight faith, so she might know of some Dream Knight God-blessed Items.
If not, I'll have to find a way through the Eight-Pointed Spider-man.
The 'Light' aspect is a bit troublesome; the Church naturally has many God-blessed Items, but how to get them is the problem.
This time it's not like Holy Emblems where a donation will suffice.
Perhaps I'll have to rely on Vania to perform some internal operation.
And for the'Silence' God-blessed Item, there's no good way to acquire it right now; I can only hope to encounter the Underworld Coffin Society again and start from there...
As for the last one, 'Revelation', hmm... I wonder if I can create another one this time, just like when I created the Holy Emblems...'
Standing in the distorted hall, Dorothy pondered these thoughts.
After some twists and turns, she had finally obtained the Crimson Rank promotion ritual, giving her a clearer and more definite goal for her future actions.
Now, it was time for her to withdraw.
'Phew... Anyway, I finally got this promotion ritual.
My main goal in coming to Ados has been accomplished.
Now it's time to withdraw.'
'I wonder how Vania's negotiations are going?
If no results can be achieved, then so be it.
Declare no progress and return.
Such a major matter concerning the peace of a nation is beyond our control.
If there's truly no hope, we can't force it.
As long as everyone is safe and sound, that's good...'
Dorothy thought to herself, then she began to use the information channel, contacting Vania in the distance under the guise of praying to Akka, to check on the progress of their negotiations.
According to her calculations, it should be the halftime break after the negotiations were halfway through.
A short while later, Dorothy successfully contacted Vania, but after their brief exchange, the result she received truly surprised Dorothy.
"What, you said that Muhtar has already left?"
"Yes... that's right, Miss Dorothea.
I just received the news here too.
The people from the Savior's Advent faction are gone from the lounge.
The guard said they didn't even go to rest at the end of the first half, but left directly..."
In the palace negotiation hall, Vania, dressed in white, sat by the large round table, looking anxiously at a pile of documents.
Not far from her, the revolutionary army representatives looked stunned, and the revolutionary leader Shadi gazed solemnly out at the dark night.
"They just left? Did something happen?" Listening to Vania's reply, Dorothy asked curiously, and Vania, still in the negotiation hall, continued to answer Dorothy through internal communication.
"Actually, nothing really happened.
It's just that the previous negotiations, like the last round, had major disagreements between us and the Advent faction, with almost no room for consensus.
Mr. Shadi also remained silent, not expressing any stance...
The entire negotiation process was at a stalemate, with no progress.
Although Mr. Shadi and I were still willing to continue talking, His Excellency Muhtar's patience seemed to have run out.
They started to show some impatience before the break, their words became increasingly severe, their attitude clearly worsened, and they directly said they didn't want to continue these meaningless negotiations.
"I think they must have grown tired of these clearly unproductive negotiations, so they chose to leave midway before finishing.
I just found out about this too.
I was originally going to inform you, Miss Dorothea, but you contacted me first."
Vania explained to Dorothy in this manner.
Listening to Vania's words, Dorothy's expression sank, and she continued to ask.
"So, how long have they been gone?"
"Hmm... Our break time this round is twenty minutes.
They left immediately after the first half of the negotiation ended, without stopping, so they should have been gone for about twenty minutes..."
"Twenty minutes..."
Listening to Vania's reply, Dorothy's heart jolted.
The palace negotiation hall was not too far from here; twenty minutes by carriage would be enough to get there.
If Muhtar was coming straight back, he should be arriving soon.
Realizing that Muhtar would soon return to the Church of Radiant Light, Dorothy quickly dispersed the corpse puppets monitoring the church's surroundings and notified Nefnis, who was hidden near the church, ready to assist her, to immediately retreat to avoid the risk of being discovered.
Dorothy herself, however, couldn't leave for the time being because she hadn't yet figured out a way to exit this hidden space, but she wasn't overly panicked by this.
The hidden space of the Church of Radiant Light was created by extremely powerful ancient extraordinary forces, concealed in an unusually hidden way.
Muhtar had lived here for so long without discovering it, so there was no reason he could discover it now, and even if he could, he wouldn't be able to enter.
With a nervous heart, Dorothy searched for an exit within the rustic and distorted hidden space, and as she was searching, she heard footsteps from outside the hall.
Hearing the footsteps, Dorothy looked towards the hall's large doors, and between the two thick stone pillars of the hall, Muhtar entered with several of his attendant priests, their solemn faces bearing clear traces of suppressed anger.
Seeing Muhtar, who shared the same artistic style as the hidden space, suddenly appear, Dorothy's heart in the hall couldn't help but be startled, worried that his gaze would fix on her.
But thankfully, after entering the Church of Radiant Light, Muhtar walked straight towards the altar, kneeling before the Savior's altar without looking back to pray, seemingly completely unaware of Dorothy in the hidden, overlapping space.
After seeing this, Dorothy couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief.
'Phew... It seems that people in the real world cannot easily perceive the existence within this hidden space, but people in the hidden space can see what's happening in the real world...
Although its style is strange and its hidden size is limited to the interior of the Revelation Temple, it's quite miraculous...'
Looking at everything before her, Dorothy thought curiously to herself.
She now had a rough understanding of the initial relationship between this hidden space and the real world.
Things in the real world cannot perceive things within the hidden space, nor can they interfere, but things within the hidden space can perceive things in the real world, though they also cannot interfere.
In short, Dorothy, currently in the hidden space, was perfectly safe.
She could see and hear Muhtar, but Muhtar couldn't perceive her, and neither could interfere with the other.
Although the other party was a Crimson, under the temple's protection, Dorothy was temporarily very safe.
After confirming her complete safety, Dorothy had some other ideas.
She wondered if she could use this hidden space to gather intelligence about Muhtar.
She didn't dare to use corpse puppets to scout Muhtar, but now that she was hiding in this hidden space, and Muhtar couldn't perceive her, this was precisely the time for reconnaissance!
And so, Dorothy stood in the hall within the hidden space, silently gazing at Muhtar praying before the altar.
After several minutes of silent waiting, she finally heard Muhtar murmur.
"Lord... those heretics remain stubborn, seeking to erase all our efforts in Ados with mere words.
Shadi is ungrateful, refusing to fulfill his promises to this day, having long forgotten his vows to You.
So-called negotiations... are utterly meaningless.
If this continues, all we will gain is humiliation.
"Lord... to protect Your glory from fading again in Ados, now is the time for extraordinary measures.
This Adis must once again take up arms to truly return to Your embrace..."
In reality, Muhtar prayed piously towards the Savior's altar before him, while Dorothy, in the hidden space, stood by, listening to his words with a stunned expression.
Friendly reminder: The website is about to undergo revision, which may cause loss of reading progress.