Above a bell tower in Kanak, Atus West, the ancient former King of Adus, Rahman, was using Naifnis's body to communicate with Dorothy's Corpse Puppet. Through Rahman's words, Dorothy learned the truth behind the Royal Refining Ceremony of the Baruch Royal Family for hundreds of years.
Due to the special ability of his Extraordinary Rank, Soul Blood Knight, Rahman could bestow the power of the Crimson Tier upon his descendants through bloodline connection. To ensure the Baruch Royal Family could forever utilize his power to stabilize the country, Rahman even confined his own Rahman's Soul within the Lakheman Royal Tomb to preside over every Royal Refining Ceremony. With the Royal Refining Ceremony, successive kings of Baruk no longer needed to painstakingly find ways to advance to the Crimson Tier through normal channels; they only needed to possess the Chalk level and pass the Royal Refining Ceremony, without needing to spend vast amounts of energy and effort cultivating heirs.
Rahman's Royal Refining Ceremony, while called a trial, did not actually test the heir's aptitude as an Extraordinary, but rather their qualifications as a king. During the Royal Refining Ceremony, Rahman would conduct different trials for the heir in various aspects such as morality, knowledge, strategy, and command. As long as the trial was passed, Rahman would grant his power to the heir, and reclaim the power after the heir's death through a returning ceremony. Rahman believed that since he could provide his descendants with the power to be king, they must excel in qualities beyond power.
In the eyes of the public, Rahman ruled Adus for fifty years, and then, as the figure behind the scenes, secretly assisted the ostensible king in ruling for two hundred and fifty years. The kings of Adus during these two hundred and fifty years were referred to as the Successive Kings along with Rahman. In the Baruch Royal Family's own count of dynasties, these monarchs were counted as the first generation of kings along with Rahman, until Rahman's death four hundred years ago, when the second generation of the Baruk Dynasty officially ascended the throne.
The Royal Refining Ceremony inheritance system designed by Rahman initially worked very well. Every generation of kings he selected was a monarch with outstanding abilities. Under the rule of successive generations of high-quality monarchs, the development of ancient Adus reached its peak, and the entire country began to rapidly become wealthy, becoming a well-deserved great nation in North Wu.
However, alongside prosperity came the breeding of corruption. After King Rahman no longer directly managed Adus, various hidden dangers also emerged. Under constant court intrigues and material corruption, the quality of the direct bloodline of the Baruch Royal Family rapidly declined. Facing King Rahman's trials, each generation became more and more incapable, and each Royal Refining Ceremony required assessing more potential heirs to select a new king. During the Royal Refining Ceremony of the fourth generation king, there was even a situation where all Chalk Tier members of the Royal Family were unqualified. In desperation, they had no choice but to exceptionally allow members of the Black Earth level to participate in the trial, and after a successful candidate was found, they would concentrate resources to elevate him to Chalk before officially inheriting the power.
This phenomenon reached its peak during the reign of the sixth generation king. During the sixth Royal Refining Ceremony, the direct lineage of the Baruch Royal Family was almost completely wiped out. From Chalk to Apprentice, none of the participating heirs passed King Rahman's Rahman's Soul trial. After this situation occurred, the Court Priests and King Electors at the time all pleaded with Rahman, asking him to slightly lower the trial standards and let one person pass. However, Rahman's attitude at the time was very firm; he absolutely refused to lower the requirements and directly stated to all the Royal Family members at the time that if the direct lineage was insufficient, they should choose another branch until a qualified king was selected.
Rahman's attitude caused panic among the direct lineage of Baruch, who had controlled the inheritance of the Adus throne for nearly a hundred years and established a vast network of vested interests in Adus. They feared that once the throne slipped from their hands, the large amount of power and wealth they had accumulated over the years would be lost. Thus, in their panic, they launched a bold action.
During the sixth Royal Refining Ceremony, members of the Baruch direct lineage deceived Rahman. While Rahman's Rahman's Soul was sleeping in the Corpse Coffin, they arranged a blasphemous ritual obtained from an unknown esoteric cult society, and then, by sacrificing the blood of their kinsmen, they controlled Rahman's Rahman's Soul. King Rahman had used the power of his bloodline to secure powerful strength for his descendants' dynasty, but his descendants ultimately used the bloodline as a medium to blasphemously control King Rahman's Rahman's Soul.
Thus, King Rahman was forcibly controlled by his descendants in anger. Under duress, King Rahman acknowledged the heir who he had previously deemed unqualified. The sixth Baruch King, Lihexian, was thus crowned. From then on, each Baruch King was directly the first in line heir. King Rahman's spirit body, under the control of the blood Shackles ceremony, was forced to acknowledge one king after another whom he deemed unqualified. The entire Royal Refining Ceremony became a mere formality, and the entire Baruk Dynasty began to rapidly decline, until it was overthrown by the revolutionary coalition led by Shadi and the Savior Sect.
"To protect the descendants' dynasty with bloodline, only to be betrayed by descendants through bloodline? This can truly be considered a tragedy..."
Above the bell tower, after listening to Rahman's narration, Dorothy controlled the Corpse Puppet and sighed with emotion, to which Rahman also responded with a sigh.
"It was because I didn't trust my bloodline descendants... that I established the Royal Refining Ceremony. Facts have proven... that the changes in human hearts are far more profound than I imagined. In just six generations... such a shameful thing occurred. Perhaps it would have been best if I had not lingered in the present world back then, and returned to the Netherworld after death earlier. In that case, after Baruk decayed, the power of resistance would have found it easier to overthrow it. It was my power that allowed Baruk to decay to this day... I am truly ashamed..." Rahman said this, then turned his gaze to the spirit body of an old man floating not far away.
"Utar Shaman, on your side, is there a suitable place for a Rahman's Soul to recuperate and recover?"
Dorothy had the Corpse Puppet speak to the Old Shaman's spirit using the Spirit Seal Language. At this moment, Uta's spirit was studying the fragments of Soul Xu collected from the Lakheman Royal Tomb, which belonged to the two Wilderness Spirits that had been torn apart earlier. Upon hearing Dorothy's words, he temporarily put down his research and responded to Dorothy.
"On our land, there are many high-quality spirit fields in the forests. As long as we can get the consent of the owners there, we can rest and recuperate as we please."
Uta responded to Dorothy in this manner. The owners of the spirit fields he spoke of were, without a doubt, the Wilderness Spirits of the New World. After hearing Uta's reply, Dorothy had the Corpse Puppet look at Rahman and speak in North Wu.
"If you're looking for spirit fields suitable for soul recuperation, I have some good options here."
...
Next, Dorothy introduced the spirit fields of the New World to Rahman's soul. After listening to Dorothy, Rahman agreed with half-hearted belief.
Afterwards, Rahman's spirit body detached from Naifnis and was successfully channeled to the New World by Uta. After bidding farewell to Dorothy, Uta also returned to the Tupa Tribe's camp with the fragmented Soul Xu of the Chabakunka Wilderness Spirit. After sending all the spirits away, Dorothy also retrieved the Corpse Puppet and then left Kanak with Naifnis, heading back towards Dosa.
Since there was no rush on the return journey, Dorothy did not use the magnetic magic carpet to fly back the entire way to save Spirituality. Instead, she chose to travel slowly by camel. By the time they returned to Dosa, the sun had long since set, and it was the middle of the night in Dosa.
Upon returning to Dosa, Dorothy and Naifnis temporarily parted ways, each returning to their respective residences to rest well. After a busy and exciting day, Dorothy finally had time to sort through the gains and losses from this series of actions.
Sitting at her desk under the moonlight, Dorothy took out her magic box and began to take stock of her belongings.
First of all, it must be confirmed that Dorothy's trip to Dosa and Kanak this time resulted in considerable losses, especially in terms of Spirituality.
Firstly, in terms of the Spirituality of "Cup", when Dorothy subdued the Corpse Coffin's spy in Dosa, she used Life Devour on the Corpse Puppet, costing a total of 2 points of "Cup". When fighting Chabakunka in the underground palace of the Lakheman Royal Tomb, she also used Life Devour on herself to catch Naifnis when rushing into the ceremonial chamber, which cost another 1 point of "Cup", totaling 3 points.
Next is "Stone". In this operation, Dorothy's "Stone" can be said to have bled heavily. Due to the high-frequency use of lightning strike and magnetic abilities, Dorothy's "Stone" consumption was quite large. Firstly, when controlling the magnetic flying carpet to carry herself and Neff to the Lakheman Royal Tomb, this twenty-odd kilometer journey consumed almost 4 points of "Stone". Then, inside the underground palace of the Lakheman Royal Tomb, she maneuvered with high mobility using magnetism against Chabakunka for a long time, and also controlled bombs with magnetism to blast people, which consumed a total of 1 point of "Stone". During the fight with Chabakunka, she also used the ability to directly launch electric arcs quite a bit, which was another 3 points of "Stone". In summary, Dorothy consumed 8 points of "Stone".
In terms of "Light" and "Shadow", the "Shadow" Spirituality was unexpectedly not used additionally, while "Light" was only used for 1 point when negotiating with Rahman, for self-divination to show sincerity. Prit's request for the Old Man to hold a ceremony consumed the "enlightenment" on the Golden Scepter, costing two "Light" reserves. These two reserves were paid for by Grego himself, so Dorothy will have to reimburse him later, approximately six hundred pound.
Although Dorothy didn't use much of the "Silence" Spirituality, Neff used quite a bit, especially due to the frequent summoning of Soul Xu recently. A lot of "cat food" was used, and Naifnis's "Silence" reserves were almost depleted and urgently needed replenishment. Dorothy thought about reimbursing Neff for another eight hundred pound of "cat food" expenses later, after all, Neff had been summoning Soul Xu to do things for her recently.
As for the gains, Dorothy was a bit meager this time. Apart from obtaining the most important target, the minyin zunzhan, Dorothy's other gains were concentrated on Moen. From this member of the Corpse Coffin, besides some ordinary "Silence" talismans for exorcism and sealing spirits, Dorothy only found two new types of talismans, called Spirit Language Talismans, which can allow non-"Silence" Extraordinary users to understand and speak the language of spirits for a short time.
Besides the talismans, on Moen's person, there were only some sealed soul bone fragments that only he could control, and some Faloro cash. Dorothy calculated the exchange rate, and this amount of money was roughly equivalent to 300 pound.
In summary, Dorothy's current Spirituality situation is as follows.
17 Cup, 4 Stone, 9 Shadow, 14 Light, 26 Silence, 50 enlightenment.
After deducting the planned reimbursement costs, the cash currently remaining is around 1300 pound.
It is obvious that both in terms of cash and Spirituality reserves, Dorothy has become much poorer all of a sudden. This is mainly because in this series of operations, Dorothy did not gain any secret transmission, so her Spirituality was not replenished. In addition, the Lakheman Royal Tomb was emptied by the Savior Sect armed forces and the Corpse Coffin people before Dorothy arrived, leaving only a minyin zunzhan inside to maintain the ritual. Dorothy's original plan to excavate a batch of cultural relics to sell for money also fell through. The only valuable items left in the Lakheman Royal Tomb are probably those large and heavy Netherworld Ice Stones, which Dorothy cannot take away.
"Alas... It seems I have to find a way to replenish my Spirituality again..."
Looking at her current tight Spirituality and the little cash left, Dorothy couldn't help but sigh and say. Important Spirituality like "Stone" must be replenished above the safety line immediately. This is her main consumed auxiliary Spirituality, the source of mobility and main output, but she doesn't have much cash left.
At this time, Dorothy could only hope that Beverly would liquidate and organize Mazhar's assets faster. Her urgent task now is to monetize a part of these assets to alleviate her Spirituality crisis.
After organizing her Spirituality situation, Dorothy put away the magic box and prepared to sleep. She planned to rest well and then set off again, returning to Kankdar.
While lying in bed, Dorothy also began to recall the three Dragon Roars she had released during the day. Compared to the lightning she released, these incredibly powerful Dragon Roars, besides having extremely long cooldowns, surprisingly had no consumption whatsoever, which was truly astonishing.
'Perhaps... this is the charm of 'Earth Bone Magic'. By resonating with the earth bones, you simply issue commands to the world with words, and the world itself changes through language, without needing to apply extra energy...
'But... on the other hand, since Dragon Roars can also take effect in this world without consumption, what are the 'earth bones' of this world?'
Lost in such thoughts, Dorothy fell into a dream.
...