037: Miskatonic
After carefully reading through the manual provided by the system, Don walked up the mountain while taking out his marionette from the system space. "The optimization of the sealed artifact, besides adding the ability to 'shield some unknown ravings,' focuses more on this ring."
Regarding himself as part of the sealed core, participating in the normal operation of the entire theater...
Bypassing the negative effects inherent to sealed artifacts, regarding himself as part of it, while also not triggering resistance from the 'living' sealed artifact core—did the system carve out a piece of the sealed artifact core to make into a ring? No, it's not just that...
"System, you didn't go and 'lick' the theater core all over to threaten it, did you?"
Don looked at the ring on his pinky finger. The ring was carved with many mystical symbols, mysterious yet dangerous, similar to those symbol representations that currently float around as background after the 'Artisan' opens up—symbols that current mysticism cannot reach.
The thing behind the system has a higher status than the theater core. Being intimidated by a higher being, the theater core very likely showed weakness, thus sacrificing part of its core power to let the system make it into a ring.
Similar to what the Death pathway borrows—the 'Underworld' that can seal the negative effects of mystical items, such as above the Gray Fog. The former is a special space created by the Ancient Death God's divine kingdom, equivalent to the Ancient Death God's divine realm, located deep in the Spirit World with quite high status. The latter possesses power even stronger than a true god's status.
Among such extraordinary means with the greatest influence and considerable voice, oh, "The Hunger That Doesn't Dare to Squirm."
[How Dare You!] the system retorted loudly, [This is normal! Optimization! It's optimization!]
Is it that kind of system? No, absolutely not!
Understood. It both 'licked' back and forth with mystical knowledge while also putting the theater core in solitary confinement, forcing the theater core to compromise to avoid further knowledge contamination that would completely lose its 'vitality'; or using methods similar to 'Knowledge Persues Man,' using knowledge backflow to let the theater core know what the pecking order means.
After all, being 'alive' means it can communicate and be threatened, suffering grievances and making concessions.
Even if rendered stupid by knowledge impact, the core can still be utilized.
What a feast for the System.
Facing Don's 'loving' gaze after he instantly understood, the system: '...'
The system twisted, the system screamed, the system prepared to crawl in darkness.
[Hehehe, since you've seen through it all, I won't hide it anymore...]
"Are you serious about that laugh... read fewer novels..."
Blocking out the system's screen full of 'I'm not listening I'm not listening you're talking nonsense ahhh I'm going crazy you're ruining my reputation,' Don unconsciously turned the ring.
'It can avoid the theater's inherent marionette transformation, and also allows me to allocate resource configuration within the theater at any time.'
He walked forward while pondering, "That is to say, I can choose who participates in the 'performance' and also prevent who from becoming marionettes."
The 'Theater With Curtains That Never Draw,' if placed in the Church, would belong to Grade 0 sealed artifacts.
Highest danger level, highest priority, highest secrecy level—not to be inquired about, not to be spread, not to be described, not to be spied upon, corresponding to the status and power of Beyonders at angel level and above.
Grade 0 sealed artifacts within the Church are said to include some that could even destroy nations or the world.
And the Theater With Curtains That Never Draw—the resources it can mobilize are undoubtedly terrifying, whether it's the remaining marionette formed by countless Beyonder characteristics, or other normally controlled Beyonders.
Given enough time for this theater, with its expansion speed, it might not be long before it could envelope all of Tingen.
All the people in the entire city performing a grand play together—in this way, perhaps it wouldn't be long before the theater's very existence could satisfy the ritual requirements for Sequence 2 to Sequence 1 advancement in the Seer pathway.
The danger truly wasn't for nothing. Don sighed silently.
"So, with the 'Ring of Curator' as an extraordinary item, can the theater also be regarded as my 'marionette' for me?"
---
"What did you discover?"
Tingen City, northwest corner, beneath dilapidated and desolate tents that looked severely ravaged and falling apart.
This place was shrouded by the power of night, with all things hidden in areas invisible to ordinary people's sight.
An elderly man in black and red clerical robes, with a kind and quiet countenance yet giving an ineffable sense of dread, examined the traces left at the scene. Upon hearing the question, he merely shook his head at the white-haired but powerfully built old man beside him.
"No particular traces were left behind."
"From the testimonies of those rats we caught in the gutters, there should have been a great battle here before."
Archbishop Stavern of the Church of Storms frowned, "Tingen cannot compare to Backlund. The Church's power cannot radiate to all territories of Ruen. These damned cultists always find various loopholes to exploit."
"There must be high-sequence Beyonders lurking nearby. Perhaps they haven't gone far! We can still track them!"
For Beyonders of the Church of Storms, find—interrogate—reach conclusions was a simple three-step process.
"But they left nothing behind." The elderly man remained calm. "All traces were erased, leaving only some insignificant things that let us confirm this place indeed suffered some form of 'secret' erosion. Even divination is extremely difficult."
The intervention of high-sequence Beyonders was inevitable, but their purpose couldn't be determined, nor what happened here after those civilians and Beyonders fled.
"Regardless of what the cultists want to do, we only need to follow the divine oracle handed down by our Lord, protect the people, isolate dangers..."
The wild wind blew past, the night dispersed, and what originally had some remnants was completely razed to the ground, as if a circus had never appeared here, and no one had ever come.
---
Using his marionette to catch several wild rabbits and gather some bird eggs, Don leisurely went deeper into Mount Mut.
He took out a pendulum prepared in advance from the system warehouse, divining while confirming the location where the theater needed to unfold next.
Using mystical methods to find a suitable location, waiting for the pendulum's response, during which Don stuffed the wild game into the system warehouse, preparing to return and use the newly obtained white sugar to make some new delicacies.
When the pendulum gave Don the correct response, he took out a black box from the warehouse.
The box was square and looked quite ordinary.
Very light, also very small in size, quite convenient.
Don opened the box, revealing the exquisite and delicate puppet inside.
In an instant, invisible power emanated from within outward.
Night seemed to shroud the sky, a huge curtain silently and invisibly appeared overhead, blocking out the sun.
"What should the secret organization be called?"
Don wondered.
He tilted his head, "How about calling it Miskatonic*?"
Miskatonic University.
Does this truly exist in the real world, was it some segment of history from the past?
(Note: Miskatonic: Abbreviated as Misk U, a fictional university in the Cthulhu Mythos. The school has extremely high standards in archaeology, psychology, mysticism, medicine and other fields, with a library rich in collections (mystically speaking), and has cultivated many legendary investigators.)
(End of Chapter)