Chapter 81: It Was You Who Brought the Blood Saint Here!

Watching the battered Swordfish Dragon hastily flee into the mist, Shivlyn found herself deep in thought.

This was the fourth Knowledge Beast she'd encountered tonight.

Normally, during a night's exploration in the Sea of Knowledge, she would only stumble upon one noteworthy event. Most nights were spent wandering aimlessly—after all, the sea was vast, and the fog was dense. Encounters were a matter of fate, often requiring mutual desperation to cross paths.

But tonight was different. Four encounters in a row.

Shivlyn couldn't help but wonder if this was some sort of mating season for Knowledge Beasts, drawing them together to breed.

Yet deep down, she knew the real reason for her successive encounters.

Transforming back into her bat form, she waited in the same spot for a moment. Sure enough, the familiar "plop" sounded again!

"There it is!"

Hearing this noise for the fifth time, Shivlyn could no longer dismiss it as a hallucination.

She was almost certain that if she flew in the direction of the sound, she would stumble upon another Knowledge Beast—just as she had the previous four times.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Books like A Century in the Virtual Realm, Poor Sorcerer, Rich Sorcerer, and A Thousand Miles at Sea never mentioned such phenomena.

The closest comparison she could recall was the "Mermaid's Call": a myth about a Knowledge Beast called the Lantern Dragon. The Lantern Dragon itself was hideous, but its tentacles took the form of enchanting mermaids, their voices sweet and alluring. Sorcerers who couldn't resist their charm would approach, only to be devoured whole by the lurking Lantern Dragon.

But Shivlyn hadn't seen any mermaids, nor had she fallen into any traps. It was as though the "plop" was purely a guide leading her to nearby Knowledge Beasts.

She even considered the possibility that another sorcerer was playing tricks on her. However, upon reflection, that seemed impossible—

Her Ultrasonic Detection was among the finest scouting miracles available to a White-Silver sorcerer, yet its range extended only three meters in this dense fog. Anything beyond that was blocked entirely.

And the sea she had traversed while chasing the Swordfish Dragon earlier spanned a good hundred meters.

No scouting miracle, not even from the Divination or Fate disciplines, could pierce such a distance. Certainly not at her current rank.

Moreover, sorcerers who ascended to Two-Winged Gold or Three-Winged Sanctum could no longer return to the Sea of Knowledge. The path of a sorcerer was a one-way journey—once you left, there was no coming back. The Sea of Knowledge belonged solely to One-Winged White-Silver Sorcerers.

Even if someone could watch her from a hundred meters away, why bother leading her to Knowledge Beasts? Such a powerful sorcerer could simply overpower her outright, robbing her blind.

This was the Virtual Realm. Identities were easily concealed, and no one could track an assailant back to the real world.

For this reason, Shivlyn was convinced she had triggered some hidden mechanism within the Virtual Realm itself, causing it to guide her to the nearest Knowledge Beasts.

Like the Vortex, the Virtual Realm was riddled with inexplicable phenomena. Some occurred randomly, while others required specific triggers.

For example, the fabled Great Road of the Sea, though its activation conditions remained a mystery, seemed more likely to appear when Earth sorcerers were involved. It was hypothesized that their actions altered the Virtual Realm, causing the Great Road to manifest.

Shivlyn recalled a peculiar book, Tales of Illusions, which cataloged unverified Virtual Realm phenomena:

For instance, if you tossed a One-Winged sorcery spirit into the sea, a veiled sorcerer might appear, offering you a choice of a Two-Winged spirit, a Three-Winged spirit, or nothing. If you truthfully admitted none were yours, you would be rewarded.

Most of the tales in the book were absurd, fantastical, or impossibly intricate.

Still, Shivlyn tried to recall if she had inadvertently done something to trigger this strange mechanism.

"Was it because I wished to encounter Knowledge Beasts?"

She began muttering to herself:

"I wish to find a treasure island… I wish to find a vortex… I wish to find the Golden Fish… I wish to eat truffle pasta… I wish to condense seven or eight more droplets of Colorless Origin Blood..."

But no matter how fervently she prayed, the Virtual Realm seemed deaf to her new wishes. Instead, the distant wails of the Swordfish Dragon reached her ears again, faint but unmistakable.

This wasn't the first time.

The previous Knowledge Beasts she had injured had similarly cried out after fleeing into the fog.

"Could my Blood Reversal miracle really be so potent that it leaves them crying all night, unable to heal?"

If Shivlyn had flown just ten meters to her right, she would have seen the Swordfish Dragon being mercilessly pummeled by a pair of interlopers.

The dragon glared at the two of them, its eyes blazing with fury, as though to say:

"So it was you bastards who brought the Blood Saint here!"

With a final, bitter wail—an anguished cry of "tigers falling to dogs"—the Swordfish Dragon erupted into a pile of loot before vanishing.

Having thoroughly looted the spoils, a small boat silently tailed Shivlyn along her flight path, concealed by the dense fog.

Blood Moon Nation, Fractured Lake Prison

Shivlyn awoke in her bunk, stretching languidly as her joints crackled. Blood Saints were prone to physical stiffness due to their sluggish blood flow.

To endure extended Virtual Realm exploration, Blood Saints often lay in coffins to minimize oxygen exposure, preventing their bodies from stiffening completely.

After soaking in a warm bath and tending to her hygiene, Shivlyn dressed in a loose black robe and donned a raven mask before heading to the healers' dining hall.

"Good morning, ma'am."

A passing healer stopped to bow, but Shivlyn quickly waved him off.

"I've told you, just treat me like an ordinary healer. A simple greeting will do. This isn't the outside world."

"But—"

"If the research institute hears about this, my mentor will lecture me endlessly. You're Healer #137, right? If I get scolded, I'll be sure to remember your number."

The flustered healer stammered, bowing again. "Apologies, ma'am, I only meant—"

"Hmm? Still using formalities?"

"…Good morning, Healer #222."