Elias realized a problem.
That old fellow Old Ed had a supernatural knowledge reserve that seemed highly inconsistent.
Before, when this old ghost was chatting with him and mentioned wishing-type spells, he had confidently sworn he knew absolutely nothing about them.
Yet, in the blink of an eye, as if letting something slip, he casually blurted out the 【Wish spell】.
Some of this hidden knowledge was simply not something a mere Scale Two ascetic should ever know.
Before, Elias hadn't doubted it, thinking the old man had lived for over fifty years and spent most of his life working security in a high-risk position like a keeper, so it was reasonable for him to be well-traveled and have picked up some high-level rumors.
But now that he had become a Scale Two transcendent, Elias had a profound understanding of this world's underlying logic.
The mystical knowledge of this world was locked down even tighter than the chip patent walls of his previous life.
Rogue transcendents at the bottom had absolutely no way to obtain these core secrets, let alone chat about them as easily as Old Ed did, lecturing in his head every single day.
Taking himself as an example, even though he was now Scale Two, the level of knowledge he could access in mysticism circles was still pitifully low.
Even the ceiling of all the transcendents he had met so far—the leader of the Resurrection Society, Ms. Stoneheart.
When facing him, that lady also kept certain secrets entirely to herself.
For instance, which great existence actually stood behind her.
The big shots were deathly afraid of these true names, terrified that uttering a single extra word would invite madness.
So, summing it up, the logic simply didn't hold.
No matter how gifted by nature Old Ed might have been when he was alive, he was still just a low-level lighthouse keeper.
How could he possibly have access to so many supernatural secrets?
This old man was definitely no simple Scale Two.
In fact, his true identity was now a massive question mark.
“Well?”
Crowley suddenly spoke up from the side, breaking the dead silence of the cellar.
The old captain's triangular eyes were filled with scrutiny.
Elias slowly withdrew his finger, his face looking somewhat pale.
“This... is indeed Mr. Moore.”
He sighed, his voice sounding a bit exhausted.
“Who else did you think it would be?”
Jack leaned in sharply from the side.
“Sir, did you have some other idea?”
Elias merely shook his head with a calm expression.
“I just hoped it wasn't Mr. Moore.”
He lied.
The cellar fell back into an oppressive gloom, with only Ophelia's low sobbing remaining.
Elias fell silent for a long moment.
“Miss Moore.”
Ophelia looked up at him through her tear-filled eyes.
“You can use the projection stone to record this,”
Elias said meaningfully.
“So that...”
He paused, his tone turning somewhat cold.
“...you can seek justice for your brother.”
Hearing Elias's words, Ophelia froze for a moment.
It was as if she only just remembered the stone Elias had slipped to her when they boarded the ship at Hastings Port.
Her eyes looked blank, and she seemed as if her soul had been hollowed out.
Because before coming here, she had actually maintained a nearly naive optimism about her brother's disappearance.
How she had hoped that her brother simply couldn't stand the loneliness of this island.
That he had fled this place and gone into hiding somewhere in the kingdom.
Even if he never contacted her again for the rest of his life, at least he would be alive.
Yet the brutal reality was completely contrary to her wishes.
Ryan had actually died in a dark, subterranean cellar like this.
This was something she absolutely refused to accept.
The capitalists' blood money indeed had to be paid for with one's life.
Ophelia wiped the tear tracks from her face, forcefully holding back the tears that represented weakness.
Her gaze gradually grew resolute.
She pulled the projection stone from her bag and placed it steadily on the open ground in the center of the room.
“Everyone, we need some space here.”
Elias looked around and gestured with his hands to the three men behind him.
Malcolm, Jack, and old Crowley looked at one another.
The old captain knowingly gestured for them to follow.
Understanding the situation, the three turned together and headed up the stone steps.
Only Elias and Ophelia remained in the cellar.
“Give me a hand, Miss Moore.”
Elias sighed.
The two bent down and began to tidy up and arrange the items in the cellar.
This wasn't for aesthetics, but to ensure the projection stone could clearly capture useful clues.
Elias shifted a few desiccated specimen jars, hiding items that might negatively impact a newspaper publication.
After finishing this, he clapped the dust off his hands and gestured for Ophelia to step back.
The two retreated halfway up the stairs, looking down at the projection stone sitting in the center.
Elias took a deep breath, his eyes closing slightly.
A thread of pure spirituality crossed the distance of several meters, accurately extending its spiritual tentacle toward the projection stone.
With a low hum, the projection stone was instantly activated.
Immediately after, the tiny circuits within were fully energized by his spirituality, and a pale blue light lit up from the stone's surface.
The light was like a ripple of water, rapidly spreading outward.
The pale blue glow illuminated the dust-filled air, capturing the images of the entire cellar without leaving any blind spots.
This, of course, included Ryan's terribly shriveled corpse.
The blue light flickered for about ten seconds before receding, and the stone reverted to a plain, unremarkable gray.
Elias walked down to pick up the stone and tossed it to Ophelia.
By the time they returned to the small cottage above, which reeked of whale oil, the sky outside had completely darkened.
The waves crashed against the reefs, making a rhythmic roar.
Elias sat on a wooden chair.
“Could I take a look at Ryan's log?”
He looked at Ophelia and asked out of the blue.
Because time had been tight in the cellar earlier, he had only hurriedly touched the log.
Although 【Interpretive Insight】 had answered some of his doubts, he still wanted to see what Ryan had written in his log.
Having regained her composure by now, Ophelia nodded and pulled out the notebook.
“Ryan...”
The female journalist's voice was somewhat hoarse, carrying a trace of suppressed pain.
“He must have suffered terrible mental torment here.”
She handed the log to Elias.
“Many mentions of ghostly voices appear in this log.”
“And monsters and whispers.”
“He kept writing that someone was speaking in his head.”
“I imagine his state of mind back then must have been very poor.”
Having said this, Ophelia sighed and shook her head with a self-deprecating smile.
“Of course, perhaps some of it was also real.”
“Like mermaids and the like... Didn't we also encounter similar bizarre things?”
Elias listened to Ophelia's account without replying.
His expression was very calm.
He was all too familiar with this plot.
Wasn't this a carbon copy of his own experience when he first arrived at the lighthouse?
Ryan heard a ghostly voice, the old ghost taught him supernatural knowledge, and the young man happily believed himself to be a chosen one.
With this thought in mind, he roughly flipped through the log.
Ryan's handwriting went from neat and elegant at the beginning to wild and distorted later on.
It was interspersed with a large amount of gibberish.
Suddenly, his finger stopped on a certain page in the latter half of the log.
Miraculously, the handwriting on that page had returned to being neat, as if written in a state of extreme clarity.
“And this, he wrote about some potion that could condition the body.”
Ophelia leaned in, pointing her finger at several abstract herbal drawings sketched on that page.
“He even marked where to obtain these plants and ingredients.”
“I don't understand most of what's in this log, but these few formulas look like specially prescribed folk remedies.”
“I'm not sure...”
Ophelia's voice sounded somewhat hesitant, her brow tightly knit.
Elias stared at the strange ingredient names written in charcoal on that page.
“You can try them,”
Elias looked up and winked at her, interrupting.
“They will do you good.”
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