The confinement did not last very long.
After about half an hour, the iron door was opened again.
It was not Hans who walked in, but a woman.
She looked to be in her thirties, dressed in a sharp bartender's outfit, fiddling with a lighter in her hand, her red curly hair tied back casually. Her gaze was lazy, but Lu Yuan smelled a dangerous scent on her—the "scent" that came from long-term dealings with the uncanny.
"I'm the person in charge here. You can call me Mary."
The woman pulled out a chair and sat down, tossing a file onto the table. The lighter clicked open and shut at her fingertips, making a crisp sound. "Lu Yuan, male, Easterner. Claims to be a friend of Dr. Laisen, entrusted to take over the clinic. Arrived at Gelimu Port only the day before yesterday."
She lifted her eyelids, her green eyes staring intently at Lu Yuan. "Your resume is clean, clean as a blank sheet of paper. But I'm curious. How did an outsider who just arrived manage to keep his composure in the face of a Deep Mutation, and even fight back?"
The interrogation had begun.
Lu Yuan adjusted his sitting posture, making himself look neither nervous nor arrogant.
"When Laisen wrote to me, he mentioned a 'strange illness' here," Lu Yuan said, half-truthfully. "As a doctor, although I hadn't seen it, I had made some mental preparations. As for the fight... that was survival instinct."
"Survival instinct?"
Mary sneered. "The survival instinct of an ordinary person is to scream and wait for death, or to run away with everything they've got. It isn't to pick up a scalpel and slice an individual's neck."
She leaned forward, her presence suddenly becoming much more oppressive. "Let's be blunt. When you faced that thing, did you hear any voices? Or see any hallucinations?"
This was a test of Sanity.
Lu Yuan knew it very well. If he said yes, it meant he had been contaminated, and what awaited him would likely be a bullet.
"No."
Lu Yuan answered categorically. "Aside from being very ugly and very smelly, that thing was just disgusting."
Mary stared into his eyes for a full ten seconds, as if trying to find a trace of a lie in his pupils.
But Lu Yuan's gaze was clear and calm.
【Sanity: 15/48】
His Sanity really hadn't dropped; he wasn't lying, just telling the truth.
"Very well."
Mary withdrew her gaze, her tone softening slightly. "It seems your mental resistance is very high. In Gelimu Port, that is a rare talent."
Next, she asked several questions regarding medicinal herbology and anatomy.
This was not difficult for Lu Yuan, who possessed the 【Pharmacology】 experience bar. He combined his previous practical experience, and though his wording wasn't flamboyant, it was precise and logical, making Mary nod repeatedly.
"Alright, it seems you really are a doctor."
Mary closed the file. "The test is over. You can go."
Lu Yuan stood up but did not move immediately.
"Is that it?" he asked.
"What else? You want me to buy you a drink?" Mary raised an eyebrow.
"I consider myself to have helped you solve a bit of trouble and provided first-hand data on 'mutation'," Lu Yuan said, his tone calm. "And right now, I am facing a life-threatening danger."
"What do you mean?"
"Brent's uncle mutated at home. This means the source of pollution is in the harbor, and it's likely spreading." Lu Yuan paused, throwing out his bargaining chip. "Laisen complained to me in his letters that many doctors have been 'disappearing' or 'having accidents' mysteriously lately. He was very scared back then. Most importantly, Laisen really is dead. Don't tell me you Nightwatchers don't know that."
"So someone is targeting doctors."
Lu Yuan looked Mary directly in the eye. "Or rather, someone is targeting those who can discover 'abnormalities'. Now that Laisen is dead and I've taken over the clinic, will I be next?"
The air in the room instantly froze.
The laziness on Mary's face vanished. She re-evaluated the young Easterner before her, a trace of gravity appearing in her eyes.
"You are very smart and very perceptive."
Mary fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly. "It's true, the doctors in Gelimu Port have been dying a bit fast lately. Not just doctors, but scholars, alchemists... anyone who has come into contact with 'knowledge' is having accidents."
"Because we are shorthanded."
At that moment, Hans pushed the door open and walked in. He had clearly been listening outside.
"The Nightwatchers are powerful, but currently we can only provide swords, not enough brains," Hans said bluntly. "We need doctors, logistics personnel who can handle pollution and analyze pathology. But those famous big-name doctors have either been winnowed away by the church or have long since run away in fear."
He walked to the table, leaning his hands on the surface as he looked at Lu Yuan.
"Lu Yuan, since you've laid it all out, I won't hide anything either. Are you interested in joining the Nightwatchers?"
"Join you?" Lu Yuan frowned. "Sorry, I just want to stay alive. I don't want to go hand-to-hand with those monsters."
"No, as an 'outside consultant'."
Hans threw out a lure. "You need protection; we can provide it. You need money; we'll give you double. Most importantly..."
He lowered his voice, his tone carrying a hint of temptation:
"Don't you want to know why you can see those things? Or rather, don't you want to master the power to truly confront the uncanny?"
Lu Yuan's eyes flickered.
"Power?"
"In this world, the only way to fight monsters is to become a monster... or to transcend them."
Mary took over, her voice low:
"We call this power the 'transcendent pathways'."
"Some gain power by devouring the flesh and blood of monsters; that is the 'Mutation Pathway', low-level and disgusting."
"Some make deals with the uncanny; that is the 'Eerie Pathway', powerful but easy to go mad."
"Some are born favored by the gods; that is the 'God-chosen Pathway', though they live short lives."
"And then there are those fanatics in the church who gain power through faith in the gods; that is the 'Believer Pathway'."
At this point, Mary paused, giving Lu Yuan a deep look.
"But there is one more special, extremely mixed pathway. It requires no flesh and no faith. It only requires..."
She pointed to her head.
"Knowledge."
"By reading, researching, and analyzing the world's taboos to gain power. We call it—the 【Knowledge Pathway】."
Boom!
It was as if a bolt of lightning had flashed through Lu Yuan's mind.
【Forbidden Lore】!
The skill that gained experience just by reading forbidden books and observing monsters!
So this was the so-called 【Knowledge Pathway】?
If he had just been blindly grinding experience before, now a door to a new world was slowly opening before him.
"Knowledge equals power..." Lu Yuan murmured to himself.
But in the grey-white text prompts, there was a second half he didn't say: Knowledge also equals pollution.
"Well?" Hans watched the changing expressions on Lu Yuan's face. "Join us, and the Nightwatchers Library will be open to you. All the answers you want are there."
Lu Yuan took a deep breath.
Protection, a salary, and... a path to level up.
This was a condition he could not refuse.
"How is the salary calculated?" Lu Yuan looked up, returning to his businessman-like demeanor.
Hans and Mary looked at each other and smiled.
"A weekly salary of five imperial gold shields. Missions are extra."
"Deal."
Lu Yuan reached out and shook Hans's large, calloused hand.
【Joined faction: Nightwatchers (outside consultant)】
【Unlocked new map access: Nightwatchers Library】
【Obtained key intelligence: Transcendent Pathway System】
In his vision, the experience bar jumped happily.
Lu Yuan knew that from this moment on, he was no longer a fake doctor who could only huddle in a clinic and tremble.
He had officially stepped onto this path of no return toward the abyss—or toward godhood.
Rate on N.U.
