Lu Yuan snapped back to reality, stumbling backward. His waist hit a wooden cabinet with a dull thud.
He bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for air.
Cold sweat dripped from his forehead to the stone floor.
A flurry of fragments swirled in his mind.
Residual perceptions from the worm, Laurina's voice, the colors of the Sea of Knowledge.
【Sanity: -10... 65/120】
【Forbidden Lore: Knowledge Seeker: +2.5... 25.9/100】
【Pharmacology: +1... 34.4/50】
【New Knowledge Entry Unlocked: Knowledge Worm Pathway (Basic)】
【Warning: Your existence has drawn the gaze of a certain entity...】
Lu Yuan stared at that last line for two seconds.
There was no time to dwell on it.
He forced his breathing to steady, adjusting his state to ensure no one would spot any flaws when he left.
After a brief adjustment, Lu Yuan restored the laboratory's cabinet doors and other areas as closely as possible to their original state.
Once he was certain he had left no traces, Lu Yuan turned toward the door.
Outside the window was the night sky.
The faint glow of the wall runes remained as it was when he arrived; the distance was quiet.
The laboratory had returned to its original state.
Empty cabinets, empty walls, empty windowsill.
The residual aura of the Sea of Knowledge on the small table had completely dissipated, drained by his Knowledge Seeker ability. Only a thin layer of dust remained on the tabletop.
Just as Lu Yuan's hand touched the doorframe...
A vibration suddenly came from the floorboards beneath his feet.
It was faint.
So faint that if the entire building hadn't been in the absolute silence of the deep night, he wouldn't have noticed it at all.
Lu Yuan's footsteps paused.
Then the vibration quickened.
Streaks of color simultaneously bled from the glass along the corridor, brightly illuminating the previously dim night sky.
Lu Yuan turned to look out the window.
It was the main tower.
The nearly extinguished alchemical patterns on the surface of the main tower...
At that moment, they all lit up at once.
The patterns, which should have flowed slowly, were now flashing at an extreme speed.
Eerie blue light raced up and down the lines in complete chaos. Some lights even flowed in reverse, colliding head-on with adjacent lines.
The inscription system was being struck by something from the inside.
The flashing lasted for about five or six seconds.
Then, the Third Tower reacted. The dim alchemical patterns on its walls flickered several times, the weak eerie blue light flashing twice as if affected by the fluctuations of the main tower.
In the distance, similar glimmers could be seen jumping on the silhouettes of the First Tower and Second Tower.
The entire Polymath Tower seemed to have been triggered. The pressure permeating the air suddenly increased exponentially.
Lu Yuan froze, then everything gradually returned to tranquility.
The patterns on the main tower returned to their previous dimness, flashing occasionally just as they had when he arrived.
It was as if nothing had happened.
But Lu Yuan knew what had occurred.
Greyish-white text emerged.
【You have drawn His attention. Sanity check in progress... Check successful. You are unaffected.】
【Your resistance has offended Him. Sanity check in progress... Check successful. You are unaffected.】
【...】
Lu Yuan looked at the string of greyish-white text.
Cold sweat broke out on his back.
“What's going on? Have I been targeted by something inside the main tower?”
“But is He this weak? No, the previous prompt said it's recovering. The dual seal of the Polymath Tower and the Bronze City must be suppressing it. I need to leave quickly.”
Lu Yuan made a swift judgment. This was, after all, his first time truly resisting the gaze of a forbidden existence.
Just as Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze and prepared to leave.
The chaotic inscriptions tore open a certain concealment.
In the instant that rift opened.
Lu Yuan saw it.
Above the very tip of the main tower.
There was a mass of something.
It wasn't physical; it was an aura.
The aura of the Sea of Knowledge.
Extremely dense.
Colors churned—dark gold, eerie blue, and deep purple—the three colors tangled together, rotating slowly.
【Sanity: -5... 60/120】
Compared to this mass, the residue Lu Yuan had sensed on the small table earlier was like a single drop of water compared to a river.
Whatever was stored inside the main tower had definitely flowed out from the Sea of Knowledge.
In the next moment, the inscriptions restored themselves.
The scene vanished instantly, as if someone had drawn a curtain.
Night reclaimed the sky.
Afterimages of the churning colors lingered in Lu Yuan's vision, taking several seconds to fade completely.
At that moment, the small silver badge at Lu Yuan's waist vibrated.
Then its temperature spiked, going from warm to burning hot, detectable even through his robes.
Agnes's signal.
Time was up.
Lu Yuan's thoughts were instantly pulled back to reality.
He had stayed in the laboratory for too long.
There was no time to think.
Lu Yuan pulled a bottle of perfect Sanity potion from his left pocket, uncorked it, and tilted his head back to down it.
As the liquid hit his throat, a familiar coolness spread through his body.
【Sanity: +10... 70/120】
Ten points recovered.
Stashing the empty bottle back in his pocket, Lu Yuan hurried out of the laboratory and stepped onto the stairs.
The stairs looked the same as before, with only a sliver of faint light from the wall runes leaking through the window.
But one thing had changed.
A faint sound was coming from inside the nearby wall.
It was the sound of some liquid continuously flowing.
After a brief hesitation, Lu Yuan approached the wall and pressed his hand against it.
The copper pipes were slightly warm. Someone was conducting an experiment in the middle of the night.
But could the people in the Polymath Tower not perceive this?
Was it redundant?
Lu Yuan couldn't quite figure it out. Without further delay, he quickly gathered his focus and pulled his hood low.
Third-floor corner.
Lu Yuan stood in the shadows of the corridor corner.
He waited for Agnes to arrive, as they had previously agreed.
About two minutes later.
Footsteps approached from a distance.
Agnes returned from the other end of the stairs with the three nuns and the escort.
The timing was tight.
They arrived almost as soon as Lu Yuan had settled in.
The escort walked at the rear, his notebook closed, an expression of relief on his face as if he were finally finishing his shift.
“Your Church is as reliable as ever. There's no need for me to explain the remaining procedures. Please.”
The Polymath Tower escort signaled for Agnes to hurry up.
Agnes ignored him, walking in the middle of the group.
When she passed Lu Yuan, her footsteps paused slightly.
Her fingertip peeked out from her sleeve and tapped Lu Yuan's hand lightly.
A faint warmth spread from the point of contact, so subtle it felt like a trick of sunlight on the skin.
Then she withdrew her hand.
Her expression remained unchanged as she continued walking.
The escort saw nothing.
Lu Yuan, however, could feel the warmth spreading from the back of his hand to his arm, then along his torso to his entire body, finally settling on the surface of his skin.
Greyish-white text appeared at the same time.
【You have received a weak Angel's Blessing... You will carry a holy light effect for the next duration... The duration is short...】
Lu Yuan was puzzled, but he knew he had to follow Agnes's arrangements as agreed.
Without overthinking, Lu Yuan silently stepped out of the shadows and took the last position in the line.
The five greyish-white figures were reunited.
The group returned the way they had come.
While crossing the corridor between the Second Tower and the First Tower, Lu Yuan noticed that the stone slabs beneath his feet had a warmth they hadn't had before.
Clearly, those were the underground pipes in operation.
It seemed the Polymath Tower operated on quite a large scale at night.
The group passed through the First Tower and entered the outer corridor of the main tower.
Ahead lay the main tower area.
But before reaching the bronze gate, the escort stopped at a side archway at the end of the corridor.
“Routine procedure.”
The escort gestured toward the archway with his chin, his tone perfunctory.
“During the tower's lockdown, all personnel entering or leaving must undergo an inspection before departure. Go through it yourselves.”
Behind the archway was a very short passage.
At the end of the passage was a copper disc embedded in the stone wall, about a meter in diameter, its surface covered in intricate inscriptions.
The inscriptions were dim, but the precision of the design was evident. The lines were finer and more densely packed than those on the purification nodes.
Lu Yuan glanced at the disc.
【Detection Target: Special detection inscription, capable of detecting things of the same origin...】
Seeing this, Lu Yuan understood.
Agnes had given him the blessing just now to pass this test. However, the items he took from Laurina's laboratory probably wouldn't be detected by something like this, right?
The three nuns walked toward the passage one by one.
When the first nun reached a point about half a meter from the disc, the inscriptions on its surface lit up for a moment.
An eerie blue glimmer converged from the edge of the disc toward the center, and then a very faint light flashed over the nun.
The light vanished in an instant.
The nun passed through.
The Polymath Tower escort in the distance didn't even blink.
The second one. Same procedure.
The third one.
A faint light flashed. Passed.
Agnes was the fourth to go.
The disc lit up.
The light on her was slightly brighter than on the previous three nuns.
Passed.
It was Lu Yuan's turn.
He slowed his pace and entered the short passage.
The disc was right before him.
The inscriptions lit up.
The moment the eerie blue light converged from the edges toward the center, Lu Yuan felt the invisible layer of warmth on his body being triggered.
That faint blessing activated, releasing a glimmer of light identical to the ones from the nuns before him.
The light swept over Lu Yuan's entire body and vanished instantly.
The inscriptions on the disc returned to their dim state.
Seeing all five pass, the escort nodded without saying anything further.
The group continued forward.
After passing the inspection point, the gate to leave was just ahead.
Lu Yuan kept his eyes lowered.
Just as they were about to leave the Polymath Tower.
【You have drawn His attention. Sanity check in progress... Check fail... successful. You are unaffected.】
【Sanity: -1... 69/120】
Lu Yuan stared at the prompt but said nothing.
He would have to visit the Polymath Tower as little as possible from now on.
As the Church personnel left the Polymath Tower, the escort gave one last instruction.
“Send the purification records over tomorrow.”
“Understood,” Agnes replied in her usual tone, then led the group away without looking back.
The five greyish-white figures left the Polymath Tower along the same route they had arrived.
The square was deserted.
The warm yellow light from the gas lamps on the distant streets seeped through, a world apart from the eerie blue inside the Polymath Tower.
No one in the group spoke.
Their footsteps were rhythmic and quiet.
Their robes swayed gently in the night wind.
When they reached the entrance of an alley on the east side of the square, Agnes stopped.
She turned to look at the three nuns behind her.
“You three go back first. I have other matters to attend to.”
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