“What if the item breaks? What if you can't find a replacement?”
“During those five years...”
“Did his own Sanity increase at all?”
Hank opened his mouth, but no words came out.
He remembered how that senior looked later on. The item had indeed broken, and the man hadn't lasted three months after that.
Hank fell silent.
Bolen let out a sigh.
“Shallow learning won't make it grow.”
“And for deep learning...”
“Knowledge itself might be the very thing that drags you under.”
“You finish a mission and bury your head in a book, only to find yourself mutated the next morning.”
He raised his cup and took a sip.
“Now that would be a truly pathetic death.”
The room fell silent for a few seconds.
Lu Yuan spoke again.
“That's why I asked if you can feel the existence of your Sanity.”
“That place you mentioned.”
“The one you saw during the nightmare incident.”
He looked at Hank.
“I think you can start from there.”
He paused, his finger tracing an unconscious pattern on the tabletop.
“Look at it in your mind every day.”
“You don't need to do anything else. Just look.”
Hank waited for Lu Yuan to continue.
Lu Yuan didn't.
Hank was stunned for a moment.
“Just... look?”
“Just look,” Lu Yuan nodded.
“That's the path I took.”
“At first, there was nothing, but then things slowly began to appear.”
“I can't explain exactly what they are, but they are certainly useful.”
He stopped and glanced at Hank before adding one final thought.
“I can't guarantee it will work for you.”
“It was only after I had walked that path for a long time and looked back that I felt like this was how it worked.”
The room remained quiet for a while.
Lu Yuan wasn't lying to him.
The tutorial for Guard I was indeed centered around visualization.
It was just that Lu Yuan had perceived the river of Sanity deep within his mind before he had even properly begun his visualization.
Therefore, this method should theoretically be feasible.
However, he wasn't even sure himself whether it was the method that was effective or if he simply had exceptional talent.
That was why he could only say, “I can't explain it clearly.”
Because he truly couldn't.
After listening, Hank didn't say a word.
He just sat there.
There was no sudden epiphany, nor was there any grand display of gratitude.
After a long while, he nodded.
Then he stood up.
“Captain, I need to go back and really think about what you've said.”
“I'll head back and give it a try today.”
He glanced at the half-empty bottle of fruit wine on the table, hesitated for a moment, and then looked back at Lu Yuan.
“Captain, about the tavern tonight...”
“If you're free, come by for a bit.”
“I heard the bards have some pretty interesting stories to tell.”
“My treat.”
Lu Yuan gave a small smile.
“If I'm not busy tonight, I'll be there.”
Hank nodded.
He turned and gave a nod to Bolen as well. “Mr. Bolen.”
Then to Kail. “Little brother.”
He pushed the door open and left.
The door clicked shut.
Silence returned to the room.
Bolen leaned back in his chair, not speaking immediately.
After a while, the old man looked up at Lu Yuan.
His tone was level.
“That thing you talked about...”
“It's not part of the Nightwatchers system.”
“Nor is it from any school I've ever seen.”
Lu Yuan glanced at him, somewhat surprised. The things he had mentioned actually appeared within the Guard technique.
That information had been given to him by Ink, so theoretically, it was something created by someone.
If that was the case, it shouldn't be completely unknown, right?
“You've really never heard of it?”
Bolen raised his cup and drained the last drop of wine.
As he set the cup down, he spoke as if in passing.
“Indeed, I haven't. If you truly have this kind of ability...”
“It's a waste to just spend your time killing eerie entities on the front line.”
He didn't seem to dwell on the thought after saying it.
His cane tapped once against the floor.
Kail remained silent by his side.
But he had memorized every word Lu Yuan had just spoken.
Even though he didn't yet know what use these things would be for Inscription.
Only three people remained in the room.
The dwarf had not yet arrived.
Lu Yuan returned to the table and glanced out the window.
The sunlight in the Bronze City had already shifted from morning to noon. The shadows of the tiled eaves pressed against the copper wall opposite, their edges sharp and clear.
Several items were spread across the table.
Kraus's pamphlet.
The half-drunk fruit wine.
The copper whistle.
Lu Yuan estimated the time in his head. Based on his experience with Duo Hawke, the dwarf should be arriving soon.
There was no sound from outside the window.
All that was left to do was wait.
It wasn't until the afternoon that the dwarf finally arrived.
However, he still didn't enter through the door.
Lu Yuan was sitting by the window, flipping through Kraus's manual and preparing to review the details of the Amber Preservation Method once more, when he caught something moving out of the corner of his eye beneath the windowsill.
The copper drainage pipe on the outside of the window suddenly twitched.
Then, a thick, short hand reached up over the bottom edge of the window frame.
This was immediately followed by a second hand.
A small figure flipped inside from the outer wall, landing steadily on the windowsill.
It clearly wasn't Duo Hawke.
He was half a head shorter than Duo Hawke.
He had a round head, a broad nose, and a face full of wrinkles. A small, reddish-brown goatee hung from his chin, far less impressive than Duo Hawke's messy, grizzled beard.
He wore a leather vest with the sleeves cut off, revealing arms that were incredibly thick and covered in old burn scars.
A cluster of small tools jingled at his waist, even more numerous than Duo Hawke's.
Standing on the windowsill, he first took a deep breath.
His nose wrinkled.
“What's that smell?”
Then his gaze swept across the room.
It passed over the manual on the table, the copper whistle, and the half-drunk bottle of fruit wine.
It swept over Bolen sitting in his chair and Kail standing beside him.
Finally, it landed on Lu Yuan.
And stopped.
The little old man's eyes suddenly narrowed.
“Why are you so pitch black?”
Before Lu Yuan could speak, greyish-white text jumped out at the edge of his vision.
【Target Detected: Dwarf (Inscription Master)】
【Note: Seems to carry the residual aura of the Sea of Knowledge.】
Lu Yuan's expression didn't change when he saw the words “Sea of Knowledge,” but he became more alert.
The little old man hopped down from the windowsill, his feet landing with a light thud.
He stood on his tiptoes to get closer to Lu Yuan, his nose twitching again. Then he took a step back, a look of utter confusion on his face.
“Has Duo Hawke gone senile?”
His voice wasn't loud, but it was filled with disdain.
“Giving you the copper whistle? He gave the copper whistle to you?”
The little old man pointed at the whistle on the table, then at Lu Yuan, gesturing back and forth.
“This aura of yours... it's almost as bad as those bastards who dabble in the eerie. And he actually put a copper whistle in your hands? What if you scare one of our dwarf brothers to death one day?”
He grumbled and complained as he hurried from the windowsill to the table, his short legs moving remarkably fast.
Bolen watched for a long time before finally speaking.
“Are you... Grimm?”
The little old man's movements faltered.
He turned his head and saw Bolen clearly. His entire expression transformed.
His disdain turned into pure delight.
“Oh, my!”
He slapped his thigh and marched over to Bolen.
“If it isn't Bolen!”
He circled Bolen halfway, his nose twitching again.
“Rank 3? You've actually reached rank 3?”
Grimm's voice rose in pitch.
“Why didn't you tell Kurt? If I'd known you were rank 3, I would've come ages ago!”
He stopped, hands on his hips, looking up at Bolen.
“You're not here for me this time, are you? From the looks of it, you've been waiting here for a while.”
Bolen sighed but didn't respond.
Grimm didn't mind. He immediately shifted into the persona of a pushy salesman.
“How about considering a contract with us dwarves? Help us out with a few things?”
He leaned in closer, lowering his voice, though he wasn't doing a very good job of being secretive.
“Don't worry, we've definitely got more money than the Nightwatchers. Whatever you want, I've got it here. Materials, blueprints, even rubbings of ancient inscriptions—just name your price.”
Bolen clearly knew what to expect and had no intention of continuing the conversation. He simply turned his head away slowly.
He stopped looking at him.
Grimm hit a wall, but he wasn't discouraged in the least.
“Call me whenever you change your mind. That old fossil Kurt is busy up north and won't be back anytime soon. This area of the Bronze City is under my management now.”
Having said that, his gaze naturally slid toward Kail, who was standing beside Bolen's chair.
Grimm's eyes lit up.
“Oh?”
He leaned in front of Kail, looking up to inspect him. Kail was much taller than him, so he had to crane his neck to the limit to see Kail's face.
“Just entering the field?”
“Your aura is very clean. You've got a good foundation.”
His tone suddenly changed, losing its chatter and gaining a sense of seriousness.
He pulled out a palm-sized stone tablet from somewhere. His movements were so fast that Lu Yuan didn't even see where he had produced it from.
“Catch.”
He shoved the stone tablet into Kail's arms.
Kail instinctively caught it with both hands, looking completely bewildered.
Grimm waved a hand at him.
“Squat down for a second.”
Kail looked at Bolen. Bolen didn't say anything, only giving a slight nod.
Kail bent his knees and squatted down.
Only then could Grimm reach his shoulder.
A thick, short palm patted Kail's shoulder with considerable force.
“Good lad, I've got high hopes for you.”
Grimm's tone was very earnest.
“I've marked out all the directions for you on there. Go ahead and choose, don't be afraid.”
He pulled another item from his waist—a thumb-sized small flute made of copper. Its craftsmanship was finer than Lu Yuan's copper whistle.
He pressed it into Kail's hand.
“This is a flute. Keep it safe. Once you've made your choice, give it a blow. I'll be around for the next few days.”
Kail sat there in a squat, one hand clutching the stone tablet and the other holding the flute. His expression shifted from confusion to complete helplessness.
He looked up at Bolen.
Bolen's lip twitched, but he said nothing.
After finishing with Kail, Grimm stood up straight and looked around the room.
His nose wrinkled.
“Tsk.”
He clicked his tongue as his gaze circled the sparse furnishings.
An old manual on the table, a copper whistle, a half-drunk bottle of fruit wine, and a half-open toolbox in the corner.
“People actually live in this place?”
Then, his gaze locked onto the box at Bolen's waist with pinpoint accuracy.
Bolen seemed prepared for this.
The old man sighed and pulled a small bottle from a side pocket of the toolbox.
The bottle was completely transparent, filled mostly with a pale blue liquid. A layer of fine crystals floated on the surface, reflecting faint prisms of light.
The moment Grimm saw the bottle, his eyes practically glued themselves to it.
“Is that actually crystal juice?!”
Rate on N.U.
