Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Not only Lin and Hui Cui were heading to the purification room; Hugo was also going.

"Getting old, getting old," the slender lynx person walked among them, rubbing his shoulders as he went. "Ever since I transferred to the school, I haven't stayed up this late. Sir Chief Judge, I agreed to be the head of the Ceremony Department, but it's costing me my life. Can't you allocate more funds to our department?"

Hugo had always been nagging the principal at school for more funding for the ceremony program, materials, and repairs to the ritual rooms. He hadn't expected to maintain this habit even after joining the Tribunal Headquarters.

Of course, it might have something to do with her not fully accepting her new identity yet.

Lin yawned.

He chatted idly with his mentor to keep himself awake, saying, "Lynx people should be good at staying up late, right?"

"That's a stereotype!" Hugo exclaimed loudly. "According to records, lynx people actually prefer to be active at dusk and dawn. All feline anthropoids have this habit! We still need to sleep at night!"

After finishing, she added curiously, "Speaking of which, I've been wondering for a long time, why is the period around six in the morning called dawn, and the period around six in the evening called dusk?"

Indeed, why?

Lin suddenly fell silent, and Hui Cui noticed his flattened lips.

The blindfolded black-haired ritualist would occasionally fall into a sudden depression, and even Hui Cui, who had been closely watching him, sometimes found it hard to understand.

He withdrew his gaze and said, "Staying up late isn't good. Usually, the ritualists at the headquarters work during the day and have weekends off."

"But there are many rituals set up at the headquarters that require someone to watch over them in shifts." Hugo touched her face, seemingly lamenting the dark circles and bags that would soon appear.

"Just once a week," Lin reassured his mentor, despite his own dejection.

After speaking, the gloom around him dissipated somewhat.

"Even once a week is too much," Hugo sighed. Lin then pulled her into an analysis of the previous ritual, and both ritualists' moods calmed down as they delved into their professional domain.

"If the fragment is near the headquarters, we should be able to summon it through its connection. Since we couldn't summon it, it seems the fragment really burned up?" Hugo turned to look at Lin, somewhat worried. "If that's the case, what's entangled with your left eye is a curse from an evil deity. Even if this deity is dead, there is almost no one who can remove such a curse, right?"

Lin, who knew this wasn't a curse, felt a bit more confident, though he still didn't have a solution for the pain in his left eye.

I'm the one who survived a shot from the Chief Judge, he thought, an idea forming in his mind.

But doing so would likely mean a never-ending conflict with the Maiden of the Silver Moon. Seeing how she was now relentlessly pursuing the Mother of Source Blood, Lin couldn't help but feel a bit intimidated.

However, even if he didn't do it, would the Maiden of the Silver Moon let him go once she discovered him?

Among the gods whose domains overlap, the conflicts are the fiercest. And between him and the Maiden of the Silver Moon...

Thinking about some heretical ideas, Lin replied to Hugo, "Indeed, there isn't. At worst, we could directly remove the left eye and replace it with a prosthetic, like the Deputy Chief Judge did."

The Deputy Chief Judge, being a high-ranking blood knight, had a prosthetic on his right calf because his right foot had once been cursed by dozens of cultists who sacrificed their lives. Even after cutting off his right foot and regenerating a new one with flesh magic, the curse reappeared when the new foot grew back. The bishop of the Dragon of Light couldn't purify it, so he had to get a prosthetic.

However, Lin's situation was fundamentally different from the Deputy Chief Judge's, and he couldn't explain it, so he just responded to his mentor for the moment.

Hugo immediately began criticizing Lin for his excessive use of flesh sacrifices. Lin hummed and hawed for a while until they reached the purification room and finally got some peace.

"Chief Judge, are you three together?" the light mage at the registration desk asked, the light bulb above his head illuminating the area.

"Together," Hui Cui replied.

The light mage completed the registration and called another light mage. The new light mage led them into the purification room.

Upon entering, they were greeted by an overwhelming whiteness.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were not only white but also emitted a soft white glow. Bands of light, thick or thin, moved through the air, weaving into walls that divided the large purification room into smaller sections like a grid.

The light naturally produced heat, and Lin could feel the warmth even standing at the entrance.

In Spire City, an underground city, the temperature from the first to the ninth level remained relatively constant at about ten degrees Celsius, feeling slightly cold. Below the tenth level, the temperature gradually increased, with the individual villas in the wealthy areas mostly located on floors around twenty degrees Celsius, the most comfortable temperature.

The temperature in the purification room was closer to Lin's memory of a scorching summer day.

Like when El Niño pushes temperatures above forty degrees Celsius.

Additionally, the purification room was extremely dry. The ventilation system was specially designed, and the air contained very little dust besides the moisture exhaled by people, which quickly disappeared as the air was replaced.

Staying in such a room for a while would be like being stranded in the middle of Lop Nur on a hot noon without water, turning into a dried corpse within hours.

The light mage first gave each of them a bottle of holy water.

One would quickly feel thirsty in the purification room, and the holy water was used to replenish fluids.

Lin took the holy water in a metal bottle with a straw, his eyes darting to a side room.

There was a person inside.

Or rather, a monster that was once human.

Next to the monster was an IV stand, with holy water connected to its body through an IV tube.

However, the IV stand was now overturned, and the needle had been pulled out. The monster was darting around the room, trying to find a dark corner.

Its wet, gray hair was infested with maggots, its face covered in insect eggs, its arms and thighs rotten to the bone, and black bones visible through the festering holes. Black mist surrounded it, and swarms of small insects could be seen in the mist... These features indicated that it was a small plague demon formed by the corruption of the Black Sun's magic.

These small plague demons usually hide in the utility corridors between floors, where electrical wires, telephone lines, water pipes, and sewage pipes enter homes. By contaminating a single water pipe in these areas, a small plague demon can quickly cause a large-scale epidemic in the building.

Noticing Lin stopping in front of the small plague demon, Hui Cui also looked at it.

The light mage, not understanding, followed their gaze and explained because Hui Cui was present: "This is a contaminated individual sent up from below. The condition was severe, so they were directly transferred to the headquarters, but it was a bit late. We delayed for about ten days, and today he has reached the final stage of transformation into a monster. It's a pity."

He raised his hand to his smooth forehead and prayed, "May the Dragon of Light forgive his soul for not holding on until the end. May he rest in the fire of purification, poor soul."

Pollution.

Lin had once regarded it as a disaster caused by evil gods, but now, seeing it again, his feelings were mixed.

Those affected by pollution are one of the main sources of monsters. If this kind of pollution was normal and widespread before the Six Pillar Gods appeared... Lin could hardly imagine what kind of world that would be.

If the Six Pillar Gods truly changed the fact that "magic has a polluting effect," then from a human-centric perspective, they indeed have great merit.

So, the question comes to Lin.

Does his magic have a polluting effect?

What a good question. Lin doesn't even know if he has magic.

So far, no matter which of his abilities he uses—whether it's discerning someone's emotions from their reflection in a mirror, tracing the past through a mirror, or even the recently developed ability to enter dreams through a mirror—he has never felt like he is using magic.

Professionals describe the magic within them as a pool, and whenever they cast a spell, they can clearly feel the magic flowing out of the magic pool, as if an invisible hand is shaping energy and altering matter. But not Lin; every time, he just has a thought, and he can use his abilities directly.

Because of this, although Lin has always known that the magic of evil gods causes pollution, he has never thought that he could either.

Bai Li, who has been influenced by him, does possess a trace of magic, but this trace cannot grow on its own and shows no signs of polluting Bai Li.

Wait, really no signs of pollution?

Every person affected by pollution will show symptoms during the incubation period—they become cold, bloodthirsty, and gradually stop seeing those around them as their own kind...

Has Bai Li become cold? She still loves her daughter deeply, is grateful to the judge who helped her, seeks revenge on classmates who framed her, and hesitates when given study tasks. From this, she seems to have rich emotions except for a lack of fear.

But she seems to have become bloodthirsty. No, rather than being bloodthirsty, the first murder brought her immense benefits, a liberating pleasure that reshaped part of her personality, giving her a lasting urge to kill.

Bai Li instinctively wants to solve all the unstable aspects of her life through killing, but she does not have murderous thoughts toward her daughter or other ordinary people. This isn't bloodthirstiness.

Lin temporarily ruled out the possibility of Bai Li being polluted and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

However, the idea of having Bai Li take up a job must be approached with greater caution.

"Lin," Hui Cui called him, "we're over here."

The Light Mage opened an unoccupied room for them, where they would stay until they drank an entire bottle of holy water due to thirst.

Drinking all the holy water immediately upon entering and enduring the high temperature, sweat crystallizing into salt on the skin, and the burning sensation in the nose and mouth for the specified time is possible, but more uncomfortable than drinking slowly to regulate.

Lin was so exhausted that he worried he might forget to drink later, so he gulped down the water right away.

Hugo did the same, while Hui Cui, the Chief Judge, sat down first, placed the holy water aside, took out a notebook, and started writing something.

Hui Cui was writing a report about her encounter with the new monster with silver eyes.

Lin didn't know that in some time, he would see himself in the updated version of the *Monster Compendium*.

After Hui Cui sketched the full-body image of the silver-eyed monster—a blurry young man's appearance and extremely clear silver eyes—and looked up, Hugo was yawning on the other side of the purification room, while Lin had curled up, his hand shielding his eyes, and fallen asleep on the floor.

Without wearing the standard black cloak of a judge, he looked even more frail.

This round of purification was almost complete. Hugo weakly fanned himself with his hand, noticing Hui Cui looking at Lin. She said half-teasingly, half-explaining for her student, "Lin's genetic condition really affects his constitution."

Seeing the Light Mage approaching to notify them that the purification was over, Hui Cui packed up her things and walked over to Lin.

She wanted to carry Lin, but after hesitating, she used telekinesis to lift him instead.

"In this state, he won't be able to return to the rest room of the Ceremony Department," Hui Cui said to Hugo, "let your student sleep on the sofa in my office for a while. I have to report to the Grand Judge anyway."

Since the Grand Judge, who hasn't slept for days, wouldn't be sleeping either, the sofa would be empty anyway.

Hugo was also very tired. As a ritualist, she wasn't a true professional, and carrying Lin back to the Second District where the Ceremony Department was located would indeed be difficult for her alone.

"As long as he doesn't disturb your conversation with the Grand Judge," she said with relief, "I'll leave him with you, Your Honor."

***

"…That's the process of this ceremony and the accident caused by the leakage of 'Conch' power. I've finished speaking, Grand Judge."

"Hmm, you encountered a monster belonging to the Silver Moon Maiden? Those transparent tentacles are clearly Her avatar in dreams. Interesting, She needs to create monsters in dreams, and even combat-capable ones, indicating that the dream realm is constantly resisting Her. But the Conch Blower has been dead for a long time; His residual power shouldn't be able to counteract the Silver Moon Maiden."

The Grand Judge commented softly over the phone, his judgment accurate.

"Is there something else supporting the dream realm? Hmm, perhaps an old friend we haven't seen in a long time."

Pausing for a moment, the Grand Judge continued, "Hui Cui, tell me about the silver-eyed monster you encountered… Oh, is there someone else in your room?"