Chapter 170

Chapter 170

"Pfft."

Someone was laughing.

But on this desolate road, apart from Luo Qiao and Neko, there was no one else.

Ordinarily, one might be frightened by the laughter, but Luo Qiao had experienced voices echoing in her mind before. Her surprise subsided, and she asked inwardly with a mix of amusement and exasperation: "Lord, are you still watching?"

Then the clear, young male voice, suppressing his laughter, replied: "Hang in there, Grandma Luo Qiao."

"Um, Lord," Luo Qiao whispered tentatively in her mind, "Could you please tell the rescue team for me..."

Silence on the other end.

It seemed that Mirror Pupil wanted her to handle it herself.

The gods do not always help those who only seek their aid, but when one grows old, they naturally desire an easier life. Luo Qiao sighed inwardly, took a deep breath to gather her thoughts, and said to Neko, who still had his eyes closed: "Child, why don't you send me back?"

"What?" The hedgehog boy opened his round eyes wide, his spikier hair standing even more erect as he exclaimed in shock, "Grandma, are you planning to turn yourself in?"

Luo Qiao could see from his expression what he was imagining.

—To save others, the old lady momentarily lost her way, sacrificing herself to pray to an evil god. After everyone was saved, the old lady decided to face her execution with dignity.

If he thought so, in Neko's mind, Luo Qiao would be sainted after her death.

Unfortunately, how could a young person understand an old woman's cunning?

"There's no other way besides turning myself in," Luo Qiao said with a smile, dusting off her old-fashioned dark gray dress. "Don't worry, when I chose to pray to the evil god, I was already prepared. Whatever they decide to do with me, I can accept it."

She said this, but for Luo Qiao, the most important reason she prayed to Mirror Pupil was that the Inquisition had not announced how many of Mirror Pupil's followers they had captured or how many of his practitioners they had killed.

This was strange. As a detective, Luo Qiao had encountered evil god followers before. She knew that those who gained power from evil gods, if you truly conversed with them, were quite noticeable among people.

Their indifferent attitudes, cold-blooded methods, and selfish pursuits, even when disguised, gradually lost their humanity and revealed flaws in their disguises.

So Luo Qiao did not believe that the Inquisition, such a powerful organization capable of unlimited violence, could not find or capture Mirror Pupil's followers.

Yet, there had been no news of any captures.

"It won't be a big deal, just that I probably won't be able to leave the city anymore," Luo Qiao assessed. "But I can continue working, hiring an assistant to run errands for me."

"What are you talking about!" Neko's voice rose involuntarily. "Unless they have important information, all evil god practitioners are sentenced to death!"

As he spoke, the hedgehog boy shivered; the word "death sentence" seemed terrifying to him.

"Ordinary people who merely believe in an evil god might repent and change their faith, escaping the death penalty. But for practitioners, unless they have important information, they won't even make it to the Inquisition's prison; immediate execution is better than being burned at the stake," Neko advised, his larger ears trembling. "But, I think you... Evil god practitioners are like viruses, but... you're not..."

Seeing the child becoming increasingly stammering, Luo Qiao sighed.

She tried to persuade him: "But look, Mirror Pupil helped us call the church's rescue team..."

"The church organizes rescue teams anyway!" Neko immediately bristled. "Grandma, don't let the evil god deceive you! He's stealing the church's credit!"

No, the probability of the church sending high-level teleporters to a remote highway attack and teleportation accident so precisely, does the child really not understand?

But perhaps he had already made up his mind... When it comes to evil gods, people often do this. Prejudiced thinking isn't necessarily bad; it can help people escape cult traps.

Complicating the motives of evil gods is not conducive to ordinary citizens making judgments.

The Inquisition doesn't need more gamblers like her.

Luo Qiao understood very well, so she decided to use the old woman's trick.

She sighed and said, "I'm over sixty anyway, and I want to go back. Take me back quickly, maybe the judge will let me see my daughter one last time because I turned myself in?"

Neko hadn't expected that Luo Qiao had family, though she was lying; she had lived alone all her life.

In Neko's view, Luo Qiao's desire to turn herself in to see her family was completely understandable.

Because he understood, he looked as if he was about to cry.

"If you say so..." The hedgehog boy said with red-rimmed eyes, "But I used up all my magic bringing you here!"

***

"Pfft."

Lin laughed again.

He found that this dropout teleporter had a talent for sketch comedy.

But in this world, there was no such thing as sketch comedy; at most, there were some people who told jokes in bars and survived on free meals and drinks.

Lin felt that after crossing over, he could focus entirely on studying and working because the entertainment in this world was too scarce to tempt him.

Once he got used to studying and working, he found it hard to relax and seek entertainment.

Like now, after being briefly amused by the sounds from Luo Qiao's side, his mind returned to his research.

The mirror doppelgänger, a survival skill almost comparable to the bloodthirsty warrior's blood lock ability. Luo Qiao's creation, driven by her will to survive, far exceeded Lin's expectations.

Considering that he would know all the spells his followers knew, Lin suddenly felt he had many more lives.

During the dream battle with the Silver Moon Maiden in the suicidal narcolepsy, if he had known this move, he wouldn't have feared her at all.

So far, except for lacking a finishing move, the spells he mastered were enough to continuously control enemies until they died or kite them to death.

Except for lacking a finishing move.

... Sigh.

Lin imagined the possibilities of using the Web of Dreams to pull Hui Cui and then utilizing its offensive power, or summoning a group of Pillar Gods to dominate the world. After a moment, he reluctantly dismissed these thoughts.

One step at a time. So far, with the ability to use rituals, his true form didn't really need an ultimate skill.

On the contrary, this method of granting ordinary believers a spell was more in line with his needs, protecting his followers who were often in perilous situations.

Last time, when Bai Li used "Touch of Fear," Lin couldn't understand what magic was. Now, with Luo Qiao's "Mirror Doppelganger," he could finally see it clearly.

The reflection in the mirror is one's soul, and the reflection of objects in the mirror is the emotions people attach to them.

Attaching emotions to objects is usually an unconscious act, but once people understand that emotions have power, they can do it consciously.

So, what if one attaches their emotions to their reflection in the mirror?

What if one entrusts their desire to live and their resistance to death to their reflection?

Under the authority of Jingzhong Tong's Mirror, with this desire and resistance, one can consume a mirror surface to swap places with their reflection.

To explain what Lin did, he confused Luo Qiao's self-perception, much like how he shielded Bai Li from fear.

Humans are very intelligent creatures. Even as children, they can recognize their reflections in mirrors as themselves, while also understanding that the reflection is not the real self.

But to use the Mirror Doppelganger, one cannot think this way.

The user must confuse themselves with their reflection, treating the reflection as themselves, to allow the reflection to die in their place.

However, confusing this perception means that when the reflection dies, the person will also believe they have died and follow the same fate.

The human brain is truly remarkable; those who can effectively use the Mirror Doppelganger must acknowledge their own death while simultaneously refusing to die, allowing them to survive through the spell.

In a sense, this transcends the ordinary, but Old Lady Luo Qiao was indeed no ordinary person.

Lin had traced her past. To be honest, if time allowed, he would have loved to watch it again, treating Old Lady Luo Qiao's post-retirement career as a detective series—it was quite entertaining.

She is a high-quality believer, but Lin still doesn't know what to have her do.

Let her roam free for a while, then.

Lin thought.

Returning to the topic of granting a spell to a believer, after this experiment, he understood the essence of a half-professional.

A half-professional is not a professional. Currently, Luo Qiao has no seed of magic within her; the magic she uses for the Mirror Doppelganger comes from Lin's confusion of her self-perception.

Bai Li was probably similar. When she attacked others with the Touch of Fear, she used the magic Lin provided to shield her from fear.

Whether it was confusing self-perception or shielding fear, Lin actively maintained it over a long period.

In other words, even when Lin couldn't perceive magic, he was already using his divine magic.

So why couldn't he sense magic or pollution? This was strange.

Lin pondered this as he held Luo Qiao's slender light strand, but ultimately decided to put this question aside for now.

He had more pressing matters to attend to.

Luo Qiao's light strand took up half the quota of a professional, so he couldn't promote Snow Claws directly to professional status.

But Snow Claws was leaving with the Blue Gem City Tribunal team tomorrow. Otherwise, since Snow Claws also had a light strand, he could perform a similar operation on her, giving her a spell just like he did with Luo Qiao?

Lin explained this to Snow Claws, but halfway through, she yawned.

"I don't understand," she said.

"You weren't listening at all, were you!" Lin was annoyed.

"I'm just not good at this stuff," the clumsy werewolf girl stood in her dorm room, hands on her hips, unafraid. "Do whatever you want."

"At least it's a spell that will work on you for a long time. I thought you might want to choose it yourself," Lin said helplessly. "Never mind, I'll do it. I'll give you a spell to maintain your sanity."

A spell to keep the mind clear and enforce rationality, which Lin had already used twice on Snow Claws without any issues.

Those two times, the effects were brief, but for Snow Claws, who tended to lose control, turning it into a long-term passive effect to maintain rationality during such moments would be very suitable.

Muttering to himself, Lin fixed the spell on Snow Claws and asked, "Done. How does it feel?"

Snow Claws tried to sense it.

Her face scrunched up, her tail drooping, and she hesitated, "I don't... really feel anything?"