Chapter 194

Chapter 194

The plan for the new apostle of the Silver Moon Maiden, who is a demon profession, has indeed been optimized to the best extent.

If that apostle really has the courage to enter the sealed meeting room, it wouldn't be difficult for the Court of Judgment to lift the seal and gang up on her.

"Moreover, the lighting fixtures in the meeting room will be replaced with alchemical shadowless lamps," said Director Yuanhu from the Communications Section.

Lin looked up and saw that everyone was standing on one side of the meeting room because the mechanics and alchemists were replacing the lighting fixtures inside.

Alchemical shadowless lamps ensure that there are no shadows where light falls, preventing Shadow Walkers from infiltrating.

When Lin assisted Hugo in conducting a ritual as his aide, they used a ritual hall equipped with alchemical shadowless lamps. At that time, Hui Cui told him that such an alchemical shadowless lamp cost over thirty thousand, enough to cover the surgery fees for reshaping a gene body with blue phosphorus ash.

In other words, according to Lin's own calculations, an alchemical shadowless lamp is worth about one million RMB.

Lin didn't know how much the shadowless lamps in Earth's hospitals cost, but he guessed they wouldn't be as expensive as one million.

At most, they would cost several tens of thousands; otherwise, the cost of running a hospital would be too high.

However, in this different world, magical alchemical devices are excessively expensive, and there seems to be no immediate prospect of this changing.

After all, alchemical devices can achieve what ordinary equipment cannot.

Earth's surgical shadowless lamps cannot guarantee that there are no shadows at all in the entire space—shadows still exist in the folds of clothing, under the surgeons' gowns, and beneath the operating table.

Alchemical shadowless lamps, however, ensure there are no such shadows. They fill the entire room with light magic, illuminating like water seeping into gaps. Even if someone lifts their foot just one millimeter off the ground, the alchemical shadowless lamp will illuminate the pattern on the sole of their shoe along with the floor.

This illumination does not follow physical rules.

It only needs the permission of mysticism.

Lin watched as the mechanics and alchemists finished installing the lamps, turned them on and off to check for errors, and finally returned the venue to those rehearsing.

The tables and chairs were put back in place, and Hugo took a deep breath before stepping onto the podium, almost tripping on the steps.

Lin and the two directors reached out simultaneously, but Hugo, with the agility of a Cat Person, rolled to his feet and stood behind the lectern without even a speck of dust on his suit skirt.

Lin changed his gesture from offering support to clapping.

Hugo gave her sometimes rather informal student a glare and began testing the microphone on the lectern.

As she tested the sound, Director Ming pulled out his pocket watch and said, "It's time."

Director Yuanhu nodded and turned to his subordinates, saying, "Network test!"

Several transmitters raised their hands.

Networking was managed by the Gluesmiths, not the Goldsmiths. When Lin first arrived, he was very confused, but after skipping from the first year to the second year at the School of Judgment, he understood the essence of networking—the conversion of electrical signals to optical signals and back to electrical signals—was a matter of microscopic material changes at the electronic level being transmitted to another location, causing changes in the material at that location, which was still a form of spatial synchronization.

Therefore, any spatial displacement could be attributed to the Gluesmiths.

With the headquarters of the Gluesmith Church as the network center, each meeting room came online one by one.

Once every city was successfully connected with minimal latency, the transmitters began coordinating at the headquarters of the Gluesmith Church to connect the meeting rooms in different cities spatially.

Only mystical connections were made, not real-world connections, to prevent followers of evil gods who might have infiltrated a meeting room from traveling from one city's meeting room to another.

In a sense, this required the transmitters to maintain each meeting room in a state of both separation and integration.

Hui Cui's demands were almost those of an evil client, thought Lin.

But even such demands were met by the Communications Sections of each city's Court of Judgment, with the assistance of the Gluesmith Church headquarters.

Finally, when the Sealing Department successfully secured the meeting room, the ritualists watching the Gluesmith professionals complete this grand project could only applaud.

"I believe this is foolproof!" Hugo even declared boldly, "Even if—"

Lin and Director Ming rushed forward to cover her mouth, preventing her from jinxing the conference.

Hugo also realized her mistake and, after Lin and Director Ming released her, spat a few times, like a doctor who had said, "There are no patients today."

"You're too nervous," Director Ming said to Hugo.

"Sorry, sorry," Hugo took a sip of water, as if that could undo what she had said. She leaned against the wall, her cat tail moving listlessly, and sighed, "Mainly, my dream is finally going to—"

She didn't finish her sentence, but Lin knew what she meant.

Back when Hugo took Lin as her direct student, she had shared her dream.

"One of the reasons for the high sacrifice rate among ritualists is the preparation required to initiate rituals, which makes them too slow in combat," Hugo, then the head of the Ritual Department at the School of Judgment, explained. "On the day I decided to transfer from the Court of Judgment to the school, I vowed to dedicate my life to reducing the time needed to use rituals, because... my teacher, my teacher's teacher, my classmates, seniors, juniors, and the countless students I've taught since becoming a teacher here, less than half are still alive.

"A single ritual, from drawing the ritual array to reciting the prayer, the entire process, even if shortened by just 0.1 seconds, could save hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of lives. Unfortunately, with the development of ritual studies in modern times, many ritualists believe that whether it's the prayers or the ritual symbols, we have already approached the limit of reduction.

"I don't agree with that," she stated to Lin, "I believe there is still much room for development in reduction techniques, but this is not the mainstream view."

Pausing, she continued, "Even so, do you want to learn from me?"

Lin couldn't quite remember how he had answered Hugo back then.

Anyway, now he smiled and reassured his mentor, who had helped him so much, "Don't worry, Mentor, nothing will go wrong at the conference."

If he were to completely fall to the side of the evil god afterward, then "The Miniaturization and Ultra-Miniaturization of Medium-Sized Ritual Arrays" and the current paper "On the Evolution of Modern Mystical Symbols and the Simplification of Ritual Arrays" would be his only gifts to this world.

So, whether it's the apostle of the Silver Moon Maiden or anyone else, the Mirror Pupil would not allow them to disrupt this conference.

If they dare to come, Lin swore...

He would kill one if one comes, and kill a pair if two come!

Having made up his mind, Lin turned to find Hugo and Director Ming both looking at him.

Before he could voice his confusion, the Cat Person and the Ox Person leaped toward him, one patting his back while the other grabbed his hand, both exclaiming in unison, “Quick, spit spit spit spit!”

Lin, who had inadvertently set a new flag for himself: "…"

Lin put on a stern face. "Spit."

***

"Slap."

"Slap slap slap slap slap."

In Protein City, at the Tribunal Headquarters, in the conference hall chosen as the venue for the assembly, the ritualists watching applauded for the hard work of the teleportation masters and sealers as they finished their practice.

"This setup, there’s no way anything will go wrong," one ritualist said to his colleague while clapping, "I’m even a bit worried that the Tribunal and the Gluesmith Church might be wasting too many resources on this assembly."

"You can understand it if you think of it as pre-battle drills," his colleague replied, "And did you hear about the key figure of this assembly, 'The Blind Book,' and his relationship with the Apostle from Spire City?"

"What?" The ritualist, who indeed hadn’t heard, pressed for more details.

His colleague immediately recounted the rumors about the two, and how 'The Blind Book' was implanted with the Seed of Desire.

Indeed, while Mirror Pupil had resolved the rumors in Spire City, his own rumors and scandals were not confined to just one city.

A white-haired, red-eyed Minkman girl walked out from among the group of ritualists.

She rode the downward elevator alone, her face wearing a faint smile as she looked at the transparent glass walls.

In the glass, her shadow seemed to be looking back at her.

"Hmm? Don’t worry," Yuanshen seemed to be talking to herself, "Although the sealing wasn’t part of the initial plan, it’s not a problem; in fact, it might even be beneficial to us. You just need to make your preparations."

After a moment of silence, as if listening to someone else, her smile grew brighter.

Yuanshen said, "We’ll see how things go when it comes to coordination. I absolutely won’t go to Spire City."

Why go through all the trouble to become an Apostle otherwise? Before becoming an Apostle, Yuanshen had already reached the pinnacle of the Demon profession. Money, power, beauty, and pleasure—these things hardly moved her anymore.

But the appearance of Mirror Pupil and the signs of a multi-deity war made it impossible for him to remain as relaxed as before.

Last time, the Silver Moon Maiden sacrificed nearly half of the Demons within the Aberrant Cult to achieve divine descent in the body of the Dream God Apostle Moses Guppy.

If further sacrifices were needed, it was foreseeable that the Silver Moon Maiden would sacrifice the remaining Demons, including Yuanshen.

Yuanshen didn’t want to be cannon fodder.

He, no, she, needed to make herself more valuable.

None of the Silver Moon Maiden’s previous Apostles had survived, but Yuanshen believed she wouldn’t be so careless.

The key was not to expose herself, which is why Yuanshen, believing that the spread of Mirror Pupil’s divine name was too rapid, had never uttered that name.

Now, she addressed someone unseen, "Even I won’t enter the sealed meeting room. So how to turn the tide will be entirely up to you~"

With such an irresponsible declaration, the elevator doors opened.

Yuanshen arrived at the sixth floor of Protein City, where there was an entrance and exit to the Fungal Forest.

She found a hotel near the entrance and checked in.

Everything was ready.

All that was left was to wait until tomorrow.

The next day.

On the 52nd week of New Year 991, Wednesday, at 10 AM, the Conference on Ritual Symbols and Applications convened.

***