Chapter 2332 Maneuver <TOC> Chapter 2334 Organs
Translator: SumTLMan
After Sanders departed, Angel saw Azaz idly at the bar and asked him to relay a message to Totoro back in reality.
About a quarter of an hour later, Totoro logged into the Wilderness of Dreams.
Totoro’s arrival was precisely on the second floor of the Rosewater Pavilion.
This place had been temporarily transformed into an art gallery, displaying the paintings Angel discovered in White Cloud Hamlet.
Upon seeing Angel, Totoro immediately smiled and approached him.
“Lord.”
Angel waved his hand, indicating that formalities were unnecessary, and then led Totoro to a corner sofa in the gallery.
“My lord, that painting…” Totoro began, pointing towards a painting of a path of light in front of a void altar not far away, as soon as he sat down.
Totoro had seen the image of the path of light in the void and was naturally curious about it.
“I have been to the place depicted in that painting,” Angel shared with Totoro without concealment, briefly explaining the void altar and the matter of the painter.
Others, upon hearing this, would be full of curiosity about the Magic Painter’s strand of consciousness in the painting and would inquire further about the Magic Painter. However, Totoro, not caring about the altar or the Magic Painter’s consciousness and ensuring Angel was safe, set aside these trivial matters.
“My lord, did you need me for something?”
“Yes, there is something. I discovered a strange cave in the Revelation Continent, containing a living sacrifice altar… I hope you can help me investigate it, to see if any clues can be found.”
Returning to the main topic, Angel no longer kept it brief but detailed all the information about the cave and the intelligence gathered later.
For a more intuitive understanding, Angel used illusion magic to present the various scenes of the cavern. He even perfectly recreated the chilling sense of death that filled the air.
Since Angel had requested this, Totoro took it very seriously.
He was seen walking through the illusion with a serious expression, observing every corner, including the bricks and soil on the ground, the skeletons in the small caves, and the shattered bones on the rectangular stone platform…
At each location, Totoro would ponder for a long time, seemingly contemplating something.
Finally, he stopped above the altar, quietly observing the empty crevice on it.
“This was originally a stone slab with a symbol on it, a symbol of a very special nature that cannot be replicated, remembered, or conveyed through illusions. According to Iron Armor Granny’s speculation, it might be a symbol of a force known as the ‘Steffi Soul Safe Zone’ in the Qwest World,” Angel explained the situation of the cave to Totoro, standing beside the altar: “If you need to see that symbol, I can take you to Wizard Nisi, who is currently studying this symbol.”
Angel did not explain why the symbol could not be recreated, but Nisi was able to study it, and Totoro didn’t care much about it, nodding in agreement, “Alright.”
Although Nisi was in the New City, to save time, Angel had Totoro log off once. When they logged back in, they were no longer in the art gallery but appeared outside a very cramped wooden pavilion.
“My lord!” A voice full of sunshine and vigor came from the door.
Totoro looked towards the voice and saw a youth at the pavilion door wearing a bullhorn helmet, with a sickle for his left foot, his upper body bare, unabashedly displaying his abdominal muscles.
Next to the youth was a woman dressed in black, who turned her head away upon seeing Angel and Totoro.
“Tulas, and… Mandara,” Angel nodded at them. Since Nisi had moved from Initial Heart City to the New City, Tulas, acting as a messenger, had followed; as for Mandara, where Tulas went, she would follow, so it wasn’t surprising to see them here.
Tulas waved excitedly, and although Mandara initially didn’t want to speak, after being tugged on the arm by Tulas, she reluctantly gave a greeting.
Angel didn’t mind Mandara’s behavior, and frankly, he was surprised that Mandara was willing to greet him at all.
Indeed, a naive and sweet approach is the best weapon against a naturally dark personality.
“Where is Nisi?” Skipping the introductions, Angel went straight to the point. ——Since Totoro knew Tulas, there was no need for introductions. As for Mandara, Angel didn’t know how to introduce her, so that was left aside.
“Lord Nisi is on the second floor, he hasn’t left his room for several days…”
“Take us to see him.”
Led by Tulas, they went to the second floor of the pavilion. The pavilion was small, with no distinct rooms on the second floor. Upon arriving, they saw the floor littered with various books, some stacked in piles, some scattered and open, and others just messily placed on the floor.
Behind this “sea of books,” Nisi was sitting at a desk filled with experimental tools and scrolls, engrossed in studying a stone slab at the center.
Nisi was so focused that even the sound of footsteps coming upstairs didn’t make him look up.
“Tulas, is that you? You’ve come at the right time, call Mandara up here, and have her hand me the thick-cased book sealed with black cowhide from the corner cabinet.”
Soon, Nisi saw the thick-cased book he needed beside him, which was exactly what he had asked for.
Nisi immediately took the book and began to flip through it, mumbling about the new data he had discovered on the stone slab.
After about twenty seconds, Nisi suddenly felt something was off. Usually, when he asked Mandara to bring something, she couldn’t wait to leave after doing so, but this time she was still standing by?
Could it be that his persistent efforts had finally made Mandara fall for him? Willing to abandon Tulas, that big fool, to be with him?
“Mandara, I was going to say…” Nisi started to speak with a gentle face, thinking of saying a few words, but when he saw who it was, he stopped short, and the flirtatious words he was about to say were choked back: “Oh, it’s Angel, you, how did you get here?”
Angel implied that Totoro should observe the stone slab on his own, while he raised an eyebrow and commented, “Wizard Nisi seems to be enjoying himself, unchanged by his surroundings.”
Nisi blinked and replied, “With a beauty by my side, naturally, it’s more interesting than being with a big fool who only knows how to blabber.”
While Nisi was speaking, Angel turned his head to look at Mandara behind him and noticed that her expression was unchanging, even rolling her eyes, indicating she had become completely immune to Nisi’s harassment over time.
“Next time, should I replace Tulas with a beauty to deliver the stone slab to you?” Angel suggested.
“That would be best,” Nisi responded, clearly catching the sarcasm in Angel’s voice but still shamelessly nodding in agreement.
Angel stared at Nisi for a few seconds, ultimately defeated by his thick-skinned nature, muttering to himself about how Sanders could ever become friends with him, before sitting down next to a pile of books.
Without engaging in further pointless chatter with Nisi, Angel directly stated his purpose.
Nisi, upon learning that Angel was searching for clues about the altar, showed interest, but he was more intrigued by Totoro.
Nisi, with an excited tone, said, “I had previously gone to Star Island to ask Witch Maya to use divination to determine which symbol on the slab was more useful, but Witch Maya refused… She mentioned that perhaps Totoro could help.”
“However, when I approached Totoro, he flatly refused to assist me in divination.”
As Nisi said this, he looked at Angel with a sycophantic tone, “Now that Totoro has come to us, maybe he could help me with the divination?”
Although a bit of calculation and repeated attempts would eventually lead to finding the node in the Qwest World, Nisi wouldn’t refuse a shortcut if there was one.
Angel thought for a moment and said, “I’ll ask Totoro later. If he’s willing, you can ask him.”
“Don’t, he’ll definitely not agree if I ask him,” Nisi knew Totoro’s situation well; this difficult stoic only recognized Angel, and refused anyone else’s request for divination, except for Maya’s, which wasn’t always guaranteed either.
Angel glanced at Nisi, aware of his intentions, “We’ll see later. Let’s first see if Totoro can find any clues. Maybe, we can directly find the person who set up the altar and get the coordinates for the Qwest World from them.”
Nisi muttered, “It’s not that simple… These are clearly new coordinates, different from the other three families. If the person was willing to reveal them, they would have done so already. Moreover, it’s possible that they don’t know the real coordinates themselves; they might have just received some feedback through a sacrifice.”
Despite saying this, Nisi still held back. He was indeed curious about the altar in the cave and wanted to see if Totoro’s divination abilities were as terrifying as rumored.
The air quieted down, and everyone’s gaze turned towards Totoro.
Totoro completely ignored the gazes of others, focusing all his attention on the symbols on the stone slab. Looking at the symbols, two twisted earthworms sparked Fragmented Images in Totoro’s mind.
These images had appeared more than once before; similar fragmented scenes flashed through his mind when he had seen the illusion of the cavern constructed by Angel.
Totoro didn’t understand what these images represented, but he knew they were incomplete, which is why he needed to examine the symbols on the altar, hoping to complete the picture.
Indeed, the symbols did inspire some images in his mind.
However, it seemed the picture remained incomplete.
He needed to continue observing…
The wall clock in the corner ticked away, with time slowly passing. After about half an hour, Totoro finally snapped back to reality from his deep contemplation.
Nisi was sitting at the table, directly facing Totoro, so he was the first to notice Totoro emerging from his thoughts.
“How did it go, did you find anything?” Nisi asked.
Totoro glanced at Nisi, but instead of speaking, he turned his head towards Angel, expressing some guilt: “My lord, I saw some fragmented images, but they are disjointed and incomplete.”
Angel’s eyes lit up: “No matter, even incomplete images can be useful.”
To convey through speech was ultimately lacking. To allow Totoro to present the images he saw, Angel grabbed a piece of draft paper, flipped it to the back, and constructed numerous basic illusion nodes on it.
He then handed the paper to Totoro: “Touch the paper with your mental power, and then recall the images you saw. The paper will display the content of the images. If you cannot project your mental power here, you can also touch it directly to your forehead, the effect will be the same.”
In essence, it was a simplified version of illusion projection. Due to the lack of materials, they could only display three-dimensional images on a flat surface.
However, this was sufficient.
Totoro took the paper and immediately began to manipulate the remaining illusion nodes on the paper as Angel had instructed.
As the mental power touched it, the illusion nodes moved as desired, and a fragmented image appeared on the rectangular paper.
Nisi, feeling slightly aggrieved because Totoro had ignored his question earlier, set aside his feelings of self-pity and immediately stood up and stretched his neck to look at the paper.
“This is the image I saw when I looked at one of the skeletons in the small cave,” Totoro said.
The paper displayed an image, but ninety percent of it was blank.
The only clear part of the image was of a young person, bound and struggling, sitting in a narrow cave, looking forward in terror.
In front of this young person was a figure, but the upper half was blank, and half of the lower body was also missing, only the left leg below was visible.
It was a pair of black checkered trousers and a pair of shiny leather boots.
“Although the person’s face was not visible, the reflection from the boots indicated meticulous maintenance, starkly contrasting with the ragged attire of the young figure beside them.” Nisi paused before adding, “If things are as expected, the ones being led away are the slaves you mentioned earlier, brought in here, and the owner of these boots is likely the buyer of these slaves, also one of the culprits behind the cave altar.”
The owner of the boots might have been responsible for setting up the cave altar or could just be an insignificant lackey, but undoubtedly, they were one of the culprits.
Angel remarked, “From this fragmented image, it’s hard to make out anything. However, there’s a logo on the pair of boots, which could either be the emblem of the shop where the boots were made or perhaps a family crest, worth investigating.”
Due to the severe damage to the image, the clues obtained were minimal. Totoro was aware of this and quickly moved to display a second image.
As the first fragmented image gradually faded, the illusion nodes on the parchment began to rearrange under Totoro’s manipulation, revealing a new scene.
Totoro said, “This is what I saw as I approached the altar’s staircase.”
Although the new image was slightly clearer than the previous one, about four-fifths of it was blank, with the blanks distributed irregularly. The clarity of certain sections was intermittently interrupted by these blanks, making the content even more difficult to discern.
One could barely make out the figure of someone walking up the stone steps of the altar.
This figure was incomplete, showing only a small part of the upper body. Most importantly, the figure was cloaked in a leather cape, with not even a strand of hair visible, and the cape bore no discernible marks.
From the figure’s appearance alone, virtually no information could be gleaned.
However, the fact that this figure was approaching the main altar indicated a significant role in the events, suggesting a high status among the culprits.