Whispering Verse

The dead Detective Sparrow Hamilton took over a more difficult commission about half a year ago. Baron Huntington, who lives in Tobesk City, commissioned a detective to find the missing maid. The maid had served the Baron's family for many years and resigned voluntarily a few days ago.

The baron asked his butler to invite the maid back with gifts, only to find that she had disappeared. Although the baron has a certain social status, he is not the maid's family after all, and he himself does not seem to trust the police very much, so he commissioned multiple detectives to investigate.

Detective Sparrow is not actually a famous detective, and his usual commissions are just trivial matters such as finding extramarital affairs. This time a noble came to make a commission, and it was because of the introduction of an old customer.

Sparrow Hamilton takes this matter very seriously. Even if he is just a baron, he is a big shot that ordinary citizens cannot reach. He investigated very diligently, and spent a month this spring, through various clues, to find the abandoned sanatorium located on the banks of the Auxerre River, and determined that this was the cause of the missing persons case.

"This nursing home was abandoned about thirty years ago. I was just a child at the time and heard it mentioned by my family."

Local man Bill Schneider introduced it, pointing to the building complex that was gradually becoming clearer in the distance. Although it was also hazy outside the city, one could already see the clock tower next to the main building, as well as the spire and cross-shaped decorative spire.

"At that time, the royal family instructed the Tobesk City Hall to reorganize the municipal planning to adapt to the huge foreign population and the development of the steam industry. The policy at that time was probably to relocate hospitals and other infrastructure to the inside of the city, and factories to outside the city. This place was originally It’s a sanatorium for nobles, I hope you know what I mean. It’s reserved for big shots that we can’t even imagine. After responding to the call, the sanatorium completely moved out of Tobesk City and went to a nearby city, which can be reached in half an hour by train. On the contrary, it is more convenient than here.

Therefore, this sanatorium was abandoned, and even homeless people would not live here. The area was deserted, and no one would know if they died. "

It is surrounded by large areas of farmland and wasteland, and it takes an hour's walk to see the nearest rural town. There is a manor and horse farm nearby, belonging to a certain earl. During the horse racing season, people would choose the road the two were walking on as a track, but there were no people there yet.

Although industry developed rapidly in this era, traces of the steam age can only be seen in big cities. Far away from the city, everything was regressing towards the past era. Shade understood the meaning of this sentence.

The two of them quickly followed the path to the vicinity of the abandoned sanatorium. The doctor didn't mention the name of this place, and it wasn't important to think about it.

From the outside, the siding has completely peeled off and all the windows and doors are missing. However, the wall of the sanatorium is still there, but the courtyard inside the wall is almost the same as the wasteland outside, with no trace of the past garden.

Tall buildings and spires just stand in the wilderness, and only the decoration of fence gates can vaguely reveal the prosperity of the past.

"Follow me and we'll talk as we walk."

The doctor said, kicking open the two fence doors that seemed to be rusted together. The fence gate fell to the ground with a crash, startling the birds in the nearby woods.

Even at the edge of the city, the fog only dissipated a little. The gloomy sky seemed to be about to rain, and Shade regretted not bringing an umbrella out.

The two walked into the courtyard of the sanatorium, walking on the grass with two pairs of boots:

"The so-called ring magician means that we have the [Wheel of Destiny]."

The doctor said, looking around and leading Shade towards the main entrance of the main building.

"Wheel of Fortune?"

"Time, years, destiny, era, civilization, the world, the rings cast for us symbolize ourselves. Pay attention! I want to show you the complete wheel of destiny, not just a corner. Please look carefully -"

The doctor walking in the grass had his arms slightly spread out, his hands open and palms facing upward, as if he was holding something up, and his hands were raised at the same level as his shoulders.

Everything behind him became hazy, like an extra layer of white mist. But there was no change in him, except for a faint smile on his face.

Later, Shade actually heard the sound and echo of the train whistle in this empty abandoned courtyard.

"What?"

He hurriedly looked around in the waist-deep grass, and at this moment, his skin gradually felt the heat.

Turning around and looking, what was behind the doctor was not white mist, but steam. The scorching steam, the steam that makes people shudder for some reason, the steam seems to blur the distance and space, making everything behind the doctor blur.

In the steam, a huge black shadow was approaching, and the steam behind the doctor seemed to contain infinite time and space.

The whistle roared, the steam exploded, and the black shadow got closer and closer. The extremely fast speed brought about wind pressure, causing the doctor's clothes, the weeds in the courtyard, and the hem of Shade's coat to fly, and he had to squint his eyes.

What's more serious is the sense of crisis rising in my heart.

"What's in that steam?"

Getting closer and closer, behind the doctor, deep in the steam, a huge hammer appeared with momentum and energy. All I saw was a silver-grey object, as high as a whole building, and it hit the doctor with a loud noise.

The sound of the bombardment made Shade's ears ringing slightly, his eyes dizzy, and the strong feeling of vomiting forced him to reach out and cover his chest. The ground shook, the wind howled, and the thunder flashed. In this series of hallucinations, the hammer seemed to open up the world, and seemed to bombard Shade's soul.

But it was only the doctor who was bombarded by the giant hammer. The doctor did not move at all, but Shade thought he saw Dr. Schneider being smashed into a copper cake.

"copper?"

He felt that he was becoming increasingly unclear about his perception.

It was indeed a piece of copper. After being hit with a giant hammer, a huge rotating copper ring appeared behind the doctor. It was a brass-colored metal ring.

The steam gradually dissipated, and the brass metal ring with a pentagonal cross-section slowly rotated behind the doctor. A strange light accompanied by more than twenty spiritual runes wandered around this life ring.

The halo shone on Shade's face, and the stranger heard the woman's chuckle in his mind, and his eyes reflected this magnificent, magical, and powerful ring.

"This is the life ring. The ring magician can only call out the life ring in its entirety when fighting with all his strength. Otherwise, the life ring cannot be called out, or only a part of it can be called out... Do you have any questions? ?”

The doctor stopped in the grass in the courtyard of the sanatorium and asked the stunned Shade. Shade could still feel the heat of the dissipating steam behind the doctor, as well as the high temperature on the huge brass ring.

The life ring is not an illusion, this is the entity:

"Why steam? Why brass?"

He didn't even notice the anxiety in his voice.

The middle-aged doctor smiled:

“Young people, a person’s success depends not only on personal struggle, but also on the process of history.

As I said, the life ring represents oneself and the world. This era is the age of steam and machinery, so the life ring emerges from the steam and is forged by giant hammers, showing a brass color. If this was the age of the rainbow, then the ring of life might be rainbow-colored; if it was the age of the deep sea, then the ring of life would be water. do you understand? "

Shade reluctantly nodded, his heart beating faster because he witnessed the shocking scene just now:

"clear."

He didn't even want to blink, wanting to imprint the full view of the circle behind the doctor into his eyes. But the doctor waved his hand behind him, and the life ring slowly became transparent and disappeared, leaving only Shade to record a few runes in it.

Regarding the common language of the Northern Kingdom, even without the knowledge given by the woman's voice in his head, Shade could read and understand it, but he could not speak or write it. And now, Shade somehow understood the meaning of those powerful spiritual runes. The ones he glimpsed were [Joy], [Hound] and [Mote]...

Suddenly, I felt a pain in my head, as if someone had hit me on the back of my head, so I gave up on memorizing the powerful runes.

In this world, knowledge really is power. Therefore, it seems understandable that the extraordinary organization that the doctor invited Shade to join is an academy.

"But if my special characteristic is that I can read and understand all words...is this a good thing in this dangerous world?"

Shade thought about his secret, while the doctor continued to walk forward in the grass and introduced:

"The cross-sectional shape of my life ring is currently a pentagon, which means that I am a ring warlock with five rings and a fifth-year correspondence adult education student at the college. The first ring of life is a flat ring with spiritual runes imprinted on one side. The second ring is also flat, but both sides can be imprinted with spiritual runes. The cross section of the third ring is a triangle, the cross section of the fourth ring is a quadrilateral... and so on. Do you understand? The higher the ring, the closer it is. The most standard ring.”

"Yes, understood."

The two of them entered the building while talking. Over the years, countless people may have cared about this place. There was no furniture left, and there was a layer of dust on the ground. When you step on it, dust will rise immediately.

They did not stop on the first floor, but walked toward the second floor along the unstable-looking stairs. Shade was worried about the safety of such a dangerous building.

"Spirit runes are the core of the Ring Warlock system. By engraving spiritual runes on our destiny rings, we accumulate spirits, experience the four elements [miracle], [blasphemy], [enlightenment] and [whisper], and continue to advance."

"Spirit? Element?"

Shade wondered, his heart filled with excitement, he was finally going to know these things.

The doctor led Shademai up the stairs:

"Regarding the spirit, in the past era, it had many names. Magic, ether, mana, spirituality, spiritual light, but in the current era, it is uniformly called spirit. This is information, element, energy, and you can understand it. The sum total of everything in the world is one of the manifestations of the Ring Warlock's mind interfering with matter. The way to accumulate spirits is to contact the elements, and the safest way to contact the elements is to read the stories and knowledge from before the era - culture, customs, heroic legends , myths passed down by word of mouth.

It is also dangerous to come into contact with this knowledge, and you will fall into madness if you are not careful. So what we usually look at is the original copy, or the translation. "

Shade simply translated ‘spirit’ as blue stripe.

"But it does not mean that you can enter the next level if you accumulate enough spirits. The most important thing for a ring warlock is not the spirit, but the elements. By accumulating the four elemental spirit runes, you can effectively increase the upper limit of the spirit, sublimate the soul, and temper the body. The four elements can be felt in many ways..."

Shade thought that the woman's voice in his mind reminded him that he was exposed to "whispers", "enlightenment" and "miracles", which were respectively seeing Sparrow's death, stepping onto the streets to see the world, and thinking about the meaning of God.

"Merely feeling and contacting is not enough. You need to engrave the elements on your destiny wheel to prove your integration with the elements. Each upgrade of the Ring Warlock requires a different [Miracle] [Desecration] [Enlightenment] [ Whisper] A combination of spiritual runes to form specific sentences to sublimate. I will answer this for you when you decide to join the academy. Now, let me introduce to you the differences between the four elements."

The doctor paused, looked forward and smiled:

"I think the person we are looking for should be here."