Lord of the Mysteries Chapter 242
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Lord of the Mysteries Chapter 243 – Catching the Adulterous Act
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Wednesday morning, across from the Coim Company, in the Cherwood Borough.
Klein was sitting on a wooden bench outside the Gardeley department store, clutching a paper bag containing the most famous Cyndi Desi pie in the area with one hand, and holding a cup of iced tea in the other.
Beside him, a tramp was curled up on the other side of the bench, sleeping. Ten minutes later, the mall’s security guard woke him up and shooed him away.
Klein wore gold-rimmed spectacles which didn’t provide for any vision correction and a silk half top hat. He didn’t look much different from most of the gentlemen around him.
He idly looked across the street at the Coim Company, lifted his right hand, and took a large bite of the Cyndi Desi pie. He felt the rich aroma gush out and fill his oral cavity.
The reason why this pie from Desi Bay stood out amongst the southern pies was that it used a lot of oil and fat, but the meat was chopped into very tiny bits. With the fat and lean meat mixed together, it didn’t feel too heavy.
The rich, meaty juice seeped into the outer crust, neutralizing the dryness and made up for its shortcomings. The wheat fragrance was clearly brought out, and the small pieces of crushed apples were used to stimulate appetite with a slightly sour and sweet taste while neutralizing the oily taste.
It’s okay… Although the weather isn’t good and the pollution is terrible, Backlund is far superior to Tingen in many other aspects. Foods of all styles can be found everywhere. There are all kinds of operas and plays available. They can be enjoyed as long as one isn’t afraid to spend money… Although I might not necessarily eat or partake in such entertainment, I have these options at the very least. This is the advantage of a big city… Klein raised his sweet iced tea and took a sip.
He never took his eyes off the Coim Company’s entrance. For that ten pounds, he had been sitting there since eight in the morning. Even his breakfast was bought on the way there.
Of course, for most private detectives, a commission of ten pounds was an absolutely enviable business, equivalent to about three weeks’ salary for a member of the middle class!
According to the information provided by Mary Gale, her husband was currently the first manager of Coim Company and was Luke Sammer’s superior; however, their shares in the Coim Company came from Mary’s father, and Mary had inherited it.
One of the immediate reasons she suspected her husband of having a mistress was that an employee in the company had divulged to her that Doragu Gale would leave the office on Wednesday and Friday mornings alone and only return in the afternoon. In addition, he would leave work early for two days a week, and Mary had never seen her husband return home before seven.
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After breakfast, Klein waited another hour plus before seeing his target walk out of Coim.
He was wearing a black top hat, a double-breasted tweed coat, and a standard bow tie. He was slightly fat, with yellowish temples, slightly brownish eyes, and a slightly long face.
Doragu Gale… He silently recited his target’s name, stood up, picked up his cane and his heavy portable camera, and crossed the road.
Instead of getting his carriage driver to pick him up, he stood by the side of the road and looked around for a rental carriage.
Klein took the opportunity to cross the road and arrive beside him. Pretending to be careless, he bumped into his target.
“Sorry, I’m quite lost.” Klein bowed his head in apology.
Doragu frowned, but remained silent, waving his hand to indicate that it didn’t matter.
Klein bent down, bowed, and walked to the end of the street.
He didn’t run into Doragu in order to steal his belongings and use the dowsing method to easily track him. That would’ve been easily noticeable.
Instead, Klein had only done one thing when he collided with Doragu. With the help of his agility as a Clown, he had secretly slipped a spare button of his into one of the pockets of Doragu’s double-breasted coat.
Going around a corner, he stopped and looked back just in time to see Doragu board a rental carriage.
Klein was in no hurry to tail him. He waited patiently for a few minutes before slowly getting into another horse carriage and said to the carriage driver, “Just go according to my instructions. Head to the end of the street first.”
“Alright.” The driver didn’t ask why.
Inside the carriage, Klein leaned his cane and began performing a divination.
However, his divination statement wasn’t directed at Doragu Gale; instead, it became “the whereabouts of the spare button of my clothes!”
The Dowsing Rod Seeking was originally the most practical technique to find objects. Only Seers were able to use it to seek people. Now, Klein was using it in its original form.
The easiest and most convenient items to find were those that belonged to himself!
Along the way, Klein kept getting the carriage driver to change directions until they finally arrived at a street house in the Hillston Borough. When they first circled it, Klein noticed that there were gardens and lawns behind the house, which was different from the other houses.
His dowsing method told him that Doragu Gale was inside that house.
After paying the two-soli fare, Klein walked to the door with marble statues outside. He saw two men in black and white plaid uniforms that resembled the police uniform.
“I don’t know you. Where’s your proof of membership?” One of them, a brown-skinned man of Southern Continent blood, stopped Klein.
“Proof of membership?” Klein hid his heavy camera behind him and asked with a slight frown.
The brown-skinned man immediately turned stern.
“This is the Quelaag Club. Only our members and up to one of their guests can enter.”
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Klein tersely acknowledged.
“Then how can I join your club?”
“You can only join after receiving a recommendation from two members,” The brown-skinned man didn’t brutally chase him away, but patiently answered the question.
He couldn’t guarantee that Klein would end up joining the club eventually.
“Alright.” Klein pursed his lips and decided to put Plan B into motion.
He found a hotel near the Quelaag Club and got a short-stay room for four hours.
Then, he locked the door behind him, drew the curtains, and entered the space above the gray fog. He conjured a yellowish-brown goatskin and a fountain pen in front of him.
Taking a deep breath, Klein wrote the exact same divination sentence as before: “The whereabouts of the spare button of my clothes.”
This time, he didn’t use the dowsing method, but a dream divination!
The reason why he didn’t do it in the real world was because Klein felt that the Quelaag Club seemed to be quite a high-end club, and he suspected that there might be some powerful Beyonders inside. In order to not waste time, he decided to get it done once and for all.
In the gray dreamy world, Klein was the first to see Doragu’s black coat, which was hung on a coat rack. On the carpet in front of it was a round table.
The scene zoomed out, and the sight of a romping man and woman entered Klein’s eye. The man was Doragu Gale, the woman had shimmering blond hair who looked rather young. She was in her early twenties at most.
The pained expression with her knitted brows does look rather coquettish… Why am I always seeing scenes such as this… Klein covered his eyes and woke up.
The fact that Doragu has a mistress is confirmed… How do I get material evidence… By responding to my prayers? But this is limited to what I can obtain with my own body. I can only do it through sketching and not through the camera… I can’t possibly draw a picture with my bare hands, can I? It looks like today won’t do. I’ll tail that girl and find out her address and name later. I refuse to believe that they’ll be inside the Quelaag Club every time they meet… Detective Klein quickly came up with his next course of action.
Just as he was about to leave the mysterious space above the gray fog, he suddenly thought of something.
He decided to take the opportunity to divine if the iron-black threadworm which had infiltrated his room was under the control of a Beyonder of the Seer pathway.
He didn’t do so before because he felt that the relevant information was too scarce, and it was difficult to create something out of nothing which would result in a failed divination. It would’ve been the same if he was above the gray fog. Furthermore, he had various matters to divine the few times he came above the gray fog previously, and he didn’t have the capacity to bother with such a question. Now that he was free, he decided that it wouldn’t hurt to do the divination.
As for the question of whether it was risky to contact Azik, he had already long divined it. The answer was that it was risky, and not something trivial, so he could only use it as his last resort.
After writing the corresponding divination statement, Klein removed the silver chain from his sleeve and allowed the topaz pendant to hang over the paper.
“The iron-black threadworm that sneaked into my room was controlled by a Beyonder from the Seer pathway.”
…
After repeating it seven times, Klein opened his eyes and saw that the spirit pendulum was spinning clockwise, with great amplitude and frequency.
Positive… The answer is positive!
Shouldn’t it have failed? Klein didn’t expect to obtain such an answer. According to his Seer instincts, such a divination was likely to fail.
Why? He frowned and thought for a while before deciding to switch to a different method of divination and target.
He wanted to directly divine the controller using dream divination!
This time, Klein saw nothing in his dream, and couldn’t get the corresponding revelation about the Seer pathway Beyonder.
“That’s more like it…” he muttered and thought back to the prior divination and fell into deep thought.
They should’ve been a lack of conditions and result in a failed divination just like the one that followed… Could it be that this mysterious space had filled in the necessary conditions? Does it contain something of the Seer pathway? Klein suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He had a bold idea!
Perhaps, the mysterious space above the gray fog had something to do with the path of the Seer pathway!
Hmm… Klein lightly rapped the edge of the ancient table. Despite thinking about it, he couldn’t find any other evidence. He could only temporarily put this matter on hold and prepare for his return to the real world.
Regardless, I’ve confirmed at least one thing. The Mid-Sequence Beyonder beside the Ambassador is from the Seer pathway and whether he’s a member of the Seer doesn’t matter… This might be my chance of obtaining the Sequence 7 and even the Sequence 6 potion formula! Klein extended his spirituality and wrapped it around him before plunging into the gray fog.
…
Meanwhile, in Viscount Glaint’s study.
Audrey let the master of the study guard the door while she looked at Xio and Fors. After a few seconds of silence, she said, “I need your help with a mission.”
“What mission?” Xio’s eyes lit up as if she could smell the ink on the bills.
Audrey gave her a polite smile.
“Assassinate the Intis ambassador to the Loen Kingdom, Bakerland Jean Madan.”
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Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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