Chapter 93
Whether it's Ouija board spirit, spirit board, spirit board with chopsticks, or spirit board with fox, dog, or Koguri, they are all actually forms of Spirit Writing.
Spirit Writing, also known as Spirit Writing or Spirit Invocation immortals, originated in Cathay. It requires a wooden plate filled with fine sand, and a writing brush is inserted into a bamboo basket.
During Spirit Writing, the spirit medium chants that a certain deity has descended upon him, and the tip of his pen draws characters on the sand. These characters may be chanted in response to others, or they may indicate good or bad fortune, or they may provide prescriptions.
Koguri is a branch that emerged at the end of the 19th century. It was not originally created by the Higashi, but rather by sailors of the United States Federation who adapted it from the folk legends of the Higashi.
As a ritual for a new work, it shouldn't have any power, but the target that the Koguri are pointing to is quite unique.
The fox is praying to Uka-no-Mitama and Inari Daimyōjin Tamamo-no-Mae.
The dog refers to the great Sage Saga, who lived for five hundred years.
Tanuki refers to Tanutarō is famous throughout Shikoku and Kyushu.
By utilizing the positions of these three elements, Koguri, and raccoons often make accurate divination.
However, according to the priests of Inari Grand Shrine, the Koguri were the only three kinds of monsters they actually summoned.
Fortunately, the Inari Grand Shrine subdued the fox and tanuki demons of the Higashi, and most dogs were docile towards humans, so there was little risk.
"Yes, it will." The Gypsy girl said, somewhat puzzled.
She didn't understand why Hebe chose Koguri divination, since this kind of divination was only effective in the Higashi.
However, since the customer insisted on choosing it, she had no reason to refuse.
The Gypsy girl took out a psychic tablet with some words written on it in small, fragmented strokes.
She placed a coin on top and then gestured for Hebe to put her finger on it.
After both of them placed their fingers on the coin, the Gypsy girl chanted a prayer in a low voice.
"I ask all sorts of strange and wonderful questions, Koguri Koguri, please descend! If you have already descended, please answer my questions..."
Hebe cleared her throat and continued with the last line of the prayer.
"I would like to ask, where is the last dragon in the world right now?"
In the next instant, Hebe got the answer.
142 Sleeping Dragon in the Mountains
All divination is about seeking answers in the wilderness by relying on one's position.
Like throwing a stone into the water and observing the ripples.
The higher one's rank, the more information one receives, the clearer one's goals become, and the less one is affected.
In order to divine the traces of Hebe, Morgan borrowed the authority of several rulers in the fields of divination and mysticism, and used the bodies of the wilderness inhabitants as a vessel to make calculations through rituals and sacred sites.
The Koguri divination technique essentially uses the positions of three great demons to make deductions, and with the added fame of the Higashi, it is naturally very effective.
On the Blankog Island, far from the Higashi, the fame bonus has essentially disappeared, but the one performing the divination is Hebe.
The Koguri divination request asked Tamamo-no-Mae, Saga, and Tanutarō to lend their positions, and Hebe granted it.
Hebe's status has become extremely... terrifying due to the Secret History Simulator.
She couldn't even use the word "extremely high" to describe it.
So almost without delay, Hebe's fingertips applied tremendous force to the coin.
The coin started moving.
The Gypsy girl gasped and instinctively tried to pull her finger back, only to find herself stuck to the coin, unable to break free and being moved along by Hebe.
A deluge of information flooded Hebe's mind.
She saw her gaze gradually rise, rapidly ascending on the wind and bright silver atmosphere, and a door made of cobalt blue starlight slowly opened before her.
This is the spirit body, where apprentices hone their souls to sharpen their abilities, enabling them to traverse the wastelands and frontiers.
Divination, too, ultimately requires the use of a spiritual body to delve into the wilderness and investigate.
It's like pricking your fingertip with a lancet when measuring blood sugar.
A clever man like Morgan would use the wasteland inhabitants as scapegoats, but Hebe doesn't need to do that.
A vast expanse of cobalt blue starlight stretched out beneath Hebe's feet.
She walked steadily on the Celestial Path where bright silver and cobalt blue met, just like the sun moving along its trajectory.
Hebe's gaze began to move across the wasteland.
With her naked eye, she saw the woodland, a mixture of black, rose, and dark brown, the pure white snow-capped mountains at the edge of the woodland, and the "World-Encircling River" that encircled the entire wasteland between the snow-capped mountains and the woodland, which would eventually flow into the Sea of Silence.
It was daytime, so few people could observe that a certain star in the sky suddenly brightened.
Hebe's spirit body has stabilized in the wasteland.
That star has transformed into her other body in the present world, looking down upon it from above.
She moved away from the skies Blankog Island and then looked west to see endless waves— the Atlantic Ocean, the real-world manifestation of the "World-Encircling River."
Could it be that Miss A-Long is in the Atlantic Ocean? That's possible.
After all, Blanckug is indeed insignificant compared to the Atlantic Ocean.
Just as Hebe was thinking this, she realized that her perspective was still moving.
Land began to appear in sight.
"No way..." Hebe muttered to herself, "This is America, after all."
How did Miss A-Long end up on the wrong road and end up in the Americas? Did she think Blankog Island was the North America continent?
Hebe's ears were immediately filled with upbeat Native Americans tunes and United States Federation country music.
She had a headache, thinking that dealing with the United States Federation was no easy task.
Hebe gaze gradually descended, landing on a vast, undulating mountain range. This range began in the vast, cold lands of Quebec and stretched southwards to New Mexico, bordering Tenochtitlan in the United States Federation.
This is the Rocky Mountains the entire North American continent and the United States Federation.
Hebe's perspective zoomed in and out, and in the central part of the United States Federation, on a desolate mountain range sparsely populated by humans, he discovered unusual traces.
The stones are not scattered; on the contrary, they are closely connected to the mountain.
Their surfaces are smooth and jet black, like the finest basalt.
Hebe silently raised her gaze slightly; she realized something.
Her gaze encompassed the entire mountain range—she saw it swaying slightly, like the gentle trembling of an animal's flesh as it sleeps.
This mountain range is Miss A-Long.
She is now fast asleep.
"What kind of sleeping position is that?"
Hebe looked left and right but couldn't find Miss A-Long's head, then realized that she had probably buried her head in the ground like an ostrich.
As Hebe found her target, images from the past began to surface before her eyes—she saw the weary Miss A-Long flying across the vast Pacific Ocean, weaving through clouds, storms, and sunsets, occasionally appearing and being revered as a deity by the island's savages. When she arrived on the land of North America, the United States Federation was still nowhere to be found.
So she decided to rest for a while in this desolate land where no one lived.
Miss A-Long found a slightly sunken spot on the hillside and lay down there to sleep.
During her rest, the Rocky Mountains protected her.
This is the dragon; they are beautiful and powerful beings, the pinnacle of beasts, and living nature itself.
Miss A-Long was originally a dragon of the mountains; in other words, she is the living embodiment of Takachiho.
Not all nature can come alive as dragons. The Rocky Mountains, being too vast, cannot escape this state; they possess only a hazy and immature spirit, instinctively showing affection to Miss A-Long like a young sister.
This sleep lasted for over three hundred years, and continues to this day.
Hebe thought it was normal. Miss A-Long hadn't closed her eyes once in so long in the Lostbelt. She finally got to sleep for a while, and then she was shaken here to move Kyoto... It can only be said that Miss A-Long has indeed worked hard and is very tired.
After learning where Miss A-Long had gone, Hebe's previously worried heart was immediately at ease, and she would not disturb Miss A-Long's sound sleep.
Dragons can only achieve physical and mental growth through a deep, death-like slumber; otherwise, no matter how many years they live, it is all in vain.
The stars in the sky still shone brightly, but Hebe had already withdrawn from them.
Before anyone knew it, the psychic board was covered with deep tracks left by coins.
Especially the one in the very middle, which looked like butter sliced by a hot knife, almost split the entire spirit board in two.
The Gypsy girl looked at Hebe with a mixture of fear and pleading. She could feel the immense, storm-like pressure emanating from her, and the small cobra coiled around her wrist had already decided to play dead.
"I've gotten the answer I wanted, thank you." Hebe added a little more to the agreed-upon divination fee as compensation for almost destroying the other person's psychic board.
The Gypsy girl silently and quickly put away the money, a happy smile on her face.
She seems to really like money.
That is indeed the case, but she wouldn't usually be so blatant about it.
She knew that Hebe must be divining about some extraordinary, high-ranking being, otherwise such a tremendous phenomenon would never have occurred. And since she could divine about high-ranking beings, Hebe herself must also be of a high rank.
Stop it... Don't think about it anymore, don't think about it anymore.
The Gypsy girl forced herself to focus on the money.
One, two—the numbers of Albion Gold Pound fell into her eyes like melting light, making her expression somewhat blank and dazed.
Suddenly, she shivered.
"W-Just now, there seemed to be a customer?" The Gypsy girl scratched her head. "He seemed to be a generous Cathay merchant... Damn, are all Cathay this rich?"
She muttered to herself, her words filled with envy for the wealthy.
143 Housekeeping Xiao Xiang
Hebe got the answer she wanted, but it was definitely not a good thing for the Gypsy girl.
Some overly secret knowledge can cause discomfort and alienation in the human body simply by being known about it.
So Hebe used those Albion Gold Pound to cloud the Gypsy girl's mind, causing her memory to become confused—making her mistake Hebe for a wealthy man from Cathay.
This is a well-intentioned form of protection.
Of course, if someone breaks through this layer of protection, Hebe can react immediately and descend directly to fight them remotely through the Gypsy girl's body.
Therefore, this is also a form of "entrapment".
It's impossible for Hebe to directly fish up "Eris", but if she can fish up Eris's minions, that would be an excellent result.
This is just a casual move; Hebe will continue to make similar casual moves in the future.
As for now, she wants to go back and see how Toyokawa Shoko is managing the garden and Martial Practice Garden.
Let's rewind a little while to shortly after Hebe left the Silent Bookstore.
Toyokawa Shoko stood outside the Fragrant Garden, her face looking quite grim.
Wearing orange rubber gloves and carrying a plastic bucket of tools, she stood at the entrance of Fragrant Garden, but couldn't muster the courage to go inside.
The gate to the Fragrant Garden was slightly ajar, revealing a patchwork of new greenery behind it.
Yesterday, she passed through Fragrant Garden with Hebe, and at the time she didn't think it was anything to worry about.
"But I have no way out, do I? So, there's nothing to be afraid of..." she said in a self-deprecating voice, "Besides, they're just some trees and flowers, aren't they?"
If it were a bird of prey or a ferocious beast, one would naturally need to be extremely vigilant, but what one would be facing was nothing more than wildly growing weeds and tangled trees.
Toyokawa Shoko encouraged herself and then walked into the Fragrant Garden that had been neglected for a long time.
The moment she stepped inside, she realized how terribly wrong her previous assumptions had been.
These plants certainly wouldn't attack her like wild beasts, but they always appeared at just the right time, using their sharp thorns and trace amounts of toxins to cut open Toyokawa Shoko's skin, causing it to become red, swollen, painful, and itchy.
Even worse, when she realized she needed to rest, she turned around and found that she had disappeared from where she came from.
The lush, new green meadow had grown to knee-high without anyone noticing.