Before Leaving, Draw a Card First

"It sounds like you're going to do something very dangerous."

Ms. Mina brought over tea and snacks, said with some concern, "Be very careful."

"Speaking of which, Ms. Mina," Iver said, a smile appearing on his face. "Do you have anything good to sell in your shop?"

Ms. Mina was also somewhat puzzled. "Good stuff... you mean my fortune-telling shop?"

"Yes. Do you sell antiques or treasure maps or anything like that?"

Iver was really looking forward to it.

Ms. Mina was amused by him. "How could that be? This is just an ordinary fortune-telling shop. I do occasionally buy antiques, but those are my personal collections and I don't plan to sell them for the time being."

"Although Meiya says my divination is inaccurate, it's actually because I sometimes deliberately misinterpret it to maintain a relatively normal hit rate. This is to prevent people from believing in me too much."

"The future cannot be accurately predicted, not even by the most powerful prophets. Because when you make a 'prophecy,' when you tell others about the vision in the prophecy, the future has already been changed. Therefore, if you believe too much in divination, you may fall into the 'prophecy trap' and end up fulfilling the prophecy."

"Actually, Mina's divination was quite accurate," the Bishop said from the side. "Because although she came here to study art, she is not on the Path of Beauty. Mina's true path is the Path of Adaptation."

"That's right," Mina nodded gently. "The reason I left Iris back then was because my divination told me that staying in Iris would lead to a great crisis, while going to Avalon would likely allow me to immediately meet the knight of my life. He would be my teacher, my sun, and my guardian... Sure enough, I really did meet Mathers."

"... A prophet Path of Adaptation?"

Iver was stunned.

That's a very rare profession. Players can't even choose it; it's a purely NPC profession.

"Yes, how about I do a fortune telling for you?"

Ms. Mina smiled and said, "This time I will interpret it carefully and will not deliberately give you a wrong interpretation."

"Can it predict everything?" Iver asked.

"It is best for each person, each day, and each matter to be divined only once," Ms. Mina explained. "The more you divine, the more easily your fate will be disturbed; conversely, the longer the interval between divinations, the more accurate the results will be. So in the Iris, the simplest way to prevent the seer from spying is to ask the seer to divine for you every day, thus manually disrupting your fate."

"Since you've never had a divination done before, your first reading will definitely be the most accurate. Want to give it a try? I'll give it to you for free!"

"... Thank you for your help."

After a moment of hesitation, Iver finally made up his mind.

Since I'm already here, and I don't have anything to do when I get back today, I might as well draw a card before I leave.

If you sell the goods, say you're currently riding high and tomorrow's operation will definitely go smoothly! If you don't sell the goods, then this divination is a prelude to tomorrow's success, and tomorrow's operation will definitely be even smoother!

"You go ahead, I'm going back to rest first."

Sherlock was clearly uninterested in divination. He went straight back upstairs to read.

Ms. Mina then took Iver and Lily to her fortune-telling shop.

"What do you want to divine? What methods will you use?"

Ms. Mina, already dressed in black veil, put on a hat—the wide-brimmed hat's black veil partially obscuring her emerald green eyes. She gazed at Iver, her tone filled with peace and confidence.

Iver didn't think he would encounter any danger on his trip to see Lawyer York.

Although he was somewhat disappointed that Ms. Mina didn't sell antiques or treasure maps, perhaps her divination would yield some good stuff? — Anyway, it's free, might as well take advantage of it.

"Can you take anything?"

Iver confirmed this at the last minute.

"Anything is possible."

Ms. Mina affirmed, "Whether it's accurate or not is another matter... but whether or not one can divine this depends entirely on the diviner's skill."

"In that case, I'm still missing a suitable weapon."

Iver clasped his hands together and said very sincerely, "Please help me see where I can get it—"

"...ha?"

Ms. Mina was stunned when she heard Iver's words.

She imagined that Iver might predict her fate, her future achievements, or ask her about love, career, health... or even ask her about difficult choices or dilemmas she didn't know how to make.

But she never expected that Iver would ask something so straightforward, so... pure? "Is that not okay?" Iver, somewhat disappointed.

"... Why not? It'll definitely be fine."

Ms. Mina looked as if she had a toothache. "I didn't expect you to say that. Wait a minute. Let me think about how to do the divination."

"Alright, I'll use my Dreamseeing Method to take a look. You sit here and wait for a while."

With that, Ms. Mina asked Iver for a few strands of his hair. She wrapped them up and placed them against her chest.

Then he drank a vial of silvery-white, shimmering Alchemy Potion and immediately collapsed into a deep sleep in his chair.

Iver sighed in boredom.

Seeing that Lily had her hand on his shoulder, he reached out and gently squeezed Lily hand to pass the time.

He carefully observed Lily's slender yet somewhat rough fingers, and Lily was clearly a little shy, her little finger curled up. But she didn't pull her fingers away, instead casually asking, "I thought you would ask where we can get the new Grimoire, young master."

"Because you just read a secret sutra, didn't you?"

Iver chuckled, "That's why you think the Grimoire are good... While that is true, I don't really need mystical arts anymore."

Because Ms. Maya planned to give him a Grimoire on the Dedication Path —it was more of a loan, since he could learn from it in one reading, and it was a cherished book. Iver would definitely have to return it politely.

My grandfather has hidden something, but it's most likely a skill book. It might even be a secret manual.

Grimoire are the highest level of esoteric books. The knowledge within them is alive.

It is a translation of those "Nameless Original Codex" written by Gupta Script, and is itself a kind of "Original Codex". The Original Codex in Gupta Script are incomprehensible to everyone except those on the Path of Wisdom - they are demonic scripts that have died and no longer exist, and the brains of other paths cannot remember even a single symbol of such script.

Anyone qualified to open and read the book, and who can bear the knowledge contained within, can directly learn the mysterious skills it contains.

A copy of Grimoire is simply a plain written record and has no mystical value. For example, the written version of the Shepherd's Secret Covenant is essentially just an ancient legend.

In short, the Grimoire is a "limited pool".

If you miss this one, you'll have to wait for the limited-time pool reruns in other language versions.

The profession of Ritual Mage can only be obtained when one first enters the Path of Transcendence, possessing the mysterious skills of curses and rituals, and without having mastered Demon Knowledge.

Rituals are relatively easy to learn. But curses are very difficult to learn, and the corresponding skill is the extremely difficult Blessing Art.

Avalon has never had such a profound and mysterious skill passed down.

But how did so many Ritual Mage suddenly appear in the original "Scaleless Hand"? So many excellent priests in universities can't learn Blessing Art even after several years. Where did so many highly skilled Curse Master from among those folk superhumans who haven't received formal education?

Therefore, Iver believed that the "Scaleless Hand" might contain a Grimoire related to the curse.

It was this book that allowed them to mass-produce potential transcendent beings with a tendency to Path of Transcendence into Ritual Mage. Otherwise, it's hard to explain why they didn't take the shortcut and instead took the long way... It can only mean that there were shuttle buses providing transportation for those long routes.

But ultimately, the Bureau of Supervision apparently didn't find the book. If the Iron Hook Demon wasn't intelligent enough to find it either, it might still be in that village.

In that case, Iver already has at least two Grimoire in the foreseeable future.

Leveling up a mysterious skill also requires experience and effort—he's like a seal that's pulled a bunch of great cards. The cards are good, but he can't afford to maintain them.

He was a little envious of the two good pieces of equipment that Lily had obtained.

This key will eventually have to be returned to Bishop Mathers —after all, it's his office key. Is it reasonable for the Holy Sepulcher Guardian to not have the key to the shrine he's guarding? It's like a gatekeeper unable to open the main gate. Why can't he open it? Because he lent the key to a friend.

... Then the Bishop would definitely be in trouble. His actions would be even more serious, constituting a clear violation of the rules.

However, Iver did not have any suitable equipment.

So Iver had to find a suitable weapon before returning the key.

Their current makeshift team is really cool.

Sherlock, as a sorcerer, has neither a staff nor a codex; as Law Mage, he has neither a disciplined short sword nor a dagger—his short sword is usually borrowed from Edward on short notice. Hai Na, as an Overseer, has neither a griffin nor a sword; Iver, as a priest, has neither a crown nor a scepter; and as Demon Scholar, he has neither a grimoire nor Ritual Pack.

Of the three, only one had empty hands.

The only weapon that could be called a weapon was the small-caliber lady's pistol in Iver's hand.

The only one with a main-hand weapon is Lily, who is the lowest level—her silk threads can be used as weapons, and they're free. Later, when she levels up, she can tie Eagle Feather to her silk threads.

It's like three high-level characters leveling up a low-level character, but the three high-level characters go out without any weapons, while the low-level character is fully equipped.

Although Iver knew that this was peacetime, and that aside from soldiers and law enforcement, very few people carried weapons in this version... it still sounded absurd.

After a while, Ms. Mina slowly woke up.

She looked at Iver, hesitant to speak.

"Ms. Mina, you've seen the future?"

Iver's eyes lit up. Judging from her reaction, she had obviously seen something in her dream.

"Wow, you can actually draw cards in the shop?" "... Although your divination was very bizarre, I've never heard anyone mention it before. But I definitely saw it—"

Ms. Mina shook her head helplessly and prophesied, "I see you summoning butterflies made of pure fire as protective weapons at will."

Upon hearing this, Iver immediately realized that this prophet was indeed quite valuable. Not only did he not utter any of those mystical ramblings, but he even saw his Phantom Demon Card!

Iver immediately felt a deep respect for Ms. Mina and pressed for more information. "And then? Is there anything else?"

"There's another book," Ms. Mina nodded, trying to explain to Iver, "It's strange, but it really is a book. At least according to my Dreamseeing Method interpretation, the Hourglass's request to you, 'Where is the weapon that best suits you?' points to a book in the future. However, it's not a Grimoire."

That must be a magic book, Iver knew.

What kind of book was it?

Iver pressed on, "Could you please help me predict precisely where it will be?"

Ms. Mina wiped the fine sweat from her forehead helplessly. "Let me make it clear beforehand... After this prophecy ends, I may not be able to do a divination for you for a long time. I also can't guarantee the accuracy of my divinations."

"For some reason, the threads of fate on your body are unusually tangled, with the threads of many powerful beings entangled around you. It took me a long time to figure out which thread belonged to you, but your destiny seems to exist outside this world."

"You need to understand, Iver, I am Fourth Level [Prophet], while you are only at the Second Level. Under this level suppression, I can't even see your future—if I were younger back then, or if you were stronger, I might have already passed out."

After making a very detailed disclaimer, Ms. Mina yawned deeply and looked somewhat dejected.

As she stood up to pack her things, she casually replied, "The location was Eagle Cape Village in Mubay County. I saw Sherlock with you when you found this book, along with someone I didn't recognize. I vaguely recognized the book's title..."

"It seems to be called the Book of Law."

Good news, at least my head doesn't hurt when I wake up.

Bad news, my sleep schedule is still messed up... I originally wanted to wait until night to sleep together yesterday, but I was so sleepy in the afternoon that I couldn't resist and fell asleep again around 4 or 5 pm. I woke up at 11:30 pm, still feeling quite energetic.

What else can I do? At least my head doesn't hurt anymore and I can type.

I should be able to recover after another nap. I'll adjust this irregular sleep schedule later at the end of the month by taking another day off and saving up some manuscripts.

I need at least one day's worth of drafts before I can adjust my sleep schedule, because I can't do anything during those two days. And I write and publish as much as I can, so I can't save any. I get itchy to publish whenever I have drafts saved up...

Anyway, I'm taking a break before the end of the month, and today's update is still over 7,000 words!

However, according to the outline, the story at the end of the month should be Advancement Instance that Path of Transcendence, so it seems difficult to request it (sad). I'll try to finish writing this advanced chapter before requesting it—