Shepherd's Secret Covenant

Avalon Kingdom, Glass Island, White Queen District Bureau of Supervision.

The Bureau of Supervision was as busy as ever this morning.

Men and women in light armor or leather armor strode past, full of heroic spirit. Director Kent's office still had the majestic silver dragon head statue hanging on the wall—the Silver Crowned Dragon watched over them at all times.

Director Kent, now in his forties but still physically strong, sat in his leather chair.

His back was straight, and his round shoulders and upper arms stretched his loose clothes. His bronze skin and the fleshy face gave people a fierce and tough feeling. A deep scar stretched from above his left eye to the corner of his lip. He wore a black eye patch and looked like a one-eyed pirate.

As a matter of ritual and etiquette, even though he had not participated in front-line combat for more than ten years, Director Kent still had to work in armor, his posture had to be standard, and his demeanor could not be shaken in the slightest. His upper arms, abdomen, and calves, where the burden was not high, were all wearing metal silver-white armor. Other places were covered with shiny armor pieces.

If he were not also a transcendent of no low level, he would probably be exhausted just sitting here all day.

As early as four hundred and twenty years ago, Lancelot I, the founding monarch of the Avalon Kingdom, established the three major legal institutions.

The Bureau of Supervision, responsible for "supervising and protecting the people," the Inspectorate, responsible for "supervising knights and officials," and the Arbitration Hall, responsible for "adjudicating right and wrong." At the beginning of their establishment, the positions of these three major legal institutions were equal. Round Table Knights who could enter the Senate held important responsibilities.

The emblem of the Avalon Kingdom is a green eye nested in a silver-white triangle symbolizing power.

The eye means the royal family, symbolizing their current old Queen Sophia I, who is nearly eighty years old and still healthy.

The silver triangle that protects the royal family refers to the Bureau of Supervision, the Inspectorate, and the Arbitration Hall.

However, with the development of the times, the affairs that the Bureau of Supervision had to be responsible for became more and more numerous. Taxation, security, sanitation, fire protection, public security, review, imprisonment... As a result, many sub-departments were gradually separated within the Bureau of Supervision. Branch bureaus had to be established in various places, and a large number of Trainee Inspectors, Inspectors, and Chief Inspectors had to be recruited to be responsible for local affairs, and power was therefore divided.

The Inspectorate and the Arbitration Hall did not expand in scale because they had to deal with more difficult and more specific affairs. The former became an organization similar to a secret service agency—responsible for reviewing whether officials of all sizes were loyal, whether hereditary knight families were morally deficient, whether grassroots inspectors had done anything that violated discipline and regulations, and for monitoring spies from other countries or wandering abroad alone to collect intelligence; while the latter became the current court.

The common point is that they are now one level higher than the Bureau of Supervision.

As a result, all talents in the Bureau of Supervision who can reach the Fourth Level are to be transferred to the Inspectorate and the Arbitration Hall. It is euphemistically called "anyway, you don't need this kind of talent." Even Kent, the director of the White Queen District, a core area adjacent to the Glass Staircase, is only at the Third Level.

The young girl named Hai Na who was recently transferred is only in her early twenties, and her strength is already comparable to that of Director Kent, who is now approaching fifty.

Kent didn't even have to think about it to know that the Inspectorate would definitely come to ask for people.

This is an era of prolific geniuses. Hai Na, Sherlock... these new generation geniuses are much stronger than the old people like them who grew up in a peaceful era.

This is not auspicious. Kent thought.

This may be a sign that troubled times are coming...

He picked up the phone on the table and turned the dial. 0—1—2, the call connected.

"Call Hai Na to my office."

Director Kent instructed, "Also, find someone to call our consultant over as well."

After hanging up the phone, he threw the Glass Staircase Newspaper in his hand on the table and got up and walked to the bookshelf.

The headline on the front page of this newspaper was a photo of Hai Na and the young master of the Moriarty Family.

The handsome young man with a gentle smile was sitting calmly in an elven-style wheelchair, with a blanket covering his knees and his hands clasped in front of his abdomen, talking about something in a gentle, natural, and generous manner. Hai Na, standing behind him, stood upright, holding the hilt of her sword, her muscles tensed.

As if noticing the photographer, or as if greeting some acquaintances around the photographer.

The young man's gaze suddenly shifted from the reporter to the direction of the camera halfway through his speech.

He revealed a bright, Sun-like gentle smile, slightly raising his hand to wave in this direction. Yet it gave the feeling that he was smiling and waving at the reader looking at the newspaper.

The next moment, the scene jumped back to the beginning. Iver continued to sit in the wheelchair, earnestly saying something to the reporter.

——This is the "magic painting" ability from the Path of Beauty.

Logically speaking, the Path of Beauty is a Path that is legislatively prohibited in Avalon, but Master Agnes is an exception. The world-renowned elven painter founded the Glass Daily News, which is Avalon's largest and only newspaper that can be called official.

The Glass Daily News is responsible for organizing the most important intelligence of the Avalon Kingdom every day, and summarizing it for the royal family and the ministers of the Round Table Hall to see. The three major legal institutions also provide free copies of the Glass Staircase Newspaper for their employees to read.

Perhaps following the trend, perhaps to keep up with upper-level policies, or perhaps just to express their concern for the kingdom's political situation, some wealthy people who neither participate in politics nor work diligently also join in the fun to buy the Glass Staircase Newspaper. Following this, some university students also buy it as a topic of conversation among young students.

Although each issue has a cumulative duration of fifteen seconds of "magic painting", and the material cost of each newspaper is as high as one Red Coin, its price is not considered high. This is because Master Agnes does not need to profit from it. The retail price of the Glass Staircase Newspaper is only two Red Coins and five copper coins per issue—these five copper coins are the profit left for the distributors, and sometimes there are discounts. Anyone who is slightly decent can afford it.

This kind of newspaper that can watch animation is a very novel experience. Although it has no sound and is in black and white. But at least the pictures can move—this is basically the cheapest way for ordinary people to truly feel the power of the extraordinary.

And in this issue of the Glass Staircase Newspaper, Iver Moriarty alone occupied a full twelve seconds on the front page. Only three seconds were left for a bicycle advertisement.

Director Kent highly suspected that it was because Iver was too handsome and this smile was full of charm, that Master Agnes gave him a full twelve seconds.

"Smiling so nicely... he doesn't look like a good person at all."

Director Kent, with the intuition of a beast, curled his lips and muttered in a low voice: "I don't know whose daughter he plans to harm..."

...However, he saw it very clearly.

Being able to independently solve such a major case at this age, he will definitely become a much greater figure than himself in the future.

This time they picked up a great achievement for no reason, and they must give enough rewards—originally this kind of big job should be given to the Inspectorate, and it would not be their turn no matter what.

Moreover, this is an opportunity to connect with Professor Moriarty.

Therefore, the selected reward must be good enough, otherwise it would be garbage to the Moriarty Family. Giving people something they don't like would be a disgrace to the Bureau of Supervision.

...What a hassle.

"A Priest of the Dedication Path... a seminary student..."

Director Kent murmured in a low voice, rummaging through the bookshelf.

Suddenly, his movements stopped. He looked at a corner.

There was a black-covered book placed there, with no name on the spine.

The Director picked it up with one hand, and gently flicked the cover with the other. Sparks burst out from the pages, like a hammer striking an anvil.

"This one might work."

He murmured in a low voice, reading the title: "Shepherd's Secret Covenant... judging from the name, it should be related to 'Priest', right."

This entire bookshelf is filled with good things that the people below confiscated when they seized banned books.

The Avalon Kingdom strictly prohibits accepting bribes in any form, because that is an act that can shake "authority". But conversely, appropriate profiteering within the scope of one's authority is tacitly allowed. This is also to prevent officials and ministers from being bought by foreign spies—especially spies from the Stibium Kingdom—when they are short of money, or from selling important intelligence and internal resources to the public. This would also shake "authority".

One of the tacitly allowed ways to profit is to sell confiscated banned books to Knight families—from this perspective, this bookshelf can also be considered Director Kent's personal property.

Kent is not a follower of the Dedication Path, so he certainly cannot open this book.

But judging from the name and the sparks that burst out, this looks like a mysterious codex belonging to the Dedication Path.

After transcendents die, their souls fall into the "Nine-Forked River" of the dream world and flow to the furthest reaches of the Path they have walked. The power within becomes the "Path characteristics" acquired by subsequent practitioners in their advancement rituals, while their memories and knowledge are scattered everywhere, falling haphazardly into the natural elements of the dream world, such as flowers, fruits, clouds, and waves, becoming part of the materials that construct the dream world.

Those Dream Wandering Monks of the Path of Wisdom can capture and collect these headless and tailless, scattered esoteric knowledge from the dream world.

They collect them and organize them into books. These mysterious books, containing demonic knowledge, are called "Original Codexes."

The text of the "Original Codex" is written in Gupta Script. It is a long-extinct script that ordinary people cannot understand. It often requires translators of the local Path of Wisdom to use mystical techniques to forcibly translate it before it can be understood.

According to the conventions of the translation world, these Original Codexes, which record dream world knowledge in Gupta Script, are uniformly translated as a certain Secret Covenant. What the prefix is mainly depends on the translator's understanding of the content of this Original Codex.

In a Secret Covenant, one can usually obtain a complete mystical technique—although it may have been replicated by people in later generations, there is also a good chance that it will be a lost technique.

Although it may not be useful, it is, after all, lost.

In other words, it cannot be obtained through normal means...

"Then, as a prize and 'gift,' it's impressive enough."

Director Kent muttered to himself.

Finally got recommended! Today is another update of more than 7,000 words, please follow the reading!

This book seems to have had a relatively smooth start. It already has 12,000 favorites before being recommended! If this book does well, it feels like I can write more!