Enchantment Card: Shadow Blade

Iver did not even wait for authorization from the Bureau of Supervision before realizing that he would definitely be able to participate in the investigation.

If nothing unexpected happened, he could even investigate independently—without being personally monitored by Inspector Hai Na, and participating directly as an "assistant to the Bureau of Supervision."

On one hand, there was his adoptive father's influence. On the other, the Bureau of Supervision, bound by the rules of its superiors, had always welcomed outside assistance. Ever since Mr. Sherlock, "detectives" who opened their own offices, were hired by the Bureau of Supervision, and provided consultations had practically become a profession.

If an investigation went badly, it was because the hired detective lacked ability, which at least spared the Bureau from severe internal accountability. If everything went smoothly, then the Bureau of Supervision's guidance had been correct, which could at least count as an achievement and secure everyone a share of the benefits.

Although Hai Na was a genuine inspector, Iver understood the Bureau of Supervision even better than she did.

Iver had his reasons for being so eager to participate in this investigation.

They were revenge and silencing.

The two versions of the story Iver had told the inspector from the Bureau of Supervision were both lies. Or rather, neither was completely true.

He had indeed been a participant in the ritual, and he did indeed know the two Demon Scholars.

But he had also truly been the ritual's sacrifice.

Because those two Demon Scholars had actually been Iver's "pen pals."

Iver had been interested in knowledge related to taboos since childhood. The more mysterious arts Avalon Kingdom prohibited, the more excited he became when studying them.

For example, ritual magic from the Path of Transcendence, and preservation techniques from the Path of Twilight.

The former was a basic ability of Demon Scholars, while one of the professions derived from the latter was the necromancer. Even the name alone made it sound like nothing good.

There were only brief outlines of such forbidden knowledge in his adoptive father's study. Privately hoarding forbidden books was a serious crime punishable by imprisonment, even for a knightly family. But after reading those outlines, Little Iver had only grown more eager.

He crazily purchased ritual materials and, without possessing any Extraordinary Knowledge or mysterious techniques, tried to perform rituals through pure speculation and imagination.

Naturally, he failed.

The core secret of this world was "knowledge."

The nine mysterious arts corresponding to the Nine Great Paths all required the appropriate knowledge to master. Conversely, as long as one grasped the corresponding knowledge, even someone with little personal strength could obtain Extraordinary Power far beyond their true capabilities. Every piece of forbidden knowledge was practically the foundation of an entire school. Under such circumstances, it was impossible to buy any reliable "skill books" on the open market.

Then, on Iver's sixteenth birthday, a secret society of Demon Scholars called Noble Red suddenly contacted him.

Iver was highly wary at first. But along with their letter, they sent him handwritten copies of several forbidden books containing knowledge of demons and demonic rituals.

They were all small rituals no different from tricks—such as making someone grow poisonous boils, treating minor wounds, making someone drowsy, or making someone a little unlucky. They seemed useless, but they were all genuine Extraordinary Rituals! After trying them one by one, Iver became extremely excited. He thus became pen pals with the other party, frequently exchanging knowledge about demons. They also claimed to be Iver's friends, often chatting with him about their emotional lives and trivial matters from everyday life.

At first, Iver still maintained some wariness.

But two years quietly passed like that.

Iver thought that if the other party had wanted to deceive him, they would have done it long ago. The value of the Secret Knowledge they had given him was already considerable. Although Iver had never visited the black market and did not know exactly how much the knowledge could sell for, even if the quality was insufficient, the quantity alone was already enormous.

What kind of scammer would operate for so long and invest so much just to deceive one person?

It made neither sense nor reason. More importantly, it did not serve their greatest interests.

Thus, Iver gradually relaxed his guard and truly regarded this pen pal as a friend he had never met but with whom he had clicked remarkably well.

A few days ago, the other party claimed that they had business in the capital and wanted to meet Iver.

Iver believed them without hesitation or suspicion.

That was the lie he had told the inspector. "Iver" had not been kidnapped; he had gone there of his own accord.

They were a man and a woman dressed in red, both with shaved heads. The man looked to be in his forties or fifties, while the woman was in her twenties. Besides being mentor and apprentice, they were also lovers.

He warmly invited his "two friends" to dinner. Afterward, the middle-aged man said he could let Iver witness, and even personally participate in, a true Demon Summoning Ritual. Iver agreed excitedly.

But after spending more than an hour setting up the ritual, he looked at the ritual altar and suddenly realized something.

Did summoning a demon not require expensive materials? Only then did he belatedly realize that, having personally set up the ritual altar, he had conveniently become a "willing sacrificial offering." At the same time, as a student of the theology department at Royal Law University, Iver would be able to become a priest before graduation.

Although he had not truly embarked on the path of an Extraordinary, he had already taken the first step onto the Path of Dedication.

On his character card, this manifested as already possessing the level-one priest profession. Once the experience for the basic skill "Basic Prayer" was filled, Iver could raise his priest profession to level two and master his first Path Trait from the Path of Dedication.

Naturally, he had happily told his pen pals about this. Although "priest" was less interesting than "Demon Scholar," it was still an Extraordinary Profession. Being able to embark on the path of the Extraordinary and possess Extraordinary Abilities was better than having nothing.

More importantly, priests were a respected profession in Avalon.

The symbols of the Path of Dedication were radiance, protection, and candles. It was a path of dedicating oneself to others and to ideals, and only those who practiced this philosophy from the bottom of their hearts could grow stronger. Thus, all professions branching from the Path of Dedication were promising and respected Extraordinary Professions.

As a "believer in Dedication who had volunteered to sacrifice himself," Iver became an offering of extremely high quality.

It was only then, with death looming over him, that Iver recalled his memories of his Previous Life. He recognized the demon's species before anyone else and successfully signed a contract with it.

He controlled the shadow demon to ambush and kill the middle-aged man, who was still frozen in astonishment—the Demon Scholar who had served as the "mentor." But the woman who had been the apprentice was still alive.

If she had escaped any slower, Iver would have killed her. But if she had dared to turn around and look back, she could have killed Iver instead.

It had been that close.

Iver sighed.

He had only narrowly escaped being sacrificed and silenced by that man, and had only narrowly avoided being killed by that woman.

Betrayed, deceived, and murdered.

Iver's genuine anger echoed in his heart. He decided without hesitation to retaliate.

To say nothing of the fact that the woman had very likely seen Iver's letters.

That meant that once captured, she might expose Iver. No—she would definitely expose him.

His adoptive father's position was now impossible to discern, but even if it was only for his own sake, Iver had to silence her before the Bureau of Supervision caught her.

However, Iver also had no intention of exposing his identity as a Demon Scholar just to kill her.

He had a way.

After waking up yesterday, Iver's first reaction had been to try a simple ritual that the original "Iver" did not know about and that had only appeared later in the game. After using that ritual to replenish the vitality drained from him as a sacrifice, Iver had essentially confirmed that the Secret Knowledge he knew was equally effective in this world.

Iver's profession in the game had not been the Demon Scholar of the Path of Transcendence, but the Enlightener of the Path of Dedication.

It was a pure support profession that could greatly strengthen allies while possessing a small amount of healing and control ability.

But now, with him having to face the world-ending crises alone, such a weak profession would not do.

That was because Enlighteners could not benefit from their own enhancements. More precisely, most professions on the Path of Dedication could not benefit from their own enhancements, protection, or healing skills.

However, Enlightener worked as a secondary profession. After all, Iver's public identity was a priest of the Path of Dedication. He could also prepare in advance to change professions into an Enlightener, and he was intimately familiar with the Path Traits required to advance into that profession.

To resolve those crises, his main profession had to possess sufficiently powerful solo combat ability.

Considering that he could take Enlightener as a secondary profession, the answer was simple.

It was the version 5.0 "Iver," who had advanced into the Great Beast Master after mastering the power of Phantom Demons.

That was a late-game profession obtained after advancing once more from Great Sin Scholar.

It could extract the essence of immortal Phantom Demons after defeating them and turn that essence into summoned beasts—in other words, the "Great Beasts" of the six attributes.

Although only one "Great Beast" could exist at a time, he could switch to the beast best suited to the current situation and then use support cards, equipment cards, and Field Cards made from the power extracted from other "Great Beasts" to strengthen the one currently summoned.

Most importantly, this summoned beast counted as an "ally."

Not only did its damage far exceed the main body's, it could also benefit from every type of BUFF granted by allies.

In game terms, this profession had the highest buff-receiving efficiency.

That was because the enhancements granted by cards were all premium mechanic-based buffs—such as triple speed, armor break, poison, burning, evasion, and spell penetration—while they uniquely lacked damage-increasing buffs. Thus, they would not be diluted by the various damage-increasing BUFFs of Enlightener, the most mainstream support profession.

Although after summoning a "Great Beast," the main body could no longer benefit from attack buffs and its damage output would become somewhat weak,

during a burst cycle, the Great Beast Master could temporarily merge with the summoned and fully enhanced "Great Beast," unleashing extraordinarily powerful strength.

With Enlightener supporting Great Beast Master, Iver could strengthen his summoned beast as an "ally." He would not lose the social benefits of his public priest identity, could switch to a summoned beast that countered each different enemy, and still had an extremely high ceiling.

In the worst-case scenario, if he were the only one capable of facing the BOSS, this profession combination might not have the highest burst under ideal circumstances, but it would definitely have the strongest overall performance and adaptability.

The ability to extract the power of Greater Phantom Demons and use Tarot Cards as materials to create Phantom Demon Cards came from the prerequisite profession, Great Sin Scholar.

After completely studying and analyzing a Phantom Demon, Great Sin Scholar could obtain the corresponding ritual knowledge: what cards could be printed from that Phantom Demon, and what materials and rituals were required. Once this knowledge was known, even a Demon Scholar could prepare the cards in advance.

The most important prerequisite for advancing into Great Beast Master was to use Great Sin Scholar's ability to create six Blank Cards of different attributes and seal one corresponding Phantom Demon in each.

Then, he had to repeatedly defeat Phantom Demons of the same attributes as experience materials, feeding all six Phantom Demons until their levels were full.

According to Iver's memories, Yulia possessed a Fire Attribute Greater Phantom Demon.

It was precisely to nourish that Phantom Demon that her body had become so weak.

Once that Phantom Demon finished developing, it would claim Yulia's life. To save her, one had to face the young Phantom Demon directly. But Phantom Demons were immortal... This meant that ordinary methods could not save Yulia. At most, they could delay the time until the Phantom Demon awakened and ran wild.

Great Beast Master was different.

If Iver could successfully create a Blank Card with enough capacity to contain the Phantom Demon inside Yulia, he could directly extract the Phantom Demon's consciousness from her body.

That way, not only could Yulia survive, he could also prepare the advancement materials for Great Beast Master in advance!

Yulia could even obtain the Phantom Demon's remaining energy in the process, stabilizing and nurturing that dangerous, unstable power and allowing her to embark on the path of the Extraordinary as well!

The foundation of all this was whether the card-making ritual from Iver's memories was reliable and feasible.

He had already tested other rituals. The ritual knowledge from the game truly worked! But the creation of Phantom Demon Cards required one more verification, because Great Sin Scholar was a profession that only appeared after the Fallen Angel descended.

It had arrived a full two versions early now, so Iver was unsure whether this ritual could already function.

That was why he needed to experiment.

As long as Iver could successfully create any Phantom Demon Card as a Demon Scholar, he could immediately confirm that this system was still usable in the present!

Then he would gain another form of power unrelated to Demon Scholar.

His revenge and silencing operation would both become easier.

Yulia could also be saved!

Even Avalon Kingdom's destruction might no longer be irreversible—

as long as he could successfully create his first card.

Iver was still far too weak. The only Extraordinary existence close to a Greater Phantom Demon under his control was the shadow demon.

The only card that could be made by extracting the shadow demon was "The Moon."

Regardless of how strong the power sealed inside the card was, creating "The Moon" required a nail from the forehead of a criminal subjected to quartering, as well as three ancient ropes from a gallows.

Iver sat solemnly at his desk and took a slightly blackened Tarot Card from a jade box.

These Tarot Cards were among the many occult items Iver had bought during his former fanaticism for various rituals, items he had never expected to use. But now, they happened to be usable for creating a Phantom Demon Card for Great Beast Master.

The Tarot Card depicted a moon with two towers on either side. Beneath the moon, a wolf and a dog were both barking madly at it. At the very center and bottom of the image, a lobster crawled out of a river, staring blankly up at the sky.

This was The Moon. In Tarot divination, The Moon symbolized confusion, distress, and unease.

The creators of the Tarot Cards had been prophets from the Path of Adaptation. The prophets despised astrologers, who also belonged to the Path of Adaptation, comparing them to dogs barking at the moon. All prophets agreed that the future could never be predicted with perfect accuracy, while astrologers sought to create a sufficiently complex and precise "Grand Unified Star Chart" capable of predicting every future.

The prophets considered this behavior laughable. It was like a dog barking at the moon, trying to figure out what it represented. Yet this only exposed the astrologers' ignorance and fearlessness.

Iver held his breath and became extremely careful.

That was because he had smeared mercury over the "moon" on the Tarot Card. Using it as a medium, he had infused three points of Dark Attribute Mana into it yesterday.

Iver's Dark Attribute Mana pool currently had a maximum capacity of only three points.

Yet even creating the most basic and weakest card required at least five points. Regardless of how powerful the card was, the other materials remained the same; the only difference was the amount of gemstone powder used.

Though making such a weak card was somewhat wasteful of materials, successfully completing it once to verify whether the process was feasible was more important.

Besides, at worst, it could be reused as a magic scroll. Once the card was created, it only required one-tenth of the mana to activate, with less than one point counting as zero. The only restriction was that cards made from the same Tarot Card could only be used once per day. In other words, if Iver used this Moon card, he could not use any other Moon card that day.

But that did not matter.

Once he no longer needed it, he could sell it or give it away. A portable spell scroll that required no mana to activate and automatically recharged every day would certainly sell for a good price. From that perspective, the ritual materials could not be considered wasted.

Iver had infused his three points of Dark Attribute Mana into the card yesterday. That was why the card had turned slightly black. It was not an illusion; it was genuinely absorbing the light around it weakly. If placed under sunlight and compared with the objects around it, the difference might be more obvious.

Now, Iver's mana pool had recovered to full.

He gently touched the mercury-coated moon again and slowly infused all three points of Dark Attribute Mana within his body. A card made with six points of mana would be slightly stronger than one made with five.

"What a pity..."

Iver sighed softly. "I'll make one first. I'll wait until I have more mana before making the remaining three."

Once the card had been infused with the minimum five points, the ritual activated immediately. If he did not begin the creation at once, it would be ruined after an hour. Otherwise, Iver could even stockpile mana day by day for ten days, eventually accumulating enough to create the "Field Card: Shadow Cellar," which required thirty points of mana.

He could also infuse one more point today and begin creating it tomorrow with seven points of mana.

But cards made with between five and ten points of mana were all the weakest "Enchantment Card: Shadow Blade." Stockpiling a little more would not cause a qualitative change... In that case, he might as well save a day.

Thinking this, he used a hammer to drive the rusty nail forcefully into the Tarot Card.

With a creak, the paper card let out a strange, sour sound. It was as though Iver was not driving a nail into a card, but into someone's skull.

Next, he looped the three ropes and slipped them over the nail from three different angles. He then used ordinary nails to fasten the other three ends of the ropes to three "Sword" cards.

In the next moment, the ropes suddenly inflated and swelled. Although they were merely hanging from a single nail, they seemed to have looped around someone's neck. The three ropes abruptly formed a circle instead of a "V."

Immediately afterward, Iver evenly sprinkled the Black Pearl Powder he had ground in advance over the Tarot Card. The "Moon" card belonged to the domain of the Path of Love. Black pearls were the guardian gems of the Path of Love and could be used to attract the gaze of the Pillar God of the Path of Love, Constant Self.

Just a gaze—even a single glance—was enough to grant the card sentience.

After finishing what he had to do, Iver calmly remained where he was without moving.

The shadow beneath him rose like strands of smoke and merged into the card. The image on the Tarot Card changed constantly, as if another artist were altering it.

When the changes ended, the nail slowly melted as well. It transformed into a new "moon," while two of the three ropes merged into two new "black towers," becoming two dog-headed humanoids holding staffs. The remaining rope replaced the original lobster and became a black scarab.

The card floated up on its own and flew into Iver's hand.

The card's attributes automatically appeared in his eyes:

Enchantment: Shadow Blade (The Moon)

Required: Dark 0

Instant, Contact, Immediate Effect

Effect: Temporarily grants the target "weapon" the attributes of shadow, cutting, and erosion, treating it as an Extraordinary Weapon. Duration: one minute (+20%)

It worked.

Iver thought.

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