Melissa was very unhappy about them hiring a maid by the hour. She said their money didn't grow on trees, and if something happened to one of them, how would they support the household?
"My classmates moved to Lower Street. They're really having a hard time..."
Melissa hadn't finished speaking when Lynch interrupted her.
"Oh, Melissa, you're so sweet. I won't let you live in Lower Street. Even if Klein and Benson can't earn any money, I'll support you."
He wasn't a Demon or anything. After living with Klein's family for so long, he had developed feelings for them, especially Melissa, who was still so young. He really did think of her as a little sister.
If something really happened to both Klein and Benson, he would definitely give Melissa a good life. It did sound a little like he was cursing them, but Klein and Benson didn't notice.
Melissa did, but all she could think about was Lynch saying he would support her.
She parted her lips, a dazed look in her brown eyes that made her seem even cuter.
"Come on, eat your cake! If you don't eat it now, it won't taste as good. It cost five pence!"
Lynch urged her.
Melissa immediately looked at the cake.
"Five pence? How could it be worth five pence? You were chea—"
Before she could finish, Lynch scooped up a piece of cake and popped it into her mouth.
The girl was wonderful in every way except for that mouth of hers.
Melissa's cheeks bulged with cake. She glared at Lynch, but the taste soon won her over.
It was lemon-flavored.
That was her favorite.
She glanced at the cakes in Benson and Klein's hands, which looked lower in quality, then at her own, which was clearly much more expensive. After that, she looked at Lynch's handsome, smiling face, and her cheeks turned faintly red.
But she quickly put on a stern expression again.
"Lynch, don't just shove cake into a girl's mouth. It's very ungentlemanly. Besides, you should save money. If you don't, how will you afford to marry a wife?"
Lynch: ...
Oh, what a headache!
Couldn't this girl just eat her cake in peace?
After dinner, Lynch watched Melissa finish her cake and finally remembered to take a look at what he'd gained that day.
It was a pen, a little like a study aid. Taking notes with it felt incredibly smooth. Whenever he had a question, he only needed to tap it with the pen, and it was as if he could hear an explanation in his mind.
It could even correct his handwriting. Whenever he wrote a crooked letter, the pen would fix it on its own, and the finished writing was so neat it put him to shame.
Perhaps because the pen had already acknowledged him as its owner, Lynch even discovered that it could write down anything he could think of without him having to do the work himself.
He hadn't thought much of it at first, figuring Mr. Azik had given him a child's toy. Now he realized how shallow that had been.
Besides the pen, he had also gained three Pathways he could simulate.
The Lawyer, the Spectator, and the Reader Pathway, which he wanted most right now.
Lynch was practically over the moon.
He immediately switched off the Sleepless Pathway. After waiting an hour for the cooldown, he activated the Reader Pathway.
The moment he did, his mind became so clear it almost frightened him. Earlier, when Old Neil had explained things, he hadn't just failed to understand them—he hadn't even been able to remember them.
But now it was different. He could understand the notes just by reading them once. The material he'd written down during the day was child's play to him now.
Lynch spent another two hours studying his textbooks with the Reader Pathway active. When he felt his mind was full of knowledge, he finally put the books away.
Honestly, the Reader Pathway was perfect for studying.
To test whether what he'd learned with the Reader Pathway would still be useful, Lynch turned off the simulation once he was done studying.
He fiddled with the Study Pen in his hand, waiting for the cooldown to end, but the longer he waited, the sleepier he became. When bedtime came, the pen started telling him a bedtime story, making him yawn again and again.
Lynch couldn't hold out any longer. He lay down, intending to sleep for just half an hour.
He must have been terribly tired, because his head had barely touched the pillow before he fell asleep.
He didn't know how long he'd been asleep when he suddenly felt himself jolting awake.
The Stone of Myriad Phenomena kept reminding him that he was in a dream.
Was it the captain?
That thought flashed through Lynch's mind. He didn't act rashly, instead taking a careful look at the dream.
This was the place he'd visited during the day, the building where young Master Elliott had been kidnapped. He'd stood outside and hadn't gone in, but now the dream showed him the staircase, as if guiding him upstairs.
Lynch didn't resist the urge. He climbed the stairs slowly and saw an open doorway.
He walked inside.
A figure sat in a reclining chair with its back to him. It was as if a voice were urging him to walk around the chair and take a look. Lynch stopped where he was, then urged the Stone of Myriad Phenomena to pull him out of the dream.
Did they think he was an idiot?
He'd seen this kind of thing in movies plenty of times.
What if he went over and found a rotting corpse?
He was willing to cooperate with the other party, but that didn't mean he wanted to look at a corpse.
Lynch sat up in bed and immediately checked the time.
More than an hour had passed.
He tested himself on the material he'd memorized earlier.
It worked very well. He still remembered everything clearly, and the things he'd memorized with the Reader Pathway seemed to fade more slowly.
His guess had been right. Switching Pathways didn't affect the knowledge already stored in his mind, just as switching Pathways didn't affect the physical conditioning he'd built up with the Sleepless Pathway.
That was good news.
It meant he finally didn't have to struggle through his books every day.
That was what they meant when they said choosing mattered more than working hard!
If he'd chosen the Reader Potion back then, he wouldn't have to worry about memorizing things now.
But if he'd chosen the Reader Pathway, he wouldn't have been able to show any fighting ability when he was Sequence 9. Maybe gaining something always meant losing something else.
But he was different from everyone else.
They lost things for good, while he only had to wait an hour for the cooldown to end before he could get them back!
Lynch couldn't help grinning.
But once the excitement wore off, he remembered the inexplicable dream.
Clearly, someone had guided him into that dream.
They'd made him dream that to warn him there was something wrong with the place he'd visited during the day.
There was either a corpse or someone very important in the room opposite the one where young Master Elliott had been kidnapped.
So what should he do now?
Ignore it, or do something?
Lynch sighed. It seemed he needed to get the original text of Lord of the Mysteries generated as soon as possible. Otherwise, he still wouldn't know who was behind that dream.
He suspected it might be 008, but why would 008 come after him instead of Klein?
After thinking for a while, he decided to go straight to Dunn and the others.
The other party had used this method to warn him, so they probably didn't mean him any harm for now. If he refused to cooperate, they might turn hostile.
But if he was going to cooperate, shouldn't he do something?
Before you continue