Extraordinary Item

He took a deep breath, his mind beginning to recall information regarding the Church.

The Northern Continent Church is a polytheistic religious organization whose believers span all the nations of the Northern Continent; it can be said to be the absolute mainstream faith of the Northern Continent.

At the peak of the Church's influence, its leaders could even easily interfere with the succession of a nation's royal heirs and the issuance of a king's policies.

The Church claims that the gods reside on the holy mountain of "Oterian" in the Spirit Realm. Because they worship a pantheon, the Church's clergy blindly revere the existence of all Psionic entities.

But as the Chairman of Clovin, Andrich knows full well that the so-called Spirit Realm is not as wonderful as the Church proclaims. In the eyes of Psionic users, it is practically a hellish existence. So-called Psionic entities are ubiquitous in the Spirit Realm, and their level of threat to human society is extremely high, causing immense harm.

To date, in Clovin, those who refer to Spirit Realm entities with independent thought call them demons.

Therefore, he is not sure if there are gods in the Spirit Realm, but demons are certainly everywhere there.

When Emperor Renard established the Empire, he exerted all his strength to suppress the Church forces within the Empire. In particular, the Church's Holy See was still within the Empire at the time, but faced with the Emperor's suppression, it had no choice but to move outside the Empire's borders, leaving the region where the Church had held sway for a thousand years.

It can be said that the orthodox Church within the Empire is now completely independent of the entire Northern Continent Church system.

Furthermore, the Church within the Empire is guided and monitored by the Fifth Bureau of Clovin.

The duty of the Clovin Fifth Bureau is to safeguard the Empire's ideology, consciousness, and its most sensitive core—religious theory.

The Fifth Bureau is the immune system of the Empire's brain, responsible for identifying, purging, and even restructuring any "heretical thoughts" that might threaten the will of the Iron Glory Empire.

Therefore, the Church within the Empire can be considered a semi-official organization. Beyond that, those remnants of the Church that do not submit to the Empire's management—the hardliners—have all become illegal religious groups.

These illegal sects often have close ties with churches outside the Empire and belong to the hostile factions that Clovin must eliminate upon encounter.

The Order of Hidden Cultivation is one such stubborn remnant organization that has been suppressed since the Emperor's reign. He knows well that this secretive religious order has always been dedicated to exploring various forbidden knowledge, especially in fields related to the Spirit Realm and what they perceive as holy existences.

He continued to flip through the pages, and on the final report of the incident, there was a list of Psionic items related to this event.

On the list, there were a total of three Psionic items, each assigned an internal Clovin tracking number for Psionic items:

Evidence Number S-234-1: A coin with a face value of one Fenso.

Note: Recovered from the corpse of the suspect Malcolm, a low-ranking member of the Order of Hidden Cultivation. In the eyes of senior investigators, there are abnormal stains on the surface of the coin, but to ordinary people, this coin appears perfectly normal.

It retains a unique Psionic fluctuation. Experiments using detained prisoners holding the coin revealed that the holder would involuntarily use the coin to decide the probability of an event and would believe in the result with absolute conviction.

Moreover, the result of the coin would inevitably occur in an unexpected way.

Example: A death row inmate was once asked to hold the coin on the day of his execution to predict whether he would die that day.

The coin toss resulted in heads. Even though Clovin personnel announced that his execution would not be carried out, the prisoner remained convinced that he would die that day, stubbornly believing that Clovin was joking with him by announcing the stay of execution.

When the man returned to his cell, he was killed by a cellmate. Upon questioning the cellmate about the reason for the murder, it was revealed that he had learned Clovin would not execute the other inmate, which twisted his heart with jealousy, leading him to kill the man directly.

Conclusion: Number S-235-1 is particularly prone to bewitching and manipulating the human heart, and often leads a person into dangerous situations. As for whether Number S-234-1 possesses independent thought, further investigation is required.

Evidence Number SS-235-2: A notebook with special material and blank pages.

Note: Discovered on the corpse of the High Priest of the Order of Hidden Cultivation at 35 Elysée Avenue. When the notebook was found, there was absolutely no content on it; it appeared to be an ordinary blank notebook.

Preliminary sensing by senior investigators indicates it possesses Psionic fluctuations.

Material analysis is underway; it is suspected to be some form of Psionic carrier or a contract object, and it is very likely the core item of the Order of Hidden Cultivation's ritual.

Its current purpose is under investigation and analysis. It has no effect on ordinary people; subsequent analysis will be conducted using Psionic users.

Evidence Number SSS-235-3: A manuscript containing the ritual for summoning and communicating with Spirit Realm entities.

Note: The High Priest of the Order of Hidden Cultivation was clutching this manuscript tightly when he died.

The manuscript possesses Psionic fluctuations, and the ritual content points to an unknown Spirit Realm entity called the "Holy True Lord."

It has no effect on ordinary people. Whether the manuscript possesses other properties is still under investigation...

The numbering on this list is unique to Clovin's internal system for Psionic items, with the letters at the beginning of the number representing the danger level of the Psionic item.

There are four levels in total. The highest danger level, SSS, is a level that must never be used or touched. In Clovin's internal files, it belongs to the highest level of secrecy, with information accessible only to the leadership of the Clovin Chairman.

Next is the extremely dangerous SS level, which can be touched but not used. Internal files are highly classified and belong to the level accessible only to the heads of each Clovin bureau.

Below that is the highly dangerous S level, which can be touched and used to a limited extent. Internal files are important and classified, accessible to senior investigators of the Ninth Bureau.

Finally, there is the dangerous A level, which can be touched and requested for use. Internal files require confidentiality and are accessible to all Psionic investigators in Clovin.

The middle number represents the "incident" number associated with the Psionic item. The one-Fenso coin, numbered S-235-1, is the first Psionic item of S-level danger in Incident 235.

The last number is the corresponding Psionic item number within that incident.

After reading the contents of these reports, Andrich leaned back in his high-backed chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed his throbbing temples with his fingers.

When the Clovin organization was founded, it established the danger levels for Psionic items, but to date, Clovin has only contained two SSS-level Psionic items... and this manuscript is the second one.

After all, the time since Clovin's founding is the same as the time since the Empire's founding—less than twenty years.

This time, the vicious Psionic runaway and Spirit Realm entity manifestation event they encountered on Elysée Avenue, namely Incident 235, actually involved three Psionic items. The quantity far exceeds any Psionic incident Clovin has encountered in the past.

But beyond the number of Psionic items and their danger levels... Andrich pulled open a drawer and took out a report that had been submitted by the Third Bureau's Special Affairs Group, which he had previously set aside in the drawer.

<Supplementary Oral Report by Senior Investigator Kalieqin Regarding the Vicious Psionic Runaway Incident at Jeffrey's Apartment>

Very well, now all the investigation reports regarding Incident 235 are on this desk.

Three Psionic items, including one SSS-level dangerous Psionic item, a powerful third-party Psionic user whose Psionic projection appeared at Jeffrey's death apartment, and whose identity has not been uncovered.

Two contaminated zones, and the manifestation of a Psionic entity.

Andrich felt as if his brain were going numb.