Secret Rite and Code of Conduct

Returning to her room, Diana closed the door, the dignified posture she had maintained in the church instantly melting away.

She stood on her tiptoes for a moment before flopping forward, abandoning all pretense of ladylike grace.

The soft mattress caught her with a comfortable poof, and she sank into the pillows, her cheeks bulging slightly against the fabric.

"Whew~ so tired. It's much better not being a lady..."

She tossed the wooden box onto the desk, nearly knocking the books off the shelf.

She curled her legs up and rolled back and forth on the fluffy bedding, and only after regaining some of her energy did she reluctantly climb back up.

Sitting back at the desk, Diana picked up the wooden box she had discarded in the corner and began to fiddle with it out of curiosity.

After receiving the revelation from the Lord, her fear of this eerie eyeball had vanished.

She took the grayish-white crystalline lens out of the box and squeezed it between her fingers.

"How amazing, it actually feels bouncy."

The eyeball didn't seem like it had been sitting around for long; it felt as if it had just been peeled from a small sheep, its moisture perfectly preserved.

Diana held the slightly cloudy eyeball up to the gaslight, observing it carefully, then stared at the pupil, which looked like a wide slit, for several seconds.

Her pretty eyebrows furrowed; she didn't find anything special, but instead felt a sense of discomfort.

Diana gave up on her investigation and placed the eyeball securely on the desk.

"Hmm... as expected, I can't see anything special. Only the great Lord of All Spirits can perceive the secrets within..."

"Alright, Diana, you don't need to be so hard on yourself. Some things are destined to remain unclear. Just hand it over to His messenger when the great Lord requires it."

Diana comforted herself in her heart, then, as if remembering something, she brought the fingers that had touched the eyeball to her nose and sniffed.

A faint, fishy odor wafted up. She curled her lip and trotted to the washroom at the end of the hallway, scrubbing her small hands inside and out several times.

After washing up, she hummed a tune and returned to the desk once more.

She took out the Book of Rituals from the bookshelf. Although she had flipped through it many times, she could only ever see that one page containing the prayer to the Lord of All Spirits.

Yet, she refused to give up, fantasizing that one day the other pages would slowly come apart...

"Why are these pages stuck so firmly..." she muttered softly, her fingertips rubbing repeatedly over the paper, her eyes filled with reluctance.

Floating in the room, Ivan watched the young knight girl before him and nodded with satisfaction.

"Not bad, still working hard to study the secrets of ancient texts so late at night."

He had originally been contemplating whether to wait until Diana fell asleep to devour the eyeball.

Doing so would allow him to absorb the energy in advance, avoiding the kind of loss of control he experienced last time while absorbing the God Blood.

However, seeing the girl's earnest and focused expression, he turned his attention to these two ancient books as well.

"Why are most of the pages of these books written in ancient languages stuck together? Only one or two pages have legible content."

Ivan always felt that it wasn't as simple as the erosion of time; there must be a deeper secret hidden within, one that he and Diana had yet to find the method to unlock.

Diana sat at the desk, spreading the book open, flipping through it while forcefully picking at the pages.

Just then, the grayish-white eyeball on the corner of the desk—whether due to the table shaking from Diana's movements or its own imbalance—suddenly rolled toward the Book of Rituals in the center of the desk.

With a soft thud, the eyeball bumped right into the open Book of Rituals.

Diana froze, reaching out to move the eyeball away, but before she could touch it, a strange change occurred.

The open Book of Rituals, whose pages had previously been wrinkled and stuck together on both sides, suddenly seemed to become plump, like a sponge absorbing water.

As if disturbed by a breeze in the room, the overlapping paper on the left slowly flipped over.

The ink smudged on the paper slowly gathered inward, as if it had gained a life of its own, wandering and converging on the page until it gradually formed clear lines of text.

Her eyes widened, staring fixedly at the page, her breathing becoming rapid.

Ivan also saw this anomaly and looked with equal curiosity at the new content appearing on the paper.

"Eye of the Butterfly Sheep, Aspect of Heart-Dream."

Diana couldn't help but read it aloud, and Ivan nodded slightly upon hearing it:

"Hmm, can't understand it. Good thing there's little Diana."

"But what is a Butterfly Sheep? A sheep with butterfly wings?"

He imagined some strange, misshapen creature while continuing to listen to little Diana's inner thoughts.

"[Dream Awakener]: Allows one's own dreams to remain highly clear, enabling the memory of every detail within the dream and preventing the blurring or forgetting of dreams.

Within one's own clear dreams, one can interact simply with autonomous conscious entities within the dream, ask simple questions, and obtain vague hints.

As the rank increases, interactions and questions can become more complex, and the hints obtained will become clearer.

If abnormal scenes appear in the dream, one can keenly capture the potential reality revelations contained within, and upon waking, interpret the revelations through the details of the dream.

As the rank increases, the directionality of the captured revelations will become more explicit."

Seeing these descriptions, Ivan shook his head; he had originally thought the anomaly in the Book of Rituals would reveal something extraordinary.

It turned out to be nothing more than an introduction to the abilities of a Beyonder with the Dream-Heart Aspect.

"I can also manifest this kind of information when I devour materials, if that's all there is to it..."

However, Diana's translation did not stop there.

"Secret Rite: During three consecutive moonless nights, seek revelation within your own dreams each night, and interpret it before dawn on the third day.

Once the interpretation is successful, the revelation cipher will transform into spirituality and integrate into the self.

Code of Conduct: Do not rely excessively on dream revelations; judgments in reality must be combined with one's own rational analysis."

"..."

Ivan's tentacles twisted into a knot as he struggled to digest the meanings of "Secret Rite" and "Code of Conduct."

"Secret Rite? Code of Conduct?"

"The Secret Rite seems to be a ritual for gathering spirituality or advancing in rank, but when would a ritual be required for advancement... Little George never mentioned needing a ritual to step onto the second tier."

"The Code of Conduct must be a set of rules obtained after gaining an ability; could following these rules enhance one's control over the Aspect's powers?"

He had roughly reached a conclusion, yet more doubts arose, and a much larger question surfaced along with them.

"Hiss, why didn't I get this information when I devoured materials!"

The ability to devour extraordinary materials and gain information, which Ivan had originally taken such pride in, suddenly felt half-obsolete.

He stared intently at the Book of Rituals, the twisted and incomprehensible text upon it now appearing to shimmer with golden light in his eyes.

"What a treasure..."

Diana, who was studying the ancient tome intently, suddenly felt an inexplicable, prying gaze from the space above her head and couldn't help but shiver.

"Could it be that by reading this ancient book, I've been targeted by some filthy thing from the Spirit Realm again?"