Descent

Backlund, the City of Cities, in the Loen Kingdom.

This city was diagonally split into two by the Tussock River flowing southeast toward the estuary, connected by Backlund Bridge and ferries. With a population exceeding five million, it was one of the most prosperous cities on the continent. No, perhaps there wasn't even a "one of"!

At this moment, in a dim alley located in the Bridge Borough of this metropolis, a young man was sprawled in the darkness of a wall's corner. There were no obvious external injuries on his body, but his expression was extremely ferocious and distorted, as if he were enduring immense agony.

Enduring the lingering buzzing sound in his mind, Liu Bo opened his eyes with difficulty. Then, he saw the span of the bridge crossing the Tussock River directly above, and higher up in the night sky, a crimson full moon!

The Crimson Moon... The Loen Kingdom... Backlund...

Scene after scene of messy memories quickly flashed across Liu Bo's mind. After a long while, he felt his body regain some strength, so he propped himself up against the wall.

He looked down at the palms that obviously did not belong to him, and smiled bitterly to himself:

So I've transmigrated... The Loen Kingdom, Backlund? Heh, listening to these familiar names, the transmigrated world is still the "Lord of Mysteries" by big-wig Cuttlefish! This really isn't any kind of anticipated good place at all!

Liu Bo was originally an elective course lecturer at a third-tier university, neither making progress nor falling behind after working for three years. Lately, he had been pondering whether to change jobs, when he woke up to find that he had actually transmigrated, and landed right in the world of his favorite online literary work, "Lord of Mysteries"!

The body I'm in now is named Abner Brain, just turned eighteen years old, and still studying at a public school. Because of his dazed state, he accidentally fell from Backlund Bridge, which led to my transmigration. As for the reason for that dazed state, it seems to be a sudden and drastic family change... Wait, that doesn't seem right!

Liu Bo, who was recalling the memories of the body's original owner, suddenly changed his expression. He quickly reached his hand into his coat pocket and retrieved a thumb-sized, sharp-angled blue gemstone from it.

With his pupils reflecting this gemstone glowing brilliantly under the red moon, a scene flashed across Liu Bo's mind: a middle-aged man wearing only undergarments lying in a pool of blood. Clearly, almost all of his valuables had been plundered, yet this gemstone alone lay quietly right on his chest! And Abner, who happened to pass by this secluded corner, was overcome by greed for a moment, picked up the gemstone, and left quickly.

This... This gemstone wouldn't be a Beyonder Characteristic precipitated after a Beyonder's death, would it? It turns out the original owner's death involved a supernatural event? No, perhaps just the erosion of the Beyonder Characteristic alone was enough to cost him his life!

Recalling that the original Abner had carried this gemstone close to his body for nearly a week, the corners of Liu Bo's eyes twitched. While silently mourning for the other's ignorance, he hurriedly followed Klein's method in "Lord of Mysteries" by taking an iron cigarette case out of his other trouser pocket, throwing away the last two cigarettes left inside, and then carefully placing the blue gemstone inside it.

After finishing this, Liu Bo let out a long sigh of relief. Following that, he put away the cigarette case and, identifying directions based on his memories, hurried toward his temporarily rented residence in the East Borough. After all, Bridge Borough was not a safe place; the personnel were very complicated, and there were quite a few vagrants at night. When it came to public security, it was perhaps even inferior to the relatively decent areas within the East Borough.

Along the way, Liu Bo was always walking on thin ice. Because he hadn't fully received the original owner's memories, coupled with how muddle-headed the other person had been these past few days, he still didn't know the exact date after his transmigration, and he was terrified of running into those assassins, devils, and cultists from the original "Lord of Mysteries" story.

Fortunately, his worries were superfluous. Along this entire journey, aside from seeing some vagrants resembling walking corpses, there were no other accidents. He returned very smoothly to his rented one-room apartment on Black Palm Street in the East Borough.

The area of this room was not large, and the rent was 4 soli a week, so the furniture was also very simple, consisting only of a bed, a chair, a bedside table, and a half-length mirror hanging on the wall. Thanks to Emperor Roselle, his improvements to craftsmanship reduced the cost of glass manufacturing far too much; otherwise, even this mirror probably wouldn't have existed.

Casually lighting the candle on the bedside table, Liu Bo dazed out for a little while to soothe his brain, which had been dizzy ever since his transmigration. Only then did he take out the blue sapphire from the cigarette case again, and after examining it carefully for a moment, he couldn't help muttering to himself: I don't know which pathway this belongs to, nor what Sequence Beyonder Characteristic it is, and whether its erosion on this body of mine has any sequelae...

The moment he said this, he suddenly felt his concentration and logical analysis abilities soar abruptly. His brain seemed to have transformed into a high-speed operating computer, with streams of data calculating and processing within it! Within mere seconds, agonizing pain flooded his entire brain, and Liu Bo let out a miserable scream, tumbling headfirst to the ground.

Before blacking out, the periphery of his vision caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the half-length mirror. That was a young man with brown curly hair, while his eyes at this moment were completely rolled back, as if he had lost his pupils!

At the same time, beneath the Saint Wind Cathedral in Cherwood Borough, a member of the Mandated Punishers Squad was reporting to his captain:

"Captain, Old Red found An Rui's corpse in a garbage dump in Bridge Borough. In the battle in the suburbs last week, after he was randomly teleported by a cultist's Sealed Artifact, his condition was obviously not very good, and as a result, he was killed by someone taking advantage of his vulnerability..."

A clear look of anger appeared on the Mandated Punisher captain's face as he interrupted: "Did you perform Spirit Channeling? Do you know who did it?"

That team member sighed with a gloomy expression and said: "We found An Rui's corpse too late, and furthermore, he was thrown into a garbage pile by several vagrants. The remaining spirit was scarce, and Spirit Channeling didn't yield very good results. However, based on clues, our 'Keeper of Knowledge' deduced that he should have encountered East Borough gang members while severely injured, and was robbed and killed."

"How dare those maggots in the sewers?! Hmph, since it was a robbery, they must have taken An Rui's valuables and Beyonder Characteristic. You guys follow this lead and investigate, and make sure to find the trash who harmed An Rui!" The captain stood up and heavily slammed a palm on the table, then sat back down as if deflated, and continued, "You and Old Red take half a day to rest before going to investigate... Dawn is approaching, and since there is an exact result, I have to go face An Rui's family..."

"Captain..."

After Liu Bo regained consciousness, he didn't show any bewildered expression. Instead, he calmly retrieved a pocket watch from his breast pocket, checked the time, and mused: I've been unconscious for nearly six hours... It seems my transmigration does come with a golden finger, but it's a golden finger that has a three-to-four-second usage time and a six-hour forced unconsciousness cooldown... Is this thing gilded or something?

Then he looked into that half-length mirror again. The eyes in the mirror had returned to a light blue, but he hadn't forgotten the pure white pupils he saw before losing consciousness, and couldn't help mocking himself: What is this? The Byakugan from Naruto? Just in terms of insight alone it's about the same, but the duration is much too short! Well, following the art style of this world, let's just call it the 'Pure White Eye'.

Mocking aside, Liu Bo understood that this transmigrator welfare, which he had named the 'Pure White Eye', was actually quite powerful in its functions, because within those short few seconds earlier, he had already gained immense benefits. Right now, he also subconsciously took out paper and pen to summarize these benefits in Chinese.

The first ability of this Pure White Eye is to enhance my memory and memory processing capabilities! Within those short few seconds, not only did I digest all the memories of the original owner Abner, but even the knowledge I learned and the books I read before my transmigration became clear! These are all fortunes. Putting everything else aside, simply the potion formulas and ritual incantations involved in the novel "Lord of Mysteries" are priceless. Even though I really liked this novel before and read it many times, it's impossible for me to have deliberately memorized potion formulas. Now the Pure White Eye can directly revive these memories, which is simply fantastic! However, after exiting the Pure White Eye state, these memories will gradually distort, and I must quickly review them to truly remember them. Hmm, it seems that knowledge involving demigods and above is forgotten particularly fast, and knowledge concerning Outer Deities cannot be remembered even a bit.

The second ability is enhancing logical and insight capabilities. It allows me to discover many details while in the Pure White Eye state, and multitask to think about the internal logic and connections of these details. It's an excellent auxiliary skill for planning and plotting. The reason I had no bewilderment after waking up was because I had thought through all the situations clearly within the few seconds before passing out.

The third ability I consider to be the core ability of the Pure White Eye, which is the Analysis ability! It is an ability that can only operate on the foundation of the knowledge stored in my memory and the concrete phenomena I observe. In other words, the above two abilities are actually prerequisites for this ability! And this ability is extremely powerful. Within those few seconds, just by glancing at that Beyonder Characteristic and looking at myself through the mirror, I already analyzed quite a lot of conditions!

Liu Bo changed to another sheet of paper to record the analysis results: First, this Beyonder Characteristic belongs to the 'Reader' Pathway, and is the Sequence 8 'Detective'; second, this body of mine has indeed been polluted by the Beyonder Characteristic, but because of the suppression from the status of my Pure White Eye after transmigration, this pollution has already merged into my body and spirit, giving a slight boost to my spirituality and mental body. This kind of boost isn't a temporary state activated like the Pure White Eye, but rather like those middle- and lower-sequence second-generation Beyonders who naturally inherited a bit of Beyonder Characteristic...

Writing up to this point, Liu Bo couldn't help smiling bitterly, pondering: This also means I can no longer walk any other pathways, and can only try to advance as a 'Reader'. Moreover, supernatural beings of this pathway similarly enhance memory, insight, logic, and analysis in the early stages, which is simply a standard configuration with my Pure White Eye, and will boundlessly enhance this golden finger's ability... Is this really just a coincidence?

Forget it, anyway I already have no other choice now. Without truly advancing to a 'Reader', even with the Pure White Eye suppressing them, those merged characteristics are still extremely hidden dangers, and I will probably lose control if anything goes slightly wrong... Thinking of this, Liu Bo continued writing on that sheet of paper containing the analysis results:

Reader Pathway Sequence 9

Primary Material: Garrol Fish Pupil

This was the true formidable nature of the Pure White Eye's analysis ability, an ability that surpassed the analysis capability of Sequence 5 in the Reader Pathway!