"What Nighthawks? Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."
Thoughts raced through Julian's mind. Rather than taking the bait Dunn Smith had dangled before him like a leading question, he gave the most guarded answer possible.
Remember the original site's domain.
"I understand your concerns, but..."
Dunn considered for a moment, then raised his left hand and beckoned.
Leonard understood immediately. He took several sheets of paper from the document envelope in his hands and passed them to Julian.
Julian accepted the documents and found that they contained his true identity and information about his past.
In other words, his entire background had been exposed.
Julian remained silent for a long time before letting out a soft sigh.
"What do you intend to do? Imprison me, or hand me back to the Church of Knowledge?"
"Neither. There's no need to be nervous."
Dunn shook his head and spoke quietly to Leonard.
"Leonard, give me the document you prepared."
At that, Leonard took another document out of the envelope.
"What is it?"
Julian raised an eyebrow and accepted the sheet with some confusion. Only then did he see the heading, "Letter of Appointment," printed in elegant calligraphy.
His gaze moved down to the text below:
"Julian Albrecht, assistant professor at Khoy University, is hereby appointed as an expert consultant to the Physical Evidence Identification Department for a term of three years."
At the bottom were a handwritten signature and a seal:
"June 29, 1349, Awwa County Police Department."
"What does this mean?"
Julian asked in confusion. He genuinely couldn't make sense of the situation.
"In other words, you are now under the protection of the Nighthawks."
Dunn answered.
"What do you gain from protecting me?"
Julian asked again.
Although he knew this was most likely the Evernight Goddess's intention, he still wanted to understand what responsibilities and obligations he would have toward the Church of Evernight.
"This order came directly from the Holy Cathedral. I'm not aware of the deeper considerations behind it."
As expected, Dunn shook his head.
"However, as a former scholar of the Church of Knowledge, you must know more about supernatural items than we do.
"So when the need arises, you'll have to help us identify some physical evidence... Ordinarily, as long as you report to Saint Selena Cathedral every weekend, we won't interfere with your affairs.
"Of course, we'll also pay you twice the salary of a senior Nighthawks member...
"Twenty pounds a week, with a thirty-percent increase each year. How does that sound?"
Twenty pounds wasn't much for someone of Julian's standing. Still, although his body retained the various modifications made by the Keeper of Knowledge potion, he wasn't even a Sequence 9 Beyonder anymore.
That made it a very good offer-especially considering that he still had his salary from Khoy University. He could live quite comfortably.
Ultimately, as long as the Church of Knowledge stopped hunting him and he could engage in Beyonder activities under official protection, Julian would have been willing to accept even without pay!
"All right, I accept. Do you have a pen?"
Julian showed no hesitation whatsoever.
"Professor, since we're going to be colleagues, let me offer you a word of advice."
Just then, Leonard suddenly leaned forward and spoke.
"What?" Julian asked.
"Your handwriting had better be as impressive as your scholarship. This is going into the records."
Leonard grinned and winked as he handed over a pen.
"Don't worry. If you want to learn penmanship, I can teach you."
Julian lifted his eyes to glance at the rather flippant Midnight Poet, lightly tapping a finger against the date that had been filled rather untidily into the blank space on the page.
Then he took the pen and signed his name.
"Thank you."
Smiling, he returned the letter of appointment to Leonard, whose grin had frozen, then looked at Dunn.
"When can I leave the hospital? I feel pretty much recovered."
Although only five days had passed since Julian was attacked, the Church of Evernight had clearly given him some supernatural medicine that accelerated his recovery. He now felt almost no different from before his injuries.
"You can complete the discharge paperwork shortly."
Dunn answered first, then added:
"As it happens, we have a case involving the Secret Order that may require your assistance."
The Secret Order... June 29, 1349. Could this be the Antigonus Family Notebook incident?
Julian suddenly realized that the date on the appointment letter was the day after Zhou Mingrui had transmigrated and become Klein. The Nighthawks were currently investigating that case.
The coincidence was so great that, for a moment, he couldn't tell whether powerful beings had deliberately arranged it or whether fate had guided him here.
"All right, but I need to go home first. Is that okay?"
Julian pointed at his hospital gown.
"I need a shower and a change of presentable clothes before I can help you with the assignment."
"Understandable."
Dunn nodded. He then arranged for Leonard to help Julian complete the discharge paperwork and hired a carriage to take him home.
"...Good. My home hasn't been searched."
Seeing that everything in his home was still neat and orderly, Julian let out a long sigh of relief.
The Nighthawks must have played a part in that. Otherwise, the potion ingredients he had hidden would surely have been seized.
After rummaging around, he found a special carrying bag.
"Main ingredients: twenty grams of meteorite powder that never cools, one star hexagonal crystal tinted by the aurora.
"Five grams of soil that has completely lost its fertility, ten grams of white mandrake flower essential oil, twenty milliliters of uncoagulated blood from a dead person."
This was the formula for the Four-Color Seer potion. Its two main ingredients were extremely rare and expensive, and it had taken him three full years to purchase them.
Julian found a clean iron pot and added the supplementary ingredients one after another.
Watching the bubbling, black, viscous fluid in the pot, Julian then added the two
main ingredients.
Suddenly, a burst of dazzling light erupted from the pot, so bright that Julian could barely keep his eyes open.
When the light faded, a jellylike mass had appeared in the pot, faintly emitting a peculiar color that seemed to fall outside any known spectrum.
"So this is the Four-Color Seer potion..."
Julian swallowed. He poured the potion into a cup, took a deep breath, and drained it in one gulp.
The next second, before Julian could even react, countless indescribable halos of color erupted before him, seemingly impossible to classify within the visible spectrum. At the same time, waves of whispers burst into his ears, sounding bizarre and sinister, yet devoid of any discernible meaning.
The halos and whispers invaded Julian's entire body in an instant. With a bang, he dissolved into a cloud of luminous mist, and his consciousness began expanding without limit, seemingly reaching toward some infinitely deep and terrifying place among the stars.
Trembling, expansion, plunder, transcendence.
Julian's sense of self was almost completely consumed by these convictions, dissolving into part of that brilliant radiance. The entire living room began vibrating violently with a beelike hum, as though resonating with some peculiar spirit.
More terrifying still, the vibrations weren't confined to Julian's surroundings. They spread and surged toward the highest reaches of the sky.
In an instant, within Julian's ineffable, transcendent perception, numerous mighty wills locked onto him.
Just as his body and mind were about to collapse and be destroyed, merging with that dazzling radiance, Julian suddenly saw a surge of darkness erupt before him.
The darkness swallowed those colors, and Julian along with them.
A peculiar tranquility rose from the depths of his heart, and the clamor and illusory lights subsided.
When he came to his senses again, the potion's overflowing power had been completely contained and calmed, and the world around him had become profoundly different.
As though he had gained new cone cells, every color Julian saw was utterly different from before.
Colors that had once seemed uniform were now intricate and complex, revealing visual information that ordinary people could never notice.
This ability to discern color far surpassed that of ordinary tetrachromats produced by genetic mutation, for it involved not only optics but also the "auras" of spirituality and mysticism. For instance, Julian could clearly see his own spiritual aura and those of the pedestrians outside, and could even faintly perceive the peculiar colors of the scent molecules on their bodies.
In addition, his strength, spirituality, and physical constitution had improved significantly, while his abilities in divination and ritual magic had also received a certain boost.
Julian also keenly sensed that some peculiar play of light and shadow seemed to linger in the empty air around him, yet it vanished whenever he tried to examine it closely.
That sensation just now... Did a Beyonder of the Sleepless pathway intervene?
While that thought involuntarily surfaced in Julian's still-shaken mind, he suddenly noticed that every color in the room seemed to be flowing toward a dark area.
It felt like light caught by the gravity of a black hole.
Julian frowned and turned his gaze toward that patch of pure darkness.
Although he couldn't see anything, the image of a woman with unremarkable features, dressed in a simple linen robe, appeared in his mind like an intuition.
She stood quietly in the shadows beside the window, as though she had become one with the darkness.
And those deep, dark eyes, which seemed to reflect a tranquil night sky, were calmly watching Julian Albrecht!