The man stared at Isaac, trying to determine whether his words were genuine cooperation or if he had ulterior motives.
" Deer Lane, Warehouse No. 3. Once you get there, someone will naturally make contact with you." The man lowered his voice, paused, and added, "Of course, if you dare to try anything funny, the Cult won't be able to hide it."
He said no more, pushed open the door of the coffee shop, and strode away.
Li Jiehao let out a long sigh of relief, "Damn, I thought you were going to fight him."
"This is a public place. If a fight breaks out and innocent people get hurt, it will be very troublesome. Besides, since he came to follow us and his actions were rather crude, the people behind him probably see him as a pawn. Even if we capture him, we probably won't be able to extract much useful information."
"By the way, that person's ' Great Arts ' sounded pretty impressive. Could it be that they really have some amazing methods?"
"Well, those ancient texts you've read are actually part of his so-called ' Great Arts,' especially since you actually created a walking corpse."
"Ah..." Li Jiehao never expected that he would be considered someone who had mastered the " Great Arts ".
Isaac paid the bill and left the cafe, but the man was no longer in sight.
"Should we go after them?" Li Jiehao asked, holding Fenri.
"There's no need for now. Let's go back to the Joint Investigation Bureau and discuss it with the boss," Isaac judged.
He thought for a moment, then squatted down and looked at Fenri: " Fenri, about that person just now, will you be able to track him down?"
Fenri nodded slightly, and Isaac breathed a sigh of relief; at least there was a backup plan. "That's good. If necessary, I'll have to trouble you."
Fenri wagged its tail, indicating "no trouble at all," or rather, it actually hoped that Isaac could be of more use so that it wouldn't be replaced by other guys in the future.
Back at the Joint Investigation Bureau, in the Section Nine office, Carlo was already back. There was a newspaper on the table and a cup of tea beside him.
"Boss, you're back!" Li Jiehao stepped through the door. "What were you busy with this morning? We just ran into a big problem!"
"Let's go boating on Lake Pote with Rano."
"Boating? Lake Pote? No... you went boating?" Li Jiehao's expression was full of confusion.
"We also talked about the case," Carlo said. "Let's exchange information; first, tell me what major events you've encountered."
"Someone was following us, claiming to be from the Cult." Isaac recounted the process of being followed and communicating with them.
Li Jiehao added from the side, "That person also called us some kind of short-lived species, and said they were immortals with some Great Arts; they were very arrogant."
"Such a boastful tone, how can you fool people?" Carlo picked up his teacup. "This rhetoric is quite typical of the Ghoul Cult. They call members who extend their lifespan through various means 'immortals,' while ordinary people are naturally seen as short-lived beings."
"Then you must be considered an immortal, boss, right?" Li Jiehao asked curiously.
"Well, if I really joined the Ghoul Cult, I might even become its leader," Carlo waved his hand. "But the Ghoul Cult coming to us saves us the trouble of looking for them."
Should we follow this line and sneak in?
Carlo placed his teacup back on the table. "Since they've extended such a warm invitation, it would seem rather unromantic to refuse outright. We might as well go along with it. Anyway, the ring is in my possession, and it doesn't require Joint Investigation Bureau approval. Let's use it as bait and see how big a fish we can catch."
Li Jiehao blinked. "So, we're going to go undercover?"
"There's no place for you, Asa can go. Even if they have malicious intentions and want to silence you, Asa at least has a chance to escape. As for you, you'd probably cough up blood after just one punch."
Li Jiehao shrank his neck.
Isaac said, "I have no experience as an undercover agent. What if I mess things up?"
"It's alright, I'm a top-notch support. Even if I can't guarantee a successful reconnaissance, I can at least guarantee a smooth escape," Carlo said. "As for me and Rano... ugh, it's such a hassle to repeat myself. I should have brought you along to listen in earlier."
From the Vist People's primitive worship of the Tree in the Lake, to how the Vicania faith overshadowed old traditions after the Empire's conquest, and then to the target the ring pointed to in the Wilderness —a tree located at the bottom of the lake —Isaac and Li Jiehao listened in stunned silence.
"So this is how the faith of Morzul originated..." Isaac pondered.
He was familiar with this academic viewpoint; just as Rano had attended Edward's lectures, Isaac had often heard Edward's research framework.
Li Jiehao was more concerned about something else. "Wait, boss, you mean there's a tree at the Lake Pote, and that tree is Morzul?"
"You could say it's a facet of Morzul, the first Tree in the Lake worshipped by the Vist People. As for whether that thing is the real Morzul now, or what state it's in, I can't say for sure."
Li Jiehao scratched his head. "This... isn't right."
Carlo looked at him. "What's wrong?"
Li Jiehao hesitated for a moment. "Well, that... shouldn't Morzul be a guy wrapped up like a mummy?"
"A mummy?" Isaac didn't understand.
Li Jiehao realized that this term was unfamiliar to the people of this world, so he explained, "It's a method of disposing of corpses. After a person dies, their internal organs are removed, they are soaked in preservatives, and then wrapped in layers of bandages to make a mummified corpse... It's said that it can be preserved for a very, very long time. There's a civilization in my hometown that particularly likes to do this; they make pharaohs and nobles into mummies."
Isaac found it a bit strange, but said he understood.
Carlo then asked, "Why do you think Morzul should be a mummy?"
Li Jiehao said, "The books the Ghoul Cult gave me all depicted Morzul like this: his whole body wrapped in bandages, standing in the middle of a pile of skeletons, holding a scythe or a scepter or something like that. They didn't mention any trees or lakes at all."
Isaac frowned. "The image of Morzul circulating within the Ghoul Cult is that of a mummy, not Tree in the Lake, but now this ring points to the Tree in the Lake..."
"This raises several possibilities," Carlo said, holding up a finger. "One possibility is that the Ghoul Cult knows the ring points to the Tree in the Lake, and their purpose is to support that being."
"In other words, for some reason, the Morzul figure within the Ghoul Cult has reverted to its original form and found Morzul existing in this form."
"Or perhaps they don't know that the ring points to the Tree in the Lake, and still think it points to the mummy version of Morzul."
"As for these two Morzul with different appearances, they may be splits of the same being. Or perhaps something has donned the skin of the earlier Morzul and adopted His name."