Chapter 251 - 247: Master Sage Is Very Busy

Chapter 251: Chapter 247: Master Sage Is Very Busy

Although he didn’t say it out loud, Baru was quite satisfied with the group of motivated trainees.

Not all of them would make the candidate list for the Silent Knight Order, but a significant portion would definitely want to join the Knight Order.

It was time to request a dedicated site from Master Sage for the Knight Order. Even though many members had their own real-world careers and families, how could the Silent Knight Order not have a headquarters!

...

In Qingzhen, Qin Xiaoxia, who had buried himself in a pile of Magic Pattern Sheepskin Scrolls, was startled awake by a phone call from Baru.

He understood Baru’s request over the phone. It was rare for the stoic man to betray a hint of apprehension in his voice.

After all, his request was a bit steep—the site he needed was rather large.

Moreover, it would need to store military equipment, such as the various firearms they’d acquired, and even require space for a special armory.

The Knights wouldn’t just use their firearms for shooting bullets; using them as clubs would be a regular occurrence. This placed extremely high demands on the weapons, which would naturally need to be remanufactured with special metals.

Baru still remembered that Master Sage had mentioned he would search for special metals or corresponding materials to forge new armaments for the Association.

After receiving a verbal promise from Master Sage, Baru was as happy as a child, a rare sight.

Reviving the Silent Knight Order, which had faded into history, was Baru’s greatest dream. So far, he felt he was doing a pretty good job.

Qin Xiaoxia, however, was starting to get a headache.

It was a good thing that his subordinates were full of enthusiasm, practically champing at the bit to sacrifice themselves for Dawn, ’but the omnipotent Master Sage in their eyes is only human!’

’I have to solve the things on my plate one at a time!’

There weren’t just the considerations for international cooperation. He was also still wrestling with perfecting the Magic Pattern Scrolls and establishing their Secret Place, not to mention educating the Ear-Piercing Monster and devising a targeted plan for the Otherworld based on its understanding.

On top of that, many new and increasingly fascinating research topics were starting to pique his interest.

For example, the principles behind the process of the physical body, upon reaching a certain level of development, nourishing the soul in return. What was the role of external stimuli? Could the power of some otherworldly lifeform be fused into a physical body? Could some sort of Magic Potion be created?

For instance, what exactly was Gou Dandan? What were the twelve vials of gas it had burped up shortly after its birth, and why hadn’t it happened again? And experimenting on the fertilization capabilities of the "genetic tadpoles" from its father, Gou Junbao, would surely be fascinating as well.

Or, if there was a Monkey King, could there be a Pig King, a Dog King, a Fox King? Had animal evolution already begun? Was it the strength of human Soul Essence and the advantage of a larger population that led to a higher number of human Evolvers?

On a more profound level, he wanted to understand the relationship between the world’s consciousness and the living beings upon it.

Was it a "rise and fall together" situation, as it currently seemed, or was there something more to it? Did the Power of the World need to rely on its own creatures to fight Otherworldly Demons because it couldn’t act against them directly? Was a world’s true opponent another world, or a World Fragment? A case of soldiers fighting soldiers, and kings fighting kings?

Beyond that, there was the research and development of the Association’s weaponry, the search for suitable Artisans, and the question of whether they could—and should—find and abduct a batch of Otherworld-related lifeforms.

And so on and so forth...

Some of these tasks seemed chaotic, but he already had leads and clues for all of them. They just required a significant investment of time and energy.

Some could be accomplished through the collective power of the Association, but others he couldn’t delegate at all. For still others, he simply didn’t have enough suitable people, or they hadn’t developed their skills yet.

Master Sage was busy. Extremely busy. This was a universally acknowledged fact throughout the Dawn Association.

At this point, there were times Qin Xiaoxia really just wanted to look up at the sky and scream "Fuck this shit!" over and over.

’I thought things would be tough at the start but get easier once the Association grew stronger. I thought I could just guide humanity a bit and let Dawn play a supporting role. Instead, things are just getting more and more complicated.’

But, perversely, Qin Xiaoxia was also becoming keenly aware of the most frustrating part of his own personality: he found some of these challenges genuinely interesting. He was even starting to enjoy them. ’Could it be I’m a bit of a masochist?’

He stood up from the pile of scrolls. Mumu, the Red Demoness, Hama Pi, and Qin Xiaoxia himself had been creating Magic Pattern Scrolls day and night. On top of that, he had to research them, which was practically turning him into a professional scholar.

He had previously tried to use the power of a Wish to share the memories of Mumu or the Red Demoness, but unexpectedly, that wish exceeded the ability of the Wishing Gold Coin, wasting one Gold Coin in the process.

The realization also made Qin Xiaoxia, who had come to his senses, break out in a cold sweat. Unlike sharing inspiration, memory was a continuous stream. The difficulty of separating the useful from the useless, the critical from the mundane, was immense. If he had just copied it all directly, would a successful transfer have made his head explode?

The incident with the Statue of Comir was still fresh in his mind. It was better to play it safe. Saving his own hide was what mattered.

He ran a hand through his hair, only to realize his silver-streaked, salt-and-pepper hair had almost reached his shoulders. ’When was my last haircut?’ he wondered.

Lost in his thoughts, Qin Xiaoxia stretched lazily, his bones and muscles letting out a series of satisfying POPS.

Since a straightforward man like Baru had finally spoken up, Master Sage couldn’t go back on his word. Besides, he could take care of a few similar matters at the same time.

’This will be a good chance to relax and change my mood!’

As if by magic, he produced an ancient Sheepskin Scroll. Its silver casing was similar to the one passed down in Sun Tian’s family, but it more closely resembled the Scroll Philier had used to find the Secret Place. It was just larger and lacked the ornate patterns.

He had found it a few days ago while clearing out their old scroll storeroom to make space for new ones.

He slowly unrolled the old parchment, revealing a mostly brown illustration.

It was a map from an older era, dotted with small, star-shaped symbols. Perhaps for security reasons, its depiction was rather strange. Qin Xiaoxia could tell with a single glance that some of the illustrated symbols were in the wrong place. To get the true map, one would have to swap or move the positions of some patterns, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Normally, anyone other than the cartographer or someone who had been orally instructed on the true locations would, after grasping the map’s secret, have to cut out the fragmented images with scissors and play a familiar children’s puzzle game to finally restore the true map.

But with Qin Xiaoxia’s freakishly powerful visual memory, it was like having a cheat screen enabled in his brain. He just had to memorize a few points, and the correctly assembled image would automatically form in his mind.

’These guys really did everything they could to be mysterious...’

’I wonder if any of these are still usable... hmm, this one can be crossed off first.’

The location his finger pointed to was the underwater Secret Place in France.

’These slightly larger stars... do they indicate a larger place, or a more important one?’

After a moment’s thought, he decided that both pondering and field investigation would be unreliable. He simply took out his phone and made a call.

Su Su, who was telling fortunes for people at the House of Destiny in an amusement park, suddenly heard the special ringtone she’d set for her Mentor. It snapped her out of her deep concentration, and she began frantically searching for her phone.

A couple, who had been listening intently to her mystical reading about their relationship, now stared blankly at the flustered "Witch."

"Um, miss... are we going to continue?"

Su Su finally found her phone beside a cushion.

"Sorry about that, just a moment! I’ll get back to your reading in a bit. I have to take an important call!"

She answered the call. As expected, it was her Mentor’s voice.

"Yes, yes, yes, I’m here! What? Come back after work? No, no, no, I can come back right now! It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m not busy at all! I’ve been doing nothing all day! Okay, I’m on my way back now!"

The couple in the House of Destiny were left completely exasperated.

PS: Third Chapter for Tuesday.