Lord of the Mysteries

As for the marionette town, Klein had been thinking about how to build it a long time ago. He had already come up with three plans:

If he eliminated any interference from external factors, his best choice would be somewhere in a certain country of the Northern Continent. He would allow his marionette town to rise up overnight. Furthermore, he would connect it to the surrounding cities through railways, rivers, and roads.

This way, the marionette town would have large numbers of outsiders arriving on a daily basis, and it would create a very strong interaction with the surrounding areas. On the one hand, a town without a city nearby would definitely purchase grain, salt, cloth, ores, sugar, and other daily necessities. On the other hand, it would also produce its own products, which could be sold to neighboring cities, towns, and villages. Under such a situation, merchants, workers, tourists, and other groups would go back and forth frequently. At the same time, they would interact more with the marionette town’s residents.

Under the influence of all kinds of interactions between the parties, it wouldn’t be long before the town of marionettes could produce a corresponding region in the spirit world. Once the lives of the residents became more detailed and real, Klein could consume the potion to advance to Sequence 1 Attendant of Mysteries.

This would take less than three months.

But the problem was that this approach couldn’t be kept confidential.

In the present era, to have a town suddenly pop up was something that couldn’t be hidden from people. Soon, there would be civil servants, the police, and reporters coming to investigate. And after that, the interactions between the parties would also make more and more people know and understand the city. This was a problem that couldn’t be resolved through illusions unless the town of marionettes didn’t interact with the surrounding cities, towns, and villages and had relatively minor interactions. However, that wouldn’t meet the requirements of the ritual.

When news of the marionette town spread, Klein would undoubtedly be targeted by Zaratul, Amon’s true body, and his other enemies. When the time came, the destruction caused by others would definitely be easier than him protecting it. He could only migrate his marionette town elsewhere. This would cause the interactions generated in the early stages to be for naught, just like what the Dark Demonic Wolf had experienced.

Therefore, Klein had only listed down such a plan, so he basically wouldn’t choose it. Unless a certain Visionary was willing to provide help, making all the living beings in the Northern and Southern Continents naturally believe that there was indeed a town there, one that hadn’t suddenly appeared.

Considering the influence of various external factors and his Beyonder powers, Klein’s best choice was to establish the town on an uninhabited island that deviated from the safe sea route and was sufficiently well-hidden. He would then use Sefirah Castle to give it anti-divination and anti-prophecy properties.

At the same time, Klein would use the “curtain” to “Graft” some roads, rivers, and railways to somewhere outside the marionette town, making it a stop for random groups of people during their journeys.

This couldn’t be kept completely confidential, but once the “strange phenomenon” spread and attracted Zaratul’s and Amon’s attention, Klein could easily remove the original “Grafting” randomly and switch the “entrance.”

Under such a strategy, the movement was limited to the entrance, not the marionette town itself. The effects of various interactions in the spirit world could be preserved without being interrupted. The ritual could steadily proceed as planned.

Of course, there was a big problem with this plan. It was that the interaction would be limited and couldn’t influence matters at a daily level in all its aspects. In addition, the frequency and intensity of the interaction wouldn’t be too high.

If he chose this plan, it meant that Klein had to spend more than half a year or even a year on the ritual.

If he wanted to be safe, forcing every marionette’s fate to have a beginning and an end, the ritual would take at least fifty years. However, there was also a way to get around the limitations—once the rest of the ritual’s requirements were met, he could deliver a meteorite strike, an earthquake, or a volcano eruption to the town, causing all the marionettes’ fates to come to an end in the real world. It was something that happened in real life and was rather reasonable.

In this radical and conservative proposal, Klein had another solution.

It was to replicate a city and make the marionette correspond to the residents of the city and be mapped one-to-one. For evil Miracle Invokers, they could wipe out the original city and use their marionettes to replace its inhabitants. Those who had a kind heart would hide the city and ensure a supply of goods. The reason as to why one didn’t convert the target city into marionettes was that it already had a corresponding region in the spirit world. Without being a newly born one, it didn’t meet the requirements of the ritual.

With the “curtain” formed by the Attendant of Mysteries Beyonder characteristic, Klein could make a better choice: “Graft” a city at a particular stage to his marionette town.

This meant that his town of marionettes had become the dark side of the city. In the corresponding period of time, outsiders would encounter marionettes and not real people. Once that period of time passed, they would leave the town of marionettes and return to the real world to deal with real people.

During the process, Klein would send his marionettes to act as an outsider and maintain interactions with the corresponding real person, allowing the real outsiders to return to the real world without any gaps.

In other words, there were two different lives playing out in the same city at the same time, but no one could notice that. Occasionally, some people would think that some details weren’t right, but would find it inexplicable and might just ignore it.

This was rather in line with the characteristic of an Attendant of Mysteries, and it had a certain level of concealment.

Of course, this plan also had its problem. It was to simulate the fate of a marionette to a very high level—almost as similar as a human’s. Without its own independence, it would cause the ritual’s effects to fail.

Klein tapped the edge of the long mottled table with his fingers and was in a dilemma over the second and third plan.

After a few minutes, he did as his heart willed—cowardice—and chose the second plan. He would rather spend more time than affect the fates of the innocent.

Back then, Zaratul and Antigonus likely chose the third plan… Klein sighed and prepared to return to the real world.

At this moment, he looked at the junk pile and considered whether he should send a revelation to change the descriptions in the City of Silver’s Holy Bible.

To a deity, the Holy Bible wasn’t anything too important. Its best use was for its convenience to spread its teachings and increase the number of anchors.

Klein had long come to a conclusion from The Revelation of Evernight, The Book of Storms, and the contents of the various orthodox Churches’ Holy Bibles.

Most of the content elevated the orthodox deity, making random claims of grandeur and expressed mercy and pity.

In ancient times, the impression the believers had of the deities would indeed have a negative impact on the deities. But now, with the use of symbols instead of statues, this latent problem no longer existed. At the very least, the Evernight Goddess, the Lord of Storms, and other deities openly declared that they were parts of the Creator’s original body. They weren’t worried that it would exacerbate the awakening of the Oldest One.

In other words, if there really was a problem with this aspect, Klein believed that the Evernight Goddess would definitely have changed the corresponding description. “She” would’ve changed the description of being one of the eyes of the Creator to a child spawned by “Him.” It too enjoyed a very high status.

At the same time, the believers’ acknowledgment of certain matters wouldn’t have any burden on the deities themselves in a mysticism sense. Otherwise, Amon would’ve secretly helped Klein, or rather, prepare a batch of believers for the former Sefirah Castle to lure them into forming the belief that the Angel of Time was the manifestation of the Lord of the Mysteries. With the aid of an instinctual response that met the requirements, “He” could establish enough connections with Sefirah Castle and open a “back door.”

To a deity, the Holy Bible only had two important components other than for spreading the faith:

Firstly, it was a description of the authority and honorific name of the deities themselves. If there were any mistakes, it would lead to the prayers of the believers pointing to an unknown target. Not only would it be dangerous to the believers, but it would also cause the deities to lose their anchors. Secondly, any descriptions that involved the other Churches would easily attract conflict.

As for the angels and saints, the deities actually didn’t pay them too much mind. The ones that cared were the angels and saints themselves because they needed to obtain a certain level of anchors through this.

Therefore, the Holy Bibles’ descriptions of angels and saints were detailed enough. They had authority and honorific names, making it easier for different believers to choose and be immersed. In addition, this wasn’t enough to form a stable anchor, because it was under the faith of a deity.

In order to resolve this problem, the orthodox Churches would define certain cathedrals to different guardian angels and guardian saints and clearly differentiate them.

Due to this knowledge, Klein didn’t pay much attention to the Holy Bible. After he finished reading the description about his authority and honorific name, he stopped continuing out of embarrassment. He only used divination to confirm that the contents wouldn’t result in a conflict with the orthodox Churches.

After some thought, he gave up the idea of directly sending the revelation to change the Holy Bible and decided to use a gentler method.

During the Tarot Club’s exchange, he could use The World Gehrman Sparrow to guide The Sun into adjusting his understanding of the situation, turning the parts involving the Angel of Time to Pallez Zoroast, allowing the corresponding content to be fixed without causing any suspicion in the City of Silver.

…

Bayam, Verdu Abraham had obtained quite a bit of mysticism knowledge in a few Beyonder circles.

He lit up the gas wall lamp and carefully read it in the night.

Towards the end, he suddenly read a piece of news that he had never understood before:

Bansy Harbor is a place filled with mysticism powers. Its connection with the spirit world and the astral world is beyond imagination… Even with the Church of Storms directly destroying the harbor, it still can’t completely eliminate the abnormality of its existence…

Many mysticism researchers are purchasing items related to Bansy at a high price…

Bansy… Verdu muttered to himself silently, suddenly having a strong interest in the harbor.

He began considering if he should buy some items from Bansy and do a thorough study of them. After all, the spirit world was related to “Teleportation.” The astral world and the cosmos involved “Wandering,” and might involve Mr. Door Bethel Abraham’s method of escaping.

Perhaps, if I have the chance, I could go to Bansy to take a look… Verdu nodded indiscernibly.