Bernadette wore a simple white women’s shirt and sat quietly in the living room. Her chestnut hair fell naturally over her shoulders, and her straight eyebrows were perfectly shaped, giving her the air of a professional woman from Earth—one who had long held a position of power.

This style of dressing seemed to be popular in the modern-background "urban legend" world within the "Ghost Empire"... As his figure gradually appeared in the room, Ebner sized Bernadette up for a few moments before casually pulling out a chair and sitting down.

—Over the past two months, he had come here several times and had grown fairly familiar with Bernadette, so he didn’t feel particularly restrained.

Bernadette’s deep blue eyes, like a condensed ocean, swept over him. She didn’t pursue his "rude" act of entering without knocking, as she herself had the same habit and therefore had no standing to criticize others.

After having an invisible servant brew a cup of black tea and place it on the table in front of Ebner, she spoke in a gentle and calm voice:

"I received a letter from Cattleya. What are you planning by suggesting that she enter the upper ranks of the Moses Ascetic Order?"

Wasn’t your previous Sequence Prophet? Didn’t you get any revelation at all? Ebner instinctively responded in his mind, but on the surface he smiled and said:

"Yaloran of the Moses Ascetic Order is an angel under Mr. Fool and is completely trustworthy. He rose to power by killing a Sage, and although the other ’pillars’ didn’t voice objections out of fear, they won’t truly submit to Him.

"At a time like this, He naturally needs to cultivate His own people... This is Cattleya’s opportunity."

Bernadette glanced at him and said at an even pace, "But once the Hidden Sage successfully ascends to godhood, she will become even more dangerous... Would that Mr. Fool really become enemies with a true god for her sake?"

"Yes!" Ebner nodded without hesitation.

Even if there were only a slight possibility, Klein would do everything in his power to protect the members of the Tarot Club.

Moreover, I will protect her as well... Though I think there’s an eighty percent chance the Hidden Sage has already fallen into the Goddess’s scheme and has no hope of becoming a god.

Seeing how "devout" Ebner was in his faith toward the Fool, Bernadette frowned slightly, then quickly smoothed it out and nodded. "In that case, I agree that she should enter the core circle of the Moses Ascetic Order and become one of the Ten Pillars."

At this point, she paused, then looked at Ebner, meeting his gaze before continuing, "Furthermore, after obtaining those secret stories you gave her, Cattleya has been digesting her potion very quickly. It won’t be long before she advances to Prophet. She should indeed seize the opportunity to obtain a Sequence 2 characteristic in advance."

Why are you staring at me like that? Because I didn’t give you those stories? But Cattleya will definitely copy a set for you, so there was no need for me to do it twice...

Just as Ebner was about to explain, he heard the "Queen of Mystic" continue:

"Those stories—are they all from the Central Kingdom, from the ’homeland’ in his diary?"

So that’s what you care about... Ebner came to a realization inwardly, but outwardly shook his head. "Not entirely. More than half of them are stories from outside the Central Kingdom."

The stories he gave Cattleya actually included, but were not limited to, myths and folk tales from Japan, India, Arabia, Northern Europe, and other regions.

As for why Ebner remembered these things? It was simple—before transmigrating, he had been a university lecturer, and these were exactly what he taught in his elective courses.

"Only a small portion is from there? But I haven’t heard most of the other stories either, yet they can still form ’mystical reenactments,’ which means they correspond to real historical events..." Bernadette frowned slightly, her beautiful brows knitting as she stared at Ebner.

That was because before the First Epoch, the "Original" had awakened once, leading to the destruction of civilization and a break in the transmission of knowledge. Even the spirit world had been destroyed, so naturally, there was no way to trace those stories that had originally occurred in Europe and the Americas.

But for now, he couldn’t tell Bernadette this. Otherwise, there would be a risk of "leaking secrets." After all, the Hidden Sage was very likely the uniqueness of the Hermit pathway that had suddenly come to life under the influence of the Knowledge Moor. No one could guarantee how much control It had over its pathway.

As his thoughts turned, under the gaze of the "Queen of Mystic" Bernadette, Ebner carefully chose his words:

"It’s not convenient to tell you about that yet... However, I can be certain that your line of investigation has deviated from the correct path. Your father’s final mausoleum won’t be in the Central Kingdom or in the places where those stories occurred."

Hearing this, Bernadette recalled the melancholy expression her father had when he taught her those two words. After a brief daze, she spoke again, "He... didn’t choose to return to his homeland?"

"Because he couldn’t go back..." Ebner sighed and answered.

Upon hearing this, Bernadette and Ebner fell into silence for about ten seconds before she shifted the topic to the main purpose of his visit:

"You came to borrow ’Pale Death,’ right? I remember you mentioned before that you needed to perform a ’soul’ separation surgery on a special evil spirit, and that you required ’Pale Death’ as a ’scalpel’?"

Ebner nodded slightly. "That’s right. The entities that make up that evil spirit were at least Archangels when they were alive. For a soul of that strength, only a Beyonder item formed from a Sequence 1 characteristic of the Death pathway can ’cut’ it open."

"But it’s only a mask. It doesn’t have the ability to ’cut,’" Bernadette said as she raised her right hand and traced one ancient word after another, each shimmering with starlight, in the air. She summoned a spirit world creature with a human upper body and a wind-like lower half, and from it retrieved a pale mask with a metallic sheen—the Grade 0 Sealed Artifact, "Pale Death."

Hearing her question, Ebner smiled. "That’s why I need you to help with a second favor."

As he spoke, he used the "White Tower" pathway’s abilities of "Simulation" and "Creation" to directly extract fibers from the wooden table and chairs in the room, "creating" a small booklet out of thin air and handing it to Bernadette.

Bernadette took it curiously and flipped through it, discovering that it was actually a comic booklet.

The core theme of the story was clearly "printed" on the cover in four "Roselle characters":

"Calling a Deer a Horse"!

Because she had learned some interpretations of "Roselle characters" in the "Memory Theater," or rather the meaning of the Central Kingdom’s script, Bernadette barely recognized the surface meaning of those four words.

Combined with the simple and easy-to-understand plot revealed in the comic, the "Queen of Mystic," already an angel, quickly incorporated it into her own "fairy tale magic."

Then, she lightly tapped the surface of "Pale Death" with her finger. In the next moment, a "miracle" occurred—the mask actually transformed into the shape of a scalpel, though its abilities and side effects did not change much.

This seemed like a manifestation of a combination of the "Black Emperor" pathway’s "Distortion" and the "Fool" pathway’s "Fooling"...

Could it be that the First Emperor in history was a "Black Emperor," and after his death, his uniqueness or Sequence 1 characteristic was obtained by Zhao Gao, who, together with items of the "Fool" pathway provided by alchemists, managed to pull off the trick of "calling a deer a horse"?

Ebner stroked his chin and made such a guess.

(End of Chapter)