Merchant Alliance, Old City of Edinburgh.

The name of this ancient city originated from the kingdom that once ruled this land—the Dawn Alliance, a political entity jointly governed by ancient nobles and a Mage Council, which had its moment of glory, where magic and chivalry shone together.

However, in the end, due to the arrogance of the ruling class, internal divisions began, leading to civil strife and destruction. The newly risen nobles allied with the foreign Visagi Coalition Army, breached Edinburgh's sturdy city walls, the Dawn Alliance was destroyed, its legacy carved up, and this land welcomed new masters.

As for the defeated Dawn mages, they wandered southward with their knowledge, ancient texts, and hearts full of resentment, eventually taking root in the southern kingdoms. Their heritage and knowledge, to some extent, contributed to the rare flourishing of magic seen in the south today.

Therefore, in the south, the status of mages is extremely high. Whether nobles, merchants, or commoners, when encountering a professional mage, they often have to respectfully address them as "Master."

At this moment, the streets of Old Edinburgh are bustling. Caravans from the White Horse Kingdom brought sturdy, well-fed, and exceptionally durable high-quality warhorses. The stalls of spice merchants from the south are filled with finely packaged small bags of cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper... Occasionally, one can even see stalls selling simple magical items, such as constant-temperature crystals, illuminating staffs, and healing potions.

And in the corners untouched by sunlight, those winding, narrow "black market" alleys permeated with a damp, moldy smell circulate things far richer and more dangerous than what's on the surface—contraband magical materials, antiquities of dubious origin, hiding information for wanted individuals, and even certain secret intelligence enough to cause unrest.

"Done, haggling successful." In a dark dead-end alley, Nilly patted non-existent dust off her hands, looking satisfied at the information broker knocked out on the ground. She gestured for Leon beside her to drag this guy into a more hidden spot behind a pile of garbage.

"Still trying to scam me?" Nilly curled her lip, her tone full of disdain. "Daring to ask for three gold coins for such lousy information? Did you really think Auntie has never been out, never seen the world?"

Elara looked around worriedly and whispered, "Auntie, offending the information brokers here like this... won't that be bad? What if they have accomplices, or some power backing them..."

Before she could finish, a cluster of emerald-green gel clone bounced out, nimbly jumping onto Elara's shoulder.

Elara shrunk her neck and smiled. "Little Majesty, you are right..."

The gel clone seemed very pleased with this form of address, its body shaking happily for a moment, then continued, "Besides, Royal Guard Elara is very powerful."

The general meaning was: "Little Little King is right. We could just sit on them and flatten them."

"Alright, let's leave this place first." Nilly looked around. Although this place was very hidden, it wasn't a place to linger. She nodded slightly towards the even larger shadow beneath her.

The next moment, that shadow slime expanded violently like ink, not only swallowing Nilly, the other three, and the gel clone, but even continuously spreading, slowly devouring the sunlight on the alley walls.

With the help of the shadow slime, Shadow Traversal, an assassin skill originally only allowing individual short-distance movement and highly dependent on shadowy environments, had now evolved to the point of directly enveloping a large area, easily projecting all people and objects within the range to any corner of Old Edinburgh not protected by magic formations.

Even theoretically, if the shadow slime is powerful enough, projecting an entire corps to silently infiltrate the heart of the Merchant Alliance is a possible feat.

And for Nilly and the others, the greatest use of Shadow Traversal is never having to pay for hotel stays.

"Auntie, I'll watch the door." Leon was very sensible and walked away, first checking the situation behind the dark curtains, then squatting guard by the room door, closing his eyes, carefully sensing for any potential peepers in the hallway outside.

"Let me see what other useful information these unscrupulous brokers have on them." Nilly gathered the several scrolls of parchment and notes collected earlier and spread them out on the wooden table in the center of the room.

She lowered her head, crossed her arms, and slightly furrowed her brows, looking as if she was carefully reading the messy, hard-to-distinguish handwriting and symbols on them.

Max and Elara, who was holding the gel clone, also leaned over. Three heads plus a blob of gel almost pressed against the parchment. They occasionally hummed or nodded, seemingly reading very seriously.

Max's body stiffened, and he awkwardly scratched his head. "Well... Auntie and Elara are looking so seriously, I thought... I should join in."

Elara, hearing this, widened her eyes. "Little blockhead, I thought you could read!"

The gel clone looked up at her in confusion. "You... can't read either?"

Elara's voice grew smaller and smaller, seeming a bit embarrassed.

The gel clone's gaze then turned to Nilly, who maintained her head-lowered reading posture.

To translate, it meant she couldn't read either.

Turns out, most people in the Belmont family are illiterate.

Oh no. The literacy campaign the main body promoted within the Slime Kingdom actually had escapees, and they're such important royal guards.

The gel clone felt deeply troubled by this. Its body trembled slightly, as if sighing.

A long time later, he finally put down the parchment with a frown, his tone grave. "It seems... we can't find any useful information."

"The Merchant Alliance Council has used its power to strictly seal off the vast majority of information concerning the Blackwater Guild. Most of what's recorded here are just trivial and ineffective transaction records—like how much grain, cloth was purchased in a certain year and month, or a batch of ordinary ore sold to some small guild. None of it looks particularly special, and there are no direct clues linking to the forces behind the scenes."

Hearing this, the gel clone wasn't too discouraged. It puffed out its chest and said confidently, "This slime is very smart. The enemy can't fool me. Using the main body's words, this is called 'the enemy is hiding very deeply'!"

Elara tilted her head in confusion. "But... how could people leave behind spider silk and horse tracks? Is it a new type of magical creature?"

Leon propped his chin with his hand, thinking seriously for a moment, then explained, "What His Majesty said is probably a metaphor. It's like... gargoyles might leave behind human traces, metaphorically meaning gargoyles are elusive like humans, but there are always traces to follow."

Nilly gave him a strange look. "Auntie, how come I never noticed before that you're so knowledgeable?"

Leon said helplessly, "Auntie, because... I'm the only one among you, besides His Majesty, who has ever studied."

When he was young, his family arranged for him to follow an old foreign scholar for a period of time to learn Common Tongue and basic arithmetic. Although his main focus later shifted to assassin training, the skill of literacy remained.

"Royal Guard Leon described it correctly." The gel clone bubbled happily. "Go find recent rumors from the Misty Bay Harbor Trade Alliance, especially those involving disturbances. The enemy might be hiding among them."

They split up to act, gathering more rumors, gossip, and hearsay at information hubs in Old Edinburgh like taverns, markets, and Adventurer's Guild branches.

"So, Little Majesty, can you sense the location of those vampires?" Taking advantage of the three leaving, Nilly picked it up and asked.

Old Edinburgh is not far from Misty Bay Harbor, well within the range of the Gel Network. If those vampires are still in Misty Bay Harbor, the gel clone should be able to connect to the Gel Network.

The gel clone shook its gel in distress. "They're still there, but it's very fuzzy, can't connect at all."

The connection between Casimir and the Gel Network still exists, proving they are alive and still in Misty Bay Harbor. But this connection is like being separated by a thin film; they can't sense the specific location at all, nor can they communicate through the gel.

It's as if magic is interfering with the Gel Network.

This is also why they stopped in Old Edinburgh and didn't immediately rush to Misty Bay Harbor. There's no information blockade or intelligence control by the Merchant Alliance Council here, making it easier to collect all kinds of rumors and intelligence from Misty Bay Harbor.

Not long after, after knocking out who knows how many information brokers trying to extort them, drunken sailors, and boastful mercenaries, the four finally returned fully loaded, bringing back a huge pile of messy, hard-to-verify intelligence and rumors to the hotel room.

The gel clone gathered all the intelligence together, then worked hard to operate its little gel brain, starting to analyze this complex information.

Leon was also deep in thought, completely unable to see anything strange. Meanwhile, Nilly kept asking curiously beside him, "What does this one say?", "What does that symbol mean?". He patiently responded but couldn't find any leads either.

As for the gel clone, just after finishing its second look, it suddenly seemed to remember something, its little eyes lighting up slightly. It used its spiritual sense to flip back to the original transaction records Nilly collected from the black market information broker at the beginning.

This was a seemingly ordinary transaction record. But when combined with another piece of intelligence collected just now—the Sun Church had recently issued a missing person commission, looking for a missing missionary whose name happened to be Lancaster.

Furthermore, the time of this missionary's disappearance seemed quite close to the time the Blackwater Guild was destroyed.

More importantly, he seemed to have some connection with the Blackwater Guild, at least transactional dealings.

If so, that's it.

This slime is still pretty smart, almost as wise as the main body, the gel clone thought happily.

When the three returned again with even more messy intelligence, and after careful screening to eliminate those obviously unreliable rumors or ones with mismatched times and locations, the gel clone seemed to have discovered an incredible clue.

The notice mentioned that in Misty Bay Harbor and surrounding areas, suspected "cult followers" were appearing and conducting secret missionary activities, reminding believers to be extra vigilant, not to easily believe the teachings of strangers, and not to participate in any suspicious gatherings. If discovered, they should immediately report to the local church or constables.

The notice did not explicitly state which cult, and the wording was relatively vague, more of a warning nature. At the time, it might not have attracted much attention. After all, port cities are a mixed bag, and all sorts of strange beliefs and secret societies are not uncommon.

But now, linking this "old news" with the series of recent events—the disappearance of the Sun Church missionary, the bizarre destruction of the Blackwater Guild, the disappearance of the vampire caravan... a bold conjecture gradually formed in the gel clone's little gel brain.

Could the disappearances of the Sun Church followers and Casimir and the others all be related to them?

It's not completely certain yet, but this clue about the "cult" undoubtedly opens a brand new direction for the investigation.

"This slime has decided!" After telling the four about these clues, the gel clone bounced out from the pile of intelligence, its expression exceptionally serious. "We will first concentrate our efforts on investigating these cult followers."

"Yes, Little Majesty."