Chapter 1156
How did this person get more and more?
Eivass ultimately forgave Sin (Male)—though, strictly speaking, Sin (Male) hadn’t actually done anything wrong in the first place.
He didn’t need the Water Heavenly Envoy Fragment anyway, and possessing it served little purpose. However, the Fire Fragment held some significance for him.
The holder of the Fire Fragment was dead, but Eivass lacked the time to snatch the fragment himself… and also didn’t need it that badly.
Therefore, Eivass prepaid with a Water Fragment. This was the usual, most conservative price, essentially exchanging a Geometric Heavenly Envoy Fragment for another fragment. It didn’t matter how Sin (Male) accomplished this—whether he bought it, traded for it, or stole it.
Whatever profit he made was his own; and if he incurred a loss, Eivass wouldn’t reimburse him.
—The essence of this matter, then, was that Eivass had found a scalper.
As long as the scalper didn’t abscond with the money and fail to deliver the ticket, there was no cause for complaint. Eivass could always arrange the transaction himself. In fact, Sin (Male) returning the deposit to Eivass instead of rashly rushing into the desert alone, potentially causing Eivass both financial and personal loss, was already a wise move.
Eivass truly didn’t believe that “Fiery Fist Hassan (Male)” would refuse to transact with him.
To them, the Fire Fragment was, at most, a special kind of power. According to Sin (Male)’s intel, Hassan (Male) was a Fourth Tier mage, meaning he was currently at most Fifth Tier. With this fragment, he might be able to fight a descending Heavenly Envoy, but that was about the extent of it.
—But the Water Fragment could truly summon water.
As one of the four elemental fragments left by the Geometric Heavenly Envoy in the Material Realm, the Water Fragment represented the laws of water in the Material Realm—flow, evaporation, and solidification.
Although it usually manifested as freezing when used for attack… it could actually conjure water out of thin air.
The principle was the same as the contracts signed between the Abyss Heavenly Envoy and the Lords of Benevolence. Both summoned matter from the Dream Realm. The Flame Heavenly Envoy’s (Female) artificer also summoned fire elements from the Dream Realm, and the Dawn Fire technique similarly invoked the fire of predawn from the Dream Realm.
Even the contracts signed between the Abyss Heavenly Envoy and the Lords of Benevolence required various prices—either sacrificing living people or imparting knowledge with mental pollution. These water sources were not without cost; it was merely that the Lords of Benevolence could bear these costs through slaves.
The Ancient Kingdom of Anxi was not a place where living people could reside.
What lay beneath the Forbidden Desert was said to be vast Sin Thorns, but it could be something else entirely. They had drained the “blood of the earth” and, along with it, the water. In such conditions, any falling water would be rapidly drained by the Sin Thorns below. It was a cursed land, unfit for life.
But the existence of the Lords of Benevolence brought about change.
Before the Ancient Kingdom of Anxi was fractured, they were known as “Forbidden Mages.” They were a faction that split off after the Sky-Piercing Tower’s collapse, acting as keepers of secrets and possessing many sealed forbidden spells, including the ability to communicate with the Abyss Heavenly Envoy to summon water.
When they exiled themselves to the desert, they used their forbidden magic to create oases. At that time, the Monarch of Anxi still existed, and thus they formed an extremely formidable empire. The might of their desert cavalry was known throughout the world; even the Hrasal Empire in its prime had to take them seriously.
They then signed a contract with the Abyss Heavenly Envoy, offering sacrifices in exchange for water sources, thereby forcibly creating oases in the accursed desert, allowing people to survive within it. In this process, “people” became the currency used to exchange with the Abyss Heavenly Envoy for water—
Because water scarcity was Anxi’s most fundamental conflict, water sources became the most precious currency. Thus, “living people” who could be exchanged for water became a currency tied to water—or what could be called a “water standard” currency.
It was for this reason that slavery became the most foundational and unshakable political structure of Anxi.
In this context, the Geometric Heavenly Envoy’s Water Fragment would bring them unprecedented change—
It was still conjuring water from thin air, but the difference was that the Water Fragment required no price.
—Or rather, summoning water to the Material Realm did not require a price in the first place.
Endless water filled the domains of several Water Attribute Heavenly Envoys, just as darkness pervaded the domains of the Fallen Heavenly Envoys. The price extorted by the Abyss Heavenly Envoy was His own payment—to spread and perpetuate the lingering embers of the Forbidden Path, not the necessary cost of summoning water.
When the Abyss Heavenly Envoy descended, the boundless water that directly formed a vast lake resembling an ocean within the Forbidden Desert served as proof.
The things beneath the desert, though capable of absorbing water, could not make water disappear. As long as there was enough water, a lake could still accumulate.
And the water naturally produced during His descent alone was enough to completely counteract the curse of the Forbidden Desert and even create a lake that would never dry up. This was enough to prove that “water” posed no cost to the Abyss Heavenly Envoy. The Geometric Heavenly Envoy’s Fragment could achieve the same result.
However, the fragment’s return was quite timely.
Without it, Eivass would not have been able to involve Isabel in this journey.
After all, Isabel was pregnant… even if a Fifth Tier Extraordinary had a sufficiently powerful physique, she at least couldn’t be deprived of water.
Fortunately, Isabel possessed the Mask of Secrets technique, allowing her to conceal her true body by transforming into someone else. Thus, there was no need to worry about her true form suffering attacks or similar risks.
Eivass tested it and found that the staff indeed did not display panel attributes—as a fragment Eivass had brought back from the Sky-Piercing Tower ruins, it was something he had not obtained in past reincarnations. And Eivass, lacking the Adaptability of the Path of Wisdom, could not activate its power himself, so it could only lie quietly in Eivass’s hand.
To use this staff, one needed to be an intelligent person recognized by the Geometric Heavenly Envoy.
—That person, naturally, would be Sherlock.
Eivass discussed it with Isabel. Should they bring Sherlock along directly, or should Isabel transform into Sherlock? Ultimately, at Eivass’s strong insistence, Isabel abandoned the latter proposal.
Adding to that was Zhu Tang (Male), who was returning home, and the martial monk Mr. Mu (Male), who was accompanying Zhu Tang (Male). Furthermore, there was Ibn, the court ritualist who was returning to seek revenge… He was also Eivass’s teacher in Ritual Studies, and Eivass would be bringing him along for the trip to the Ancient Kingdom of Anxi.
That already made six people.
Since so many people were being brought along, Lily (Female) also requested to go, and Eivass couldn’t refuse. And since Lily (Female) was coming, Selene (Female), the Moon Witch, and her Summoned Beast Sharky, would naturally come along as well.
—This is how people gradually increase in number.
In the blink of an eye, it had become an eight-person team!
They would be entering Anxi from the east of Daffodil Territory, which was the direction Zhu Tang (Male) and the others had escaped from. That area was still very far from Anxi’s heartland… Considering that so many people needed to eat, drink, and relieve themselves, they simply organized a caravan and formed a convoy.
They didn’t need guards, but servants, translators, and guides were all necessary. The number of people gradually increased to over fifty, and the number of vehicles in the convoy rose to eighteen. The purpose of the trip was also expanded to include establishing diplomatic relations—and this didn’t even include people from the Church.
“…It feels like this trip is gradually turning into diplomacy,” Isabel sighed. “I wanted to have some fun.”
“It’s all the same, all the same…” Eivass comforted her.
