Chapter 291: 66. What She Concealed
“Dong! Dong! Dong!”
The church bells suddenly rang, adding to the atmosphere in the small room opposite the confession booth. Fisher looked expressionlessly at the handwriting in his hand, while before him lay a blushing Rabbit Nun, Ilos.
“Sorry, Sister Ilos.”
“Ah, um…”
Before Ilos could respond, Fisher gently placed his hand on her lower abdomen. When he touched the area of Ilos’s abdomen that was covered by her nun’s robe, she instinctively bit her lip, and her right hand subconsciously gripped the bedding beside her, as if his large hand had made contact with the fetus inside her.
Isn’t this a bit strange?
But Fisher, standing next to her, had no such extra thoughts. He was genuinely studying the biological characteristics of the Moon Rabbit Tribe and probing why she was experiencing pseudopregnancy. He had some guesses about the cause of the pseudopregnancy, but first, he needed to confirm whether or not she was pregnant.
In the next moment, a magical circuit suddenly lit up on Fisher’s palm as he touched Ilos. The magic power flowed continuously into her body, illuminating her magical circuit, which was vastly different from that of humans.
“Are you trying to detect whether there is a magical circuit of a newborn inside her to confirm if she is pregnant?”
Hearing Emhart’s quiet question, Fisher shook his head and replied,
“No, she just showed these symptoms last night. Even if she is indeed pregnant, a new magical circuit wouldn’t appear so quickly. However, I do want to check her magical circuit’s condition.”
Reflecting on the earlier theory he obtained about the soul, he pondered another question: When does a person’s soul enter their body? Is it after the mother confirms her pregnancy, or does it wait until the newborn is born?
Fisher could answer this question—the answer is the former; a child’s soul enters their body before they are born from the mother.
Earlier in his magical research, Fisher studied a topic related to magical circuits, which revealed that some female magical practitioners exhibit strange phenomena when inscribing magic runes during pregnancy, including a significant increase in the likelihood of magical disruptions and insufficient magic efficacy in the runes. He had written a related academic paper on it.
Previous mages had unconsciously thought that this was due to the bodily functions declining because of pregnancy. However, subsequent related experiments showed that the more active the fetus was in the mother’s womb, the more serious this situation became. This only indicates that the fetus’s unconscious chaotic magical circuit interfered with the mother’s magic inscribing process.
“The soul typically enters the fetus’s body around 22 to 24 weeks after conception, which is also when the magical circuit appears. However, before this time, the spirit realm will lock in this available ‘slot’ in advance. Thus, the magical efficacy of the spells inscribed by magical mothers is affected.”
“So, I want to see if the spirit realm has locked onto Ilos; that would be the most direct method of proof.”
Fisher gently explained to Emhart, but his actions of inspection did not slow down. Under the stimulation of his warm magical circuit, the magic within Ilos’s body began to grow more excited, becoming particularly active, with no signs of being pulled by the spirit realm.
This indicates that Ilos’s pregnancy is indeed fake; the changes happening to her are merely special reactions caused by physiological reasons.
Although the result was expected, for some reason, Fisher still let out a gentle sigh of relief.
Seeing Fisher’s expression, Emhart already knew the answer but still sighed with a hint of disappointment, as he genuinely wanted to see Fisher chased around by other women over a child, looking flustered.
Fisher silently withdrew his hand from Ilos. Since it was confirmed that she was faking pregnancy, the next step was to determine the cause of the pseudopregnancy and to study the progress of the biological research regarding the Moon Rabbit Tribe.
“There isn’t any new life in your lower abdomen; otherwise, your magical circuit would undoubtedly be affected. Do you know what a magical circuit is—it is…”
Before Fisher could explain, Ilos unexpectedly answered first.
“I-I know! Sister Shalu told me about this; it’s something everyone has, and you can use the powers in it to inscribe magic. I’ve seen her inscribe before, but she never taught me, saying my magic power was really too low.”
Fisher looked at her in surprise; he did not expect that the nun who raised her, Sister Shalu, was actually a magical practitioner. However, upon reflection, it made sense that the Healing Rot Church had stood strong for many years for a reason. Additionally, considering that he was researching both magic and subhuman races, it wouldn’t be surprising for her to learn about magic while being a nun.
“Sister Shalu used to inscribe some simple magic and sell them in Lu Xiangbao, earning a lot of money. But ever since she left… our family has no money, and I-I’ve had to scavenge for wild shells to eat.”
Fisher glanced at the pitiable Ilos and then at the dilapidated Healing Rot Church, feeling that her situation was truly miserable.
Unfortunately, the treasures he obtained from the Flying Fish had sunk with the ship into the sea; otherwise, he could have used that gold to help her repair the church.
However, he must also be thankful that Ilos had prior exposure to magical knowledge; otherwise, he would have to spend extra time explaining the relevant content to her.
“Since you know the relevant concepts, I won’t go into too much explanation. But knowing if you truly have a baby is only the first step; I need to understand the specific cause to come up with a solution.”
In fact, according to Fisher’s conjecture, the pseudopregnancy symptoms of the Moon Rabbit Tribe were likely not normal reactions that their race should have. Therefore, he only needed to examine her unique traits and yesterday’s feelings to generate a broad direction for inference.
As Fisher traced Ilos’s approximate shape and various data in his notebook, he concurrently prompted her to recall how she differed from her kind during childhood.
“Differences? Let me think… well, I don’t really have much. Does lack of fur count?”
“No fur?”
Fisher paused his writing action and looked up at her, only to find that Ilos’s face was flushed, seemingly a bit embarrassed.
“Well, since I was little, I had less fur than other Moon Rabbits. I only have fur on my head, ears, and tail, but nowhere else. So, when I was young, I didn’t like to be with my peers; I preferred to stay on the boat with my father.”
Hearing this, a barely noticeable disappointment flashed in Fisher’s eyes.
Don’t get him wrong; Fisher did not have a peculiar preference for the soft fur of rabbits. However, if she was a unique individual within her species, it would undoubtedly hinder the biological research progress on the Moon Rabbit Tribe. Nonetheless, during this period, while recording data, the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans was also gaining traction, so he didn’t let it bother him too much.
“Additionally, I often see very strange things at night—sometimes many peculiar shadows that talk to me, asking me to help them with something. So, I haven’t slept well many nights, but my father says this is perfectly normal; he says he often talks with those existences.”
Fisher nodded, looking into her eyes. By day, Ilos’s pupils were black, but he had a very deep impression of her pink eyes drenched in moonlight from last night.
If he were not mistaken, the shadows Ilos had seen before should have been souls that had not completely dissipated. This was not very strange, but evidently, the Moon Rabbit Tribe could see things more clearly than others because they could also converse with souls.
He remembered that when he was on the Southern Continent, the soul of the werewolf Qiqi had dissipated in front of him, but both her form and the words she said were very vague to Fisher. This was sufficient to show that the Moon Rabbit Tribe was unique among other races.
Since the Moon Rabbit Tribe could obtain a stronger spiritual vision from moonlight, and souls became more active at night, didn’t these phenomena also imply a deep relationship between the moon and the spirit realm?
Suddenly, Fisher recalled the enormous round moon he had dreamt of, connecting it with the many clues he had received so far indicating that the Phoenix Race was also related to the spirit realm—or that it was influenced by a certain pollution coming from the spirit realm. So which existence does the “spiritual pollution” mentioned in the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans come from?
Regardless, the only thing Fisher could confirm at this moment was that Renee had a strong correlation with the spirit realm, and this was information she had never revealed to him.
How many more things are you hiding from me, Renee?
“Beep! Beep! Beep!”
The Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans in Fisher’s arms grew increasingly hot, and information about the Moon Rabbit Tribe continuously transformed into biological research progress in his mind. Just as Fisher intended to take out the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans to check, the card that the Mechanism had given him suddenly emitted a series of dense alert sounds.
Fisher frowned and took out the card from his arms, only to see the light points on the card’s surface drawing closer to its bottom. As previously mentioned, the light points on the card represented the position of the Mechanism, and since the light point was moving closer to the bottom, it indicated that a mechanism was approaching Fisher!
His expression changed slightly as he hurriedly got up to look outside the door.
“Dong! Dong! Dong!”
The church bells rang again. Following the sound waves, he glanced outside the church. In the forest on the outskirts of the Furnace Town, a low-key black carriage was slowly making its way towards the Healing Rot Church at the edge of the coast.
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(End of Chapter)
