Chapter 1240
Ibn’s Childhood
Ibn slowly stood up and walked into the house under the gaze of the people.
His actions were not fast, even slow; his mood at the moment was not good, even a little sad.
He didn’t know if he should thank the renovation team or mock Aziz’s shortsightedness and stupidity… The decorations here had hardly changed at all.
The missing corner of the living room table leg was accidentally shaved off when he was a child, waving his father’s sword and playing the hero. He was scolded by his mother at the time, but his father laughed heartily, saying that he would eventually become a hero;
The symbols carved on the hallway wall were the secret codes his sister drew when she imagined joining the Sand Maw Cult and practiced communication with the rebels on the wall—of course, these secret codes were her own invention, not real ones. At that time, she also held the young Ibn and explained the meaning she had prepared for each symbol;
Above the living room, where there was a damaged hole, a lion’s head once hung… That was his father’s greatest feat. But after his father’s death, the lion’s head and the golden scimitar that killed the lion were sold by his mother. It wasn’t for money—their family wasn’t short of money, otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to live in the Third Ring.
It was simply because they didn’t want to attract too much attention and get into trouble.
Everything before his eyes was both unfamiliar and familiar.
Ibn slowly walked to the basement, as if he were seeing a hallucination—
He seemed to see himself as a child, running around the living room, playing with his sister;
He saw his sister holding him, teaching him to recognize characters by pointing to sentences in “Anxi”;
He saw his father leaning on the camel-leather sofa, holding a flat water flask, drinking wine, and boasting about his recent battles;
He seemed to hear his mother’s gentle call, and see her attachment and worship towards his father.
—That was a long time ago.
“I am not from a Ritualist family,”
Suddenly, Old Ibn said in a low voice, “Ironically… my father was the captain of the guard who protected the old Lord, an excellent ‘demon hunter.’ That was an Ascension Profession for hunters who adapted their Path.”
“He once had a golden scimitar inlaid with a giant ruby, capable of summoning flame enchantments. It was a ‘proof of valor’ rewarded by the Lord in public for slaying an Assassin before him. He used this scimitar to duel a three-meter-tall giant lion alone, presenting its whip as a gift to the old Lord, and was later rewarded with a suit of armor.”
…This was indeed surprising.
Even Eivass looked at Old Ibn with some surprise.
This was a story he had never told anyone—the story before he joined the rebel army, the “Sand Maw Cult.”
“Ironically, my father was killed by a curse.”
Old Ibn said slowly, walking to the side of the hallway and looking at the simple but functional toilet. “When we found him at dawn, as the sun was rising… he was sitting on the toilet, spitting blood, his eyes wide open in death.”
In Anxi, having one’s own toilet and bathroom was a sign of status and respectability, even among Free People. It meant they had “water they could use freely.” Some slaves, if they wanted to clean themselves, could only use sand heated to a scorching temperature for bathing.
But for Old Ibn, this was the beginning of his countless nightmares.
“Gut-wrenching Curse?”
Eivass recognized the curse.
Old Ibn nodded.
He smiled sarcastically, “For a long time after that, I thought my father was cursed to death by those… ‘lowly people.’ Because I believed my father was the Lord’s invincible guard, and if they couldn’t deal with him, they couldn’t assassinate the Lord. Therefore, I didn’t understand why my sister wanted to join the Sand Maw Cult and often argued with her.
“Later, my sister angrily showed me the evidence—it was letters of communication between my father and the Sand Maw Cult. It turned out that my father had always been a secretly developed subordinate of the Sand Maw Cult… I was the son of a rebel.
“At that time… I couldn’t accept it for a moment. Because I had always thought I was the son of a hero, with a background completely different from those slaves. I had wanted to run away from home, leave this Oasis City-state, and venture into the depths of the desert like the ‘heroes’ in those stories.
“Until, my mother tearfully handed me my father’s will.”
“A will?”
Even Haina realized something was wrong, “Could a person who was cursed to death leave a will?”
“Because the Gut-wrenching Curse is not a potent curse,”
Zhu Tang, also a Transcendent, explained, “It’s more like a punishment than an assassination. It turns a person’s intestines into venomous snakes, causing cramps and spasms. This leads to violent diarrhea and abdominal pain… the pain makes one roll on the ground, even biting off their own tongue. This curse affects the heart after about four hours, eventually leading to death due to cardiac arrest.”
—In other words, Old Ibn’s father realized he was cursed in the middle of the night, endured the excruciating pain to write his will, and then died without a sound. He even bit off his own tongue, yet did not alert his family.
What this meant was self-evident.
However, to the young Ibn… or rather, to Ibn and his family, who had no knowledge of Curse Studies, the cause of his father’s death was a mystery.
“My father hoped I would become a hero, like Sir Helchin in my name,”
Old Ibn said softly, “The Lord heard that my father was cursed to death, so he sent a lot of gold and trained slaves as condolences. It was precisely because of this gold that we, who had lost our only source of income, could continue to live in the Third Ring.
“And I hoped to find out the cause of my father’s death… So, through the connections of my father’s old friends, I joined the Academy. I wanted to learn how to become a Ritualist… or a Curse Master.
“This goal was actually… too easy to achieve.”
Old Ibn gave a sarcastic smile.
As he spoke, he led a few people to the basement.
He looked at the floor-to-ceiling mirror, at the old man in the mirror, with his hair white and curly, his back hunched, and felt a moment of daze.
It was as if he saw himself through the mirror, the first time he opened the secret door. The handsome young man with black curly hair, emerald green pupils, deep and bright eyes, and a thin beard.
The old man was silent for a long time before he loudly recited, “I swear to always look up at the sun, even if it shines on me no differently than on others—”
As Old Ibn took his oath, he drew a symbol on the dusty mirror surface with his hand, opening the secret door.
The floor-to-ceiling mirror fixed on the wall suddenly burst into radiant light, and then the mirror surface disappeared, turning into a deep, pitch-black passage.
