The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 358

Chapter 358
Eivass’s Book of Law

However, Eivass examined it carefully and found that one of its rituals was complete: the Ouroboros Ring ritual.

Because Merlin was nearby, Eivass didn’t dare to look too closely. He directly used his consciousness to flip through the pages to the end of that chapter and found a gray mark.

Eivass recognized this mark. It was the pattern of “Stars” from the Illusion Card. However, it wasn’t colored but gray.

“Is the occupied card slot Stars?”

Eivass recalled what kind of card the Stars usually represented.

He actually couldn’t remember for a moment. He had to recall carefully to barely remember.

Stars symbolized universal love, purification, healing, blessings, and empowerment. It was usually a Water Attribute card slot, driven by Water Attribute Mana. The most commonly sealed monsters in the Path of Love – Blood Domain were Phantom Demons like Blood Demons and Sirens. For example, “Vampire’s Touch” which could grant vampiric abilities, or “Siren’s Song” which could provide continuous group healing, or “Water Regeneration” which could instantly restore a lot of health to oneself or teammates.

Usually, Players would bring an instant heal to the “Stars card slot.”

“Perhaps it’s because Eivass’s skill as a healing Player is quite high, so the Sin Scholars who were usually DPS classes in the team didn’t have time to use the Stars card. They probably just burned it. Fortunately, this card slot isn’t very useful.”

Although the Book of Law had four effects, its first effect, “Burning Cards,” was actually quite common. Or rather, players would at least need to obtain a Grimoire with the “Burning Cards” attribute to consider it fully upgraded. Attributes that increased card effects or reduced costs might be useful, but they were definitely not as good as burning cards.

Therefore, after Eivass obtained it, he knew how to use it without any experiments.

This effect was called “Burning Cards” by Players.

The gist was to use the usage count of one card to exchange for another card that entered cooldown, but it could only reset Illusion Cards, not Great Sin Cards. This was because some card slots were useless in certain battles and were better off replaced with damage or enhancement. This operation was called “burning” the card.

A top-tier, max-level Sin Scholar could burn six times a day. This was equivalent to sacrificing six cards to forcefully cast a burst card seven times – this was the foundation of the Sin Scholar’s burst profession.

Without the “Burning Cards” attribute, they weren’t worthy of being a burst class. However, when it came to sustained combat, they definitely couldn’t compare to proper sustain classes like Blood Mages.

They couldn’t go up or down, getting stuck.

However, burning cards usually had a limit of three or four times. Only a deep purple base material had a chance to roll the max-tier attribute of six times. The Book of Law directly maxed it out for Eivass, which made him incredibly pleased – although he currently only had the Butterfly, and could only burn once. But at least he wouldn’t have to change equipment anymore.

As a new profession that would only appear in the future, Eivass truly didn’t know where to find equipment to farm for.

In the game, for the sake of gameplay and class balance, they could indeed be farmed from ruins. But in reality, excavating a Grimoire of Great Sin through archaeology was about as likely as a villager sharing the secret of nuclear fusion technology with you.

And this book, left by his grandfather, might even be related to a Sacred Entity… This gave it two additional Divine attributes on top of its normal deep purple quality.

Generally speaking, a Grimoire of Great Sin should start with one attribute and grant a hidden effect after collecting all related items.

However, Eivass’s Grimoire had four attributes… meaning he could gain two additional effects.

And they were even Divine attributes!

Are you going to become golden equipment?

However, the latter three attributes were not unlocked yet. Eivass couldn’t see the specific effects. But he guessed that at least one of them was an attribute that increased card effects.

But even so, this casting range was already very powerful.

Generally speaking, a purple-level Grimoire of Great Sin increased the casting reach by twenty meters. Therefore, the Sin Scholar was a mid-range profession.

The Book of Law, however, ranged from thirty to sixty meters – sixty meters was undoubtedly considered a long-range profession.

Although Eivass didn’t currently have any pure damage-type Illusion Cards, being able to summon the Butterfly and Earthbound Spirit directly to a distance of sixty meters was still a considerable enhancement.

A turret-type Phantom Demon like the Butterfly could be quite dangerous if it stood next to Eivass. It could easily provoke the opponent’s area-of-effect spells to hit both of them at once. And the most useful was air-dropping the Earthbound Spirit.

The Earthbound Spirit already had a casting range of about fifteen meters. With an additional sixty meters, it would be over seventy meters.

A control skill that originally had to be cast at close range suddenly became so much farther… Eivass was already imagining various uses in his mind.

“Is this book the equipment you were looking for?” Sherlock asked, frowning as he looked at it. “But it doesn’t seem to have anything special about it.”

He hadn’t heard the voice of the Sacred Entity earlier, nor had he seen Eivass’s hallucination. In his eyes, a purple jewel simply floated over and turned into a book in front of Eivass.

Out of politeness, he didn’t specifically look at the contents of Eivass’s book. But he could roughly judge from his peripheral vision that it contained knowledge about rituals.

“Is it a Ritual Grimoire?”

But it didn’t seem to have the “Ritual Space” of ordinary Ritual Grimoires.

Sherlock recalled that Ritual Grimoires used by Ritualists had a portable space. They could conceal some ritual materials within them, making it unnecessary to place materials outside when performing a ritual, thus achieving a form of “material-free casting.”

Then, was it a Contract Grimoire used by Demon Scholars?

Small Contract Grimoires could store some Familiars, while larger ones could carry their Contract Demons with them. But it didn’t seem like it.

“…Could it be a Grimoire used by Curse Masters?”

Sherlock actually didn’t know what Curse Master Grimoires looked like.

“This is my exclusive weapon,” Eivass said with a smiling face as he closed the book. “You don’t need to worry about this. It’s quite useful anyway.”

Not to mention anything else, cards just felt right when collected in a card album!

He raised his right hand, and three Tarot Cards modified by Eivass – along with a pure red card the color of deep red crystal, engraved with a butterfly mark – appeared between Eivass’s fingers.

“Death” belonging to the [Earthbound Spirit], “Moon” belonging to the [Blade of Shadow], and “The Wheel of Fortune” belonging to the [Lightning Halberd].

And [Great Sin: Butterfly] which possessed both the “Sun” and “The Hanged Man” attributes.

A total of five card slots.

As for the Shadow Cloak, Eivass decided to keep it separate. It was mainly used to remove debuffs for Eivass and the Little Butterfly, and didn’t need an increased casting range.

Conversely, the Blade of Shadow, which was now almost useless, immediately gained tactical significance after its casting range was increased.

As soon as they appeared, they seemed to be drawn to something.

They turned into streams of light and submerged into the Book of Law.

The count for [Eivass’s Book of Law] immediately increased to (5/21), and the available “Burning Cards” count changed from 0 to 1 with the entry of the Butterfly, providing Eivass with one “Burning Cards” ability per day.

Next, white energy was once again injected into the stars on the cover, turning into a thin liquid. It wasn’t much, only filling about a quarter of the stars. As Eivass shook the Book of Law, the white liquid of the Amethyst could be seen subtly shifting.

“This is liquefied Void Attribute Mana!”

But at this moment, Eivass paused slightly.

Because immediately after, his mind gained more knowledge.

It was knowledge related to five ritual spells!

Eivass opened the Book of Law and flipped to the chapter corresponding to “Death.”

He discovered that the latter half of the original “Resurrection of the Undead” ritual had been completed.

“So that’s how it’s done!”

Eivass’s eyes lit up.

“And it comes with more than twenty ritual spells, right? Good job, Grandpa! Generous!”

He looked at the “5/7” which unlocked the second attribute, and felt a stirring within him.

He was a little curious now. If the first attribute was “Burning Cards,” what would the remaining three be?

Eivass already had five cards. He should be able to gather seven soon.

If all went smoothly, he might be able to complete it before going to the Church.

Update complete!

A preview: the update tomorrow might be a bit late or a bit early. Cat estimates he’ll have to watch the finals first! But he won’t be taking a day off!