Chapter 779
Past Arrogance and Baseness
For a moment, Christina felt an immense surge of excitement.
*Wow, is being a pawn for a big shot this satisfying?*
Even Albert Lore, the “Rising Star of Star Antinomy,” had to bow to her!
…Although, he was probably bowing to Alice. Still, this feeling was so great!
At that moment, her body began to move on its own.
“Ah, that’s right. I remember you…”
“Christina” suddenly realized, nodding and speaking frankly, “You’re the girl who was chosen for a night’s service but spent too long talking, so you were bought off quickly before anything could happen, right?”
…What?
Christina felt as if she had stumbled upon a juicy secret, and along with Aurora, quietly pricked up her ears to listen.
“Yes, you must be a spiritual body following Miss Alistair,” Albert said, showing no shame. He even puffed out his chest and held his head high with pride. “The person I was talking with at the time was the world’s greatest alchemist, Basil Valentine!
“I really wanted to spend more time with him… it’s just that the ritual ended too soon. If I could have, I would have wanted to spend a hundred years in that ritual! Discussing alchemy, witnessing the ‘Shattered Earth War,’ then the founding of Star Antinomy, and personally seeing off that great man’s passing… Compared to such miracles, I wouldn’t have minded becoming a girl or a blood slave!”
“…I’ve heard you say that.”
Aurora suddenly understood, “But you didn’t tell me you met Valentin I as a girl…”
“That’s only natural, isn’t it?” Albert shook his head. “If it weren’t for the occasion and the identity, how could I, who wasn’t even Fourth Tier at the time, have had the chance to interact with that esteemed figure…”
Christina gradually began to understand.
Miss Alistair seemed to have met Count Leipzig and Albert at the same Ascension Ritual.
It was clear that not to mention Albert… even the great Count Leipzig was at a disadvantage. Otherwise, Alice wouldn’t have referred to Count Leipzig by his codename so casually.
Although she knew Miss Alistair had defeated Count Dawn and resurrected her after her death, Christina still didn’t quite understand how strong she was. After all, she had a seemingly powerful personal guard with her then. For a caster who could bring people back from the dead, especially a noble lady, it was normal to have a guard with stronger combat power than herself.
Otherwise, why would she even need a guard?
Now, with Count Leipzig and Mr. Albert, she finally had a concrete understanding of Alistair’s strength.
Sensing her thoughts, Alice seemed somewhat surprised. “Wait, you don’t know who my master is?”
[…What? Should I?]
Christina responded with some confusion.
“I thought, with your social experience at school, you would have heard of this name… So you didn’t know from the start.”
Alice sighed and said to the two men, “It seems my host doesn’t know her benefactor’s identity. What I’m about to say might be biased… so please explain it for me.”
With that, she retreated back into Christina’s consciousness.
Christina’s consciousness surfaced again, and she regained control of her body.
“…Where should I start?”
Albert hesitated for a moment, exchanged a glance with Aurora, and then decided to begin from the beginning. “The first time I met Miss Alistair, she was with a Mr. ‘Gray,’ who had Adapted the Path. She was only Second Tier then but could fully control the power of a Shadow Demon, which was said to be absolutely impossible. And that Mr. Gray also had the ability to control shadows.”
“…I might have already met that ‘Mr. Gray,’ but a Shadow Demon…”
Christina hesitated.
She knew that her mentor’s attendant demon was supposed to be a “Night Demon,” that black crow. But she had no knowledge of demons, so she didn’t know if it was normal or not, nor if she could talk about it.
*Perhaps the Shadow Demon is a trump card, and the Night Demon is the demon summoned for daily use.*
So she closed her mouth, deciding not to reveal her mentor’s secrets.
As for Mr. “Gray,” he should be the expert by her side who had Adapted the Path.
Albert continued his narration, “And later, I learned something terrifying… that Alistair was actually an ancient Child of the Moon from the Empire era.”
“…Ah,” Christina nodded. “Yes, she is a very powerful Child of the Moon.”
This was something she could say. After all, Children of the Moon needed to drink blood, and those bright red eyes were hard to hide.
“Her other identity is the lover of His Majesty the Eternal Pope, Eivass.”
Albert replied.
“…Ah?”
Christina was confused. “That Eternal Pope? Isn’t he with the Iron-Blooded Queen…”
“It’s said that Eivass’s stance conflicts with the Iron-Blooded Queen,” Albert shook his head. “And his true lover is Lady Alistair. Originally, Eivass might not have been able to refuse Queen Avalon’s marriage proposal due to his status… But now that he is the Pope, he can probably do whatever he pleases.
“In other words, Lady Alistair is the lover of the first Eternal Pope in history. This status is definitely higher than any queen, even higher than Valentine VII.”
“Seven passed away not long ago, and now it’s Eight…”
Christina quietly corrected.
Albert gazed at Christina, his voice growing louder. “I was fortunate enough to participate in the same Ascension Ritual as His Majesty the Pope. I witnessed His Majesty the Pope transforming into a light more blazing than the sun, and I also learned that he was the recipient of the Twin’s blessings. Even then, I knew he would become a remarkable person…”
…It was only then that I finally understood what those experiments meant.
Albert thought to himself, lost in memories.
Before he learned to read, he had already learned to distinguish between corpses and living people. Before he understood the geography of Star Antinomy, he already understood the structure of the human body. To him, necromancy was a sacred art. It was art, and it was also truth.
The blood and organs were like the mud and beetles other children played with; he stitched corpses as other children built sandcastles. To him, this was the world’s best and most interesting game, and he was naturally skilled at it.
Like a star player!
But Albert was never arrogant.
Because when he was in his teens, he was constantly discussing necromancy with experts who could be his parents, or even his grandparents and great-grandparents. He grew up in an environment where he felt he knew nothing, desperately gathering all the knowledge he could access, yearning for all the progress he could achieve.
He craved recognition and wished he could stop being treated as a “prodigy of the future” with kind expectations from people, but rather wished to be an equal participant in discussions right now—
Having fame and recognition would be enough, Albert thought.
To gain fame, to be noticed by people, he had done many things. He constantly “innovated,” further optimizing previous techniques in strange ways, then immediately patenting them and publishing them in newspapers, hoping the masters would seriously discuss with him—for example, whether the random lightning-attracting ability of the electrified walking corpse could be precisely located through an antenna or brand; or whether an Earthbound Spirit could gain mobility through “miniaturizing and personalizing the house.”
But no one ever noticed him.
In his most arrogant years, Albert even lied and deliberately caused trouble for others’ inventions.
While flipping through academic journals, he saw a master of necromancy who had taught him claim at an academic conference that he was creating a “lizard-like undead that could devour dry land and exude black silt.” Albert’s brain whirred. Using the concept of earthworms, he constructed a snake-like undead with the same function in a simpler way, and beat the master to registering his patent before the master’s undead was registered.
The entire academic world of Star Antinomy was in an uproar at the time—although the master had proposed the idea first, Albert registered the patent earlier.
Some believed Albert had plagiarized the master’s idea and published it first; others thought that the invention couldn’t be completed in a day or two, so it was just a coincidence of ideas; some even felt the master was acting superior and stealing Albert’s ideas for his own use…
Albert, seeing himself become the topic of conversation throughout Star Antinomy, was overjoyed.
He deliberately didn’t refute the rumors, letting people speculate and letting the controversy escalate. He had even envisioned a convoluted story in his mind: the master and he would fight over the patent, become academic rivals, and then, just before the master was on his deathbed, he would willingly confess, end the feud, and become sworn friends, thus becoming a legend…
However, the master finally publicly stated that his invention was far inferior to Albert’s—even if his invention was successful, its overly complicated production steps and instability destined it to be eliminated by Albert’s invention. Therefore, he highly praised Albert’s invention and even secretly sent him a handwritten experimental record for Albert to further optimize the project.
—The master had completely ignored the dispute.
…At that time, Albert felt regret for the first time.
He regretted his arrogance and baseness.
Albert woke up from his madness, and in the intense emptiness, he felt the true meaning of the Twilight Path.
From then on, he repented, apologized to the master with a long letter, and then quietly continued his research… until the invention of the “Armed Gargoyle” changed everything.
Unlike last time, this time he had become an important figure noticed by people entirely through his own abilities!
Therefore, Albert poured all his energy into it, even stopping his research in alchemy… By then, he had already completed the transcendent specialization of “Calamity Stitcher” for the Fourth Tier of the Twilight Path and the Second Tier of the Path of Balance.
But due to his focus on the Armed Gargoyle, despite having ample resources, he neglected his Path progression and dedicated all his energy to continuously making minute optimizations to the Armed Gargoyle that were imperceptible to the naked eye. For the flesh and blood armor alone, he created over sixty different versions. The optimal load-bearing scheme—the balance between firearms, ammunition, and armor—involved countless mathematical calculations.
In the experimental field, he used various meticulously crafted “high-speed aerial undead” simulating Gryphon Knights as targets, constantly having various Gargoyles attack them. Individuals, squads, groups… after each round of attacks, he would diligently collect data, then revive the undead and Gargoyles, optimize them, and conduct further experiments.
By analyzing the lethality and penetration power, then repairing and reviving these undead, and having them undergo the next round of testing.
In addition to this high-speed undead, he also had the Armed Gargoyles attack regular undead like walking corpses and armored walking corpses to test their lethality against ground troops.
—Until he tested the electrified walking corpse that he had optimized, he suddenly realized that the experimental data was not quite right.
These Armed Gargoyles seemed to be somewhat afraid of lightning…
(End of Chapter)
