CHAPTER 38: MING XUE'S CRUEL DECREE
"Instead, he himself will soon be wishing for death…"
The indifferent tone within each word reverberated in Hermes' soul. He decided it was best to change the subject before he ended up offending Ming Xue unknowingly.
"Say, do you have any clue as to why he attacked me? I know my relationship with Charles is sour, but there is no way he would become this shameless in his tactics, right?"
Ming Xue's abyssal eyes scrutinized Hermes' expression before answering. "You have been talking too much with that Elizabeth girl. You should stay away from her from now on."
Hermes furrowed his brows. "So it's about her, huh? Wasn't it still being debated whether they would be engaged officially or not?"
Ming Xue crossed his arms. "Hmph. It seems the two of you got closer than I thought for her to disclose such things to you directly."
Hermes rubbed the back of his hair out of embarrassment. So far, Hermes has only seen Elizabeth as a friend. Although he found her extremely beautiful, his heart still belonged to someone else. He would feel guilty if he tried to pursue love again when he had already promised his life to Arianna.
Although he wanted to correct Ming Xue's comments, he kept quiet; the man before him was too monstrous to argue with.
"Still, I don't see why they would risk sending someone to break the Guardian Regiment rules for such a thing. In fact, they could have just tried to suppress me indirectly, which you or Commander Arthur would have found harder to counter. For him to straight-up assault me seems kind of… Unnecessary?"
Ming Xue looked at the cocoon of darkness that encompassed the Verdier Officer's body.
"I'll report this to the Commander. He'll know what to do. As for you, go do as you please. It's your free time, after all." Ming Xue indifferently shooed him away.
Hermes swiftly saluted in his direction. "Yes, sir!"
He changed course and decided to make a stop at Angelica's clinic to get patched up before proceeding to the library. The unfolding events had left his mind in a shocked and bewildered state. This was especially true after Ming Xue's intervention.
Seeing the figure of the young cadet clumsily walking toward the elevator, Ming Xue looked back at the abyssal void surrounding the poor soul's body. With just his thoughts, he commanded the darkness to unfold before him, leaving a small opening inside.
What reflected in Ming Xue's pitch-black eyes was the face of the Officer filled with despair. Trepidation filled his bones after finally witnessing the light once more.
"I'll give you one more chance. Who commanded you to do this? I don't have the patience for your bullshit."
After a slight pause filled with hesitation, the officer remembered the grueling pain he had just endured. His skin was pierced by thousands of needles that swam inside his body, filling him with agony. Not only did he empty his bowels from the despair, but his body shivered constantly, unable to forget the multitudinous suffering it had just gone through.
Relishing the fear, he had finally decided to surrender completely before his torturer. "I-it was Elder Thomas! He instructed me to do it! P-please, let me go! I swear to never show up again in front of you!"
'Thomas de Verdier, huh? That rat's arrogance truly knows no bounds… Arthur's soft approach is clearly emboldening them…' Ming's thoughts churned as many plans began formulating in his mind.
"I thank you for your honesty. As for you not showing up in front of me, that would be a problem. You belong to my battalion, after all. As for your punishment, you will be demoted two ranks and, for the next two months, be subjugated to toilet cleaning duties. I expect you to use your toothbrush for the job."
The statement invoked anger within his heart. However, knowing the type of man standing before him, he decided to suppress his emotions and put on a smile. "T-thank you for your generosity! After getting out, I will assure you that I will never commit anything similar again!"
"Hm? Who said you are getting out of this? I plan to put you through this pain for the next few hours." Horror spread throughout his Central Nervous Network. The agony he had believed to be over was nothing but an appetizer.
…
After being carefully examined Angelica and being wrapped in bandages to stop some of the bleeding he experienced, Hermes decided to head toward his original destination. When he arrived, Angelica bombarded him with so many questions that he found it difficult to leave the clinic. He had finally grasped the meaning behind the soldiers referring to her as "Big Sis."
Inside the library, Hermes scoured through the books to look for anything interesting to read. He had put off reading 'Spirit World Chronicles' due to the complexity of its later chapters which go into depth on spell casting, Solari pronunciation, deriving meaning behind the words of nature, as well as general formulas for spell crafting that he could not grasp at all.
Despite having [Lesser-Lexicon] as a language learning aid, it only functioned by translating his thoughts from English into his desired language. Because of this, his knowledge of Solari, Mortuus, and even Luminaric was superficial at best. Although the translation helps him to speak normally in the languages, he doesn't truly understand what he is saying.
Language has always been a complex subject where words could have different meanings when spoken in different contexts. There will also be the concept of root words, where the meaning of something could change over time. People were sometimes confused when Hermes used unfamiliar words, as [Lesser-Lexicon]'s interpretations were not always accurate.
According to Arthur, [Lesser-Lexicon] was an early iteration of connecting to the Spirit World, or the Realm of Knowledge. This was because the Spirit World itself houses the entire universe's information. Using this colossal database, [Lesser-Lexicon] can tap inside to derive language information and to help the Celestial in question speak, read, write, and interpret languages they have never seen before.
However, due to the vastness of the Universe, language can be used in a multitude of ways by different people and cultures, causing some words to have different meanings for different people.
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If not because he had Elgacia imprint the knowledge behind the Solari spell incantations, he would have never been able to call out the spell names like 'Blink' or 'Spatial Slash' correctly when facing Kel'thus. He was very lucky in the fact that the word 'Activation' in Solari had not received any major changes over the years, or else his pronunciation or the meaning of nature behind it might not have worked correctly, effectively trapping him inside the Mausoleum.
Additionally, Sanctuary City's version of Luminaric was still stuck in its ancient state from 18,000 years ago; little change has been made. They would not be able to understand words told by people who have already adapted newer styles of the language unless they themselves had [Lesser-Lexicon].
This did not disappoint Hermes, however, as it confirmed to him that humans had to exist elsewhere in the vastness of space and have developed accents and cultural differences between the language. There could also be other races that are familiar with human tongues that speak Luminaric as well… This made him more eager to explore the cosmos after figuring out a way to escape the planet with everyone.
Going through the Mysticism section, Hermes had one goal in mind: to learn more about the Gifted and how their souls are different from normal Celestials. He was also curious about how the Elysian Monoliths worked and why some of these people were forcefully dragged inside the Dreamscape test without the need to activate one.
One of the things he felt he needed to find out was whether there was a connection between the Ethyric Realm that Elizabeth spoke of called the 'Dreamscape' and the Elysian Monolith's Dreamscape Challenge. Were the two connected in any way? He hypothesized that maybe the Elysian Monoliths sent the challengers to the Dream Domain's Ethyric Realm to conduct the tests, but he still had no evidence to prove that was the case.
Observing all the names on the book spines, Hermes scoured through the shelves in search of the information he desired. After about ten minutes or so, he finally found something that could hold the answers he wished for.
"The Will of the Universe…"
'An encyclopedia of information based on academic studies people have conducted throughout human history on what the Will of the Universe is and how it communicates with the living... Interesting...'
Hermes opened the book and sat down on the familiar carpeted floor. Flipping to the first page, he began reading the information presented before him slowly.
...
Ming Xue walked in stride toward Section A, a trail of dark shadows grasping at an abyssal cocoon, tightly dragging it from behind. The ominous scene sent shivers inside every officer who passed by.
Just moments earlier, he had communicated with Arthur regarding the incident using a communication device. The reason Ming Xue was able to stop the situation as it was occurring was because both of them already had suspicions regarding that officer's actions in the first place.
Entering into the large open lobby, Ming Xue walked in the direction of Angelica's clinic and entered inside.
The familiar figure of a mature woman in a lab coat presented itself before him. Her smooth, long black hair draped down below her shoulders and her enchantingly deep brown eyes gazed toward the tablet in her hand.
Noticing the presence of someone familiar, her rosy lips curved up into a smile.
"Little Ming, how have you been do– Oh my… Who pissed you off this time?"
Ming tilted his head back toward the cocoon of darkness and spoke indifferently. "Some asshole from the Verdier family tried to use his Dimensional Suppression on a new cadet. I caught him snooping around the dorm rooms; it was 100% a targeted attack."
Angelica's smile turned into a slight frown. "Let me guess, it's little Hermes, isn't it?"
Ming's brows furrowed. "Hm? You know him?"
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Why, of course I know him. I took care of him for longer than a week when he first arrived here. He is the only cadet I know that purposefully antagonized the Verdier family's heir on the first day of arriving for the exams. Also, he arrived here a few hours ago with a few injuries all over his body. Sigh, he even tried to avoid my questions about what happened..."
In his boredom, Ming turned around and faced the cocoon behind him. With a slight motion of his hand, the darkness dissipated immediately; the officer inside dropped to the floor covered in blood and piss. He was completely unconscious. Observing him closely, she noticed his eyes rolled back into his head.
Angelica's lips twitched. "Hey! I just cleaned the floor, you know! Couldn't you do it another way?!"
Ming Xue ignored her angry remarks and walked toward the exit of the room. "Whatever, tell him to go back to the Verdier family and deliver a message for me when he recovers: 'Never mess with any of the cadets or else.' Also, you talk too much, Angelica."
Angelica's cheeks puffed up in anger. "Is this how you treat the one person who took care of you when you were young?!"
Twisting the doorknob, Ming turned his head back in her direction. "I treat all annoying people the same…"
"Hmph, even with your handsome face, you'll never get a girlfriend with that kind of personality!"
As if her words went inside one ear and out the other, Ming Xue stepped outside the room without showing even the slightest reaction to her remarks.
Seeing this, Angelica began to rub her temples. "Sigh, he was so much cuter when he was young…"
…
It has been a few hours since he began his reading session. The clock hit 9:30 without him even realizing it. Stretching his arms, Hermes got up and placed the book back on the shelf.
Although the majority of the first chapter was spent discussing theories that scholars had made over the purpose or agenda of the Will of the Universe, what interested him more was the content inside the second chapter.
It described the process in which the Elysian Monoliths work and how they are connected to the Universes will. For one, there were two main schools of thought behind this subject. There was the group that believed that the test was generated entirely inside our dreams, while the other believed that our astral projection takes a trip to the Ethyric Realm itself. As for what Ethyric Realm, many believed it to be the Dreamscape, while others rightfully assumed it to be the same realm as whatever domain the test belongs to.
There was some evidence to suggest that both could be correct, but no conclusive answer could be made. This was because those who took the trial, whether by activating an Elysian Monolith or through forceful transport, could not remember the events that took place inside.
However, what makes it truly difficult to study was the fact that such a rule was highly inconsistent. Some may return from the test with memories of the setting, or history of events, but could not exactly remember what they needed to do to achieve victory. Others, on the other hand may not even remember what the test looked like, but could remember the mission they needed to complete.
Coupled with the fact that each person's test was unique, it becomes insanely difficult to determine a pattern or create any consensus between academics.
The one thing that interested him the most, however, was the fact that a person could interfere with someone taking an exam, either by attacking them or entering the dreamscape with them by touch.
This system provided opportunities for both allies and adversaries to adapt their actions according to the given test parameters. For instance, if an ally demonstrated indications of struggling to maintain control over their cosmic force, one could choose to accompany them during the examination to provide support. Conversely, adversaries can exploit this approach by infiltrating another individual's test with the deliberate intention of sabotaging their efforts and inducing failure.
This option, however, does have its limitations. For one, the person interfering must be of the same race or domain as the person taking the test. There was also the fact that you could only interfere if your stage as a Celestial is the same or one rank higher only. Otherwise, the system that was behind managing these challenges would deem it unfair to the participant.
Another thing to consider was the fact that if the person failed the test, the mutation they undertake will also spill out into the person interfering. That meant an enemy who wanted to intentionally cause someone's failure during their challenge must be prepared to kill themselves, along with the participant.
This implied that anyone who wishes to support someone in a trial must be willing to accept the possibility of death if the outcome was unfavorable.
Stepping out of the aisle, Hermes began to absorb the knowledge he had just obtained. Although he had managed to understand a lot of things regarding Elysian Monoliths, there were still a lot of gaps left over that he needed to fill.
Hermes looked at the table that he and Elizabeth had used for their nightly discussions and clue-finding regarding her prophecy. He checked his phone for the time, which read 9:40 PM.
"Hm? She's pretty late today…"
End of Chapter