"Oh, good afternoon, Shad, my friend, you are finally here."
When Shad braved the snow and arrived at Dr. Schneider's psychological clinic that afternoon, the doctor gave him a rather warm hug.
In order to celebrate this afternoon, Dr. Schneider postponed the treatment of two important patients and reserved time for Shade. He enthusiastically led Shade to the reception room on the second floor, which was also the room where the group held meetings every Saturday. The violin case of the night watchman was quietly placed on the coffee table.
“Although there were some minor incidents, overall the operation on Sunday went smoothly.”
The doctor had already prepared some red wine for the celebration. After handing the glass to Xia De, the two of them clinked their glasses with a smile.
"But you have to be careful. I have friends in the church. Although the church has been troubled by other things recently, they will definitely not give up investigating the appearance of evil spirits from the Third Age in the city."
Xia De reminded while holding the cup, and the doctor nodded:
"I understand. The main task for the next half month is to prepare for the end-of-year exam. Oh, detective, as the leader of the team, I have more responsibilities than any of you."
The doctor put his hands on the windowsill, half leaning there in a relaxed posture, with the city with heavy snow falling behind him.
Strangely enough, even in the snowy season, the city is still shrouded in gray fog, which is a characteristic of the Steam City.
"Doctor, what new abilities did you gain after devouring the demon of proliferating desire?"
Shade asked as he sat on the sofa, putting the wine glass aside and opening the violin case to check. After the doctor took it back, he probably didn't dare to open it at all, and the night watchman was still wrapped in Shade's coat.
"Fanni himself is not a powerful demon. Now I can use certain spellcasting methods to peek into how many desires a person has in his heart. If I want, I can also plant the seeds of desire in a certain individual's heart and use this to harvest his desires. However, this requires the cooperation of my dream-entering method."
The doctor explained that he had not concealed this from Shade. Because he anticipated that he might lose control one day, the doctor told Shade about his abilities, hoping that Shade would be able to kill him wearing the Demon Seal and holding the Night Watch when the doom really came:
"Besides that, there's this."
As he spoke, the doctor took two steps forward and summoned the life ring behind him. The brass wheel ring spinning in the steam mist matched the snowy street scene of the Steam City behind him.
At the end of autumn, with the help of Shade, Dr. Schneider had successfully advanced to the sixth ring with the help of a forged Philosopher's Stone. At this time, there were four more spirit runes on his life ring than last time.
"Profanation-Heart of Fire, Whisper-Long Whip, Profanation-Proliferation, Inspiration-Contract. The first two come from digesting the power of the Fire Demon, and the last two come from the power of Fanni. Swallowing the spirit runes brought by the demon, except for miracles, the other three are possible."
The Doctor, who was still in the fifth ring at the time, did not digest the power of the Fire Demon immediately, but waited until he reached the sixth ring to increase the spiritual runes (Chapter 681).
The doctor also looked back at his life ring:
"Thanks to the power of these two demons, I have only been promoted to the sixth ring for a month, and I am already so close to the seventh ring... I still have to thank you, Xia De, for bringing these two demons to me."
He smiled and thanked Shad again, and Shad sighed in his heart that the special talent obtained by the doctor by binding an ancient evil demon with himself seemed to be more powerful than the temporary spiritual rune of the chosen one, Laikins Prisha.
But it was fair, fate had taken its payment from the doctor in advance, and he deserved the power.
"But I don't expect you to encounter any more demons, Detective. Remember, never provoke those evil spirits. They are... really scary."
The doctor sighed, probably thinking of Mr. Shelf Tim and Miss Shana Aya again. He put the wine glass in his hand on the windowsill and walked to the desk:
"I'll share the spoils with you, including the ones I found at the Three Cats Inn on Monday. That guy had a lot of weird things on him. But since most of them were demonic creations, I picked a few to keep for myself and destroyed the rest."
Shade had no objection to this. The demonic creations were even more bizarre than the relics with fixed rules.
"There are a few more things you can use. They're all yours. Don't refuse. I definitely get more than you."
The doctor took out a red box and handed it to Shade. The Flame Demon had never been able to come out after being sealed by Miss Violet in the Fifth Epoch, so naturally he had nothing on him. However, the Devil of Proliferating Desire was active and traded in human society, so he had quite a few items on him.
After Shad opened the box, the first thing he saw was a narrow-necked bottle filled with a viscous black oil, corked with an oak stopper:
"This is... ... "
"The remains of the demon are like the heart of the Balrog in the autumn."
The doctor said:
"When I devour the power of the demon, I don't mean I eat the whole body of the demon. You should know that the evil spirits of the Third Age don't have a physical body. The arsonist merged with the fire demon, and Fanni merged with some unknown thing. All I need is the power of the demon's body. There are always other parts that I don't need. This is the part of the body that concentrates the power of the demon, but most of the power has been absorbed by me."
The doctor took the flask from the box and examined it:
"The remains of the demon of desire for value-added, Fanni, are the same as the heart of the Balrog, and are extremely high-grade and precious materials. If you have the courage to find a potion master to make it into a potion and drink it, I am even sure that you will definitely get a spiritual rune related to Fanni."
Xia De shook his head quickly. He would not drink such a thing.
When his fingers touched the slender bottleneck, the primordial fire in his body immediately became agitated. Although the demon's body power was absorbed by the doctor, the demon's remains were still worth devouring. Xia De knew the purpose of this thing.
"Doctor, I wonder if the demonic remains of the demons you devoured before..."
He asked again, and the doctor said regretfully:
"You are useful, right? I didn't know I would run into you at that time. I used you as material for consumption."
In addition to the demonic remains, there was also a sugar cube-like crystal block, a black fountain pen and a ring in the red box.
"Be careful, and try not to touch it directly with your hands."
Only the sugar cube-like crystal was not a relic, so Shade reached out to it, but was stopped by the doctor:
"Desire crystal. You can think of it as semi-materialized desire. It's very similar to the mind crystal I made for you last time, but it's very polluting."
Although he didn't let Xia De touch it directly, he picked up the crystal with his bare hands:
"This is a very useful material for spellcasting, potions, and alchemy. The making of the 'Victor Box' you mentioned is related to this."
The matter of Victor's Box has been reported to the church by Yin Luna, so they don't need to worry about the subsequent impact caused by the devil.
"Doctor, if you can use it, you can keep it. I have no use for it."
Shade suggested, but the doctor shook his head:
"With Fanni's power, I can also make Desire Crystals myself, so just take them. I'll recommend a few books to you. You can borrow them from the Black Raven Library or the Academy Library. There are many uses for Desire Crystals."
He wrote down the titles of several books for Xia De and put them in the red box.
As for the remaining two items, although their levels are not high, they are both genuine relics.
The black fountain pen is a clerical-level (level 4) relic called Yintelain's Pen. Once the words written by this pen are read, the reader can have the illusion of "being there". But the negative feature is that once this pen is used to write stories about strange beings sleeping in the subspace or sealed, there is a certain chance that it will directly constitute a summoning ritual.
The devil uses this pen to write stories of desire and lure mortals into signing contracts, but in the hands of good writers, it is a tool for constructing beautiful stories.
On the black cap of the fountain pen, runes the size of ants formed a strange sentence:
A good story should be more than just words.
"Do you mind, Doctor, if I give this pen to Dorothy?"
Xia De played with the relic and turned to ask the doctor who had walked back to the bedside.
Although these items were given to Shad by the doctor, it would inevitably be embarrassing if the doctor suddenly found this pen in Dorothy's hand one day, so Shad asked in advance.
"These are all your things. You can give them to whomever you want."
The doctor waved his hand, thinking secretly about Xia De's private life, and remembered that day in late autumn when he was invited to enter the strange foggy area on the third floor of Xia De's house to call souls, and that two girls in Xia De's house spent the night with him.
"Then I'll give it to Dorothy as a year-end present."
Shad said with a smile.
The "Sui Mo Festival" is the last festival of the year. It is the most important festival for ordinary people in this era. It is similar to the Spring Festival and Christmas in the hometown of foreigners. It is the day when the year ends and people can finally have a good rest. People are used to giving gifts and greeting cards to friends on this day, so foreigners naturally have to prepare for this.
"Speaking of the year-end festival, you don't need to prepare my gift. Fanni is a very good gift."
The doctor suggested, but Shad would still prepare a gift.
As for the last ring, it is a green wooden ring with an emerald ring face.
The doctor recognized Intranet's handwriting but not this one, so he asked Old John to help identify it.
This is a poet-level (level 5) relic plague doctor ring. After wearing it, rotating the ring counterclockwise once can activate the ring's properties, allowing the wearer to be immune to most plagues for a certain period of time.
It can resist not only common diseases such as plague, smallpox, and colds, but also diseases related to the occult such as blood thirst and plague of the dead. Demons naturally don't need this kind of ring. This relic was probably obtained by a demon who wanted to increase its value. He wanted to keep it in his hands and trade it with humans, but now it's a bargain for Shade.
Inside the ring, there were long, sunken runes. Due to the light, it was difficult to see the characters directly, so Shade rubbed the ring with his fingertips, and "she" told him the meaning of the ancient runes:
The struggle between disease and purity is the tempering of nature.