The cat watching the pigeons on the second-floor windowsill spotted Shade at a glance. So when Shade opened the door from downstairs, he was warmly welcomed by his own cat.
We had dinner at home tonight. Before the maids left yesterday, they had stored enough food in the kitchen. The ones cooking were naturally the Gemini girls who came to visit.
They learned a lot of useful life skills in their long lives. Helen and Grace were much better cooks than the outsiders who could only cook simple meals.
"I've long imagined being able to cook in the kitchen with my sister without having to worry about one of us strangling the other next week and waiting alone for another 21 years."
Grace was in the kitchen preparing the last of the soup, and Helen had taken off her apron and was already sitting next to Shad.
Gas lamps illuminated the restaurant, which was simply decorated but had a homely atmosphere. A painting painted by Hella Osenfurt for Shad hung on the wall behind Shad. A young girl in a black skirt sat next to Shad, holding her chin with one hand and turning to look at her sister in the kitchen.
Xia De hugged Mia, who was looking forward to dinner:
"You will have plenty of time to live together in the future, just don't get bored."
Helen turned to look at him:
"How can I be bored? My sister is me, and I am my sister. Sometimes I even feel that maybe when God created us, he divided a whole into two individuals. We are destined to be together, and we will never, ever be separated."
"Helen, I'm embarrassed if you say that."
Grace, wearing a white skirt and an apron, came over. To be honest, Xia De still felt very strange watching two fifteen or sixteen-year-old girls preparing dinner for him. Especially since they had the same appearance and looked inexplicably mature.
"Sit down and eat. After dinner, we have to go see Sister Defulin. The nun asked me to take you with me. I need your help to learn the magic."
"Of course."
Grace said, pulling her sister up and sitting opposite Shade with her. Shade stood up and took out Mia's special small bowl from the cupboard and put it aside to prepare dinner for it.
"Actually, I am a little afraid of that nun."
Helen sat in the chair very relaxedly. She really enjoyed such nights.
"Why? Sister Defulyn can't beat you, right?"
Shade asked curiously, picking up a spoon to serve soup to everyone.
"Most relics are difficult to destroy, not to mention humanoid relics like ours. As for the primordial fire of the blind nun..."
Helen pursed her lips and took the bowl of soup:
"We can become firewood."
Xia De looked at them in surprise:
"Don't say such things. How could Sister Defulin do such a thing?"
However, this also gave Shade a hint that in addition to evil creatures in the subspace and ancient evil spirits, human-shaped relics were also within the range that could be burned.
"Anyway, I just feel that the nun is scary."
Helen swung her legs under the table while Grace tied her napkin:
"Before Zina, we knew almost every great witch of darkness, so we have known the Spiritual Order for a long time. Those fire-wielding nuns are all great, even greater than the guardians. Even among all the fire-wielding nuns, Sister Defulin is a special one."
Grace tied her sister's napkin and then dealt with her own napkin:
"She is simply a natural fire keeper, as if she was born for the flame. But correspondingly, it's as if the primordial fire has also absorbed all her heat. Sir, don't be fooled by her gentleness towards you. In fact, that nun is so cold that she is almost like..."
"Charred wood."
Helen added, and then explained:
"This isn't just talking behind someone's back. She really does look scary."
Desire also once described Sister Dieflin as "burnt wood" on an island in the middle of the Pantanal swamp.
"What exactly is the primordial fire? Is it just the first flame in the world?"
Xia De asked curiously, and the Red Butterfly Twins looked at each other:
"Strictly speaking, no. The sun is the first fire, the first light, and the first thunder in the world."
"Meow~"
Mia shouted while eating dinner.
"The primordial fire came from before everything, from the very beginning. It existed even longer than this world, and therefore it can represent our world."
Helen said cautiously:
"The mystery of that flame is no less than any special item in your hand. Even the old gods..."
"Helen!"
Grace said this seriously, and the girl, knowing that she had said something wrong, covered her mouth and made an apologetic expression to Xia De:
"We are just guessing about some things. You just need to know that the Primordial Fire and the Nun who holds the Fire are very important to this world."
Grace tied her napkin and gave an example:
"The fire-bearing nuns have never been the protagonists of epic epochs like 'The Chosen Ones'. They are the ones who protect everything, and when everything comes to an end, the fire will still illuminate the world. Therefore, the successive fire-bearing nuns are very cautious in passing on their legacy. We heard from Zina that the current generation of Sister Defulyn has not yet found a very suitable candidate."
But Shade knew the right person, Luvia. However, he had seen in his dream the scene where the nun passed on the fire to Luvia before she turned into ashes and died, and he would never let it happen again.
After enjoying dinner at home, Mia, as usual, was unwilling to follow, so Shad went to Midhill Castle with Helen and Grace.
Because it was already late, they went directly to the Snake Heart Hospital in the city, and then came to the sacrificial site on the top of the mountains.
Xia De seldom came here at night, so when he and the Red Butterfly Twins stepped out of the frame, they were immediately attracted by the boundless sea of stars above their heads.
"This is really..."
The Milky Way seemed to be hanging upside down above my head, and I could even touch it with my hand. All the stars were so bright, even the stars that were rarely observed on weekdays could shine with their own brilliance.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Grace asked softly, and Xia De nodded, then realized that after so many years, they must have seen similar scenery countless times.
"But only this time, there was someone by my side."
Helen suddenly said, and Xia De was startled:
"Have you learned to read minds?"
"Oh, sir, you just write your thoughts right on your face."
Although the Red Butterflies said during dinner that they were a little afraid of Sister Defulin, they acted very naturally when they greeted the nun after seeing her.
The weather near the top of the mountain was very good tonight, without a single cloud, which was the best time to study the Moon Dream. Sister Develyn was already waiting for them, but the place of study was not in the sacrificial field, but in the Fire Keeper Cemetery (note), which Shade had been to once before and was connected to the mountaintop sacrificial field by steps and was located a little below the mountain range.
Although this is a cemetery, it is actually just a very empty and open open-air place, because the body of the fire keeper will turn into firewood after death, and there is actually no debris to be buried. The empty square-like cemetery is flanked by stone walls and stone gates on both sides, and on the other two opposite sides are cliffs and nearly vertical cliffs.
The nuns of the spiritual order had already prepared for the ceremony here this afternoon. To be more precise, they painted the "sun, moon and stars" pattern on the open space of the Dark Night Temple in the Randall River Valley on the flat ground covered with white ash.
After making preparations, the blind nuns left one after another, leaving only Sister Defulin and the Red Butterfly girls.
Following the nun's instructions, Shade took off his coat and shirt, and then Sister Defulin used the tail hair of a strange alien creature, the "Moon Rabbit", to apply a special paint on Shade's body. Centered on the chest, there was a small amount of mithril fragments, and the glimmering paint extended to the throat and the center of the back.
The "Moon Rabbit" is an extremely ugly rabbit with a crescent-shaped face. Xia De had only seen them in books before. These rabbits are considered to be the ugliest rabbits that have ever appeared in the material world.
When everything was ready, Shade, with his upper body naked, sat cross-legged in the center of the huge ritual formation on the ground, while the nuns and the red butterfly girls retreated outside the venue.
Looking up at the stars and memorizing the shape of the Milky Way, Shade closed his eyes and gradually entered a state of meditation - this was very simple for him. For this world, since the "spirit" of a ring sorcerer is not pure energy, meditation alone cannot quickly restore the spirit. This leads to the fact that meditation, which seems to be very useful to extraordinary people, is actually just a means to assist rituals, enhance mental strength, and respond to certain magic.
Correspondence students did not receive any professional professors’ guidance in meditation, but high-level ring sorcerers’ control over their own minds and bodies enabled them to quickly master the techniques of meditation even without frequent practice.
Shade was a man who had a great talent for "meditation". After relaxing his mind, he slowly let his physical senses disappear, and then forced his spirit to gradually sink into the "starry sky" illusion he had just recorded in the dark field of vision.
Deep meditation is very close to a state of sleep. When Shad found that he could vaguely see the boundless wilderness around him, he knew that he had succeeded.
In the real world, the silver lines on Shade's body began to emit light like real moonlight as his mind entered a deep state of meditation. As the light "ignited" the ritual formation on the ground, the patterns of the sun, moon and stars also emitted a faint glow of the silver moon.
The light spread across the ground like ripples, clinging to the surface until it was projected onto the ground of the Fire Keeper's Cemetery like a river of stars.