After the old witch finished speaking, she looked at her apprentice again. Miss Rita Swift had a stern face and tried to pretend that although she heard the story, she didn't have any thoughts about it.
"All mortals will die eventually. I will leave eventually. The apprentice who will inherit my seat should be Rita. We are loyal to the parliament, but we are also loyal to our teacher. No matter what happens, we will help you."
She was making a promise to Xia De:
"Xia De, it's the teacher who gave me everything I have now. I hope you can treat them well."
“They are my friends too.”
Shad secretly glanced at Miss Swift's expression. Mother-in-law Cassandra must have said something similar to her, so she was not very surprised at the moment, but stood aside carefully holding the tea tray.
"By the way, what's with the fog this morning?"
It was already 9:30 in the morning, but the gas lamps had to be lit indoors. The three of them looked out the window together. Usually they could see half of the city from here, but today they could only barely see the roof of the building across the street.
"The fog came down late at night. There is no problem with the passage at the foot of the mountain, nor with the seal at the top of the mountain. Davelin has guaranteed this. So, it is the seal left by the Witch Emperors that has undergone new changes. We will set out tomorrow and must determine what happened there as soon as possible."
Speaking of this, Mother-in-law Cassandra was also very serious:
"Tomorrow, Xivi Aurora and I will lead the team. In addition to you, we also have our own followers. The Speaker has already made a deal with the Five Gods Church. In exchange for revoking the arrest warrant for a great witch who has made a mistake in the parliament, the Five Gods Church asked us to guarantee that even if the narrow space is eventually broken, the first thing to be lost will not be the passage on the mountainside."
"Okay, I'll be here as early as possible tomorrow morning."
Shad nodded.
"Also, according to the news that Davelin got from the Church of the Five Gods, this thick fog is related to the first 'nail' you sent away yesterday. The Prophet's Association made further divinations on those nails, and the divinations showed that the four resurrected dead represent four powerful emotions, namely joy, anger, sorrow, and fear. They will forget that they are resurrected from the dead, but if they realize this, it will not be easy for high-level warlocks to deal with them. Moreover, every time a nail is destroyed, the next one will become stronger. What you and Davelin destroyed was 'fear'. Hazama felt that one of the nails that he had driven into the material world had been pulled out, so there was this sudden thick fog as a counterattack."
"Any clues about the other three nails?"
"Not yet. This is something the church should worry about. However, regarding the chosen one..."
The old witch hesitated:
"The Council found new fragments of poetry, which further confirmed that the chosen one to die should be a man."
But Shade already knew this. He even knew that the other party's name was Joey Barton, and he was now doing divination for others at the Crow Club. He planned to go to the Crow Club again this afternoon to determine the other party's attitude before deciding whether to report or win him over. (Note)
"Also, the chosen one this time must have personally killed a person who came back from the dead. Yes, it's a true 'resurrection from the dead', not just killing an undead."
Xia De frowned:
"Is this the complete requirement for the Chosen One's Ceremony?"
"It's just part of the ceremony. There must be more to it. Now I have found several suspects of the chosen ones—
Davelin asked me to help investigate a first-ring warlock. There is a strange one-eyed man in the local ring warlock team of the Church of Nature. The middle-ring scholar who lives alone on Mount Xikar is also a suspect. There is also an outsider who recently came to this city. "
The old witch introduced:
"The church should have also locked onto a few targets, but they haven't taken action yet. They probably haven't determined the content of the ceremony for the chosen one yet, and they're worried that if they find the wrong person, other forces might get the upper hand."
"The situation is really complicated."
"Yes, and there are important people coming from the three major colleges this time. They haven't arrived yet, but they should arrive before the church ceremony."
"Big shot?"
"A thirteenth ring sorcerer, but I don't know which academy he's from. The excuse is to help the church seal the narrow space, but everyone knows that he must be here for the chosen one. So, including the three thirteenth ring sorcerers of the church, there will be four thirteenth rings in this place."
Granny Cassandra sighed:
"People from the Prophet's Association will also come later. We can't seal the narrow space without their help. And the Truth Society, since they have already appeared, it doesn't make sense for them to be just a few ants. It is said that the Ring Warlock Organization in the Southern Kingdom has also made some unusual moves, but we don't know who will come. In short, Midhill Castle is becoming more and more chaotic."
After saying goodbye to Grandma Cassandra, Shad held Mia in his arms and followed Miss Swift to the basement of the auction house, ready to meet Grace and Helen.
He originally thought that the so-called "basement shelter" was a cold, dilapidated, rusty iron room, but after following Miss Swift through the underground warehouse and into the branch corridor hidden by the illusion, he learned from her that it was actually a luxurious underground bedroom.
The illusion hid the passage as a wall, and walking inward along the long and narrow corridor, at the end of the passage full of torches was a tightly closed heavy brass metal door with a huge butterfly pattern on it.
In this era, doors of this specification were usually found in bank vaults or aristocratic safes.
"Mr. Hamilton, you only have ten minutes."
Miss Swift held up an oil lamp to illuminate the door in front of her, then handed Shad a key and asked Shad to use a pocket watch to time it, but Shad shook his head:
"I have the ability to sense time. Don't worry, I will come out on time."
He was about to knock on the door, but the young apprentice behind him spoke again:
"Please wait a moment. I want to ask you a small question."
She was about the same age as Shade's body. Although she was already an adult by the age standards of this world, she was still very young by the standards of a witch. She was of course very curious about Shade, but she could never find a chance to talk to him alone.
"If you want to ask me if I am a man, oh yes. Ma'am, this question has been asked many times before, I don't think you need to ask it again."
Shade said half complainingly.
"No, no, that's not what I'm asking."
Miss Swift blushed:
"I wanted to ask, do you know many witches?"
"Not many... only a quarter of the witches in the council."
"How did they treat you?"
Shade thought for a moment:
"not bad."
"And do you know their apprentices?"
This was the question she wanted to ask.
“I only know one.”
"That apprentice... How is he? Is he mature? Is he very powerful? What level is he now?"
Xia De then realized that the flaxen-haired girl in front of him was worried that she couldn't compare to others:
"Excuse me, have you just become Granny Cassandra's apprentice?"
He asked softly.
"Yes, next month will be the third year. My mother-in-law also had apprentices before, but I have never seen them."
In order to prevent themselves from dying suddenly and having no apprentice to inherit the throne, witches always train apprentices from generation to generation, but usually the last generation inherits the throne. It is very rare for a witch like Cassandra's previous generation to die without a suitable apprentice.
Tifa was obviously Miss Carina's first-generation apprentice, and Miss Swift in front of her was the last-generation apprentice of Mother-in-law Cassandra.
"Don't worry, aren't you outstanding now? At your age, it's not common to be a fourth-ring warlock. The road of a witch will be very long. Instead of worrying about the present, you should worry about the future. No one can advance one ring a month or reach the thirteenth ring in a year."
Xia De made a joke. What he said made sense. He had been in this world for more than four months and he only had three rings.
Miss Swift finally smiled:
"I understand. Please go in. But please note that although the teachers can control themselves, you will probably encounter some troubles in there. If you can't handle it, just back out."
She held the oil lamp in her left hand and waved to Shade with her right hand:
"I'll wait for you here."
"Okay, look after this cat for me for a while."
Shad handed the reluctant cat to the flaxen-haired girl, turned around and knocked on the door. After receiving a response, he inserted the key into the keyhole, pushed the door open and walked in.
－－－－－－－Off-topic－－－－－－－