The Wise Lord didn't bother to explain further. "Fine, fine. I don't care what secrets you're trying to hide. The contract is signed, and as long as you keep your word, nothing else matters."
The Wise Lord's "generosity" only made Angor more confused.
No one knew what the Wise Lord was talking about, let alone Angor.
Angor's real face couldn't be seen? Covered up?
Was the Wise Ruler talking about the literal meaning of 'true appearance', or was it just a metaphor, and 'true appearance' referred to the true appearance of one's personality? If it was the latter, they could understand it. But if it was the former, then it was really confusing.
They all saw Angor's real face, and they didn't believe it was something that couldn't be seen. As for whether Angor was hiding his real face? They weren't blind. Apprentices might not be able to see Angor's disguise, but wizards could. Besides, Count Black was here, and they could easily tell whether Angor was using his real face or not.
Everyone had their doubts, but they could not speak up for Angor, so they remained silent.
Angor, on the other hand, was getting more and more confused. He wanted to ask about the details, but he was also worried that the Wise Lord might see something related to that person.
The Wise Lord already moved on to the next question. "The contract is done. You can choose to let me fulfill it now, or at any other time."
What was related to the Wise Ruler in the contract was naturally the reward after the contract was established. The Wise Lord was talking about telling Angor about his experiment, as well as the truth behind the Snake Entanglement.
Angor considered. "Let's wait until we reach the Wise Lord's residence."
Just as the Wise Ruler was about to reply, he paused for a second or two. Then, his lips curled into a smile. "Even if you want me to say it now, it might be too late."
"Huh?"
The Wise Lord turned around and looked at the Stairs of Hanging Prison through his Nightmare Domain.
"Because your first test has arrived."
The first test? When everyone heard this, their expressions immediately became solemn. This was because this trial was completely different from the previous trial which the Chief Sovereign of the Wise had given him.
Although the test the Sovereign of the Wise had given them had been forced, he hadn't told them to 'die'.
They were purely using the name of testing to gather information about them.
This time, the test that the Wise Sovereign was referring to was, without a doubt, an attempt by 'her' to intercept them. If they couldn't stop him, then they would kill him.
Therefore, they had to treat it seriously.
"I wonder what this so-called test is?" The Black Earl asked.
This was because they had already guessed that Hidden Slave's test would not be here, but at the fork in the road before the Sage Hall. Therefore, this test definitely had nothing to do with Hidden Slave.
What they hoped for the most was naturally the three children of Slave You to test them. This was because the Wise Lord could control them and even ask them to help Angor find out how Phantom Slave could move within the magic array.
However, if it wasn't Dabao and the others, then they would have to be careful in this test.
The Sovereign of Wisdom didn't immediately reply. Instead, he closed his eyes, as if sensing something.
About a minute later, the Wise Lord finally opened his eyes. However, before the Wise Sovereign could say anything, a cold snort sounded in everyone's ears.
"Descendants of Noah, leave now, and you'll still be fine. But if you insist, you'll know what true despair is. "
It was a woman's voice. Her tone was indifferent as she spoke threatening words.
Everyone looked at each other and then at Angor. Since they were inside Angor's Nightmare Domain, they couldn't find the source of the voice, so they had to rely on Angor.
Angor put his right index finger on his lips and made a 'shh' gesture.
Soon, the woman's voice came again, but this time, it wasn't directed at the "outsider".
"Wise Lord, you should know that arrogance is a sin."
The Wise Lord chuckled. "I'm not arrogant, nor am I a traitor. You should know better than I do. "
"Hmph. Give up on your groundless prying. There's nothing you want in the Chamber of Solitude."
The Wise Lord didn't say anything this time.
The woman's voice didn't say anything else either. Her voice slowly faded away until it turned into … ripples.
Literally, ripples.
"Her voice came from the water of the fountain outside," Angor said. "Now that the ripples are gone, she must have left as well."
"Water?" Dorcas frowned as he recalled the dark, stinky water in the fountain. "She really doesn't mind her location at all."
"Even if it's dirty water, the surface of the water can still be called a mirror. It's her, isn't it?" Black Count looked at the Wise Lord.
The Wise Lord narrowed his eyes. "Congratulations. You got it right. But there's no reward. "
"Is she here to declare war?" Dorcas asked.
"You can think of it as a declaration of war. Or rather, a prelude to the trial. However, her appearance this time is more of a warning to me. "
As you heard, she already knew that I'm in cahoots with you. Fortunately, she doesn't know how far we've gone yet. "
The Wise Overseer looked away from Angor and turned to the Dark Earl's group.
"Speaking of cahoots, I've already signed a contract with Angor, who likes to keep his head low. We're on the same side now," the Wise Lord said. "What about you? Shouldn't you make a deal with me as well, under the witness of the Tome of Truth? "
A normal agreement was a gentleman's agreement, and it required self-discipline to keep it. But since the Wise Lord mentioned the Tome of Truth, the agreement was more or less the same as a contract.
"We can talk about the agreement later. Shouldn't we talk about the trial first?" Dorcas asked.
The Wise Lord wagged his finger. "Your trial won't start so soon. Even if the first trial is right in front of you, it won't start right away. There's still time. We can talk about the agreement first, then the trial. "
Since the Wise Lord didn't want to talk about the agreement, he wouldn't say anything else.
"What agreement?" Black Count asked in a low voice.
"Unlike Angor, you only need to write one sentence in the Tome of Truth: 'I won't tell anyone about what happened in Nether City in any way, explicitly or implicitly.'"
This sounded very similar to the third clause in Angor's contract. However, the Wise Lord was much more lenient than Angor's. Angor was "not allowed to tell anyone about what happened in Nether City". The Wise Lord asked Black Count and the others to "not tell anyone about what happened in Nether City".
One was "mentioned", and the other was "spread". Mention was not allowed to even talk about it. At least in certain circles, people could still talk about it freely.
Moreover, the definition of "spread" was vague. Black Count told his clansmen about what happened in Nether City and made them sign a contract forbidding others from talking about it. This could be considered as "digesting" rather than "spreading".
It was obvious that the Wise Ruler was more afraid of Brute Cavern than Noah's Descendants. Wandering wizards and wizards did not have much restrictions on them.
Brute Cavern used to be a giant organization ten thousand years ago. It wasn't Brute Cavern's fault that it was declining. It was the entire southern wizarding region that was in a period of decline.
Brute Cavern was still powerful enough to crush Nether City.
The Wise Lord was worried that Brute Cavern would set their sights on Nether City, which would be a disaster that could destroy the entire city. Therefore, the Wise Lord gave Angor a harsh condition because Brute Cavern was an "outsider".
As for the descendants of Noah, even now, they were still a colossus. They were the top existences among the Sorcerer Families. However, no matter what, the Noah Family originated from Nether City. The place that they were going to was also built by the ancestors of Nether City. Strictly speaking, they were not considered "outsiders." Of course, they weren't his clansmen either.
The Wise Lord didn't ask for Noah's descendants to side with Nether City. His goal was to restore Nether City. However, as non-outsiders, they couldn't stand against Nether City.
This was why the Wise Lord didn't ask for as lenient as he expected.
As for Dorcas, Kael, and other wandering wizards, he didn't need to worry about them.
The Wise Lord continued, "All you need to do is write this down in the Book of Truth. When I tell you about the ruin, I'll use the book as a reference."
The Wise Lord didn't give out a direct reward like Angor did, but his reward was still useful.
Using the Book of Truth as a reference meant that the Wise Lord couldn't lie when he told them about the ruin.
Although he could also use ambiguous words to make the Book of Truth unable to determine whether it was true or false, if he used ambiguous words when he could clearly express it clearly, everyone would immediately sense that something was wrong.
Without the Book of Truth, it would be difficult to know whether the Wise Lord was telling the truth or not. Unless someone dared to use a Word of Truth spell on the Wise Lord. At least, none of them, not even Black Earl.
Therefore, the Wise Ruler proposed this method of repayment. To them, or rather, to a descendant of Noah like Black Earl, the benefits definitely outweighed the disadvantages.
They could only make better decisions after knowing the truth about the ruin. If they gave false information, they would only get themselves into trouble.
With this in mind, Black Earl was the first to write down his offer on the Book of Truth.
Seeing Black Earl's example, Wai didn't dare to back down and followed suit.
Dorcas and Kael, on the other hand, didn't need to do so. This was a good thing for Noah's descendants.
Despite knowing this, Dorcas and Kael didn't hesitate to write down their offers on the Book of Truth.
In less than half a minute, four identical statements appeared on the Book of Truth.
It was worth mentioning that something unexpected happened when they made the agreement.
It came from Kael.
The words on the Book of Truth were written using everyone's energy. When the energy was just imprinted on the Book of Mantras, the operating rules of the Book of Mantras would reveal the appearance of the energy source.
— — This was also to avoid cheating. For example, if someone secretly imprinted the energy of their elemental companion on the Book of Truth, the Book of Truth would only show the elemental creature's appearance, not the person's. This would serve as a warning to the others that the person was cheating.
This kind of operating rule was very meaningful. Moreover, after so many years of accumulation, the degree of perfection of the rule was quite high. There were even some very detailed rules that were used to find those who cheated.
For example, the energy had to come from the user's body. This was based on the information in the Book of Truth. Also, the energy couldn't come from people outside the coverage of the Book of Truth. This was to prevent twins from using each other's energy to cheat. There were many rules about this, and cheating was almost impossible.
However, there were always people who couldn't wait to find loopholes.
He could indeed take advantage of loopholes.
However, these loopholes usually required a certain amount of time to prepare. Therefore, the Wise Ruler wasn't worried about cheating at all.
What he didn't know was that Angor, who signed the Most Severe Contract with him, was actually cheating.
Angor didn't know whether this was cheating or not. The contract was indeed in his mind space. However, the energy showed the image of the Nightmare Realm.
If Angor cheated successfully, he would have less restrictions. But if he didn't, he didn't care. The contract wasn't that tough anyway.
But this time, Kael's unexpected appearance was an energy manifestation.
Unlike "Shava", who had long blonde hair, Kael didn't seem to have any problems at first.
The character shown on the Book of Truth did indeed look like Kael. It also showed Kael doing research. Judging from the background, it was Kael's home in the Sandworm Market.
Even Dorcas, who knew Kael the best, didn't notice anything wrong.
However, when Kael's image gradually disappeared, the Dark Earl suddenly exclaimed in surprise.
Everyone looked in the direction of the Earl's "nostrils" and saw that there was another person behind Khael. It wasn't a shadow. It was a real "person". However, they couldn't see his face clearly due to the dim light.
Still, he looked very similar to Kael.
The figure only showed up for a second before it disappeared along with the image.
Everyone clearly saw who it was.
They all looked at Kael in confusion. Kael himself was also confused.
"I-I don't know. Who is he?"
Kael's eyes were filled with fear as he looked at the others for help.
Kael was only an apprentice, so it wasn't hard to tell if he was lying or telling the truth. He was telling the truth. He didn't know who the shadow was, and his fear was real.
The others didn't understand why Kael was asking for help. They first looked at Count Black, who didn't seem to know. Then they looked at the Wise Overseer again.
The Wise Overseer was a wise man indeed. He easily gave two possible explanations.
However, these two situations were both possible and not absolute. Even the Wise Overseer didn't know which one it was, or whether it could be something else.
The first one was a split personality. This was different from normal schizophrenia, which meant that there was no absolute coordination between the two personalities. It was a rare type of outer personality and inner personality.
His signature feature was that he could use the Dream Gate to bring his avatar or inner persona into the dream wasteland. If it was an ordinary person with schizophrenia, they wouldn't be pulled into the dream wilderness as two "people". They would still be one person with schizophrenia.
The dual personality that Froste had created with the Dark Movement belonged to this type of personality.
However, the split personality created by Dark Symphony was bound to have the most evil personality, which was the combination of all negative emotions.
Usually, the split personality would be different from the inner personality, but it didn't necessarily mean that it was a bad personality.
In the second case, there were two souls in one body.
To be more precise, a body that contained the main soul and an incomplete secondary soul. The secondary soul was basically a remnant soul.
Here was a simple example.
Once upon a time, there was a famous wizard from the Edge of Night in the Evernight Kingdom. He was known as "Imp" Gragg.
In the past, Gragg had relied on his strength to do whatever he wanted to do. But later, he fell into a big hole and fell into the Sleepless City under the dome.
Under the pursuit of countless nightmare monsters, Gragg finally died.
However, he was not completely dead. With Sunders' help, Gragg was able to possess the body of a human boy who had just died.
From then on, Gragg changed his name to "Spivet" and became Flora's disciple. The "Imp" of Edge of Night was gone, while Brute Cavern gained a new genius apprentice.
Spivet's case was similar to what the Wise Overseer mentioned.
If Spivet injected energy into the Book of Commandments, he would show himself as well as a shadow in the dark. The shadow would be the remnant soul of the boy's original body.
The remnant soul wouldn't have an independent personality, but it would affect the personality of the main soul to a certain extent.
Spivet, for example, was much more restrained than before. His lawless personality had also become more introverted. This wasn't because he was starting from the beginning and wanted to lay low for a while. It was more likely that the remnant soul of the original soul was affecting his personality.
However, this kind of influence wouldn't be too great and wouldn't change the nature of the primary personality. Therefore, it wasn't necessary to deal with it.
Once Spivet became an official Magus again, he would be cleansed by his soul's baptism, and these soul remnants would naturally be removed.
If Kael's case was the second case, the Wise Overseer suspected that there was a remnant soul in Kael's body as well.
(End of Chapter)
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