Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 898 Maybe no longer upward?

Cardinal Galatea's opinion had no practical significance, but at least it provided a way out for everyone - they no longer had to gather around Aiwass and admire the miracles he had summoned, but could continue to move forward.

As Aiwass turned into a sin-beast, the illusion that Cardinal Galatea had cast on him was broken.

Now people have seen the true face of this "Pope" - although before this, everyone had already guessed his identity one after another, and it was impossible for anyone else to understand his "Son of the Candlelighter"-like demeanor... but now is the time to speak openly and honestly.

Aiwass did not continue to waste mana to maintain the transformed state.

After he finished his transformation, he put on his clothes again. After praying to restore his magic power, he once again blessed everyone with "group protection curse", "group anti-death barrier", and "group order shield", and then they planned to move on.

This eighth floor is far from the top floor - it is unknown how many floors the Tower of Babel had at its peak. But since it is broken in half and this eighth floor is not exposed, it means there must be more space above, and it is entirely possible that there are more and stronger demon clusters.

Therefore, it is prudent to make some defensive preparations in advance to prevent surprise attacks. You cannot completely trust the warnings of the wanderers - you cannot put all your eggs in one basket. After all, it is entirely possible that powerful enemies that cannot be predicted or detected will appear.

After Sine was resurrected, he had no clothes to wear, so Professor Bud enthusiastically lent him his coat. They were both similar in size, so they could just interchange.

The old wizard was sincerely grateful for Professor Bard's kindness and tolerance, but he also frowned and felt uncomfortable... As a chief wizard, he had never worn such poor clothes since he was born. If he didn't know that Professor Bard was from Avalon, he would probably think that he was deliberately humiliating him.

Although he was extremely disgusted, he was too embarrassed to say it out loud. That would make him look very embarrassed - this made him frown, grumble, and sigh. It looked like he had encountered some kind of problem.

But in reality, he just felt that the rough cloth was scratching his skin, and he also felt a faint smell of sweat that made him feel nauseous.

This made Aiwass, who knew the inside story, almost laugh out loud.

This is a typical cultural difference.

In the archaeological circles of Avalon, and even in the entire academic circle, Professor Budd is famous for his thriftiness. He has worn this piece of clothing for at least ten years, and it is specially used for field archaeological excavations. Because it is cheap and strong, he does not mind if it gets torn. Even though it was clean when he went out, it must be covered with sweat after running around for a long time.

Even if you use magic to clean it, you will still feel unclean psychologically.

This kind of "stingy" situation is impossible to happen in Xingti or Narcissus.

Almost all scholars in Avalon are proud of their frugality. This is also a kind of political correctness...mainly due to the academic community's contempt for Lloyd's.

As we all know, Lloyd's was founded by the richest people in Avalon. They like to "sponsor" others - whether it is sponsoring scholars or knights, in order to buy influence with money.

So if a scholar was rich... unless his family was rich, people would probably assume he was sponsored by Lloyd's - some Avalonians would call it a "bribe", even if the scholar had no power at all.

On the other hand, if a scholar is poor enough, there are only two possibilities.

One is that Lloyd's looked down on him, and the other is that he refused Lloyd's sponsorship. The former is a representative of incompetence, while the latter is noble and virtuous that everyone can see. Therefore, in Avalon, as long as scholars or knights are in high positions, most of their lives will become poor.

For example, the Great Guardian's family didn't have many servants, nor did they buy many villas and manors in other places. He didn't have any expensive jewelry or clothes at home, and he never took Little Barton out for a trip.

It's not that he has no money - at his level, money is just a number to him. No matter what he wants to buy, as long as he mentions a price or makes a request, the old queen or Isabel will satisfy most of his wishes. For a big man of this level, his wealth is basically connected to the treasury.

He lived so simply just to avoid having a bad political impact. Even if he didn't take a penny from Lloyd's, he would never look down on these businessmen. But as long as he looked rich, people would naturally worry whether he was corrupt. This was also the reason why Old Meg always enjoyed herself with the people and frequented beer halls and fried chicken shops - although she really liked beer and fried chicken.

It's the same for Haina - when she was in school, she wanted to buy some fashionable cosmetics or clothes, or go shopping. But she didn't have money at that time. But now she has money and a pretty good salary, but it's not convenient for her to buy the things she wants.

Because of Lloyd's influence, an arbitrator who appears to be too rich...is never a good thing in people's minds.

But it is not the case for Xingti and Narcissus. As a noble scholar, you should have status and money... If you live too simply, it will seem that no nobles are willing to sponsor you, or that no mage lord is optimistic about you. That means you have not passed the "test of the market" and have no "real talent and knowledge".

Therefore, scholars, led by the mages, try to live a rich and respectable life as much as possible. Many young mages even borrow money to show off their wealth by attending various social occasions. In this way, they can make other sponsors trust them more.

After all, alchemists can make money very quickly, but mages are not so good at it. Even though the top projects are all from mages, mages are notorious for not wanting to monetize their projects, which makes them looked down upon by other mages. But research costs money... so someone has to pay a price.

In order to get their enemies to give them some, the mages would even use a large portion of their future research funds to purchase equipment, making themselves look like the mysterious aura of the legendary great wizard.

——In fact, in Aiwas's opinion, Professor Bud is somewhat malicious.

He may not be unaware of the customs of Narcissus. He may just feel that Zhengsine is too arrogant and ignores other people, which makes the children feel uncomfortable, so they bully the old wizard with malicious intentions.

The effect is also very good.

"Can I help you... Mr. Sine?"

The kitten looked at Zhengsine sighing and approached carefully.

After all, repairing mechanisms and detecting traps are her duties in the team.

Zheng Xian just glanced at her and said calmly: "It's not a big problem. I can handle it... I'll call you if I need a hand."

This stubborn and proud tone made the kitten feel flattered for a moment.

The first day she met Zheng Xian, she accidentally grabbed his sleeve when she approached him to talk, and Zheng Xian snatched it back, slapped his sleeves repeatedly, and checked whether she had left a shadow mark or stolen anything. He even ignored her greetings, just glanced at her with disdain and vigilance, and left silently with a reserved and distant look.

This hurt her very much.

Although the Trap Master is an advanced class between the Assassin and the Thief, she is not a street thief who likes to "touch" and then steal things.

She was from the Hawkeye organization. She had indeed killed people, but they were all "fallen ones" who were in cahoots with the Moon Child. However, she had not carried out many missions before she was called back to the headquarters for training because of her talent for trap assassination.

Now she had just started her apprenticeship and was planning to come to Narcissus Territory to hunt the Moon Child. However, before she could kill a few, the Narcissus Principality became independent; it even closed the customs with Iris and activated the Mage Tower to search for the Hawkeye Assassin in the country. Her movements in Narcissus Principality were severely restricted, and she could only find ways to take on some orders to make some money - even so, she had never stolen anything.

...And now, after dying once, Mr. Sine seems to be much more normal. Could it be that the resurrection of His Holiness the Pope cured his personality? Or is the state of not communicating with people at all also considered a disease?

"It's fixed."

Sine suddenly spoke.

Everyone gathered around him, and Zhengsine explained to Aiwass: "It's not structural damage, it's a procedural error... The outer tracks above the ninth floor are severely damaged. This means that we can only go to the ninth floor at most, and the ninth floor itself may even derail. Considering the safety margin, the elevator has locked the way to the ninth floor."

"In other words, if we go to the ninth floor, the elevator may be damaged?"

Aiwass translated his words.

Everyone looked at each other, and then looked at Master Chongbo.

"Oh, that's not a big deal."

Suddenly, Rurouni said, "It's only nine floors... If the elevator is broken, you can just jump down. I thought it was that high."

"This floor is about 30 to 40 meters high, and there are ten floors above it. You can't just jump down if you want to."

Sine warned: "This is not the residential building outside. Think about whether we must go up there... There may be traps that cannot be disarmed, or there may be stronger enemies."

"That's less than 300 meters," the wanderer asked, "Don't you have a spell that can help us solve this problem?"

"Oh, how is that possible!"

The old wizard's voice suddenly rose: "It's only three hundred meters. How can this be considered a difficult problem? Don't be ridiculous! Even a newly promoted young wizard of the second level can come up with at least seven or eight ideas. Who are you looking down on? Ha, Feather Fall, Storm Channel, Spring Space, Flexible Air Wall... If you want to listen, I can tell you until tomorrow!"

Hearing this, Rurouni's mouth corners slightly raised.

He laughed, shrugged, and looked at everyone: "Then the problem is solved, everyone. It seems that country folk like me don't understand the power of magic, hahahaha..."

Just now, Drifter realized through his keen intuition that although Sine had repaired the elevator, he didn't really want to go up any further.

Perhaps it was because he had died so painfully, or perhaps it was because this outfit made him feel uncomfortable. Or perhaps it was because Zhengsine had been distracted by the sapphire in the hand of the white-haired cardinal... He seemed to want to go back and do something, so he always looked absent-minded, and even stopped being arrogant - compared to his initial arrogance, this was now his true character in his natural state.

So the wanderer took the initiative to speak and put Zhengsine on the spot, preventing him from saying "I want to leave".

Although the subsequent road may not require this wizard, this end cannot be opened.

If Zhengsine can really leave, then everyone else can leave too. If Baike and Xiaomao want to leave, then "No Words, No Views" will have to follow suit... In the end, there will probably be only a few people left in this team. It would be better to just disband.

So he kept fanning the flames, forcing Sine to show his "necessity" in a clown-like manner. After doing this, because the old wizard wanted to save face, he would not take back his words. This was also safe for others.

Although Drifter was not the captain here, he was the only one who carefully looked at everyone's expressions after Aiwass revealed the form of the Candle Child. An adventurer who was truly in his forties or fifties and had experienced a lot was fundamentally different from these extraordinary people who occasionally came out to take orders.

Although the Pope was here, they could be resurrected even if they died... But Langke heard clearly that the Pope called Sine's body "light death". In other words, resurrection was not absolute, but had different levels of difficulty. To put it another way, if something went wrong with the Pope himself, they would probably all die here.

Take Encyclopedia for example - after he realized that Aiwass was the Eternal Pope, he kept sweating. If he had the chance to run away, he would definitely run away as soon as possible, for fear that if something happened to the Eternal Pope, the blame would fall on him.

Think about it... the world's most powerful leader comes over to shake your hand in a friendly way and goes out to play a board game and then suddenly falls to the ground and dies. Anyone would sweat profusely.

If he were outside, he would definitely want to stick to the Pope, but this is a dangerous relic from the Amber Age. Less than half an hour after entering the door, he encountered a group of more than 600 fourth-level demons... Can't he just run as far as he can?
The wanderer could understand him.

But the problem is that the more people run, the more dangerous the remaining people will be.

In this situation, no one can escape or slack off.

The wanderer's eyes, which seemed drunk but were actually extremely clear, always scanned everyone's expression like a hawk.

——The most unstable among them is the Great Wizard Sine, whose heart has become restless since he saw the gem.

"Then it's up to you."

Before Sine could lose his temper, Aiwass continued what Drifter had said: "You are the only mage here, protect yourself."

"...Well, thank you."

Zhengsine didn't dare to lose his temper with Aiwass, so he immediately calmed down and became well-behaved. Even his voice, which was about to break, became steady: "Thank you very much for your concern, Your Holiness. I am proud that I can help you, and I will do my best for you."

Aiwass smiled and nodded at the wanderer.

Then he turned around and looked at Zhengsine, reminding him vaguely: "Our agreement can only be implemented after we all go back. I can choose many people, but the specific partners have not been determined yet.

"...I think that this person has to finish this order before considering the next one, right? Otherwise, I would not feel comfortable handing the work over to that person. What if my work is also put on hold? Don't you agree, Master?"

"Yes, you are right."

Zhengsine suddenly became dignified and nodded seriously. It was as if he was not an old wizard, but a boy who was being lectured by his teacher.

As we talked, the lift continued to rise.

The ninth floor, here we are.

(End of this chapter)