Leveling Up by Executing Monsters

Although Lloyd had decided to use the Advisor as a front, he first silenced him just in case.

Lest he suddenly start talking in his sleep...

Then, he sent another message:

"Do not help him. Merely bear witness."

"This..."

Jenkins was at a complete loss. ’What could the Supreme One possibly mean by this?’

’Could it be that this powerful individual’s near-death state, and even his subsequent recovery, are all part of some ritual? A ritual that needs to be witnessed?’

He had indeed heard that some systems required various bizarre rituals during the later stages of [Transcendence], and a step requiring some form of ’witnessing’ was not unheard of.

But this was the first time he’d ever encountered a ritual that started by bringing someone to the brink of death...

’Aren’t they worried that a single slip-up, one small accident, could cause an Eighth Tier powerhouse to fall?’

’And... for a powerhouse who’s already Eighth Tier to undergo [Transcendence]... wouldn’t that mean...’

’A Tier Nine Saint?’

’But isn’t the entire purpose of our Human Future Conference to escape the shackles of the Saints?’

Jenkins suddenly felt that the Supreme One was playing an extremely cruel joke on him...

But then, he had another thought—

’If we want to surpass the Saints, don’t we first need to understand them fully? To know how a Saint is born? Only then can we even touch upon the subject of surpassing them. Otherwise, it’s all just empty talk, isn’t it?’

’And the Supreme One is letting us witness the birth of a Saint, allowing us to find the path to surpassing them!’

’I understand! So this is the Venerable One’s true intention!’

As Jenkins reached this conclusion, he was suddenly overcome with the urge to cry.

’I founded the conference so many years ago, but all we ever did was shout slogans, with no real idea of how to actually surpass the Saints.’

’It wasn’t until the Supreme One joined that a true path was shown to me, making "surpassing the Saints" more than just a slogan!’

’He is truly... so great! So generous!’

At that moment, Jenkins felt an impulse to offer his very heart to the Supreme One. His chess piece avatar began to wobble, expressing his inner excitement and adoration.

The other three chess pieces hadn’t thought as far ahead as him, but they also vaguely sensed that this ’witnessing’ must be for some important ritual.

It was Elolo who spoke up, sounding a bit naive:

"Wow! So, does this mean that once this White Soldier recovers, our conference will have an Eighth Tier powerhouse on our side? Phew~ I’ll finally feel a little secure. We won’t have to think about running away at the drop of a hat anymore."

At her side, Balderes quickly pointed out the flaw in her statement:

"Could you have a little more faith? We still have the Venerable One, don’t we?"

"Eh? Oh, right... The Venerable One is more powerful, of course, but... He’s so far away from us, isn’t He?"

"No, not as far as you might think."

Goldrinn suddenly interjected.

"Oh? Is there a story behind that?"

Balderes immediately perked up, his ears pricked.

"Well... it all starts with what happened to me these past two days. You all should know, the investigation team I’m on mainly handles all sorts of abnormal cases, and I just happened to run into a very tricky one..."

And so, Goldrinn began to recount his story from the past two days, effectively bringing the conference back on topic.

At the end of the last meeting, after seeing that incredible message, he had instantly fallen unconscious and only woke up more than an hour later.

After waking up, he found he couldn’t remember the line of text he had seen, only vaguely sensing that it must have been some kind of terrifying, or rather, incredibly profound knowledge.

Worried about mental damage, Goldrinn had rushed to get a psychological evaluation, but the final result was, surprisingly, that everything was normal.

This was both a pleasant surprise and a shock to him. He had already mentally prepared himself to transform into a Demon, yet he had emerged completely unscathed.

Somehow, Goldrinn was reminded of an [Audience with the Saint]. When drawing knowledge from a Saint’s hands, one could also unexpectedly fall unconscious. However, under the Saint’s Shelter, one would not suffer Spiritual Contamination. This was the greatest advantage of the Legal System.

Therefore, he concluded that the Supreme One’s method of imparting knowledge must be somewhat similar to an [Audience with the Saint].

That made sense, after all. The Supreme One was a being who had surpassed the Saints, right?

It was just a shame that he hadn’t been able to understand or remember that profound knowledge at all...

Just as Goldrinn was lamenting this, he was assigned a mission—to investigate the bizarre death of a famous painter.

As soon as he heard the case involved a painter, Goldrinn immediately grew cautious. Before taking action, he spent a great deal of time going through old case files involving the painting profession.

He then came to a general conclusion: they were almost all related to Forbidden Knowledge.

And painters, especially accomplished ones, had a common trait—their inspiration was far greater than that of ordinary people.

So for this case, Goldrinn made thorough preparations before setting out. He brought potions to help stabilize his mind and Rationality, a triangular piece of metal to instantly cut his palm and cause intense pain, a special candle to detect Spiritual Energy in the air, and other such auxiliary items.

This astonished his two partners, who thought something was wrong with his mental state.

The Goldrinn of the past would never have prepared such things; he would usually just invoke a [Law] with a single thought and charge in headfirst.

As it turned out, his preparations were not in vain.

"Our team had no idea at the time. The dangerous Forbidden Knowledge wasn’t in the usual form of a book page, nor was it a complete painting. It was hidden beneath messy blocks of color in a painting, making it very difficult to spot."

"The painting looked like a jumble of chaotic patterns, formed almost by randomly splashing paint. It was then stuffed in the middle of a large pile of discarded artworks. If it weren’t for the help of the Spiritual Energy candle, I might not have found it so easily."

"I suspect that during his creative process, the painter’s inspiration must have unconsciously come into contact with this knowledge. He then subconsciously recorded it with his brush, but he immediately realized the danger of this knowledge and painted over it."

"Unfortunately, once Forbidden Knowledge is recorded, it can’t be destroyed by such simple means. The painter had long since been afflicted by Spiritual Contamination and chose to pierce his own throat with a paintbrush..."

"But his actions were not meaningless. His cover-up made it so the Forbidden Knowledge couldn’t spread so easily, temporarily protecting his family and children until our team arrived."

"But as you all should know, searching for Forbidden Knowledge is a troublesome and dangerous task. You can’t use inspiration or Spiritual Vision; you have to rely solely on your naked eyes. But the moment your eyes fall directly on that knowledge, it instantly invades your brain..."

"In the past, I was used to using the power of a [Law] to fight against it, but this time, I found that I could handle this kind of knowledge much more easily."

"One of my teammates was the first to find the painting, and he immediately suffered Spiritual Contamination and passed out. The potions I’d prepared beforehand saved his life. My other teammate didn’t dare to get close, so only I, bolstered by a [Law], braced myself and rushed forward."

"Then, to my surprise, I discovered that the Forbidden Knowledge only gave me a slight headache and a slow-acting Spiritual Contamination. It was nothing like how terrifying it used to be. I was able to easily incinerate the painting and resolve the incident."

"In the past, this would have been unimaginable. Even with the empowerment of a [Law], contact with Forbidden Knowledge would still cause a significant degree of Spiritual Contamination. It would be like insidious insects desperately trying to burrow into your brain, and you’d have to solve the problem before you descended into madness."

"But this time, I handled it with ease, almost nonchalantly... You have to understand, the teammate who passed out is actually a bit stronger than me. The Forbidden Knowledge that could knock him out instantly was undoubtedly terrifying, yet I withstood it unscathed. It was simply unbelievable!"

"My teammates were shocked by this, thinking I was carrying some powerful potion or a Holy Artifact... But I knew very well that this change came from the Venerable One’s Great Blessing."

Having said this, Goldrinn turned to face the ’spectator’ beside him and declared in a clear voice:

"Allow me to praise Your generosity and nobility, and thank You for the profound knowledge You have bestowed!"

"And please, allow me to offer You this small tribute. I know it is insignificant to You, but I hope it can express my gratitude and admiration."

As he spoke, a crack opened on the chessboard in front of him, and something fell through.

Lloyd, who had been listening to the story, also felt a slight coolness in his hand, as if a cold, circular object had appeared there.

He tried looking down and opened his palm.

A colorful turquoise bracelet gradually materialized in his palm.

It looked quite exquisite, with a distinct artistic flair. It also radiated a gentle Spiritual Energy, suggesting it had some special function, but he didn’t know what it was. Goldrinn hadn’t specified.

’Am I supposed to try it out for myself?’

As Lloyd was wondering about this, he suddenly felt his head itch.

It wasn’t that he was growing a new brain—a page in the Book of Truth within his mind had simply turned.

A black-and-white drawing appeared on it, an exact image of the turquoise bracelet in his hand.

Next to it was an annotation:

[Codename: 7-1134. Name: The Color That Heals Wounds]

[Description: A weak Artificial Holy Artifact. Its colorful appearance has some ornamental value. Fiddling with it will slowly mitigate and heal minor physical wounds, but the effect is slow.]

Huh?

’The Book of Truth has a feature like this?’

Lloyd was pleasantly surprised, but then he immediately thought:

’Then why didn’t I notice this when I put on that Spatial Invisibility Vest before?’

’Was it because I wasn’t in the [Thought Realm] at the time?’