Unable to repay my student loans, I had no choice but to work part-time as a demon hunter.

Meanwhile, on the other side, in the suburbs of Lundnim, at the Ravenhurst family mansion.

The building is built behind a yew forest and has a rather futuristic appearance. The roof has been transformed into a square terrace, surrounded by glass curtain walls, offering excellent views.

Luanna returned with the golden mask to be weighed, followed closely by the steam knight Talis.

A pale-faced middle-aged gentleman was leaving through another door. Luanna gave him a defiant look, and he fled in panic.

"What did he sell?" Luanna asked, looking at the head maid who came to greet her.

"Ten years of life, miss."

"That's a bit too little. Don't accept anything less than 25 years old next time." Luanna walked up the steps, through the corridor, and into the reception room.

In the center of this room sits a brass balance scale.

The scales are as tall as a person and are carved with a two-headed snake. The two pans are level. Luanna places a pure gold sun mask on the left pan and a check for five thousand gold pounds on the right pan.

At Gordon's urging, she bought the mask at the auction for 5000 gold pounds.

Now she has to weigh whether the two are equal in value.

A moment later, a faint light shone from the golden mask, the left pan of the scales slammed down, and the right check was lifted high. Luanna then placed another check for 5000 gold pounds, bringing the total to 1 gold pounds, but the scales still showed no sign of shifting.

Talis watched the result.

Even with his face obscured by a heavy helmet, his stiffness still revealed a degree of surprise.

"Gorden's judgment is correct; the mask is worth far more than five thousand gold pounds," he said.

"It's perfectly normal for a pure gold mask to be heavier than paper, you idiot."

"...?!" Talis silently exhaled a large plume of steam.

Luanna leaned back on the sofa, her red dress blooming like a rose.

"This must be a precious item, miss. Are you really going to lend it to Gordon? He might break it, or he might not return it." Talis carefully put the golden mask away.

"That's fun. He'll owe me a favor of over five thousand gold pounds, and I can go to him every day to collect interest."

Charlotte Monford will not welcome you.

"That's what makes it fun."

Talis thought for a moment, then cautiously steered the conversation in another direction.

"Regarding the Public Health and Jobs Revitalization Act... and the upcoming war to wipe out the Blackwater Order, we need to plan ahead."

"Buy government bonds, buy riverside properties with appreciation potential, design seemingly lucrative insurance policies to sell to construction contractors, and then set up a fund to manage them. You see, that's what's interesting about Gordon; he created markets and value that didn't exist before."

:

"He'll make the poker table bigger."

"Yes, something new, a new growth point. Hey, if he finds something truly valuable in the murloc's lair, I'll be the first to offer."

"What if he dies there?"

"Then I will declare myself a widow for him."

"You and he are not engaged."

"There's no way to prove it when the dead are dead."

……

On the other side, the chapel is wading through water.

This place is located deep underground in Lundnium, inside a huge cavity.

The torrential rain poured down along the ancient vertical well, forming floodwaters that continuously cascaded down from the heights, creating several huge waterfalls.

The ancient temple in the center is carved into the entire megalith, with the top connected to a large vertical shaft above.

A few stone bridges of varying sizes connect the chapel to the surrounding cliffs, below which lies a bottomless pool of water, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack.

The water beneath the bridge was pitch black, and occasionally a large back that did not belong to a fish would glide by.

The melodious singing was coming from deep within the chapel.

The song praised the deep sea where stars have sunk, praised oblivion, and some names that mortals cannot properly pronounce.

In the chapel's antechamber, there is a blurred sculpture of the Fisher King, holding a harpoon and wearing a crown, displaying his glorious appearance before he was wounded.

Tobias, Olivia, and Severin finished their final prayers and looked up at the same time.

Severin was pale, with long gray hair tied back, and carrying a solemnly styled longsword on his back; he was in the worst condition.

His dark robe was torn open by a crimson sword wound, and a carbonized scar remained on his chest, from which blood continued to drip.

"Open your mouth." Olivia, dressed in a dark blue dress, held the Holy Grail in her hand and gently fed Severin a drop of the Holy Grail water.

After drinking the water from the Holy Grail, the wounds on Severin's body immediately changed.

The charred wound hissed, the necrotic tissue turned red again, and the severed blood vessels stretched out, constantly searching for each other, like tiny leeches.

He let out a long breath and nodded slowly.

"We can still fight," Severin said in a deep voice.

:

Tobias, the leader of the Black Ferry Pier and the eldest of the three, suddenly spoke.

"There's no need to fight anymore, Severin, Olivia."

"Hmm?" Severin turned his head.

"The Public Health and Jobs Recovery Act has been passed."

At this very moment, in the wading chapel beneath Rundnim, Tobias suddenly uttered this unfamiliar concept!

"Public health..." Severin's expression became even more blank and lost.

"And to revitalize employment," Tobias added.

"A bill," Olivia added, "meaning a legally binding document."

The statue of the Fisher King next to it suddenly looks somewhat outdated. It once faced war, swords, and betrayal, but this time it faces 80,000 real jobs.

"It's... a flood control project, right? We have to stop the project before they start," Severin said.

“No, that’s a conflict we can’t win,” Tobias said, pacing before the statue of the Fisherman King. “If we interrupt them once, they’ll come back ten times.”

"So you're planning to surrender?"

"What we need to do is take good care of the tens of thousands of followers of the Blackwater Hermitage. They are not sacrifices and cannot be used to satisfy our selfish desires."

"The Fisherman King is about to awaken. At this moment, the last thing we can tolerate is a traitor," Olivia said calmly.

"Who's the traitor?" Tobias questioned. "You're the one who attracted all the hostility. I couldn't even stop you. We could have lived peacefully..."

"You're wrong." Olivia wasn't angry. "Why do you think this country is suddenly so generous? Why is it caring about the riverside residents at this moment? It's because of me. I made it bleed, I made it fear, I made it realize that the people here are a threat. Without the fear I created, your people wouldn't even be worth buying."

"..." Tobias fell silent.

"If we remain quiet and keep backing down, we will disappear within months, making no ripples on the river. But under my leadership, the mermaids will soon be ours, and the Empire will send a large number of troops to our home ground to die. Tobias, our reputation will resound throughout Lundnium soon," Olivia said in a low voice.

"I won't send everyone in," Tobias said. "The Black Ferry docks need to be defended, and the High Priest's place needs protection too."

"Then send the bravest warriors. You don't have to participate, but your men must. Once the mermaid dies, no one can stop the god's return," Olivia said earnestly.

Tobias closed his eyes.

He recalled that night at the cold water warehouse, when he prevented his men from engaging in a firefight with the river police, thus averting the situation from escalating further.

In retrospect, this was merely a postponement of the inevitable bloodshed.

"I understand." Tobias turned and left.

Severin looked at the collection he had seized, and heard a lyric.

:

"Will the mermaid appear after she finishes singing the last verse?"

"Yes, and then we'll make her pay for what happened twenty years ago." Olivia's expression was cold.

……

Gordon awoke from his reverie.

The room was very quiet.

At this point, all the torsion ring crystals had lost their luster. They had originally looked somewhat complex and philosophical, but now they were just clear, transparent, discarded shells, like old, stubborn stones that would crumble at the slightest touch.

then……

So many... lines!

The room was filled with silk threads, which had materialized from his body at some unknown time, extending from his fingers and wrists, and floating in the room to form a three-dimensional net.

He activated the divine thread, and they took off freely, reaching a distance of over a hundred meters with a rough assessment.

The length has increased eightfold compared to the past!

A 100-meter-long, flyable cable has many more uses.

He stood up and stretched his aching muscles.

Then, he used rope to wrap around the narrow bed in the corner of the room, tightened the rope, and tied it to the four bed legs. He then used another rope to wrap around the roof beam to form a pulley. With that, he raised his hand, and the bed rose smoothly.

Gordon slowly moved his wrist, and the entire bed shifted sideways, while the crystal shards on it remained perfectly still without any disturbance.

The strength of the threads has increased dramatically; their quantity, length, precision, and load-bearing capacity have all multiplied.

With a hundred-meter-long line at his disposal, he could indeed set up a silk net.

Meanwhile, the walls and the ground connected by the line were also transmitting extremely accurate information, and his nerve sensitivity increased significantly.

"Very good..." Just as Eve said, the first enlightenment was very powerful, and this box of high-quality woven spiritual crystals can be considered to have served its purpose.

Correspondingly, if one has high-quality water-phase spiritual crystals, a similar effect can probably be achieved.

However, whether it is manufactured in a factory or extracted by hand, it seems that only medium-quality crystal sand can be extracted.

High-quality water-based spirituality... it seems we really have to dig into the Blackwater Hermitage's warehouse to find it.

Hopefully, the chapel in the flooded area has a similar stock.

Gordon sensed it.

Martin has probably recovered from his injury and left; Eve is nearby.

:

He then pushed open the door and went to see her.

It was morning, and in the atrium corridor, Eve turned her head and looked at Gordon.

"Hi," Eve greeted.

Gordon paused for two seconds.

She changed out of her previous formal dark dress and into a brighter, more agile outfit.

She wore a tight-fitting black leather jacket that accentuated her impressive bust, with two buttons bearing a weight that shouldn't belong to them. Her tight trousers were tucked into high-top leather boots, and a short cape was draped over her back. Her black hair was still tied up and held in place with an ebony hairpin.

"Welcome, how are you feeling?" Eve asked gently.

"Very good," Gordon stepped forward. "I hope I haven't missed the battle. Looking at you fully armed, it feels like you've already returned victorious."

"All is well. You have been in deep meditation for about 38 hours. During that time, your heart rate dropped to as low as 29 beats per minute and your body temperature dropped by 2 degrees. Your mind must have sunk to unimaginable depths."

"I saw a lot of things, including those closely connected people and events, and I feel like I'm seeing the world from a different perspective..." Gordon looked around, his mind clear, and stretched out a thin line to touch the railing a hundred meters away.

Everything is connected, but connection is not the answer. Many threads are reaching out to him, and he has to decide for himself which one to grasp and which one to let go of.

"Let's go get something to eat." Eve was pleased to see Gordon's progress. The Spirit Crystal of the Weaving Form was a rare find, and next time she would probably focus on finding information about the large spider demon.

A light drizzle was falling in the courtyard of the monastery. Eve walked out and subconsciously reached for her umbrella.

Gordon looked up.

The rain in the entire atrium stopped at the same time, and thousands of water droplets changed direction, instead splitting outwards along an invisible barrier with a radius of ten meters.

Her eyes lit up.

Gordon can change the number of so many water droplets in a single thought.

This means that Gordon's perception, control, and mental strength are greatly enhanced during meditation.

"very beautiful."

"It effectively saved me money on umbrellas." Gordon was very satisfied.

They crossed the square, Eve standing very close to Gordon, so close that her cloak occasionally brushed against his arm.

They sat down at a restaurant called "White Thyme" across from the monastery, finding a window seat. Because of the continuous rain, there were fewer customers dining out, so the waiters were extra attentive to them, quickly serving them toast, bacon, and coffee.

"Have you been here for the past 38 hours?"

"I've spent most of my time here, and you've seen me change clothes and check my gear. It's been a while since I've personally ventured into such dark and dangerous places, but the lantern you bought me... has given me that possibility again."

"You're interested in adventure? In places like that, nobody knows what might happen—unexplained monsters, formidable enemies with unknown abilities, and all sorts of intricate traps..."

:

"I'm interested in going on an adventure with you." Eve rested her chin on her hand, looking at Gordon. "At first, I just thought, oh, there's an interesting young man in Lundnim, I can go over... see him, mentor him, and give him a hand."

"Perfectly embodies the image of a good senior student."

"But you have given me so many dazzling changes that I feel I would be very upset if I missed them. I want to observe your choices, growth and reactions. I will only be satisfied if I see more of your secrets."

"Perfectly fits the image of a bad senior."

"Maybe. I have a lot of questions I want to ask, a lot of questions I want to understand." Eve's eyes revealed a thirst for knowledge. "Like what it feels like to touch your fingers together."

"Do you want to know now?"

"think."

Gordon extended his hand, and Eve gently shook it back.

Their fingers were intertwined. Her body temperature was unusually high, and the blood flowing through it was hotter than Gordon had imagined.

Eve slowly raised her hands to the table and pressed them tightly together. Her breathing was a little faster than usual, but she didn't look away.

: