Things about the female knight in black stockings

Although the purpose of the Sin Angel's actions is still unclear, if there is indeed a woman who can command Savat Langdon, it is most likely the Sin Angel.

Furthermore, the special magic that allowed Lily to disguise Savat Langdon as Carlos sounds very much like the methods of the Sin Angel.

Although it cannot be fully confirmed at present, based on the previous records of the Sin Angel, her almost perfect disguise ability seems to be conditional - the body of every person she disguises is sealed near the location of the crime.

However, Valensa had never heard of this ability to disguise others before, as it was never mentioned in the records of the Church of the Sun regarding the Sin Angels.

However, in any case, this matter is no longer something that Valensa and Tia can handle privately, and they have already completed most of Mord's request.

The Lily who wiped out all her teammates was most likely the Sinful Angel in disguise; the real Lily should have been killed long ago.

So, after sorting through these clues in her mind, Valensa asked Maraco her last question:

"In the days leading up to the incident, did Lily act alone? Was there any instance where she was alone for an extended period of time, or did she seem to act strangely upon returning?"

"This...no."

Mara thought for a moment, then shook her head firmly:

"Because the person we are hunting is extremely dangerous, Lord Carlos does not allow any of us in the team to act alone. Even if we have to separate temporarily, Lily will always stay by my side to protect me... because there are only two girls in the team."

"That's it..."

Valensa nodded, muttering to herself.

Could that Mord be the next victim originally chosen by the Sin Angel? Was the real Lily actually dead? Was the Lily who was in love with Mord the Sin Angel himself?

Considering that Morde is only in his early thirties and can already serve as a sage's assistant, responsible for the development and research of various new magical items, he is definitely an outstanding talent. If he is also troubled by love and goes astray...

Tsk, that wicked woman, Sin Angel, seems to have a penchant for targeting devoted science guys...

After some wild speculation, Valensa told Mara to rest and recuperate, while she and Tia reported the matter to the Church of the Sun and the Tower of Sages, respectively.

Both organizations took this matter very seriously and immediately dispatched professional survey teams to investigate the Savat Landon outpost deep in the abandoned mine again.

Even the fifth seat of the Sage Council, a Moon-level Sage, personally rushed to the scene and used the time magic [Past Replay] to recreate Lily's crime.

Most of the details match up with Carlos and Marako's memories, so the fact that an entire squad in the Sage Tower's pursuit team was killed and replaced is practically certain.

In addition, all the members of the Chamber of Commerce's law enforcement team who were responsible for sealing that illegal mine were thoroughly investigated and found to have indeed received a lot of money to fake the seal.

However, these business enforcement teams did not know who was giving them the money. They thought it was the mine owner who wanted to secretly mine again and was giving them money to fake the seal.

In short, this incident caused a great stir.

However, Valensa did not follow up on the matter for the time being. Instead, she and Tia met with Mood in a small town on the eastern border of America.

Although the news about Lily was undoubtedly a bolt from the blue for Mord, bad news is still news. Tia had completed the commission and it was time to collect her payment.

"How could this be... Impossible... This is impossible!"

As expected, after learning the whole story and Valensa's theory that Lily was actually the Sin Angel, Mord was completely dumbfounded.

Unbelievable, distraught, screaming, crying with red eyes and banging her head against the wall... she completely lacked the demeanor expected of a wise assistant.

Valensa and Tia had no good solutions to this, and could only silently lament the wickedness of the woman while waiting for Morde to adjust his mindset.

Fortunately, although Mord was on the verge of a mental breakdown, he still kept his word and, after crying and making a scene for most of the day, handed over the design blueprints and research notes for the duel barrier as stipulated in the contract.

After completing the transaction, Mord refused to have any further contact with Valensa and the others. He seemed to have turned into a zombie, drinking to drown his sorrows in the tavern in the border town. After getting completely drunk, he got into a fight with other drunkards and was badly beaten. He was robbed of everything and was left with almost nothing but his underwear.

Since the deal between Tia and Mord clearly violated the rules of the Sage's Tower, Valensa and the others were unable to notify the Sage's Tower to come and retrieve them.

But if Valensa just left Morde alone, she worried that Morde would be driven astray by heartbreak and become the second Savat Langdon.

Although Mord is currently just a researcher, he often loses to Candlelight-level magic despite possessing Lighthouse-level power. But what if he were to unleash his full potential after being severely harmed by a bad woman?

So Valensa had no choice but to contact Ereshkigal again, asking her to send a paladin to the border town to keep an eye on Mord and prevent him from getting into trouble.

After that, Valensa and Tia stopped paying attention to what was happening outside. They returned to Mosantina and booked a room in a luxury hotel, focusing on studying the design drawings and research notes that Mode had given them.

Or rather, it was Tia who was studying the design drawings and research notes, while Valensa was mainly responsible for serving Tia tea and water, massaging her legs, helping Tia relax when she was tired, and helping Tia broaden her thinking and find inspiration through pleasure and stimulation.

The two stayed in the room for three whole days. Although Tia hadn't figured out how to fool the duel barrier, she had roughly figured out the duel barrier's judgment mechanism.

First and foremost, what Valensa is most concerned about is the mechanism by which the Duel Barrier determines whether a duelist's power exceeds the limit.

Based on Tia's study of the design drawings and R&D notes, this judgment mechanism can be simply divided into two parts.

The first part is a simple and straightforward energy fluctuation detection.

Regardless of what skills a duelist uses, if the energy fluctuation of the skill exceeds a certain limit, the duel barrier mechanism will be triggered, resulting in a foul.

However, the determination of this energy intensity is actually more stringent, because the limit data set by the duel barrier is actually lower than the minimum value of the true Radiant Rank power, but still much higher than the peak of the Lighthouse.

After all, there is still a big difference between the Radiant Rank and below.

To use a more intuitive numerical analogy, let's assume that the energy intensity of a normal lighthouse is 50, the energy intensity of a peak lighthouse can reach 120, and the energy intensity of a Radiant Rank lighthouse is at least around 1000. Then the standard for determining the duel barrier is 500.

This criterion setting is actually not problematic, because while 500 is not yet at the Radiant rank, it far exceeds the typical peak of the Lighthouse. For a commercial entertainment competition that is restricted to those below the Radiant rank, this setting is perfectly reasonable.

However, for someone like Valensa, whose strength of many commonly used skills just exceeds the judgment threshold but has not yet reached the true Radiant Rank level, this judgment standard is quite unfair.

Furthermore, in addition to the intensity of energy fluctuations, there is another way for the duel barrier to determine whether a participant's power exceeds the limit.

The activation of spells and the control of equipment.

Friggia had explained the activation of the spell to Valensa and Tia before.

The essence of the Radiant Rank Secret Technique is actually to allow the caster to evolve in terms of life form, developing specific casting organs within their body.

The Sage's Tower had actually studied this point long ago, and the theory was already quite mature... Tia didn't know this before because her own strength was too low and she didn't have enough access permissions.

The Duel Barrier's detection of Radiant-Rank Secret Techniques is essentially a detection of the casting organ.

Therefore, Valensa was judged to have lost when she used even a little bit of the evil god's power—not because the strength of that little bit of evil god's power exceeded the limit, but because Valensa used her eyes to store the evil god's power, causing the duel barrier to judge her eyes as the casting organ of a Radiant-rank secret technique. Once Valensa used the evil god's power in her eyes, it was equivalent to using a Radiant-rank secret technique, and she would be judged to have lost.

But the False God Trick is fine... because although the False God Trick also uses the gaze to lock onto the target, it is essentially a technique that uses mental power to manipulate elements and cast instant magic. This technique does not require special skills from a Radiant-rank expert, so it is not considered a violation.

Another issue is Valensa's six-part alloy shield. During training, Valensa tried to control the alloy shield to split into floating blades for an attack, but was judged to have violated the rules, which made her very frustrated and confused.

The floating blades formed by the split alloy shield are indeed very useful, but they shouldn't be at the level of a Noble Phantasm, right? Why can't we use them?

This question has now been answered.

The duel barrier restricts spellcasters from using spellcasting organs that can activate Radiant-rank secret techniques, and naturally also restricts warrior-type cultivators from using Noble Phantasms.

Valenza's alloy shield is indeed much weaker than her Noble Phantasm, but the way she controls the alloy shield is very similar to how a Radiant Warrior controls a Noble Phantasm, almost exactly the same.

Valensa and Tia were also learning about this concept for the first time—spiritual extension.

In fact, this is common knowledge among the Radiant Rank, and with Valensa and Tia's talents, they will come into contact with this knowledge sooner or later.

The elders who taught them cultivation never expected them to grow so fast... After all, they were still Pearls last year, and normally it would take them at least a few more years to break through to the Radiant Rank.

Just as Valencia's teachers in her previous life would almost never teach calculus to middle school students, Valencia and Tia's elders have not yet taught them this knowledge that is only needed when they are about to break through to the Shining Rank.

Only Friggia mentioned it to them briefly, but not much.

Now, with the help of the duel barrier design blueprints and research notes provided by Mord, Valensa and Tia have learned some of the realities of the Radiant Rank in advance.

As Friggia said, the reason why the Radiant Rank becomes a watershed for cultivators is that any life that breaks through to the Radiant Rank can be considered to have completed an evolution in the level of life.

This evolution is comprehensive, not only greatly enhancing the physical body, making abilities such as invulnerability and supersonic movement basic, but also greatly enhancing the spirit.

The difference in the Radiant Rank characteristics between warriors, spellcasters, and monsters is actually the difference in how they apply their greatly evolved spiritual power.

Spellcasters use their precise control techniques or idealistic power to fuse their evolved, powerful spirit and body, achieving a state of 'unity of spirit and flesh,' thereby evolving a special spellcasting organ within their bodies.

The monster's domain is similar to Valensa's previous guess. Essentially, it is the spread of its evolved and powerful spiritual energy around itself like water or air, distorting space and reality to create a mental world that is like an independent space, which is the domain.

Warriors, on the other hand, infuse their evolved and powerful spiritual energy into the weapons and equipment they have used for many years or newly forged, thus elevating these weapons and equipment. This not only grants them extremely powerful new abilities and characteristics, but also allows them to be used as naturally as the warrior's own body.

Valensa manipulates the alloy shield by extending her mental power, making the shield seem like a part of her body. That's why the duel barrier mistakenly interpreted it as her using a Noble Phantasm.

This aligns with previous experimental studies on lily of the valley.

The superpower development serum that Valensa obtained in Vie's world was essentially a stimulus and enhancement of human mental power, allowing the enhanced mental power to separate and materialize according to imagination, becoming abilities similar to Stands or Personas.

Developing superpowers in this way is very risky, because many people's minds are not strong enough to support them in materializing their imaginations. Forcing them to do so will naturally result in immediate death.

Later, Suzuran improved this potion by injecting mental energy into weapons and equipment instead of materializing imagination. This greatly reduced the mental demands on the user and significantly lowered the potion's danger. This led to the version used by Valensa and her alloy shield that could split into floating blades.

"So, in other words, I actually created my first Noble Phantasm long ago, without even knowing it myself?"

After Valensa understood all this, she took out the alloy round shield with a complicated expression, controlled the shield to split, and transformed it into six floating blades that flew nimbly around her.

"Well, according to our Sage's Tower's definition of warrior's Noble Phantasms, it can indeed be considered your first Noble Phantasm."

Tia nodded, amused.

"However, this is probably the weakest Noble Phantasm in history."

Valensa and Tia finally understood the criteria for judging illegal forces within the dueling barrier of the dueling arena.

The next step, naturally, is to find a way to bypass or deceive this judgment based on the principle, so that Valensa can use stronger power in the competition to defeat Maisie, who has won the championship twice, complete the deal with the great collector Erquin Rogins, and get her hands on the Rainbow Chicken.

However, this step was not so easy. As a product of the Sage's Tower, the Duel Barrier was of very high quality. Many common flaws in magical items had been addressed in advance, making it difficult for Tia to get started even with the blueprints and research notes.

More importantly, Valensa and Tia do not currently have a duel barrier. Even if Tia has some ideas and wants to try them out, it's like a skilled cook trying to cook without rice.

Moreover, the construction cost of such a duel barrier used for large-scale commercial competitions is not low.

Even if Tia herself works hard to assemble the parts according to the design drawings to save on labor costs, the cost of various raw materials alone exceeds 10 gold coins.

This is no small sum for Valensa and Tia to spend so easily.

Even among the wealthy, there are differences. To ordinary people, noblewomen like Valencia and Tia are undoubtedly incredibly rich. However, compared to those who truly stand at the pinnacle of wealth, their fortunes are still far behind.

Fortunately, Valensa and Tia also knew one of the very richest people.

Yashilo Nora, the young lady of the Nora Merchant Guild, may have formed a team to participate in dueling competitions purely as a hobby, but she is quite generous when it comes to spending money.

Back in Fran, Yashiro had paid for the Sage's Tower to build a training ground with a dueling barrier to train his contracted duelists. Now in America, Yashiro has again spent a fortune to rent a training ground with a dueling barrier from another merchant guild, so that Chiba and Roloa, who want to seriously compete, can train while waiting for their matches.

Valensa and Tia immediately set their sights on the training ground that Yashilo had rented, intending to use it as well and test Tia's various ideas.

However, just as the two of them were about to go to the Church of the Sun to say goodbye to Ereshkigal and return to Arland, Ereshkigal arrived at the hotel first and found them.

"Something serious has happened."

Ai Lei's expression was serious, devoid of any lightheartedness, and she went straight to the point:

"A very serious and urgent matter. Lord [Moon Cluster] has ordered that all paladins in America, except those who must remain to guard the cathedral, must immediately put down their work and resolve this matter first."

Valencia, although you are not a paladin of America, your wisdom and courage have long been recognized by your brothers and sisters within the church.

So I'm hoping you, Valensa, can join this operation too, please."

Before Valensa could answer, Ereshkigal immediately looked at Tia and gave a wry smile:

"This matter is also closely related to your Sage Tower... In fact, it is because of the Sage Tower that things have deteriorated to this extent."

"...Huh?" x2

Valensa and Tia exchanged bewildered glances.

They were just holed up in their hotel room for three days researching the principles of the dueling barrier, and suddenly something major happened outside that caused the Church of the Sun to mobilize almost the entire American Paladin force? And it was a major event that worsened because of the Sage's Tower.

A major event that is simultaneously related to both the Church of the Sun and the Tower of Sages...

Valensa thought for a moment, then immediately had an idea and asked, guessing:

"Is it related to Savat Langdon? After his disguise as Carlos's team was exposed, what big news did he risk to create?"

"……Roughly the same."

Ailei nodded with a wry smile, then glared resentfully at Tia, who looked completely bewildered, before speaking quickly but clearly:

"After you discovered what happened in that abandoned mine, the joint task force composed of the Church of the Sun, the Council of Sages, and the Witch Forest took it very seriously."

Their original plan was to remain still to avoid alerting the enemy, lay a trap in a suitable ambush location, and then use a joint command to lure Carlos's team into the trap.

Regardless of Savat Langdon's true purpose in impersonating Carlos's team, he shouldn't refuse a simple movement command to avoid prematurely revealing his identity. But..."

As Ereshkigal spoke, her eyes grew even more resentful, and she stared intently at Tia:

"You Sage Tower people really care about saving face."

"???"

Tia was taken aback for a moment, but she reacted quickly and immediately guessed what was going on:

"The Sage Tower felt that the annihilation of Carlos's team was a scandal and wanted to eliminate Savat Langdon before the alliance's plan was implemented to salvage its reputation. So it acted on its own, but failed miserably, and even caused Savat Langdon to tear off his disguise and cause a major incident?"

"Truly a fine apprentice of the sage, he understands his own people very well."

Ai Lei made a sarcastic remark, but it was clearly not malicious; it was more like a complaint about a terrible teammate.