World Occult Usage Guide

Chapter 170 "Iosste"

The planetarium had just been completed and was attracting crowds of reporters and tourists eager to see it.

Despite the flashing lights behind him, Lin An showed his ticket stub, and the bodyguard blocking the entrance stepped aside to let him in.

The interior was quite quiet, filled with a faint smell of formaldehyde, and the floor had a frosted texture that felt soft underfoot.

Two men and women in black approached Lin An and bowed to him.

"You've arrived, Mr. Lin. This way, please."

Lin An should have avoided being alone in a room with Doris, but considering that she didn't know his identity, constantly giving in might arouse her suspicion or make her take advantage of him.

Lin An also guessed that Doris might want to lure him to the planetarium and then kill him. But then he thought that if Doris wanted to do it, with the power of the Wood Group, there were countless ways to make him die mysteriously in his apartment. There was no need to specifically call him to the planetarium.

Despite Doris's unclear motives, Lin An decided to treat this meeting as a preliminary battle.

"Da da da……"

As you climb the steps, the entire planetarium comes into view.

The venue has three floors and eight observation decks. In the center is a giant hemispherical screen that plays a video about the solar system on a loop.

A vibrant, shimmering light flowed across the steps, brighter and clearer than any lamplight. Lin An looked up at the electronic universe, where the eight planets appeared and disappeared, scattered with countless glittering stars.

The surround sound music creates an immersive experience, with a pleasant female voice blending harmoniously into the music.

"The size and age of the universe are beyond human comprehension. Everything we see sparkles because of distant nuclear fusion, so much so that our eyes are lost between vastness and eternity."

Lin An shifted his gaze from the starry sky to a short-haired woman lying on a soft beanbag chair.

"Kosmos is a Greek word meaning 'the order of the universe,' the opposite of chaos, suggesting a profound interconnectedness among all things. It is our awe of the complex and subtle ways in which the universe is arranged."

The door was closed, leaving only the two of them on the second-floor observation deck.

"Are you so engrossed in stargazing?" Doris said with a charming laugh. "Come here, An'an."

"It's just that we can't manage our relationship well, Lili."

Lin An gritted his teeth, deciding that he might as well obey. With a rustling sound of beans, he lay down on the beanbag chair next to Doris, their heads seemingly snuggling together.

"I heard from Mike that you also invited my mother?" Lin An couldn't help but ask.

"Yes, it's a pity that Professor Hughes isn't interested in astronomy and left about ten minutes ago."

Hearing Doris's words, Lin An breathed a sigh of relief.

Just deal with her for a bit and then leave.

The two watched the stars move silently overhead, until Doris spoke first.

Do you like rabbits?

"A rabbit?" Lin An was taken aback.

“When I was little, I found a fluffy, palm-sized little black rabbit by the roadside. It looked like it had been abandoned by its mother. Anyway, I took it home, and from then on it belonged to me completely.”

Doris spoke in a dreamlike tone that Lin An had never heard before, and a pleasant fragrance emanated from her.

“I named him Easter and loved him with all my heart from then on. I kept him by my bedside, talked to him, and hoped that one day he would respond to me in human language, though he never did; but that’s alright.”

“He grew very quickly, and before long he was as big as my head. He would eagerly wait for me to come back in his room every day.”

"We looked out the window at the starry sky together, and I told him that we live in a universe made up of quasars and quarks, snowflakes and fireflies, and that the beautiful things in the night sky have been formed billions of times. There are black holes and alien civilizations there, and they may be gazing at us right now."

“This kind of life lasted for less than two months. One day, my father called me over. There was a cardboard box next to him. I immediately had a bad feeling and just wanted to leave and find a place where no one was around to cry.”

"But he wouldn't let me off the hook. 'That rabbit was yours, wasn't it? There was a little accident, but don't worry, the body has been disposed of, you don't have to clean up this mess yourself. Okay, open the box.'"

“I lifted the lid of the cardboard box, thinking that maybe he was just joking, maybe Iost was still alive, that he was in the box. But what appeared before me was a rabbit that looked just like a little lion, with a majestic mane. My father said that it was the new ‘Iost’.”

“I got a new rabbit, but I miss my black ioster. I don’t dare tell my father; he can’t understand my sorrow. In his eyes, even if my rabbit dies, won’t a new one come along? Won’t the loss be made up for?”

The planetarium's music flowed in sync with Doris's words.

In the darkness, she looked at Lin An beside her. The young man's black hair was as smooth and thick as silk. Doris wondered: Can he understand?

Reality was vastly different from her imagination.

Lin An only perceived the metaphor of "the mother of desire" in it.

If the black rabbit represents Doris's original mystery, then the magnificent breed rabbit signifies the original prototype from which she was grafted.

Joshua has a record of this, stating that Jericho and he made deals with Zion in order to establish themselves in the Eagle Kingdom and expand the influence of St. Anilof.

They most likely handed over Lamech's teachings to the Enochians in exchange for worldly assistance in terms of money and power.

Deuteronomy, Canaanite magic, fragmented Mishnah, the source level, the mystery of Joshua himself...

As the clue flashed through his mind, Lin An looked at Doris, whose face, which held a half-smile, displayed the data given by the system.

[Title]: The Priest's Handbook, the Pentateuch, the Torah

[Rating]: Source Grade B [Radiation Value]: 21.6%
[Pollution Level]: 15.8%
[Medium]: The Mother of Desire
The word "torah" comes from the verb root of "shooting arrows," and by extension, it has the meaning of teaching and guiding.

It is the oral teachings given by God through the prophet Moses, some in Mount Sinai and some in the Tabernacle. It is a compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

A manual for rituals...

Having found the panel, Lin An's second step was to test the power that Doris possessed.

He has already witnessed Carmen's Canaanite tablet "Soul Burning", Kim Ji-eun's tablet "Soul Protection", and Cadernas' "Commandment Invalidation". The "Priest's Manual" has five volumes of scriptures, indicating that Doris has two more unknown methods.

Although her radiation level wasn't as high as Lei Zi's, Lin An believed it wasn't that Doris couldn't improve, but rather that she used some primordial energy to create mysterious items. After all, at this stage, 25% of the source level was enough to reach the upper limit of the chakras.

Including her entry will likely be an extremely difficult battle.

As expected of a member of the Canaanite family...

However, compared to the real Xi Yong, Doris, who has broken away from the family, is clearly the best choice to improve her system rating.

According to the Dawn Association's intelligence, the prototypes bestowed upon offspring by the "Mother of Desire" must be lower than their own rating. In other words, Xi Yong has at least one true "statue-level" one.

Sensing Lin An's silence, Doris propped herself up on one arm and touched his hair with her cold, pale hand.

"Do you believe in gravity?"

Lin An's lips twitched. Why did Doris suddenly turn into Father Pucci and start touching me inappropriately?

Of course, he understood that the so-called "gravity" referred to Titan's gravitational pull on "Comers," and the more Mystics there were, the wider the passage between the two worlds would be.

“It’s because of gravity that we can chat so leisurely here,” Lin An replied ambiguously, flicking her fingers away.

"If our planet were to one day come close to another planet in orbit... I think the first thing to be captured would probably be the smaller satellite orbiting it."

Lin An frowned. The first half of her sentence was about the overlapping star trails of the two worlds, but what did the second half mean?
Comors' satellite?

Why did Doris tell me all this, whether it's this sentence or the story before it?
Perhaps she wants to recruit me, to turn me into a pawn like Deval...

Doris briefly ended the conversation and then moved on to the "Two Directions" concert. Lin An happened to have just finished watching the recording while riding in the car, and chatted with her casually.

"Boom!"

The door to the observation deck was pushed open.

"Lin, you're here!" As soon as Mike finished speaking, the two people on the beanbag chair straightened up, and he suddenly realized, "Sorry to bother you."

“Not at all, you’ve come at the perfect time.” Doris said suddenly with disgust. “Get your friend away, he’s being annoying.”

Not to mention Mike and Sangsang, even Lin An was stunned.

"Doris, you..."

The two waiters reappeared, this time with security guards, and almost forcibly kicked them out of the planetarium. Cameras outside were snapping photos, and when they saw the three of them come out, they excitedly swarmed around them.

"withdraw!"

Mike, with the heroic spirit of a football pioneer, grabbed a teammate in each hand and sprinted away from the crowd of onlookers.

While leaning against the tree to catch her breath, Sangsang couldn't resist gossiping.

"Lin Dou, you and Miss Wood have broken up?"

"To be honest, I had no idea what she was doing from beginning to end." Lin An shrugged. "I don't care."

"She unfollowed you!" Mike shouted, holding up his phone screen. "God, I was really rooting for you two! I was even thinking of going on a date with both of you someday!"

"The possibility was zero from the start, I'm so grateful she let me go," Lin An said nonchalantly. "Let's change the subject. Do any of you know anyone at the Academy of Science?"

…………

At the same time in the planetarium, Doris lay back on the beanbag chair, picked up the pink phone, and heard a lazy, husky female voice coming from the other end.

"Miss, when should I dock?"

"The night after tomorrow."

“Understood, Miss.” The woman paused. “Deval has been taken away by the Foundation…”

"He won't cause any trouble. Besides, we were going to get rid of some unnecessary people anyway, and he accomplished his mission—unfortunately, he didn't lure out the real 'ghost'."

Is there anything you still cherish about this country?

“It’s all gone, never to be again.” Doris gazed at the starry sky, closed her eyes, as if transported back to the nights of her childhood. “What’s mine must belong to me from beginning to end, from the moment he was that man’s son…”

"he?"

The woman was puzzled, but Doris's voice became stern.

"This is the final step. You must protect my cause with everything you have, understand, Cassandra?"

Thank you to Blue Dragon Lake, Shuangsheng, One Leaf Maple, Jiumu Jiayu, MRSaltedFish, and Raziel for the monthly tickets, and thank you all for the recommendation tickets and subscriptions.

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(End of this chapter)