World Occult Usage Guide

Chapter 298 Streets and Alleys
After chatting with her for a while, Lin An retrieved the data, his expression complicated.

The so-called "New Year" was not the result of careful consideration; it was just a boast he made to appease Mezo. Lin An could not guarantee that he would definitely be out of trouble in two months.

Is this considered bragging?

He suddenly thought of this humanistic word. When he was a child, his aunt often complained that his father was a "braggart," even though he later fulfilled most of the promises he had made.

For example, a beautiful wife, a degree from an overseas university, an apartment within the Second Ring Road...

There was only one thing he couldn't fulfill, and that was the promise, "One day I will come back to find you, Xiao An."

I never thought I'd learn to brag.

Lin Anxin said: Unlike Lin Hainan, I will put into practice the "boast" I made.

Back at the Grand Hotel Lambridge, he sat in an armchair.

After a walk and some casual conversation, Lin An's anxiety dissipated, and he was no longer in a state of turmoil. He then began to organize the intelligence.

When he was first trapped by a moose, the system told him that he couldn't even commit suicide in this situation.

When Lin An asked Brother Lu to take him back to the foundation two years ago for the second time, he was busy dealing with the inspection team and Joshua, and also stumbled upon Adam Cadmon's secret. He was so busy that he never thought of returning to reality on his own initiative without Brother Lu's help.

Jericho also mentioned that once the "God of Truth" who brought him there dies, Lin An will be trapped in the cycle of reincarnation forever until the "Comers" orbit is separated.

It seems that without his own "extradition," he could not leave the fragment that the "God of Truth" had peeled off from the Tree of Time.

Moreover, Zai is more troublesome than Lu Zige; he is already "dead," and it's impossible to end his mystery by influencing his true form.

No, perhaps there is a way...

The Bantu "underworld" is simply a spiral of the cycle of life.

The only difference between the living and the living in this mortal world is the form of existence.

Lin An's gaze shifted to the [One Eye of God] floating within the Philosopher's Stone. Dante's nine heavens resembled blooming roses, their light shifting like enamel, with a shimmering, luminous center waiting to emerge.

…………

The ship sounded its horn and approached the soft, wet riverbank of Mbanbuka. On the other side, fishermen and laborers stood close together, carrying out their arduous work.

Some women are picking through shells, fish, and shrimp on the beach or reefs, sometimes sorting through trash, looking for useful things to put into bamboo baskets on their heads.

The children were on their backs, quiet and never crying.

At the entrance of a restaurant not far away, an elderly man cooking was puffing out his pipe. Customers who had eaten and drunk their fill stood to one side. He had just gotten off the ship, and his shoes and socks were still relatively clean.

"how much is it?"

"Just give me your hat," the old man said, pointing to the cowboy hat on the guest's head.

"Take it." The customer took off his hat, and seeing that it was still early, he chatted casually with him. "Since I came to Bantu, I haven't spent much money, but a lot of my things have been taken away."

The old man glanced at him sideways and said, "You don't understand because you come from a greedy country."

"This logic makes no sense." The guest retorted angrily when suddenly accused.

"How can I explain this to you... If a fisherman is lucky enough to come home with a boatload of fish, what do you think he would do?"

"Sell it for money."

“No, he would shout at the top of his lungs to get the neighbors to come over, and then he would share the fish with them.”

"Even to his enemies?"

"I think so. That's how it is here. If someone has more than they can use, others will naturally hope that they don't keep it all to themselves. That's a reasonable idea."

"Even if the fisherman didn't give it to someone else, the fish would rot, but money is different."

The old man put down his pipe, put on the guest's hat, and adjusted the width: "In any case, this is how we view money."

"If you take away everything you have even a little bit of extra, you'll never be rich."

"That's true."

"And everyone wants to be rich."

"Really? I worked for a long time on a rubber plantation in Coke Laville when I was young. The rich people there were always unhappy and rarely had children."

“If they were penniless, they might be even more unhappy,” the customer said. “You always need money to buy food, medical care, a car, a house, and so on.”

"It's strange. I have food and clothes every day, and a place to shelter from the rain. As for bicycles, those things are either a burden or a scam. Don't people walk where you live?"

“In my hometown, people live in a large city, far apart from each other. Without transportation, commuting would be very difficult.”

"If everyone lived in the city, they wouldn't be able to grow enough food and would starve to death."

"No problem. There are vast fields in the countryside. Farmers grow food, load it onto big trucks, and transport it directly to big cities, where people buy it from stores."

"Buy it from the market?"

"It's not quite like a market. The shops have many shelves that sell a variety of different things."

"Can a farmer have that much stuff?"

"They're not farmers. The shop owners buy them directly from farmers and then resell them to city dwellers."

"Don't you know which field those foods came from? It sounds terrifying, what if they're poisonous?"

“It’s not that bad.” The guest’s patience was wearing thin. “Well, you can’t imagine how different this place is from my hometown. Back home, nature is assembled in a completely different way.”

The old man listened, tilting his head to one side.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I felt that the South was too backward and I wanted to change something; I live in Kigani, that's my ship."

The guest forced a smile and pointed to the imposing ship on the river that looked out of place with its surroundings.

“We received information that Bantu President Tshisekedi Kumasi is not adhering to religious beliefs and is massacring my fellow believers, so we came to Kinsasha’s headquarters to take away the remaining survivors.”

“You are a pastor of the Pentecostal Church.” The old man suddenly realized and lowered his voice. “It’s a good thing you came late. The big hotel has already been taken over, otherwise you would probably be doomed.”

"A grand hotel?" the guest asked, puzzled.

"Heh, it's all in the past. The only truth I believe in is 'it's all in the past'."

"This is not right; we must learn from history."

The old man shook his head noncommittally. The guest knew he hadn't listened at all; his eyelids twitched. Seeing a well-educated-looking local pass by, the guest quickly stopped him, wanting him to judge. "Who's right?"

"It doesn't matter who is right or wrong; what people need to know is what they've chosen. Some things seem to work well, but in the end, they turn out not to work at all. Only by trying them out can you tell the difference."

The guest stood there, scratching his head in bewilderment, while the old man continued to puff on his pipe, his cloudy eyes gazing blankly at the surging Kuba River in Botang.

After ending the street debate, Lin An strolled past the two men.

He has experienced four seven-day cycles, while 28 days have passed in the outside world; this is the third day of the fifth cycle.

Today, a Pentecostal boat docked.

Mezzo told him that everything was proceeding steadily under the control of the shapeshifter.

As the tribes settled in the city, the army received excellent training, new laws were enacted one after another, the government gradually backed down, more and more neighborhoods recognized the World Tree, and the reputation of the Forest Rangers grew, gradually becoming household names.

Zai's goal is to "make Bantu great again," and in a sense, he and Lin An are not enemies.

Every day when he opened the panel, all the values ​​were constantly increasing, which was proof that the prophet was fulfilling his promise—even though Lin An had never agreed to make a deal with him.

[Letter Names]: Forest Ranger, Ghost of Dietrich, Governor of Mbambuka

[Rank]: Guardian Deity

[Integration Progress]: 1.5%
[Measured value]: 95.2
[Deviation value]: 82.1%
By automatically collecting measurement values ​​and without having to personally participate in the struggle or risk having his identity discovered by the powerful families, Zai thought this would satisfy Lin An, but he wanted more than that.

Moreover, after Zai obtained the "Forest Ranger" alias, Lin An's deviation value skyrocketed, and he also gained the unfamiliar acronym "Governor of Mbanbuka".

This was by no means Lin An's intention.

There was no use in being anxious, so he had no choice but to quicken his pace.

Upon closer reflection, it's likely that Zai had ulterior motives when he handed the "finger" to Lin An.

He used his fingers as bait to lure Lin An into a mysterious ritual, until he could not escape the cycle of time.

Like a hunter waiting for his prey to come to him.

This finger is the bait, a veritable encyclopedia of Bantu knowledge, but it's good for nothing except for its vast knowledge.

Lin An cannot use the energy inside.

Even when he first peered inside the finger, he was captivated by the strange and magical foreign culture, which drew the medium of the "Lord of the Earth".

It seems I need to adapt to a more Bantu-centric philosophy.

As time passed, Lin An's progress was slow.

It wasn't until he went out for a walk one day and accidentally resolved a conflict between locals that he discovered that much of the knowledge he gained from his fingers could be found in real-life situations.

From then on, Lin An walked the streets and alleys of Mbanbuka, pressing palm oil with children, graffitiing with a group of teenagers, making cassava dough with women, going out to sea to fish with men, and gossiping with the elderly.

Like Adam expelled from the Garden of Eden, he conversed with all sorts of people, to the point that the guest mistook Lin An for a native.

As night fell on the equator, he looked up and gazed at the edge of the city.

Thick, damp, and vibrant trees and tall grasses form a dense wall of trees, isolating the animals from the deep jungle, yet unable to stop the pulse of life, as eternal as a heartbeat.

it's time.

Lin An turned to the "knowledge sphere" in some void space, which sometimes resembled a lion and sometimes a lump of red clay, without any specific shape.

The knowledge of the spiritual world radiates outwards, like a lush palm tree or a wild fig tree.

Lin An's consciousness sank into the endless ocean current, like a crucian carp swimming upstream, crossing ditches, and swimming toward the finger of the creator god.

In an instant, fantastical ideas and cosmic mysteries rushed in, as if to pour the wisdom that governs a person's inner vitality into his mind, to possess Lin An's heart and blood, to devour him from the inside, leaving only the outer framework.

Two months ago, Lin Anding would have been shaken or found it hard to understand.

However, he remained unfazed.

Having spent this period of wandering in Mbanbuka, Lin An's mind has become inclusive enough to accommodate the spirituality of the Bantu.

He took a deep breath, and a thought flashed through his mind.

"System, use the Tarot card divination technique from 'The Complete Book of Magic V: Halfway to Divinity - Wanderers Ask Heaven and Earth'."

The colorful omens scattered like butterflies, and the results were revealed.

The tarot card numbered "1" floats, and on the yellow base of the card is a man wearing a red shawl standing behind a table with wands, cups, swords, and coins.

He points one finger to the sky and the other to the earth, representing the exchange of power and the bestowal of spirit. Above his head is a symbol of infinity, and he is surrounded by red roses and white lilies.

"magician".

Through its inspiration, he gained a glimmer of understanding.

The Prophet's Fingers contain the memories of the four living prophets from ancient times to the present. They are related to the essence of Enzambhi, the creator god, and are very beneficial. However, Lin An could not digest all of the wisdom at once.

Following the imagery of the cards, Lin An traversed a chaotic and bewitching array of strange phenomena, which resembled countless eyes and mouths, their powerful and vivid language describing the wisdom of the gods.

After a month of study and reflection, Lin An only had a superficial understanding of each question. At this moment, the ancient knowledge resonated within him, attracting him to delve deeper into its study.

Lin An suppressed his curiosity and simply repeated one sentence.

“Beto Bakongo kimpala kieto kiele kingi.”

It means that jealousy breeds hatred and evil.

The tarot cards found a spot shimmering with blue light, repeating similar words to Lin An's: a wet antidote from the Enzambhi energy to combat the burning gaze of the evil eye.

Lin An brought the Philosopher's Stone close to the sky-blue area, and the small world transformed in the same way. Hermes, standing on the blue-red sphere, had a magnetic luster in his eyes, which then connected with the golden center.

Through the connection of alchemy, the energy of the prophet's finger flowed through transmutation to the One Eye of God, like a drop of dew, causing the rose window of Dante's ninth heaven to bloom.

The flower's surface is smooth, and at the same time, a prism shaped like a palm floats up.

The light from the depths of the Nine Heavens diffused through the prism in seven-colored fragments, refracting into a spotless, bright holy light.

It not only has an increased illumination range, but it also seems to have an additional function.

"You discovered through divination that [N'Zaambi's Finger I - The Relics of the Prophet Nichma] belongs to the 'All-Seeing Eye' and used the medium of alchemy to merge it into [God's One Eye III - Dante's Nine Heavens]. The encyclopedia of this mystery item has been updated."

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(End of this chapter)