World Occult Usage Guide

Chapter 99 19th Century Notebooks

The medium at the long table felt a strange energy take control of her, replacing her tongue and consciousness, and uttering words she didn't want to say.

"Then, that concludes today's gathering."

As the old man finished speaking, the believers looked at each other in surprise, but dared not ask any questions. They could only watch as Mrs. Ava stood up shakily and walked towards the end of the carpet.

The woman quickly stepped forward, but Mrs. Ava waved her away and pointed to another person.

“I have something to say to him.”

Lin An brushed past the shocked woman, stepped forward to support Mrs. Ava's arm, and the two figures disappeared behind the closet door.

Hearing the rustling sounds of believers outside, Lin An put down the green tapestry and locked the door.

【Hazel Branch Prison】is a druid ritual in which the sacrificial offering is imprisoned in a cage made of hazel branches stripped white. When the time is right, the offering is dragged to a designated location and shot to death from all sides with arrows, and the body is buried at the foot of a mountain.

This kind of sacrifice is usually to appease the anger of the local fairies, and the remaining bloodstained branches are used to make wands for casting spells.

Like the Verbena Ritual, this mystical art also has the ability to control the actions of the "sacrifice".

Lady Ava was so engrossed in the séance that before she even realized she was under a spell, the ritual had already taken full effect.

However, unlike when she was immersed in cold water, Mrs. Ava did not feel any discomfort this time.

She stretched out her hands and felt the energy transform into hazel branches, which firmly locked her in a space, without the slightest panic.

With practiced ease, the blind old man sat in a soft chair, picked up a glass of red wine from the round table, and toasted Lin An from afar.

"To death."

Lin An turned around in surprise. The air was filled with soft purple light. The walls were completely covered with brocade tapestries, and the floor was covered with a thick, soft, dark gold fabric.

In addition, pages torn from old newspapers were scattered on the ground, making a crunching sound when stepped on, probably Mrs. Eva's method of locating sounds by ear.

She leaned back lazily in her chair, sizing up Lin An with her lifeless eyes.

“Don’t be too pessimistic, old lady,” Lin An said. “If you’re willing to exchange some information with me, I might be able to save your life.”

"Oh?" Mrs. Ava seemed intrigued. "What would you like to hear?"

“I know you’ve been awakened to mysticism for a year now, and I also know you’ve repeatedly created mystical items and cleared and increased your radiation levels several times. What interests me is how you’ve managed to control your level of contamination.”

"This all started with the history of our family."

"To put it simply, I'm not interested."

“In the 19th century, my great-grandfather stumbled upon the legacy of a bounty hunter. He came from the Ellan Highlands of the West and was a prominent figure in the town, but he left behind only an old book and a few empty bottles after his death.”

Lady Ava placed the wine glass back on the round table, fumbled for the Soul Stone Tablet, activated its mechanism, and opened the two connected stone tablets with a "click".

“From the notebooks he left behind, my great-grandfather opened the door to another fantastic world.”

Tucked in the center of the stone slab was a yellowed piece of paper. Lin An picked it up; it contained a bunch of flamboyant notes written in Old English cursive script.

"The story of magic is the story of humanity, a spiritual pursuit of transcendence, a glimpse into God. Whether it is the pursuit of gold to accumulate personal wealth or the Eastern magician's meditation to reach a higher spiritual level, every aspect of humanity reveals the same thing."

"It is an integration of thought, will, and imagination, combined with a call to a higher power. At one end of this spectrum are material things, and at the other end are the virtues of enlightenment."

"Remember, 'Magic is not what you do. Magic is your essence.'"

"True magic is not about gaining power over others: it is about gaining power over yourself, about uniting all your normal, conflicting desires, thoughts, and actions with the will of the universe and God."

"Magic coexists in harmony with the universe; it has its own set of rules or laws, as immutable as the law of universal gravitation. Obtaining it is the ultimate pursuit of mystics. At the end of the road, even if only for a moment, we will be 'with God'."

Although the notes were disjointed, Lin An could tell that they were a record about "Comers," and he couldn't help but frown.

"This is just the beginning. What's the rest?"

“Young man, let this old woman ramble on a bit more.” Lady Ava closed the two soul tablets. “My grandfather became so engrossed in it that he actually made some impressive discoveries. He found that all magic in the world ‘works’ indirectly.”

"October 4000 years..."

"Not that long."

Lin An was taken aback, but Madam Ava glossed over it.

“My great-grandfather had the idea of ​​creating a secret religion to deal with the overlap of 150 years later, which is now called ‘Commerx’. The first to be brought into the public eye were my two grandmothers—the founders of the Séance of Lady Ava.”

“My grandmothers grew up being educated by my great-grandfather and firmly believed in the mysterious resurgence a hundred years later. They devoted their lives to studying mysticism, searching far and wide for lost ancient books and myths, and left me with a precious legacy.”

“By my generation, beliefs have diverged.”

Mrs. Ava sighed deeply.

“My father was still a supporter of ‘Commerx,’ but my cousin grew tired of the ethereal mysticism. She longed for the outside world’s glamour and completely broke away from the family after she came of age.”

"Could you just tell me directly about reducing pollution levels?" Lin An interrupted, "or give me the rest of your notes."

"Guess how that branch president of Shafi City got to where he is now?" Mrs. Ava smiled and changed the subject again. "This inevitably brings to mind that cousin who hated the occult and went far away."

"..."

Lin An pressed his throbbing temples, helpless against the old lady's nagging.

“William Adenauer is that guy’s son.”

"Hmm?" The familiar name caught Lin An's attention. "Is the branch president of Shafi City your relative?" Mrs. Ava asked with a mocking smile.

"Initially, he was a newcomer sent to New Mexico to start from scratch. He approached me timidly and said that out of consideration for the past, he hoped that I, as the leader of the secret organization, would support the expansion of their power. I put a lot of effort into this and sent him a lot of mysterious items."

"Then, he often asked me to help him locate the Mysterious One, as if I had become an outsider. Until he became powerful enough, he started making deals with me, asking me to hand over the bounty hunter's notes in exchange for a guarantee that the Foundation would never harm me."

It turns out that the foundation made a deal with Mrs. Ava, so they got along well and were even allowed to build their headquarters next to the facility.

Okay, considering the timeline, it's highly likely that the Foundation deliberately built it next to Mrs. Ava.

"Finally, he listed me as 'Gamma-002' and put me on the wanted list. I guess he had already claimed credit for the notebook, so he was afraid of the truth being discovered."

Mrs. Ava continued.

"Life is unpredictable. I was so engrossed in my research that I was trapped in the realm of supernatural tales just because I went in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, my cousin spent her whole life escaping the occult, and her offspring, by sheer coincidence, have become very successful."

Lin An paused for a moment, then spoke.

“We haven’t even discussed how to reduce the pollution, ma’am. My time and patience are limited.”

“Too hasty, young man.” Lady Ava’s bark-like fingers stroked the psychic tablet. “Didn’t you get anything from that tattered record?”

Lin An raised his hand and glanced at the yellowed piece of paper again.

"'Is magic my essence?'"

"That's right. The medium is related to personality, the level of pollution and radiation are related to behavior, because mysticism is inherently related to 'your' nature."

"Grandma, put it simply."

Lin An thought of the branch president who talked a lot of nonsense; perhaps repeating the same thing over and over again was a tradition of this family.

Mrs. Ava's tone remained slow and deliberate, without a trace of urgency or threat.

“Each medium must perform different behaviors to increase its radiation level. In other words, reducing pollution levels also requires the power of ‘behavior’… or rather, completing a specific ‘ritual’.”

It turns out that different media require different methods to reduce their contamination levels. Lin An thought to himself, "In that case, the method of 'Mother of Desire' that Cardenas mentioned wouldn't be suitable for me."

We need to find a way for "knowledge seekers" to succeed in the future.

"Are there any specific cases?" he asked.

“The methods we gleaned from the ancient texts only apply to the ‘prophet’ medium,” Mrs. Ava tilted her head. “Are you one?”

"Don't assume my medium."

“Heh, you’re not.” Mrs. Ava concluded. “The method by which ‘prophet’ reduces the level of pollution is very simple: the collective ‘power of faith’.”

"Belief?"

“Use mysticism to make more people believe your ‘prophecy’ and thus reduce the level of pollution. The ‘prophet’ is a ‘cult leader’ who blends into the crowd. My great-grandfather, grandmother, father and the whole family have been planning for a hundred years and finally waited for Comers.”

Mrs. Ava gazed wistfully at the wall where portraits of generations of her family hung.

"They must think I'm doing great, after all, I'm ahead of the world and possess knowledge beyond ordinary people. — But, but! We've been researching in the wrong direction! As a result, my awakening is at the ridiculous level of a ghost story!"

The blind old woman suddenly clenched the Soul Stone in her hand, revealing an expression that broke from her composure for the first time.

"No matter how much theoretical knowledge I have, I can't improve my current rating! I'm stuck at the Mystery of the Uncanny level! I can increase and decrease the 'radiation value' at will, and I can control Comors' energy like I control my body, but I just can't improve my rating!"

The almost indifferent elegance crumbled in that instant.

"state!"

She smashed the soul tablet in her hand.

"Any mystic can fool me! Just like you, you casually cast mystical spells and trample our centuries of hard work underfoot!"

It seems that Lady Ava's family focused on "collection and integration," creating a completely new fusion system, and became increasingly entangled in it, thus losing their understanding of the original mythology.

A poor starting point resulted in Comors arriving with a low rating, fundamentally cutting off her path to promotion.

“The foundation may have a way to solve your problem,” Lin An said ambiguously.

Composing herself, Mrs. Ava regained her enigmatic demeanor.

"You mean the medium of the 'Mother of Desire'? To accept their gifts and become a puppet. That's not the ending I want. If only I were a 'Seeker of Knowledge'..."

Lin An suppressed his excitement and spoke calmly.

"What's the difference between the two?"

"If the 'Mother of Desire' can passively improve the rating of others, then the 'Seeker of Knowledge,' as far as I know, is the only medium that can actively improve its own rating."

Lin An held his breath, waiting for her next words, but Lady Ava put the Soul Stone back on the round table and stopped talking.

“I’ve said too much. Too much for a dying man—you’re definitely not Efron Ruben.”

She actually knows Efron?

Lin An thought in surprise.

Thank you to 夜夜高歌9, yianyuanshen, and 雪无尘123 for the monthly tickets, and thank you all for the recommendation tickets and subscriptions.

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(End of this chapter)