Chapter 592: Making Good Use of Items

Klein still remembered the matter of the paper crane vividly, because back then Will Auceptin, the "Serpent of Destiny," had used that item to locate Dr. Allen's astral body, and while he was wandering in the Spirit World during his dreams, it had fed him information, forming revelations that evolved into specific dreams.

Later, Klein replaced Will Auceptin's paper crane with one he folded himself, and went Above the Gray Fog to divine, but didn't get any effective conclusion until Dr. Allen's wife became pregnant. By calculating the time and with his vague understanding of the situation from Sequence 1 to Sequence 0, he guessed that it was Will Auceptin who had swallowed his tail and restarted, that he was engaged in a fierce struggle with other "Serpents of Destiny" over the Sequence 0 position, and that the nightmares brought by that paper crane were just an addition—the real function was to help Will Auceptin become an infant in a concealed manner.

The funniest thing about this was that the paper crane Klein folded was mistaken by the Nighthawks of Backlund for Will Auceptin's original, and they used their cruder craftsmanship to forge a fake one and replaced it.

"Will Auceptin's crane has been lying around Above the Gray Fog; I almost forgot about it... Using it for divination only gives very vague revelations. Without other encounters, it would be hard to deduce that the child Dr. Allen's wife is carrying is Will Auceptin. But conversely, Will Auceptin could use it to determine a location in the Spirit World, just like the magic mirror Arrodes relies on the aura of the Gray Fog to connect from the Spirit World to that radio receiver...

"Hey, this seems to offer some possibility..." Klein abruptly sat up straight, struck by a highly creative idea.

He wanted to use that paper crane to communicate with Will Auceptin in a dream!

"It probably won't be of much use to me now, and even carries some hidden danger, but if Will Auceptin really is that 'Serpent of Destiny' from the School of Life, providing him with the relevant information will definitely earn a certain amount of goodwill... For an existence at the King of Angels level, it's necessary to invest in advance. When he's truly born, maybe the returns will be dozens of times greater. Anyway, trying won't kill me—well, even if I die, I can resurrect." Klein thought this way, but in practice he was very cautious. He planned to first go Above the Gray Fog and divine the degree of danger before deciding whether to put it into practice.

After some busy work, he determined that the degree of danger was acceptable, and so using a ritual, he brought that paper crane from Above the Gray Fog into the real world.

Perhaps because it came from a Sequence 1 "Serpent of Destiny," the paper crane hadn't shown any special traits due to staying too long Above the Gray Fog; it remained ordinary and plain.

"I hope the aura of the Gray Fog hasn't neutralized its special nature, otherwise Will Auceptin won't be able to locate it. Hmm... the Sequence before 'Serpent of Destiny' is 'Prophet.' Will what I'm about to do be within Will Auceptin's expectations?

"Did he choose Dr. Allen as father because Dr. Allen is my friend and through him he can establish a connection with me? Isn't that a bit narcissistic?

"However, there is one questionable point: after Will Auceptin used the paper crane to locate Dr. Allen, he could simply 'reincarnate,' so why did he have to repeatedly cause nightmares? And those dreams even revealed the struggle between 'Serpents of Destiny'—to an ordinary person, it's neither understandable nor useful. Isn't that like winking at a blind man?

"Were the dreams created by Will Auceptin meant for me to see?"

Klein frowned slightly, forming some guess.

He suppressed his doubts, picked up the round-bellied fountain pen, filled it with ink, and considered leaving a message on the paper crane to catch the attention of Will Auceptin, the "Serpent of Destiny."

What should he write? Klein recalled what Arrodes had described about the School of Life's plight and felt that one sentence could cover it all, being both vivid and full of emotion.

That sentence was: "Your house is blown up!"

Too crude and too direct, discourteous, and besides, Will Auceptin might not be the chairman of the School of Life... Klein thought it over, slightly unfolded the paper crane, and wrote different words on each side, forming a very short sentence: "Roy King is caught."

Having done that, Klein put away the pen and tucked the paper crane into his wallet, just as Dr. Allen had done back then.

....

On the edge of the Roselle Sea, on a huge island covered in mist and away from the main shipping lanes, a shrill cry rang out, and a fast-as-a-shadow blue raptor fell from the sky, crashing heavily into the ground, splattering mud and blood.

Alger Wilson didn't let his guard down. Standing at a distance, he raised his left hand, the thumb of which bore a black iron ring, and aimed it at the blue shadow falcon, a terrifying Beyonder creature.

The top of the ring had a thorn-like protrusion, stained with old blood, looking both ancient and sinister.

This was a magical item he had bought from "the Craftsman" with the bounty from "Steel" Maiviti, publicly claimed to be 5,200 pounds but actually costing only 3,100 pounds.

The ring was called "Spirit Whip." It could inflict enormous, hard-to-suppress mental damage on enemies, and besides that, it only enhanced Alger's mastery of various weapons, so in reality, it wasn't that expensive.

At the time, "the Craftsman" and his friend had two magical items for sale: one was "Spirit Whip," and the other was "Witchcraft Ring." The latter had many abilities, was highly adaptable, and cost about the same, making it the better choice. But after careful consideration, Alger had still picked "Spirit Whip." He believed that without it, hunting the blue shadow falcon would be several times more difficult because it was a flying Beyonder creature, and the facts proved his judgment correct.

For this, Alger was willing to endure constant headaches so severe he felt like bashing his head against the wall.

After waiting a few minutes and seeing lights flickering on the blue shadow falcon's body, forming six crystallized feathers at its wings, Alger breathed a sigh of relief and walked over.

On his forehead was tied a linen cloth in which was set a blood-red gemstone, emitting a glow like moonlight.

This should have been part of the inheritance of the vampire baron Emlyn White, but Alger didn't rush to complete the transaction after getting it. Instead, using its preliminary exploitable properties, he added an extra layer of insurance to his hunt for the blue shadow falcon.