The next morning, fully recovered, Klein walked steadily into the Blackthorn Security Company.
"Good morning, Klein. The weather is very cool today. I'm looking forward to the big dinner tonight." Rozanne, dressed in a light green dress, stood behind the reception desk and greeted him with a smile.
Klein deliberately rubbed his stomach and said:
"Miss Rozanne, you shouldn't be talking about this kind of topic at a time like this. I'm already starting to get tired of today's mission that hasn't even started yet, and I only wish the night would come sooner."
"Me too." Rozanne chuckled.
She looked around, beckoned Klein closer, and lowered her voice:
"I just saw Ms. Dai Li."
"'Spirit Medium' Ms. Dai Li?" Klein asked back in slight surprise.
This most famous spirit medium in Aholwa County had been living in Port Enmat, which wasn't very far from Tingen.
"Yes." Rozanne nodded vigorously. "But she's already left. Ah, she is the ideal Beyonder in my mind! If I could become a Spirit Medium, I would leave Tingen, travel the world all by myself—to Intis, to Feysac, to Feynapotter, to the Southern Continent, to the great grasslands, to the primeval forests, to the frozen plains!"
Miss, have you considered the Nighthawk rules and regulations... Klein shook his head in amusement.
"Even Ms. Dai Li, if she wanted to leave Port Enmat, would need to submit an application and get it approved."
"I know, but you don't have to remind me of that now and crush my fantasy!" Rozanne said sulkily. "The truth is, I can't become a Beyonder anyway. It's too dangerous. You never know when you might just go boom and die. In my opinion, the so-called Beyonders are just people who turn themselves into monsters in order to fight monsters."
"Archbishop Chanis said, 'We are guardians, but also a bunch of poor souls constantly resisting danger and madness.'" Klein sighed, repeating that profound statement.
To fight against the abyss, one must endure the corruption of the abyss.
Both of them fell silent for a moment. Rozanne recovered first. She pursed her lips toward the partition and said:
"The captain wants you to see him as soon as you arrived."
"Okay." Klein took his hat and cane, passed through the partition, knocked on the door, and entered Dunn's office.
The middle-aged gentleman with deep gray eyes and a receding hairline put down his coffee cup and smiled.
"Dai Li came by."
"That's not a surprising thing, since Rozanne already told me." Klein replied with a smile.
Dunn didn't mind his humor. He sighed and said:
"Dai Li has been transferred to the Backlund diocese. That's the most prosperous and crowded city in the world, and it also has the most Beyonders and the most opportunities... She has a better chance than me of becoming an archbishop or a high-level executor."
"Why?" Klein sat upright and asked in confusion.
Dunn thought for a dozen seconds before saying:
"She has a unique talent for mastering and tapping into Sequence potions... I told you before, the internal regulation of the Nighthawks is that to consume the potion of the next Sequence, one must first wait three years and then undergo a strict examination to avoid losing control. But normally, three years is often not enough. It took me three years to go from 'Sleepless' to 'Midnight Poet', and nine years, a whole nine years, to go from 'Midnight Poet' to 'Nightmare'. And from 'Nightmare' to Sequence 6, I've already spent three years, and I don't know how many more are needed."
"By the time our bodies age and our minds begin to decline, even if we manage to overcome the hidden dangers, we shouldn't try to advance anymore, because the risk of losing control is too high for anyone to dare to try it."
"But Dai Li is different from me and most Beyonders. After becoming a 'Corpse Collector', she submitted a special application just one year later, hoping to consume the follow-up potion immediately. To everyone's surprise, she really passed the stricter examination and obtained the 'Gravedigger' potion."
"From 'Gravedigger' to 'Spirit Medium', she also only used a year. Ha, this year is only the fifth year since she became a Beyonder. She's only 24 years old, still young enough, and still has enough opportunities."
Her surface identity is the most famous spirit medium in Aholwa County, but she is actually a real spirit medium... Isn't this 'Acting'? Old Neil seemed to have mentioned that Ms. Dai Li had a similar tendency... Klein felt he had grasped the core element of 'Spirit Medium' Dai Li's rapid advancement.
"Captain, you are still young enough. You are only in your thirties." Klein comforted Dunn, silently adding in his mind, just your memory isn't very good...
Dunn took a sip of coffee and shook his head with a wry smile.
"Why don't you ask Ms. Dai Li for the method of mastering and tapping into Sequence potions?" Klein asked deliberately.
Dunn put down his coffee cup, rubbed his temples, and said:
"She told me to become a true Nightmare... I don't know what that means."
Acting as a Nightmare... Hiss, a Nightmare sounds very evil... Klein frowned slightly and fell briefly silent.
At that moment, Dunn took out his pipe, sniffed it, and said:
"Dai Li and I discussed the matter of the 'Seer' potion being followed by the 'Clown' potion. Setting aside the possibility that the Mystical Prayer Society members deliberately deceived you, she proposed an interesting guess."
"What guess?" Klein's eyes lit up, and he asked eagerly.
He had previously used divination to verify whether 'Clown' was the subsequent potion for 'Seer', and had received an ambiguous but more affirmative answer.
Dunn's deep gray eyes swept over him. He thought for a moment before saying:
"Normal Sequence pathways are progressive relationships. Following a common thread, they advance layer by layer in a single domain. For example, the 'Sleepless', 'Midnight Poet', and 'Nightmare' are obviously all related to the night, and the sleep and tranquility derived from the night. It can be imagined that the subsequent Sequences will be the same, just more powerful and covering a wider range, possibly involving elements like concealment, calamity, fear, and the Crimson Moon..."
"Some Sequence pathways don't seem like this on the surface, but upon careful analysis, commonalities can still be found. For example, the 'Assassin' and the 'Instigator'. Their implicit common point is bringing disaster, pain, sorrow, and despair to others. The subsequent Sequences should also follow this rule."
Klein listened very attentively and asked proactively:
"But 'Seer' and 'Clown' don't have this kind of relationship?"
"Mm." Dunn nodded gently. "Dai Li thinks that there might be another kind of relationship for Sequence pathways. After all, we still don't know nearly enough."
He paused and continued:
"Dai Li said that in similar pathways, the mid- and low-Sequence potions respectively provide the Beyonder with a completely new ability that seems to have no relation to the previous ones. When they reach a certain stage of qualitative transformation, these abilities will fuse together, evolving into an extraordinarily powerful 'profession' that encompasses them all."