My portable grandfather refreshes every week

Chapter 375 The Twelfth Apostle?

Xue Luding's pupils contracted slightly as he silently glanced at the man who had addressed him as an apostle from the very beginning.

Despite his impeccable manners, the man possessed an inherent arrogance, and his gaze towards Xue Dinglu was still full of smiles.

He didn't know if this person was bluffing or if they genuinely knew his identity.

"One teacher? I don't think one teacher can achieve a mythical level," Xue said.

The man opposite, wearing a monocle, continued to smile without making any comment.

The first person to arrive was a rather difficult fellow to get along with... Xue Dinglu thought to himself.

Although he had prepared himself for the fact that not everyone who came would be easy to talk to, for the first time, Xue Dinglu met a character who seemed fine on the surface, but who gave him a vague chill.

"So, you don't deny your identity?" he said with a smile, then very elegantly removed his top hat again, solemnly performed the curtsy once more, and then said with a smile,

"I'm very sorry, Apostle, it seems I need to properly introduce myself. My name is Faust, a teacher who instructs in 'occult rituals,' and also a..." He smiled, his lips parting in a wide grin, his arms outstretched as if to embrace the sun.

"The apostles' family!"

He was looking in the direction of the towering divine tree behind the magic academy. He was laughing wildly, like a child laughing madly, laughing with unbridled arrogance.

At that moment, Xue Dinglu's pupils contracted as he looked at the laughing visitor, sensing that he was receiving more and more warnings.

A very dangerous madman.

This was Xue's first impression of the man who called himself "Faust".

……

"Brother, who is that man who keeps staring at the sacred tree and laughing maniacally? How did he suddenly appear here? Speaking of which, isn't this your inner space? I remember only the dead can come here, right?" The little witch looked at the man laughing maniacally at the sacred tree in the distance with an expression as if he were an idiot.

“That’s an idiot, a very dangerous one. You should stay as far away from him as possible,” Xue Dinglu said, glancing at the man in the distance. He added, “He should be dead, and dead for many years. He probably died a very gruesome death.”

"How bad is it?" the little witch complained. "Can anyone be worse off than me?"

"It's like being sealed away by an enemy in a dark and sunless place, and then suffering mental torment for hundreds of years until your life force is exhausted and you die." Xue's law seems to be able to roughly sense part of the visitor's memories without relying on dreams.

However, when he tried to look into Faust's memories, he felt as if he had been locked in a dark room, with no sound, no light, and nothing to interact with.

He was locked in that small, dark room for an unknown period of time until he died.

“He’s in a worse state, no wonder he’s a bit crazy…” the little witch complained, while retreating behind Xue Luding. “Speaking of which, what grudge did his enemy hold against him that they would kill him in such an extreme way?”

"I don't know, but he claimed to be a member of the apostles' family, so it's probably one of the apostles who did it," Xue Dinglu came up with a conjecture.

But would an apostle really treat one of his own family members in this way?
Xue Dinglu was unable to obtain any more information. Even when he tried to explore Xue's memories, all he got were images of being imprisoned in a dark room for a long time with nothing there.

"Stay away from him for now. I'll set a restriction to prevent him from entering the magic academy. You should go back to your dorm and stay in bed," Xue Dinglu instructed.

“Oh…” Su Su replied.

After his outburst, the man seemed to want to see the sacred tree, so he left the academy and headed in the direction of the tree.

Xue Dinglu was happy for him to do so and followed him all the way.

Xue's consciousness space is currently very large; he hasn't even explored its boundaries yet.

The center of the consciousness space is naturally the magic academy, and behind the magic academy is a huge hillside, on which is a large tree with a diameter of nearly one kilometer.

The towering tree blocked out the sun, making those inside the magic academy feel as if the academy were built beneath a towering cliff.

But that wasn't a cliff; it was just the base of a giant tree.

This is a sacred tree sealed beneath Boston, buried deep underground since it was brought there by a meteorite during the Cretaceous period.

At this moment, Faust gradually arrived at the foot of the divine tree. He looked excitedly at the tree that blocked out the sky and exclaimed, "What a magnificent creation! I really can't believe that anyone could cultivate the divine tree to such a height that it blocks out the sky."

"Compared to you, that apostle who is cruel internally and compromises externally, yet claims to be acting for the world and for justice, is utterly laughable..."

"Hahaha, I see! Actually, my spell has already succeeded! It's just that it took a hundred years to take effect!"

Faust kept uttering words that Xue's law couldn't understand, like the ramblings of a madman, or like a truth-seeker who, upon seeing this 60 million-year-old sacred tree, witnessed the truth he longed to see.

“I’m very interested in the apostle you mentioned.” Beside Xue Ludao, a table and stool sprouted from tree roots. Xue Ludao gestured for Faust to sit down, then said, “Would you be interested in telling me your story?”

“It is my honor, Your Excellency.” Faust seemed to have regained his elegance. The speed at which he seamlessly switched from a madman to an elegant gentleman left even Xue Dinglu speechless.

A tree-man steward, who had grown from tree roots, poured Faust a cup of tea. Faust took a sip with great elegance and a look of rapture on his face. “Just as I said before, I am an apostle’s servant and a professor at the Academy of Mystic Arts, a nobody who longs for a peaceful life.”

“I was just a professor, not an apostle’s family. I was just living my own life, working nine to five, going back and forth between two points. I wanted to understand the rituals of the world and leave my name in the world. That was my pursuit.”

"So at that time, I met a student who changed my life," he said.

"Oh?" Xue Dinglu chimed in at the opportune moment.

"He was a genius, no, he could no longer be called a genius, but a child whose talent would make even the gods jealous. I never thought there was such a talented person in the world, so I took him as my disciple and taught him all the rituals I knew. I could already imagine the birth of a mystical genius that would shock the world."

"As I expected, he learned everything I had learned in a very short time, and was able to apply what he learned to my original rituals to develop a new one called 'Divine Descent'. At the time, I really thought he would be a student who could inherit everything from me, and at the same time, a child who could help my academic theories reach their peak."

"I still remember that child's talent; it was so good that it made me jealous." He smiled and took another sip of tea.

"So, that child became an apostle?" Xue asked rhetorically.

“Yes, he became an apostle, the 12th apostle—the Jester!” The gentlemanly man grinned, revealing his clean white teeth, until his mouth seemed to stretch all the way to his ears.

“One who sold the whole world to another apostle,” the man laughed.

Xue frowned, realizing that things were not so simple.

He really didn't have much interaction with the 12th apostle.

Although this guy's seat was right across from his, Xue Dinglu had basically never interacted with him and didn't even know what he was.

The guys in the current Mist Council don't actually know much about Xue's Law.

The Fourth Apostle, a woman who hides behind the scenes and enjoys manipulating other races.

The Sixth Apostle, the Zerg Queen, is a being who follows the most primal cycle of reproduction and devouring. The Ninth Apostle is an unidentifiable squid-man.

The Tenth Apostle, a woman who revealed her authority as "love".

The eleventh apostle is a hot-tempered guy who is probably a battle maniac.

This was the information Xue Dinglu had gathered about the other apostles, and now, he had learned about an apostle he had previously had virtually no contact with from another person.

Xue Lude began to recall the characteristics of the 12th Apostle, and then he was horrified to discover that the guy's characteristic was that he had no characteristics.

All that is known is that he is a male human, and nothing else. Even if Xue Law does not know the other apostles, he can guess a lot of things based on their characteristics.

However, Xue Daolu could not recall any meaningful characteristics of this apostle who had entered the Mist Council just before him.

He was like that student in the class who always had average grades—average in academics, average in appearance, average in background, and average in personality…

At that moment, Xue Dinglu frowned: "What does he mean by 'selling his world'?"

Faust took a sip of tea, looked at Xue Dinglu, and said, "He is not a true apostle, but a guy who successfully 'became a god' by packaging his own world and sending it to another apostle, thereby intercepting a fruit on the way out."

Xue Dinglu nodded as well. He also referred to what this person called becoming a god, which corresponded to his own level 5.

For most of the world, the distinctions between realms are not as fine as Xue's Law.

Unlike Xue's Law, this one was successfully divided by the Great Sage according to the previous classification, and then into the 0-5 order sequence that he is now familiar with.

In most parts of the world, the world is simply divided into ordinary people, extraordinary beings, demigods, and true gods.

Ordinary people are at level 0, extraordinary people include all categories from elite to mythical, demigods are at level 5, and true gods are at level 5.

In fact, many would further subdivide the "extraordinary" category, with the simplest being low, medium, and high, all the way up to demigod.

Some have their own names, such as in the world of behemoths, where those of rank 3 and above are called "monarchs," which is the same principle.

However, the Great Sage will automatically parse their statements and be able to directly convert the corresponding classification into the classification system that Schrödinger's Law is most familiar with.

At this point, Xue Dinglu also understood the situation in their world.

It was a world of compradors; Xue's only thought of the word "comprador" was that.

A world where people are sold out by their own "true god" and thus struggle to survive.

His own true god sold everything on the planet to another apostle, and he became the planet's comprador god, neglecting internal affairs and letting the world develop as it pleased. Externally, he seemed to always be the other apostle's follower.

This operation really baffled Xue's Law.

Through Faust's perspective on the 12th apostle, Xue's law formed some vague impressions in his mind.

He began modeling the 12th Apostle, and then, as he profiled the character, Xue's brow furrowed more and more.

……

“After completing the descent of the gods, he made a pact with an Outer God, who is the source of all the calamities,” Faust continued.

“Hmm.” Xue Dinglu continued to construct the character image of the 12th Apostle.

A smart, willing-to-sacrifice young man with a strong desire to explore the world.

However, what he did was to actively lure the Outer Gods, that is, the Apostles, to his world, and then obtain the Divine Tree through the Apostles' secret network. He then secretly cultivated the Divine Tree and used its power to build an organization of his own.

Through the power of the divine tree, he attracted a large number of angel investors in his own world and grew his organization.

Then, after the divine tree has absorbed enough energy, it intercepts and steals a fruit for itself, thus breaking through the shackles of the 5th rank and truly no longer being a pawn on the chessboard, but having the qualifications to sit on the chessboard and communicate with the outer gods.

If the story ended here, Xue's Law would still consider him a shrewd and cunning man, not exactly a righteous person, but at least he managed to become an apostle through his own schemes, thus gaining the right to speak with other apostles on an equal footing.

He transformed himself from a helpless fish out of water in the face of the apostles into a giant, flying, twin-tailed cockroach who would risk everything to disgust them.

He could still understand the story up to this point.

“My student, Mephisto, ultimately chose a ‘roundabout way to save the world’, which was to completely open up the access to his world to another apostle, allowing him to take whatever he wanted in our world.”

"His reasoning was that he believed he couldn't defeat the Outer Gods on his own, so he decided to sacrifice some people to save others. Those of us who originally followed him to build the organization naturally became his followers..."

"This is the indirect salvation plan. So he began to relinquish power, kill those old rebels who wanted to defy the Outer Gods, and sign treaties with the other apostles, saying it was to give the remaining people time to develop peacefully..." Faust smiled as he revealed Mephistopheles' plan.

"If he really can save some people, then... well, that's still a bit abstract. Judging from this, he must have been protecting that world for hundreds of years, right? How is your world developing?" Xue Dinglu asked.

Although he always felt that this kind of ceding territory to make peace and then becoming a comprador was very abstract, so abstract that it seemed to remind him of an old friend.

However, if one can secretly accumulate power and then launch a counterattack against the Outer Gods to regain power, then one can still be considered a person, albeit a somewhat abstract one.

"The development of the world?" Faust seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world. "The mafia aristocracy continues to rule the world. The world has not changed much compared to the old society. It is lifeless, dull, disgusting, and filled with ubiquitous and pervasive chaos and boys and girls selling their bodies..."

Xue Law: "..."

Sure enough, one shouldn't have too high expectations of compradors... or rather, it would be utterly stupid of me to have even a shred of humanity towards these comprador bastards.

"So, I've rebelled!" Faust grinned, revealing a very healthy and sunny smile.

"I secretly collected the formula for divine descent and unleashed the Apostle Summoning Technique." The man named Faust revealed the formula that had caused Xue Dinglu's right eyelid to twitch incessantly.

"But just as I was about to begin the ceremony, I was discovered. What awaits me is the rest of my life being released into an eternal prison, but I don't care anymore."

“Because now, I’ve succeeded!” He looked at Xue Dinglu, revealing his gleaming white teeth.

"Just like my student Mephisto, I have successfully made contact with the 'Outer Gods'!"

"I can't solve the problem, but I can solve the people with the problem!"

Xue Law: "..."

Compromise and seek peace with foreign powers while launching a heavy crackdown at home, sacrificing others to ensure one's own rule—isn't this the operation of a certain old friend surnamed Wang?

(End of this chapter)