Lord of Mysteries: Taiyi

Chapter 168 The Truth Association: Rewards and Trouble

Before 10 o'clock, Kurt arrived at the Harvest Church as scheduled.

During a previous lesson, Melanie suggested renovating some windows to make the church brighter, but the bishop politely declined, citing the church's dilapidated state.

Therefore, the Harvest Church still carries a slightly dim feeling, with the holy emblem representing Mother Earth hanging quietly and sacredly above the church, silently absorbing the faith brought by the few believers.

To Kurt's surprise, he saw Claire, Kuhn's wife, and Lucy and Fran's mother, in a corner of the church.

Kurt remembered that his whole family had converted to the Earth Mother Goddess. After thinking for a moment, Kurt went up and greeted her.

"Good morning, madam. How have you been?"

Just as Claire finished donating £10 in cash and was about to leave, she heard Kurt's greeting. She turned around abruptly and, seeing it was Kurt, gave him a genuine smile.

"Oh God, praise be to the Mother Goddess." She crossed her arms perfectly and skillfully in a standard prayer gesture. "Thank you again, Father. We are happier than ever before."

Kurt knew that when she said "before," she meant the time when Kuhn was stabbed before he was trusted, so he returned a standard prayer.

"The Mother Goddess blesses every kind soul, which means your family's character has been approved by the Mother Goddess." Kurt

After finishing the formalities, they finally asked about other things, "Didn't Kuhn come?"

"Every day he gets up and goes to handle matters related to the foundation. Of course, I'm glad he's found his passion again." Claire said, a happy smile on her face. "After the last incident, he's no longer rigid. He's reconnected with old friends and is tracking down the demon who escaped Backlund."

"Lucy often mentions that she misses your classes. She says the teachers at the grammar school aren't as good as you. Fran goes to the East End every night to teach the children there for free —"

Listening to the woman's somewhat incoherent ramblings, Kurt simply smiled and nodded occasionally, quietly listening until she finished speaking.

"Anyway, Lucy and Fran, Kuhn and I both hope you can visit our home sometime—"

Ah, it's the beauty of humanity. After hearing this, Kurt truly felt the beauty of humanity and then smiled and said, "I'll make time to go there. I can discuss some details with Kuhn."

In fact, extending an invitation in person was not in accordance with Ruen's etiquette, but neither the Kuen family, who had experienced a period of hardship, nor the more casual Kurt paid too much attention to these minor details.

After chatting about some other things, Claire realized she had accidentally said too much, and then said goodbye to Kurt with an apologetic look on her face.

Kurt breathed a sigh of relief, quickened his pace to avoid a few acquaintances, and made his way deeper into the church. If he got entangled again, he might be late.

They arrived at the familiar room and saw Melanie talking to a bat perched on a giant raven.

The crow was Walker, whom I hadn't seen in a long time, and the bat was Vivian, whom Melanie had spent the day with.

Walker is still quite well-behaved even at times like this, Kurt coughed lightly to acknowledge his arrival.

Melanie stopped talking, turned around, and was still wearing the same old outfit—but with some differences in the details; it consisted of many identical pieces of clothing.

"Kut, the Sanctuary has provided a plan: I need to negotiate with the local vampires, then conduct an on-site investigation of the castle that is suspected to exist underground, and assess its value and threat."

"Is there anything I can do?" Kurt asked, expertly pulling up a chair and sitting down. "Or is our participation necessary for this mission?"

"Your involvement is unnecessary. It's the residence of a demigod, so our presence won't be of much use. There's an insurmountable gap between Sequence Five and Sequence Four, but the Church's demigods can't come to Backlund, so the final demigod traits will belong to the vampires."

Melanie paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "Of course, we can absolutely ask the Church of the Night for help. Do you know why we have to ask the vampires for help?"

Kurt was already used to being with Melanie, so he knew perfectly well that she had now entered teaching mode.

He then pondered for a moment and said hesitantly, "The benefits of cooperating with the vampires are definitely greater. Vampires can only advance by waiting for the accidental death of a member of their own clan, killing an artificial vampire, or dying of old age to gain extra traits. The extraordinary traits of a demigod are equivalent to reliably adding another demigod to the local clan, which is indeed a great benefit to them."

"This way they might pay a higher price for extraordinary traits and gain the friendship of the vampires—but if they inform the Church of the Night, the biggest winner will definitely be the one who sends the demigods."

Melanie nodded. This was perfectly normal reasoning; she was just used to letting her students think for themselves.

"So, I will keep an eye on them to prevent them from pocketing the spoils, and you can be considered the hero of this matter. You just need to wait to receive a substantial reward."

Without taking any risks, you can still get paid. It's basically like making money while lying down. Although Kurt did have the idea of ​​going to see it himself, having a demigod who was about to lose control was still too dangerous.

At this point, Melanie added with a smile, "Because of your important contribution to the rat infestation that could have caused a disaster, and your defeat of a high-ranking member of the Truth Association, the three major churches and our church will all reward you."

"Thanks to your timely intelligence, the three major churches stopped the spread of the disaster. A total of 6000 pounds has probably already been deposited into your account. As for the churches, the Holy Church will remove the evil god's contamination from the suspected Clockmaker's Path Sequence 5 trait you submitted for free. After that, this trait will be your reward."

"The three major churches are hunting me down while simultaneously paying me off—" Kurt suppressed a slightly uneasy emotion before asking, "Are you sure they're members of the Truth Association?"

The candlelight flickered in the dim room. Melanie adjusted her glasses and said, "It's definitely the Truth Society. There's more information hidden in that room that you didn't discover before. Their meeting place is in there."

"But when we went there, their members had already left, meaning your profiling" was disrupted, and the anomaly wasn't discovered.

"This is an extraordinary ability enhanced by Source Matter! I didn't think of this at all at the time, otherwise Kurt could have used the power of Source Matter to eliminate these mystical protections—" Kurt nodded solemnly and said, "This proves that there are quite a few cultists from the Truth Society active in Backlund—"

"And because they operate very secretly, and since they haven't been in Backlund for long, they haven't captured any living members yet. This spirit was also completely devoured by the Mother Tree of Desire." Melanie sighed and continued, "They seem to possess some kind of demigod-level method to shield themselves from a lot of mystical detection—they're very difficult to deal with."