There's a big problem with dreams in this world.

After a moment of silence in the room, Lu Qing looked at Lin standing in front of her and asked, "So you came to find me?"

"Mm," Lin nodded.

"Alright." Shaking her head helplessly, Lu Qing said, "I can't tell you the specifics about His Holiness the Pope. You can tell me first, and I will pass it on to His Holiness the Pope."

"......"

Lin was silent for a moment, then looked at Lu Qing and slowly said, "Actually, His Holiness the Pope is already dead."

------------

Chapter 531: Encountering the Beggar Again

As evening fell, the streets of the capital city of Vanhustan, which should have been quiet, suddenly became crowded with people.

Soldiers clad in heavy armor ran through the streets, carrying dim torches. The flickering light illuminated their armor, casting a slightly dim glow.

Inside the residential buildings on both sides of the street, some residents who noticed the soldiers watched curiously as these figures suddenly appeared on the street in the middle of the night and violently broke into a building.

"boom!"

The old wooden door was violently kicked open by the soldiers. The loud noise made the residents who saw it feel a little uneasy. These soldiers could kick open their own doors at any time if they wanted to, although under normal circumstances, they would not do so.

Recently, similar incidents have been occurring frequently, with a large number of cult members being captured by the kingdom's soldiers. In addition, human traffickers, drug dealers, and other criminals have also been uncovered along the way.

"Damn it, the Sacred Tree Festival is almost here, and those cultists don't even know when to shut up for a minute," the squad leader leading the inspection team muttered, holding a torch.

The surprise inspection was very sudden. Because a large number of people had to be mobilized, even those who should have been on rotation and resting were called out. This squad leader was one of them.

"Did you find anything?" As the squad leader entered the building, he smelled a pungent odor of blood and asked the vice-captain beside him.

"Reporting, Captain, it's strange. After we came in, we only found a large number of cultist corpses and some kind of blood-red stone." The vice-captain frowned, looking somewhat puzzled.

"In addition, there are many patterns drawn with blood on the walls."

"Hmm." The squad leader nodded and said, "Take me to see those patterns. As for the stone you mentioned, it's a kind of stone called bloodstone that these cultists have been collecting recently. It's made from human flesh and blood."

"Those things were transformed from humans?" The vice-captain stared in disbelief at the bloodstones scattered on the ground, gaining a deeper understanding of the madness of the Guiji Cult.

What they didn't notice, or rather, what they didn't know, was that the bloodstones scattered on the ground had long lost their blood-red luster, indicating that they had already been used.

.......

“It’s like this again…” Lu Qing and Knight Myron stood inside the house, looking at the scene in the room and said.

He and Knight Myron had already been to the three places Lin had mentioned, but in each place they only saw the corpses of the Silent Cultists, the used Bloodstone, and the eerie symbols smeared with blood on the walls.

"What did the mages say?" Lu Qing asked Lin, who was standing outside the room, as she came out of the room.

"The mages can't figure out the meaning of those strange symbols. They say they're not recorded in any known magic books, and even the symbols drawn in different locations are different..." Lin paused, her expression somewhat strange, and continued:

“They believe these symbols are meaningless and may just be randomly drawn by crazy cultists.”

“It was just drawn on randomly, I wish it were like that…” Lu Qing said with a headache. Those faded bloodstones were definitely proof that they had been used, but they had no idea what those cultists had done with the bloodstones.

"Perhaps those scribbles are just a smokescreen, something used to attract attention..." Lu Qing thought to herself, looking down.

“No.” Shaking her head, Lu Qing realized that her thinking was pointless, because she was not a professional mage and did not have extensive knowledge. This kind of thing should be done by a professional.

"Sir Myron, let's go find Moruni." Just then, Lu Qing thought of someone and said.

"You know Moruni?" Knight Myron paused for a moment after hearing Lu Qing's words, and said with some surprise.

"Of course I know. I'm not a princess for nothing. I also know that the sorceress who did my divination that day was Mo Luni." Lu Qing rolled her eyes in annoyance and said, "Let's go, time is of the essence."

"Yes." Without questioning how Lu Qing knew, Knight Myron quickly followed behind her.

About fifteen minutes later, the two arrived at the door of the magic house where Moruni was. Presumably because it was getting dark, the door of the magic house was closed, and there was a wooden sign on it that read "Closed".

Lu Qing didn't care whether Mo Luni was still closed or not. She took two steps forward and gently knocked on the door of the magic house.

"......"

No one responded. After thinking for a moment, Lu Qing gave Knight Myron a look, signaling him to shout and see if he could call over Mage Moruni.

Knight Myron gave Lu Qing a knowing look, stepped forward, and suddenly raised his right leg, kicking the door of the magic house hard.

"boom!!"

The door to the magic house trembled violently, but surprisingly, it wasn't kicked open by Knight Myron. Something resembling a magic circle appeared on the door, perhaps this was what resisted Knight Myron's power.

"Which bastard kicked my door?!" A familiar voice rang out from inside the magic house, and a moment later, Moruni, dressed in a light purple magic robe, walked out of the house.

"Long time no see, Moruni," Knight Myron said with a smile and a wave.

"It's only been three months, what are you doing kicking my door for no reason?" When Mo Luni saw that it was Knight Myron standing in front of her, her anger instantly subsided by half. She said, "Speak, what do you and Her Highness the Princess want with me?"

Although Knight Myron's approach was not quite the same as what Lu Qing had indicated, the fact that it was successful was a good thing. With that in mind, Lu Qing said, "I would like to ask you to take a look at some things. I have shown them to most of the mages, but they have not been able to analyze anything."

"What is it? Is it that important?" Moruni's expression turned serious. She turned around, opened the door of the magic house, and said, "Don't talk about it here. Come with me."

The three entered the magic house. Mo Luni led Lu Qing to the room where they had last performed a divination and said, "Tell me, what is it?"

"It's like this..." Lu Qing explained the information she had obtained about the Guiji Cult and the results she had obtained after conducting an on-site investigation.

"Do you have any pictures?" Mo Luni asked.

“Yes,” Lu Qing said, taking out the patterns recorded by the mages using magic from her bosom.

"..." After staring at the picture for a while, Mo Luni threw it into the alchemical furnace not far away and said, "It's all fake, just something to attract attention."

"Hey, apprentice, get out there and get to work!" Mo Luni called out to the room on the second floor.

"Here he comes." A young man who looked somewhat familiar came down from the second floor. He looked tired, with heavy dark circles under his eyes.

"You are... that beggar from back then?" Lu Qing quickly recognized him and asked.

------------

Chapter 532: The Sacred Tree Festival Begins!

"You are..." The young man was stunned when he heard Lu Qing's words. He looked at Lu Qing and his expression instantly became very excited.

"You're the one who saved me that day..." The young man suddenly noticed the crown on Lu Qing's head, and his expression instantly became somewhat flustered: "You, you are Her Highness the Princess?"

"Hmm." Lu Qing nodded, then looked at the young man with some curiosity and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Don't you know?" The young man looked puzzled and said, "Didn't you ask the teacher to take me in? If it weren't for you, I might have starved to death outside by now."

"Ahem..." Mo Luni coughed lightly twice, interrupting their conversation, "Alright, stop reminiscing and get down to business."

"Why did you save me? I thought you'd be annoyed that I delayed the customers and made them leave..." After waking up, the young man found himself lying in a room inside a magic shop, and the person who brought him there was none other than the female shopkeeper who had insulted him outside the door earlier.

"Heh, I don't care whether you live or die, but that little girl who fed you earlier gave me a large sum of money and asked me to take care of you." Mo Luni stirred the potion in her hand, lying through her teeth, "Of course, I also happened to be short of an apprentice, so I naturally agreed."

"She's still a proud and aloof person..." Lu Qing thought to herself, quite surprised, as she looked at the contents of her diary.

Lu Qing glanced at the mage Mo Luni and decided it was best not to expose her; after all, she was an elderly person, so she should give her some face.

"So what did you discover?" Lu Qing asked Mo Luni.

“Probably.” Mo Luni’s answer surprised Lu Qing. She said, “I can’t understand those scribbles either, and I’m sure that if you give them to any mage, they wouldn’t be able to figure out what’s wrong with those scribbles.”

"I'm just guessing. Those scribbled symbols are just a smokescreen. What those cultists really want to do is probably related to astrology."

As she spoke, Mo Luni activated the runes on the room's walls. Soon, pale blue and pale purple light illuminated every corner of the room, and an artificial "starry sky" appeared before Lu Qing.

"The locations of those cult members that you gave me before, if you consider them as stars connected together in the starry sky..."

"Magic Index 52, Zodiac Trajectory 31, temporarily ignoring the Moon's influence..."

With each sentence Mo Luni spoke, the young man adjusted various data on something resembling a control panel. Soon, after about five minutes, the entire "starry sky" was adjusted to the shape Mo Luni wanted.

Frowning, Moruni extended her crimson staff, drawing out a line of magic that connected the stars together.

"Make some adjustments: change the moon to the sun, increase the magic index to 87, and decrease the star trail to 6..."

As Mo Luni spoke, her eyes were fixed on the changes in the stars in the "starry sky." Soon, the stars that had not been connected before reconnected.

"Phew." Letting out a long breath, Mo Luni said, "Test over."

As the starry sky slowly dissipated, Lu Qing looked at Mo Luni, whose expression was serious, and quickly asked, "How did it go?"

Shaking her head, Moruni said, "This is definitely some kind of ritual magic, and it's a ritual magic that will be activated at a specific time, and it's a super-large-scale one at that."

"Do you know exactly what kind of magic it is?" Knight Myron couldn't help but interject.

The sheer scale of the ritual magic—just hearing that one sentence, and then connecting it to the locations where those cultists operated, gave Knight Myron goosebumps.

“I don’t know.” Mo Luni shook her head and said, “This is not any known magic. I only know that the locations you gave me are not all of them. I’m afraid there are some hidden locations that you don’t know about.”

"This spell will be officially activated after the stars move to their orbits at noon tomorrow. I don't know the specific effects."

"......"

After a moment of silence in the room, Sir Myron spoke up and asked, "Is this the crisis you spoke of, the one that could destroy the entire kingdom?"

“Possibly.” Mo Luni glanced at Lu Qing and nodded when she saw that Lu Qing didn’t seem surprised.

"Is there any way to stop this ceremony?" Lu Qing asked.

“There probably is, but I don’t know if it will be useful.” Mo Luni looked at Lu Qing and said, “First of all, no matter what those scribbles are, you can’t keep them.”

“My suggestion is to demolish all the buildings at all locations and burn them together with the bodies of the cult members.”

"Don't overlook the underground either. Dig as deep as you can. The magic array might be hidden underground. In addition, send soldiers to guard all locations and don't let anyone enter the place where the ceremony will be held."

"That's all we can do. I don't know how it will turn out in the end," Mo Luni said with a somewhat helpless expression.

“That’s enough.” Lu Qing shook her head, then looked at Knight Myron and said, “Let’s go, while we still have time.”

“Okay.” Knight Myron nodded, then looked at Moruni and said, “Then we’ll be going now.”

"Go on, go on," Moruni waved her hand, watching the two leave the magic house.

“The future isn’t so easy to change, I need to make some preparations too,” Mo Luni said, standing up and stamping the red-veined wooden staff in her hand.

"Teacher, is something terrible about to happen?" The young man, who had been listening to the three's conversation, asked when he saw Mo Luni stand up.

"Yes, something big is about to happen," Mo Luni nodded and said.

"..." After a moment of silence, the young man asked with some concern, "Your Highness... will you be alright? I heard that Your Highness is the current Holy Maiden, and she's the one presiding over this year's Sacred Tree Festival. Those cultists..."

Mo Luni rolled her eyes and said, "You should worry more about yourself. She has a legendary knight protecting her."