One day later, Black Robe Town.
The bustling streets were loud and gaudy. Beautiful girls in outlandish, gorgeous clothes wove through the neon lights, while mature, sexy older women made no secret of their charms. The night could not hide the laughter flowing through the streets, and all that splendor built a prosperity that did not belong to this era.
Yaxiu's arm was bumped. He turned and saw a great beauty whose figure could only be described as a miracle. Her hair fell in waves, and she wore a deep-V gown; the deep valley of her cleavage seemed designed to gather every gaze. Even through that light brush and the fabric between them, Yaxiu could feel how smooth and springy the part that had just bumped him was.
She smiled at Yaxiu and continued down the street as if nothing had happened. Beauties of her caliber filled the entire street, a dazzling array beyond counting, like heaven.
And that was also what made it most regrettable.
The whole street was like that, without a single exception.
Including him and Igola beside him.
"What kind of weirdos were the people of the Blue Bird Divine Era..." Yaxiu covered his face and sighed. "How could anyone follow a grand law like this!?"
"Blood Moon's harsh pursuit of good looks has the same tendency. If you've been to Blood Moon University, you'd rarely see an ugly student there. Even the ogres have delicate features." Igola spoke calmly. "If the Blue Bird Divine Era was more developed and advanced than Blood Moon, it's not hard to understand how the worship of beauty could run rampant."
"Why are you so calm!?"
"You know, before the Bloodmad Hunter arrested me, even the people who worked with me didn't know my true face. Guess what identity I used when dealing with them?"
"Since you're so familiar with it, go buy the things yourself. I'm going back to the inn—"
"I can't handle it alone." Igola hooked the back collar of Yaxiu's clothes and dragged him along. "Tamaxi needs healing, Harvey can't stop eating, and the only ones who can move freely are us."
After accepting the Transcendent Cult's gift and leaving on a Transcendent-brand motorcycle, Yaxiu and the others arrived at the Qin Sun Alliance's most prosperous trade hub—Black Robe Town.
Black Robe Town was directly administered territory of the War Temple, one of Senluo's largest cults. Although it was called the War Temple, their ideal was peace; their method of achieving that ideal was to use war to destroy all war. It was a very easy ideal to realize, because they only needed to unify Senluo, and the War Temple's ideal would naturally be achieved.
In this Senluo wasteland, there were definitely no few people yearning for unification and peace, so the War Temple's flourishing was almost inevitable. Even without a War cult, there would still be a Peace Cult, a Dominion Cult, and so on.
But Black Robe Town had little to do with the War Temple. Its special nature lay in belonging to the legacy of the Third Divine Era—the Blue Bird Divine Era.
As mentioned before, the Fire Cat Divine Era created the Divine Fire system to ensure a peaceful transition to the next Divine Era. The Fire Cat sorcerers succeeded; no war erupted between Fire Cat and Blue Bird. But precisely because there was no bloody conflict, some grand laws in the Blue Bird Divine Era had utterly absurd ideals.
Black Robe Town contained a legacy called the Kaleidoscope, originating from Blue Bird's Kaleidoscope Grand Law. That grand law's ideal was: everyone becomes a beautiful girl.
Yaxiu was quite certain that this ideal originally had an "except me" prefix, but since a grand law is a dead person's obsession, naturally no such prefix was needed.
The Kaleidoscope was the Blue Bird legacy derived from that grand law. Within its area of effect, everyone regardless of sex or age would become beautiful girls of various forms. Men went without saying; women changed too—hairstyle, makeup, even clothing—a one-click transformation.
Though Yaxiu admitted it was somewhat interesting. Just as Igola said, Blood Moon Country had the same trend; it was understandable that some people in Blue Bird had nothing better to do after filling their bellies.
But Senluo was now in a wasteland era. Everyone was busy purging heretics and had not yet reached a time for spiritual enjoyment. So why had Black Robe Town, which possessed the Kaleidoscope, become a trade center?
Because the Kaleidoscope had another property: sorcery spirits slept. Within its range, all sorcery spirits fell asleep. No matter how much sorcery power a sorcerer supplied, they could not be made to work. Add in the body's conversion into a soft, fragrant beautiful girl, and even an impeccable ascetic sorcerer could only act cute here.
It was said that even Four-Wing sorcery spirits could not resist the Kaleidoscope's hypnosis. Many suspected the Kaleidoscope's true form was actually a god from the Void Realm.
Everyone losing combat power amounted to a guarantee of safety; everyone becoming a differently beautiful girl amounted to anonymity.
And those two were precisely the prerequisites trade needed most.
Kaleidoscope Black Robe Town might once have been merely a paradise where people pursued beauty, but in the Senluo wasteland, it had become the most trusted trading venue among different cults.
Some sorcerers might want to snipe people inside from outside the town, but the Kaleidoscope only worked at night. On the town's outskirts in the darkness, the Strangling Green would see to uninvited guests.
When day came and the Kaleidoscope failed, everyone returned to normal. Whether to conceal their identities or because they found it too humiliating, everyone would put on black robes or other clothing to cover themselves completely. This was the origin of the name Black Robe Town.
As Senluo's largest distribution center, Black Robe Town allowed Yaxiu and the others not only to replenish supplies but also to take the chance to buy sorcery spirits. Sorcery spirit trading was common in other countries, but absolutely rare in Senluo; most sorcery spirits circulated only within cults.
After all, if you dared sell sorcery spirits to another cult, you wouldn't be able to get past your own conscience—how could you trade with heretics? Were you aiding the enemy? Was your loyalty not absolute?
Even the Qin Sun Alliance was the same; they only watched out for and helped one another to jointly resist the Four Pillar Cult, which did not mean they had become a community of shared interests. There were only so many Divine Era positions; between them was a life-or-death zero-sum game, not win-win cooperation.
Therefore, the flow of goods between cults relied on caravans—legitimate cults bartered, like the Transcendent Cult; less legitimate cults simply robbed, like the Calamitous Fire Temple.
But Black Robe Town was different. Here, as long as you didn't tell and I didn't tell, everyone was an anonymous beautiful girl; different cults traded directly, with no middleman taking a cut. Many cults had stalls here, and the War Temple tacitly allowed them to set up.
In Igola's words, this was an underground black market where everyone used a beautiful-girl avatar.
Only, as for the goods...
Yaxiu glanced at the shops by the road. Bombs, swords, and other weapons he wouldn't bother mentioning; buying and selling potent potions was also understandable. But why were they selling corpses? If he'd known, he would have called Harvey over.
Apart from these, Black Robe Town did have many goods that made Yaxiu and the others' eyes light up. Just as the Transcendent Cult still retained production lines for fantasy creations like solar motorcycles and musical instruments, other cults more or less had similar legacies—practical tools such as the "Eternal Clean Water Source," "Hawk-Eye Glasses," and "Senluo Fixed-Point Map."
There were even entertainment products like the "Grey Fox Light Screen," but since it could no longer connect to the Grey Fox server, only basic functions remained—checking the time, recording video, calculating, taking memos—plus a bonus of 1,000 Grey Fox shows.
"Ice cream cones!"
"Lemon tea!"
"Lalafell skewers!"
After walking for a while, Yaxiu's mouth never stopped. The food in his hands kept changing; he ran from one snack stall to the next, ordering this and that, then signaled Igola to pay.
"Did your body change mess with your brain through hormones?" the Swindler said while pulling out his wallet. "We're not here to go shopping."
"Here, try this."
"I'm not as much of a glutton as you."
He held the skewer out, eyes bright with expectation.
"Open wide. Aah—aah—how does it taste?"
"Just okay."
"We'll buy some to take back for Harvey and Tamaxi to try later." Yaxiu rattled on cheerfully. "Four Pillar Cult, the food-processing plant town, the Transcendent Building—we've been tangled up with Silver Lantern these past few days and haven't had a proper rest. Even if you can hold out, I can't. Back in Gospel, at least Lisi was by my side. Now it's just you few..."
"What," Igola sneered, "you want us to act cute with you like Lisi too? Then you can go find Harvey. He's not as childlike as Lisi, but I bet he could act cute right now without the slightest mismatch."
"You think Lisi is the only one who acts cute with me? I actually act cute with Lisi too." Yaxiu laughed. "Adults are just children who had no choice but to grow up."
"That's just you."
"Hmph, you'll understand once you have a daughter." Yaxiu snorted. "Besides, Mercury Trojan still hasn't told us anything about Silver Lantern. There's no use rushing—"
"Are you looking for me?"
Yaxiu and Igola whipped around and saw a silver-haired beauty appear behind them. She pointed to the open-air bar nearby, gestured for them to follow, then went over, sat down, and ordered.
It was not the first time Mercury Trojan had personally controlled a Four Pillar believer to meet them. Yaxiu and the others were used to these sudden meetings, so they followed her to the table.
The open-air bar was crowded. Many were boldly gulping down drinks and enjoying the blankness of drunkenness—sorcerers actually had a hard time getting drunk, because sorcery power nourished the body. After a year or two as a sorcerer, one was basically immune to minor problems like alcohol and diarrhea. But inside the Kaleidoscope, sorcerers became frail again and could instead experience the pleasure of emptying their minds.
But Yaxiu and Igola were here to talk, so they only ordered two ordinary drinks.
"Good evening, Yaxiu."
The silver-haired beauty said, "I heard Silver Lantern took the Resonance Strings Grand Law from the Transcendent Cult. I thought you'd be implicated... Where's the necromancer?"
"At the inn," Yaxiu said. "He turned into a dark-skinned loli and won't come out."
Harvey obviously wouldn't care about his appearance, but his main body had lost more than ten jin of weight. Add the Blood Seed parasitism, and he had to eat constantly and use sorcery spirits to speed absorption in order to make up for the loss of life energy.
"Then, Yaxiu, tell me about what happened at the Transcendent Building." The silver-haired beauty did not hide her curiosity. "How did you get out? Did you fight your way out?"
"Strange."
Igola suddenly spoke. "How did you tell which of us is which? We're both affected by the Kaleidoscope. Yaxiu now has red hair and red eyes, with no resemblance to his original body. Or rather, how exactly did you recognize us?"
"Probably by your aura," the silver-haired beauty said with a smile. "There's still quite a difference between you. As for how I recognized you... if you're willing to satisfy my curiosity, it's not impossible for me to tell you."
Yaxiu and Igola exchanged a glance, and then Yaxiu said, "We did almost get dragged down by Silver Lantern, but the Transcendent Cult has sharp eyes. They know I'm the hero who helped them—"
The silver-haired beauty said expressionlessly, "If you want to lie, could you at least switch to a mind sorcerer? That would at least be a little challenging."
"Simply put, the Transcendent Cult needs a favor from me," Yaxiu shrugged. "Also..."
"They're very fond of Harvey."
Chapter 558