In the afternoon, inside the King’s Campus library, Dorothy sat in a secluded corner, her expression solemn—this was the first time she had been targeted by a follow-up divination.
“The first attempt failed, so now they’re pouring in more spirituality to continue the divination? Hmph… as expected of a decently sized secret society—they’ve got some resources.”
Dorothy thought to herself. It was now apparent that the Eight-Spired Nest had likely realized that Claudius’ death wasn’t caused by the Serenity Bureau, but by another force.
“They must think I don’t belong to any major faction… Are they trying to overwhelm my anti-divination defenses with their reserves of spirituality? Or is this just probing? Either way… I’ll block this wave first.”
With that in mind, Dorothy activated the system again, consuming 1 Shadow and 1 Revelation to block the divination attempt once more.
After that, she sat quietly, silently waiting. Three or four minutes later, the system’s alert sounded again in her mind.
Warning: Information retrieval targeting host detected
“Again… So they’re dead set on pushing through, huh? Do they think I’ve already run out of spirituality?”
Dorothy frowned. She activated the system once more, blocked this third attempt, and began mentally tallying her remaining spiritual reserves.
It had been over two days since the fight with Claudius. As a Black-rank, Dorothy now recovered 4 points of spirituality per day. Her Revelation bar had completely refilled. As for Shadow, she had 9 points thanks to what she’d looted from Claudius. It should be enough to hold out.
She calmed herself and continued to wait for the next move. This time, the opponent took five or six minutes to respond.
Warning
Dorothy’s face remained serious as she blocked another wave. Six or seven minutes later, another alert rang out.
Warning
Thus began a drawn-out spiritual battle between Dorothy and the diviners—divination versus suppression. As the spiritual toll mounted, a hint of unease began to creep into Dorothy’s heart.
She knew her anti-divination capacity was much higher than most in the mysticism world, but exactly how much more? She wasn’t sure. After all, she was facing not a lone individual, but a moderately sized secret society. Whether she could endure it was uncertain. If she failed, her only choice would be to grab her things and flee—and even then, there was no guarantee she’d escape.
Despite the doubt gnawing at her, Dorothy reasoned that the other side likely felt the same. The increasing intervals between their divination attempts—from two to three minutes at first, then five to six—suggested growing hesitation and calculation. This implied that they too were wary of overextending their resources.
Clearly, the enemy wasn’t blind to how costly repeated failed attempts were. With each failure, they were likely debating whether to keep pushing or cut their losses. Dorothy couldn’t be sure how much divination power they had, just as they couldn’t gauge her defensive capabilities.
To the other side, this was gambling. The next attempt might be the one that breaks through and reveals Dorothy’s secrets—or it might fail again, wasting even more resources. They’d already invested heavily. Abandoning the effort would mean all that was for nothing. But if they pressed on and finally succeeded, it would all have been worth it.
This standoff dragged on for quite some time.
Eventually, after Dorothy had spent six points of both Shadow and Revelation, the enemy fell silent. She waited for over half an hour without any new activity.
“It’s over? So in total, they spent six points of Lantern and six points of Revelation spiritual resources? If they’ve stopped now, does that mean they’re out?”
“No… probably not. If they’d truly exhausted all their Revelation resources, they’d have no divination power left. This feels more like they backed off after realizing they couldn’t gauge my limits…”
Dorothy pondered the situation and began to consider a counter-offensive.
“Should I… turn defense into offense now? Strike back while they’ve drained their Revelation and break through their anti-divination defenses? Cross-rank divination comes with penalties. If their lead diviner is White-rank or above, I might not be able to overpower them under the backlash.”
“As a mere Black-rank, I’m better suited to defense in a divination clash like this. Attacking puts me at a disadvantage… I can’t afford to be reckless.”
Dorothy, contemplating her dwindling spiritual reserves, knew that recklessly attacking under cross-rank penalties wasn’t a good option. Still, she wasn’t content to let this round end just like that.
“The other side just burned through 6 points of Revelation—that’s no small amount. This might be a window of opportunity. Even if I don’t go on the offensive with a divination counter, shouldn’t I at least make use of the moment somehow?”
As she thought this over, an idea slowly took shape in her mind.
“Maybe… I should first go and get a formal understanding of the value of Revelation…”
With that in mind, Dorothy gathered up her belongings from the table, stood, and briskly left the library.
She exited the campus through the east gate, made her way to Green Shade Town, and headed straight to No. 37—Beverly’s house.
Standing in front of the old-style villa, Dorothy knocked on the door as usual. It wasn’t long before it opened, revealing Beverly in a well-tailored dress, her right eye socket a hollow void.
“Well, you finally showed up,” Beverly greeted casually. Dorothy tilted her head slightly.
“You knew I’d come?”
“Of course. With the kind of commotion going on at school, it’s hard not to know. Come in—don’t just stand at the door.”
With a wave of her hand, Beverly turned and walked into the room, and Dorothy quickly followed.
In the familiar living room, Beverly sat down on the sofa and began tinkering with a pile of trinkets on the table—metal eyeballs, to be exact. She was holding one that was half-disassembled, wiping its layered glass lenses with a handkerchief.
“So, Miss Mayschoss,” Beverly said while cleaning the eye, “what kind of business brings you to me this time?”
Dorothy responded directly.
“I’d like to inquire… how much would it cost to buy a Revelation spiritual storage item from you?”
She needed to understand the market value of “Revelation.”
“A Revelation storage item, huh… Now that’s rare. Not just here—there aren’t many even in the entire White Craftsmen’s Guild of Tivian.
“Because of supply and demand, the price of all storage items fluctuates heavily. For Revelation, that fluctuation is downright outrageous. That said, the current demand for Revelation in Tivian isn’t particularly high, so prices are still manageable. If you want one, I can sell the first for 1,400 pounds. If you need more, the price will change accordingly.”
Beverly explained coolly. Hearing this, Dorothy stood frozen in shock.
“1,400 pounds… Holy crap, a single Revelation storage item costs that much? So those guys who were sparring with me just now… spent nearly 10,000 pounds in one go?”
Dorothy had anticipated that Revelation might be more valuable than average, but she hadn’t expected it to be this extreme. A single storage item going for that much was absurd.
“If I could make Revelation storage items myself, wouldn’t that make me rich beyond belief?”
She couldn’t help but think that if such a method were viable, then money would no longer be a concern for her.