When the plot-skips players into the game world-Chapter 456 - 357: Cause and Consequence
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Merlin pushed his monocle up slightly.
A deep blue ring appeared in front of the glasses, and then a glowing auxiliary magic circle unfolded along with those twinkling runes, making it look like a virtual panel.
He focused intently on the grimoire in Aiwass’s hands, and after a while suddenly furrowed his brows, revealing a puzzled expression.
...What is a Grimoire of Sin?
As an Angel Envoy of the Path of Wisdom, Merlin certainly had the ability to identify extraordinary items. In fact, during the time of the Round Table, Merlin was Avalon’s best appraiser.
He could discern the effects of this item.
However, he didn’t know what a "Phantom Card" or "Sin Card" was.
—Could this be the legacy brought by the Holy Entity?
"Aiwass," Merlin began very cautiously, "did you just... see anything special?"
"...Special?"
"It’s the ’Holy Entity’ I mentioned earlier. It could be a snake, or possibly a ring, or maybe a cloud of smoke, or a demon. It’s the will residing within the remnants of that Incubus."
Merlin provided a slightly more precise answer: "Do you remember?"
Despite maintaining a mystifying and omniscient demeanor in front of Aiwass, Merlin didn’t actually know much, and was even surprised by this calling of fate.
His initial motivation for coming to the "Valley of the Beheaded" was just to check on the Ceremony of Avalon’s Shadow. This intelligence only came to him after he saw Aiwass in a dream.
After inspecting, he found that not only had Jacob modified the ceremony he left behind, but he had also left something else.
Merlin even saw that woman Vivian nearby... She was not an Angel Envoy who came out to play like him but had directly abandoned the power of the Path of Love to reincarnate as a mortal.
This unusual behavior surprised Merlin—because that woman wasn’t the type to let herself be put in a passive position; although her actions seemed mad and extreme, they were always rational.
Vivian was always very clear about her own goals, harsh on others as well as on herself. Despite committing many crazy acts, they were not emotion-driven, but interest-driven... Her madness mainly lay in the speed of her "abandonment."
Most people tend to hold onto what they already have. They would try to solve problems within the scope of their abilities. Even if something doesn’t serve an immediate purpose, they wouldn’t discard it right away; they would keep it to see if it might be useful later.
But Vivian was different.
She sincerely fell in love with Merlin, and invested passionate true feelings. And after achieving her own ends from him, she coldly severed their connection and sealed Merlin inside a tree;
She also cared for Lancelot like a mother, and by such a grand achievement, ascended as an Angel Envoy. After fulfilling her purpose, she decisively cut off the mother-son relationship and never saw Lancelot again.
She was always in pursuit of more, trading the less for the more. And she always managed to find more.
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But now she had unabashedly discarded the status and power of an Angel Envoy, directly fleeing into the Material Realm—such an attitude can only be described as flight because her reincarnation certainly wasn’t permitted by the Shadowy Celestial Marshal. In other words, she had even given up everything she had up until now and became a mortal again.
This caused Merlin extraordinary unease.
Following this clue further, he found the remnants of the Incubus from Aiwass’s promotion ceremony and discovered the Book of Law and Seals left by Jacob, from which he learned about the Ring of Ouroboros ceremony.
In the end, it was the information provided by the wavering, disloyal werewolf Ye Zhi that allowed Merlin to understand the whole picture a step ahead of Aiwass—though, to be exact, it was only about ten minutes before Aiwass.
But that was all he knew.
However, upon being questioned by Merlin, Aiwass felt a stirring inside.
He suddenly realized that this might be a good opportunity...?
The secrets Aiwass knew before, whether it was the method of changing classes to become a Great Sin Scholar or something else, Aiwass couldn’t share with anyone else.
Because he didn’t have a reasonable source of information—he didn’t even know any Transcendents before this, and the only knowledge he had of the supernatural world came from the library of his Foster Father James.
But Aiwass produced the ceremony that allowed Meg to reincarnate, and gifted Sherlock with a new profession he had never heard of.
Both Meg and Sherlock must have made their doubts about Aiwass. But Meg leaned towards pragmatism, not pondering things she couldn’t understand; Sherlock had already decided not to take Aiwass too seriously... but it couldn’t always be this way.
And now was a perfect chance!
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"I did see something," Aiwass said, his expression grave. "I saw the past, saw Grandfather conversing with a mysterious being. That being imparted some special knowledge to Grandfather—among them were rituals I have never seen before... Besides, it also showed some intelligence about the future."
"The future?"
Merlin was not interested in the rituals, but upon hearing about the future, repeated it, then cocked his head, thought for a moment, and nodded, "Oh, that makes sense—do you remember what It said?"
"It didn’t say much, and what it did say were riddles. Just like the prophecies of seers... But after that, a flood of knowledge rushed through my mind. It swept past and then almost entirely vanished, leaving only a few blurry impressions," Aiwass explained earnestly.
"But I feel, once I meet a certain condition, I will be able to recall it!" he said.
Every word he said was truth.
Even if Merlin were to use a lie detector, it could only give the answer "truth."
But Aiwass had skillfully changed the order of his words, as if what he had seen was not knowledge of rituals, but fragments of the future.
He began, "Like, that holy being once said... ’Chosen as the pillars’ angels and priests will be the Priests of the Great Beast.’ I think the meaning of this sentence is..."
Aiwass paused suddenly there.
Merlin looked over curiously, but Aiwass’s expression changed abruptly as he looked up at the sky.
—Originally, he was just picking a familiar line to bamboozle Merlin.
But Aiwass himself had realized the meaning of the sentence halfway through speaking!
Because in that instant, Aiwass figured out something.
In the game, the original "Aiwass" was the discoverer of the Great Sin Scholar career. Likewise, he was also the first Master of Beasts...
When Jacob and that "Holy Entity" left behind that sentence, Aiwass hadn’t even been born yet. In other words, even if Aiwass had traveled back from birth with dormant memories... He could not have changed the world of more than a decade ago before his arrival.
In other words, even according to the original timeline, Jacob must have left this book here!
So when did Aiwass obtain the promotion to the Great Sin Scholar?
Because Aiwass was unaware of that part of the story, he could only infer from the subsequent setup what had happened at that time.
By that time, Avalon was gone, and Foster Father James had already disappeared. Until the Fallen Celestial Marshal’s descent, "Aiwass," refusing to use humans for ritual materials, was still just a novice Demon Scholar barely at level thirty. Running around with the players, he barely got his hands on anything.
Furthermore, the Fallen Celestial Marshal was still alive then. That is to say, "Aiwass" could only possibly have changed careers after the players defeated the Fallen Celestial Marshal with Isabel.
By then, Avalon had already turned into Shadow Nation. Considering that Hayna had already become the "Hyena," it’s likely that Eagle Cape Village no longer existed either.
In other words, the original storyline’s "Aiwass" switched to the Great Sin Scholar after the events with the Holy Nation and Star Antimony were over, following the player back to Avalon once again.
Aiwass likely got the "Book of Law" then, which allowed him to pull out the career progression from Great Sin Scholar to Master of Beasts out of thin air!
[You must know, chosen as the pillars’ angels and priests will be the Priests of the Great Beast.]
[Bind the words of Great Sin!]
The words of that holy entity echoed in the depths of Aiwass’s heart.
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—Great Beasts, Great Sin.
...No wonder, the grimoire he received was actually the exclusive weapon of the Great Sin Scholar, a career that simply didn’t exist in the current version of the game.
When Aiwass got it, he hadn’t thought deeply about it, but now he finally understood—
The causality was reversed!
Cause, then effect—
The original Aiwass got this book and then the two careers came into being!
