Su Cheng: "..."
Su Cheng originally didn't want to talk about this because she felt it was a bit embarrassing, but since the other party brought it up, she couldn't be bothered to beat around the bush.
Su Cheng: "If you are talking about another kind of divine aura, that is the God of Purity."
That was a deity personally promoted by the God of Light. The power of the Seven Gods of Glory was all bestowed by the God of Light, only their divine domains were different, so their manifestations varied.
But in terms of aura, because they shared the same origin, they were generally of the same type.
"The God of Purity?" Sasha revealed a subtle look. "Are you saying the person you met claimed to be Cessia?"
Su Cheng was speechless. "What do you mean—he didn't claim to be, he obviously was, and many clerics saw him together with me!"
Sasha: "...'Saw'?"
Su Cheng: "Yes, just saw. I didn't even touch him! He got upset just from being looked at a couple of times, and even threatened me!"
Sasha narrowed his eyes. "You sound very wronged."
"Shouldn't I be? I didn't have any blasphemous thoughts at the time; I purely thought he looked very beautiful."
Su Cheng paused. "Although I did say the wrong thing, I didn't mean to provoke him. God, this is my own problem. I really should talk less, especially when I don't know anything."
Sasha looked at her thoughtfully, as if finally realizing what was wrong. "Is that so."
Su Cheng threw her hands up. "Yeah, strictly speaking, it wasn't his true body, probably just an apparition? I'm not sure either."
Sasha: "..."
The silver-haired young man looked weird. "What the hell is he doing."
Su Cheng shrugged. "I can understand some of his anger, but if we don't mention the unicorn and only talk about the previous incident, I am the unlucky victim. That guy was probably just using me to provoke him; I was just a tool for him to cause trouble. My only mistake was probably going to the temple in the first place—"
"Oh," Sasha tilted his head, "Of course you are not wrong, darling. Although I don't know the whole story, since it involves the Holy Church and those so-called deities, I am one hundred percent sure everything is their fault."
Su Cheng: "?"
Su Cheng couldn't help but feel her favorability towards him multiply. "Right?"
The vampire smiled. "Yes, they have killed my kin. I know the true colors of those things very well. But if you keep dawdling, I will just carry you over."
Su Cheng gave him a massive eye roll. "I was about to go inside, you were the one who pulled me back, okay?!"
"By the way," he said, turning a deaf ear to her, "Camus told you to bring all that succubus blood with you—"
The City of Jinpo was shrouded in the night. The two walked through the bustling streets. The mercenary guild hall was still noisy, filled with the strong aroma of alcohol.
Perhaps because it was evening, people at several tables in the corners were drinking.
Su Cheng glanced from afar and suddenly saw a familiar figure.
A silver-haired boy was sitting with his back to her in the crowd. He seemed to sense something and turned his head at the same time.
Su Cheng waved at him.
The silver-haired boy stood up and walked straight over.
"Your Excellency Xiao Lan," Su Cheng smiled and greeted him. "According to our agreement, I need to let you know that I will probably go to the Cross Star to study."
"I know," Xiao Lan nodded slightly. "Their Academy of Bravery also sent me a letter. Perhaps we really can be classmates."
"However, I am in the Academy of Mysteries." Su Cheng said uncertainly, "We probably won't be able to take classes together, unless there are some shared electives?"
Xiao Lan fell into thought. "Actually, I am also an elemental resonator. How about I go ask the people at the Academy of Mysteries? I wonder if there are any spots left?"
Su Cheng: "......I can answer that question for you. Only one spot was allocated here. If you want to go, we will have to duel."
As a member of the Silver Wing Mercenary Group, Xiao Lan also attracted a lot of attention in the mercenary guild. Many people passing by knew him, and more than one person was listening to their conversation.
Hearing this, everyone cast sidelong glances.
Su Cheng had only been here twice and was ultimately an unfamiliar face. Someone couldn't help but ask who she was.
A well-informed person immediately got excited and whispered about her deeds.
They described her as a master of unorthodox arts who was proficient in curses, and also said she had joined a B-rank mercenary group whose leader looked low-key but was actually extremely dangerous to mess with.
At least in this guild, more than one group of people had already been beaten up by him.
"Is that so?" Xiao Lan was also a bit surprised. "Although I look forward to sparring with you, I think the current me is probably no match for you."
The nearby mercenaries immediately burst into an uproar.
He still had the rank insignia of a Grand Battle Master on him. That gleaming shield and silver longsword emblem both proved his identity as a Tier 6 Warrior.
And the person next to him was just a Tier 2 Mage.
—He actually said he was no match?!
Everyone became more and more certain that the mage's emblem was just a disguise. Her main identity was definitely not an elemental mage; this was mostly just a side job.
Su Cheng: "..."
This guy definitely knew she was a God-Favored, otherwise there was something wrong with his brain.
Su Cheng: "No matter who wins or loses, we won't be able to be classmates, unless I give up this spot and then we both roll over to the Academy of Blades to be magic warriors."
Xiao Lan's eyes lit up. "That sounds pretty good too."
Su Cheng's head was full of black lines. "Do you really want to be classmates with me that much?"
"Just joking," Xiao Lan smiled. "I wouldn't make such a rude request to you. Besides, I am not at school most of the time. Anyway, thank you for your time. I assume you and your group members still have things to do?"
"Glad you finally noticed," Sasha clapped his hands. "I thought you two were planning to have breakfast together."
The surrounding Silver Wing members all stared at him with unfriendly gazes, but they soon realized he was not human.
—Some characteristics of vampires were quite obvious.
Their gazes shifted.
Although many vampires had defected to the Secret Cult of Eternal Night and become the minions of the Dark God, vampires were not quite the same as demons and were not universally recognized as darkspawn.
Therefore, the Holy Church's attitude towards vampires also seemed somewhat ambiguous.
Although they had killed many vampires, those were either openly hostile to the Holy Church or branded as heretics.
In the Church's territory, ordinary vampires might be subjected to strict scrutiny, but only to confirm that they were not believers of the Dark God.
But in any case, their long lifespans and formidable vitality also endowed vampires with knowledge and power far surpassing that of ordinary intelligent races.
So ordinary people dared not provoke them.
"...Apologies," Xiao Lan apologized politely.
He blinked, a hint of confusion flashing in his azure eyes. "Have I met you somewhere, sir?"
"Perhaps," Sasha glanced at him, "if you've been to enough places."
The vampire's tone was not very polite, and the expressions of the Silver Wing members didn't look too good, but ordinary people were unwilling to provoke these long-lived species for no reason.
They were no ordinary people, yet they still felt some apprehension.
The silver-haired young man quickly pulled the young man beside him away, not giving them a chance to pick a fight.
When Su Cheng entered the Black Flame's conference room, she was almost knocked over by the strong smell of medicine.
She smelled a putrid sourness, like rotten fruit soaked in a bloody jar of corpses, followed by the bitter scent of moldy herbs mixed with a choking, bloody stench.
"...What the hell?!"
She couldn't help but dry heave a couple of times, nearly throwing up her previous dinner—fortunately, it had been a long time since she last ate.
Several pitch-black charred stones were piled on the long table. Golden-red flames burned among the stones, and a silver-white crucible was tilted above them.
The surface of the crucible had long and short dark red marks, like dried bloodstains.
Various materials were scattered on the table nearby.
Shriveled and sharp bird claws, moth wings with green mold spots, shrunken plant roots, and some crystal bottles with traces of various colored liquids.
There was also a large pile of parchment covered with calculation formulas. The handwriting looked very scribbled, but the arrangement was extremely neat.
Camus stood to the side with his arms crossed.
He had taken off his coat and wasn't wearing a hat. His dark golden curly hair was slightly messy, with damp strands sticking to his forehead from sweat.
Those cold, hard cyan-blue eyes were fixed on the crucible.
The blood mage's shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing his firm forearms with clear muscle definition. The veins on the back of his hands stood out, and his long, slender fingers tapped restlessly.
Su Cheng pinched her nose and looked at him. "Please tell me this is for bathing or soaking feet."
"Don't even think about it," Camus didn't even lift his head. "It's for drinking."
"No way—"
Su Cheng shrieked miserably.
She screamed twice and suddenly stopped. "Wait, will drinking it get rid of the curse forever? If so, I'm willing. I'd even eat crap if you asked me to."
Camus: "......No."
"So it's just an experimental drug?" Su Cheng facepalmed. "I still have the succubus blood, how about we just use that to survive a few more times?"
Camus shook his head slightly. "Your curse situation is a bit different. It might work the first time, but if you drink it again later, the effect will be greatly reduced. I asked you to bring all the blood, did you bring it?"
Su Cheng took out several specially made crystal bottles, which were used to store magic potions and could maintain the activity of the potion to a certain extent. They were all filled with succubus blood.
If she hadn't lacked such bottles, she might have had the succubus save more that day.
But her predecessor was just an ordinary elemental mage and only had a superficial understanding of the field of magic potions, having only made a few very simple potions.
So she wouldn't have a lot of related item inventory.
Camus picked up one of the bottles, poured a few drops into a very shallow dish-like vessel, studied it for a while, and revealed a subtle expression.
"It's about what I thought. This succubus is somewhat special—"
He looked up at her. "You have two choices. Right now, I am ninety percent sure that I can make it so you will never die from the curse acting up in the future."
"That sounds pretty good?"
"But it might make the frequency of your curse flare-ups unstable. The second option is to drastically extend the interval between each flare-up, but if it is not relieved, you might still die."
"...Then I definitely choose the first one! Is your ninety percent certainty reliable or not?"
"My suggestion is," the blood mage narrowed his eyes slightly. "You drink the potion first."
As he spoke, he poured all the succubus blood into the potion.
Su Cheng: "Wait a minute, do you need to use it all?"
Camus raised his hand. "This barely meets the required dosage."
Su Cheng: "..."
That's fine then.
Su Cheng sighed, looking at the bizarre pot of potion. "There are so many ways to relieve curses in this world. Did you deliberately choose the one that tortures me the most?"
"There are indeed other ways," the blood mage said lightly. "But your ability to endure pain is appallingly poor. Do you remember how you cried here last time?"
Su Cheng looked at the ceiling. "That was a physiological reaction."
The blood mage sneered. "You almost flipped this table, if you had the strength."
Su Cheng: "That's because you hurt me too much."
The blonde man's eyes darkened, and his steel-blue eyes swept heavily over her. "...That's what I'm saying."
Su Cheng was about to take a deep breath to argue with him, but was nauseated again by the smell. "Alright, I'll drink it when the curse is about to act up next time."
Camus raised an eyebrow slightly. "We had an agreement, right? As long as it is to remove your curse, and as long as it doesn't endanger your life, you must obey me."
"...The exact words were that I would cooperate with you," Su Cheng said blankly. "Also, don't think I don't know you just want to use me as an experimental subject."
She looked at the steaming pot of potion.
Now it showed a strange dark red color. White lumps resembling bone fragments floated in the bubbles, and various plant powders floated on the surface.
It looked exactly like the boiling corpse of something.
"By the way," Su Cheng said with difficulty. "...Can I eat something sweet after drinking it?"
"After a while."
Camus casually picked up a small hourglass, turned it upside down, placed it on the table, and pointed at it.
Su Cheng widened her eyes, watching the fine sand slowly flow down from the narrow neck. Judging from the speed it was decreasing at the top, this thing would take at least ten minutes to finish flowing.
Ten minutes!
The bad taste in her mouth would have already faded by then!
She wailed in agony, "Fine, I'll drink it. How much do I have to drink each time? Don't tell me it's that whole pot."
Camus looked at the crucible. "Oh, no, this is only half a pot."
Su Cheng: "?"
Su Cheng tried to find a trace of a joke on his face.
Camus continued, "There is another half pot. Because it's missing an ingredient, it hasn't been made yet, so you drink this first."
Su Cheng: "...Missing what? Wait, since it's missing something, why don't I wait until you gather everything and drink it together? Drinking it now won't do much good, right?"
"But it helps me observe your reaction—"
Camus looked at the potion in the crucible, snapped his fingers, and the flames beneath extinguished on their own. He slowly and methodically began to ladle out the potion.
"A gel extracted from the sap of the Shadow-Eroding Vine," the blood mage said casually, "and some other similar magical materials, are all being held in the Church's temple."
Su Cheng was taken aback. "You want me to go ask for some?"
"No," he shook his head. "You have to go steal them."
Su Cheng's face twisted in agony.
How could she still not escape this kind of plotline?!
Besides, in the original novel, when Lin Yun went to the temple to steal things, it happened around chapters one or two hundred, and he had a lot more skills by then.
Although he wasn't a God's Favored, the power of a God's Favored wasn't exactly convenient for stealing things anyway.
"If you're worried the Church won't be willing to give it," Su Cheng sighed. "I don't think it would come to that. His Eminence the Archbishop should give me some face, and besides, we don't need that much, right?"
The two men in the conference room both stared at her.
"...That's not the problem."
Camus said in a deep voice, "In the Ashlight Swamp in the western part of the Crimson Sun Empire, the Shadow Eclipse Vine grows there. There is also a ghoul clan settlement named Red Jaw nearby. The ghouls use their own venom to feed those magical plants, and then make gel to sell."
It is said that ghouls are the kin of the God of Death. The Grim Reaper takes away the souls of the deceased and grants them the empty flesh and bones as food.
And the God of Death happens to be one of the important allies of the God of Darkness.
Therefore, ghouls are also branded as heretics by the Church.
"When the gel of the Shadow Eclipse Vine falls into the hands of the Church, it is bound to be purified. They want to remove the residual ghoul venom in the gel, which will seriously affect its medicinal properties. We must make our move before they finish clearing out their inventory."
"Oh my god," Su Cheng covered her forehead, "I understand. Zane just talked to my uncle about this."
Sasha whistled, "That's a really intimate form of address."
"But," Su Cheng couldn't be bothered to pay attention to him, "I thought the Church's purification target should be the residual aura of those dark creatures, the kind that can corrupt people. Ghoul venom either poisons people to death, or it can be processed and used as normal medicine, right?"
Sasha cast a look as if looking at a fool, "The Church will think that once you need ghoul venom to cure a disease, then you might be a heretic. Why don't you go chat with your archbishop? Ask him if that's the case?"
Su Cheng rolled her eyes speechlessly. She would be crazy to go talk to the archbishop about this. "Forget it, I know those people aren't exactly normal either..."
She asked about their theft plan.
Camus was about to speak when the door to the meeting room was pushed open again.
A man with black hair and golden eyes walked in. He was still in his usual half-bare-chested attire, with an animal skin cloak hanging behind him. His exceptionally handsome face showed a hint of surprise.
"This smell," the commander looked a bit surprised, "I could smell it all the way in the hallway."
"Yeah," Su Cheng said weakly, "Guess what, that's my late-night snack."
Kai immediately cast a sympathetic look at her.
Su Cheng was almost moved to tears. Compared to a certain mage who was entirely focused on his experiments, and a certain vampire who took pleasure in others' misfortune, indeed, only the commander was a good person.
She was just about to express a few emotional words when she suddenly heard her stomach growling.
"Oh?" Camus turned to look at her, "Hungry?"
Su Cheng felt her hair stand on end under his stare. "My last meal was indeed last night, but that doesn't mean I want to drink the stuff in your pot."
The blood mage slowly curled the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile devoid of any emotion, which even looked a bit sinister.
"If you notice, they are no longer in the pot. But you might be too hungry to see clearly."
He picked up the large glass bottle on the table and walked over menacingly.
The deep red liquid inside the bottle kept sloshing around.
The bone fragments floating and sinking inside hit the inner walls, making a faint noise.
Su Cheng stared at the bottle that was almost bigger than her head: "......"
Su Cheng turned and threw herself at the commander, "Help!"
