CHAPTER 73: CHAPTER 14: HOW WIZARDS SOLVE PROBLEMS 2

Shawn shifted slightly in confusion.

In an instant.

The entire room was filled with residual eerie marks, like water stains invisible to the naked eye, spread throughout every corner, appearing in a faint ghostly blue. On the walls, there were handprints as if some sort of human-like creature had crawled over them.

"The ritual was only half-completed, and creatures from the Spirit Realm had already entered the physical world."

"But they didn’t notice at all."

That Spirit Realm creature probably already crawled around the room, examined each ritual performer thoroughly to confirm there were no powerful Transcendents among them, and only then started to take action.

Shawn tried to simulate the situation in his mind at that time.

An eerie spiritual body invisible to the naked eye descended, having no feet, crawling with its arms. It had already observed everyone, but the university students performing the ritual remained unaware, laughing and scaring their companions. From the marks in the corner, there were signs of some roughhousing at the time.

Three men and two women, it should have been the girls who got scared.

Hank stared at Shawn in front of him, watching his movements in the room, suddenly asking, "You can see it?"

Shawn nodded silently.

Hank didn’t know whether to feel envious or pity, and couldn’t help but sigh softly.

Having too much inspiration is not necessarily a good thing.

Hank could only vaguely feel it, but Shawn saw it with his eyes, the difference was substantial.

The eerie is almost unhidden in Shawn’s eyes.

"There’s another discovery here."

Hank led Shawn to another room, whispering, "It’s left by the person who went mad. She left a message on the mirror."

"Oh, right. She was a part-time writer at school."

Shawn wiped the cold sweat off his forehead upon hearing this, the death buff here was getting quite thick.

A broken mirror.

There seemed to be traces of some conflict here, Shawn found a torn piece of clothing, and on the mirror, a sentence written in red lipstick, incomplete.

— "The boy thought he finally had the power to protect his loved ones... until one day... he stood before the mirror and saw a grotesque humanoid creature..."

The writer’s insane inspiration.

The girl who went mad probably witnessed some hallucination, which drove her to write this line in the final moments of her madness.

Spirituality was trembling.

Shawn gazed into the mirror before him, seeing a flash of an image, a young woman with a pained expression full of regret, writing something with a confused look. In front of her, cracks gradually appeared on the previously intact mirror, as if an eerie hand wanted to stretch out from the world inside the mirror.

Consciousness restored.

Shawn knew he had just undergone an involuntary inspiration check. Thankfully, his will wasn’t affected, and the brief inspiration just now didn’t harm his rationality.

"Ever since I gradually understood the truth of the Bizarre Realm and felt the world’s despair."

"It seems that ordinary eerie creatures no longer have any effect on me."

Shawn had just perceived the traces left by the eerie existence. Normally, if an Investigator experienced a flash of inspiration during a check, it would affect their rationality because they would empathize, indirectly facing the indescribable eerie creature like a victim.

But Shawn was unaffected; these bizarre and horror scenes were nothing compared to the world’s despair!

He felt no fear and thus ignored them even more.

Shawn glanced silently at Hank beside him; actually, he didn’t need to take action on this task, Hank should be able to handle it because he probably already knew the answer, and that’s why he looked so weary.

Hank walked to the balcony, lit a cigarette, and said, "Do you have an answer?"

Shawn nodded slightly, "I’ve made a guess."

"But I still don’t know where it’s hiding."

Hank took a deep breath, those bloodshot eyes looked into the distance, then he took out a notebook, wrote a line, and handed it to Shawn next to him.

— "Ancient Out-of-Control Entity."

Shawn took it and looked at it, writing above, "High inspiration individuals, potentially early Demon Hunters."

They were the predecessors of Investigators and Night Watchers.

Hank looked at Shawn’s handwriting, remained silent for a long while.

— "He saw himself in the mirror; I’ve seen it too."

Shawn remained silent.

He had actually seen it too, though it was still somewhat human.

Still acceptable.

The high inspiration of Investigators can possibly act upon themselves, and in that flash of inspiration, they might see themselves in a monstrous form.

Some people cannot accept all this.

In contrast, those low-inspiration Transcendents are much happier because they see nothing, only experience the increase in power, becoming stronger. Perhaps one day, they’ll understand the truth of the Promotion Sequence, knowing they’ve long become monsters.

But by then, they would have gone through a lot, capable of accepting it all.

Moreover, their inspiration is too low; without special spells, they simply can’t see any of this in ordinary times, but Investigators easily perceive their own changes, so they know more and suffer more than others.

In the Bizarre Realm, ignorance is also bliss.

Hank is a good person.

Shawn patted his shoulder and said in a deep voice, "You should rest well, give yourself a long vacation."

"You’ve already touched the brink of madness twice this year."