Chapter 156: Simulation, Commence!

Simulation, Commence!

Originally, Ciel wanted to hum a lullaby gently like Avena did.

But Ciel was very aware of her singing ability. Saying she was tone-deaf was somewhat flattering her. To avoid directly making Avena laugh angrily, she chose to use her hands to soothe her instead.

Ciel’s movements were very gentle, and Avena, buried in Ciel’s embrace, had been quiet for a long time.

Just when Ciel thought Avena had fallen asleep, she heard Avena’s slightly hoarse voice.

“Close your eyes...”

This voice, weak with a hint of pleading, made it completely impossible to imagine what expression Avena wore when speaking—this voice simply couldn’t be associated with Avena’s indifferent face.

Ciel didn’t think much, just closed her eyes. After a while, Avena’s voice came again.

“Are they closed?”

It seemed Avena also noticed her tone just now was very wrong, quickly adjusted, returning to a more normal tone, though her voice remained somewhat hoarse.

“Mm.”

Ciel nodded.

After hearing Ciel’s reply, Avena shifted her body, slipping out of Ciel’s embrace.

Listening to the sound, Avena seemed to have gotten off the bed. The rustling sound piqued Ciel’s curiosity. She really couldn’t resist, squinted her eyes open a sliver, wanting to see what Avena was doing.

At this moment, Ciel saw Avena, wearing a gray-blue nightgown, sitting on the edge of the bed, back facing Ciel, seemingly wiping her face with a handkerchief, not noticing Ciel had already opened her eyes.

Only when Avena showed signs of turning slightly did Ciel quickly close her eyes. Immediately after, she heard the sound of Avena approaching.

Soon, Ciel felt a gentle touch on her lips, but it was like a dragonfly skimming water, touching and leaving instantly. Then Ciel heard the sound of Avena getting off the bed, putting on slippers, and walking away.

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Is that it?

Where’s my compensation?

Only hearing the sound of writing coming from the direction of the desk, Ciel finally couldn’t resist asking: “Can I open my eyes now?”

“Mm.”

Avena’s response came from not far away.

Ciel opened her eyes, climbed off the bed, and looked towards Avena.

At this moment, Avena sat at the desk with her back to Ciel, seemingly writing something.

“What are you doing? Not sleeping?”

Ciel also got off the bed, put on slippers, walked towards Avena, and asked.

“It’s only eight o’clock.” Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

Avena said without turning her head, “Everything discussed today needs to be recorded to avoid forgetting later. There are also a few transactions...”

Writing and writing, Avena seemed to think of something, turned her head towards Ciel, and said, “Right...”

Just turning her head, Avena saw Ciel standing before the full-length mirror beside her, eyes fixed on the mirror, lips tightly pressed, seemingly holding back laughter.

Following Ciel’s gaze, Avena saw Ciel’s nightgown, wet in a patch on the chest. Looking closely, it resembled a crying face drawn with water.

At this moment, Ciel also turned her head towards Avena, her face flushed red.

From holding back laughter.

Avena’s face was also rosy now. She stared fixedly at Ciel with reddened eyes, seeming to warn her: You dare laugh out loud?

After a full few seconds of pause, Ciel finally moved her lips, took a deep breath, and asked, “What were you... trying to say just now? Ahem...”

Towards the end, Ciel could barely hold it in anymore, covering her mouth with her hand and coughing twice, using the cough and palm to cover her smiling face.

But the amusement in her eyes couldn’t be hidden.

Avena clenched her teeth tightly. How she wished she could teach Ciel a harsh lesson, but without using transcendent abilities, she was no match for Ciel at all.

She had no choice but to avert her gaze, look at the notepad before her, and say, “Today, old William gave me some news. I think it’s necessary for you to know too... It’s highly likely you already know.”

“What is it?”

Hearing it was serious business, Ciel also restrained her desire to continue teasing Avena, asking, “About the workers? Or the famine?”

“No.”

Avena picked up a note placed on the table, handed it to Ciel, saying, “See for yourself.”

Ciel took the paper. The handwriting on it was messy, unlike Avena’s handwriting.

And what was written on it made Ciel’s pupils shrink slightly.

“A transcendent has contained an item with ‘Uniqueness’ trait. Currently unknown who, where. You need to be careful... best if you can go home.”

This was written by that Minister of the Interior William to Avena?

How is that possible?

Didn’t I seize the “Uniqueness” trait inside the Other Side? Even the “Contaminated Fate Renegade’s Touch” was left in the Other Side. Why would anyone know?

Was another “Uniqueness” contained by someone else?

“System?!”

Ciel asked inwardly, her tone very strong.

“Didn’t you say containing it inside the Other Side wouldn’t be discovered by others?”

No wonder Ciel was angry.

Because of the system’s suggestion, Ciel almost died in the Other Side, risked her life to deal with the quill pen in the more dangerous Other Side, separated the “Uniqueness,” only to be told now that the “Uniqueness” was still detected by the outside world?

【I didn’t lie... If you separated and absorbed uniqueness in reality, they could directly lock onto you】

【Solving it in the Other Side, they can only search for special events worldwide like headless flies. Isn’t this a good thing ^^_】

“Ciel?”

Seeming to notice Ciel’s silence, Avena turned her head towards Ciel, found her still holding the note, her emotions clearly very wrong.

Avena’s call brought Ciel back to her senses slightly. She didn’t say anything, just placed the note on the table. After a moment of silence, she said:

“Avena, roughly how many people know about this matter?”

“You mean the ‘Uniqueness’ matter?” Avena asked back.

“Yes.”

“Churches with Saintesses should all know... possibly some secret cults and hidden organizations too.”

Avena thought for a moment, then continued, “Worldwide, probably no more than ten organizations. And this information only circulates among the higher-ups. Besides organizations, it should be those Ascenders.”

“This information... is it very important?” Ciel asked.

-

“Yes.” Avena nodded. After considering her wording, she explained:

“‘Uniqueness’ items appearing or being contained by some organization, this news will definitely be suppressed with full force. If the news leaks, it will cause great impact, whether for ordinary people or transcendents, the impact is fatal.”

“Those originally dormant Ascenders, thinking there’s no hope in this lifetime, will become active again, desperately trying to complete originally impossible Reconstitution Rituals, or start frantically searching for news about ‘Uniqueness’.”

Speaking here, Avena paused slightly, shook her head, and continued, “Just Ascenders wanting to complete Reconstitution Rituals is already catastrophic, let alone not knowing how many Ascenders want to complete Reconstitution Rituals.”

“Especially some paths...”

“War, Plague, Calamity, Massacre...”

Speaking here, Avena paused slightly again, then reached out, picked up the note, placed it on the nearby candlestick to light it, watching the paper slowly burn away in her hand.

Beside her, Ciel’s expression froze slightly upon hearing this... She had thought the impact of “Uniqueness” was significant, but didn’t expect it to be this severe.

“Why, what do they want ‘Uniqueness’ for?” Ciel asked.

And Avena, instead, looked somewhat puzzledly at Ciel.

Just now, seeing Ciel’s expression, she was already prepared for Ciel to tell her a world-shattering secret—Avena was even guessing just now if that “Uniqueness” was in the hands of the organization behind Ciel.

But now it seems, Ciel seems completely unaware of what “Uniqueness” is...

This instead made Avena sigh in relief.

If Ciel really said “Uniqueness is in my hands,” it would probably scare Avena directly into fainting—she couldn’t possibly protect Ciel, she couldn’t, not even if the entire Roswell family was involved.

“You know there are sixteen paths in total, do you know how many tiers each path has? And the end point of the path...” Avena asked tentatively.

“Don’t know.” Ciel shook her head very honestly.

Yes, Ciel had no idea what the upper limit of transcendent levels was.

According to her imagination’s limit, it should be Tier 1-4 are transcendents, then breaking through Tier 4 into Tier 5, they are called Ascenders. Only further up... Ciel didn’t know what it would be.

“(Old Ansu) Fourfold transformation, fourfold ascension, final sublimation.”

Avena spoke, uttering a string of Old Ansu phrases resembling poetry, then said, “In the books I gave you, one of them should have recorded this description, but with so many books, you probably haven’t seen that...”

“I saw it,” Ciel nodded, saying, “But isn’t this a poem about the Chaos Era? This is the thirty-ninth stanza.”

Avena was slightly stunned upon hearing Ciel’s words, then looked up at Ciel.

How does she even know which stanza it is? Like those church believers who recite the scriptures backwards.

Ciel, at this time, began pondering that poem again.

Ciel basically skipped over such poems. She crammed vocabulary forcefully, wouldn’t deliberately think about the meaning, prioritizing practicality.

After all, the situation was urgent before; needed to master more Old Ansu vocabulary as quickly as possible, no time for detailed reading and thinking.

Thinking back now, the system indeed mentioned the word “ascension”...

If Ascenders correspond to ascension, then transcendents correspond to transformation.

Fourfold transformation corresponds to transcendent Tier 1-4, fourfold ascension corresponds to Ascender Tier 5-8?

And there’s a final sublimation, is that Tier 9?

“Nine tiers in total?” Ciel asked.

“Yes.” Avena nodded, “Heard that to advance to the 9th tier, ‘Uniqueness’ is necessary as a potion material, and ‘Uniqueness’ is unique...”

“One path, only one Tier 9 will appear?” Ciel seemed to vaguely understand something.

“Yes.” Avena nodded, unconsciously lowering her voice, “Final sublimation, is...”

“God.” Ciel spoke, completing the last word for Avena.

God... huh?

No wonder those Ascenders would be so crazy. They all want to obtain “Uniqueness,” all want to become gods...

“But...” Ciel couldn’t help asking, “How do they know if the appearing ‘Uniqueness’ belongs to their path? What if they get it and it’s not the ‘Uniqueness’ of their path, wouldn’t it be all for nothing?”

What Ciel didn’t expect was that her question made Avena, who was originally explaining things to Ciel, freeze.

She blinked, hesitated for a moment, then looked at Ciel and asked, “There’s more than one ‘Uniqueness’?”

Hm?

Ciel reacted.

These transcendents and Ascenders think ‘Uniqueness’ is a unique item or material in the entire world?

One piece of “Uniqueness” material... isn’t even enough to fix Ciel’s watch.

“Uniqueness” definitely isn’t limited to this “Overlimit Gear” she holds.

“No, I was just saying randomly.” Ciel shook her head.

Regarding Ciel’s explanation, Avena was half-believing, half-doubting.

Words coming from Ciel’s mouth, no matter how outrageous, Avena would choose to believe at least half—perhaps this was the impression Ciel previously gave Avena—Ciel wouldn’t say things she wasn’t sure about.

The organization behind Ciel might hold many undisclosed secret pieces of information.

“Still need to pay attention to personal safety recently.” Avena reminded, “If not necessary, don’t go out alone.”

This was also Avena reminding Ciel, preventing Ciel from running off somewhere unknown again without a word.

Normally, Avena rarely talked with so many people during banquets. But after learning about the matter on the note, Avena felt a slight sense of urgency.

Even if not for herself, for Ciel, Avena also wanted to accumulate more wealth before the turmoil arrived, preparing for unforeseen needs.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll continue handling these matters.” After Avena finished speaking, she shifted her attention back to the notepad before her.

“Good luck.” Ciel nodded, then picked up a dip pen from the table, walked beside the sofa. Silver light flickered in her hand, taking out the “Endless Manual of Instant Forgetfulness,” began thinking.

She planned to conduct a simulation after midnight.

And the goal of this simulation was very simple, didn’t even require her simulated self to do anything special.

She just wanted to see the subsequent development after separating and fusing “Uniqueness.” If there were no major changes, Ciel wouldn’t look for trouble herself.

If possible, best use this long period to collect some relatively rare potions, so she could try completing Reconstitution Rituals and collecting save files when she passed by.

-

After writing all this into the endless manual, Ciel opened the system panel and began browsing.

She opened the system inventory, looking at the items inside.

At this moment, four items were placed in the system inventory.

【Sadhana Emblem】, 【Radiance Bishop’s Token】, 【Deadly Blood Roland】, 【Echo of the Silver-White Timebinder】

Adding the 【Endless Manual of Instant Forgetfulness】 already taken out by herself, a total of five items.

The Other Side page was already consumed in the previous plan—taken by Gemma to Avena’s house—moreover, that Other Side page was already dilapidated, lacking much effectiveness, not a pity to lose.

Still had 163 Fate Points, relatively ample.

After checking the items she had, Ciel continued writing in the endless manual.

【30 days time, best to obtain the “Musician” potion. If not possible, obtaining other high-quality potions and perfect Reconstitution Rituals is also fine. If necessary, can directly exchange Fate Points for gold pounds】

If her simulated self used all Fate Points to exchange for gold pounds, at a ratio of 1:125, could exchange for at least twenty thousand gold pounds. This money should be more than enough to buy a title.

After scanning what she wrote, Ciel, believing there was nothing more to add, closed the manual in her hand. Silver light flickered, the endless manual returned to the system inventory.

As long as her simulated self didn’t cause major trouble, letting her see if Berren City is safe for the next thirty days is enough.

For the remaining time, Ciel basically had nothing left to do. She simply went out, asked a maid to find several Pharosian language learning books, and started reading.

Idle anyway, might as well learn another language. Might be useful someday in the future.

Time passed quickly. Ciel immersed herself in learning, not even noticing Avena standing behind her.

“(Pharosian) You flip pages so fast, can you keep up?” Avena spoke, asking Ciel in fluent Pharosian.

“(Pharosian) Because I only pick what I’m interested in to read.” Ciel closed the book in her hand, turned back towards Avena behind her.

Unsure if it was because she cried too hard before and then strained her eyes excessively, Avena’s lower eyelids were now red and seemed slightly swollen, looking like she was about to cry from being wronged at any moment.

Like a rabbit.

“(Pharosian) So you really know it.” Avena looked at Ciel somewhat surprisedly, saying, “I thought you just randomly picked up a book to look at...”

Many Ansu nobles took pride in speaking fluent Pharosian. After all, Pharos was an old powerful nation, and Pharosian was once the common language of nobles on this continent.

Even now that Pharos’s national strength was inferior to Ansu’s, Pharosian remained a compulsory course for Ansu nobles. Pharos’s cultural influence was still quite strong; even legal terms in Ansu language like “lawyer,” “bailiff,” and “defendant” were directly borrowed from Pharosian.

After slightly combining short sentences and words in her mind, Ciel understood what Avena was saying. She just shook her head, saying, “Self-taught, still not very proficient.”

Couldn’t possibly tell Avena she just learned this in the past few hours.

Would be somewhat too shocking.

“I’m preparing to sleep, you should rest early too.” After Avena finished speaking, she walked towards the bed, climbed onto it, facing Ciel, seeming to remind Ciel it was time to sleep.

“Okay, then I’ll sleep too.” Ciel put down the book, very naturally walked towards Avena’s bed, took off her slippers, and directly slipped into the quilt.

“Good night.” Avena reached out, turned off the gas lamp. The room darkened, leaving only the still-hot lamp wick flickering with a faint orange glow.

In the dimness, Ciel opened the system interface, looking at the current time.

Still an hour before simulation... What to do for this hour?

Take a nap?

“System, do you have an alarm clock function?” Ciel asked the system inwardly.

【Don’t interrupt don’t interrupt don’t interrupt, this is critical, don’t discuss useless things here】

Just as the system replied, in the warm quilt, Ciel felt a slightly cool hand groping over, grasping her wrist.

Avena?

What does she want to do?

In the darkness, Ciel felt her hand being lifted bit by bit. Avena held her hand with both hands, finally placing it on a piece of softness.

Slightly larger than her own.

Is this the compensation? So there really is compensation?

Ciel slowly tightened her palm’s grip, but Avena’s hand resisted.

“Don’t move around...” Avena used a weak tone to speak firm lines. Ciel could almost imagine Avena with reddened eyes saying this sentence now.

“Okay, I won’t move.” Ciel nodded, her hand no longer moving—though didn’t let go either.

Just as Ciel was thinking of ways to turn on a light to see Avena’s expression, Avena had already pushed Ciel’s hand away, turned over, lying with her back to Ciel.

Huh?

Is that it?

Ciel shifted forward slightly, resting her head on the same pillow as Avena, close to Avena’s back. Extended her left hand across her slender waist, resting it on her lower abdomen, whispering, “Good night.”

Previously Avena hugged her like a pillow crying, then she hugging her like a pillow sleeping, shouldn’t be too much, right?

Avena didn’t speak. In the darkness, Ciel couldn’t judge her current state through her ears. But surrounded by Avena’s faint hair fragrance, Ciel instead felt somewhat sleepy.

Hold on a little longer...

Don’t sleep...

Time passed minute by minute. Ciel’s sleepiness gradually intensified. Finally, just as she was about to completely fall asleep, twelve o’clock finally arrived.

Future Days simulation Day 30 had become Day 29, the required cost also dropped from 100 to 10. Ciel didn’t hesitate, directly starting the simulation.

“Future Days.”

“No.0.”

A silver light swallowed everything before Ciel’s eyes.