Chapter 661 First Come, First Serve
Spiritual consciousness was the most important part of a person.
It could be said that when the physical body died, the soul would remain, and under normal circumstances, it could go to the Netherworld and live for hundreds of years.
If one worked hard in the Netherworld and enhanced their soul’s power, they might be rewarded by the Nether God with a chance to reincarnate.
But if the soul was gone, it would truly be the end.
Another reason was that the human soul was very fragile, and if one didn’t specialize in spiritual abilities and casually allowed outsiders to enter their soul, it would be easy for outsiders to damage the soul.
It was like a small child breaking into a glass room.
A casual move could damage the soul.
Besides, there would be a lot of private things in the spiritual consciousness, good and bad, and many secrets.
Under normal circumstances, one would not let an outsider into one’s spiritual consciousness if one didn’t have extreme trust in the other person.
Stephanie, as a princess and future queen, could be considered to be in a high position of power, and generally, such people were very extreme in their considerations and would be extremely distrustful of others.
So for Roland to be able to access Stephanie’s spiritual consciousness…
It didn’t look right in Lady Bluebird’s eyes in any way.
But she wasn’t one to talk too much, and since she was thinking of cozying up to the future queen, there were some things she couldn’t say, some thoughts she couldn’t speak aloud. She stood up after hearing Stephanie say, “So it’s true.”
Stephanie looked at her with some surprise. “Bluebird, what’s wrong with you?”
Lady Bluebird smiled faintly. “I suddenly remembered that there are some important matters that need to be taken care of, so I will take my leave, dear friend.”
Stephanie thought for a moment and said, “Okay, I won’t see you off then.”
“I understand.”
Lady Bluebird bent slightly and nodded to Roland as well, then left the room swiftly.
After she left, Roland sat down opposite Stephanie and asked, “You seem to know something?” “Well!” Stephanie nodded. “Some time ago, I went to the king’s tomb to pay respects to my ancestors, entered the inner tomb, and then saw a glowing woman walking toward me.” A glowing woman?
A spirit?
Roland thought for a moment and said, “What happened next?”
Stephanie covered her head and continued. “She looked a little like me and eventually burrowed into my body. Afterward, I questioned the people next to me, but it turned out that none of them saw that woman or noticed anything unusual.”
Cognitive interference?
Or was Stephanie really the only one who could see that woman?
Roland thought for a moment and said, “A small area of your spiritual consciousness was infested. But strangely enough… the infestation didn’t continue, and when I went in to see it, I found that the infestation had temporarily stopped.”
“Is this good or bad?”
“Not sure.” Roland said after a moment’s thought, “Why don’t you go into your spiritual consciousness to see it too?”
Stephanie shrugged helplessly. “I can’t see my spiritual consciousness as you can.”
“I can take you in.” Roland looked into her eyes and said sincerely, “As long as you are willing to trust me.”
“Of course I can trust you.” Stephanie leaned forward slightly and put her hands on the table. “What should I do?”
“Just give me your hand.”
Stephanie put her right hand in front of Roland as she was told.
Roland reached out and squeezed her wrist, and then his spiritual consciousness followed their hands and burrowed into Stephanie’s spiritual consciousness. In passing, he used his mental power to wrap around Stephanie’s spiritual consciousness and immersed it into her spiritual world.
At the top of a huge pyramid, Roland suddenly appeared, holding Stephanie’s hand.
He then let go of Stephanie’s hand and said, “Okay, you can open your eyes now.” In the spiritual consciousness, there was no material existence.
In reality, such an act as opening the eyes shouldn’t have existed, but the human consciousness was peculiar in that even though the spirit was shapeless, it still transformed them into a physical body.
This was an instinctive habit, a concrete manifestation of self-knowledge.
Similarly, the soul could actually view its surroundings in 360 degrees, but out of instinct as a “person,” most people’s souls were more accustomed to seeing only what was in front of them, and the untrained spiritual consciousness could only “see” what was in front of it.
Likewise, the soul opening its eyes was just an action that was more symbolic than substantive.
Hearing Roland’s words, Stephanie’s spiritual consciousness opened her eyes. She first saw herself standing on a raised platform, surrounded by Roland and just about nothing else.
And further out, there were just empty skies and white clouds.
However, in the western sky, a large area was colored red, and a large amount of lightning flashed and swam in this area.
Stephanie looked around and couldn’t help but sigh. “Is this my spiritual world?”
She walked to the side of the high platform, looked at the bottomless abyss below, then looked into the distance and asked, “This is a pyramid. What does it mean?”
“I guess it’s power and insecurity.” Roland thought about it and said, “But I don’t know much about psychology either, so I can only take a wild guess.” Power?
Stephanie nodded. There was indeed nothing wrong with that. The future throne had to be hers, and if anyone dared to take it, she dared to kill—it was as simple as that.
She then turned her eyes to the red area in the distance. “That’s what you call the infested area, right?”
Roland nodded. “That’s the place.”
“Oh, it doesn’t seem like much of a big deal. That red area is so small and tiny compared to my spiritual world.” Stephanie chuckled. Roland shook his head. “That’s not the way to put it. It’s small now, but what if it grows in the future? When the red area is more than half the extent of your soul, it will no longer be you who dominates your own body. At one hundred percent, even your consciousness will disappear and you will become a different person entirely.”
There was no nervousness in Stephanie’s expression even after hearing this.
Instead, she looked around and asked, “I thought that in the spiritual consciousness, you could see a lot of private things about a person. How come I can’t see anything?”
Roland squatted down and thrust his right hand hard, gouging a stone brick directly from the high platform.
Then he crushed this stone tile, and at the same time, Stephanie saw a lot of fragmented images.
They were the images of her and her husband during intercourse when she was first married. Two people twisting around naked. Her face went red on the spot and she glared at Roland and said, “What do you mean by that? Trying to get a laugh out of me?”
Roland shrugged helplessly. “I just pulled it out randomly. Who knew that you and your ex-husband were stacked so far up in the spiritual memory!”
“I think you did that on purpose.” Stephanie grunted in displeasure, then asked, “About that red area, do you have any ideas on how to get rid of it?”
“Hardly. I’m not a Mage specializing in the soul department,” Roland explained. “Besides, there are no enemies in that area, you were just corrupted by its spiritual power. The culprit is somewhere else.”
“In the royal tomb?” asked Stephanie, her right hand pressing gently against her face in thought.
Roland, on the other hand, took the opportunity to survey the surrounding landscape.
Everyone’s spiritual consciousness was different. For example, Andonara’s spiritual consciousness, no matter when or where, was full of sunlight.
In a small house on a beach, there were portraits of Roland hanging on the walls.
There were at least three thousand of them.
It was clear from this who was most important in Andonara’s mind.
But nothing related to others could be found in Stephanie’s spiritual consciousness.
It stood to reason that anyone with a normal personality would have someone that was fairly important to them.
Could they be hidden in the pyramid at the bottom…
Roland thought about it, not bothering to delve into it; it was someone else’s privacy after all, and it was best not to look.
Soon, Stephanie snapped out of her thoughts and asked, “Roland, if I take you to the royal tombs, how sure are you that you can find the culprit?”
“No promises.” Roland shrugged.
“That doesn’t matter, it’s better than doing nothing.” Stephanie took a deep breath. “I suddenly realized that if we chat in this way, we almost don’t have to worry about the content of the conversation being known by a third party. Roland, in the future, if you have anything to talk about, you can just talk to me in the spiritual world.”
Roland shook his head. “Interesting proposal, but it’s not a good one.”
“Why?”
“Because your spiritual power is too weak. I’m trying to suppress my spiritual fluctuations now, which is why I haven’t made you feel uncomfortable.”
“Then we’ll continue like this from now on,” said Stephanie matter-of-factly.
Roland shook his head. “Once or twice is no problem, but if done frequently, the fragments of my spiritual fluctuations will scatter more and more throughout your spiritual world, and eventually you will be influenced by my spiritual fragments. Your personality will gradually become similar to mine, and eventually even the same. This is also a kind of infestation, got it?”.
“Too bad.” Stephanie shook her head rather regretfully. “So Roland, do you have time to help me go over to the royal tomb and see what’s going on?”
“No problem, of course.” Roland nodded.
Stephanie laughed lightly. “Thank you so much. I won’t let you do it for nothing, money…”
“No need.” Roland interrupted her with a wave of his hand. “We’re friends, and I’d help in these kinds of matters if I can. There’s no need to pay. That’s too alienating.”
Stephanie looked at him for a moment and smiled lightly. “Yes, we are friends.”
The two of them exited Stephanie’s spiritual world, and when Stephanie tried to stand up, she realized that she was a little dizzy and slumped back down onto her chair.
Roland used Sobering on her and said, “Rest, your soul is too weak. It must be a bit uncomfortable after being in there for so long.”
Stephanie pressed her hands to her temples and slowly said, “It seems that I have to find time to exercise my magic in the future. Why don’t you teach me?”
Stephanie was also a Mage, but no match for Roland.
The majority of Mages overemphasized a certain subject. Out of the eight types of magic, she could only get sixty points in evocation and all other seven types would be zero.
In contrast, Roland could manage eighty points in evocation and spatial magic, and exceed the passing mark in all six other subjects.
After she rubbed her head for a while and felt more comfortable, she asked, “By the way, how are the young masters I sent out?”
“Quite obedient,” Roland said with a smile. “They’re being instructed by the professionals of my clan, and I’m sure you’ll see them in six months with a greatly changed mentality.” It was no joke. In that big furnace, even scrap metal can be refined into steel, so getting a bunch of noble young soldiers to change their mentalities could still be done.
“I also heard that you guys got a lot of succubi and some kind of succubus contract?”
Roland was a bit bored, and when he heard Stephanie taking the initiative to talk about this, he said excitedly, “What, the Fareins royal family is willing to receive succubi?”
“Of course not! We don’t have any positive feelings toward the demons.” Stephanie immediately refused. “I’m just curious about why you don’t contract one. I’ve heard succubi are very attractive. Aren’t you going to have a taste?”
Roland looked at her as if she were an idiot.
This made Stephanie deeply uncomfortable, and after a while she said helplessly, “I see, it must be because Andonara is too good, too beautiful, and you are now too high-minded to see a succubus.”
Roland was still silent.
In reality, that wasn’t the reason at all. Roland was also a man, and he had the same little thoughts that normal men had.
He also found the succubi attractive.
But the problem was that… he had two women, and if he had any more, his kidneys really couldn’t take it.
When Roland didn’t say anything, Stephanie stood up. “I feel much more comfortable now. Let’s take a trip to the royal tomb.”
“Okay.”
The Fareins royal tomb was on the western outskirts of the kingdom, nestled in a U-shaped valley.
The entrance was heavily guarded, and two troops were stationed year-round on the valley’s crest. One was normal infantry but fairly elite, and the other was made up of elite bowmen.
Once inside the entrance, the carriage went down the cyan stone path, which was straight and surrounded by many beautiful trees and grasses.
After about ten minutes, the carriage stopped.
Roland jumped down and saw the huge mountain towering in front of the wagon.
The mountain was very straight, the peak to the foot of the mountain was almost vertical, and in the center of the mountain, there was a huge, yellow, copper gate. Many people would assume it was a gate made of gold when they first saw it.
The gate was massive, about a hundred meters wide and about two hundred meters high.
This thing was a behemoth, and there was no way a normal person could push it.
Roland examined the golden door for a while and then noticed that it was bronze.
When pure bronze wasn’t rusted, it was golden.
And near the gate, there were two small garrison posts.
At the sight of Stephanie and Roland, someone immediately trotted down, walked up to Stephanie, and bent down to shout, “First Princess, what brings you here again?”
“Can I not come?” Stephanie looked at the other party, her tone rather unkind.
“I wouldn’t dare stand in your way.” This soldier bent down on one knee and said nervously, “First Princess, someone has already gone in the royal tomb, and according to the rules we received, only one person can go in at a time during non-sacrificial times.”
Stephanie glared at the soldier. “Who is it?”
The soldier was too frightened to move. “The Third Prince.”
After a long moment of silence, Stephanie grunted and said, “I’ll see what he’s up to.”
