Northern Shore of the Conquest Sea, Telva. Under the cover of night in Telva, Dorothy swiftly wiped out the stronghold of the Dark Gold Society. After defeating and killing their leader, Gochelle, she quickly collected the equipment from his body, turned his corpse into a marionette, and stored it in the magic box. Before the city’s official mystic forces could arrive, she withdrew immediately. Now that she could use magnetic force to float, Dorothy’s mobility had drastically improved—within moments, she was far from the scene of battle. Once she’d cleared the danger zone, Dorothy switched to her corpse marionette horse and sped away. Along the way, she passed a fire brigade carriage heading toward the burning mansion. A crimson glow lit the distant skyline—Dark Gold Society’s base was in flames. Fortunately, the main structure was within the courtyard, so even though the fire was intense, it wouldn’t spread. Before long, Dorothy returned to the area near her hotel. After putting away the corpse horse and removing her black robe disguise, she entered the hotel and quickly returned to her room. The first thing she did after sitting down was pull out her Literary Sea Logbook, flip to the communication page with Beverly, and begin writing with her pen. "I’ve completed your commission." After jotting down the message, Dorothy waited quietly. Before long, Beverly’s reply appeared on the page—clearly, she had been waiting all this time on the other end. Automaton didn’t need sleep, after all. "Ah... already done? That fast? I knew you could handle it, but this speed is still beyond my expectations. What’s the damage on their side?" "Their stronghold has been wiped out. Four Black Earth and one White Ash—gone. Unfortunately, the base caught fire during the fight and burned down. I freed the captives, but didn’t have time to search for anything. The fire probably destroyed most of what was inside… Now that Telva’s official forces have likely arrived, I had no time to check if anything survived. If your confiscated items were there, they’re probably gone." Dorothy summarized the situation briefly on the page, and Beverly replied just as quickly. "A Gargoyle… and four Wall Walkers. That’s roughly what I’d expect as a major deployment for Dark Gold in a large city. With that, Telva should be cleared out—save for a few stragglers and small fry. "It’s a shame the base was destroyed, but no big deal. They usually transfer most of their plundered mystical resources out in time anyway, so there wouldn’t have been much left. I didn’t expect you to recover anything—it was more about taking out their people and sending a message." Reading this, Dorothy thought to herself, “The White Craftsmen’s Guild really is loaded—losing that much mystical loot and just saying ‘whatever’.” She picked up her pen again and continued. "So… when do I get the reward you promised me?" "No need to worry about that. Since you completed the commission, of course we’ll pay up. By the way, do you have any proof of your success?" "I brought back the gargoyle leader’s body. That should be enough, right?" Dorothy replied immediately. Thank goodness I brought that guy’s corpse along, she thought. Shortly after, new writing appeared on the page. "You have the gargoyle’s corpse? Then that’ll do. Stay in Telva for the next two days—someone from our side will come by. Just hand over the body for verification when they arrive." "Two days? Got it. I’ll wait here. Oh, by the way—can your person bring me two ‘Stone’ mystical texts? I’ll buy them." Dorothy requested more supplies. This direct confrontation had eaten a huge chunk of her spirituality, and she needed to replenish it. Since it was inconvenient to head to the next city, she decided to ask the guild to deliver instead. "Ah… our studious neighbor is buying books again. Truly, you never forget to study, no matter the time. Sure, I’ll tell our contact to bring you two ‘Stone’ mystical texts. You’ve done us a big favor this time—if they confirm everything checks out, those two books will be on the house. Consider it a bonus reward. No charge." Touched by Beverly’s generosity, Dorothy felt a bit emotional. “Well, I guess the apple doesn’t always fall far from the tree. Beverly’s way more generous than Aldrich.” Dorothy continued writing. "Thanks a lot. "By the way, I’ve got another question. Do you guys have any high-temperature-resistant metals?" Beverly’s response came shortly. "Of course we do. The White Craftsmen’s Guild has forgers of every rank. We’ve got materials no one else has—from mundane stuff to extraordinary spiritual alloys. We even have divine metals suitable for crafting Core of Order vessels for divine descent. High-temp metals? That’s no problem. Are you getting into forging now?" "Of course not. Just asking for now. Since you have it, great. I might ask you to forge some things in the future—we’ll talk about that later. For now, I’ll just wait here in Telva for your people. Come quickly." "Mmm, then wait there. Our people will be there soon. Once everything’s confirmed, I’ll send you the intelligence you asked for." After that, Dorothy and Beverly chatted idly for a while. Once she finished writing her farewell message, Dorothy ended the communication and closed the Literary Sea Logbook. Next, Dorothy began sorting through the spoils she had taken from Gochelle’s body. There was quite a bit—one ring, a staff, several sigils, some cash, a few spiritual storage items, and a handgun. She took them out of the magic box one by one and laid them out on the desk. Using two points of Lantern, she conducted a brief ritual to appraise them all. First was the ring. After examining it, Dorothy realized she had seen this type of item before. It wasn’t a mystical artifact, but rather a small mechanical device. The ring was designed to hold storage items and sigils, which could be activated quickly by touching the ring in emergencies. Dorothy had seen the same thing before on another Wall Walker assassin named Jim. The sigil in Gochelle’s ring had already turned to ash, meaning it had been used during their fight. The stored item inside was a small piece of dried meat—clearly an expended Chalice spiritual storage item. From this, Dorothy deduced that it had previously contained a Devouring Sigil, used by Gochelle to temporarily boost his strength and vitality. “Another one of those convenient buffing gadgets. And of course, the buff is Devouring again. I mean, Devouring is easy to get and super useful. Anyone halfway decent in the mysticism world probably keeps one on hand. The first stage Chalice strength and vitality boost is pretty important for pathways that aren’t connected to Chalice.” Looking at the ring on the desk, Dorothy commented mentally, well aware of how handy Devouring Sigils were. Next was the staff—Gochelle’s weapon that could transform into a flail. Dorothy had guessed it was a mystical item during the fight, and indeed it was. The staff was called “Heavy Shatter.” In its default state, it looked like a simple walking stick, but when a hidden mechanism was triggered, the head would drop off and rapidly transform. The detached head was attached to the shaft via an iron chain, turning it into a flail. The head of Heavy Shatter could instantly increase in weight by consuming Stone spirituality, giving its swings significant destructive force—enough to smash through walls. With a Devouring buff applied, Gochelle could use it to flatten a Wall Walker in just two hits. It was a textbook melee-weapon-type mystical tool. “A transforming flail that can rapidly increase in weight with Stone—kinda neat, honestly. Compared to a sword, a flail is simpler and more brutal. Heavier, too. Stronger impact. Might let Vania try it out someday. Funny how all these craftsmen like to make their melee mystical items look like walking sticks. I guess they’re easier to carry in social settings? One bad word and boom—weapon drawn?” That was Dorothy’s assessment of the staff. Overall, Heavy Shatter was probably the best item among the loot. Next were the sigils—two Devouring Sigils, one Swamp Sigil, and one Earth Listener Sigil. Dorothy was already familiar with all of these. In addition, there were a few others she hadn’t identified until now. Two Blast Sigils, which could unleash a burst of flame, and one Wind Gust Sigil, which released a strong gust of wind. These two were elemental attack sigils. Dorothy figured Gochelle had brought them along for emergency recharge use—and her reasoning was confirmed by another item among the spoils: the handgun. This handgun wasn’t a mystical item—it had no inherent spirituality—but it was strangely designed. Made of a black stone-like material, the barrel was large, with no traditional ammo chamber. Instead, it featured two special slots for inserting sigils and spiritual storage items. After a careful inspection, Dorothy figured out what it was for. The gun could fire elemental sigils and storage items, channeling their effects through the barrel in a jet-stream fashion. A gargoyle could load a sigil and a storage item into it, then shoot themselves with it to receive a concentrated buff or recharge. Dorothy figured this was probably standard equipment for Dark Gold Society’s Gargoyles. “So a gun that injects elemental energy from sigils and storage items into yourself… for a Gargoyle, this is basically a fancy syringe. Not very useful to me though…” Glancing over the strange stone-crafted firearm, Dorothy thought to herself and set it aside, turning her attention to the final category: the spiritual storage items. Gochelle had two small meat-chunk-type Chalice storages, used for Devouring Sigils, and two gold-coin-shaped Lantern storages used for Blast Sigils. Dorothy had already spent the two Lantern storages during the appraisal process, so what she was left with were just the two Chalice ones. Aside from all that, she also found about 50,000 Bita in cash on Gochelle—roughly equivalent to 350 pounds, which wasn’t bad. Most people wouldn’t carry that kind of cash around casually. After finishing the identification, Dorothy calculated her spirituality consumption—and it wasn’t looking good. Her operation had two main parts: first, the ambush on two Wall Walkers and initiating the confrontation. In that part, she used two Devouring Sigils, activated Damage Transfer and Flowing Current Form, spending a total of 4 Chalice and 2 Stone. Then, during the infiltration of Dark Gold’s stronghold, she used 3 Shadow to conceal the universal language Marionette Mark on Bana. When she fired the lowest setting of Ignis Converta, she used 2 points of Lantern. During her magnetic skirmish with Gochelle, she used 1 more Stone, and the Railgun cost 5 points of Stone. Among those, the sniper rifle used 2 points from a built-in 5-point Lantern storage. The 3 points of Shadow were paid using a storage given to her by a Serenity Bureau knight. Factoring in the 7 points of Stone and 3 points of Revelation she gained from studying Balaar’s mystical text, her current spirituality tally stood at 28 Chalice, 4 Stone, 20 Shadow, 4 Lantern, 14 Silence, and 37 Revelation. In terms of remaining storage, she has 2 Chalice and 4 Shadow. Cash-wise, after converting, she had about 1850 pounds left. “Damn… that’s not just a big hit—it’s massive. Figures… whenever I go head-to-head, my spirituality drains like water. I spent over a thousand pounds on Stone recharge, and just one fight almost emptied me again. I won’t even be able to keep up with daily activities now, let alone accumulate enough for advancement.” Rubbing her temples, Dorothy looked a little troubled. Compared to her previous escapades, this event wasn’t even that big—but the spirituality consumption was absurd. The main reason was that she’d fought head-on, without leveraging external tools or conditions, so the drain was constant and intense. “Sure, the railgun is powerful, but it’s also crazy expensive to fire. I’ll have to use it sparingly. Thankfully, Misaka Mikoto’s ability model also includes solid magnetic control techniques—those are still pretty efficient...” Dorothy thought to herself that, compared to the railgun, the most cost-effective offensive ability she had was probably the thunder strike—specifically, attracting thunder rather than generating it. This was because her thunder strike ability didn’t rely on spirituality to create thunder, but rather to guide natural thunder from the clouds, allowing her to generate tremendous power with only a small amount of spirituality. However, this ability was heavily dependent on weather conditions and had a long casting time, making it overall not very versatile. “Another resource drain is… after blowing up a ship last time and a house this time, the explosives I brought from Tivian are pretty much used up too. I really need to think of a way to restock. Explosives are still very effective when used right.” Dorothy continued pondering. In tonight’s operation, she’d used a single bundle of explosives to directly take out two Black Earth-rank Beyonders and who knew how many Apprentices. In terms of cost-effectiveness, explosives—which consumed zero spirituality and only required a bit of money—were simply top-tier. If one didn’t care about the noise, they were devastating when used against anything below White Ash rank. And even against a non-Stone, non-Chalice White Ash-rank, they could still be effective. If someone lacked proper defenses and got caught at close range, they’d likely go down on the spot. Thus, Dorothy planned to spend the next two days—while waiting for her contact—to scout out the black market in Telva and see if she could restock on some explosives. Looking at the meager points of Stone she had left, Dorothy recalled that she’d come to Telva specifically to buy Stone. Yet she arrived with 5 points, and now she only had 4—after all that effort, she ended up with even less. Faced with that reality, Dorothy could only sigh at how tough life was.