After making a preliminary pass through all the skills she now possessed, Dorothy immediately moved on to the next task: checking her spiritual reserves. Following her advancement, all of her spirituality had, without doubt, taken a massive hit. Barefoot in her nightgown and seated in her rocking armchair, Dorothy gently swayed back and forth as she rubbed her chin, evaluating the state of her spirituality—starting with Chalice. The bulk of her Chalice expenditure naturally came from rituals—20 points consumed in one go. Additional loss came during her battle with Gossmore: shaping the Moonlit Water Hag had cost 1 point of Chalice. After successfully restraining Gossmore using her manifested spiritual threads, Dorothy had conducted several large-scale damage transfers to restrict her opponent’s movements. Normally, this level of damage transfer—enough to kill ordinary people or even White Ash-rank Beyonders multiple times—would have cost a vast amount of Chalice. But thanks to Spirituality Mastery, the White Ash-rank Threadweaver Shaman’s damage transfer was drastically reduced, totaling only 3 points of Chalice. The manifested threads, though a Crimson-rank skill, naturally consumed very little—Dorothy had only manifested them briefly to catch Gossmore and thus spent just 1 point. Additionally, when she was in Tivian rescuing John Acheson, she’d used a Water-Breathing Sigil and a Devouring Sigil. At that time, she didn’t yet have Spirituality Mastery, so the 2 points of Chalice those sigils consumed were paid in full. All in all, Dorothy had spent a total of 27 points of Chalice. She had started with 28 points, meaning that now, aside from the tiny amount of innate Chalice stored in her flesh, she only had 1 point left. That was dangerously low. “Good grief… only one point left? That’s dangerous. If I’d kept using Chalice any longer, I’d have squeezed myself dry. Thank goodness it ended when it did…” Dorothy breathed a silent sigh of relief as she looked over her depleted Chalice. Then she turned her attention to Stone. She hadn’t used much Stone this time—just a few cases: electrocuting Gossmore through current conduction, having her corpse marionettes fire railguns to bring Gossmore down and buy time for Francesco, and using magnetic levitation to lift her marionettes. Due to Spirituality Mastery, these all cost very little: 1 point for current conduction, 3 points for the railguns (at White Ash maximum output), and the magnetic levitation cost so little it could be ignored. A total of 4 points of Stone. Including the 20 points spent on her advancement, Dorothy had used 24 points in total. She’d started with 28 points, so now she had 4 points of Stone left. Slightly better than Chalice—but not by much. “That kind of railgun… and it only cost 3 points of Stone? That’s a bargain. Once I have a better Stone reserve, I could even try using it as a regular skill. Compared to that Crimson-rank archbishop’s fireballs, the railgun’s projectile speed and armor-piercing ability are excellent. As long as I can lock on, I could one-shot even a Crimson-rank Shadow.” “The only downside is that when used against high-durability, high-rank Chalice targets, the damage isn’t ideal. Too much piercing power often just punches straight through—creating clean entry and exit wounds with no follow-up. For targets with vital spots, that’s fine. But for those that have decentralized vital zones, being pierced isn’t a big deal. They can recover quickly. In that case, fireballs—which explode and vaporize large swaths of flesh—are more lethal. Too much penetration can be a liability… I’ll have to figure out how to address that.” She pondered this internally, then shifted her focus to her Shadow spirituality. Thanks to the Blackdream Hunting Pack, Dorothy had enjoyed a feast in the Dreamscape earlier and now had a massive Shadow reserve. Even so, advancement and battle had eaten away at it significantly. During the fight with Gossmore, she had used the local Glamorne legend to manifest the Moonlit Water Hag, costing 4 points of Shadow. The Water Demon then repeatedly cast its illusion abilities, totaling another 4 points. Later, Dorothy spent 10 points of Shadow to manifest the Lady of the Lake, serving as a medium for the Mirror Moon Goddess’s interference. These were all Crimson-rank usages, so Spirituality Mastery didn’t help much. Also, back in Tivian, Dorothy had used the Dreamscale Censer to convert Misha’s body into dream-form and infiltrate her family tomb—3 points of Shadow. Add the 20 points spent on advancement, and her total Shadow expenditure came to 41 points. Dorothy had started with a full Shadow reserve, and after all that, she still had 9 points remaining. “Didn’t expect… to still have 9 points left. What a surprise. I really have to thank the Blackdreams for their generous feast. Much appreciated~” Sincerely thanking the Blackdream Hunting Pack in her heart, Dorothy continued checking the rest of her spirituality. As for Lantern and Silence, aside from the 20-point advancement cost, she hadn’t used any recently. Revelation, being a base spirituality, was excluded from consideration. Once she finished tallying her spiritual losses, Dorothy turned to her spiritual gains. Because both Gossmore and Boade had died without leaving intact bodies, there were no spoils. The only gain was from the riddle-prayer about Lake Starbind that John had told her. At the time, her Shadow reserve had been full, so she hadn’t extracted anything. But now, with space freed up, it was time. In the end, she extracted 5 points of Shadow and 2 points of Revelation from that riddle-prayer. Summing everything up, Dorothy’s current spirituality reserves stood at 1 point of Chalice, 4 points of Stone, 14 points of Shadow, 7 points of Lantern, 11 points of Silence, and 2 points of Revelation. “Just as expected… after a successful advancement, my spirituality reserves are in a very dangerous place. Especially Chalice and Stone—the ones tied directly to combat—they’ve taken serious hits. I’ll need to find ways to replenish them soon…” “Thankfully, the divine artifact I used for Stone can be returned to the Craftsmen’s Guild. I still have a large deposit with them—mostly collateral assets, sure, but if I liquidate some of it, I should be able to get a decent amount of cash. That should be enough to buy some books at least.” Having finalized her short-term plan to sell off assets to replenish spirituality, Dorothy’s thoughts returned once again to the issue of spirituality capacity. Currently, her maximum cap for each spirituality type had been raised to 100 points. Which meant that, if she wanted to advance to Gold-rank, she would need to accumulate at least 100 extra Revelation points. With Revelation as the main spirituality, this high number made sense. And based on previous advancement requirements, the other spiritualities would probably each need around 40 to 50 points. “Good lord… 100 points of primary spirituality, plus 40~50 points for the rest. That’s double what it took to go from White Ash to Crimson. Well, I guess that’s to be expected for Gold-rank—the highest level a mortal can reach below divinity. Once I make it there, I’ll truly stand at the apex of the material world.” Estimating the cost of reaching Gold-rank, Dorothy sighed inwardly. She wasn’t surprised—it was the summit of the current world. Even among the largest mystical organizations, there were only a few Gold-ranks. The world-spanning Church had only seven in total. The requirement matched the prestige. Even though the spirituality requirements for advancing to Gold were steep, Dorothy wasn’t particularly worried. As long as she had her Reading Method, it was only a matter of time before she accumulated all the spirituality she needed. With money to buy books, the process could even be quite fast. For Dorothy, the greatest obstacle to advancement had never been the amount of spirituality—it had always been the absurd difficulty of the advancement ritual itself, and the process of acquiring its method. “I wonder what ridiculous conditions the next advancement ritual will require... Don’t tell me it’ll ask for six divine armaments? Divine armaments are the treasured assets of major organizations and sects—only Gold-rank members are even qualified to hold them. If I really had to gather six of them, that’d basically be an impossible mission…” Dorothy grumbled internally. But since she hadn’t yet acquired the method for advancing to Gold, she had no way to know what the ritual would entail. “In any case, advancing to Gold isn’t something I need to worry about right now. After scrambling for more than half a year just to reach Crimson, I should take time to recover and stockpile spirituality first…” So she thought, and having finally finished reviewing her new powers and spirituality reserves, Dorothy let out a deep yawn. Then, with one strong push of the rocking chair, she used the rebound force to spring upright and landed steadily on the carpeted floor. After that, she climbed into the large bed, tucked herself under the covers, and switched off the bedside lamp, ready to sleep. Just before drifting off, she gazed out the window at the full moon, watching its cool light spill across her body. “The Mirror Moon Goddess… the Moonlit Queen… truly intervened to help me. This bloodline I inherited from my mother really does carry a profound connection to the Mirror Moon…” “So then… what are you hiding? Queen of the Night Sky… is Dorothea, that woman, a hidden card you left behind in Pritt? Is she… or am I… merely one of your pawns?” “And in the end… what kind of memory is it that you have concealed from me?” Lying in bed, Dorothy silently pondered the moonlight outside the window. At this moment, she could clearly sense that there was anomalous interference in her thoughts and memories—there was a segment of memory she could feel was clearly abnormal. That memory pertained to the key moment during her advancement ritual—the part where her consciousness descended into the inner realm. She remembered clearly: her mind, guided by the ritual, had delved deep toward the world’s inner layers—as if about to arrive at some extraordinary place. Dorothy knew this was likely a realm tied to Revelation—a place known as the Realm of Cognition. According to what she had learned from the Temple of Revelation Runes, the Realm of Cognition was the convergence point of all knowledge and information in this world. It was the Akashic Record of the current reality. For any Beyonder on the Revelation Path, the advancement to Crimson would inevitably include this step—the mind would be drawn to the Realm of Cognition as a kind of pilgrimage. Experiencing it firsthand was a necessary part of becoming a Crimson-rank of Revelation. The Realm of Cognition was a deep inner realm—far harder to reach than the Dreamscape or the Veiled Realm. Only high-level rituals like those for Revelation’s Crimson-rank could send a person’s consciousness there. Dorothy had deliberately chosen to enter the Cognition Realm. According to the temple’s records, she only needed to linger there briefly before returning to complete her advancement. At the time, she had been curious—what did the Cognition Realm look like? Could she perhaps snag a few rare mystical texts while she was there? And yet, now that she tried to recall that moment, everything after entering the Cognition Realm was a blur. She couldn’t remember what happened at all. After that blankness, she only remembered waking up again—already back in the ritual site, the advancement complete. Since the advancement had clearly succeeded, she must have indeed reached the Cognition Realm. But for some reason, her memory of it was concealed. She couldn’t recall what she had experienced there. The only thing she remembered upon waking was the gentle silver radiance that wrapped around and soothed her. The moment she felt that silvery light and the power it carried, Dorothy realized: the Mirror Moon Goddess had intervened. Under the phase of the full moon, perhaps She had been watching the cathedral all along. From the moment Dorothy stepped into that ancient temple, she might already have been under the Goddess’s gaze. Everything that happened afterward in the temple—and perhaps throughout the Lake Starbind region—was likely seen by Her. She had silently watched as Dorothy toyed with the Eight-Spired Nest, defiled Her temple in secret, and performed the Domain Substitution Ritual—and She had done nothing to stop it. Once Dorothy understood all that, she had no hesitation in creating the Lady of the Lake myth-form—because she knew that the Mirror Moon was most likely on her side. What the Goddess lacked wasn’t will, but a means to intervene in Pritt. Knowing that the Mirror Moon’s stance aligned with hers, Dorothy speculated that the blurred memory of the Cognition Realm was likely Her doing. She guessed that the Mirror Moon had chosen to protect her consciousness from some dangerous knowledge within that place. That information might’ve been even more devastating than cognitive poison—perhaps something even worse. After acquiring it, Dorothy might not have been able to retain her sanity, even with system protection—it had to be dealt with. Dorothy guessed that the Mirror Moon had used divine power to conceal that dangerous knowledge from her mind—hence the concealment. But she could also feel that this concealment wasn’t particularly strong—at least, not against her own will. In her current state, Dorothy could sense that if she truly wished to recall it, she could force herself to do so. But at the same time, a wave of dread would rise in her heart. It wasn’t overpowering—perhaps better described as a sense of looming danger. If Dorothy ignored that danger and insisted on remembering, she likely could recall everything. But even such a small danger was enough to make her hesitate—to avoid trying to think further about it. From that subtle sense of dread, Dorothy understood the Mirror Moon’s warning: the Moonlit Queen was clearly telling her not to probe this memory any further, or the consequences would be dire. Yet at the same time, the warning wasn’t so strong as to make remembrance completely impossible. Dorothy thought: if the Mirror Moon had wanted to, She could’ve easily made it so Dorothy couldn’t even imagine that memory existed—this half-sealed state was clearly intentional. And from this, Dorothy concluded that the Mirror Moon was leaving the choice to her—when she was truly ready, when the time came that she truly needed it, she could choose to recall it, break through the fear, and retrieve that knowledge. That memory was the Mirror Moon’s Pandora’s Box, left to Dorothy—a sealed secret that she alone must decide when to open. “...Sigh.” Having finished interpreting the Mirror Moon’s intent, Dorothy gazed at the full moon beyond the window and let out a quiet sigh. Then she softly murmured. “…She really went out of her way, didn’t She? Since I came to this world… aside from my big brother, no one has ever taken care of me like this—unconditionally and without asking for anything in return…” “I just hope Your true intentions… won’t…” Her words trailed off. Dorothy lay quietly under the covers, closed her eyes, and drifted into slumber beneath the gentle glow of the moonlight.