One-Eyed Monster

Dean Hoffman had originally used this method to motivate Stim. He had always felt that a bookworm like Stim had his own ideas, but was always too humble, always feeling that he lacked experience, so he treated everyone with excessive caution and never had much confidence.

Now, after this experience, Stim could be considered to have grown up.

Dean Hoffman felt a warm glow in his heart.

This moment belonged to Stim; no one could take away this confidence of his, nor steal his glory.

Stim opened the four Spirit Books all at once. In his hands, the four Spirit Books were like obedient children, without the slightest complaint.

”Now, everything will return to the starting point!” Stim released the Spirit Power in his body. What he had to do now was use that key to open a door.

Once that door opened, everything would be revealed.

”What comes next is the full display.” Stim said. The Spirit Power he released was only to activate these Basic Spirit Books, to fully present what he had discovered in these books to the Basic Spirit Books themselves. Only after the Spirit Books had ”seen” everything could they transmit the hidden information they carried.

To outsiders, Stim’s approach looked like a gamble, as if he were betting everything on this method. But Stim himself believed in it firmly. He didn’t think he was gambling; he thought he was simply doing the right thing.

However, things did not go as smoothly as Stim had imagined.

The four Spirit Books showed not the slightest reaction, looking completely on the verge of death.

Igor had seen such scenes many times before. In the old days, he would definitely have started mocking the unreliability of Spirit Books again. But ever since touring the library with Dean Hoffman moments ago, he no longer thought that way. Now he still regarded the Spirit Books as reliable partners, but he had come to understand that everything was mutual. If he wanted the Spirit Books to be reliable, he himself had to be reliable, too. He couldn’t use a double standard; he had to treat himself and the Spirit Books exactly the same.

So when Igor saw that the Spirit Books showed no reaction at all, he remained very calm. It was the Sol Brothers and Hustace who looked utterly incredulous. In their eyes, at the very least the Spirit Books should show a little movement, right?

Yet the Spirit Books still didn’t react in the slightest.

”What on earth is going on here!” Sol and the others couldn’t help blurting out.

”Don’t worry. Opening a door takes a long time, it needs a process.” Stim never panicked. He just kept doing, step by step, what he was supposed to do.

”But…”

”Hey, no more ’but.’ We have to trust Stim!” Igor hurriedly cut Hustace off.

Everyone was astonished by Igor’s behavior, because they all thought Igor’s reaction should have been the biggest. Yet his reaction was totally different from what they’d expected.

What on earth was going on?

The unsettled Sol Brothers and Hustace could only stand there quietly watching the few Spirit Books; aside from that, there really wasn’t anything else they could do.

They saw a faint yellow glow emerge from the Spirit Books, then the yellow light gradually started converging. At first it was only a tiny point, then it grew larger and larger, slowly forming into a sphere of light. The brightness from that orb was extremely dazzling.

The movement was neither too big nor too small, but the light was truly blinding. Everyone present quickly raised their hands to shield their eyes.

When the light was no longer so dazzling, they all opened their eyes—and saw a portrait in front of them.

”This… could this be Lord Soron’s Spirit Form?” The Sol Brothers stared wide-eyed, unable to believe what they were seeing.

”No, that’s not a Spirit Form.” Igor scratched his head beside them. He had seen Lord Soron’s Spirit Form before on Guru Mountain. Generally speaking, there wouldn’t be so many miscellaneous things around a Spirit Form; it should just be the form of a single person. What was in front of them now looked more like a painting.

”Then what is it?” The Sol Brothers turned and asked Igor. Though they were Ancient Hunters who had seen plenty of strange things, they still didn’t quite understand the situation now.

”I don’t know what it is either, but I can say for sure it’s not a Spirit Form.” Igor scratched his head, but his tone was very firm.

”Igor is right, this is not a Spirit Form. This is just a Spirit Power Projection.” Hustace said from the side. At this moment Stim was fully focused on revealing the hidden information within the Spirit Books and had no time to explain, so the duty naturally fell to him as a Scholar.

Now it seemed there was indeed a lot of sense in Dean Hoffman’s request for an open, empty space. Otherwise, how could this Spirit Power Projection possibly show itself? It would have no chance to appear at all!

A Spirit Power Projection needed a key and also required Spirit Power support. Stim had found all these elements. Now he was using his Spirit Power to sustain this projection.

”Stim really was right. These Spirit Books really did have some information hidden inside, and hidden in such a complex way. Lord Soron truly put in a lot of thought.” Igor sighed beside him.

Everyone felt this was very strange. Igor was changing a bit too fast. Just a short while ago he’d been saying that Lord Soron went to all this trouble to hide the message for nothing, and now suddenly it had become ”thoughtful and well-intentioned.” His turnaround was ridiculously quick!

Igor completely ignored everyone’s strange looks. He watched the Spirit Power Projection with great excitement, truly curious what kind of message Lord Soron was going to convey.

Lord Soron’s figure gradually became complete. Perhaps because Senior Stim’s Spirit Power was insufficient, even now, with the projection formed, Lord Soron still hadn’t spoken a word—his mouth looked like it was about to move, but…

This was a hard limitation: the Spirit Power reserve hadn’t yet reached the level needed to properly activate this Spirit Power Projection. Dean Hoffman saw this and felt very gratified. For an apprentice to accomplish this much was already remarkable. You had to know, in the current Scholar Commons, only those of High Rank or above could activate a Spirit Power Projection, whereas Stim was only an Intermediate Scholar.

”Forcing yourself to hold on is very painful. Let this old man give you a hand.”

”Dean, is this… really okay…” Stim forced out a few difficult words.

”We’ve already revealed the answer to this point—what is there to worry about? Even if the Dean didn’t help you, I would!” Igor shouted.

Now, the hidden content could finally be fully revealed!