Looking at the scarred swordfish dragon hurriedly escaping into the white mist, Shifrin fell into deep thought.

This was already the fourth knowledge creature she had encountered tonight.

Generally speaking, Shifrin would only encounter a special event once during her exploration of the virtual realm at night. Most of the time, she would just wander around all night—because the Knowledge Sea was too vast and the white mist was too dense. It was difficult to meet each other on the sea unless there was a life-or-death fate.

However, tonight she had encountered four consecutive knowledge creatures, which made Shifrin suspect that today might be the breeding period for knowledge creatures, so they gathered around the surrounding groups for mating…

But Shifrin actually understood why she was able to trigger consecutive battle events.

She transformed into a bat again and waited in place for a moment. Sure enough, she heard the familiar “thump” sound again!

Here it comes again!

After hearing this sound five times in a row, Shifrin couldn’t deceive herself into thinking it was an illusion anymore.

She could even foresee that as long as she flew in the direction where the sound came from, she would definitely encounter another knowledge creature! Just like the previous four times!

What on earth was going on!

The books “Hundred Years in the Virtual Realm, Ten Years at Sea,” “Poor Artificer, Rich Artificer,” and “Sailing Ten Thousand Miles” didn’t mention this situation at all!

The only similar situation was the legendary “Mermaid’s Call”: it was said that in the Knowledge Sea, there was a knowledge creature called the Female Lantern Dragon. Its true form was extremely ugly, but its tentacles were beautiful mermaids with enchanting appearances, sweet voices, and sexy figures. When a sorcerer couldn’t resist the temptation and approached the mermaid, the lurking Female Lantern Dragon would suddenly appear and devour the sorcerer.

However, Shifrin neither saw the mermaid nor encountered any traps. It seemed that the “thump” sound was simply guiding her to the nearest habitat of the knowledge creatures.

She also thought about whether other sorcerers were playing tricks on her, but upon careful consideration, it was impossible—her ultrasonic detection was already the top-notch reconnaissance miracle at the Silver level. Even so, she could only explore the terrain within three meters of her surroundings. Ultrasonic waves beyond that distance would be blocked by the white mist.

And the area she flew over before robbing the swordfish dragon was nearly a hundred meters away.

Even the miracles of the prophecy faction and the destiny faction couldn’t penetrate dozens of meters of white mist. Even if they could, it was definitely not within the abilities of a Silver sorcerer.

However, once a sorcerer advanced to the Two-Winged Gold or Three-Winged Holy Domain, the truth gate they opened could not lead to the Knowledge Sea. The path of a sorcerer was a one-way street, with no possibility of turning back. There would only be Silver sorcerers in the Knowledge Sea.

Moreover, she couldn’t think of a reason why the other party would guide her—If the other party could really see through the hundreds of meters of white mist, their abilities would definitely be enough to crush Shifrin. It would be better to just tie her up and make her do whatever they wanted.

This was the Virtual Realm, and as long as the other party concealed their identity, the Blood Sanctum wouldn’t be able to find anyone to retaliate against.

So Shifrin felt even more that she triggered a certain mechanism in the Virtual Realm, causing it to actively guide her to find the nearest knowledge creature.

Just like a whirlpool, there were many mysterious mechanisms in the Virtual Realm that couldn’t be deciphered. Some appeared randomly, but some were accidentally triggered by sorcerers.

For example, the “Great Path” of the Knowledge Sea, although the research institute had not yet found a feasible triggering method, after integrating various data, it was found that sorcerers who specialized in earth magic were most likely to encounter the “Great Path.” It was highly probable that the behavior of earth magic sorcerers caused changes in the Virtual Realm, thus revealing the Great Path.

Shifrin had read a book called “Illusory World Record,” which recorded many such unverifiable mechanisms of the Virtual Realm: for example, throwing a One-Winged Sorcery Spirit into the sea would cause a masked sorcerer to appear from the sea, holding a Two-Winged Sorcery Spirit and a Three-Winged Sorcery Spirit, asking which Sorcery Spirit was thrown just now. If you honestly answered that none of them were, you would receive a reward… Most of the stories in it were these kinds of almost absurd, effortless, and strangely triggered fantasies.

Although it was almost impossible to replicate these mechanisms, Shifrin still tried to recall what she had done just now that triggered this mechanism.

Could it be that her statement of “I hope to encounter a knowledge creature” was heard by the Virtual Realm?

“I want to encounter the Island of Adventures… I want to encounter the Whirlpool… I want to encounter the Goldfish… I want to eat Truffle Lalafell… I want to condense seven or eight drops of colorless source blood again…” Shifrin muttered while flying, hoping that the Virtual Realm would listen to her wishes again.

But it seemed that the Virtual Realm didn’t hear her prayers. Instead, she heard the faint screams of the swordfish dragon again, as if it was being brutally beaten not far away.

This was not the first time. The knowledge creatures that were defeated by Shifrin before would also emit a mournful scream in the distance after escaping.

Could her newly learned miracle, “Blood Counterflow,” really be so powerful that it made knowledge creatures wail all night, even if they couldn’t recover after escaping?

If Shifrin flew ten meters to the right, she would see the fleeing swordfish dragon being brutally attacked by a pair of dog-like men and women. It looked at the two people in front of it with an expression of “It’s you who attracted the Blood Sanctum,” and after emitting a mournful wail of “A tiger has fallen into Pingyang and is bullied by dogs,” it exploded into a pile of loot.

After licking the loot, the small boat silently followed Shifrin’s flight path.

…

…

Blood Moon Kingdom, Shattered Lake Prison.

Shifrin woke up from the bed and couldn’t help but stretch her body, causing her bones to make crisp sounds—because of the slow flow of blood, the body of the Blood Sanctum was prone to stiffness.

If she wanted to explore the Virtual Realm for a long time, the Blood Sanctum had to lie in a coffin and reduce the oxygenation rate by reducing the air. Otherwise, when she woke up, her whole body would be stiff.

Shifrin first took a warm bath and then brushed her teeth and washed her face. During this process, all water sources had to be kept still. One of the taboos of the Blood Sanctum was not to touch flowing water. Although there would be no harm if they touched it, the feeling of flowing water to the Blood Sanctum was like the piece of steak you were eating suddenly wriggling, which was disgusting and terrifying.The Blood Saint Clan had enough taboos to fill a book, and compared to them, the most well-known ‘fear of sunlight’ was just the least significant one.

Despite the numerous restrictions, people still flocked to join the research institute to become blood descendants. This was not only because of the powerful racial talents of the Blood Saint Clan, but also because the Blood Saint Clan was the favored child of the Blood Moon Lord, and one of the only two ruling races in the Blood Moon Kingdom!

“Reporting last night’s encounter to the research institute should earn me quite a few research points… But then I’d have to talk to the teacher again, and he’s sure to chatter on and on, asking all sorts of questions. It’s super annoying…”

Shifrin changed into a loose black robe and put on a raven mask while lost in her thoughts, heading to the exclusive restaurant for healers.

“Good day, sir.”

Seeing another healer about to salute her, Shifrin quickly stopped him and said, “Haven’t I told you, just treat me like a regular healer on normal days, a greeting will do. This isn’t the outside world.”

“But…”

“If you keep doing this and word gets to the research institute, the teacher will definitely scold me. Your badge number is 137, right? I’ll remember that. If I get scolded by the teacher, I’ll remember to give you trouble.”

Number 137 was now flustered, scared into bowing again, “I’m sorry, sir, I was just—”

“Hmm? Still using formal language?”

“…Good morning, Number 222.”

PS: Although the number of first-time subscribers hasn’t reached ten thousand yet, I’ll still add two more updates. Thank you all for your support.

I never thought I’d see the day when I’d update eight times in one day. It’s not only unprecedented, it might also be the last…

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