Chapter 35
Chapter 35: Soul Perception
After leaving the theater, Funis didn’t immediately head to the Vivian Glass Factory.
Before obtaining the sword rust secretion, she had something quite important she wanted to experiment with—the “Gravedigger” sequence she had recently acquired. The seventh sequence of the Wrath pathway, just as the potion’s name suggested, one of its extraordinary traits was awakening the undead.
The night in Black City was gloomy, with clouds obscuring the moon. Walking on the unlit roads felt like sinking into a pool of black, damp mud.
Pushing open the iron gate, a gravel path stretched through the bushes, winding far into the distance.
Midnight.
The cemetery mist was thin.
Funis sniffed—no unpleasant rust smell, just pure water vapor.
Taking a somewhat roundabout route, she walked another seven or eight hundred meters north of the glass factory before arriving at this public cemetery.
Pale white tombstones stood arranged among low shrubs, with unnamed gray-white flowers scattered beside the monuments.
Silence.
The sound of her heels seemed to echo throughout the entire cemetery.
A hint of cold breath drifted through the fog, especially in this deserted late night.
By paying a relatively cheap tax to Lord Joseph, one could find a relatively peaceful resting place here for their deceased family members. The factory owners hadn’t gone so far as to erect smokestacks here as well, and besides, the workers and citizens had no other choices anyway.
Located at the border between Blackwater River District and Georgetown District, or perhaps it could be said to be the common periphery of both districts.
This was the boundary of Gray Cloud Fort’s Black City.
Beyond here lay the territory of the Corenzo Kingdom.
Queen Philadrica, hailed as the Golden Iris, had already brought the surrounding city-states back under her domain. These allied states had gained independence at the same time as Gray Cloud Fort, but now that technology and freedom were no longer the exclusive privilege of progressive city-states, and after parliamentary reforms merchants were no longer excluded from political circles, faced with tolerant and highly tempting conditions, they had no reason to refuse the Queen.
Only Gray Cloud Fort remained—a brilliant pearl in the thick haze, wealthy and prosperous.
A thorn in the Queen’s eye.
But that wasn’t something Funis needed to worry about. She withdrew her gaze from the distant mountains and fields, continuing to pace along the gravel path in the cemetery.
Stopping before a row of tombstones, Funis gently extended her palm.
Deep red flames suddenly spread across her palm, lingering in the mist. A tome inlaid with gold and diamonds immediately emerged from the fire through refinement. Under Funis’s gaze, it opened itself and flipped through its pages, yellowed parchment rustling past.
These parchments were all blank, until page eight.
A fanged lion-leopard.
The artistic style was fierce and menacing.
“Original Codex Chapter Eight, Chapter of Wrath.”
Funis recited the header of this page in an obscure, awkward language. When she spoke in this tongue, her voice became deep and ancient, like striking an ancient bronze bell.
Being able to summon the codex’s true form through her own will was direct evidence that she had absorbed and integrated with the codex.
A snap of her fingers.
The lion-leopard pattern immediately dissolved and reorganized into rows of text.
The blood-red writing that had previously appeared directly in her vision was a simplified form of the codex’s manifestation—more convenient and intuitive, but the information displayed wasn’t completely detailed, and it was difficult to judge her current state.
For instance, the usage restriction conditions for [Authority: Revenge Absorption] only showed the available charge count in simplified form, but here it clearly marked the time needed to prepare charges.
48 hours.
A full two days.
Although upgrading the authority level in the future could also shorten charge preparation time and increase maximum charge count, according to current circumstances, this ability couldn’t be used carelessly—it had to demonstrate value at crucial moments.
But more than these details, what Funis was most curious about now was whether the “Gravedigger’s” extraordinary traits could truly function.
She caressed the ink marks on the page, the text glowing in the flames.
Her pathway quietly changed.
Samael had permanently opened this path for her. From this moment on, Funis was temporarily no longer a ninth sequence of the Witch pathway, but a seventh sequence Gravedigger of the Wrath pathway.
Considering that the ninth sequence showed no extraordinary traits and was useless for combat and exploration, she decided to maintain the Wrath pathway state until completing the Witch pathway’s advancement ritual.
Raising her hand lightly, she clenched it into a fist.
The golden and diamond codex suddenly closed, the deep red flames scattered into red and black mixed ash dust, disappearing in the wind.
Funis had dismissed the summoning of the Original Codex. Everything related to it returned to the depths of her consciousness. At this moment, only misty water vapor remained beneath her palm, as if no object had ever appeared there.
The Chapter of Wrath granted the Wrath pathway starting from the seventh sequence, and before this there should have been eighth and ninth sequences—meaning Funis had skipped these two advancement processes and gained a relatively high starting point.
Excluding the foundational ninth sequence, from the eighth sequence onward, Beyonders could already display their initial extraordinary traits.
Funis wasn’t worried about losing the eighth sequence “Apothecary’s” extraordinary traits.
Because higher sequences inherently encompassed all extraordinary traits of lower sequences in the same pathway. They always existed within the higher sequence’s extraordinary traits, even gaining additional evolution and enhancement.
In other words, by becoming a seventh sequence Gravedigger, Funis had also already acquired all extraordinary traits of the eighth sequence Apothecary.
Legend said the Tree of Knowledge was planted by Samael. The tree’s fruit were ripe grapes, and those who drank the wine made from the grapes would lose their reason, easily dominated by angry emotions. This was why alcohol and hallucinogenic poisons became one of the foundational extraordinary traits of the Wrath pathway.
This was recorded in books compiled by some demon followers.
Funis had confiscated quite a few of these, carefully reading all content related to the extraordinary. She remembered very clearly.
Apothecaries could add alcohol or a special biological toxin to liquids they had contacted or body fluids they secreted. This biological toxin had weak hallucinogenic effects, and when receiving enemy attacks, this toxin would transfer through contact points.
Relatively speaking, the eighth sequence of the Wrath pathway was rather weak, unable to gain much advantage in direct combat.
But most low-sequence Beyonders had no way to resist the biological toxins they secreted. If careless for a moment and poisoned to the point of hallucinations, they could only be slaughtered at will.
Of course, Guardians of the Generosity pathway, when activating their “Burst” state, would have extremely fast metabolism that would decompose toxins in the body in a short time and expel them through sweat, appearing essentially immune to toxins.
Funis could add this toxin to the Dream Demon’s sleep bubbles. When they burst, the hypnotic effect would be greatly enhanced, also solving the Apothecary’s weakness of needing close contact for direct poisoning.
Then there was the seventh sequence Gravedigger.
Awakening the undead.
Before his fall, Samael was the messenger who took souls for the Lord. Walking on the Wrath pathway to gain such extraordinary traits was reasonable.
But desecrating the dead was a serious crime under any faith or nation. Funis had no intention of actually digging up people’s ancestral graves. She came to the cemetery to experiment with another extraordinary trait to verify the authenticity of the seventh sequence.
Closing her eyes, her vision returned to darkness.
After a brief silence, clusters of ghostly blue light circles began appearing in her vision. They were irregular in shape, flickering and jumping like weak flames about to be extinguished. Even after opening her eyes again, they still existed.
Funis could see those blue flames sleeping beneath the dirt and burial mounds.
These were the undead.
Remnants left behind by souls from life, dwelling in biological corpses—existences completely different from living souls.
Gravediggers couldn’t directly operate on the undead themselves, but could make them temporarily obey by awakening and influencing their emotions. They had no intelligence, only basic instincts, so commanding multiple undead wasn’t difficult.
Since she could clearly perceive the existence of the undead, it proved her Gravedigger sequence was genuine, and the other abilities brought by the Original Codex were credible.
Funis’s anxious heart finally settled.
But she was also excited at the same time.
This meant that if she could successfully digest the seventh sequence Gravedigger’s characteristics and gather the potion materials for the sixth sequence Instigator, after complex rituals she would escape the low sequences and directly step into the halls of mid-sequences.
And the sixth sequence of any pathway would be a qualitative change, just like the third sequence compared to the fourth.
A leap-forward improvement.
The undead were usually quiet. They were buried underground, slumbering with their masters, without much change.
After wandering around and looking for a while, Funis grew bored, and it was time to depart for the Vivian Glass Factory. She had already spent considerable time here.
Her heart felt itchy.
She couldn’t help but press her legs together, white silk stockings making soft rustling sounds.
“I should hurry back after finishing this business…” Funis blushed and pinched the corner of her skirt.
However, just as she turned to leave, she saw a cluster of white flames swaying past outside the iron gate—this represented a living person passing by the cemetery.
The next time she blinked, the special vision of soul perception dispersed, and everything returned to its original colors.
A slender, graceful silhouette, golden curly hair beautiful as silk—Funis seemed to glimpse a familiar, cherished figure flashing past, disappearing behind the trees.
She could hardly believe her eyes.
“Charlotte!?”