There must be a corresponding reason for any Godfall; this is a very common view. The deities Shard has encountered in the past all indeed had their own reasons for showing themselves. For example, the God of Gambling came in response to Mr. Riddle’s gambling invitation; the Vampire God descended to hold a banquet; and the God of the Journey looked forward to interesting travel stories.

But once he thought of that, the question of why the Old God "Golden Sovereign" appeared at the "Black Mist Camp" suddenly became something worth carefully pondering.

The things those higher-dimensional beings take a fancy to are very different from what mortals desire. Take for instance the "Vampire Duke Lowell," who has interacted with Shard several times: he laid out plans across two Eras just for a single cup of Blood Brew and wanted nothing else. From a mortal’s point of view, this is completely incomprehensible.

"Then the second question: in your religious legends, is there any mention of a camp shrouded in black mist?"

The two men looked at each other in confusion, then shook their heads together:

"Sorry, there shouldn’t be anything like that."

"All right, those are all my questions."

Shard nodded and stood up. He had already achieved his goal, but the older man stopped him:

"Sir, please wait a moment. Are you interested in the Divine Arts we’ve inherited?"

"What do you mean? You’re trying to sell to me?"

he asked in surprise. The younger man nodded:

"We don’t usually trade with just anyone. But judging from what we see, you’re a very valuable trading partner."

He pointed at his own eyes. Shard noticed a faint glimmer in those brown irises—probably some reconnaissance-type Arcane Technique similar to "Demon Vision" or "Echo of Blood."

"If you’re willing, why not at least listen to what we intend to sell you first."

Shard mentally went over his assets. Since 1854, his biggest income source had been that share of the gold mine in Randall Valley. The location and depth of the mine had already been confirmed, so in just two months there was already a first batch of output, though it had not yet been transformed into cash and paid out to Shard.

Besides that, in the sewers of Randall Valley, when he and Iluna ran into that Flower Seller’s Relic, he accidentally discovered a century-old treasure. Part of that money had been donated, and the remainder was split between Shard and Iluna. On top of that, he hadn’t had any major expenses so far this year, so even though last year he had taken out 5,000 pounds in one go to invest in Miss Sylvia’s business, he still had around 7,000 pounds in cash on hand now.

"All right, then. What do you want to sell me?"

He sat back down. The older man took a palm-sized notebook from his pocket:

"Based on our observations, you’re suited to the following three Divine Arts. Please trust our judgment. We may be cursed and always have trouble getting rich ourselves, but when it comes to seeing whether other people have a chance to get rich, we’re very accurate."

He coughed lightly:

"Arcane Technique—’Food of Gold.’ Its effect is to enhance your Flesh Power and mental resilience by devouring gold.

Once you’ve mastered it, there will be different Traits depending on your proficiency. At the early stage, you can use your sense of smell and the touch of your tongue to judge the purity of gold; at the mid stage, you can heal injuries by devouring gold, and even regenerate severed limbs; if you’ve had the technique long enough and devoured enough, then at the final stage, a smooth, extremely tough metallic film can appear on the surface of your body to protect you, and you can use gold to replace the vast majority of Spellcasting Materials. Once you add gold as a medium when Spellcasting, the effect of the spell can be greatly enhanced."

Shard nodded:

"The only drawback is that it requires consuming Pure Gold."

"In addition, it will cause you to develop ’Gold Obsession,’ though you can replace food with other metals you devour. Oh, and it will cause your internal organs to undergo metal Transformation, but it won’t affect normal physiological functions.

The younger man said this while looking at Shard with great anticipation:

"Are you interested?"

"Hmm... what’s the second one?" 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"Arcane Technique—’Golden Cat.’ This technique requires our specially crafted golden cat statue; we can sell it to you cheaply.

Take the statue back to your long-term residence and arrange a ritual according to the requirements, then maintain regular daily contact with it. After one complete ritual cycle—about three weeks—you can learn the passive Arcane Technique ’Golden Cat,’ permanently increasing Luck within your residence, especially Luck in the direction of Wealth. For a simple example, if you play Roder Cards at home with others, you’ll most likely not lose."

"Mm... next."

This technique sounded pretty good, but Shard suspected the two men in front of him just wanted to make money off him by peddling "golden cat statues." What’s more, he didn’t believe the petty Mia would allow him to place a golden cat-shaped statue at home, let alone touch that statue every day.

"You really are picky. But that’s fine, we like customers like you. You’ll definitely be satisfied with the last one—’Treasured Item.’ You choose some ordinary inanimate object as the designated target, and, through the Spellcaster’s greed and affection toward that item, you allow it to gain Supernatural Power based on its own use and shape. For example, if you choose a ring, it might... Please don’t go; if you’re not satisfied, we still have other Divine Arts here."

Shard finally understood: compared to the Black Mist Camp in the Fifth Era, the sales skills of this Believer of the God of Wealth were far behind. If they wanted him to spend money, these temptations weren’t going to work.

Miss Danester was not surprised at all that Shard ended the conversation so quickly. The people from the Prophet’s Society hadn’t left yet; she had the Diviners take those two "merchants" away, then asked Shard with a smile:

"Did they also try to sell you Arcane Techniques?"

"Yes. Did they just say something similar to you as well?"

"They tried to persuade me to enrich the collections of the Academy Library... Times change; everything changes. The Golden Order, which flourished in the Fifth Era, has finally declined after all."

The Believers of the Old God "Twin Gods" and the Believers of the Old God "Blazar Gate" now all live in the Peace Chapel in Green Lake City, which is the safest cathedral in the entire Green Lake Region. Although Green Lake City is economically underdeveloped and its churches are not as grand as those in the cities on the South Shore, the city itself is quite ancient. In the sense of Mysticism, ancient sometimes means powerful.

Shard accompanied Miss Danester, helping her carry her bag and hold her documents. As for this suddenly appearing Circle Sorcerer, the Academy’s professors weren’t surprised at all; Shard was instead very curious as to how she had explained his identity.

The group set out a little after nine in the morning and arrived at their destination after just fifteen minutes by carriage. The professors from Zaras Literary Academy and Xerxes Higher Medical Academy arrived at the church at roughly the same time.

The three sides gathered together and exchanged a few pleasantries. Through this, Shard learned that the leader of the Xerxes Higher Medical Academy group was the Thirteen-Ring Sorcerer dean of academic affairs, Professor Miller Stuart, the "Iron Punisher," who had appeared once during the Randall Valley incident; Zaras Literary Academy was led this time by the Thirteen-Ring Sorcerer "Spirit Summoning Sorcerer" Professor Gou Siter, who had appeared during the Battle of Pantanal, and by the director of the Academy’s Student Affairs Office, the Thirteen-Ring "Rune Master," Professor Kelle Cindia.

Incidentally, Shard’s Healing-type ability "Cyndia’s Silvermoon Blessing" was said to have been created by one of this professor’s ancestors.

With the growing influence of the "Whispering Verses" and The Chosen One, the Three Major Academies had been sending increasingly large professor teams to each incident. Zaras Literary Academy currently had three Thirteen-Ring Sorcerers in total, and sending two at once this time was quite a bold decision. But it was also a forced one: ever since last summer’s Tobesk incident, the enemies who appeared during the struggle over The Chosen One’s identity, as well as those disasters that were almost like natural phenomena, had been expanding in both scope and intensity step by step.

If the situation weren’t urgent, the True God Churches would never lightly agree to let the Thirteen-Ring Sorcerers of the Three Major Academies enter this region.

For now, though, none of that had much to do with Shard. He could tell that Miss Danester was deliberately having him meet some of the professors from the other two Academies, and when they greeted each other, she intentionally introduced those High Ring Sorcerers to him. The Zaras and Xerxes professors, though they did not know Shard, all gave Miss Danester plenty of face.

On Church turf, the interests of the Three Major Academies could be regarded as a single whole. After some polite formalities and an exchange of current information, the Church side arranged for the meetings with the Old God Believers.

Since there were only a handful of Old God Believers, it was impossible to have them talk with all three Academies at once, so the exchanges were carried out in turn. In the first round, Saint Byrons was assigned those two Believers of the "Twin Gods," Zaras Literary Academy waited, and Xerxes Higher Medical Academy went to meet the Believers of the Old God "Blazar Gate."

Shard was actually quite interested in the Believers of the "Twin Gods," since even Grace and Helen couldn’t say for sure whether they still existed. But when they finally met, he discovered that they were actually just two ordinary people—twin elderly women who both looked even older than Priest Augustus.

They were so extremely old that the Church had assigned special staff to watch over them. Since both had married and had many children and grandchildren, their surnames were also different.

Once everyone had settled into the soft sofas, Miss Danester leaned forward slightly and, on behalf of Saint Byrons, chatted with them for a bit. Shard thus learned that they were very similar to Old Mrs. Ilal, the last High Priestess of the Old God "Earth-shaking Worm" Order. But that old woman living near Coldwater Port had at least been a Circle Sorcerer herself and had found Miss Aphrola, willingly helping her safeguard the Order’s inherited records.

By contrast, the last two Believers of the "Twin Gods" Order had been ordinary people from the start. Although they had preserved part of the Order’s documents, most of the valuable material had already been lost. No wonder even Grace and Helen believed that the Order no longer existed.