Mystic Overlord: Reading Gives Strength
Chapter 271 - 270: Archangel

Chapter 271: Chapter 270: Archangel

On the pitch-black Springs Street, Ronald was walking towards the apartment in the riverside district.

The considerable expense of ordering custom tools, the newly acquired spellcasting abilities...

These things would have affected his mood in the past.

But now they couldn’t touch him at all.

While strolling along the embankment of the Wis River, Ronald rifled through his pocket and then took out an investigator’s sigil.

"It’s too intriguing..."

The sigil Ronald had from his time as a temp had naturally been returned upon his resignation, but this one, taken from a traitorous investigator, he had always kept with him.

From the patterns engraved upon it, this investigator’s sigil differed from his temp one only in the spell inscribed.

The temp sigil contained a simple lie detector term.

Whereas the investigator’s was a roll of numbers.

It seemed that the spell inscribed might just be a variable, and what solidified the connection between the sigil and the original text, after all, were these completely unchanged surrounding patterns.

What kind of secrets then did these patterns hold...

With an unprecedented level of earnestness, Ronald studied the sigil in his hand, realizing upon closer examination that these patterns did not possess the cohesion typical of ordinary decorative motifs.

The twisted lines intersected yet harbored many hidden breaks.

If one looked at the patterns as divided by these breaks...

Trying to consider them separately, Ronald could barely make out a symbol resembling a transformed letter ’F’.

Related to Roman letters?

Attempting to deduce the truth from just this bit of information.

It was quite a stretch and might even completely deviate from the actual truth.

Smelling the night breeze from the Wis River, Ronald slipped the sigil back into his pocket while shaking his head regretfully,

"Indeed, I’m still lacking comparative samples."

"With sigils from other schools, perhaps I could learn much more."

As he contemplated, Ronald also pondered his next move.

He had been in Springs for only a few days.

Yet the list of issues had grown considerably.

Apart from developing a hostile relationship with the mysterious force that Elva belonged to, he now had an added task of tracing historical pasts.

In this world, was he also meant to delve into archaeology?

At that thought, Ronald couldn’t help shivering; he hadn’t forgotten how he’d crossed over.

It was supposed to be just a trip to the underground ruins to gather data.

Then an earthquake had struck, destroying the ruins and thus sending him through time.

After such an event, it was unlikely a normal person would develop a fondness for archaeology.

"Right..."

While analyzing his situation, Ronald murmured to himself and gently rubbed the silver ring on his index finger with his thumb.

The silver ring showed no visible reaction or change.

And without engraved patterns or additional adornment, there was no excess transformation either.

If one had to describe it,

it even looked like a mere iron ring.

Of course, that didn’t affect Ronald from hosting the ability he got from the "Mercury Trial" into it. As written in Divine Comedy, the Archangel of Mercury bestowed the power to manipulate objects.

With just a light rub, Ronald fully understood his new ability.

——Control over objects.

It was also an ability Malcolm had used before.

However, unlike when he was facing an enemy, tonight, as a spellcaster, Ronald understood the details of this power more clearly.

——A five-second activation interval.

——Ineffective on living entities.

——Once activated, it could only target one type of object within the casting range and couldn’t break the object’s intrinsic structure.

Apart from the time limitation, the other two restrictions were very subtle.

They were both constraints of the ability and effects of the ability itself.

It couldn’t be used on living things, which limited spells from directly attacking the human body and clarified why Malcolm could only dismantle the train that evening but couldn’t use the power on Ronald and the others.

And it could only target one type of object at a time, without destroying its structure...

That was quite interesting.

Beside him was the Wis River; Ronald decided to test it in practice.

He gently rubbed the side of the ring with his thumb, and the normally flowing river water was instantly halted by Ronald.

At the same time, he could feel that he could imbue the river with a one-time force.

If Ronald so wished, the expansive Wis River could immediately produce a brief surge on this side.

Quite an impressive effect.

What about the ground...

With that thought in mind, Ronald rubbed the ring again, shifting his spellcasting target to the ground beneath his feet.

"..."

The effect was very poor.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t control the soil, but after manipulating the top layer of dirt, the deeper soil layers, invisible to the naked eye, couldn’t be moved.

"So that’s how it is..."

While testing the spell, Ronald finally arrived at the apartment he was renting.

Compared to when he had left.

It was already deep into the night, and the original text of the ability very specifically told him the time.

Until dawn...

There were four hours, twenty-seven minutes, and sixteen seconds left.

With that thought, Ronald walked into the courtyard, climbed the spiral staircase, and then pushed the door to enter his room.

He casually hung his coat on the entrance and sprawled onto his bed:

"It’s time for rest again."

"..."

Ever since he had crossed over.

He had developed a very poor sleep schedule.

Now that he had the opportunity to rest, he would rest well.

Thus, his consciousness slowly sank into sleep, and purely looking at today’s experiences, the gain was very good.

——

The next morning, Ronald was awakened from his bed by a cautious voice.

Knock knock knock——

"Mr. Ronald, are you awake?"

"..."

Slowly opening his eyes, Ronald rolled to one side and looked towards the balcony.

The direction of the sun was just right, and without the need for the original text’s ability to prompt him, he knew it was morning.

So while climbing out of bed, he answered loudly,

"I’m awake, what is it?"

Saying so, Ronald quickly walked to the door and pulled it open.

Standing before him was the maid, whose attitude had become very cautious, completely devoid of her previous openness.

And at the door, the maid looked at Ronald with complex eyes.

After hesitantly standing for a few seconds, she finally asked,

"Mr. Ronald, do you still know the big shots of the Nicholas family? Over there in the courtyard, there’s a girl with platinum blonde hair, claiming to be ’Nicholas’, waiting for you!"

"..."

Ronald’s expression froze.

Almost without thinking, he brushed past the maid and headed downstairs!