"Could you elaborate?" Lu Li didn't answer right away.
This information was exactly what he needed.
"Things like this aren't free," the old man chuckled, noticing the thirst for knowledge in Lu Li's eyes. He sounded just like Gades.
"What do you want?" Lu Li asked calmly.
"Nothing. I just don't like sharing what I know," the old man answered grumpily.
Lu Li looked at Old Man Pick.
"I don't know much," Old Man Pick replied good-naturedly, unlike his sullen companion. "I can only tell you what I know myself. The system of Evil Spirits includes ghosts, vengeful spirits, and evil spirits. They are the souls of people, or sothing else. The system of Evil Gods consists of evil gods born spontaneously or as the result of rituals. The system of spirits of defilent... uh... I’ve forgotten. They’re very mysterious, and you almost never encounter them. The system of Anomalies, like that of Evil Spirits, is the most common. Anomalies usually have a physical form—so kind of creature or object, most of which have a repulsive appearance or an incomprehensible shape."
"No."
"What?" Old Man Pick was taken aback.
"The answer to your previous question," Lu Li explained.
The Mother of the Swamp probably belongs to the Evil Gods, and the Bloody Tentacles and the Door to the Anomalies...
"Alright, let's continue." Old Man Pick collected himself after a few seconds, glanced at the other old man who was once again lounging in his chair, and asked, "If soone offered you a fee to kill a person, would you agree?"
"No."
"And if soone threatened your family to force you to kill soone?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't have a family."
An awkward pause hung in the air. "What about your friends?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't have friends."
Old Man Pick pressed his lips together, his wrinkled face twitching. "What does it an to you to be human?"
Lu Li felt the questions were starting to stray. "That question can't be answered with a 'yes' or 'no'."
"It doesn't matter. It's listening," Old Man Pick tapped the table, giving Lu Li a aningful look.
Lu Li thought for a few seconds. "To feel human."
The old man and Old Man Pick exchanged surprised glances.
"Can you explain?" Old Man Pick asked, straightening up.
"Here?"
Lu Li glanced around.
The locals were talking loudly, and discussing such topics in this noisy, tavern-like place felt strange and out of place.
"Here."
Lu Li remained silent and asked another question. "Can these questions determine a Mind Level?"
"Everyone does it this way," Old Man Pick replied.
Lu Li noticed that the old man hadn't answered his question directly. "And so?"
"They can't," Old Man Pick answered unexpectedly.
Before Lu Li could say anything, Old Man Pick added, "But they can curry favor with the Evil Spirit and get its assessnt."
"An assessnt?"
Lu Li felt he was beginning to understand the nature of this Evil Spirit.
"The Evil Spirit materializes your Mind Level."
"And what else?"
Old Man Pick hesitated, looking at Lu Li in surprise. "You've figured it out?"
The question confird Lu Li's suspicion. He nodded. "Your questions are too obvious."
"We're also looking for suitable candidates," the other old man answered for Old Man Pick. His tone grew serious. "Young man, would you like to join us?"
"Who are you?" Lu Li asked.
"The Spirit Hunters Association, the Night's Watch, the Investigators... Call us whatever you like."
The answer puzzled Lu Li.
In reality, it wasn't a union of the three organizations, as he had assud. The Investigators and the Night's Watch worked closely together due to their official status, while the Spirit Hunters Association had always remained in the shadows.
The old man was a mber of the "Alliance"—an unofficial organization that had erged from these three groups.
They acted as interdiaries between the three organizations, transferring information and resources, as well as helping exorcists.
A free, auxiliary organization focused on serving the three main groups, one that didn't even have its own na.
But it was still better than a disconnected community of exorcists.
The Mind Level testing site, disguised as a laundry, was one of their achievents.
Lu Li looked questioningly at Old Man Pick. The other old man was a mber of the Alliance, but what about Old Man Pick?
"Don't trouble yourself over it. I'm just an ordinary person," Old Man Pick replied.
The Alliance contacted laundries themselves and offered to collaborate with those who were interested. The laundry didn't belong to the Alliance; it simply provided a place for Mind Level testing.
The collaboration with Old Man Pick's laundry began fifty or sixty years ago, when Old Man Pick was still a young man.
"But why was I invited? Because of my answers?" Lu Li wanted to know the reason.
"The answers don't matter; they're just feed for the Evil Spirit. And it wasn't
who took an interest in you. You received an invitation because you saw through the test," the old man replied.
The questions for the Mind Level test were created jointly by the Spirit Hunters Association, the Night's Watch, and the Investigators. They were embedded with traps to identify exorcists who could spot them but didn't belong to the three main organizations.
Lu Li was one of those who had seen these traps.
"First, tell
my Mind Level," Lu Li neither agreed nor refused.
"Fine."
The old man took a leaf from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of Lu Li.
The vague sense of sothing sinister that Lu Li had been feeling suddenly intensified with the leaf's appearance. In the next mont, the leaf began to yellow and wither right before his eyes.
Crack.
A thin crack appeared on the withered leaf, as if cut by a knife.
"The more cracks, the more psychological vulnerabilities you have, and the lower your Mind Level," the old man explained.
Crack. Crack.
Sothing incredible happened: new cracks rapidly appeared on the leaf until they covered it completely. At that mont, a gust of cold wind swept into the laundry, and the leaf, barely holding its shape, disintegrated into dust that was instantly scattered around the room.
"What does this an?" Lu Li looked up at the frowning old man.
The old man sighed heavily, staring at Lu Li as if he were a ghost. "The test failed... Is your Mind Level low?"
"Perhaps," Lu Li answered.
"There's nothing I can do. I'm afraid you'll need a more precise test... I can submit an application for you to be tested by one of the three organizations. Which one interests you the most?"
Lu Li understood his condition. The disintegrated leaf was a surprise, but it was perfectly understandable.
He didn't answer the old man's question right away. Instead, he took out the Flashlight and placed it on the table. "Have you seen this?"
The old man looked even more astonished than when the leaf had turned to dust. "Where did you get this thing?!"
"It was given to ."
The old man nodded in understanding and, after studying Lu Li intently, said, "It seems soone has already made the choice for you."
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