Super Righteous Player
Chapter 778 - 318: An Unexpected Reply_1

Chapter 778: Chapter 318: An Unexpected Reply_1

The Winterlanders dramatically reduce "spellcasting" and "ritualistic" Transcendent crimes by tightly controlling the ability to cast spells.

...After all, cases that don’t involve spells are generally easy to solve.

It’s only the wizards who have a different set of added points for each person—trying to determine what spells they have used from the traces takes half a day to look up the information.

When it comes to wizard crimes, the people of Noah opt for direct surveillance; in the Holy Nation, where there could be a True God or False God on every street, such magical crimes are usually stopped on the spot; while the United Kingdom, with its dense population and abundance of talent, has the "Special Bureau for Magic and Ritual Crime"... There is the romantic boundary of "Transcendent Detectives" and "Transcendent Police Detectives", and even the criminals’ legends can be adapted into operas that are performed grandly in major theaters.

The Winterlanders don’t have such a large population, such abundant resources, nor do they have so many "surveillance heads" and strong individuals who unsheathe their swords to aid others in distress. So, they can only solve the problem fundamentally—by reducing the number of unofficial wizards.

As for the underground?

Unless the matter is significant, the wise generally don’t bother with it. After all, they are "smart people".

The Hand of Winter includes silver-rank Disability Wizards—they provide special promotion channels, nightmare walkthroughs, advanced careers, and start nurturing from the bronze-rank, with most Hands of Winter steadily advancing to silver within five to ten years.

After that, they utilize the learning abilities of their silver rank to continuously train for three years on how to combat wizards, and then, depending on the situation, they may add a one-year course on "how to combat other Transcendent professions".

They are professional wizard killers.

Every Hand of Winter can easily confront wizards of the same rank.

The Disabling School excels at crippling various abilities of others.

Slowing, silencing, freezing, weakening, tripping, freezing thoughts, freezing intent, hidden ice spikes in the air, invisible walls, walls that slow down flying objects, and bans on spatial movement, and so on.

With a full set of restricting skills and an understanding of spells from various schools... they are particularly skilled at physical strikes.

Maces or hand axes, at the very least two-handed swords, but daggers or "womanly weapons" are rarely seen.

And the Hands of Winter are also specially trained in firearms. Although the training is not prolonged, it is, after all, the learning ability of the silver rank. Hunting wizards with no combat experience and Ritualists with no hostility detection abilities is far too simple.

In short... aside from the Hands of Winter, any Transcendent who possesses spellcasting and ritual abilities is taken very seriously.

Wizards who cannot produce identity proof are virtually always unconditionally arrested by the Hands of Winter upon sighting, until it is indeed confirmed by the investigative team that there is no criminal record; even identified wizards are detained immediately and released only after inquiring with the Wizard’s Tower... after which they are constantly followed by surveillance.

As for Ritualists—any unofficial Ritualist is disarmed unconditionally. This disarmament means the confiscation of all their possessions, including clothing, because it’s impossible to discern what they might use to perform rituals. They are then given a new set of clothes and a small amount of travel money and are sent to another city, not allowed to return to familiar places. This is essentially a form of exile.

Of course, if the individual is talented... they are also offered amnesty.

Indeed, because of Winter’s special circumstances, there is a specific "discrimination" against wizards and Ritualists. This can’t really be considered discrimination, it’s more like prioritization.

By lowering the ratio of "unofficial spellcasters" among the nation’s Transcendents, there’s no need to establish a Transcendent countermeasure department within the police force. Instead, all Transcendent cases are entirely handed over to the special police department, the Hand of Winter, to solve—although the Hands of Winter are known as wizard killers, it doesn’t mean they are incapable of dealing with other types of Transcendents.

The only ones who can confront wizards of the same rank and level are Hunters who are particularly well-suited with Curse Binding.

But because of Winter’s special environment... Hunters generally can’t survive to reach the silver rank and are arrested for murder.

The Winterlanders need to use such methods to significantly reduce the expenditure and loss of talent—this is a policy established by the Duke of Winter a long time ago. At least by Ivan’s grandfather, or perhaps even his great-grandfather.

The person in the mirror is also an old wizard, so he can’t be unaware of this.

But... just because the policy is set one way, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s implemented in that fashion.

Having encountered too many dark wizards or having been chastised by these people while arresting wizards, or getting punished for offending real power players; or seeing comrades killed by dark wizards, or retiring due to disability... indeed, a portion of the Hands of Winter harbor hatred towards wizards.

They often begin to resort to special methods... such as directly hunting suspicious wizards without evidence, and then retroactively fabricating evidence, or simply stiffening their neck in a "one-for-one" trade-off.

In such conditions, many of Winter’s unofficial wizards have fled.

Even wizards who graduated from the Frigid Wight Tower typically do not stay in the Winter Duchy. After all, the Winter Duchy doesn’t want to kill these wizards, rather, by reducing the number of wizards, they aim to lower the frequency of spell-related crimes... If they’re willing to leave on their own, they won’t be hindered.

Surviving a Winter year is truly challenging.

Killing one person may ruin two or more families; setting a street on fire almost certainly dooms a village. Wizards are often heavy-handed... after all, their graduation exam is about outperforming in a fixed position, only ever aiming higher, never lower.

The person in the mirror, after all, is a wizard from Winter. He, his colleagues, and even his own students, might have been treated roughly by Winter’s Hand.

As for "colleagues" like Winter’s Hand, who strike at wizards without asking any questions, the person in the mirror has never had much of a fondness for them. Consequently, he wouldn’t have much affection for the Winter Principality either...

So after his ascension, he never returned to the Winter Principality, not even for a glance.

It is said that the person in the mirror’s Pope, Benjamin, has already taken him to the United Kingdom.

If the person in the mirror were to be told about the matter with Jacob, it might just lead to complications and even give rise to some misunderstandings.

It could be misunderstood that Annan plundered Jacob, or it could be misunderstood that Jacob "stooped low" to "associate with evil."

...Although, the truth seemed to be pretty close to that.

Afterward, Annan also wanted Jacob to learn some rituals from the mirror domain. If this "Opener" could master the rituals of the mirror domain, maybe his usefulness could increase...

Of course, that would have to wait until Aden and the other two sorted out the nightmare.

When the senior student arrived, Annan could also ask him to join in dealing with this nightmare... It would be easy to just drag another silver-tier girl along to join in the fight.

Speaking of which, would the senior student be counted as one person or two if he entered the nightmare...

With his thoughts, Annan lay in bed and fell asleep with his eyes closed.

Zoya stood quietly by the window, looking at the moonlight—the unique aspect of the profession of Winter’s Hand is that they only need four hours of sleep a day to avoid fatigue, and they can even go three days without sleep, compensating with twelve hours of rest.

As a trade-off, Winter’s Hands lose the desire for procreation and gourmet food. This is also why there are almost no descendants of Winter’s Hand.

But at three-thirty in the morning, the ritual table suddenly lit up with an orange glow.

As the golden flames ignited—the flame gradually melted and took shape, turning into four pieces of letter paper.

Annan’s perception had long since reached the Transcendent realm.

Even in deep sleep, he was the first to notice and woke up immediately.

Annan narrowed his eyes, smoothed his somewhat messy silver hair by his ear, and slowly propped himself up from the bed.

"... Salvatore? That was quick with the reply..." Annan murmured as he got up.

Zoya promptly walked to the table, picked up the letter paper, and quickly scanned it.

Her pupils shone bright—not from any spell, but merely from filling her pupils with curse-inflicted energy to gain night vision.

"I think you should take a look at this letter."

Zoya said, organizing the four pieces of letter paper in order, handing them to Annan. She then lifted the curtain of the ritual light in front of the bed and rotated the knob.

A soft, eye-friendly light immediately shone—although no light could harm Annan’s eyes.

It was a "handmade gift" from a friend Annan had made underground.

Filled with a large amount of seawater and a dozen or so "sealed with light ice cubes," it was an irregular crystal cube. By turning the knob, the quantity of water on the same layer as the "sealed with light ice cubes" could be controlled, thereby changing the brightness.

Annan got up, shuffling to the bedside table, placing the letter paper in front of him. Zoya picked up a garment and draped it over Annan.

And Annan soon furrowed his brow.

Salvatore had rambled on for more than two thousand words—half of which were about Azot. Half of that was complaining about the extravagant use of Radiant Oil, while the other half was about his frustration at not having Azot and how his experiment to recreate the Philosopher’s Stone had been stuck for a long time.

If one were to summarize the rest of his words...

It could be simply put as "I won’t go, so you might as well come over. Kafney’s succession ceremony isn’t that easy; she’s come across some ’troubles that aren’t so easy to resolve.’"

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