Mysteries: Arcana Wars

Chapter 156 Family Tree

“But in fact, in this matter, I don’t really care about the significance of the Tesla family to the Church of Darkness. I care more about Fors’s problem.

"I mean, the mumblings that Fors heard and the visions that she occasionally saw sounded as if she had become a radio receiver, like a broken radio station that had received the wrong radio waves...

"And judging from what Fors said in Audrey's clinic, those mumblings seemed to be more than just radio communications, but also command signals between some devices...

"Klein, I strongly suspect that Fors has been connected to the internal communication system of Rupert's Network!

"[Rupert's Web]! It's the Abraham Group's satellite constellation and space station system, which you came into contact with when you were writing software before!

"Klein? Did you hear what I said? Klein!"

Leonard's vague voice came from the hazy world.

"Klein!"

Klein was awakened from his trance.

"Ah! What? Ah... Leonard, I heard you. I just heard what you said."

As if he had just been awakened from a dream, Klein responded to Leonard's words absentmindedly, his fingers resting on the book written in Rosel's language, not knowing what to do.

"You just said that Fors was connected to Abraham's satellite system [Rupert's Network]. I agree with this. It seems that Fors must have established a deep connection with Abraham in the Sixth Epoch."

As he spoke, he took out a pocket watch from his pocket, and the [Illusion Compass] showed that he was in a hallucination that lasted for more than an hour.

Looking around again, Klein confirmed that it was this non-existent book that caused the pocket watch to react.

He carefully took the book off the shelf, then walked quickly to Leonard holding it.

Leonard found all this a little ridiculous. He looked puzzled as he watched Klein solemnly hold a children's picture book in his hands and sit down in front of him. He stared at the book without opening it, as if what he was holding was not a children's picture book, but a bomb waiting to be defused.

"What are you doing?" Leonard asked.

"Reading a book," Klein replied. "A family tree."

"…But what you're holding is a children's picture book…"

Leonard was about to say something but stopped talking. Suddenly he thought of something and suddenly everything became clear to him. He accepted the current situation as a matter of course.

Oh, it’s Klein who is hallucinating again!

Unlike Leonard's sudden realization, Klein's eyes became more and more serious.

"Whose genealogy did you see? Abraham's?"

"No, my family tree, the Moretti family tree."

Klein stared at the dark words of Roselle on the cover. He tried to turn the pages several times, but his fingers stuck to the plain linen cover.

The book is heavy, as heavy as a 10,000-ton ship and difficult to shake; the book is light, as light as a dream and fragile.

After taking several deep breaths, Klein's eyes became firm. He slowly raised his hand and gently opened the book.

The entire family tree was written in Roselle, but the names used were transliterated from Loenese, making Klein feel as if he was watching an old dubbed movie from the old days.

Below the neat Roselle text, there was a row of crooked handwriting, as if a child who had just learned to write was practicing the Loenese notation half seriously and half jokingly.

Perhaps because they didn't know which two "parents" to mark as their own, the entire family tree starts with the three Moretti siblings.

Melissa in the photo looked much more mature than Klein remembered, while Benson was younger than Klein remembered. The two looked like they were the same age, both in their twenties, but unlike in memory, both had black hair and black eyes, exactly the same as what Klein had seen in the illusion before.

But what surprised Klein was that there was no photo in his seat, only a lonely name.

It should be said that there is only a series of several names.

“Klein Moretti”, “Zhou Mingrui”, “Lord of Mysteries”…

as well as:

"Blessings be to the Heavenly Lord Xuanhuang."

An indescribable chill rose from the soles of my feet and penetrated my mind. Looking at "myself" on the family tree, I felt a sense of strangeness and resistance.

He looked up at Leonard.

What kind of earth-shaking changes will more than a thousand years bring to people?

For the "present" me, can the "future" me really be trusted?

"Hmm? Klein? What did you see?"

Leonard keenly sensed Klein's changes.

"...No, it's nothing."

"Oh, I see. That's what I can't know."

The more Leonard acted as if it was natural and normal, the more Klein began to question himself in the Sixth Epoch.

But now, Leonard is his only way to understand the past. After thinking about it, Klein decided to ask some questions to test the waters.

“I don’t see my picture in the family tree, just my name.”

"Ah, this... maybe it's because even true gods don't record their appearance. You see, other true churches all do this, leaving behind a symbolic emblem at most."

Leonard scratched his head.

“In fact, the Church of Fools didn’t erect a statue or portrait of you at that time, not to mention that you are a ‘Faceless Man’. Moreover, the Faceless Man in your Church of Fools often beautify themselves in daily life. As a result, in the information age, after the fortune-tellers in the Rorsted Islands were promoted to Faceless Man, the first thing they did was to beautify themselves. The second thing they did was to go to the government agency to re-register their identity information and ID photos…”

“…That’s what I thought.”

Judging from his own memories of the Fifth Age, the gods of the Fifth Age have realized that believers' cognition of themselves may reversely affect the gods themselves through the "anchor" effect. So from this point of view, it is in line with universal custom not to leave photos in the family tree.

What's more, for a "Faceless Man" of that level, perhaps "appearance" really has no meaning anymore - do mythical creatures above the sequence really have the concept of "appearance"?

Klein didn't say much and continued his research.

The entire family has been around for more than a thousand years, and the last member was born before the millennium. By the end of the Skyward War, the youngest Moretti had not yet reached adulthood. However, in the photos collected in the book, everyone's face was frozen in their twenties, with the same black hair and black eyes without pupils.

But for an "extraordinary family" or even an "old family", the entire family seemed a little too sparse. In Klein's general understanding, with a big boss of the "Lord of Mysteries" in charge, it would at least develop into a behemoth like the Abraham family. The Eggers family, the Auguston family, the Tamara family, the Antigonus family... In history, which extraordinary family with angel combat power did not flourish in this world before its demise, leaving behind endless myths and endless treasures for future generations, and having a large number of "descendants" with some bloodline.

Judging from this family tree, the descendants of the Moretti family are actually from the bloodline of Benson and Melissa, and there are not many offspring in each generation. At least half of them choose to become ordinary people and do not become extraordinary people. Among those who become extraordinary people, most of them are low- and medium-sequence people. There are very few who have the combat power of sequence five. There are only a handful who can become demigods or above. The only few members who have reached sequence three have lost their minds and gone crazy. There are no members above angels.

Even this family tree is wrapped in linen cloth. The thick cover and sturdy paper pages have no decorative craftsmanship. It is simple and unpretentious, and what stands out is its sturdiness and durability.

In this comparison, isn’t our home a little too simple and low-key?

...Wait, our family isn't really going to remain poor like this!

Another thing that concerned Klein was that some people died because of failed promotions, or went completely crazy because of promotions. Although the number of people was not large, due to the small number of family members, the probability was much worse than the situation in the church. This caught Klein's attention.

The reason why they don’t pursue Extraordinary even though they have their own protection is that when they integrate Extraordinary characteristics, they are more likely to fail in promotion than others?

Or is it that the entire family is more likely to fall into madness...

Klein suddenly remembered Leonard's description of himself as half-crazy in the Sixth Epoch, and the common mental problems of the Moretti family.

Is there a part of “me” involved in this?

Thinking of this, Klein suddenly had an idea.

"Leonard, I'll read the names and you repeat what I said."

"what?"

"I want to verify whether there are any 'existing' descendants of the Moretti family. Just like last time, if your retelling is different from my reading, it means that this family member is 'non-existent' just like my brother and sister; on the contrary, if they are the same, it means that this person still 'exists' and may even be alive!"

"I've said before that the Moretti family of the Sixth Epoch are actually your secret puppets and clones... Oh, forget it. I believe you. Come on."

Klein opened the book and read quickly.

"Melissa Moretti."

"Megan Marshall."

"Benson Moretti."

"Aedo Ross."

"Ruth Moretti."

"Bebeth Langer."

……

"Muffi Moretti."

"Sharel Filho."

"…Field Moretti?"