Although Morris had been an old acquaintance for many years, in Vanna's eyes, Morris had always been a gentle and refined scholar. When they were in Pland City-State, this old gentleman devoted most of his energy to school classrooms, and the rest of his time was either spent in the library or being pulled by some schools to give speeches.

Vanna didn't have many opportunities to understand this elder's "extraordinary abilities" in the field of the extraordinary.

But since boarding the *Shilan* (Lost Hometown) , she finally began to see the other side of Morris, and realized how those seemingly harmless scholars who followed the wisdom god Lahm completed their work—

That was one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: pursuing knowledge.

But thinking about it carefully, it was normal. Scholars should have unique and powerful strength. After all, there are many beings in this world chasing after knowledge, from abyssal demons to spiritual phantoms, but in the end, most of the knowledge is caught up by mortals. What do they rely on? They rely on the powerful academic level of mortal scholars.

Vanna rubbed her forehead, trying to control the wild thoughts in her head, and muttered casually, "So you're so amazing... If I had studied hard back then, maybe..."

"No, the difference is too great," Morris shook his head expressionlessly. "It's more suitable for you to train hard."

Vanna was immediately a little embarrassed: "At least I graduated from the City-State University smoothly..."

Morris glanced at her: "Sports specialty accounts for one-third of the credits, and church studies account for one-third of the credits."

Vanna stopped talking. After a brief silence of a few seconds, she turned her gaze to the surrounding thick fog and awkwardly changed the subject: "The cultists you eliminated should be the controllers of those counterfeit freaks?"

"At most, they are one of the controllers," Morris shook his head. "Did you hear the movement from other blocks? Now the entire City-State is full of those monsters. I don't know how many cultists have taken advantage of the fog to enter the real world... I'm afraid we can't eliminate them all by ourselves."

Vanna nodded with a solemn expression, but just as she was about to say something, the corner of her eye suddenly noticed something, and she let out a soft "Huh."

She came to the side of the Annihilation cultist who had died, squatted down to check the condition of the corpse, reached out and grabbed the other person's collar, and tore it open casually.

The flesh and blood under the clothes were melting and wriggling, showing the appearance of being contaminated and infiltrated by black mud, and as the body died, the speed of the mud's wriggling was also visibly slowing down, and gradually showing a dry appearance.

"...This is also a counterfeit?!" Vanna widened her eyes in astonishment, not daring to believe her discovery. "These cultists... even made their own people into counterfeits?!"

"No, it's not that simple," Morris frowned. He was also carefully examining the cultist's corpse and recalling the details of the battle just now. After a moment, he slowly shook his head. "I sensed his thought waves, and they are different from the counterfeits. There are obvious discontinuities in the thinking process of those counterfeits that are different from humans. Even if they can behave like normal people, they will not be able to maintain a stable consciousness due to the instability of the ‘primordial substance’ itself, but this cultist does not have this problem."

Saying that, he pointed to the flesh on the cultist's chest that was covered by black mud.

"And more importantly, this part, look, he is not composed of primordial substance - primordial substance and normal flesh and blood coexist, which is more like a symbiosis, or... self-pollution."

Vanna stared at that position for a long time, her brows gradually furrowing: "These heretics actively use primordial substance to pollute themselves? Even use primordial substance to replace part of their own flesh and blood... This is a bit disgusting, even for Annihilation cultists, it is an impressive degree of perversion."

Morris's tone was still quite calm: "I don't think there is much difference between this and those Annihilation cultists who transformed themselves into abyssal demons. These madmen hate the flesh and blood of the mortal world, and they never mind using the most crazy methods to transform themselves."

Saying that, his attention was focused on other things.

He looked at the black leather book that the cultist had been holding in his hand.

After hesitating for a moment, the old scholar reached out and forcefully pulled the book from the fingers that the cultist was tightly holding.

"Be careful," Vanna immediately reminded when she saw this, "This book may contain blasphemous and filthy content! Now the power of the sun has weakened, and rash contact..."

"Scholars always open new and mysterious books. For us, every reading is a challenge and an adventure," Morris shook his head gently. "Don't worry, the Lahm sect has special training and coping skills for reading behavior in this situation. You just need to be on guard by my side, and if anything is attracted by this book, help me get rid of it."

Vanna hesitated for a moment, then nodded with a serious expression: "...Okay."

Morris hummed, completed a quick prayer in his heart, then took out a small bottle of herbal powder from his arms, poured half of it on the ground and lit it, and sprinkled the other half on the book in front of him, then confirmed the state of the string of colored stone bracelets on his wrist, and then sat solemnly on the ground, placing the book on his lap.

The cover of the book was pitch black, and there were no words or symbols on the surface. Only faint, dense net-like patterns could be seen printed on the hard shell cover, making it impossible to judge its origin.

Morris opened the cover of the book and looked at the contents of the inner pages.

Vanna, who was on the side, shifted her gaze to avoid being affected by the book as much as possible.

Some messy lines and symbols came into Morris's eyes.

At first, he couldn't understand what he was seeing at all. Those messy symbols and lines did not conform to any language or ancient writing he knew, but when he tried to turn the next page, the traces on those pages suddenly began to move - the ink marks turned into living, wriggling things, quickly traveling through the prison constructed of paper, and the jumping characters stimulated the old scholar's vision. In just a few seconds, he felt that he had begun to understand the records in the book.