Chapter 139: Chapter 143 Hypnosis
Watching the crystal pendant in Heidi’s hand gently sway, Nina swallowed nervously—although she was told to relax, this was her first time receiving hypnotherapy, and she found it hard to control her reaction.
And while her gaze was captured by the pendant, she also noticed a seemingly simple stone bracelet on Heidi’s wrist. The bracelet, woven with tough silk cord, was strung with many colorful pebbles, some of which bore rune-like marks.
Noticing Nina’s gaze, Heidi smiled and shook her wrist, “I am a ‘student’ of the Academy of Truth, following and serving the God of Wisdom Rahm—although it may not look it, my registration says that I am a clerical worker.”
Clerical worker… not only a mental health physician but also a member of the Academy of Truth?
Nina had certainly heard of the Academy of Truth—despite its name suggesting a scholarly institution, in reality, this “Academy” was one of the four major religious orders of the pantheon of gods. Along with the Deep Sea Church, the Death Sect, and the Fire Transmitter Church, they maintained the civilization order of the Deep Sea era. Unlike the other three churches, the “theological” presence of the Academy was not strong, instead favoring pure knowledge inheritance and the research and promotion of cutting-edge technology. Its believers also built relationships based on mentorship and schools of thought.
Other churches rooted themselves in chapels and sanctuaries, spreading faith and organizing masses on a daily basis. However, the Academy of Truth established countless universities and laboratories in each City-State, where the daily routine for high-ranking clerics seeing lower ones was to throw a difficult question at them, to see if their faith in the Lord had reached the passing score—it was indeed a unique style.
It was precisely because of the Academy of Truth’s special “style” that it had the fewest members among the four major religious orders, with even fewer having the qualification to wear the emblem daily and be officially recorded as clerical workers—because the questions were really hard.
In an average university, it was not certain that a few would qualify to devote themselves to Rahm each year, let alone someone like Nina, a poor child who studied in the public schools of the Lower City District.
To her, Heidi suddenly seemed to be enveloped in an aura, one that, far from relaxing her, only made her more nerve-wracked.
This was the awe of a vocational high school student with aspirations when confronted by the valedictorian of a top university.
Heidi certainly noticed the change in Nina’s expression but was unconcerned, instead casually playing with the pendant in her hand, and began speaking in the same calm tone of voice as before, “Can you tell me about your childhood? You mentioned earlier that your parents died in an accident, that incident might be the shadow in your heart… Would you tell me about it?”
“Actually… there’s nothing I can’t talk about,” Nina thought for a moment, “I’ve told many people, but everyone thinks I was too young back then to remember clearly, they think I’m talking nonsense—Eleven years ago, there was a leak in a factory in District Six, and at that time, there were many Heretics destroying things everywhere. Later, a lot of people were arrested, do you know about that?”
“Of course,” Heidi nodded, “I was only in my teens at the time, and when the accident happened, my family happened to be staying near Cross District, we also saw the rushing crowd…”
“Do you remember a big fire at the time?”