Hearthstone Tavern.
It was now time for ordinary humans to sleep.
Today, Joshua took a rare opportunity to act lazy. He did not continue with any game development or script writing. He instead decided to sit at the bar counter and stay up all night to read a ‘novel.’
“There’s even more replies than the post announcing the Goblins vs Gnomes expansion.”
Ciri was also staying up all night with Joshua. Her finger was scrolling up and down the ‘Diary of an Inquisitor’ the entire time.
“The mages are very interested in the Holy Church’s Heresy Tribunal. Furthermore, that diary is indeed written very interestingly. A little girl’s step by step growth into a cold-blooded killer. It could even be adapted into a movie. The name should be ‘Gumdrop.’”
Joshua had read up till the entry for the hundredth and seventy-second day of the ‘Diary of an Inquisitor.’
As the first novel in the Mage Forum, the first novel in the entire magic network, the ‘Diary of an Inquisitor’ not only unmasked the mysteriousness of the Heresy Tribunal, it was also a very fascinating story in its own right.
It was a story of a kind-hearted little girl, a nun on top of that, trying her best to survive in the dark and shadowy organization.
Being updated continuously for multiple days, ‘Diary of an Inquisitor’ not only caught the curiosity of many mages, it also made many of them concerned for the user Skotan Nun.
From the angel of the story, the little girl was only fifteen years old. Yet, she was forced to take away lives again and again by the Heresy Tribunal.
But, no matter how concerned for the writer of the diary the readers might be, what they were most concerned about right now was why ‘Diary of an Inquisitor’ wasn’t updated yet?
“Are you not planning to write a novel there?”
Ciri finished reading all the latest chapters before Joshua. Still leaning on the counter, she turned her head around and looked to Joshua.
“It is better for Tylene to narrate the novels through her broadcast. Besides, compared to the novels I knew, it is better to enrich the contents of Mage Forum through the users’ own efforts.”
Joshua exited the ‘Diary of an Inquisitor’ post. With the diary showing the way, many new novel creators appeared on the ‘Motionless Library.’
To the ecology of the forum as a whole, having a lot of outstanding creators was the most precious thing to have. At the same time they posted on the forum, they will also provide high quality content to the forum.
Currently, most of the outstanding ‘creators’ were concentrated in the ‘Magic Research’ and ‘Motionless Library’ sub-forums.
The great majority of the users on the Magic Research sub-forum were experienced members of the Owl Penpal Society. Ever since they received the Mage Forum as a means of communication, they’ve been debating about various knowledges regarding magic and alchemy on that sub-forum on the daily. Magic Research was practically the sub-forum with the greatest amount of update rate.
Among the users of the Magic Research sub-forum, Ash-colored Owl was the person who replied the most and posted the most. Judging from his writings, Joshua was pretty certain that he was the founder of the Owl Penpal Society, Gray Mage Lursk.
With the Gray Mage as the exemplar, more and more mages began to discuss academic and research topics. Among them were many ‘alchemy recipes’ posted by alchemists that Joshua ended up ‘recommending’ on the forum.
Apart from those two sub-forums, the other sub-forums included ‘Daily Discussions,”Movie Theater,”Music Hall’ and various others.
Joshua was planning to turn the Mage Forum into the epitome of the magic network. After all, the mages of Norland were only going on the forum or listening to the Voice of Norland when they used the magic network. They simply do not have the concept of web pages yet. To them, every single post was akin to a web page.
For the time being, Joshua planned to maintain control over the magic network. There was no need for him to develop web pages yet. Right now, the goal was to allow more outstanding creators to emerge out from the Mage Forum. Only through that would he be able to keep the forum lively.
“It’s past midnight now,” said Ciri.
Ciri was able to sharply hear the voice of an owl on top of the roof signaling the time from the noisy dwarves. The owls of Norland will all let out a strange sound at midnight.
For the time being, Joshua had no idea why that was the case.
“In other words, the ‘Diary of an Inquisitor’ missed its update today... Did something happen to that inquisitor lady?”
Joshua did not wish for anything to happen to that wild author. After all, she was the only ‘spy’ he had in the Heresy Tribunal.
Normally, she would update the diary between 8 to 9 PM. But today, there wasn’t a new update even after midnight.
A lot of mages were expressing their concern for the writer below the diary. They were worried that Skotan Nun might’ve encountered some sort of danger or was discovered by the Heresy Tribunal.
Unfortunately, Joshua was unable to help her. Ever since she returned to the Holy Church, she was destined to fight alone.
.........
Cheryl waited until the priest left. She used her gray mist to examine the surroundings. After confirming that there weren’t anyone monitoring them, she said, “Teresa, let’s escape!”
Cheryl had climbed up her bed. Using the height of the bed, she made up for the difference in height between her and Teresa. Then, she placed her hands on Teresa’s shoulders and forced her eyes to face her own.
“Es... cape?”
Teresa was caught by surprise by Cheryl’s sudden suggestion. She was thinking about clearing the first level of the game with Cheryl.
“Escape from this damned place. In the past, you had to stay here in order to receive the choir’s blessings. But now, you no longer needed to...”
Cheryl was originally planning to spend a long period of time to persuade Teresa and have this innocent nun believe that Norland will provide them with a better future. But, the gospel she received from the priest, the mission, forced Cheryl to shift the plan ahead of time.
Her experience told her that the mission to proceed to the Blackwood Forest would be far more difficult than trying to assassinate a Chaos Demon in Norland.
A new inquisitor like Teresa would not be allowed to participate in that sort of mission.
If Cheryl ended up going to the Blackwood Forest, Teresa would not be able to use the magic network anymore. The consequence that would lead to was obvious.
Countless inquisitors ended up driven mad by the mutterings. Cheryl was once one of those inquisitors.
“Why do we have to escape?”
Teresa believed living in the Church was her entire life. As a person who had devoted her all to God, Teresa was unable to understand why Cheryl would use the word ‘escape.’