The Mystic Dominator

This is not the end of a tiger.

　　How should I describe it ......

　　It's like you just bought a new car, only to have the licence plate not even arrive and the salesman pushing insurance already start calling and harassing you.

　　Say the two things are not related ......

　　- - Who would believe that!

　　Similarly look at what is happening to you now.

　　Travelling through an alien world and then using the knowledge of Earth's civilisation to pass the test and get a 'precious artefact' that also came from Earth, this in itself was a very thought-provoking event.

　　Not to mention the fact that this 'Ronald', before he got this body, had realised that there was something wrong around him......

　　Just now, he still felt that the test in the illusion had been terminated too abruptly, and was even a bit of a tiger's tail.

　　But now it seemed that one would probably have to retract that assessment.

　　"Fine, accept the identity."

　　"Anyway, I need to change my clothes again."

　　Chanting on his lips, Yang Siming had already arrived at the wardrobe with some familiarity, taking out the set of clothes that had already been 'worn' from the wardrobe according to his previous memories, and everything was exactly the same as in the illusion.

　　Changing his clothes, he pulled the wrinkled collar straight.

　　Facing the dressing mirror illuminated by dim candlelight, Yang Siming nodded in satisfaction.

　　"Now ......"

　　"I am Ronald Adler."

　　"Still a jazzman, by the way."

　　Honestly, he wouldn't mind a different name for himself.

　　More than just existential realities forced him to, he'd actually travelled to Umred, in the Indian region of Maharashtra, back during one of his efforts to include documentation on the Peacock Dynasty.

　　At that time, the power-holding, but Hindi speaking in Hindi English and forcibly deciphering his Chinese-pronounced name made him accept everything.

　　Even when he was exposed to the even weirder Scottish-accented English later on, he was fine with it ......

　　After a final movement of his arms and legs to make sure he had no physical problems.

　　Ronald simply picked up the candlestick from the table, and then as soon as he pushed open the door of the room, he took large strides towards the outside.

　　There were at most two maids in this house besides himself.

　　One was Veranika, whom he had 'met', and of course he would be able to recognise her when he came across her; and if he came across someone he didn't recognise, it would only be another maid named Marianne from the notes.

　　If one couldn't even deal with such a situation, then one might as well die headfirst in this room.

　　"Wait ......"

　　Just intended to leave the house.

　　But before his feet fell, Ronald stopped.

　　After a moment's thought, he still turned back and tucked the notes on the desk into his pocket before he began his exploration of the house.

　　Time was passing in the darkness.

　　Carefully standing on tiptoe, Ronald's footsteps landed on the wooden floor without making a single sound, as if he were a forest ranger holding a candle, carefully wandering around the villa.

　　In less than a bell's time, the most preliminary inspection was over in silence.

　　The entire house was divided into three floors just as he had previously confirmed in the illusion.

　　The lowest level was well-functioning, the waiting room, parlour, dining room, kitchen and where the servants or guests lived were all located here, there were two locked rooms that looked like warehouses, but the key in his own hand didn't fit so he couldn't confirm it.

　　On the first floor, there was the bedroom where the master's family lived as well as the study, and even a specialised music room, but since only Ronald was left in the Adler family, it was basically in a state of neglect.

　　On top of that, the first and first floors had washrooms in the same location in the southeast corner, with more primitive plumbing connecting these facilities together to form a reasonably decent sewage facility.

　　As for the top three floors and the basement, there was only a clear view of the empty attic and a small storage area for miscellaneous items, which was not much of a place to hide dirt.

　　Night was not a good time to scout the environment either, in the end, and candlelight and the environment severely limited Ronald's searching skills.

　　But even so, he had already grasped enough information.

　　A villa of this size could never have been built in the original owner's current financial state, and the walls and furnishings, while having proper maintenance, still easily showed the ancient history. Ancestral affluence was now in disrepair, and the contents of the diary were thus nearly confirmed.

　　The shelves in the first floor study were fairly full, but also mostly old. Both the newest almanacs and say the oldest dictionaries took the same font as the diary Ronald was reading. With the help of the linguistic fluency brought about by the string of mysterious characters, he even briefly looked at the contents of the books therein.

　　--Actually the so-called one hour probing activity.

　　It was in the books that Ronald spent the most time.

　　Most of the contents recorded in the books were mythological biographies, local customs, and had nothing to do with the occult or magic, and the only thing that could be related to this stuff was perhaps just children's fairy tale books that had already been almost torn apart.

　　Ronald trusted his scouting abilities a great deal, after all, he had dealt with quite a few problems before with this handful of abilities.

　　But with the results of this one hour's probing, apart from himself who had travelled through, there was nothing in the villa that was related to the mysterious phenomenon, and the maids Veronica and Marianne, who were supposed to be in the middle of their rest, were also nowhere to be seen.

　　This ......

　　doesn't conform to common sense!

　　Even if they were down and out, this kind of maidservant serving the nobles shouldn't have disappeared in the middle of the night, not to mention that it was still a rainy night.

　　The room where the servant lived, but there were obvious traces of life.

　　Having just experienced a mysterious event, Ronald's spirit was now very sensitive.

　　If he travelled normally, then he could still find a reason to explain and convince himself that the maid might have urgent matters that required her to go out.

　　But now ......

　　One had to be careful-

　　When reality became bizarre, it often meant that there was some kind of specialness after it.

　　Based on the clues he had gathered, there were simply too many possibilities that could lead to such a situation, assuming that he let go of his mind to speculate at will.

　　And what was even more ominous was that each of these scenarios was not a good thing.

　　There was still confusion amongst the thoughts, and the clue puzzle was not enough to reveal the mystery.

　　Faced with this situation, Ronald made his own decision in silence - to go out!

　　Now was not the time to go back to the bedroom and sleep in the dark, and play psychological warfare with people at dawn the next day.

　　No matter what, he had to seize the time to get more information and expand his probability of survival as much as possible.

　　With this thought in his mind, Ronald was already heading towards the front door of the villa.

　　There was a rain gear placed at the porch's location, which was confirmed before.

　　Giving up the metal skeleton umbrella that was so deadly during thunderstorms, Ronald put on the plastic cloak and quietly pushed open the front door of the villa.

　　"Plastic, it looks ......"

　　Muttering under his breath, Ronald wanted to praise this era of having plastic products.

　　After all, under this kind of productivity and consumption structure, it was definitely a good thing to have a plastic cloak yourself with a small probability.

　　However, the next second, the words that came out of his mouth came to an abrupt end.

　　The reason was very simple--

　　Just after walking out from the villa's gate, he saw the lights in the town in the distance.

　　The town on the night of the thunderstorm was brightly lit.

　　Corresponding to this was the stiff look under Ronald's brow, and with the twitching corners of his mouth on his face.

　　"This, is not somewhat interesting to the extent-"

　　"Can any of you great calculators out there tell me what the quantity should be if you want to light up an entire town with primitive candles?"

　　"Especially if it's a hell of a rainy night!"