Previously, Vay had asked the Alchemy Golem, what counts as meeting the standard? The Alchemy Golem’s answer was: "Touch the Box of Cicia with your hand, and it will tell you."
After Vay’s attempt, the Box of Cicia seemed to indeed possess a certain intelligence.
Since he knew there was such an "existence," even if the Alchemy Golem let Angel pass directly, Angel wouldn’t leave. No matter what, he wanted to try and communicate with the other party.
Just as Angel’s hand touched the Box of Cicia.
The red light from the box’s mouth blazed brightly.
But strangely, unlike Vay, Angel wasn’t pulled into an inky black space. Apart from being surrounded by the red light, nothing else changed. Even the Mind Ribbon constructed by the Black Earl remained uninterrupted.
Just as Angel was feeling puzzled, his left earlobe suddenly felt as if it had been scorched by fire, stinging and hot.
Was the Flame Mark left by Odeclass triggered? What was going on?
While Angel was still wondering, a crisp female voice sounded in his ear: "Huh? Such familiar fluctuations..."
"Who are you?" Angel, unsure of who was speaking, simply asked aloud.
"Someone’s talking to you?" The Black Earl looked over in confusion.
Angel nodded to the Black Earl, then returned his gaze to the Box of Cicia: "Is it you speaking? Are you this box?"
"I cannot influence the outside world; if you want to know who I am, you must seal off what wards against my abilities on yourself..."
It was still that feminine voice, but her voice was evidently growing weaker, almost inaudible toward the end.
Angel wanted to speak to her again, but there was no response whatsoever, even the red light around him began to gradually fade.
The others, seeing this, didn’t understand what was happening: Had Angel passed or not?
"What happened?" the Black Earl asked once more.
Angel pondered this and then said in his mind: "Someone just seemed to whisper in my ear, a female. I suspect it’s the same presence Vay encountered in the black space earlier."
"You weren’t pulled into the black space, my lord?" Vay asked curiously.
Angel: "I have multiple defenses on me; it seems her abilities can’t break through them. Earlier, she whispered that I should seal off my defensive powers..."
Angel’s words were eighty percent true and twenty percent false, and due to the sudden turn of events, even the Black Earl didn’t notice the flaw in Angel’s words.
"She wants you to drop your defenses so she can pull you into the black space?" The Black Earl pondered a moment and said: "How do you plan to decide?"
Angel smiled, and in front of everyone, he removed all his defensive fields, even turning Earl Mi into a gleaming, ghostly-blue earring, which he placed on his left earlobe.
Through his actions, Angel expressed his choice.
He had originally intended to communicate with the other party, how could he give up this rare opportunity?
The Black Earl wanted to say something else, but Angel had already closed his eyes. As Angel closed his eyes, the surrounding red light also completely dimmed.
...
When Angel opened his eyes again, everything was pitch black around him.
This must be the black space Vay had experienced earlier, but... where was the female voice speaking just now?
While Angel was observing his surroundings, a pair of hands emitting a faint, ghostly light passed through the Dark Mist, silently caressing Angel’s body.
At first, Angel felt nothing until the hand reached his earlobe, and both he and the owner of the hand were singed at the same time.
Angel abruptly turned, finally seeing those slender hands glowing faintly in the darkness.
"Are you the Spirit attached to the Box of Cicia?" Angel didn’t realize that parts he couldn’t see had been thoroughly touched, assuming the other only brushed against his ear. Thus, he could still calmly face those hands in the darkness.
"Spirit, I’m not some ghostly thing. Listen carefully, I am Cicia." The crisp female voice carried an inexplicable arrogance.
"You mean to say you’re called Cicia? Then this Box of Cicia is your manifestation, you are the Spirit?" Angel couldn’t see the "Cicia" in the dark, hence he couldn’t judge the other party’s identity yet.
"Hmph, do you humans not understand the rules? You put in a Demon Gold Coin symbolizing absolute fairness, but failed to achieve the balance sought by the Crowned Joker."
Angel: "You mean..."
"I’ve already answered one of your questions, now it’s my turn to ask!" Cicia’s tone was intentionally raised, her arrogance intensified; Angel could even imagine a woman with her chin up, eyeing him haughtily.
"I thought introductions were a matter of courtesy and didn’t count as a question." Angel: "But since this is your domain, whatever you say goes."
Angel didn’t mind the other party’s questioning. On the contrary, what he didn’t want was for the other party not to ask anything and just toss him out like with Vay.
Communication was Angel’s goal.
After all, barring any accidents, she should be, besides that Wise Sovereign, another intelligent being who had seen the Wood Spirit. Perhaps he could get some information about the Wood Spirit from her, or even about the Wise Sovereign.
"Tell me, what is sealed within your left earlobe?"
Given that the other party secretly touched his earlobe earlier, Angel knew they would surely question him about it. He just didn’t expect this so-called Cicia to cut straight to the chase with no preamble.
"I merely asked who you are, yet you ask for my secrets. If you truly pursue the Crowns Joker’s idea of absolute equality, the value of this question doesn’t equate to my previous one."
If Cicia had proposed an equal exchange as practiced in the Wizards’ Realm, it wouldn’t matter exchanging one question for another. But Cicia mentioned the Crowned Joker’s ideology first, who strives for "absolute fairness," where exchanging questions isn’t fair, only exchanging questions of equal value is fair, according to the Crowned Joker’s philosophy.
Thus, since the other proposed the Crowned Joker’s ideology, it was only fair for Angel to respond with the same ideology.
As expected, after Angel said this, the other party was visibly stumped, pausing for a moment.
A few seconds later, Angel heard a mumbling whisper beside his ear: "Such a large man, yet so stingy."
"I’m not even twenty years old." Angel revealed his age without a care.