Dr. William Coulter's funeral had taken place a few days earlier, he had no family, and everything was prepared by the Great Library and the Society. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Dr. Coulter devoted his life to the study of the spiritual world, and as a young man he traveled the world and came into contact with the wisdom of sages everywhere. Rumor has it that he also came into contact with some mysterious monasticism, read a large number of lesser-known books, and mastered profound and unspeakable knowledge.

In the original books and manuscripts he left behind, you can see many expositions on the mind and the mind, as well as some imaginative contents. There are many descriptions of the spiritual realm, and the words are full of ambiguous allusions and metaphors, and there are obviously many deliberately ambiguous parts.

Of course, these are contents that can be made public, and some descriptions of the deep spirit have been harmlessly processed by the scribes and have lost their original meaning. As for the small amount of content that cannot be disclosed, it contains a lot of overly detailed descriptions, and even a quick glance will make you feel deeply uneasy.

It is said that he began planning this operation a few months before he began his last experiment, and left behind a manuscript with dense text. But no one has ever discovered these unpublished manuscripts, and they don't even know where the rumor came from.

Whether this rumor is true or not, the only thing that is certain is that the inventor of Dr. Coulter's estate has now found far fewer records than expected. If he hadn't destroyed some of the documents beforehand, it would have been possible that the records would still be hidden somewhere.

Frick only learned of his death a few days before the funeral - according to those who told him about it, Dr. Coulter died of an ongoing overall decline. Despite all the efforts of the paramedics, they were unable to save him from both mental and physical exhaustion.

Many of the people who attended the funeral were well-known figures in the academic circles of the Gate of the Middle North, including those who had recently tried to divide his legacy. In the meantime, they've gone through all of Dr. Coulter's collection, but they haven't been able to collect the part they want.

Of course, they don't give up, but the results are not satisfactory. Whether they tore down every wall in Dr. Coulter's lab or dug around his house, they didn't find what they were looking for—rather inconsequential books piling up as the investigation continued.

William Coulter may have lived an unacceptable life as a medieval alchemist, and he still had extraordinary knowledge, but like most scholars, he published his own books. Most people now have access to the knowledge he disseminated in two ways, a folk bookseller's edition that was unproofed, and a carefully abridged version published by a large library.

Especially in the former version, many of the books of the private booksellers are unknown to the public, and due to poor management, the content is full of errors, and sometimes even the author himself does not recognize it as his own work. But because of the low cost of these pirated copies, many people prefer to get cheap reading from them - with the result that pirated copies of poor quality are more widely disseminated than genuine copies.

What's even stranger is that for some reason, no matter what the edition, as long as the signature is his own book, William Kurt will have a copy of it on the shelf. And now, when he was weakened to death, these collections, which were considered meaningless, also passed into the hands of others.

"Have you read this book? The Quest for Dreams, published in 1879 by the 'Sandalwood Bookcase' at the Gate of the Middle North, is really a rare thing. ”

Acully pulled out a copy from a pile of books and handed it to Frick, saying, "Although the Great Library has published William Coulter's books many times over the years, and private booksellers have pirated many different editions, they are not suitable for those who want to collect rare documents." ”

Books pirated by private booksellers are full of errors, some of which may even misrepresent the original author's intentions and incorporate unsafe techniques, while the editions published by the Great Library are "appropriately" censored to prevent the sorcerers from inadvertently compiling their own works as magic books.

There are a handful of avid collectors who are dissatisfied with the editions issued by both parties, and who seek other avenues of collecting in order to obtain truly valuable documents. So some private booksellers saw this opportunity and released some rare editions with the authors.

The Quest for Dreams, which is now being taken out by Acully, is probably one of the rare editions of this kind, and it is much thicker than the book of the same name that can be found on the market. The outside of the thick leather cover and the rusty iron buckle indicate that it has been around for some years.

Frick doubts how many more copies of this version of "The Quest for Dreams" are still in the countryside, because it is not a book that many people are keen to collect. When the Great Library was first published, there were not many prints, let alone editions that were only designed to satisfy a few people with special interests.

"I agree with you, but this book doesn't mean much other than being rare, is it? Frick nodded, then shook his head again, "If it really had a 'special' value, those guys wouldn't give it to us for free." ”

He took the heavy book and flipped through it, and his instinct told him that no less than a hundred people had recently read it, and they all seemed to want to find out the secret of William Coulter. In fact, it's not just the book, but the documents piled up around the two have been rummaged through these days.

Those seeking to profit from William Coulter's death are eager to find clues in these collections, but no one has been able to find more information in either the notes or the books. Perhaps one thing to be thankful for is that their pursuits are all academic and have nothing to do with money.

For example, if someone really wants to auction the book they are holding now, they may be able to make a fortune while the tide caused by William Coulter's recent death has not subsided. However, when they looked through it and found that there was nothing more valuable, they did not hesitate to discard it, and when Aculi said that he wanted to keep it as a collection, he was surprisingly generous.

"Yes, you're right - those guys. ”

As if deliberately emphasized, Aculi pouted as he said these words: "It is true that the guys who have turned through these materials are professionals, but they are only professional magicians, not scribes. In fact, the book was used long before they rushed to read it, and it was marked on it...... And it is deliberately disguised as an annotation that sat down a long time ago. ”

She snatched "The Quest for Dreams" from Frick's hand at once, and then casually reversed one of the pages, pointing to a passage that had been crossed out by the previous owner. The notes look as old as the book at first glance, but if you look closely, you can see that someone has actually done it.

More than just this small paragraph, Acully found many records of manipulation in the book, and found similar content in other books. The oldest handwriting was probably left a year ago, and the newest ones are less than a month old, but they're all disguised as notes from a long time ago by special spells.

It is true that William Coulter is the owner of the book, and no one has the right to question what he wants to do with it, but it would be a bit unusual to do such a good job of cover-up. The sentences weren't just marked, he wrote some brief notes nearby.

Watching Acully pick out the hidden notes in the book "The Quest for Dreams" bit by bit, Frick had to admit her thoughts. He apparently wanted to keep certain records, but in order to prevent the secret from being easily discovered by someone, he chose to hide the ciphertext in these books.

He couldn't help but follow Acully's fingertips and look at the words marked by William Coulter, trying to understand what he was trying to say at the end.

"They told me that the beings who have walked the earth since time immemorial have not all gone, but have chosen to sneak in dark corners that we can't see. The door is now closed, but at night when the stars are in the right place, it will be quietly open for all ticket holders. ”

"Then, as my mentor has told me in the past, the realm of exploring the spirit world is fraught with danger, and the inhabitants of dreams are not friendly to outsiders. It's pure malice, it's monsters that swallow people, and those who walk in dreams should be careful, because they want to attack all the time. ”

"I didn't believe in the 'absolute evil' of this world, until I saw them, the horrible weirdness. Perhaps shallow dreams are safe, but from the moment you step through that door, only reality awaits you that is beyond the reach of human intelligence. ”

The marks are all such words, in the style typical of William Coulter, and full of ambiguous and incomprehensible babble. If finding these hidden ciphertexts from the book is the first step in deciphering them, then the next step is probably to understand the meaning of these words.

There's no doubt that that's the more difficult part, and since Dr. Kurt intends to keep the message hidden, it certainly won't be easy for people to understand the truth - in fact, Frick has seen other versions of The Quest for Dreams, and these words have been recorded in other versions.