Chapter 303: The Threshold

Blank drove the Mori family’s carriage, transporting Helag and Muse to City Hall.

Upon arrival, Helag escorted Muse into Seranthiel’s building. Inside, everyone was busy with their tasks.

Pruis, holding a stack of documents, approached Helag when he saw him. “You’ve got some good luck, kid. Found an Abyssal cultist so quickly—this guy, right?”

He glanced at Muse and immediately recognized that he was just an ordinary person, meaning the investigation would be straightforward.

There was no need for any complex methods; it would be easy to confirm whether Muse was a cultist.

The interrogation process was handled by specialists, so Helag didn’t need to be involved further.

All Helag had to do was wait for the investigation to conclude and see how many contribution points he would earn.

“Thanks to Mr. Helag, we wouldn’t have known there was a cultist hiding in our household,” Blank said gratefully.

Blank was genuinely thankful to Helag. As the Mori family’s butler, he was responsible for ensuring the household’s safety, and this situation could have reflected poorly on him.

Fortunately, no significant damage had been done, and everything was still under control.

Helag smiled. “No problem, just doing my job.”

He wouldn’t mind encountering situations like this every day—it would help him quickly accumulate the 3,000 contribution points he needed.

Soon, someone came to take Muse for interrogation.

Muse hadn’t been gone for more than five minutes when the staff member in charge of the interrogation returned, just as Helag was chatting with Pruis.

The interrogator, a crystallized wizard named Hairo, who was also a formal member of Seranthiel, held a document as he walked over to report.

“Minister Pruis, Muse has confessed. He indeed worships an entity from the Abyss Plane. Here’s a record of everything he’s done for the dark god over the past year.”

The document Hairo held detailed Muse’s activities over the past year—times, places, and actions he had taken on behalf of the Abyss Plane’s dark god.

Everything was meticulously recorded, thanks to Hairo’s use of a magical quill that automatically documented Muse’s confession.

Pruis glanced over the document and nodded. “Good thing his power was still limited. If he had grown stronger, we would’ve had a much bigger problem on our hands.”

Although Muse was just an ordinary person, he had been receiving various methods to enhance his abilities from the Abyss Plane’s dark god.

Had he been allowed to grow stronger, he could have caused significant damage.

And being within the Mori family, a powerful wizarding household, any actions he took would have had far-reaching consequences.

With the Muse situation resolved, Helag moved on to his next task.

He still had a stack of files containing information on over twenty individuals, and there was much more work to be done.

***

Five days later.

At Seranthiel’s office in Silvermoon City Hall, Pruis stirred his coffee with a small spoon, smiling at Helag. “You’re something else, kid. You managed to uncover three Abyssal cultists in total. That’s another 50 contribution points for you.”

Helag grinned. “Looks like I’ve been pretty lucky—just a case of a blind cat catching a dead rat.”

Over the past few days, Helag had been investigating the issue of Max’s wooden sculptures. Out of more than twenty people, he had identified three Abyssal cultists.

After everything was wrapped up, Seranthiel officially evaluated and calculated his contribution points, awarding him 50 points.

Including his previous points, Helag now had a total of 360 contribution points.

The other members were envious. Helag had only recently joined, yet he had already accumulated so many points in such a short time—it was impressive.

Everyone knew that tasks related to Abyssal cultists awarded the most contribution points, but cultists were also the hardest to find.

They lived like ordinary people, with no obvious signs, making them difficult to detect.

But Helag’s luck had been extraordinary. He had stumbled upon several Abyssal cultist cases in quick succession—it was like he had struck gold.

From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed like Helag had just been lucky.

He had discovered Doren’s cultist activity while repairing a wizard array at the Wendy household, and the Max and Luchi incident was even more absurd—a beggar had literally handed him a wooden sculpture.

The two additional cultists he uncovered later were also a result of the files randomly assigned to him.

There were many people like Helag—some were internal members of Seranthiel, while others were external agents completing tasks.

But not everyone managed to find Abyssal cultists. Most people would go through their entire stack of files without uncovering any cultist activity.

It could be that they simply missed the signs, or perhaps there were no cultists in their assigned files.

Pruis let out a long breath. “Finally, it’s all done. I’m exhausted.”

From the moment the situation with Max’s sculptures had come to light, Pruis hadn’t had a moment’s rest. He had been working around the clock, dealing with various issues.

Max’s sculptures had been sold far and wide, and there were countless leads to follow.

Even with so many people working on the investigation, they were still stretched thin.

As the head of the City Defense and Security Department, Pruis had to oversee every aspect of the operation. While he didn’t need to handle everything personally, he was responsible for approvals, supervision, and more.

With so much on his plate, there had been no time for rest.

After seven or eight days of non-stop work, even a second-level wizard like Pruis was feeling the strain.

“How many contribution points do you have now?” Pruis asked.

Helag glanced at his communication stone. “360 points.”

Pruis thought for a moment. “Then you should check out Seranthiel’s secret vault. With 300 points, you’ve reached the threshold to exchange for many things. You might find something useful or interesting.”

“Secret vault?” Helag asked, puzzled. He hadn’t heard of it before.

Pruis chuckled. “I hadn’t mentioned it earlier because I didn’t expect you to reach over 300 points so quickly. The secret vault is a treasure trove available only to formal members of Seranthiel. It contains all sorts of items—anything you can think of, you’ll find there.”

After Pruis explained, Helag finally understood.

The secret vault was essentially a place where members could spend their contribution points. However, only those with at least 300 points were eligible to enter.

With 360 points, Helag had just passed the threshold for entry.

Most cities in Seranthiel had their own secret vaults, though some of the most valuable items were only stored in the largest cities.