Chapter 591 – The Eight-Times-Speed Gossip Alliance

【Group Chat: “Eight-Times-Speed Gossip Alliance”】(99+)

Gossip knows no boundaries between worlds, and the gossip of the magical world is even juicier.

Looking at the group chat name, Mo Lan clicked in with interest and read through the messages one by one from the very beginning.

(14:20 Group owner “Garona” invited “Mo Lan” to the group)

(14:21 Garona changed the group name from “Seven-Times-Speed Gossip Alliance” to “Eight-Times-Speed Gossip Alliance”)

【Garona: Everyone welcome our new member! @Mo Lan】

【Agnes: Mo Lan? Is it Sorceress Mo Lan?】

【Garona: She’s White Witch Moira now.】

【Bella: Oh~ I get it!】

【Euphemia: Understood! Gossip stays in the group—nobody will blab about it outside.】

【Camilla: The Eight-Times-Speed Gossip Alliance welcomes you—with you, our gossip game just leveled up! @Mo Lan】

【Melinda: By the way, where is Moira planning to stay? Want to come to Deer Grove?】

【Garona: She’s planning to stay in the Holy City for now, in the bakery at the entrance of the street where the tea restaurant is. She should be cleaning the place up right now.】

【Garona: Moira just arrived in the Holy City and wants to learn about the Angels. If anyone has gossip about the Angels, we can discuss it at the next gossip meeting.】

【Agnes: Gossip about the Angels! That’s a tough one.】

【Bella: I know, right! We see fewer and fewer Angels coming out of the Gate of Heaven these days.】

【Euphemia: The more powerful an Angel is, the more emotionally detached they become. There’s no fertile ground for gathering faith in Valen anymore, so why would the Angels bother coming out?】

【Camilla: I’ve been in the Sacred Mountains for five years now, and I still haven’t seen a single Angel!】

【Evelyn: Do you all remember that Hermit in the Sacred Cemetery? Apparently, she formed a contract with a Light-Shadow Sprite over a decade ago. And last week, when I came to practice Tree Friend on the holy radiance trees in the Holy City, I heard the holy radiance tree outside the cemetery tell me that its grandchild inside the cemetery saw the Hermit kissing the Light-Shadow Sprite!】

【Garona: Wait, a Light-Shadow Sprite? Didn’t the Witch Council say not long ago that Light-Shadow Sprites are actually the Angels’ eyes and ears planted in the Sacred Mountains?】

【Melinda: I smell earth-shattering gossip!】

【Bella: Oh my heavens! The Hermit and the Light-Shadow Sprite fell in love, the Light-Shadow Sprite is an Angel’s spy controlled by Angels—so by extension, doesn’t that mean the Hermit and an Angel fell in love?】

【Agnes: The key point is the Light-Shadow Sprite she contracted over a decade ago! Was that a master-servant contract, or a contract of love?!】

【Euphemia: Speaking of which, do you all remember the theft incident at Edwen’s barbershop a few years ago?】

【Garona: How could I forget? He was the first Dawn Society member near the Holy City besides us few!

He was originally just a mage apprentice with no hope of advancing. He ran a barbershop, but his hairdressing services were absolutely terrible. I secretly slipped a {Dawn Society Invitation Card} into his shop, and after he joined the Dawn Society and started importing hair care and hair dye products from the Dawn Society to sell, business finally picked up.

He even sold {Dawn Society Trial Invitation Cards} at one Magic Gold Coin apiece—what a total profiteer.

But he’s just an Apprentice, so the psychic power he can spare each day for buying cards is limited. He only opens shop one day a week and spends the rest of his time accumulating psychic power to stockpile cards. All those people in the Holy City whose emotions have been worn down and whose sense of aesthetics has been affected by the light elemental force love going to his shop to buy magic potions for dyeing their hair gold or white. For a while, business was booming, and many Dawn Society members in the city were recruited by him.

Then one day, out of the blue, all the hair dye potions and smoothing potions in the shop vanished without a trace. Everyone who had paid for appointments couldn’t get their slots anymore. If not for the fact that most people here have such placid temperaments that they can barely muster any emotional ups and downs, his shop would have definitely been smashed to pieces back then!】

【Camilla: I remember after the theft incident, Edwen went to the Gate of Heaven and cursed at the Light-Shadow Sprites! He said the Light-Shadow Sprites had stolen everything from him, and begged the Angels to descend and deliver justice!】

【Agnes: So, it was actually the Angels controlling the Light-Shadow Sprites to steal his stuff?】

【Bella: Help! The Angels have no class at all!】

【Euphemia: Who could have imagined that the Light-Shadow Sprites, those petty little thieves, were actually on the same side as the holy Angels?】

……

Reading the gossip in the group, Mo Lan suddenly had some ideas about how to approach the Angels going forward.

Light-Shadow Sprites were controlled by Angels, so by extension, Light-Shadow Sprites were essentially the same as Angels.

The Angels wouldn’t come out of the Gate of Heaven, but Light-Shadow Sprites were causing mischief all over the Sacred Mountains. Finding information about Light-Shadow Sprites was much easier than finding information about Angels.

No wonder the Angels sat high atop Heaven’s Peak and had stopped interacting with other races ever since abandoning the faith of Valen—yet the Dawn Society had managed to spread and recruit among the Angel race at no small pace back then.

The Angels were probably keeping tabs on the Sacred Mountains, and even all of Valen, through the Light-Shadow Sprites!

And from the looks of it, the Angels seemed to care about their appearance just as much as the Winged Ones did! Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent Light-Shadow Sprites to steal potions from a mere mage apprentice.

In that case, all she needed to do was come up with something the Angels couldn’t resist and sell it at a shop in the Holy City.

Once the news reached the Light-Shadow Sprites, she would set up anti-theft measures, and she refused to believe the Angels wouldn’t show up in person.

As long as she could meet an Angel face to face, she could find the right opportunity to access their memories. Even if she couldn’t obtain magical knowledge, she could at least learn about the Angel race’s situation, or find a way into the Gate of Heaven.

As for the gossip shared in the group, Mo Lan took mental note of it all, planning to find a chance to investigate when the time came.

It had to be said—the power of gossip was boundless. Things that had originally seemed like dead ends suddenly revealed so many openings after a casual chat with everyone in the group.

After lurking for less than ten minutes and finishing all the message history, Mo Lan couldn’t wait to join the gossip discussion herself.

She chatted all the way until late at night. After agreeing with everyone in the group to meet offline for a gossip session at the Holy Song Lily of the Valley Tea Restaurant on this month’s full moon, Mo Lan reluctantly closed the group chat and switched to the “Sorceress’s Home” group chat to tell her Sorceress friends about her recent adventures.

Early the next morning, Mo Lan went to the tea restaurant.

She returned the five books she had borrowed the day before, then picked up a new set of 《Celestial Realm’s Most Wanted》—whose title was written in both Witch language and common tongue, but whose contents were entirely in Witch language—as well as a set of 《The Book of Gossip》, also written entirely in Witch language.

Naturally, Garona didn’t waive the borrowing fee.

《Celestial Realm’s Most Wanted》 was actually a compilation of information about the Holy City and the Angels that Garona had gathered over the years based on her own experiences and observations, while 《The Book of Gossip》 was a record of the Gossip Alliance’s meeting minutes. Any gossip that had generated high discussion was documented in it, and it produced emotional ups and downs in the reader no less intense than those trashy novels imbued with Psychic Magic.

It could be said that after finishing these two sets of books, Mo Lan gained a much more grounded understanding of the Holy City and the Sacred Mountains.