The attendant led the group to the room door, raised a finger to knock, and then hurried away.

  After a moment, the door opened.

  "Alice?" The one who opened the door was a young woman, about in her early twenties, with soft, fluffy flaxen hair and a pure, pretty face. Clearly, she was yet another beauty.

  "These two are..." she stretched her voice, her eyes falling on Marvin and Aurora.

  "This is the master I told you about!" Alice exclaimed excitedly. "He has recruited me to join his team!"

  "Really?" Nova added with a delighted expression. "That is certainly worth a proper celebration. I will go get some champagne. You two come in."

  When the group entered the room, they found that Nova's luxurious hotel suite was nearly the size of a normal apartment, divided into two floors spanning almost two hundred square meters. The upper floor served as the sleeping quarters for guests while the lower floor was a reception room furnished with sofas and tables in an ancient Pendragon style. The walls were decorated with stone carvings, oil paintings, and tapestries depicting dragons. In the center of the reception area was a small bar, and the liquor cabinet displayed neatly arranged dark-green bottles with all kinds of intricate labels.

  Nova took a bottle from the cabinet, shook it vigorously a few times, and then, aiming it at Alice, suddenly popped the cap open.

  "Champagne attack!" she shouted in a playful, mischievous tone.

  Alice swiftly drew the shield from her back and raised it to block the spray of champagne.

  "How boring," Nova said, tossing the bottle into a trash bin. "Your reflexes are getting sharper, Alice."

  "I have been beaten soundly these past few days," Alice replied, putting her shield away. "One must be quick to survive."

  "So this is the master who beats you red and blue every day?" Nova turned her gaze and smiled at Marvin.

  "Allow me to introduce myself," Marvin said as he extended his hand for a brief handshake. "I am Marvin Fontaine. I am planning to build my own team."

  "Nova Valernis Loraine," Nova introduced herself, giving an ancient Pendragon name.

  "I heard you graduated from the Pendragon St. Maria Theological Academy?" Marvin said directly. "A military nun?"

  "That is right," she replied, emphasizing that she was in the process of finding a team to work with, if Alice's words of her interest in dungeons and stuff was anything to go by. Nova had not yet guessed his true purpose. "My skills in healing should prove my professional capability."

  "Do you use healing needles or extraordinary power?" Marvin pressed.

  "Healing needles," Nova paused briefly before answering. "Alice's wounds are mostly soft tissue bruises and internal bleeding caused by ruptured vessels. We use biopeptides, platelet preparations, and a hemostatic gel to repair them after disinfecting with 75 percent alcohol."

  "And how do you handle broken bones?" Marvin continued in interviewer mode.

  "First, we use a sonic endoscope to check for fractures. If it is a comminuted fracture, emergency surgery is required to remove the tiny bone fragments. Otherwise, a plaster board is applied and then healing needles are injected. The exact location and dosage depend on the injury."

  "And what if the damage is caused by extraordinary power?" Marvin asked, presenting his final challenge.

  This question was clearly difficult. Nova furrowed her brow for a moment and then said, "First, you must confirm whether any residual power remains in the body. If there is, you have to try to eliminate it. Once cleared, treat the symptoms accordingly."

  "A military nun should also have some training in mechanical repair, correct?" Marvin continued. "Do you fix firearms and vehicles as well?"

  "I do," Nova nodded.

  "Very well," Marvin said decisively. "Miss Nova, you have passed my interview."

  Alice clapped from the side.

  "Thank you for your recognition, Marvin," Nova said with a smile. "Now it is my turn to state my demands."

  "As you can see, we are still a start-up team," Marvin said seriously. "Although I personally invested a thousand pounds into the team, I cannot offer high salaries. I can guarantee that in the future my team will never exceed ten members, and every member will receive the same pay so that..."

  "You misunderstand, Marvin," Nova shook her head. "I do not care about salary. As you can see, thanks to my parents' generous support, money is not an issue for me."

  "Then what do you need?" Marvin asked.

  "I want to become extraordinary," Nova said firmly.

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  For a moment the room fell silent. Alice's breathing seemed to quicken, and behind her, Aurora folded her arms silently. Marvin looked at them for a while before asking, "Why do you want to become extraordinary?"

  "Because extraordinary ones are so powerful," Nova replied bluntly. "I have dreamed since childhood of learning more about the secrets of this world. So I set a small goal for myself first, to travel all over the world..."

  "Do your parents support you in this?" Marvin asked in astonishment. This rich and beautiful young lady had a rather unique personality. Was she like Columbus, loving adventure from a young age?

  "Of course," Nova answered without hesitation. "I am the youngest daughter in my family. Managing the family business is not my burden."

  I see. Marvin nodded. It was common in this world for the eldest son to inherit the business while the younger ones set out on adventures.

  "So you want to become extraordinary in order to handle the dangers you may face while traveling the world," Marvin summarized. "To be safe, let me ask again: Do you really understand what it means to become extraordinary?"

  "It means that I must ingest special elixirs," Nova replied. "My father once brought me a genetic agent from the church, but it only greatly enhanced physical strength or mental strength. It did not cause a qualitative change in extraordinary traits. Therefore, I prefer the elixir route."

  "But that also means a shift away from humanity," Marvin warned.

  "Not human?" Nova wore a puzzled expression. Clearly, her understanding of extraordinary ones was only partial. Aurora recalled that Marvin had once mentioned the legend of Octavian turning into a giant dragon after death, carried out by forty knights.

  "I can help you become extraordinary," Marvin said slowly. "But as someone once said, you will never know the horrors of hell until you truly fall into its depths. I can tell you the truth, but that will come only after you sign a contract with me and join our team."

  "Alright," Nova hesitated for a moment before finally nodding in agreement. Her longing for becoming extraordinary outweighed her fear of the unknown as described by Marvin.

  Marvin reached into his bag and pulled out four sheets of parchment. He spread them out before them. Nova and Alice picked them up and saw that they were standard labor hire contracts used in the mercenary world. The only difference was that they stipulated uniform pay for all team members.

  This also meant that Marvin's team would always remain small because as soon as the numbers grew, management issues would arise. And management personnel would never accept the same salary as the rest. In other words, as Marvin had said, his team was to be "small and elite," and he was serious about that.

  Alice signed her name on both copies with confidence. Nova hesitated for a moment because the contract did not mention helping her become extraordinary. But considering that both Eastern and Western churches were extremely wary of extraordinary ones, even signing such a contract would not have any official binding force.

  After much thought, she eventually signed her name as well.

  "Very good," Marvin said as he gathered the contracts. "Now we can speak frankly. Aurora?"

  Aurora silently cursed in her mind that this fellow indeed expected her to expose her identity. She responded coolly with a simple "mm," then removed her mask and hood to reveal her delicate head and her pale face framed by black hair.

  "I am an extraordinary one," Aurora declared coldly. "The extraordinary trait I possess is Sanguine's Thirst."

  "You are an extraordinary one?" Nova asked in shock. In her eyes, the small, masked, black-robed person was probably a servant or lackey of Marvin, and she was far from the awe-inspiring, formidable extraordinary one she had imagined.

  Yet what shocked her even more was this: Aurora drew a short sword from the outer side of her thigh, and with a clean, decisive stroke, she slit her unprotected neck. A gaping wound, bleeding profusely, appeared. Nova could not help but scream, and Alice sprang to her feet.

  With her throat and windpipe cut open, revealing gruesome red flesh, Aurora did not collapse like a dying person. Instead, she stood straight and unmoving. The flesh on either side of the wound on her neck seemed to come alive, growing countless small, surging nodules that quickly wriggled together to close the gap. In the blink of an eye, her neck appeared whole again.

  "You! This is... truly..." Alice's mind went blank, unable to find the proper words. Nova stood stunned for a moment, then decisively grabbed a nearby trash can and covered her mouth as she vomited in disgust. The cruel yet bizarre sight was too overwhelming for her.

  "Sanguine's Thirst I grants rapid healing. In most cases, fatal injuries simply vanish," Marvin explained calmly. "Sanguine's Thirst II means that all fatal wounds disappear. The extraordinary one becomes nearly impossible to kill, and the body can reshape its flesh into sharp weapons or hard shields at will."

  "Based on the Sanguine series, I know of two extraordinary bloodline paths," Marvin continued, turning to Aurora. "Path One is to continue ingesting elixirs of mind, life drain, shadows, and hallucinations until one fuses into the bloodline known as 'Scion of Vermilion Tide.' This extraordinary one resembles the modern-day image of a vampire, capable of controlling the minds and thoughts of others, stealing life from any creature, with abilities of invisibility and shadow control, and can freely change their appearance and bodily features."

  "Path Two is to continue ingesting elixirs of life drain, vermin, night bats, plagues, and toxins until one fuses into the bloodline known as 'Scourge of the Night.' This extraordinary one is even closer to the ancient vampire legends. They can transform into or control rodents or bats, spread plagues and toxins."

  "Regardless of the path, reaching the end means becoming non-human. The higher the level, the less likely an extraordinary one can interbreed with normal humans. Reaching Level 10 means complete reproductive isolation from ordinary humans, making it impossible to produce offspring."

  "Does that not mean that becoming extraordinary gradually robs one of normal fertility?" Nova cried out in disbelief, her face full of shock.

  "There is only one exception," Marvin said. "Extraordinary ones above Level 10 can control their bloodline at will. By suppressing their bloodline ability to the minimum, they can mate with another Level 10 extraordinary one who has also suppressed theirs. In such cases, the two bloodlines clash and annihilate each other in the newborn. As a result, the child is born without any extraordinary abilities, simply an ordinary human with a frail constitution who is prone to early death."

  "In the end, the process of becoming extraordinary is a process of dehumanization. It is like continuously mixing foreign blood into pure human blood until the resulting being can hardly be called human. Ancient Xiris has a mysterious treatise called 'The Ship of Theseus' that discusses the hidden knowledge of extraordinary bloodlines. I will find a chance to show it to you someday."

  Marvin added this final remark as a conclusion to this introduction to mysticism. Nova quickly pulled a pen and paper from the pocket of her garment and tremulously jotted down the words "The Ship of Theseus."

  "Is that the path to becoming non-human?" Alice murmured softly, her expression a complex mixture of emotions.

  "I have said all that I can for now. If, after your own contemplation, you decide you still want to become extraordinary, come find me at this address." Marvin handed over a scrap of paper bearing the address of his ancestral home. "Aurora, let us go."