Staring at the black electronic telescope on the table, I was momentarily speechless.

  Just moments ago, I’d been quietly annoyed at Lu Youxun for bypassing all of Zhu Shi’s careful precautions and uncovering my secret anyway. Of course, I knew he was only doing his job—nothing personal, nothing wrong on his part. It was purely my own private irritation.

  But now, seeing this thing, all that emotion evaporated, replaced by sheer exasperation toward both Lu Youxun and Zhu Shi.

  Here was a seasoned demon hunter specializing in divination and investigation spells, and the way he ultimately spied on me was… with a pair of binoculars. The sheer absurdity of it was almost comical. And Zhu Shi, who’d gone to such lengths—setting up anti-memory-reading barriers, anti-divination wards—had somehow completely overlooked something as mundane as a telescope.

  I couldn’t really blame either of them. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of someone watching us through magnified lenses from afar.

  “So… while we were fighting, you were just standing somewhere distant, watching through this thing?” I asked.

  “Exactly. Part of the job. I hope you don’t take it personally.” Lu Youxun gave a wry, self-deprecating smile before continuing. “And don’t blame Zhu Shi for missing it. It’s not that she’s ignorant of modern technology—she just has a stereotype about people like us. She assumes transcendentalists look down on it. And sure, plenty of us do sneer at tech, but that’s just their foolishness. You can’t paint the whole group with the same brush.”

  “Transcendentalists?”

  “She must have told you about the faction I belong to.” He nodded. “Transcendentalism is the umbrella term for our ideology. My group is often called the Transcendentalist faction.”

  “You once referred to demon hunters as ‘cultivators.’ Is that also part of your transcendentalist terminology?” I asked.

  “Precisely.” He paused thoughtfully before going on. “Z, when you first encountered demon hunters, did you ever feel puzzled? Why does Mount Luo insist on calling everyone with special powers a ‘demon hunter’?”

  I had actually wondered about that early on.

  If it were simply about possessing unusual abilities, “special ability user” would have been far more accurate. But “demon hunter” carries an inherent sense of agency and purpose. If someone’s power has nothing to do with combat, if they have no desire to fight anomalies and no history of doing so, calling them a demon hunter feels blatantly mismatched.

  Mount Luo even labels those who misuse their powers for evil as “fallen demon hunters” instead of something more fitting to their actual behavior. If I had awakened my abilities at fourteen and immediately turned to crime, I too would have been branded a fallen demon hunter—despite never having hunted a single demon in my life.

  There was only one logical conclusion.

  “It’s about defining them,” I said.

  “Exactly.” Lu Youxun nodded in agreement.

  When children dislike someone their own age, they sometimes give them mocking nicknames and rally others to chant them. It’s childish, sure, but even in the adult world, “naming” carries surprising power. To name something is to exercise authority over it—to define its nature.

  Give a serious thing a ridiculous name, and its seriousness dissolves. The reverse is also true. In everyday life, this happens constantly. Label someone with the power to slay monsters as a “demon hunter,” and gradually everyone starts to feel it’s only natural for that person to go out and hunt monsters.

  Even if the individual has no interest in monster-slaying and no experience doing it, society begins to assume that since they’re called a demon hunter, they must be duty-bound to shoulder that responsibility. Eventually, the person themselves starts to internalize it—feeling guilty for shirking, or simply accepting that they’re selfish.

  But whether someone actually has combat power and whether they ought to throw themselves into battle are two entirely separate questions. There’s no inherent reason for shame or self-accusation; those are ideologies imposed from outside.

  And people whose powers aren’t suited for fighting at all might still get swept up in this definitional net, simply because they’re seen as having potential support value from the rear.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  This reminded me of certain occult knowledge I’d encountered in the past. In mysticism, names hold real power; the right name can even determine fate.

  Even from a purely psychological perspective, the label “demon hunter” imposes a kind of “destiny force” on the group—not through supernatural means, but ideological ones. That doesn’t mean mysticism is just psychology dressed up in mysticism. In ancient times, feng shui wasn’t all superstition—legitimate architectural principles were also classified under it. Long ago, some fields related to ideology originally fell within the domain of the occult.

  Still, considering the existence of anomalies, it’s possible that the act of “naming” truly does touch on some form of destiny force.

  “Form matters a great deal. Many self-proclaimed pragmatists sneer at formality, never realizing how monumental its influence has been throughout human history. ‘Names give rise to trust; trust preserves the vessel. Neither vessel nor name may be entrusted to others lightly.’” Lu Youxun sighed, then continued. “One of transcendentalism’s core demands is to change ‘demon hunter’ into ‘cultivator.’ From now on, we will no longer be the group fated to deal with anomalies—we will be free, autonomous powerhouses.”

  “And what about the work of handling anomalies?” I asked.

  “We’ll keep doing it,” he said. “But it will no longer be treated as an unquestioned obligation. For ages, the state has regarded Mount Luo as an organization that naturally ought to risk everything to deal with anomalies. That mindset is warped. We intend to correct it.”

  Up to this point, nothing he’d said actually repelled me. People often say “with great power comes great responsibility,” but usually they mean social or political power. When an individual gains authority backed by the group, they should naturally protect that group. But transplanting that logic onto “super-individuals” like demon hunters creates all sorts of contradictions.

  The problem came next.

  “So, as compensation for handling anomalies, your transcendentalists believe you should become the gods of this nation?” I asked.

  “If we’re expected to bear the responsibility, shouldn’t we receive corresponding authority? Isn’t that only fair?” he countered.

  “I don’t know whether the responsibility of fighting anomalies equates to the right to enslave ordinary people—I lack the knowledge to judge. But if it really is that reasonable, why hasn’t Mount Luo done it throughout history?” I said deliberately. “There has to be some crucial reason behind it.”

  “There is no reason.” He answered without hesitation. “The Mount Luo of the past never chose to rule the mortal world simply because ‘they never thought of it.’ I’m not saying they were stupid or insane—some external force prevented them from even considering the idea.

  “It might have been a form of collective hypnosis, or some other incomprehensible phenomenon. Whatever it was, the force was extraordinarily powerful—so powerful that even successive generations of Great Impermanents were affected by it. They defined us—who should have been ‘cultivators’—as ‘demon hunters,’ forbade us from revealing ourselves openly to the secular world, and barred us from stepping onto the stage of history. And for some reason, we never questioned those orders. It continued right up to the present day.

  “But now, that force has dissipated. It’s time for us to reclaim our true title and return to our rightful place.”

  “If that’s the case, why haven’t you acted yet?” I asked. “According to Zhu Shi, that force already vanished three years ago, but you still haven’t exerted any influence on society. Why?”

  I’d asked Zhu Shi a similar question before. She blamed it on “internal divisions within Mount Luo,” but I found that explanation insufficient. Besides, Zhu Shi didn’t strike me as someone deeply invested in Mount Luo’s political currents—she likely missed a lot of details.

  Lu Youxun, on the other hand, was clearly someone who cared about “ideology” and “factions.” He stood on the opposite side from Zhu Shi, with a different vantage point and access to different information.

  I had no interest in “ideologies” or “factions.”

  But I was very interested in “mysteries.”

  His voice lowered. “Because we’re wary of the ‘Divine Seal.’”

  Divine Seal?

  The moment I heard the term, a jolt ran through me.

  “What is the Divine Seal?” I asked immediately.

  “It’s the name a small minority within Mount Luo use for the source of that force.” Lu Youxun explained. “There are many theories about what exactly that power was—the one that kept Mount Luo from stepping onto the historical stage. One fringe hypothesis claims that somewhere in this world exists an artifact called the ‘Divine Seal,’ capable of granting any wish.

  “According to the theory, long ago a human obtained the Divine Seal. For reasons unknown, they made a wish upon it.

  “That wish swept across the entire world, making ordinary humans the protagonists of history while forcing us cultivators to retreat into the shadows, acting only in secret.”

  I touched the fragment of the Divine Seal in my pocket and probed carefully. “Do you believe in that hypothesis?”

  “I find it hard to accept that such an artifact exists. I may not be the most well-read person alive, but I’ve studied diligently. If something like that really existed, why have I never heard of it before?” He shook his head. “I only call it that because someone above me casually mentioned this absurd fringe theory that only a handful take seriously.”

  In other words, even though he said “we are wary of the Divine Seal,” most of the “we” he referred to didn’t believe in it—or even know it existed. He was just borrowing a convenient label for the source of that mysterious force.

  But I knew the Divine Seal was real.

  Even a mere fragment of it had pulled me, the renegade Great Impermanent, the survivors of the apocalyptic world, and the mysterious Number One into that enigmatic misty dreamscape. Something that transcended space—and perhaps even time—might genuinely possess the power to grant any wish.

  I used “might” because the scale was simply too vast. This was a super-phenomenon capable of shaping human history. Could the tiny shard in my pocket, when whole, truly wield such divine might? I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it without reservation.

  “So your transcendentalists believe… the master of the Divine Seal is still alive? And if Mount Luo makes a move, the master will intervene?” I asked.