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We’ve Moved! If you notice any missing, empty, or incorrect chapters, please leave a comment below, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. Regular updates will resume on June 10th. Thank you for your patience!
We’ve Moved! If you notice any missing, empty, or incorrect chapters, please leave a comment below, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. Regular updates will resume on June 10th. Thank you for your patience!

The Whispering Verses :- Chapter 13: The Ringmaster and the Circle of Fate

The deceased detective Sparrow Hamilton took on a rather tricky commission about half a year ago. Baron Huntington, who resided in Tobesk City, commissioned the detective to find a missing maid. The maid had served the baron’s family for many years and had resigned voluntarily a few days prior.

The baron sent his butler, with gifts, to invite the maid back, only to discover she had gone missing. Although the baron had a certain social standing, he wasn’t the maid’s family, and he himself seemed not to trust the police much, hence he commissioned multiple detectives to investigate.

Detective Sparrow wasn’t actually a famous detective; his usual commissions were no more than minor things like investigating extramarital affairs. This nobleman’s commission came through a referral from an old client.

Sparrow Hamilton took this matter very seriously. Even though it was just a baron, to an ordinary citizen, he was a significant figure. He conducted a thorough investigation and, over the course of a month in the spring, followed multiple leads to locate an abandoned sanatorium by the Orser River, concluding that it was connected to the missing persons case.

“This sanatorium was abandoned about thirty years ago. At the time, I was just a child and heard about it from my family.”

Local resident Bill Schneider introduced the place, pointing to buildings gradually becoming clearer in the distance. Although it was foggy outside the city, they could see the bell tower and the spires decorated with crosses beside the main building.

“Back then, the royal family instructed the Tobesk City Hall to re-plan the city to accommodate the large influx of people and the development of the steam industry. The policy at the time involved moving hospitals and other basic facilities inside the city and factories outside it. This place was initially a sanatorium for the nobles—a place for people we couldn’t even imagine to use. In response to the call, the sanatorium completely moved out of Tobesk City to a nearby city, making it more convenient to reach by a half-hour train ride than staying here.”

“So, this sanatorium was abandoned. Even the homeless wouldn’t stay here; it’s deserted with not a single soul around. No one would know if they died here.”

There were large tracts of farmland and wasteland around; the nearest rural town was an hour’s walk away. There was an estate and a horse track belonging to an earl nearby. During the racing season, people would use the road where the two walked as a racetrack, but now, there was no one around.

Even though this era’s industrial development was rapid, the vestiges of the steam age could only be seen in big cities. Away from the city, everything seemed to regress to bygone days, Shard understood what this meant.

The two soon reached the vicinity of the abandoned sanatorium along a trail. The doctor didn’t mention its name, which seemed irrelevant.

From the outside, the walls had completely peeled off, and all the windows and doors were missing. The sanatorium’s fence still stood, but the courtyard inside was as desolate as the wasteland outside, with no traces of its previous garden.

Tall buildings and spires stood in the wilderness, with only the fence gates’ decoration faintly reminiscent of past glory.

“Follow me close, and let’s talk while we walk.”

The doctor said, kicking open the rusted iron gates, which fell with a thud, startling the birds in the nearby woods.

Even at the city’s outskirts, the fog had only slightly dispersed. The overcast sky seemed ready to rain, making Shard regret not bringing an umbrella.

They walked into the courtyard of the sanatorium, their boots treading through wild grass.

“The so-called ring magicians possess the [Wheel of Fate].”

The doctor said, glancing around before leading Shard to the main building’s entrance.

“The Wheel of Fate?”

“Time, Years, Fate, Epoch, Civilization, World—they forge our rings, symbolizing our essence. Pay attention! I will show you the complete Wheel of Fate, not just a part. Watch closely—”

Walking through the wild grass, the doctor spread his arms slightly, palms up, as if holding something, raising his hands to shoulder height.

Everything behind him became hazy, like an extra layer of white mist had appeared, though he remained unchanged, with a faint smile emerging on his face.

Then, Shard heard the sound and echo of a train whistle in the empty, abandoned courtyard.

“What?”

He looked around the waist-high grass in a hurry and felt his skin gradually sense heat.

Turning around, the white mist behind the doctor wasn’t just mist—it was steam. Scorching steam, somehow frightening, blurring distances and spaces, making everything behind the doctor fade out.

Within that steam, a massive black shadow approached, the steam behind the doctor seemingly containing endless time and space.

The whistle roared, the steam exploded, and that shadow neared. The fast speed created wind pressure, making the doctor’s coat, the wild grass in the courtyard, and Shard’s coat flail, forcing him to squint his eyes.

More seriously, a sense of impending danger arose within him.

“What is in that steam?”

Getting closer, the steam’s depths behind the doctor revealed a huge iron hammer carrying momentum and energy. It was silvery-gray, as tall as the entire building, hitting the doctor with a thunderous impact.

The blast made Shard’s ears ring, his vision blur, a strong nausea forcing him to clutch his chest. The ground shook, winds howled, lightning flashed—these hallucinations made it seem as if the hammer was splitting the heavens or hammering Shard’s soul.

Yet the doctor, struck by the giant hammer, remained unmoved, but Shard could see Dr. Schneider flattened into a copper disc.

“Copper?”

He couldn’t make sense of his perceptions anymore.

Indeed, there was a piece of copper; after being hammered by a giant hammer, a huge rotating copper ring appeared behind the doctor—a brass-colored metal ring.

The steam gradually dispersed, a pentagonal cross-sectioned yellow brass metal ring slowly rotated behind the doctor. Strange lights accompanying over twenty spiritual runes wandered on this fate ring.

The halo reflected on Shard’s face; he heard a woman’s light laugh in his mind, his eyes reflecting this magnificent, magical, and powerful ring.

“This is the fate ring. Ring magicians only summon it fully during deadly battles. Otherwise, we don’t summon the fate ring fully or just a part of it. Any questions?”

The doctor stopped on the wild grass in the courtyard, asking the dumbfounded Shard, who could still feel the dissipating steam’s heat and the high temperature from the giant brass ring behind the doctor.

The fate ring wasn’t an illusion—it was a solid entity.

“Why steam? Why brass?”

He didn’t notice the urgency in his voice.

The middle-aged doctor smiled.

“Young man, people’s success isn’t only about personal effort but also about the historical tide.

I said, the fate ring represents oneself and the world. This era is the steam and mechanical age, so the fate ring emerges from steam, forged by a giant hammer into brass. If it were the rainbow age, the fate ring might be rainbow-colored; if it were the deep-sea age, it would be water. Do you understand?”

Shard nodded, his heartbeat speeding up from witnessing that startling scene.

“I understand.”

He didn’t even want to blink, trying to etch the ring’s entirety in his eyes. But the doctor waved behind, and the fate ring gradually became transparent, disappearing, leaving Shard to remember only a few runes.

For the common language of the Northern Kingdom, even without the woman’s voice in his mind providing knowledge, Shard could understand and listen but couldn’t speak or write. Now, he inexplicably understood the meanings of those powerful spiritual runes. The few he glimpsed were [Joy], [Hound], and [Microparticle].

Suddenly, his head felt a surge of pain, like being hit on the back of his head, abandoning the attempt to remember those powerful runes.

In this world, knowledge truly is power. Therefore, the extraordinary organization the doctor invited Shard to join being an academy seemed understandable.

“But with my peculiarity of understanding and comprehending all languages in this dangerous world, is it a blessing or a curse?”

Shard contemplated his mystery as the doctor continued walking through the wild grass, introducing more:

“The cross-section of my fate ring is currently a pentagon, representing my status as a five-ring ring magician and a fifth-year correspondence adult education student in the academy. A one-ring fate ring is a flat ring with spiritual runes on one side. A two-ring is also flat, but both sides can imprint spiritual runes. A three-ring’s cross-section is triangular, a four-ring’s is quadrilateral, and so on. Do you understand that higher rings are closer to the perfect circle?”

“Yes, I understand.”

The two entered the building, which had probably seen countless people over the years. No furniture remained, and dust lay thick on the floor, stirring into the air with each step.

They didn’t stay on the first floor but walked up a precarious staircase to the second floor. Shard worried about the safety of this hazardous building.

“Spiritual runes are the core of the ring magician system. By engraving spiritual runes onto one’s fate wheel, we accumulate ‘spirit,’ experiencing the four great elements [Miracle], [Blasphemy], [Enlightenment], [Whispers], progressing continuously.”

“Spirit? Elements?”

Shard asked, filled with excitement, finally about to learn these things.

The doctor led Shard up the stairs.

“Spirit had different names in the past eras—magic, ether, mana, spirituality, the light of the mind—but now it’s uniformly called ‘spirit.’ It is information, an element, energy. It is everything you understand of the world, one of the manifestations of a ring magician’s mind interfering with matter. Accumulating spirit is done by contacting elements, and the safest way is to read stories and knowledge from pre-epoch eras—the culture, customs, heroic legends, and oral myths.

Contacting this knowledge is equally dangerous; a moment’s carelessness can lead to madness. Therefore, we usually read the original manuscripts or translations.”

Shard simply translated ‘spirit’ to blue bar.

“But merely accumulating enough spirit doesn’t move you to the next ring. A ring magician’s most important focus isn’t spirit but elements. By accumulating spiritual runes of the four major elements, we effectively increase the spirit limit, elevate the soul, and temper the body. The four elements can be sensed in various ways.”

Shard thought of the mental woman’s voice indicating he had encountered [Whispers], [Enlightenment], and [Miracle], respectively, witnessing Sparrow’s death, stepping onto the street and seeing the world, and contemplating the essence of god.

“Merely sensing and contacting the elements isn’t enough; you must engrave the elements onto your fate wheel to prove your fusion with the elements. Each ring magician’s upgrade requires different combinations of [Miracle], [Blasphemy], [Enlightenment], and [Whispers] runes, forming specific sentences to ascend. I’ll explain more when you decide to join the academy. For now, let me illustrate the differences among the four elements.”

The doctor paused, looked ahead, and smiled.

“I think we’ve found who we’re looking for.”

We’ve Moved! If you notice any missing, empty, or incorrect chapters, please leave a comment below, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. Regular updates will resume on June 10th. Thank you for your patience!
The Whispering Verses

The Whispering Verses

Status: Ongoing Author:
Arriving in a new world where the steam industry is thriving, you inherit a three-story apartment in the kingdom's capital square. Accompanied by someone else's cat and listening to the whispers in your ear, you witness this strange and mysterious era. The epic of the Sixth Age is about to begin. Behind the curtains, the chosen ones will step into legend. Old gods, relics, steam, witches, detectives, ancient mysteries, the radiance of epochs... "Do you want to play a round of Lord Cards?" Time engraves the years, and the silver moon illuminates the shadows. I write legends for you, and you whisper verses for me.

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