The one who called herself number 17 was a tall, cold-faced, short chestnut-coloured hair, dry European woman wearing a black professional outfit, her age looked a bit younger than Shaun who was thirty years old, and her German language was very standard, and for the time being, she couldn't hear where her accent was from. Although he did not take it out, Shaun could also feel that she had the spirituality emanating from the original secret stone, which was consistent with and somewhat related to the type of spirituality of the secret stone on his own body.
This was a stronger proof of identity than anything else.
Shaun slightly relaxed his tense body, reached out his hand across the table and said, "Nice to meet you. My name is Shaun, what do I call you?"
Number 17 reached out and shook Shaun's hand gently, "Lola. Is your name Shaun? zombie or lamb?"
Shaun's face froze for a few seconds and he replied, "Your name is Lola? Still running all the time?"
All at once the air between the two seemed to freeze as well, and after a few seconds both Shaun and Lola erupted into a simultaneous fit of laughter, louder than a few of the drinkers bragging at the table next to them.
"Why did you volunteer for this mission?" Shaun was still basking in the afterglow of the conversation he had just had after laughing when Lola suddenly asked.
"... Thinking that this quest is not simple, maybe there will be unexpected gains." Shaun thought about it and replied, vaguely feeling that this question of Lola's was not simple.
"How do you know this mission is not simple? The recent paranormal investigation mission that happened in Spain and the Orthodox fanatic insanityt in Serbia both look more complicated than this Cologne case, why did you take this Cologne mission?" Lola's face returned to the cold demeanour she had when they first met.
"What kind of question is that? Suspecting that I know something inside?" Shaun made a dark comment in his heart and told Lola about his encounter with the Alpine Mist people in Milan.
"Naturally Spirit to be uneasy? Things might be more complicated than I thought." After listening to Shaun's account, Lola muttered to herself.
"Is there anything unusual about this case?" Shaun asked tentatively.
Laura was silent for a few seconds and replied, "I was an assigned agent and didn't have nearly as much information as you did beforehand. Until I saw the body of the murdered Vatican investigator."
By this time the schnitzel Shaun had ordered had been delivered and Shaun asked as he cut the schnitzel with his knife and brought it to his mouth, "What happened to the body?"
Lola said: "The body was skinned, a complete skin, perfectly separated from the body without any cuts."
Shaun suddenly found it difficult to swallow the pork chop: "Could it be ...?"
Lola said: "Suspected handiwork of a demonic spirit agent."
Shaun felt his throat dry up a bit and ordered two more beers.
"What is this investigator investigating? How does it involve the demonic spirit world?" Shaun asked.
Lola drank the beer in one go, took out a pen from her jacket pocket, asked the boss's wife for a piece of paper, wrote something and handed it to Shaun and said, "Meet me at this address tomorrow at twelve noon, and I'll meet you to tell you the specifics. The back is my current mobile phone number, secure line, a moment to send me your number text message."
After saying that Lola stood up to leave, Shaun hurriedly asked: "How many levels of agent are you?"
Lola looked at Shaun, still answered: "Third level." After saying that she took two steps and then stopped and turned back to say:``Tomorrow morning you can ask around through your own sources and filter out any valuable clues." Said he turned and walked away.
Shaun ate his schnitzel while looking at the address Lola had left:Maternushaus, Kardinal-Frings-Str. 1-3.
"It's that church hotel that also houses the bishop's sitting library." Shaun knew the place. It seemed that Lola wanted Shaun to meet with the church personnel and share information together.
Shaun texted the number Lola left while eating. After finishing his food and paying the bill, Shaun returned to his room.
Blowing out the candles and lying on his bed, Shaun began to think before he went to sleep: "Level 3 agent, and I don't know which two secret stones Lola got in addition to the original secret stone."
"In the past five years, I've travelled all over Europe for missions and taking tour groups and I haven't found any clues to the secret stones. Tomorrow I'll have a chance to ask Lola if she has any tricks for finding the secret stones."
Then Shaun pondered the question that he had thought about countless times:-"Of the eleven secret stones other than the original secret stone, which one do I want the most?"
"Don't even think about those three Secret Stones of the Gods, no one's ever found them yet, I'm told. Although there are two in there that could help Da Vinci, I don't feel lucky enough to get one of them."
"The other eight, the five Natural Secret Stones of Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, and Lightning, and the three Effect Secret Stones of Swiftness, Shadow, and Power, which one is better to find?"
Since becoming an agent of the Spirit World, almost every night Shaun had fallen asleep in the midst of thinking about the same question.
Perhaps because the room where he slept tonight had a special atmosphere, with moonlight spilling into the room through the glass between the petal-shaped wheel spoke stone art, setting off the night in a mysterious and distant colour, Shaun's mind was so mixed up with thoughts that he couldn't help but remember the incident five years ago.
Five years ago Shaun was leading a tour group trip when the bus drove into a tunnel when it was involved in an accident where a truck loaded with flammable materials caught fire in the tunnel and then exploded.
In the same tunnel where the accident occurred, before the explosion, Shaun was injured trying to save the last guest trapped in the bus and was unable to leave the tunnel quickly. At the time of the explosion, Shaun sees a soft white glow emanating from a rock on the side of the road. Shaun is then swept into the air by a wave of air, while the glow from the rock envelops Shaun's entire body.
In the tunnel where the accident happened, when the explosion occurred, Shaun was swept up into the air by the air wave, and at the same time the light emitted from the stone enveloped Shaun's entire body.
In an instant Shaun felt his body being torn apart, with nothing but flames in his eyes. In the next instant, everything in front of him disappeared and he appeared intact in a pure white space. "Welcome to the Spirit World, congratulations on becoming an agent associated by the original secret stone." At that time, the Light Orb Gatekeeper appeared before his eyes and said this to him.
From the gatekeeper's mouth, Shaun learnt about the concept of the "Spirit World": a boundary in the spirit world established for the souls of those great people who have left a mark on history and are still worshipped by the world. Entry into the "Spirit World" is not mandatory, so not all the souls of great people who have passed away are in the Spirit World.
In order to facilitate communication and management, the Spirit World is set to synchronise time with the earth and space with the earth, that is to say, the range of the Spirit World that you enter through a portal somewhere in Europe corresponds to the boundary of the great people in Europe, and the speed of time in the boundary is the same as that of the earth.
The spirit world originally has no concept of time and space, in order to facilitate the earth to ask for help from the spirit world so it is set up this way.
The Spirits are unable to intervene directly on earth, so they "protect and develop human civilisation, and prevent and correct the influence of evil forces on human society." After World War II, the Guardians of the Spirit World established the "Secret Stone System" to select agents of the Spirit World to act as communicators between the human world and the Spirit World.
The Guardians of the Spirit World established a contract with the God of Nature to create twelve Secret Stones for each continent according to the geographical division of the earth, and each Secret Stone has different attributes, which allow the agents to have different abilities.
According to the contract established between the Spirit World and the God of Nature, the selection of agents is done by the Original Secret Stones, which have autonomy but set up certain trigger conditions: the associated person must have excellent physical qualities, excellent character, and be near death.
After becoming an agent of the Spirit World, the Secret Stone does not disappear and can be kept by the agent as a key to enter the Spirit World, unless the agent dies or voluntarily returns it. Agents from different continents will not lose their special abilities in other continents, but cannot enter the local Spirit World unless they are re-associated by the Original Secret Stone of the continent they are in.
At first, Shaun was associated by the original secret stone in Europe, so he became the agent of the Spirit World in Europe.
Secret Stones other than the Original Secret Stone, when found by an agent, grant the agent the appropriate abilities, after which they disappear and appear in another location on this continent, waiting to be found by the next agent, reappearing in a location that has the autonomy of the Secret Stone, with no laws or clues to follow at this time, but is limited by the territoriality of the continent.
The maximum number of agents associated with the Original Secret Stone is unknown.
In addition to the Original Secret Stones, the other eleven Secret Stones are of three types:three Divine Secret Stones, three Effect-based Secret Stones, and five Nature-based Secret Stones.
In addition to the three divine secret stones, the other eight secret stones grant abilities that can be stacked on top of each other under certain conditions, advancing to new abilities. However, the same secret stone abilities cannot be stacked, meaning that the same secret stone, if found twice by the same agent, will not bring new abilities to that agent, and the original abilities will not be enhanced.
The maximum number of agents that can be empowered by each secret stone is unknown.
The three Secret Stones of God are the Secret Stone of Time, the Secret Stone of the Abyss, and the Secret Stone of the Stars, and only one agent can obtain one of them in the same space-time; if an agent obtains more than one Secret Stone of God at the same time, it will suffer a backlash, with unknown consequences. The current effect of the abilities granted by the Secret Stone of God stacking with the abilities of the other Secret Stones is unknown.
"Then how do the abilities granted by different Secret Stones stack with each other and how are they advanced?" At that time Shaun asked the gatekeeper.
"The stacking and advancement of various secret stone abilities is not explicitly written into the contract, this is one of the tasks that the secret stone system leaves for the agent to explore. Regarding ability stacking and advancement, you can communicate with other agents." The Gatekeeper replied.
"After being associated by the original secret stone, you are a level one agent with basic abilities such as swiftness, fighting, memory, language skills, communication with nature spirits, and so on. For each additional secret stone found, the agent level rises one level, excluding duplicate finds."
"Agents of the Spirit World are not subject to religious and political forces, but maintain good cooperative relations with the vast majority of religions and governments. Most of the agent's mission commissions come from religious organisations and governments, and of course some civil organisations."
"Afterwards you will be given a message:The addresses of all the Spirit World entrance portals in Europe. You can come to me at any time to enquire about mission commissions, and you will also be assigned missions by the Spirit World. A bounty will be paid for completing a mission commission. Relatively generous bounties are provided by the principal."
"Your codename is Agent 22, a number perhaps inherited from the last sacrificed or retired agent, so there is no need to infer the chronological order in which the agents were associated based on that."
"Alright Agent 22, for the sake of the survival of human civilisation, set out to find the Secret Stone and complete your mission." The light sphere gatekeeper concluded.
Since then, Shaun had become an agent of the Infernal Realm that combined the identities of a treasure hunter, bounty hunter, artefact appraiser, exorcist, and spirit remover.
Over the past five years, Shaun had done many missions, mainly focusing on simple level one missions such as searching for artefacts and books, protecting monuments, and psychic investigations and appraisals.
In order to authenticate a Da Vinci manuscript, he entered Da Vinci's boundary to seek help and learnt about Da Vinci's life.
To authenticate a French military document from the Napoleonic era, Shaun entered the Junction to meet Napoleon.
"These are the rewards of becoming an agent of the Spirit World, right?" Half asleep, Shaun couldn't help but smile as he remembered the first time he met Da Vinci and Napoleon.
"This job, actually, is pretty damn cool." Shaun thought to himself before falling asleep.
～～～～～ split line ～～～～～
Note:Zombie, sheep, and Lola are all film terriers, corresponding to the film "Shaun of the Dead", "Shaun the Sheep" and "Run Lola Run" respectively.