"Muhahaha..."
As Jace laughed malevolently, Christoph, his marionette, blinked into the basement. He stood there for a moment, looking at Jace blankly.
"...Mm?" Jace stopped laughing and looked at Christoph, who was looking at him strangely.
"What are you looking at?" Jace asked as he narrowed his eyes at Christoph.
His marionette did nothing but shake his head.
"Hmph, whatever..." Jace muttered, and handed the folded paper containing the hair belonging to Aaron Bleak to Christoph.
"Divine the location of this person and find out his Spirit World coordinates. We are going there tonight," Jace said.
Since Astrologers were better at divining the location of people and objects, Jace left the task to his marionette. Of course, at the end of the day, his marionette was Jace himself...
As Jace stepped out of the basement, Christoph pulled out his crystal ball and started divining the location through the medium (the hair).
Considering the fact that he was divining a Sequence 6, Jace was fairly certain of his divinations, even if the subject of his divination was a Faceless.
Soon, images started illuminating on the crystal ball's surface.
There were several of them, each showing different places and different faces. It meant that Aaron was indeed a Faceless, and that he was all over the place.
'Haa... It's going to be difficult to find his hideout... or maybe not,' Jace thought.
——
Midnight.
In the dark night, Jace stood before a three-story building in North Borough.
This was the same building Jace had first followed Aaron Bleak to. At that time, Aaron had just moved here; it was also the place where Jace had found the 'Black Book'.
As he stood outside, hidden in the shadows, his marionette Christoph was on the third floor, standing before a door.
Currently, Jace had fully possessed his marionette, so he walked through the door—literally, by using phasing.
The apartment was still poorly furnished, as it was before; whatever tables were there had a layer of dust on them.
Since Aaron was now a Faceless, it was obvious that he likely had many rented places all over with things necessary to act as a Faceless, so it was likely that he had not paid attention to this place, but it was still his.
Jace carefully walked into the bedroom and checked under the mattress where he had first found the book.
He flipped over the mattress... "Mm??"
There was nothing.
Well, it wasn't unexpected. Since it was basically a treasure, it was pretty much expected that Aaron had hidden it in a better place by now.
But Jace was disappointed. This likely meant that he had to first capture the guy, hypnotize him, and then make him tell where the book was.
Of course, that wasn't the only way.
Outside the building, Jace sighed. "Where is the Black Book... where is the..." he muttered seven times in ancient hermes.
Closing his eyes, he entered a half-asleep state and dream-divined the location of the book.
Since he had once held the book and read it, Jace was certain that he would at least receive some clue as to where the book was.
A few moments later, he opened his still hazy eyes. As his eyes gained clarity, he smiled darkly.
It turned out that the book was still in the same apartment, but in a different place.
Jace possessed his marionette again and started looking for the place he had glimpsed in the dream.
He pushed over the bed with telekinesis and looked at the wooden flooring. He crouched down and started tapping all over until he found a spot that sounded hollow.
With a flick of his hand, he formed a small, square-shaped illusory door on the floor, and then used the 'Invisible Hand' to retrieve the object hidden down there.
A square object covered by a black cloth floated out of the illusory door and rested softly in Jace's hand.
Without wasting any time, Jace restored the place to how it was and disappeared from the scene with the book.
Jace's marionette appeared beside him with the book in his hand. Jace smiled, and both of them then teleported back to his bungalow's basement.
Jace wasn't much worried about Aaron finding out that his treasured book had disappeared. What could he do? Besides, after Jace's divinations were successful, he would just put the book back where he found it, as he had no further need for it.
When Jace appeared in his basement with his marionette, he set the book on the desk there, removed his coat, and handed it to his marionette Christoph, who hung it up.
Jace was quite nervous, but he knew what he had to do. He sat in the chair before the desk and unwrapped the black cloth, which revealed a black, leather-bound book.
The person who wrote this book was likely a Sequence 5 Marionettist, meaning he had anti-divination capabilities and was hard to divine about.
Even if the divination was successful, the Marionettist would likely receive some kind of revelation about it and know that he had been divined about.
This was one of the reasons why Jace had not dared to divine about the book's origin when he had first stumbled upon it.
But now he was a Sequence 5 himself. He too had anti-divination capabilities, and his divinations were significantly effective and strong as well.
Of course, there was still a possibility of the subject of his divination being a demigod, but it was incredibly small and unlikely.
Even if it was, Jace could now protect himself from a demigod (through escaping with his 'Traveler' marionette and his lover Catherine, who was a demigod).
Nonetheless, for his safety and effective divination, Jace pulled out the golden 'Winner' stopwatch; it had about 6 minutes of charged 'winning luck'.
He clicked the top-right button to turn on the watch, and without wasting a second of the precious time, he started his dream divination.
Jace had his one hand on the Black Book as he muttered: "The person who wrote this book... the person who wrote..."