Chapter 90: Displaying Learning

The trading session came to a temporary close. Only Ares and Dionysus struck a "favor trade."

Dionysus provided a clue regarding Lauren, and in return, Ares owed him a round of fire support.

None of the other physical trades found a match, but information was already flowing.

Hecate spoke up.

"The trading session is over. We now enter the second phase: intelligence sharing."

"The rules remain the same. Each person may share one piece of intelligence they deem valuable to the round table.

Sharing is voluntary. Choosing not to share will not be held against you.

However, during our next session, I will use my personal channels to try and match the biggest contributor with whatever they desire."

Ares was the first to speak.

"Something happened recently in the Manchester industrial zone."

"Three weeks ago, night-shift workers at the North District's No. 7 Textile Factory began experiencing collective nightmares.

The kind where they can't remember the contents after waking up, but the dreams leave physical marks on their bodies."

"What kind of marks?" Dionysus asked.

"Bruises," Ares replied. "Distributed symmetrically on the insides of both arms. They look like fingerprints, but much longer and thinner than a normal person's."

"How did the factory handle it?"

"They hired a priest from the local parish to perform a purification prayer, but it didn't work.

Then they brought in a folk exorcist to perform a standard site-cleansing ritual, which also failed.

By the third week, two workers outright quit. They refused to work the night shift no matter what was said."

"Have the authorities intervened?" Prometheus asked.

"No. The official forces in Manchester are busy with something else right now.

A smuggling case in the dockyard involved a batch of contraband alchemical materials. All available manpower was redirected there, leaving the textile factory issue ignored for now."

Richard mentally noted this information.

Collective nightmares, symmetrical bruises, elongated fingerprints.

Standard purification rituals had proved ineffective.

This didn't sound like a phenomenon caused by ordinary lingering death wails or low-level wandering spirits.

Symmetrically distributed bruises, especially those "longer and thinner than a normal person's."

Some foul entity capable of manifesting physically was likely making contact with those workers through their dreams.

Furthermore, it had targeted night-shift workers—people suffering from chronic sleep deprivation and possessing the weakest mental defenses.

It was picking off easy prey.

Dionysus was next to share his intelligence.

"There's also something worth noting here in the Imperial Capital."

He set down his wine glass.

"The Anomalous Phenomenon Investigation Committee under the Royal Society. You all know of this organization, right?

They issued an internal notice last month, preparing to raise the national alert level for 'spontaneous anomalous spikes in ether concentration' from level three to level two."

"From level three to level two?" Ares clearly took this seriously. "When did this happen?"

"The fifteenth of last month. The notice wasn't made public. I heard about it from an acquaintance working as a scribe in the committee."

"What is the basis for raising the alert level?"

"The notice didn't list any specific grounds, but my acquaintance said the number of anomalous incidents reported nationwide over the past six months is double that of the same period last year."

Richard quietly digested this information.

A rise in ether concentration meant the veil was growing thinner in those locations.

With the veil thinning, things lurking behind it could seep through much more easily.

If the nationwide frequency of such events had doubled compared to last year, it signaled a macro-level trend.

The veil was thinning. It was thinning everywhere.

Prometheus didn't share any intelligence. He simply sat there listening.

Hecate didn't share anything either.

She had stated earlier that she wasn't participating in the trades, and it seemed that also applied to intelligence sharing.

She solely provided the venue, watching and listening.

Once the intelligence-sharing phase concluded, Hecate turned to the two newcomers.

"You two are not required to contribute tonight," she said, reiterating the rule.

"But if there is something you wish to know, you may ask one question."

Nemesis made no move to speak.

Richard had originally planned to remain silent as well.

On a first visit, quietly observing without exposing any personal information was the safest strategy.

But on second thought, if he left tonight without uttering a single word...

...then he would just be the "silent newcomer" at this round table. No one would take him seriously the next time he came.

If he spoke up, and the question carried enough weight...

...then his standing in their eyes would shift from a mere Newcomer to someone worth associating with.

The problem was: what should he ask?

He couldn't ask anything too basic, as that would expose his rank.

Asking a question only a Newcomer would ask was tantamount to carving the words "I am weak" across his own face.

Nor could he ask anything too specific.

Directly probing into the details of someone else's needs, for instance, would seem highly intrusive and expose his own areas of interest.

He needed a question that satisfied two conditions simultaneously:

First, the question had to involve high-level knowledge to prove he possessed sufficient erudition.

Second, it couldn't expose his current rank or specific research direction.

Thanks to [Learning], he had read an extraordinary volume of miscellaneous texts. A question like that did indeed exist.

He pondered for a moment, not speaking until Hecate was on the verge of declaring the session over.

"I do have one question."

Five pairs of eyes focused on him at once.

From behind the Mask of Hermes, his voice rang out at a steady, measured pace:

"Just now, Dionysus mentioned that the nationwide frequency of anomalous incidents is double that of the same period last year.

And Ares mentioned the collective nightmare phenomenon in Manchester, where standard purification rituals were ineffective."

He maintained a calm and composed tone.

"If the overall degradation of the veil is a continuous trend rather than a localized fluctuation..."

He deliberately used the technical term "overall degradation."

This wasn't a phrase a novice would use.

A beginner would simply say, "The veil is thinning."

"...then do you all believe the current maintenance cycles for sealing systems across the regions still hold any reference value?"

Silence fell over the round table for a moment.

In that brief span of quiet, Richard could feel a shift in the way the others looked at him.

He hadn't asked, "Why is the veil thinning?"

That question was too vast, so broad it verged on being empty.

What he asked was an incredibly specific question with practical implications: the maintenance cycles of the sealing systems.

Every seal across the country—whether maintained by the state, academies, the Church, or a Civilian Guild—operated on a fixed maintenance cycle.

But if the rate of the veil's degradation was no longer normal, "seal failure" incidents would crop up more and more across the nation.

Things like the Manchester textile factory incident would become increasingly common.

His question strung the two pieces of intelligence together into a single logical chain, directly addressing a practical issue everyone present would care about.

Are the seals beneath our feet still safe?

Once again, Ares was the first to speak.

"Do you work in seal maintenance?"

"I do not," Richard replied.

"But I have read the third edition of Haldane's Introduction to Veil Dynamics, and the chapter on seal degradation models mentions a similar concept."

He had come across that book in the Imperial Capital University Library.

Richard cited it for one reason: to let everyone present know he had read literature of that caliber, proving that his erudition was, at the very least, quite impressive.

As for his actual rank, that question was cleverly sidestepped.

Theoretical literacy and practical combat rank were two different matters.

A Scholar with profound theoretical grounding might not possess a high combat rank; but no one would ever underestimate them for it, because knowledge itself was a bargaining chip.

Dionysus set his wine glass down.

"Your knowledge is truly profound, Your Excellency."

The careless, nonchalant tone from before was gone from his voice.

"If we calculate using Haldane's model, the annual growth rate has indeed crossed the warning line."

"Which means..."

"The current maintenance is truly no longer enough," Ares picked up the thread.

"At least for those old seals already in a critical state, it's not enough."

"The newly constructed seals are mostly fine; they have enough redundancy built in."

Dionysus added, "But the vast majority within the Empire are old foundations laid down a century ago or more, constantly patched up and used to this day."

"Those old seals..."

"...will be the first to fail." Prometheus suddenly spoke up.

He had spoken very little tonight, but every time he opened his mouth, he hit the nail on the head.

"And the order in which they fail can be predicted."

"Which will collapse first, which will collapse next, and exactly when they will break."