Although there had long been all kinds of guesses about the Machine God, confirming that the Machine God was most likely on the hostile side,
still left Yvette with a twinge of regret.
Of course, you couldn’t just jump to a conclusion like that. People change; after the collapse of civilization, maybe the Machine God had changed its mind, too?
Yvette kept reading and saw that Firebearer had sent another ssage: “Here’s the agreed-upon freebie—so hidden intel about the Holy Spirit Sect.”
“According to our investigation, the reason the Holy Spirit Sect chooses to exist in the form of a religion—aside from all the benefits and control religion naturally confers—is that they discovered a curious new elent.”
“That elent is born from the souls of believers and uses soul runes as its foundation. They call it the ‘Faith Elent.'”
“When collected, this elent can be compounded into a drug called the ‘Requiem Elixir.’ It soothes the soul, stabilizes mory, and preserves personality. It has imdiate effects on cyber-psychosis, disordered consciousness, and a variety of ntal problems.”
“You know how, when researching soul-magic, it’s easy to get contaminated and slip into madness. It’s precisely because of the Requiem Elixir that
both the Pontiff and the High Priests of the Holy Spirit Sect can stably maintain their sense of self.”
“They also sell this rare and precious liquid externally. As far as I know, the Eight Corporations are all their clients. For example, Black Tower Pharmaceuticals has a sizeable allotnt shipped to Ish Island every year.”
“I think it probably ties to certain research going on within the island.”
That was the end of Firebearer’s bonus content, but the implication wasn’t hard to read: the Immortality Project required the Requiem Elixir, and one could even infer that the elixir might suppress the chaos and madness brought on by the Aberration Factor.
For Yvette, however, she and Lianna were entirely unaffected by the madness induced by aberration, and the risks of necromancy ant little to her, so she was content to simply take note of it.
She thought for a mont and asked, curious, “Do you have any way of dealing with that ga, Codena: Life?”
“We do. You’ll see it soon enough,” Firebearer said.
After a whole night of fighting and receiving a flood of important new information all at once, Yvette felt a wave of fatigue wash over her the mont their conversation ended. She closed her eyes and slept straight through until noon the next day.
When she opened them again, autumn daylight was pouring in past the curtains. From the living room ca the clatter and rustle of Firefly cleaning, and as for Lianna—unsurprisingly—she had probably already gone to school.
Lying in bed, Yvette quietly checked the magic within her body and found it had only recovered a sliver, which made her a little helpless.
In last night’s battle, eight thousand points of mana had been drained by more than eighty percent—truly rare. Even with full-on ditation, it would take many days to recover. What’s more, she’d long since fallen out of the habit of ditating, preferring to let it restore naturally, which took even longer.
Fortunately, there was nothing urgent for the ti being. Her routine included auditing classes at the universities, and as long as she didn’t blow her cover, life stayed quite comfortable and calm.
She then opened her magitech terminal, connected to the Jadeite Continent’s network, and started checking the news.
A few minutes later, on the website of the local outlet Garde News, she saw that Greenlight Tower had been attacked by rioters. The story was trending, though not as hot as she’d expected—likely being artificially suppressed.
But as she watched the video report, she was shocked to find that Imogen—whom she should have personally beheaded—had shown up again, answering reporters’ questions like nothing had happened.
What was going on?
Back from the dead?
No—perhaps it was a substitute body. Thinking back to Imogen’s cold indifference when death was imminent, Yvette leaned even more toward the idea that what she killed last night was an avatar. She just didn’t know what technology the other side used to remote-control that avatar without her noticing.
There was good news, too: her identity hadn’t been exposed. In all the surveillance footage, there was only a pitch-black silhouette, nothing that would draw the attention of those old acquaintances on the Blacktide Continent—Black Tower Pharmaceuticals, the Holy Spirit Sect, and the like.
That ant even if sothing did happen, the only party she’d need to deal with was Lingman Corporation, which took a bit of the pressure off.
Over the following month, Yvette lived a peaceful, orderly life in her rental in the old district.
She still made the rounds auditing classes at Lingman University and Garde University, deepening her understanding of natural magic.
At the sa ti, she had one more task: comb through the trove of data she’d stolen from Greenlight Tower that night, read through it, and look for anything that might be valuable.
It wasn’t sothing she could hand off to the Soulbrain AI. Much of it required instincts even she had to rely on to spot threads; an AI would see even less, at best providing so categorization and filtering as auxiliary work.
Then, after another half month, she suddenly noticed a flood of rumors about Codena: Life
spreading across the Blacktide Continent’s internet.
So flat-out exposed the truth of the matter; others took another angle, claiming the ga company was being racist and was deliberately not releasing in the Blacktide Continent.
Strangest of all, as if to lend credence to the “conspiracy theory,” certain state dia controlled by parties in the United States of New Eden also ran stories along those lines, as if eager to stir the pot.
This was clearly the Civilization Preservation Society exerting force—trying to weaponize the news dia and online opinion to pressure the ga project.
It worked well. As the “conspiracy theory” spread, beyond the project team’s attempts to refute the rumors, the ga’s public beta was suddenly delayed for mysterious technical reasons.
Obviously, once the leak was confird, both Lingman Corporation and Gravity Group chose to abandon the plan that had yet to be implented, intending to repackage the project and bring it back in another form.
Yvette wasn’t surprised by the outco—just a bit taken aback that the Civilization Preservation Society’s reach was so vast it could even prompt the United States of New Eden’s state dia to speak up for them!
Which begged the question: could she take advantage of this opportunity to pull the thread and find a trace of the Civilization Preservation Society?
Driven by a flicker of curiosity, Yvette thought it over and sent a ssage to Miss Irene, an acquaintance from Agasha.
She was a reporter with the Black Tower–aligned outlet “Bird News,” and had apparently been promoted to editor-in-chief recently. Bird News had also covered the ga and its underlying conspiracy theory. Yvette figured she might know sothing.
“Miss Naless, you actually reached out to first—I’m so moved, boo-hoo— I thought you’d forgotten all about ——” Irene replied the mont she saw Yvette’s greeting.
“No, I just didn’t think it was necessary to bother you.”
“Really? Then can I ssage you? You’re a global superstar now—I didn’t dare text you, afraid you’d unfriend .”
“Of course you can.”
“Yay!” Irene was delighted, then added, “Don’t lie to , I’m fragile. If you delete ,
I’ll lose it!”
“I won’t,”
“Good.” Irene relaxed. “All right, Miss Naless, what did you need for today?”
She’d already guessed that, being a person as thodical as a robot, Miss Naless wouldn’t show up just to chat without a reason.
“I wanted to ask: for the news about Codena: Life, where did your information co from, and why did you choose to cover it?”
“Huh? That ga? So the conspiracy theory is real?”
“Mm.”
“Oh my—” Irene exclaid, then said, “Hold on, I’ll go ask!”
Half an hour later, Irene’s reply ca back: “The editor-in-chief told the story was requested from ‘higher up.'”
“Higher up?”
“Yeah—apparently a direct decision from the board of directors—”
“Got it. Thanks for your help. Talk next ti.”
“We have to! Next ti—chat!”
“Mm—— talk next ti.”
With that, the conversation with Irene ended, and Yvette felt a flicker of surprise.
She rembered that, from the corporate side, Bird News belonged to the Black Tower faction of the two major companies, and from the party side, to the Conservative camp of the two major parties.
To be able to influence coverage via the board—rather than through personal connections or anonymous tips—was this leveraging the power of Black Tower Pharmaceuticals, or the power of the Conservatives?
For an almost unknown clandestine organization, how could the Civilization Preservation Society wield such sway on the Blacktide Continent?
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