Chapter 652: Contemplation

Eric pushed open the door to the old bookstore, and the hinges let out their usual long, drawn-out creak.

He had grown so familiar with the sound that it now felt almost endearing.

Two months ago, he had found it grating. Now, he thought that without that creak, the bookstore would be missing something essential.

Just like the fog in Mist Capital—if there were no fog, it wouldn’t be Mist Capital anymore.

“Boss.” He nodded toward Jie Ming, who sat in the rocking chair.

Jie Ming gave a soft grunt. His gaze lifted briefly from the newspaper to glance at Eric before dropping back down.

As always, there was no extra expression, no unnecessary pleasantries.

Eric had long grown accustomed to this kind of response from Jie Ming.

He walked over to the bookshelves but didn’t browse for new titles. Instead, he pulled out the medical book Jie Ming had given him from his coat, then sat down on the small stool by the window.

The book was already well-worn, its spine covered in dense creases and the edges of the pages stained with fingerprints and sweat.

He could have read it at home just as easily, but he still preferred coming here.

Though here there was the sound of Jie Ming turning newspaper pages, the occasional moan of wind through the door cracks, and the low rumble of factory whistles echoing from afar.

These sounds blended together into a background noise that somehow put him at ease.

More importantly, if he encountered something he didn’t understand while reading here, he could ask Jie Ming directly.

And besides answering questions, Jie Ming would often pose follow-up questions based on what Eric asked.

Those questions would frequently leave Eric stunned. He would then go back to the book and, in the process of searching, find the answers himself.

It was a torturous method, but the results were surprisingly effective.

Eric found himself remembering more and more, and not through rote memorization—he truly understood what he remembered.

“After blood is pumped out of the heart, it travels through the arteries to the capillaries, then returns via the veins.” Jie Ming’s voice drifted over from the rocking chair, still in that unhurried tone that sounded like both muttering to himself and speaking to Eric. “During this process, how does blood pressure change?”

Eric’s hand paused while turning the page.

His mind began spinning rapidly.

Jie Ming seemed to have asked this question before. Which page was it on…

He flipped through the pages quickly, eyes scanning lines of text and diagrams.

“Arterial blood pressure is the highest, followed by capillaries, with veins being the lowest.” He found the answer but wasn’t entirely confident. He looked up at Jie Ming. The newspaper hid the man’s face.

“What is the driving force behind venous return?”

Eric lowered his head and flipped through the book again.

This time he moved faster, since he remembered the keywords.

A few pages later, he found it. “The heart’s suction effect, respiratory movement, compression by skeletal muscles… and venous valves that prevent backflow.”

“If a person remains bedridden and immobile for a long time, what effect would that have on venous return?”

Eric’s fingers froze on the page.

The book didn’t provide a direct answer, but he could reason it out.

The compression from skeletal muscles would disappear, so return should slow down…

If it slowed enough, blood would pool in the veins and possibly form thrombi…

He opened his mouth, wanting to voice his deduction, but unsure whether it was correct.

Jie Ming lowered the newspaper and glanced at him.

The look was indifferent, like watching a fledgling bird learning to fly.

Then he picked the newspaper back up and turned to the next page.

“Chapter Three, Section Three.”

Eric nodded with a sweaty forehead and buried himself back in the book.

Jie Ming set the newspaper aside, leaned back in the rocking chair, and let his gaze fall on the light bulb on the ceiling.

The bulb was off; only an empty socket hung from the ceiling with a single dangling wire.

He was still using that oil lamp. Its orange-yellow glow danced across the bookshelves, casting shifting light and shadow over the spines of the old books.

His attention shifted away from Eric and turned to another matter.

Three days had passed.

It had been exactly three days since the battle in the abandoned industrial district.

During the day, he spread his spiritual power to cover the entire city, scanning every street, every building, and every underground space, trying to locate the black-robed figures’ stronghold. But he found nothing.

In theory, his spiritual power could blanket all of Mist Capital during daylight hours.

If he weren’t worried that excessive expansion might trigger reactive responses from other Strange entities, his current spiritual power intensity could even cover the entire continent without issue.

This vast spiritual power also allowed him to record every detail in every corner.

Whether it was conversations in hidden chambers or secret gatherings underground, nothing could escape his perception.

Yet those black-robed people had vanished like they had evaporated from the face of the earth. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Theoretically, even if they were hiding, they should not have been able to evade Jie Ming’s detection.

But even so, he had found no trace of them.

This pointed to one conclusion: those black-robed individuals could only operate at night.

Jie Ming’s fingers tapped lightly twice on the armrest of the rocking chair.

Another issue was that within Mist Capital, he had not found any location suitable to serve as a “stronghold.”

It wasn’t that he had found places but lacked evidence. From a purely physical space perspective, there was no spot in the city capable of housing those black-robed people without him noticing.

Abandoned factories, underground passages, vacant houses in the old district…

He had inspected them all with his spiritual power. They were either too small, too empty, or simply unsuitable as long-term operational bases.

Unless… the enemy’s stronghold was not in Mist Capital.

It could be in the endless wilderness outside the city, or in another city.

Jie Ming quickly dismissed the latter possibility.

Due to the prevalence of The Strange in this plane, connections between cities were not particularly strong.

Aside from official channels of communication and transport between Spirit Medium Associations, ordinary people had almost no contact.

Cities related to one another like isolated islands on land—each governing itself and dealing with its own Strange problems.

Would an evil cult organization from another city come all the way to Mist Capital just to sabotage the local Spirit Medium Association’s efforts to seal away The Strange?

The possibility was too low.

Why would they do that?

What benefit would it bring them?

The risks and costs of cross-city operations were extremely high, and once exposed, they would face a joint strike from two cities’ Spirit Medium Associations. Unless there was an extremely compelling reason, no one would do something so foolish.

What about the wilderness, then?

Jie Ming closed his eyes and sketched the geography around Mist Capital in his mind.

Mist Capital faced the sea to the east, with rolling hills and wasteland to the west and north, and marshlands to the south.

These areas were sparsely populated, resource-poor, and infested with bandits.

Ordinary people who entered the wilderness unprepared had less than a thirty percent chance of survival.

However, it was not entirely impossible for a group of Spirit Mediums to establish a hidden stronghold in the wilderness.

The problem was resources.

Resources in the wilderness were extremely scarce. Food and water were not major issues—otherwise there wouldn’t be so many bandits.

The key concerns were medicine, experimental materials, and various laboratory instruments…

All of these would need to be transported from the city, dramatically increasing costs.

The risk of discovery would also rise, as transportation meant routes, and routes could be tracked.

Jie Ming opened his eyes.

He suddenly thought of something.

Those black-robed people—he actually “knew” them.

Not in reality, but during his daytime spiritual power scans, he had “seen” them.

These people actually lived in Mist Capital… as ordinary citizens.

Factory workers, dock laborers, street vendors, even the owners of certain shops.

During the day, they lived exactly like normal people, showing no abnormalities.

But at night, they donned black robes, picked up kerosene lamps, and transformed into those well-trained, fearless cultists.

Jie Ming’s fingers stopped tapping.

“Overall, there are two possibilities,” Jie Ming calculated inwardly.

First, the black-robed people had informants in Mist Capital.

And these were informants capable of transporting large amounts of resources and intelligence to their wilderness base.

Second, the other side had used some method to block his spiritual power detection.

It could be a special type of Strange capable of shielding spiritual scans, or perhaps a sealing formation that hid their stronghold in some interlayer space he could not see.

The characteristics of The Strange in this world were myriad and bizarre; what he had encountered was only the tip of the iceberg.

Before fully understanding them, Jie Ming could not claim he would definitely discover every place hidden using The Strange.

Both possibilities were highly likely.

If it was the first, those informants’ status would certainly not be low.

After all, if they were ordinary people, simply surviving would already take all their effort. Providing large amounts of resources to be transported outside the city would be nearly impossible.

If it was the second, it would be even more troublesome.

The other party possessed means to block spiritual power scans. With the specifics unknown, he needed to prepare for the worst.

Perhaps the wizard cooperating with them had already taught them some basic detection and counter-detection methods from the wizarding world.

Jie Ming rose from the rocking chair, walked to the door, and pushed open the wooden panel.

The morning in Mist Capital was the same as always. Grayish-purple daylight leaked through gaps in the thick fog, casting blurred light and shadow on the damp stone pavement.

He stood at the doorway with his hands in his pockets, watching the sparse pedestrians on the street.

Since the previous line of thought remained uncertain, Jie Ming shifted his focus to another known clue.

The clues exposed during the earlier battle all pointed in one direction: there was a traitor inside the Spirit Medium Association.

The black-robed people knew the Association’s operation timing, formation positions, and the weak defenses on the sea side.

Such intelligence could not have been obtained through external observation alone. Someone within the Association must have provided them with this information.

That person might not hold a high position, but they definitely had access to the operation plans.

Jie Ming felt that if he wanted to catch their tail, he should start by investigating this traitor.

The Spirit Medium Association’s previous capture plan against the Shadow Thief had not been overly secretive, so investigating would be somewhat troublesome.

However, it probably wouldn’t be long before the Spirit Medium Association made a move.