In a secret underground room at the An-Yin Main Bureau in Tivian, a woman named Misha De Blanc stood before a table, declaring her identity and purpose to the people seated around it. Sitting below, Gregorius looked at the capable woman before him and couldn't help but think to himself.
'Misha De Blanc? His Highness Harold's knight, so she's one of his close confidantes. She looks quite young, a bit older than me, not yet thirty. And she's already become His Highness Harold's knight?
'My current rank is Black Earth. Since Misha can be my superior, she should be Chalk... A Chalk rank before thirty... That's truly terrifying. I wonder if I can be promoted before thirty. It feels highly unlikely...'
While looking at Misha, Gregorius thought to himself. His old superior, Captain James from Igwinte, had discussed the general promotion situation within the An Yin Bureau with him. Across the country, most of the An Yin Bureau staff were ordinary people. A local branch bureau would only have four or five Apprentice squad leaders and one Black Rank branch chief. Within this system, most people would reach Apprentice rank at best. Even James himself had to stay at the Main Bureau until his forties, slowly accumulating merit and seniority to earn a promotion opportunity.
Therefore, Gregorius knew that his last promotion opportunity, obtained by capturing that Black Rank, was pure luck. Excluding this luck factor, his career plan at the Main Bureau was to strive for a promotion assessment opportunity before he turned forty. If he could manage to be promoted to Chalk before forty-five, he would have no regrets in this life.
Sitting in his seat, Gregorius continued to quietly observe Misha not far away. After glancing at the people before her again, she spoke.
"Alright, from now on, we are colleagues. Let's not be so tense. Everyone, please introduce yourselves now. Name, origin, Path... Let's get to know the important things about each other so we can cooperate well in the future..."
As Misha said this, she glanced at a square-faced, thick-necked, short-statured man in his thirties to her right, and continued.
"Start with you."
"Yes, Madam."
The man respectfully nodded to Misha, then looked around at the others at the table before beginning his self-introduction.
"I am Mike Darrech, from Comfortin in Gar County. My Path is the Storm Path."
After the man named Mike finished, it was the next person's turn. That was a man also around thirty or forty, noticeably more muscular, with a shallow scar on his face. After Mike, he spoke in a deep voice.
"I am from Noyce in North Sapsen County. My name is Rio Cardor, and my Path is the Blood Darkness Path."
As soon as the man finished speaking, it quickly moved to the next person, a young man in his twenties who looked energetic, with slightly darker skin and quite lively. He raised a hand and said with a smile.
"It's my turn. I'm Weihan Valder, from Caset in South Lem County, a good place. My Path is also the Blood Darkness Path, just like the big brother before me."
After the young man finished his introduction with a smile, it was a thin-faced woman with brown short hair, who looked about the same age as Misha. She looked at the table of people before her and replied.
"My name is Jiff Docherty, from Kai in North Dunbar County. Storm Path."
The next to speak was an older man in his forties with a somewhat thick beard. He smiled after Jiff and said.
"You can call me John Dub. My hometown is Wander Island. I used to work for the Church, and now I am a Healing Priest of the Holy Mother's Path. I can help relieve injuries from missions for everyone in the future, if there are any."
After the oldest man at Gregorius's side finished speaking, it was Gregorius's turn. He then introduced himself neither humbly nor arrogantly.
"My name is Gregorius Meshaus. I am from Igwinte in Igwin County. My Path is the Blood Darkness Path. It is a pleasure to gather with you all again."
As Gregorius introduced himself in this manner, his eyes scanned the people before him while he spoke. His gaze lingered slightly on the young man named Weihan and the man named Rio for a moment. The reason was simple: they, like him, were Extraordinary beings of the Blood Darkness Path.
Gregorius knew that the secret society called Eight Point Nest intended to infiltrate the An-Yin Main Bureau. They had somehow obtained intelligence about Harold's plan to select individuals with clean records from various local branch bureaus to come to the Main Bureau and counter the internal spies. They had intercepted these selected individuals midway and used the disguise ability of the Blood Darkness Path to replace them. Gregorius was also one of the targets of this interception, but with help from his dreams, he evaded the interception and, in turn, replaced the interceptor.
Of course, in Gregorius's view, since the Eight Point Nest had intercepted him, they wouldn't have just intercepted him alone. To infiltrate more power into the An Yin Bureau, any of the five people before him could have been intercepted and replaced.
However, these selected individuals were Apprentices when they arrived and were facing promotion after coming to the Main Bureau. Because they needed to display corresponding abilities after promotion, these internal spies, disguised by the Blood Darkness Path's ability, could not possibly choose the Storm Path when facing promotion. They could only choose the Blood Darkness Path to pretend to be promoted. Therefore, among these five people, the two who are of the Blood Darkness Path are highly suspected of being internal spies planted by the Eight Point Nest.
Gregorius cautiously looked at the people before him. Perhaps out of caution, the Eight Point Nest did not inform him of the information about other lurking internal spies, so he could only guess whether these two were internal spies or if both were.
Just then, Misha nodded slightly after seeing that everyone had finished introducing themselves, and then began to speak again.
"Alright, since we have made initial introductions, let's get started without further ado. As you all already know, what is the purpose of our special investigation team? There has been a serious leak of intelligence within the Main Bureau, which has caused us immeasurable losses. Therefore, our goal is to find and remove these impurities within the Main Bureau... Regarding this... do you have any questions?"
Misha scanned the people before her as she spoke, and the short, stout Mike directly asked.
"Madam, I know our main task is to investigate the spies within the Main Bureau, but... but we have only just arrived in Tivian not long ago, and our familiarity with the entire Main Bureau is very limited. There are many things we still don't understand. Under these circumstances, investigating spies might be quite difficult, right? Before investigating, shouldn't we wait until we are more familiar with the overall situation of the Main Bureau?"
Mike said this to Misha. His meaning was simple: such a large Main Bureau was too unfamiliar to them. They hadn't even been able to figure out the specific operational situation yet. It was simply too difficult to find inconsistencies in this unfamiliar environment, because it was easy to not even realize where the problem lies.
Listening to Mike's words, there was no change in Misha's expression. She still spoke with a calm demeanor.
"You don't need to spend separate time on these matters. You can familiarize yourselves with the Main Bureau while investigating. Your main task is to follow my command and assist me. I will guide the direction of your investigation." Misha said this to everyone, and the scar-faced Rio immediately followed up.
"Investigation direction? Does that mean... Madam, you have some leads on how to find these internal spies?"
"That's right, I do have some clues now. What we need to do now is to launch an investigation along this lead. You just need to obey my orders..." Misha said, and for a moment, her words aroused everyone's curiosity. They all raised their heads and looked at Misha with curiosity.
"The clue about the mole... what is it?" Weihan, the young man beside her, asked curiously, while Misha, after a slight pause, slowly walked to a wall. By the wall, she found a rope, grabbed it, and pulled hard. Then, a large scroll painting at the top of the wall rolled down, unfolding before everyone's eyes. Looking closely, it was clearly a map of the entire Tivian City.
After displaying the large map to everyone, Misha shifted her gaze to it and continued speaking.
"Before you even arrived in Tivian, His Highness Harold had already entrusted me with investigating the mole in the An Yin Main Bureau. I spent a lot of time conducting a series of investigations in Tivian's Secret World and finally obtained very important intelligence." Saying this, Misha seriously scanned the map of Tivian City and continued.
"I used my private contacts in Tivian's Secret World to gather all abnormal clues. Not long ago, I learned of an important piece of information: a secret society named Eight Point Nest is selling related intelligence from our bureau through extremely covert channels to other societies."
Listening to Misha's words, Grego paused slightly, while Jiff, the woman not far from him, asked.
"Eight Point Nest? So, is this secret society infiltrating the An Yin Main Bureau?"
"That's right, I have reason to believe it is Eight Point Nest that is infiltrating us. I paid a high price to obtain the names of some small and medium-sized societies that purchased intelligence through private channels, and I found that the An Yin Main Bureau has indeed suffered repeated setbacks in their operations recently. The most serious incident recently even caused the annihilation of a Hunter Squad and the escape of an important prisoner, but fortunately, our joint action with the Church minimized the losses."
Misha continued speaking, and at this point, Grego asked with a slight frown.
"So... these guys are stealing intelligence from us just to sell it for money? Is this Eight Point Nest essentially just an intelligence peddler?"
"No, they are more than just intelligence peddlers. According to the intelligence I have, they should be plotting something unspeakable in the long term. Being intelligence peddlers is only a recent development."
Misha replied to Grego, then she stroked her chin and said thoughtfully.
"According to my investigation of Tivian's Secret World, Eight Point Nest had not sold any intelligence to other societies at all before October. They don't have a tradition of being intelligence peddlers. For them, this is a recent side hustle they've picked up. I suspect their finances encountered some problems some time ago, and they had temporary cash flow issues, which is why they started selling intelligence. This also gave me the opportunity to find clues about them."
Misha said this, and listening to her words, Grego and everyone present were also somewhat curious for a moment about what caused Eight Point Nest's financial problems.
"So... what is the reason for Eight Point Nest's significant financial burden now?" Grego continued to ask, and Misha also nodded in response.
"That's right. I think they might have fought a divination war with some other large society, because the price of 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment) reserves throughout Tivian soared for a while. This extremely abnormal price fluctuation is related to this kind of thing, but unfortunately, we cannot get specific transaction information from the Craftsmen's Guild. Otherwise, we should be able to grasp more intelligence."
While speaking, Misha turned her gaze to the location of the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild branch in the East District of Tivian. She knew it was impossible to get information from those cunning merchants.
'Divination war... does that mean an intelligence war using 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment) resources to attack each other? To be able to use so many 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment) resources, this Eight Point Nest is indeed a large society. I wonder who its opponent in the divination war was?'
Grego thought with emotion in his heart. When he was in Igwinte before, the entire branch bureau didn't have a single "enlightenment". "enlightenment" reserves, in his eyes, were rare items that Director James constantly complained about being unable to apply for. However, a society could actually possess multiple such items. This was somewhat unimaginable for Grego.
"So, Madam Misha, you want to track them down through the channels Eight Point Nest uses to sell intelligence?" At this moment, John, the oldest person sitting beside Grego, asked, and Misha continued to answer.
"That is indeed one direction, but their process of selling intelligence is very cautious and secretive. It's difficult to find any trace. The clue I just referred to is not in this regard. The biggest gain from investigating the intelligence transactions was merely letting me know who was trying to infiltrate us.
"In short, we still have too little information about Eight Point Nest, and the clue I mentioned before is related to someone who might possess key information about Eight Point Nest."
Misha said this, then picked up a small wooden stick resembling a pointer from the table and used it to point to a certain area on the upper part of the map. The location she pointed to was an area in the Tivian North Suburb.
"Here, at the King's Campus of Tivian Royal Saint Crown University, a serious Extraordinary Infringement Incident occurred in late September. Fourteen university students were found to be contaminated with Spirit Sight, and our observer stationed at the university was also killed. People from Eight Point Nest once held a ceremony of unknown purpose in the ruins beneath this school."
Pointing to a certain area in the North Suburb with the stick, Misha said this, and upon hearing her words, Grego couldn't help but think with a shock in his heart.
'Saint Crown University... if I remember correctly, Dorothy studies at the middle school affiliated with this university, and that middle school is also nearby... Does that mean so many Extraordinary Infringement Incidents happened right next to Dorothy? Thank goodness, Dorothy didn't have any problems.'
Listening to Misha's words, Grego thought with such relief in his heart, and at this moment, Misha, standing in front of the map, continued speaking.
"Initially, we couldn't determine the purpose of Eight Point Nest's activities here, corrupting students and holding rituals. We didn't even know there was a problem there until a few days before the incident occurred, when someone submitted two reports to the An Yin Main Bureau through the Craftsmen's Guild channels."
"Reports?" Grego asked doubtfully. Hearing this word seemed to trigger some memories, while Misha on the other side continued speaking.
"Yes, reports. The first report exposed a cult gathering point at the King's Campus. The bureau dispatched two squads there at the time and successfully cleared out an Eight Point Nest stronghold, but unexpectedly encountered a Chalk expert afterwards. Fortunately, they managed to retreat successfully.
"The key is this second report. This report directly foretold the corruption ritual Eight Point Nest was holding underground at the school. Perhaps due to the actions of a mole in the bureau, for some reason, this report was completely ignored. It wasn't until after the incident occurred that we realized someone had actually foretold the occurrence of this incident beforehand."
After speaking, Misha glanced at everyone present, and then Rio among them spoke directly.
"Two reports, both accurately predicting Eight Point Nest's actions. This means... the person who submitted the reports has an unusual understanding of Eight Point Nest! Perhaps we can use him as a breakthrough!"
With a serious expression, Rio said this, and Misha also nodded slightly before continuing.
"That's right, the key is this person who submitted the reports. He was able to predict Eight Point Nest's actions at the time, which is very unusual. If we can get in touch with him, we might gain something."
"This person used the Craftsmen's Guild to contact us, and in the signature of his letter, he referred to himself as... Detective."