Chapter 1000 — Snow

For a long time, Cecil and Typhon had each pursued a different path of technology—the former had opened a new road of arcane engineering, while the latter had pushed the potential and application of the extraordinary to ever higher levels. In the short term, it was still impossible to say which held the advantage, and Gao Yang had never once imagined that these two paths might one day intersect.

Unfortunately, tinkering with the talents of the extraordinary—selecting "weakly gifted" individuals from among ordinary people and using potions, rituals, and training to catalyze them into genuine, if narrowly applicable, extraordinaries—had always been Typhon's specialty. Cecil's research in that field amounted to nothing at all.

The Long Night cult had always operated within Typhon, so when faced with the shortage of suitable candidates for the psionic songsters, Wendy's first thought had been of Typhon's alchemical potions and catalytic techniques. But as for the actual details of those techniques... plainly, there was no way she could know them.

"This is military secrets we are speaking of. The potions are held by the Typhon royal house and a few of the major military nobles, and the same goes for the specific catalytic techniques. And even with all of that in hand, you would still need matching training methods, or the test subjects would be in grave danger," said Yuri, who was of Typhon noble stock himself. Though he had left that circle by the time Typhon's mass-production techniques for the extraordinary had matured, he had once had connections there, and some internal intelligence he plainly understood better than Wendy. "I do not believe we can obtain such materials in a short time..."

Gao Yang's expression turned serious; he rubbed his chin, and beside him Hedy said softly, "You mean Number Twenty-Five, over there..."

Gao Yang thought it over and slowly shook his head.

He too had thought at once of Daniel, who had already worked his way into Typhon's upper echelons—as the most successful agent in Cecil's intelligence system at present, Daniel was indeed positioned to touch many unimaginable secrets. But precisely for that reason, the information he could gather was also highly domain-specific, and carried a far greater risk of exposure. The fields Daniel could currently reach lay almost entirely under the "Imperial Guild of Industry" of Typhon; beyond that, he could at best rely on personal connections to pick up rumors circulating among the upper nobility and mage-scholars. By any normal logic, it was unlikely he would come into contact with mass-production extraordinary techniques wholly unrelated to his own field of research.

Of course, they could take the risk and have Daniel steal intelligence in this area, but Gao Yang judged the danger too great—Typhon's ranger agents were no fools, and that Luo Yan Augustus was a cautious man besides. Recently, as the situation in Aldernan grew tense, many agents working for Cecil—even liaison officers infiltrated under the "Trajectory" plan—had been captured by the Typhon authorities. Amber had even been forced to cut several intelligence lines. Under such strained circumstances, there was no way Gao Yang would send an irreplaceable agent like Daniel to risk his life for a formula.

As he pondered, Hedy suddenly thought of something. "Wait—I have someone in mind..."

"You mean our 'guest' currently staying at Solinburg?" Gao Yang raised an eyebrow. "I hardly think she would be willing to cooperate on this. Surrendering for the greater good and betraying one's country are two very different things."

"...Or her father?" Hedy thought again. "Bard was once..."

"Allow me to interject," Yuri said from the side. "First, the Wendell family is indeed Typhon's most important military noble house, and its head and heir would certainly have access to secrets of this kind. But I do not think Bard can help—he left Typhon more than a decade ago, when the mass-production techniques for the extraordinary were still far from mature. In the many years since, Bard was held by the Church of All Things Ending in a biolab; he should have had no chance to come into contact with such intelligence..."

"We will set this matter aside for later," Gao Yang said after a moment's thought, shaking his head. "We have wandered from the point—our efforts should be concentrated on the normal line of research. Hedy, you may try to arrange for someone to approach the Wendells, father and daughter, but take care not to provoke the opposite effect. Until then, Wendy and Yuri, you will proceed as planned: first select a number of suitable candidates from among the mages and train them. In wartime, our mental defense units must be put into service as quickly as possible. Even if only a small number of elites can be deployed, it may still raise the front-line soldiers' chances of survival."

Having settled the arrangements, Gao Yang did not linger in the laboratory—before evening fell, he still had to preside over a meeting of the consuls.

Leaving the research facility, Gao Yang and Hedy walked toward the parking grounds. A bitter cold wind swept past, and Hedy, who had not activated her breeze shield, instinctively hunched her neck.

Gao Yang looked up and saw that the sky had turned overcast at some point, leaden clouds pressing dark and heavy over the land, restless cold winds threading through their depths. Where the air currents coiled and tangled, crystalline snowflakes came drifting down.

"It's snowing..." Hedy tilted her head back too. The flakes falling from the sky were mirrored in her clear eyes. She reached out, and a snowflake touched her fingertip, only to melt into a drop of water within seconds. "The first snow in the Southern Region this year has come so late..."

"It already snowed in the Holy Spirit Plains last week," Gao Dai said. "The Bureau of Celestial Studies compared the patterns of rain, snow, and temperature over the years and believes this may be a cold winter... colder than any winter in the past twenty years."

"The textile trade with Typhon has already been halted by the war's impact. At least until the war ends, there is no way we will be getting cheap textiles from the east," Hedy said earnestly. "Fortunately, our large purchases last year and the cotton production that has been maintained all along in the western plains have left us with sufficient stockpiles. We need not worry about the supply of cotton clothing this winter. Of course, if the war drags on like this, we will have to consider expanding cotton production—this year's baby boom has brought a great many new births, which requires extra textiles, medicine, and food. The Ministry of Agriculture is already drafting the corresponding plans."

"...So the effects are already beginning to show... The Typhonians will not have an easy winter either. Many of their rail lines still cannot operate independently at all, and a great many factories are waiting on finished parts from us," Gao Yang said, shaking his head. "This will be a test of the new international rules, and the first test of the two settlement zones. The Typhonians will certainly find a way to hold on to their markets in the southern part of the continent, and our trade with the west of the continent must also continue as usual. News of the war should have spread through every nation by now; steady, normal trade activity can strengthen our allies' confidence—and ease the pressure on us as well."

Hedy lowered her head. "I understand, Ancestor."

...

As this winter's first snow drifted down over Xuanyao City, another snowfall, neither early nor late, paid a visit to far-off Aldernan in a foreign land.

Compared with Xuanyao City, which lay farther north, the snow in Aldernan seemed gentler—scattered flakes drifting down through the overcast sky and thin mist with an unhurried air, taking a long while to lay a thin white layer over the damp city ground.