"5 to 10 straight, no one wants it? Then a pair of 2s, I'm out."
Black-haired, blue-eyed, thin-browed Lolotta Laytlin played her cards in succession, smiling as she looked at the dejected Seeka and Frye, then gathered the coins on the table toward herself.
"...Today's lunch should be your treat."
Frye coldly said.
"No problem, today's winnings are enough for you to eat for a week."
Lolotta readily agreed.
"Treat? Then I can't be absent."
Angel pushed open the recreation room door and walked in, Leonard following closely behind, wearing his coat with sleeves fluttering.
"Hey, everyone!"
Before Angel could speak, Leonard knocked on the door with his knuckles, attracting the attention of the three Nighthawks who were playing "Fight the Landlord", then spoke in a recitation-like tone:
"Please allow me to introduce the lady beside me, who used less than two months to completely master the Sequence 9 potion—Angel Granger!"
This is too exaggerated... third-rate poets only show such outstanding creativity at times like this.
Angel took a deep breath, almost unable to maintain the calm smile on her face.
The three Nighthawks looked at each other, confusion written all over their faces. Seeka Tron put down the cards in his hand and asked:
"Is this true? I do remember you only took the potion and became an Extraordinary shortly before joining the Nighthawks."
"That's right, when completely mastering the potion, there will be an obvious feeling that won't be confused with other situations, such as losing control, such as being contaminated."
These were various cases of "mistakenly thinking one had mastered the potion" recorded within the Church, so whenever Extraordinaries applied for early advancement, they would face strict examination, just to avoid overconfident Nighthawks mistaking pre-loss-of-control overconfidence for progress in potion mastery.
After receiving Angel's affirmative answer, several people were somewhat excited, especially Lolotta. She had joined the Nighthawks even earlier than Leonard, yet was still a Sequence 9 "Sleepless". Although there was no competitive atmosphere within the Church, she would still have some anxious emotions.
Hearing that Angel had mastered the potion in just two months, she asked somewhat impatiently the question everyone cared about:
"How did you do it?"
Surrounded by everyone's burning gazes, Angel could only sit down on the recreation room sofa and tell several Nighthawks the carefully compiled "experience insights" she had long prepared.
She had originally wanted to slowly build up to it, then subtly and imperceptibly leak the Acting Method, but Leonard's disruption had immediately lost her the initiative.
During the conversation, she looked toward Leonard standing by the door, who had his arms crossed, pretending to listen carefully on the side, but his eyes were wandering, his thoughts already flown to who knows where.
This guy definitely did it on purpose... could it be he also wants to use my mouth to tell other teammates about the "Acting Method"? But why doesn't he speak himself?
Angel helplessly withdrew her gaze and continued answering Lolotta's excited questions.
...
"That's how it is. Through these things, I summarized my own 'Assassin's Code'. After thinking through this point, I felt as if some objects quickly dissolved and spread within my body, filling my whole body. I knew this was the sign of completely mastering the potion."
Angel used Daly, Klein, and herself as examples to subtly reveal the "Acting Method" to several teammates.
She couldn't be more direct, such as directly saying words like "acting" and "digestion", as this would be discovered during examination, making the examiner think she deliberately leaked the "Acting Method" before swearing to keep it secret, which would be detrimental to Lady Daly who had warned her in advance.
But using successful examples like this seemed to have good effects too...
After hearing Angel's statement, both Frye and Lolotta fell into contemplation, while Seeka, who had advancement experience, also frowned recalling his own experience.
Leonard leaned nearby, pretending to think.
Angel secretly mocked this pretentious guy, stood up, bid farewell to teammates who had already gained some enlightenment, and left the recreation room.
Next, leave it to time. With goals and methods, she believed these intelligent teammates wouldn't disappoint her.
Just returning to the corridor, she encountered Klein coming back from the basement to the second floor, the latter showing a smile, seeming to have successfully achieved his purpose.
"How did it go over there?"
Klein asked, but quickly got the answer from Angel's expression.
"Great, I also chatted with Cohen Lee who was on guard duty at the Chanis Gate. He only transferred from clerical staff this year, taking the potion to become an Extraordinary. After just a few words from me, he understood the importance of the 'Acting Method', perhaps he'll be the fastest to advance to Sequence 8."
He sighed.
"Seeka, Lolotta, and Frye also know now. They might need some time to think and summarize their own acting codes, but judging from their expressions, they should all have gained something. As for Leonard, I think he already knew."
Angel also reported her achievements.
"That's not surprising, with his appearance of hiding quite a few secrets, he looks complicated... " Klein smiled at the corner of his mouth, looking toward the recreation room door, "This way all official members have been notified, oh right, there's still Old Neil..."
Speaking of that elderly Extraordinary who was still stuck at Sequence 9, Klein's gaze carried a trace of gloom.
"He was somewhat excited, and somewhat dejected, constantly muttering that if only he had known twenty years earlier... sigh, with his current physical condition, he definitely cannot advance and won't be permitted to."
The two talked as they walked, crossing the corridor to the reception hall, seeing Rozanne busy outside the partition, so they stopped beside the partition, avoiding her sight.
"Perhaps Old Neil has some unfulfilled wishes that became regrets due to being unable to advance?"
Angel speculated about that nearly retired Nighthawk's thoughts.
Klein sighed again. He looked back toward the recreation room and Dunn's office, seeing no one else had come to the corridor, then said in a low voice:
"Since the Church knows there's an 'Acting Method' that can accelerate potion mastery and reduce loss of control risk, why would they conceal it from the Extraordinaries below? Even those like Lady Daly who comprehended it themselves are required to swear oaths to keep it secret from others?"
Realizing the upcoming conversation was somewhat dangerous, Angel moved a bit further from the partition to avoid being heard by Rozanne, then lowered her voice to answer:
"I've also been thinking about this question. If simply considering strengthening Nighthawk power and maintaining Extraordinary stability, publicly revealing the 'Acting Method' would undoubtedly be the best choice, but combined with another piece of information I heard from a certain 'Machinery Hivemind' member..."
She told Klein about the "Law of Extraordinary Characteristic Indestructibility" she had learned from Kavi at Enmat Harbor, and the method derived from it of advancing using extraordinary characteristics from deceased Extraordinaries as potion materials.
"Extraordinary characteristics extracted from dead Extraordinaries can directly serve as same-sequence potions?"
Klein gasped, repeating with an expression of disbelief.
"That's right, this method doesn't even need to know the potion formula, because even directly consuming characteristics without auxiliary materials has a high success rate for advancement."
...Of course, my experience was an exception.
Angel added silently in her heart.
"So the Church's high levels are worried that after leaking the Acting Method, it would cause potion digestion to be too fast, more Extraordinaries urgently needing advancement, thus causing insufficient potion material supply, leading some personnel to kill each other and seize extraordinary characteristics for advancement?"
Klein quickly combined the "Acting Method" and "Extraordinary Characteristic Indestructibility" laws, reaching a conclusion that made his scalp tingle.
"This is the only possibility for the Church to conceal the 'Acting Method'. They always send people to recover extraordinary characteristics from sacrificed Nighthawks, require turning in characteristics from Extraordinaries killed in extraordinary incidents, probably all for this consideration... hmm, perhaps Captain Dunn also knows these secrets."
Angel said at the end, thinking of the extraordinary characteristic from Mrs. Sharon that Dunn had taken away.
That was Sequence 6 potion main material!