Chapter 35: Lilies Bloom, A Solitary Fragrance Grows More Refined
He took a slow breath and began examining the short labels beneath the crystals one by one.
Most of the descriptions were frustratingly vague, full of phrases like "unknown energy response," "uncontrollable effect," and "awaiting further observation." It was obvious that much of the information in this section still had not been fully sorted out.
Hodell let his fingers brush over the cold metal shelf, his attention sharpened to a fine point.
At last, he found a tag marked with the words "Mental Resonance."
Just as he reached for the crystal, another fair, slender hand reached for it at almost the exact same moment.
Hodell's eyes narrowed. He turned his head at once.
It was not Lamia.
The woman standing beside him wore a clerk's uniform and a pair of advanced magitech observation goggles. Her expression was reserved, but not unfriendly.
"Sorry," Hodell said, withdrawing his hand first. "Do you need this as well?"
Even as he spoke, a flicker of vigilance passed through his mind. He had not sensed her approach at all. Had he really been that focused?
The young woman also drew back her hand. She adjusted the bridge of her goggles and gave him a small, apologetic smile.
"It's fine. I'm the one cutting in." She glanced at the crystal. "This record on high intensity mental resonators is part of a supplementary review requested by our department. We're reevaluating several historical cases involving mental interference."
Hodell's heart stirred.
As expected, there was no way the General Administration would ignore a mysterious buyer who was collecting soul stones.
They were already digging.
He followed the thread naturally. "Looks like we're looking into similar things. Are you studying the way energy affects the mind?"
A trace of scrutiny flashed through the woman's eyes. It was subtle, but Hodell caught it. She was weighing what she could say.
The young man in front of her wore the uniform of the Rapid Response Department. He had the lean bearing of someone used to action, not paperwork. It was hard not to suspect he had something to do with recent events.
"I'm only organizing theory and verifying data within my authority," she said at last, choosing her words carefully. "Oluson has too many unresolved mysteries. Some of them involve sudden mental abnormalities with no clear cause. Studying energy fields and trying to find correlations is part of my work."
Mental fixation.
Professor Marcus had mentioned that use for soul stones before.
"Oluson is always generous with surprises," Hodell said, his tone carrying a little meaning. Then he gestured politely toward the crystal. "Since you need it for official work, go ahead."
"Thank you."
She gave him another courteous smile, took the crystal, and walked toward a nearby reading cubicle.
Hodell watched her leave, his brow lowering ever so slightly.
Once she was out of arm's reach, he began searching the adjacent section much faster.
Soon enough, he found another crystal with a more direct label.
Soul Stone.
He lifted it, linked it to the terminal, and read.
The contents matched what he already suspected.
A soul stone was a rare mental resonator whose core function was to amplify and stabilize a mental state. In proper therapeutic use, it could anchor a traumatized mind that was on the verge of collapse and help force it into a relatively stable pattern. But if used carelessly, or on a mind that was already unstable, it could just as easily magnify fear, paranoia, despair, and obsessive thought, fixing those emotions permanently and inflicting irreversible mental damage. In the worst cases, it could erase consciousness altogether.
It was not healing.
It was hammering thought into shape with brute force.
Once hardened, it was almost impossible to change.
Hodell slowly returned the crystal to its place.
His mood darkened.
If soul stones had that kind of effect, then the Sanctuary Sanatorium likely had a reserve of them. That alone made the Snake Fang Gang's attempt to seize the hospital more logical. But that only answered one question and opened several more.
Why had the mysterious force behind the gray cloaked man wanted soul stones?
To treat someone?
To fix someone's mind into a particular state?
Or was there some other use for them entirely?
He left the archives with those thoughts still following him.
...
Night descended over the city like ink poured across glass.
Inside his room, Hodell stood before the mirror with a syringe pressed against the side of his neck, his face calm.
"My body's either building resistance, or my Endurance has improved enough to start affecting the potion," he murmured. "The duration feels shorter every time."
He pushed the serum in slowly and felt the familiar change begin.
He had used the transformation potion so many times that he could already sense its general principle. Once he reached D Class, there was a good chance he could reproduce the effect directly with his ability. If that worked, he would no longer need to rely on the potion at all. He could shift identities whenever he wanted.
Energy level one thousand.
That was the threshold.
But another thought lingered more stubbornly.
"The School still hasn't contacted me."
No instructions. No warning. No pressure.
Not even after the Snake Fang Gang affair ended.
That silence was more disturbing than threats.
Hodell wiped away the tiny bead of blood at his neck and stared at his own reflection for a moment before turning away.
...
The next morning, while the Intelligence Division was conducting its routine meeting, the public opinion analysis team received an encrypted submission through the General Administration's anonymous task platform.
The sender had routed it through several abandoned public communication nodes. The transmission path was clean, professional, and aggressively anti tracking. Reverse tracing was impossible.
Once the message was decrypted, only a single line remained.
"The snake's fangs are nourished by the thoughts of Blingshee."
No evidence. No explanation.
Just that.
But the meaning was obvious enough to demand attention.
At almost the same time, the Logistics Department's technical evaluation unit submitted another report. They had completed a deeper analysis of the items seized from the Snake Fang Gang warehouse and found a unique energy coating on the inner walls of several special safes used to store rare magical materials.
It was a precise psychic insulation layer.
After the technical pattern was run through the archives, it showed a high degree of similarity to the methods of Peter, a senior member of the Blingshee Society.
The Intelligence Division quickly combined the anonymous message with the technical findings and reached a preliminary conclusion.
Within Oluson, the only organization with the scale and technical specialization to produce that kind of mental energy insulation was the Blingshee Society. Combined with the soul stone issue and the possibility of mental state fixation, the link was too strong to ignore.
The briefing was sent upward almost immediately.
...
"So after beating down a gang of street rats, we're moving on to a bunch of scholars?" Baron said with a grin, dragging a whetstone along the edge of his shield. The scraping sound rose and fell in an irritating rhythm.
Loyi replied in his usual measured tone, "From the perspective of operational efficiency, it makes sense. We handled the Snake Fang case. We understand the existing clues better than anyone else. Therefore, letting us take over the follow up investigation is the most efficient choice."
Kyle stood in the middle of the room, his gaze passing over every member of the team.
"The preliminary evidence from Intelligence and the technical section both point toward the Blingshee Society," he said. "Our assignment is surveillance, not direct action. Stay hidden. Avoid contact unless absolutely necessary."
Hodell sat by the window, watching the snow coated buildings outside. In the pale light, the rooftops looked as though someone had dipped the city in sugar glaze.
He said nothing.
When the first report came in, his immediate suspicion had been The School.
Ever since the Black Bone incident, The School had realized the waters in Oluson were far deeper than anyone first assumed. Their sudden silence, coupled with a perfectly timed lead pointing toward the Blingshee Society, made him instinctively suspicious.
But after thinking it through, he felt that possibility was not especially high.
The Blingshee Society was not weak, but it had not yet reached the level where The School would need to throw it into the spotlight as a deliberate sacrifice.
And unlike him, the people around him lacked the luxury of foresight. In a city this murky, even a flawless chain of evidence was something to distrust, not celebrate.
...
For the next several days, the Third Team became part of the city's shadows.
The Blingshee Society's stronghold, known as Echo Courtyard, stood on the border between the Old Urban District and the New District. It was an old three story stone building with an unremarkable exterior and almost deliberately restrained decoration.
Its first impression was simple.
Quiet. Secretive. Careful.
The team established a concealed observation point in an attic with a broad view of the surrounding streets. Magitech telescopes were set up in the dark among piled junk, their lenses gleaming faintly as they brought distant scenes close. Sound gathering devices were disguised as cracked masonry and wall stains and scattered around the perimeter.
Peter became their primary target.
Hodell and Sasha took the lead on direct surveillance.
Peter's routine turned out to be so orderly that it bordered on mechanical.
Every morning, he appeared in the southeast facing meditation room at precisely the same time.
While reading at the academy, Hodell had already learned the rough structure of cultivation within the Psychic system. Meditation followed three cyclical phases: introspection, condensation, and perception. Scattered mental force was gathered, filtered, and compressed, like mist condensed into droplets, then droplets into a quiet sea.
Peter did exactly that.
He sat in silence for long stretches, sinking completely into his inner world. In that state, he was utterly absorbed. As long as Hodell did not get arrogant enough to walk right into his face, there was little risk of being noticed through ordinary counter surveillance.
After meditation came practice.
Levitation drills. Balancing a feather in the air, then moving it, accelerating it, rotating it.
Micro control. Using psychic force to stack small blocks into impossibly narrow towers without toppling them.
Fine motor exercises. Threading needles without touching them.
At first, watching a Psychic's daily training had some novelty.
After several days, it became mind numbing.
Peter's life was rigid to the point of being eerie.
He trained. He worked. He discussed theories in the Blingshee Society activity room on the second floor with other members, usually about mental energy models, control techniques, or the way mainstream magical society regarded Psychics with condescension. Then he returned home to his apartment in a middle class district and vanished from the world until the next morning.
That was it.
Every day.
Again and again.
Baron's voice crackled through the communication channel one afternoon, filled with complaint. "This is torture. I've been less bored standing watch in a sewer. If this guy is some hidden mastermind, then I'm the Director General."
Loyi answered dryly, "From the standpoint of observed behavioral structure, Peter currently appears more like a man who has sacrificed all imagination to routine than a criminal strategist."
"Exactly," Baron said. "He doesn't look dangerous. He looks domesticated."
The Blingshee Society, too, had been almost disappointingly harmless so far.
It resembled a loose technical exchange group more than any covert power structure. Quiet members, clean schedules, no obvious black market contact, no violent activity.
Almost too clean.
Then Sasha's voice cut into the channel.
"Ryan. Watch Peter's daughter. Her movement pattern has changed over the last two days. Frequency of going out is higher, routes are deliberately broken, and she shows basic counter surveillance awareness."
Hodell straightened at once.
Finally, something worth following.
That evening, after Peter returned home as usual, his daughter left by herself.
She wore a plain long dress and moved with a light step, but she was not relaxed. At corners, she glanced back without fully turning her head. Twice, she broke her own route and cut through denser crowds for no obvious reason.
She was hiding from someone.
Hodell followed from the shadows, using the street's natural clutter as cover. His eyes stayed fixed on her slight figure.
After several detours, she slipped into a narrow alley and reached an old apartment building near the edge of the academy district.
Hodell's instincts tightened.
He moved up to the entrance in silence, keeping to the shadows. A quick scan told him enough. She looked around carefully, then hurried inside.
Hodell crossed to the outer wall and pressed close to it. He sent a faint ripple of power inward, trying to extend his perception through the structure.
His senses blurred at once.
A soundproofing barrier.
Not a high grade one, but enough to reduce the interior to little more than muffled impressions.
"What are they talking about?" he wondered. "Information exchange? Conspiracy? Something personal?"
His gaze shifted.
Across the street stood an old magic streetlamp, broken and unlit. Its maintenance platform was narrow, but from that angle he might be able to see into the target room.
Hodell climbed it in a few swift motions and steadied himself at the top. Then he raised the portable magitech viewer and aimed it toward the warm lit window.
His viewing angle was limited, but enough to make out the room.
Peter's daughter stood near the window with another young woman.
They were close. Very close.
Peter's daughter was blushing. Her emotions looked heightened, but not tense. It did not resemble a quarrel. If anything, it looked like...
A moment later, she reached out, held the other woman's hand, and kissed her.
Hodell froze.
The next second, the two embraced fully.
He nearly slipped off the streetlamp.
For two full breaths, his mind went blank.
Then the truth settled over him with absurd clarity.
So that was it.
No secret transaction. No covert contact. No coded message exchange.
Just a clandestine relationship.
In a society built around the highly structured four person family model, where public stability was prized and private space was often compressed to death, this kind of secrecy suddenly made perfect sense.
Hodell touched the bridge of his nose and felt heat rise to his face.
"Well," he thought, staring dutifully through the viewer like a man suffering for the Empire, "strictly speaking, this may still be unrelated to the mission. But I am on duty right now. So this counts as work. Probably."
Then the situation somehow got worse.
Peter's daughter pressed the other woman lightly against the wall by the window, their shadows overlapping in a way that made Hodell abruptly reconsider the boundaries of professional observation.
He instantly pulled back.
Then, without shame and without delay, he opened the channel.
"Sasha," he said in his calmest voice, "target confirmed. The subject is indoors with another woman. Please take over close surveillance."
There was a pause on the other end.
Two seconds. Maybe three.
To Sasha, this was the first time Hodell had ever actively asked for her assistance.
She did not allow her tone to betray anything.
"Understood," she replied. "I'm taking over."
Hodell slid down the streetlamp with the decisiveness of a man fleeing divine punishment and left the district without looking back.
...
That night, the team gathered once more at their temporary base.
When Sasha returned, the atmosphere shifted the moment she stepped through the door.
Her face was colder than usual, but there was something else mixed into it. A thin thread of embarrassment. A faint irritation. Even the tips of her ears held the slightest remnant of color, though it was nearly gone.
Baron, tragically unaware of his proximity to death, had been doing one armed push ups in the lounge when he looked up and grinned.
"Oh, the ice beauty's back," he said lazily. "How was it? Did our genius discover anything exciting?"
He did not get to finish.
Before anyone else could react, Sasha moved.
Her figure blurred.
A whip like kick tore through the air toward Baron's head.
He barely got both arms up in time. Even so, the impact drove him sideways with a yelp.
"You're serious?!" he shouted.
Sasha answered by hitting him again.
And again.
Her strikes came in a storm, fast, clean, and vicious. Baron abandoned all thoughts of dignity and fled around the room with his hands over his head, not even managing to grab his shield.
"I was wrong!" he bellowed. "I admit it! I was wrong, alright? Kyle! Loyi! Ryan! Why are you all just standing there?!"
Eileen quietly retreated behind Kyle and whispered, "Sister Sasha is really angry today..."
Loyi, ever helpful, watched the unfolding disaster and offered his analysis in a perfectly calm tone.
"From a behavioral perspective, Sasha's outburst could be explained by long term surveillance stress, accumulated mission frustration, or a specific emotional trigger encountered during the operation."
Kyle rubbed his temples and chose, with the wisdom of experience, to become temporarily blind.
Hodell, meanwhile, lowered his head and devoted himself with tremendous seriousness to adjusting the clasps on his equipment belt, undoing and redoing them with all the concentration of a man servicing a starship engine.
After all, a true professional left after completing the task.
He hid his name.
He hid his merits.
He never once told Baron why he had returned early.
Not once.
.....
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