"Is that true!?" A flicker of shock crossed Theus's face.
"Yes. It was discovered by those shipbuilding researchers," Alexei said with a sigh.
Theus knew very little about shipbuilding and could offer no direction. This time, the shipyard researchers had completely let themselves go, coming up with every strange and bizarre kind of vessel imaginable.
And amid their chaotic experiments, they gradually discovered something:
The closer they were to Castel, the more efficient all kinds of Steam Engines and machinery became, while their failure rates dropped.
Conversely, the farther they traveled from Castel, the quieter the Machine Souls within their ships' machinery became, responding to them less and less.
Of course, the effect was still weak at present, with only the slightest differences. But its very existence carried extraordinary significance.
Theus sprang from his chair and began pacing rapidly.
"Alexei, you know that the Faithguard Army is now basically made up of yield fanatics. They always blindly worship explosive yield, no matter how often they're forbidden from doing so."
"And I've found that the bombs used by the Faithguard Army are more effective than they were during factory testing."
"In other words..."
A look of shock gradually appeared on Alexei's face. He muttered, "Individual cognition is overriding the world itself. Cognitive Interference!?"
"It does resemble Cognitive Interference, but... it seems different," Theus said gravely.
"Cognitive Interference is when erroneous cognition interferes with correct reality. But worshipping yield doesn't mean they don't know the destructive range caused by a specific yield."
"They aren't using their cognition to overwrite the real world. Rather, they are hoping."
"They hope their bombs will explode more violently. The engineers hope the Machine Souls will become more stable and won't malfunction."
"That kind of expectation... or rather, belief, seems capable of slowly influencing reality."
"The question