Alexei, an orphan from the Empire's Northern Territory adopted by the Royal Orphanage.
Through his own efforts, he had earned an opportunity to study. After receiving an elite education at Rhine University, he had been recommended to the Royal Army Academy for further studies.
He had studied rhetoric, logic, history, and even military theory.
But Theus's views were something he had never heard before, never even considered.
In his original worldview, the world was divided into the part he understood—his immediate surroundings, things he had heard of, and those vague, chaotic things that still conformed to his understanding.
Everything else was unknown.
That unknown portion was strange and incomprehensible, impossible to understand or accept—evil and blasphemous.
Yet Theus's words had opened a new door for him.
He had handed him a torch called science, illuminating the fog of the unknown.
Those terrifying monsters, once brought beneath its light, somehow seemed... not quite so frightening anymore.
A bold thought even rose unbidden in his mind:
Would that Pollution, those monsters, or even Transcendents fear muskets and bayonets?
And if that did not work, what about explosive barrels?
The Royal Infantry Manual had plenty of methods.
Theus found it rather amusing. His chief clerk had been despondent one moment and excited the next, and was now looking at him with eager anticipation.
"All right, open your notebooks. Let me tell you why the factories can keep operating."
"The trouble we encountered this time was Cognitive Interference. I have already explained its specifics to you."
"Although its mutations tend toward the idealistic, for now, we can roughly infer what causes it."
In fact, the Church's methods in his previous life had given Theus considerable inspiration, allowing him to refine the specific rules of Cognitive Interference.
"First, Castel already had olive oil workshops. After