Sui Xiong did not head straight for Gars City. Whatever the person luring him out from behind the scenes wanted to do, it was not something that had to be dealt with in the next day or two.
So he remained in Gray Tower City first and took care of matters related to it and the other three cities.
Gray Tower City was the holy city of the Church of the Scholar God. Although the Scholar God had long since fallen and that divine portfolio had been taken over by the God of Knowledge, the academic atmosphere that had formed over the years had not faded as a result. Young scholars discussing academic questions could be seen everywhere on the streets, and there were several open-air lecture venues where scholars without the means to speak in formal lecture halls could present their research findings.
Sui Xiong flew invisibly above the city and happened to notice a young scholar giving an open-air lecture. Curious, he flew over, descended, and landed atop a thick stone pillar. Like taking a VIP seat in a theater, he settled in to enjoy the lecture up close.
The open-air lecture venues of Gray Tower City had a distinctly ancient Greek style. A semicircular hollow had been dug into the ground, with rows of stone-paved steps serving as seats. At the center of the hollow, a ring of stone pillars enclosed a platform, which was naturally the lectern. There was a groove in the middle of the platform that, upon closer inspection, seemed intended for placing a blackboard. No blackboard had been set up there today, presumably because it would not be needed.
When Sui Xiong landed on the pillar, the lecture had not yet formally begun. A tall but rather shifty-looking man was holding a notebook