Experiment

"Otto from Dorsal Fin Village was the one trading Whale Skin Mine with me. His caravan men also said Otto was working with a member of the clergy..."

This was Benjamin's testimony, as well as information he had heard from that caravan member.

Upon learning this, Jacques became extremely excited, saying they had caught the traitor by the handle.

Isabella was the same. She had never suspected the other clergyman in the village, simply because there had been no reason to.

In his youth, the Old Priest had been the bishop of Gas Spring City. Though he had later left the city's center of power for certain reasons, many people still coveted what the Old Priest had once possessed.

Given the current circumstances, Isabella was one of them.

If the Old Priest truly coveted fame and profit, all he needed to do was submit a report, and people would immediately come to bring him back.

By then, he could obtain plenty of legally sourced Whale Skin Mine. Why would he need to shelter caravans smuggling it here?

Moreover, old age was one of the finest disguises.

Most people believed that once someone grew old, they no longer deserved to have desires and should simply wait peacefully for death.

Thus, they directly overlooked elderly people who struggled even to move, believing they would not do wrong for the sake of desire.

It was as if, once a person grew old, the label of evil could be stripped from them.

Because of this, Isabella had never once suspected the Old Priest.

Yet now, Isabella had no choice but to begin suspecting him.

Earlier, she had sensed the stench of decay from the graveyard within the church, but the Old Priest had interrupted her afterward and used the foul smell on his own body to make her think she had sensed it wrong.

Looking back now, there had been far too many strange things about it.

It was precisely that strangeness that made her temporarily put aside her grudge against Naimus and leave with him to pursue the grave robber.

At that time, she had instinctively begun to harbor suspicions, but they had not yet taken shape, and the Old Priest had not clearly emerged as a target.

Moreover, before they left the church, his words—"I am old and cannot help much"—had dispelled more than half her suspicion.

Until now, when Naimus exposed this point, a terrifying possibility surfaced in Isabella's mind.

"Could the Old Priest have restarted the experiment...?" The reason Isabella had needed to seek out the Old Priest was because of her own origins.

Her family possessed a special bloodline. Though it still retained considerable prestige and wealth, its numbers had dwindled so severely that the family name had been sealed away.

Isabella had a rough understanding of why the Old Priest had left Gas Spring City.

The Church had once conducted a special study concerning bloodlines, and the Old Priest had been one of its principal researchers.

More than twenty years ago, that research had failed.

It caused considerable damage, and his disciple had been paralyzed in the incident as well.

Ashamed to face those losses and the subsequent issues, the Old Priest had chosen self-exile.

But no matter what, the Old Priest was still an expert in bloodlines.

If Isabella wanted to restore her family, she naturally needed to understand her own bloodline.

Over in Gas Spring City, as the matter of the experiment gradually faded into the past, people instead became willing to say a few good words for the Old Priest.

The information Isabella gathered later also contained no specific account of the experiment.

At the time, she had thought it was merely an accidental experimental mishap, and the Old Priest had even exiled himself because of it.

In that generally irresponsible era, the Old Priest's character had already been quite admirable.

"But if that was not an ordinary Bloodline Experiment, and the Old Priest's self-exile was also meant to avoid punishment, then this matter..." Isabella entered the graveyard and gradually walked toward the church.

Yet for some reason, the brightly lit church and the Old Priest waiting for her at the back door now carried an inexplicably chilling feeling.

"You're back. Are you all right?" the Old Priest asked, still as kindly as ever, as though all her previous suspicions were nothing more than a ghost story born from wild imagination.

"I'm fine. We just didn't find the target." Isabella swiftly adjusted her emotions, then after a slight pause said, "There is a murderer stealing internal organs. It may be an evil Wizard, or perhaps Whale-ification Disease."

"We may need to report it."

"Is that so?" The Old Priest nodded.

"I'll report it through the Grid immediately."

The Old Priest did not delay over the matter and agreed directly.

That made Isabella let out a breath of relief. Perhaps what had happened before truly had been an accident, and everything afterward was merely Naimus sowing discord.

However, the next morning, Isabella received bad news—the Grid was blocked, and no one knew when it would be repaired.

"This happens often enough. Don't worry. We still have caravans here that can relay messages, though we may have to wait a few days."

"We can organize people to search the surrounding area first over the next few days."

The Old Priest's reassurance did not put Isabella at ease. Her expression showed slight concern, but inwardly, she felt as if she had fallen into an icy abyss.

The Grid was a communications and transmission network built with churches as its strongholds, faith in divine statues as its contact points, and the power of God.

Although in the past two or three years, some remote locations had indeed occasionally suffered temporary blockages because of this.

But the timing was too perfect.

How could communications have gone down at precisely this moment?

As for the caravans, if the one secretly sheltering Otto was not Naimus but the Old Priest, then information was even less likely to get out.

On the surface, Isabella pretended to be worried about Whale-ification Disease, but inwardly, she was already considering the severity of the situation.

At the same time, Isabella closed her eyes in meditation, using her faith to sense the Greatness of God.

Within the church, she could feel God's presence, as well as the Grid that existed attached to God.

More precisely, it was called the Faith Grid. Before priests reached the Golden Breed, they had to rely on the Grid to cast divine arts.

Black Stone Breed priests needed to be near a church to sense the Grid, while Steel Breed priests could sense it directly in most places. However, within a church, their divine arts became vastly more powerful.

Moreover, at critical moments, priests could use the Grid to call upon God's gaze.

Some priests favored by God could even use it to summon God's Prayer-Ascendant Angel.

At this moment, although Isabella could still use it to draw upon some of the Power of Faith stored within the church, she could no longer extend outward, whether for communication or to seek deeper changes.

Isabella opened her eyes and saw the Old Priest some distance away.

He seemed to have noticed Isabella communicating with the Grid. The faint smile on his aged face seemed to have taken on a different meaning.

Thank you all for your support!