Chapter 381: Comprehensive Comprehension

"Ok, so, bare with me on this as I'm gonna start from the beginning." Ares cleared his throat and clapped his hands together to signal the start of his rundown. "That miasma is a cross between bare fist aspect mana, negligent toxicology aspect mana, and grave lord aspect mana. So physical enhancement, poisons / anything of that ilk, and necromancy in case you aren't aware or have forgotten. That miasma, when it touches the fine grind ore, has a rather interesting reaction as it activates it, making it able to explode. Why? That would be because of the bare fist aspect mana that simulates body tempering much like how fire mana simulates fire and ice mana ice, etc... Fine grind can only explode when its active but it can also only temper a body when its active so, if either condition is met, the other one is forced to happen or be possible as well. A fine grind that can explode can temper a body and vice versa, there is seemingly no exception to this. The toxicology mana erodes the outer edge of the ore and then the bare fist mana grinding up against the core of it forces it into an active state that can explode but doesn't actually consume the ore as there's no physical body to temper and grind down. It's just mana, after all, so the ore remains whole.

The explosions are just standard fine grind blue behaviour and there's actually nothing unusual about this situation at all from that perspective because they regularly blow up anyway after you refine them. It's just a really neat interaction between different types of mana and the properties of the fine grind ore, meaning you can have unrefined but also active fine grind ore at the same time which would usually be impossible. Credit where credit is due, whoever figured that out is pretty clever because its a bizarre thing to even consider. Doubly clever for involving the weasels because they have copious amounts of bare fist mana aspect in them and can serve as an excellent base for what's yet to come during this explanation. I'm not sure if you can make use of that information, regarding activating unrefined ore, I'll leave that up to people more familiar with the fine grind to deliberate over, but now you know why everything is exploding all the time. you can treat that pit as though its filled with active fine grind currently. Or at least the exposed parts of the ore, anyway. Anything buried deeper should be safe and anything not bitten into by the weasels will maybe be ok too.

That's all step one and now we need to address the weasels because, obviously, they don't usually carry that combination of mana within them, as toxicology and grave lord mana is not something they should be able to control, and they typically aren't leaking it twenty-four seven like some kind of plague rat. Outside intervention is the only possibility, to put it simply. There's a blacklisted, highly illegal pill called 'hollow victory'. The long and short is that it temporarily enhances you at the cost of some serious punishment later and can even permanently cripple or kill you if you take more than one. Hell even at one it's extremely dangerous and can have lasting side effects so stay away from that crap if ever you're offered it.

The weasels are being fed them regularly, however, and that's where this suffering pillar mana comes in. Just like how there's a lot of water mana in the ocean, or fire mana in a volcano, where there's the stench of death in copious amounts there exists suffering mana. Those weasels are deader than dead the second they stop taking those pills, given how many they've likely consumed already, and the mounting lethality of the pills is causing them to actually emit deathly mana constantly, corroding their surroundings. Teh pill is poisonous, so that checks negligent toxicology off the list, and the weasels are basically energised zombies right now so that would explain the grave lord mana which is helping to keep them alive for now despite their condition. They must be being fed the pills on repeat as they'd come crawling back half dead for more to stay alive whenever the effects start fading. They must also be aware their life span is tied to it so they can't stop taking it from the hand that's feeding them even if it means their energy levels are spiking to absurd degrees.

Again, the pill energises the victim so they have to work it off which explains all the running around they do. They're leaking excess bare fist mana all over the place so it combines with the toxicology and grave lord mana to create that miasma that's activating the fine grind. If they didn't leak the excess they would explode from the energy overload. The third and final piece of the cycle they're trapped in is that they get incredibly hungry when expending and leaking all that energy and so they're presumably being directed here for food. They could find other food sources in the desert but I imagine the person handling them won't give them the pills unless they come here for the ore specifically. They can't live without the pill, the pill forces them to emit the suffering and bare fist mana miasma, all that emission drains them and makes them hungry so they eat the ore frequently which activates it, and the cycle continues because they need the pills again when the effect fades and they start dying. This lines up with the regularity of the weasels appearing because its feeding time. After they're done eating, they'll run back for their handler to give them pills, work off some of the extra energy, and then get hungry and return for more ore.

So, we all still caught up? The weasels are being supplied pills which cause the interesting reaction with the miasma and the ore. It's a combination of alchemy, chemistry, biology, and body tempering that has enabled everything up until now which is why I had my eye on three of the workers here. On of them is responsible for pretty much all of this and is the mastermind behind infecting the weasels and, subsequently, the quarry. They aren't working alone but the others they work with are probably just feeding the weasels in a remote location. Even after we root out the traitor this problem will continue until the weasels are fully dealt with and that's going to be the real issue going forward. The simplest option would be to torture the individual I'm going to point out until they tell us where the weasels are being fed as finding the location hidden somewhere in the desert without any clues would be a nightmare and require a massive stroke of luck. Worst case scenario is the location is underground as they could have forced the weasels to dig up a bunker of sorts. The weasels are effectively slaves o the pills and they're smart enough to understand basic directions or commands like 'dig'. On that note, that would also be where the weasel army comes in because the traitor is not going to go silently, there's going to be a surge of hungry weasels shortly, and they will all be under his control. The guards are placed in front of the pit because that is where they will be arriving from in... About three minutes? If my information is correct? Should be. That's enough time to pick the culprit out of the crowd and explain their involvement in all this because they've done some nasty work to the rest of you along with the quarry.

First up!" Ares clicked his finger and pointed directly at the panthera. "Definitely not you. Couldn't possibly be you. With all due respect, you're too dumb to do any of this. I was curious about you because of your physical strength, and wondered if you'd done any body tempering which would have maybe made you an involved individual in some capacity but, no. You're not oblivious nor were you pretending not to see the bare fist mana in the miasma, you've just never tempered your body before. You worked out the normal way in the army and that's where your strength comes from so you're in the clear. As a foreman, you aren't directing people away from the correct answer, you just genuinely didn't know it.

You also didn't seem to have any reaction to the hollow victory pills being brought up so that mostly confirmed my suspicions. You can't create the pills, you have no experience with body tempering, and you also work for this sect permanently correct? You're an elder here who regularly oversees the quarry when its not like this. The easiest way to get someone in here, that shouldn't be in here, is for them to be a temporary assistant brought in to to try and fix this mess. You've likely already been at this quarry for years and I doubt the Torchbearer has been plotting this for that long anyway... I refuse to believe he shoved a sleeper agent into this specific quarry that many years ago because it only really seems like things have started kicking off recently. And, quite frankly, I'll say it again, you're a bit dumb. I don't think you'd be quick witted enough to stay undercover for that long.

Also, and this was probably the most important factor in making it obvious you weren't the traitor, the team that responded to the weasel earlier did so with well practiced movements. You've given them proper military training to get themselves in order, without the need for external commanding, at a rapid pace which was not something you would have done if you weren't actually trying to be helpful. There's nothing inefficient about how they dealt with the weasel... Even if they weren't able to subdue or catch it before it ran away... But that's not necessarily your fault. The tactics and preparedness were on point and that's what matters regarding your involvement in all of this. Does all of this rule you out completely 100%? Not necessarily but I already know who the traitor is so I'm going to assume you aren't an accomplice as there's not enough evidence against you to claim as such. You were the least suspicious of the three to me despite your moody and troublesome attitude. As far as I know the culprit was working alone and it isn't you." Ares swivelled and faced the last two suspects before playing a game of eeny-meeny-miny-moe and landing on the woman as his next suspect to discuss.

"Next up, you. You seem to be particularly good at understanding chemistry and everything within the field. It's not impossible you could have discovered the unrefined ore trick regarding the fine grind blue as that's the kid of thing that would fall within your wheelhouse. Your knowledge also had me wondering if you concocted pills at all but it seems you were more dedicated to science than alchemy and so I think it's unlikely. You are from outside the sect, though, and that was a point against you, but the fact you were studying the mist put my mind at ease. The existence of the miasma has nothing to do with any sort of chemical reaction and is primarily magic / alchemy based so you clearly either had no idea what you were doing, as it wasn't related to your field of expertise at all and were being misled, or you were just pretending to be useful while wasting everyone's time. It could have potentially been the latter but the fact you were carrying around those empty vials made me think otherwise. Why bother doing multiple experiments you already knew were fruitless if you weren't actually trying to figure things out? You'd clearly just done an experiment when I came to look for you, what with the goggles on your person, so you seemed pretty earnest to help.

Also, this is completely subjective, but your un-selfish reverence for your deceased sensei at least swayed me to go and check the others first before returning to you. You almost exclusively talked about him when talking about your past so I'm assuming he was a good and talented person that had a lot of importance in your life. Given his ability to wind up in history books I'm assuming his eyes were keen enough not to pick up some ungrateful brat who would go on to misuse his work down the line for something like this. You pinned all your success on him, and what he'd done for you, and he viewed you highly so its this weird sort of positivity feedback loop in which I'm inclined to believe you are both, generally speaking, good people. I could have been wrong about it but it was after my conversation with the third suspect I knew it was him for sure and I didn't have to come back and question you anymore. I also don't think you could have concocted the pills anyway because science and alchemy are completely different even though the methodology can cross over sometimes. You work with chemicals that almost never make their way into pills... Unlike, say, herbs, tea leaves, and other such ingredients... Right?" Ares was looking at the third guy now who'd dropped all pretences of being some hapless researcher and was kissing his teeth. He was maintaining decent amount of composure, considering how many people were staring at him right now, but that was because he knew he was safe for now at least. Ares was the biggest problem here so he just let him keep speaking and doing as he pleased. Both individuals were waiting for the weasel army to arrive, after all, as that was when things would really kick off. 

"You, whatever your name is, you're a real piece of work, you know that? Where do I even start with you? First of all, never pretend to ignore me ever again or I'll seriously get annoyed, you know? That was childish because, by that point, everyone and their mother knew I was going around asking questions. You were literally the last person I talked to and I went to at least twenty others first. You were hoping I'd get bored and leave, or not disturb someone who was 'busy', or maybe even just try and come back to you later after I checked in with other people. Regardless, I'm not stupid nor am I patient enough for that nonsense. Also, in hindsight, you mentioned later on during our talk news about Hunter's death so there was zero chance in hell you didn't also know who I was given my role in those stories. My name has spread like wildfire since yesterday, I know that because some twerp who was bothering me yesterday ran for the hills when he saw me earlier today so, unless you were living under a literal rock, you should have been able to connect the dots. I'm not surprised you wanted me to get as far away from you as possible but I have a sixth sense for morons like you so let's ignore mishap one and keep going because there's a bunch of worse things you failed to prevent me from discovering. 

When I threatened to throw you in the pit your number one concern was the fall and not the miasma. You already knew it wasn't something that would kill you if you stepped into it without protection because you knew exactly what it was, just some slightly painful mana that you could easily crawl out of. The thought of broken bones scared you more than the unknown 'death mist' causing random explosions? Yeah, ok, sure. It didn't even cross your mind because you never mentioned the miasma. It didn't even register as a threat in your mind and rightfully so because it isn't one.

Next, the temporal-magic dispenser. Hollow victory pills expire quick so you were actually creating that thing to use as a pill dispenser for the weasels. It had nothing to do with your damn tea or the fine grind ore. Going through the hassle of creating that kind of temporal magic, only to then build a completely unnecessary and clunky dispenser when you could have just put it in an ordinary box, is the height of idiocy. Don't get me wrong, you are an idiot, but you were wasting precious time on absolutely nothing instead of working towards an actual solution for the pit. No, correction, you were working, just not for the quarry's sake. So that was strike... What? Three now? four? I've lost track and we're still not even at the biggest failures yet.

The tea. Constantly harping on about how much 'energy' it gave people while energetic weasels were dashing around the place is a pretty fucking obvious connection that can be made by even the blindest of fools! You weren't just feeding the pills to the weasels, you were making the people here drink hollow victory in diluted, liquid form this whole time!" This revelation made the rest of the workers freeze on the spot but Ares kept going regardless as there was a silver lining to this bleak surprise. "Your knowledge of herbs and tea brewing doesn't guarantee a correlation between you a nd alchemy but knowing how to make an energising drink is pretty suspicious given the surrounding circumstances no? It must be decently potent too because no matter how exhausted everyone was when I looked around after arriving here, nobody was falling asleep at the wheel or slacking on their work, other than you, and they all seemed perfectly fit and healthy. Not everyone here is a strong cultivator so working for such long periods is just unnatural no mater how I looked at it. I even tried to reason it off as motivation and martyring for the country but there's a limit to that because bodies can only be so functional. Some of these people should have collapsed or needed to rest by now and force of will is not enough to change that.

Anyway, again, tea brewing doesn't mean anything on its own but it was enough to make me highly suspicious. Or, rather, I was convinced by that point anyway but the next three points were the real killers. Before I get onto that, though, thankfully the people here haven't consumed enough of the diluted hollow victory to die as far as I can tell. Some of them may be hospitalised when the effects finally start setting in but that should be the worst of it because you didn't get to keep going for as long as you originally wanted. Lemme guess, the plan was to stop serving the tea about a week before the estimated massive explosion, leaving all the important people paralysed here in the quarry and unable to escape? Or maybe you were going to feed them, still alive, to the weasels? If there was no news about what happened here escaping to the rest of Xasca then everyone would die a peaceful death in their sleep to the explosion, right? You're a funny guy, pretending to be a careless and scatter-brained worker when, really, you're this deceitful and calculating behind closed doors. Well whatever, after today the people here can go and rest because the source of everything has been identified and stopping it all will be a matter of dealing with the weasels. The researchers are all completely useless and that was the real distraction from the start because the weasel problem needs to be stopped before anything else can realistically be done about this mess. Massai ca remove the mana, with whatever he's doing, but the weasels will just keep infecting it. You could maybe try outlasting the pill supply but how many they have is anyone's guess and the quarry might explode long before they run out. You could try creating some kind of rune setup that absorbs mana but the amount of time that would take means it's too slow of a solution.

Whatever, moving on... Your previous experiments." Ares went back to hammering the traitor with his reasonable deductions. "Looking at the tail to see if the miasma was being stored there was a good idea to keep everyone busy but, knowing what we all know now, it explains a lot doesn't it? If you actually did investigate the stomach region properly there would have been traces of the pills the weasels ate so you set up the experiment to fail and literally blow up in everyone's faces. The fine grind ore exploding in the stomach region not only dissuaded anyone from checking there again but also removed all the evidence as well. It was the one location that actually mattered but all you had to do was intentionally dig into the fine grind in the weasel's stomach, blow it up, and that was that issue sorted. There is no 'storage' location for the miasma but what really mattered was that nobody checked the stomach so congrats, you were successful in that regard if nothing else.

Second to last, but this is a big one, you mentioned working all around Sheryashka. I can't imagine the Torchbearer randomly reaching out to people across the globe for no particular reason, which somewhat rules out the woman, but, if you happened across his doorstep, I'm sure he wouldn't mind taking advantage of a useful idiot like you. The panthera worked here all along and the lady from before was contacted by people for work frequently and would have no doubt avoided anything shady from some pseudonym like the ''Torchbearer' or whatever. I don't know why you agreed to work with him, although I can take a guess before I'm done with you, but what stands to reason is that you were scouted for your talents while you were working in Neo Gear. If Torchbearer has any influence from behind the scenes then locating high-status or talented people within Neo Gear, who can return to their respective countries and cause chaos, ought to be a breeze. The same was true of Jebben after all..." Ares was spot on about this and the person who met, and talked both this man and Jebben into this scheme, was actually K.G the journalist. Originally K.G had been looking for 'scoops' on new and upcoming talent in Neo Gear but that was all just a front to locate gullible fools and pawns for the Torchbearer to use as he saw fit.

"Finally, and this was the biggest screw up on you part, you told me the time! There are no clocks here and figuring out where that damn blazing sun is without burning your retinas is impossible. You could have taken a guess but the fact you knew it was exactly five minutes to twelve was the dead give away. You know when the weasels are fed their pills and you know when they're let out to come terrorise the quarry. That lone weasel earlier must have run ahead of the pack, alerting you they were on their way, which allowed you to confidently give you a correct answer no normal person without a watch could have given. That is why, at the very beginning of this long rant, I said I needed to wrap this up in five minutes, capiche? You didn' just tell me your evil itinerary, you even gave me a countdown to the next raid all because you didn't want me to freely paint you as incompetent. How ironic is that? You fooled everyone else here but I'm one idiot you can't sneak things like that by. I play a dumb role from time to time but I would appreciate it if you didn't think I'm that inferior to Hunter... Which leads me onto the last part which is all conjecture from here on out.

Your admiration for Hunter is very real but that makes you want to overcome him. You want to be the rival that outwitted him and ended his life because your knowledge of monsters was greater than his. The legendary figure who was penned into history books, the worldwide famous Hunter, done in by you. Of course that's not the main reason you did all of this but it was a side benefit you couldn't possibly ignore. You wanted to go toe to toe with him and see if you could best him, feed him the hollow victory, and claim your own. Like some kind of evil murder mystery villain you wanted to taunt his immobile body and reveal all your grand plans in some cliché fashion, I'm sure, because you're actually just that much of an egomaniac. It would make you feel good about yourself and that's really the only reason you need.

Speaking of reasons, you really are a freak. I have nothing to back this up, other than intuitions and my gut feeling about you, but you really did do all of this for science? I can't imagine you have a grudge against an entire, innocent country so it has to be something bigger than Xasca, something abstract, something bigger than even Sheryashka, actually. The never-ending pursuit of science. You've travelled so far and wide, working across the domain as you put it, that you actually believe there's nothing left to discover in Sheryashka right? I mean, you might not even be far from the truth if those little tricks with the unrefined ore and the pills are anything to go by. You have extensive knowledge of alchemy, biology, chemistry, and even areas you yourself haven't personally delved into like body tempering. I wouldn't be surprised if you were perhaps the smartest nerd in all of Sheryashka, actually, but that's the problem; you're weak.

You can't possibly ascend to Vraizon and explore new frontiers on your own so you found the easiest way up there possible, relying on someone else. Maybe Torchbearer promised you a free and easy ascension? Maybe you were even promised Red Sun?" The guy was taken aback that Ares' hunch was this accurate. "So that is it, then? I'm a thorn in Torchbearer's side officially now and so he was planning on killing me and gifting you Red Sun, after I moved it, in Vraizon for your efforts. It gets you out of Sheryashka, so he can rule it and do whatever he's aiming for in peace, you get to explore a new domain and everything in it with a foundation and home base that can't possibly be matched, and everyone's happy in the end? You even get a bunch of free guinea pigs via the Red Sun civilians and can do whatever disgusting experiments you want on them? Hm, but the timeline doesn't add up. I only made waves regarding interfering with the Torchbearer recently and you were hired by him a while ago... I announced Red Sun's departure to Vraizon during the international so word could have spread to Neo Gear at that time. It is possible you were in Neo Gear at the time of the international, sold this lie, and then sent right here? It became doubly convenient for the Torchbearer when I actually got involved in his scheming, on the Federation, as it lent credence to him 'dealing with me' and you getting your wish.

I mean, I hate to break it you, but you were sold a bridge and a bridge too far at that. Problem A, I'm never dying so you can give up on that. If they could have killed me already then they would have done it so it wasn't a promise they could ever keep. They don't want to bother me because they understand I'm a big problem for them, like poking a sleeping tiger. Of course the more I interfere, the more they wish they could kill me, but they can't. Second of all, and this is the big one, you are entirely disposable to them. They would have just killed you and been done with you afterwards anyway. Whatever they gave you as 'upfront payment and proof' would have been snatched right back from your dead corpse or was irrelevant to them to begin with and something they didn't mind losing in exchange for your co-operation.

The smartest Sheryashkan and yet the most easily manipulated. You should have just put those smarts to good use as I could have used a person like you. Bit too much of a wild card to have tag along with me now, though, so your chances of ever seeing Vraizon, and everything beyond it, are in the negatives currently. A man of your talents not living an honest life just goes to show anyone can be too desperate or get too deeply involved in things they really shouldn't, I guess. What a waste. If I could shove your brain into someone more tolerable I would do so in a heartbeat... Although maybe it's possible? Tell you what, when I kill you, I'll keep your brain nice and safe in storage yeah? maybe I can put you in a pre-programmed robot... Which might ironically be what Torchbearer was also going to do to you! Hahaha, now I'm seeing the vision. Yeah, it all adds up, doesn't it?"

RUMBLE

"Hm?" Ares turned to the quarry and nodded. "Yep, it seems I was right on the mark about everything. That ought to be the weasel army, right on queue. I've wrapped up just about everything now, I think?" Ares thought it all over but had an 'aha' moment and looked back at the guy. "Oh! One last thing. You don't have to be so paranoid, I was the one that undid your shoelaces with telekinesis when you weren't looking!"