Shuffling the cards has a greater chance than forming a new fleet, which means that the original franchisees will be freed up. There is no need to wait, as long as you get to the top in the other party's screening process.
Will uses this information to try to convince Mike to help, and promises that he doesn't need to go too far and just cooperates with him at the right time.
As for how to cooperate...
It's not kidnapping, ransoming or threatening, but cooperating with Will to secretly dig up dirty information about those competitors.
Using the information provided by the counter girl, Will can secretly attack them one by one, which requires time to prepare...
At the same time, far away on the other side of the ocean, in Greybairn, another strange event was happening.
…
After the Blackwater Disaster, the Yorton Harbor area was surrounded by the government. Ostensibly it was to prevent the spread of those black substances, but in fact, after that night, the dark substances that killed people had lost their activity.
The disaster area is just a carbonized black land.
Even so, the harbor area is still sealed off, and no one can enter without authorization.
Today Daniel has just returned to the office in Yotun from abroad. He is expected to be promoted or even directly transferred to work in the capital, so he is in a very good mood.
Nowadays, the city has become much more stable, and all kinds of unrest in the streets and alleys have also subsided. Probably because the pickets were making too much noise in the capital, Congress was already inclined to revoke the decree.
But there is one thing to say, it is quite difficult to drive away all the foreigners in the empire. Dardaniel analyzed why the high-level officials set up pickets, and the most likely conclusion was to harvest wealth and reduce negotiation losses.
It is not known how much compensation the royal family paid to the northern countries to calm the impact of the disaster, but it is certainly not less.
However.
Even though the city is no longer so noisy, there are still many people whose families have been ruined, especially the people of Nippur...
This seed of hatred is not so easy to be resolved, and it may grow into a towering tree in the future.
Dardaniel was leaning on the sofa chair, drinking coffee and flipping through the newspaper on the table.
He was still enjoying it at first, but after reading for a long time, a piece of news made him frown.
Putting down the newspaper, he called his subordinate outside the door, who answered and immediately opened the door and came in.
"Inspector Martin!"
"Call me Dardaniel..."
Daniel felt very tired when he had to correct the title every time, but he immediately adjusted and asked the other party: "What's going on with this report?"
The newspaper was handed over, and the other party picked it up, took a look at it, and replied calmly: "This did happen."
"Why is the police station in charge? Shouldn't it be submitted to the Police Bureau for processing?" Daniel asked.
The other party shook his head in embarrassment, indicating that he didn't know either.
The newspaper recorded an incident that happened a few days ago. In a shady black market in Jotun, a well-known dealer auctioned a copy of "Ghost Fire".
Frenzy Fire is one of the three catalysts that can cross the threshold. It can avoid the influence of fear. It is a very valuable thing for the seers. The price is quite high, and the floating range is very large. The most expensive one can be sold to sky-high prices.
Not an exaggeration.
There are no legal provisions against the sale of three kinds of catalysts in Secred, but Gray Bean does, and it has always been strictly managed by the Velen Police Bureau, which means that the stuff can only appear in the black market.
I would not dare to put it up for auction in a regular auction.
It just so happened that the Yodon police station accidentally discovered the black market while handling subsequent security tasks. They destroyed it on the spot during the other party's auction and captured the relevant personnel, including the fanatical ghost fire seller.
Miraculously, during the interrogation process, the person confessed that the source of this fanatical ghost fire was actually in the sealed disaster area.
In other words, this person sneaked into the disaster zone and brought out the Zealot Fire.
Speaking of the Wild Fire, one of the three catalytic substances, it is actually similar to a plant like the Dead Vine of Time, but it looks like fire. Only the Glow of Focus is more mysterious and needs a container to be preserved, and its origin is unknown.
Continuing to question the person, the other person replied that he had heard rumors that there were valuable things growing somewhere in the disaster area, and he could take them out and sell them for money.
As for who told him, he mentioned the names of a bunch of people in the street in front of the police, making it seem like the news had spread to the lower levels.
Daniel had just returned from overseas and didn't know anything. He was shocked when he heard this.
He went upstairs to ask someone for questioning, and finally attended the weekly meeting. After summarizing the information, he was even more shocked.
It turns out that the Inspection Bureau has already known about this matter and is considering how to deal with it. Moreover, a mysterious force has emerged in the country to acquire fanatical ghost fire. They secretly issued a reward order in the underground society of Yotun City in order to encourage the people at the bottom to sneak in.
Go to the Cataclysm Zone to unearth the Feverfire.
This was a bad sign, and it was a challenge to the authority of the empire, but a subsequent investigation by the Inspection Bureau found that the forces secretly issuing the bounty order were actually closely connected with certain people in the Privy Council and Congress.
Dardaniel could not let go of this result for a long time, so much so that he remained silent for a long time after the meeting, thinking repeatedly about the Privy Council's motives.
Why is there a reward?
According to the investigation results of the Police Bureau, ten out of ten people who sneaked into the disaster area never came back. The man in the black market had some shitty luck before and really dug up a fanatical ghost fire.
Did they encounter any accident? But Daniel had also entered the disaster area, and felt that except for the charred black bodies on the ground and the miserable carbonized corpses, there was nothing dangerous.
Strange...everything is weird.
Why don't the senior officials headed by the Privy Council just go in and look for the Zealot Fire? They can definitely set up an official collection department...
Are you afraid?
Such secretly issuing a reward order will deal with the low-level victims of Yodun who have just experienced major and minor disasters. Under the temptation of money, these people will definitely take risks and take a gamble.
"Could it be said...that the people above have known about the dangers in the disaster area for a long time, and they deliberately predicted the poor people's thoughts and asked them to take this lifeless risk?"
This idea suddenly came to Daniel's mind. He thought it was strange, but also unbelievable. He felt that if this was really the case, then the empire's senior officials would have refreshed the lower limit of his knowledge.
"No... this doesn't make sense. Even if there is danger, it is absolutely possible to recruit people from the poor... Are you unwilling to make this method public? Are you afraid of being criticized verbally and verbally again?" Dardaniel analyzed.
In the end, he decided to find an opportunity to go to the disaster area to personally explore and see if there was any soil in the harbor area that could support the growth of the Zealot Fire.
But first, he had to go to the police station to pick up the trafficker and hand him over to the Police Bureau for interrogation...
…
On the other side, at the site of the Blackwater disaster, deep in the harbor area, where the sun cannot shine, several mysterious cultists in black robes were surrounding a dark pool.
The leader took off his hood, revealing a beautiful and delicate face.
She stared into the pool, where a large number of strange plants grew, like the fire of the abyss burning.