Chapter 277: ~Chapter 88~ Part 1

The temperature in the room instantly dropped by a couple of degrees. Or was it just me? In any case, the question came right out of the left field and hit me with a surprise hook that left me reeling for a moment.

"The Conduit of the Grimoire?" I echoed my host in an effort to buy myself some time to rearrange my thoughts.

"Yes."

That short answer didn't exactly give me the time I wanted, but it was better than nothing. I took a deep breath, and said, "If I recall right, it's a prophesized chosen one kind of deal."

"We at the Assembly do not deal in prophecies," Lord Grandpa told me flatly, and I shrugged.

"You can call it a smeerp, but if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, it's a duck." My response drew the old man's brows into a frown, but he didn't refute my claim, so I continued with, "But back to this Conduit thing. I believe it's supposed to be a person who can unlock or channel or what have you this magical whatchamacallit you call the Grimoire, and then use it to uncover the answer to life, the universe, and everything."

"In very, very broad terms, you are not incorrect, but I am afraid the answer to our questions is not nearly as simple as forty-two."

There was a long, stumped beat hanging in the air, ultimately broken by my hum of approval.

"Wow. You actually got the reference. I... wasn't expecting that. I have to admit, that improved my impression of you by about half a notch."

"Please, focus," the arch-mage warned me sternly before reaching into his drawer and taking out a familiar wooden box covered in an intricate pattern of softly smoldering magic circles. He placed it onto the desk and tapped on it with his finger. "Before we go any further, let me ask you one thing: when you stole this Grimoire Key from my safe, did you ever open its container?"

"I prefer the term 'borrowed', and no, I didn't."

"Have you interacted with the key inside in any way?"

"I only confirmed that it was inside."

Lord Grandpa let out a low grunt, and this time he picked up a letter opener in the shape of a sword. Normally those were supposed to be blunt, but this one looked pretty sharp, which he soon demonstrated by pricking his right thumb with it.

He waited for a couple of seconds to let blood pool on his fingertip, and then he pressed it down onto the top of the box. There was a comment about this feeling a little unsanitary on the tip of my tongue, but before I could say it, the box opened with a series of clicks, and the lid popped half-open. Was the keyhole at the front just a misdirection, I wondered?

Anyhow, the arch-mage wiped his finger and then fully lifted the lid, revealing a white marble the size of an eyeball embedded in something that, at first glance, looked like a jeweled hexagonal amulet encased in velvet padding.

"Do you see anything strange?" He asked me and shifted the box so I could get a better view.

"I... can't say I do?" I answered a touch hesitantly, and the old man let out a soft hum.

"It is not supposed to be shining like this."

After a few blinks, I leaned over to take a better look. Truth be told, I was so used to anything remotely magical being a glowing eyesore that I took it for granted that this key marble thing would be the same. I squinted my eyes a little and did my best to ignore the hazy colorless light surrounding it, and underneath that, I could finally see that the ball was alight with a soft, blue glow.

"Well, it certainly does now. I figure it has to be significant for you to go out of your way to show it to me."

"It is," Lord Grandpa emphasized and held the box up in his palm. "The Keys not only serve as the only way to deactivate the seal on the Grimoire of the Last Truth, but they can also detect the presence of the Conduit. In the history of the Assembly, this has only happened once."

"Really? Then shouldn't you already have your answer to life, the universe, and everything?"

"Regrettably, the candidate was swiftly disposed of by the winged ones of Elysium before she could bind the crystal."

"Ouch. That's a downer." I muttered, though, in retrospect, it certainly fit the MO of the Celestials."

"This happened more than three hundred years ago, and it led to the great purge of their infiltrators in our Schools," the old man told me absentmindedly while playing with the box in his hand. "And now the sign appears once again, at the same time as the youngest artificer meister in the history of the Assembly."

I didn't like the way this was going, so I firmly declared, "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you're looking at the wrong guy."

"Am I?" he asked back with a provocatively raised brow, and I shook my head.

"Nope. I'm definitely not your Conduit."

"You sound certain."

"Because I am."

We locked eyes, and after studying my face for a while, my host set the box onto the table with an unnecessarily loud clank. "In that case, I believe you should have no contentions about laying your hand on the Key."

I wasn't fond of challenges like that, but it was best to nip this misunderstanding in the bud, so after making sure it was safe with my phantom limb, I casually put my finger onto the glowing marble. It was unexpectedly elastic and pleasantly cool to the touch. I waited for a second, and there was no reaction, just as expected.

"See? I told you.

I took my finger away, and Lord Grandpa's face told me he had a hard time deciding whether he should feel disappointed or relieved by this confirmation.

"So you really are not the Conduit. That is... unexpected." He reached out a hand and theatrically snapped the lid of the box shut. "But then who could it be?"

"I'd personally recommend you don't think too hard about it. In fact, you should ignore this whole Conduit business for now."

"It is not something that could be casually ignored," he objected with a deep frown.

"Why? You're the only one who knows about it. Well, the two of us, but that's beside the point."

"For now," he stressed and shook the box. "Whenever someone taps into the Ley lines of the planet, it leaves a faint echo. The Keys are designed to listen to these and detect the unique mana signature corresponding to the Conduit. While I have certainly been paying more attention to the Key in my possession, ever since you 'borrowed' it, it is only a question of time before the echoes are detected by the other Keys and my fellow custodians also recognize the significance of this event."

"So the signal is out in the open, and the only way the Assembly wouldn't make a fuss about this is if everybody forgot to check their Keys. Or if they couldn't…" I mused aloud, only to stop my train of thought when I noticed the expression on Lord Grandpa's face. "What?"

"I know that I am not in a position where I can make unconditional demands, but I strongly implore you to not even consider 'borrowing' the other Keys."

"What? No way! I don't have time to go to Glasgow and Ottawa for something like this, especially now of all times," I scoffed, and after a moment of pause, the old man let go of the box and buried his face in his palms.

"I  wonder if I should even dare be curious about how you discovered the locations of one of our most closely kept secrets…"

"Hey, I'm an information broker," I told him with a shrug, and he for once, snapped back.

"Then how come hardly anyone has ever seen you trade information?"

"I'm too sneaky?" My tongue-in-cheek response didn't earn me any approval, but it wasn't like I was looking for any, so I carried on. "Anyway, now that we're clear on this whole Grimoire issue, do you have anything else you want to say?"

The old man proceeded to give me a long, deadpan stare, and at last, he uttered, "If no one else brings the topic of the Conduit of the Grimoire to the attention of the Assembly, I will not do so either. In return, I once again expect your cooperation in regards to Lord Saahira."

"Are you seriously trying to spin this into doing me a favor?" He remained intensely silent, so after weighing my options, I decided I would suck up the scolding from Ammy later, and told him, "Fine. However, since I'd already agreed to talk with Sahi, let's balance the scales properly. A favor for a favor, if you will."

"What do you mean by that?"

My host was suddenly apprehensive, which painted a wide smile onto my face.

"Those anti-illusion arrays you wedged into your security system? You shouldn't rely on them too much. Case in point, I'm not even in this room anymore."

I winked, and a long beat later, I Phased right out of the study.

...

Only to then Phase right back in a few seconds later and hastily add, "For the record, I was still in the room when we did the whole Grimoire Key test or whatever, so don't draw any funny conclusions. Are we clear on that?"

The completely motionless arch-mage wordlessly stared at me for a solid five seconds. Then, at last, he nodded. Very. Slowly.

...

Eh, good enough.

"Alrighty. See you later."

And just like that, I Phased out of the study for the second time and appeared right in front of my frowning girlfriend.

"Chief? What exactly was that about?"

Judy, sitting on my bed, crossed her arms and directed a scrutinizing glare at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb. You can't just Phase in, exclaim 'Oh, bloody hell!' and disappear again."

Normally I would've pointed out that I just did that, so I definitely could by definition, but she didn't seem to be in a jokey mood.

"I just dodged a bullet I shot at my own foot, that's all."

"... I hope you realize that doesn't fill me with confidence at all."

"Don't sweat the small details." I walked over and put my bag down next to her. "The others?"

"Downstairs. They're packing snacks for the afternoon."

"Good. Remind me to Phase down after about, let's say, thirteen minutes and pretend I came home on foot."

"Now that you mention it, why did you Phase home? I can distinctly remember you mentioning something about holding back on using your abilities to preserve your 'brain juices'."

"The situation absolutely demanded it," I responded curtly, and since my dear assistant looked like she was on the brink of going to town on me, I unsubtly cleared my throat and changed the topic with the grace and poise of a veteran discussion derailer. "So, guess what I just discovered?"

"Considering you talked with Lord Endymonion, I presume it had something to do with Sahi participating in the tournament," she told me in a deadpan voice, and I would be lying if I said that didn't make me raise a brow.

"You already knew about that?"

"She told me when we ran into her during lunch break."

"Then how come I didn't know about it?"

"I was under the impression you wanted nothing to do with the tournament, so I didn't tell you."

"I… can't really argue with that, can I?" I muttered, and shed the topic by saying, "That was one thing, but more importantly, Josh's 'chosen one' status has finally reared its ugly head."

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The mildly disapproving frown evaporated from my assistant's face in an instant, and she promptly took out her phone, which was her way of telling me to elaborate. I was planning to do that anyway, so I gave her the footnotes version of my discussion with Lord Grandpa. She occasionally nodded as she listened, and once I finished, we remained silent while she committed my words to bytes.

"So it appears Joshua's finally gaining attention," Judy noted once she stopped poking her phone.

"Looks like it, though it feels a little sudden."

"Maybe the Narrative is pushing it because you planned to get rid of the tournament arc?"

"Let's not jump the meta-gun. Elly just scolded me for that today."

"She mentioned something like that. In that case, what's your alternative?"

"So, let's make things clear first. This while Grimoire business is the Magi's prophecy. Ammy is the Magi representative in Josh's former entourage, so if it came up, it would surely do so because he's on her route. He's not, because she's hitting it off with Mike instead, therefore it's likely that this development is completely unrelated to the 'plot' and it's caused by some loose variables instead."

"Such as?"

"Josh's been experimenting with mixing his blood capsules lately, hasn't he?"

"Yes, but according to Neige, he didn't have much success. Taking a second pill just replaces the previous transformation with a new one."

"True, but that wasn't my point. We already established that taking Ammy's blood doesn't have much of an effect on him, because he lacks the training necessary to use spells. However, what if mixing it with the other blood pills caused those mana echo things Lord Grandpa was talking about?"

"That's a tenuous conjecture, but it's one we can test today. Robatto would probably have a way to detect these signals."

"Precisely. The cat's out of the bag already, so a few more experiments resulting in new echoes probably wouldn't make too much of a difference."

"So, in conclusion, your hypothesis says that the Grimoire Keys are reacting to Josh's experimentation, and it's not an indication of his plot-relevance getting revealed yet." She paused here and scrolled her notes back to double-check something. "There's one possibility you overlooked."

"Which is?"

She tapped on her phone and explained, "While Joshua is certainly not on Amelia's route, he is almost certainly on Angeline's. Lord Endymonion specifically mentioned the Celestials getting involved the last time the Magi had a candidate for the Conduit of the Grimoire. Therefore, it's entirely possible that this is simply a setup for getting them involved with Joshua."

"Possibly, but that's reading Narrative intent into it again, so I'd like to stick to my interpretation for the time being."

"Of course you do. You're always pushing Watsonian theories," my girlfriend grumbled, and I could only shrug in vague agreement.

"Well, I can't help it. You're the one who keeps jumping to the Doylist explanations all the time, and I'm a compulsive contrarian."

"Just because you're aware of it, it doesn't make it better."

Ignoring her jab, I let out a soft grunt and raised a finger.

"Speaking of Watsonian interpretations, I also tried to apply it to the tournament arc, and I'd like to hear your input on the topic."

Judy obviously wasn’t pleased by my attempt at dodging her complaints, but she still opened a new file on her phone and gestured for me to continue.

"Now that we decided to adopt a live-and-let-live approach to this whole mess, I'm curious what you think about it. Or rather, why our presumed antagonist in plain sight came up with the idea in the first place."

"Do you mean beyond the Eastern Draconians' already established penchant for it?"

"Yes."

She pondered for a while, and ultimately uttered, "Most likely part of some larger plan regarding Draconian politics."

"I figured as much, but I couldn't really connect the two so far."

"If the Eastern Draconians were to lose, Naoren would lose face." I sent a sideways glance my assistant's way, but she doubled down. "I'm serious, Chief. 'Face' is very important to them. Failure is seen as the fault of the leaders. If the Eastern Draconian participants didn't achieve much, it could be used to claim that Naoren was doing a bad job governing the clan alliance."

"That's… kind of silly."

"Yet that's how 'face' works," Judy concluded, but I still wasn't entirely convinced.

"That still sounds like too much effort for too little gain, and it would indirectly affect the grand elder as well. Any other ideas? Try to put yourself in the mind-space of a nefarious baddie and start from there."

Judy gave me an unusually enthusiastic nod, and put a finger on her lips as she thoroughly considered my advice. At last, she pointed at me.

"First possibility: By incentivizing all of the Draconian clans to fight, they could use the tournament to gauge everyone's power levels and fighting styles for future reference."

"That's a little nefarious, but it doesn't really give him any advantage. Wouldn't everyone else also be able to glean the same information? Not to mention, the Feilongs would have to reveal some of their cards during the tournament as well," I pointed out, and after considering my words for a moment, Judy nodded in agreement.

"True. In that case, could it be a straight up power-play? Not against Naoren, but the whole community."

"Please elaborate."

"Let's change the initial hypothesis around. What if instead of a face-damaging defeat, the grand elder aims for an overwhelming victory? If they gathered all of these combatants from all the families, and they still came out on top, it would solidify their status as the leaders among the Draconians. Of course, this presumes that they are confident in winning the tournament."

"So it's riskier, but it has some clear benefits. Also decently nefarious, if a little plain. Good thinking."

"Thanks." I was ready to move on, but then my girlfriend's eyes lit up, and she clicked her tongue. "Chief, we almost forgot the most obvious answer."

"Which is?"

"It could also be just a distraction. The tournament will be held alongside the grand auction, so maybe it's to divide people's attention while grand elder Xinji does something else. It could serve as alibi, plausible deniability, or a part of some other scheme that requires the brightest of all the clans to be present at once."

"Are you thinking along the lines of some grand assassination plot?" She nodded, and I seriously considered the possibility for a while. "Well, it would practically behead the entire future leadership of the Draconian clans, and it could be both very beneficial to the Feilongs and super-nefarious… but I think it's a bit too over the top and it could easily backfire."

"But it's still worth keeping in mind."

"Certainly, but my money is still on the second option. The fact that the rules permit two participants per clan is too deliberate, so if we presume that the Feilongs' first fighter will be Naoren's brother, the second one is probably going to be the crux of whatever plan they have for dominating the competition. As soon as we figure out who that is, we can—"

"It's grand elder Xinji's granddaughter."

My mouth remained open for a few seconds, but then I closed it with an audible clatter of teeth and asked, "Okay, since when did you know that?"

"Emese texted me yesterday." She showed me her phone again, and for a moment I didn't even know what to say. Did mom-in-law even have a phone? How come I didn't know her number? In fact, now that I thought about it, my contact list was pretty bare, wasn't it? Anyhow, Judy must have misunderstood my inner turmoil, as she firmly stated, "I didn't tell you because you didn't want to hear—"

"Anything about the tournament. Yes, yes, it's my fault." I let out a weak groan, and after collecting myself, I guessed, "So? Another love interest?"

"Too young. According to Emese, she's only eleven."

"Eleven? As in, eleven years? Can she even compete?"

"She's technically part of the younger generation."

"Then why wasn't she at the banquet?"

"Probably because she's a child, and she would've found a social gathering boring," Judy pointed out, and I promptly buried my face in my palm.

"Let me guess. She's also a sheltered tomboy mini-moe with those odd hair-buns who aggressively tries to protect her family's 'face', right?"

"I don't know, but based on the tropes we are dealing with, it's a fair assumption. Also, I believe those buns she may or may not potentially have are called 'ox horns'. Also known as an 'odango'."

"Thanks for the information. Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to dramatically sigh with a mixture of annoyance and exasperation."

"Those are more or less the same thing."

"Too late to change it, I'm already sighing."

After I made good on my declaration, with some appropriate shoulder-slouching for extra effect, I shook my head and picked up my bag.

"This is too much at once. Let me get some fresh air, and then we continue this discussion after I came back."

"Sure. On a related note, don't you think it's about time you let the others know about the full capability of your Phasing ability? That way you wouldn't  have to do all these extra steps."

"Can't. It would link me to Bel, and I can't let Penny and the guys make the connection yet. I still have use for the identity."

"In that case, do as you like." She put her phone away and rose to her feet. "I'll meet you downstairs. Don't tarry for long; it's cold outside."

"'Kay, I'll be right back."

And just like that, I left home so that I could walk a hundred meters to get back home. I'm pretty sure there was some kind of lesson about the human condition in that sentence, but one I wasn't in the mood to ponder at the moment.

Anyhow, by the time I arrived, Judy was already in the living room, and the entire gang was waiting near the door to my teleport closet, carrying bags full of what I presumed were the snacks Judy mentioned. Well, all of them, except for Ammy, who was standing by the entrance with her arms crossed and a frown on her brows.

"Hi guys, I'm back."

My attempt to ignore the class rep was to no avail, as she pointedly cleared her throat to get my attention.

"Leo?"

"Erm… Yes?"

"Did you behave yourself in front of my grandfather?"

"Sure, I was a model gentleman," I answered reflexively, and to my confusion, Angie in the back let out a snicker and held out a hand towards the guy next to her.

"See? I told you he looks away like that whenever he's feeling guilty!"

"Yeah, yeah, you won the bet," Josh groan and handed a crumbled up banknote to her.

"Hah! Easiest five Jens of my life!"

In the meantime, the class rep loomed over me (at least as much as someone a good head shorter than me could), and menacingly adjusted her glasses. Welp. As it turns out, maybe deciding to suck up that scolding was a bad idea after all…

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