Catastrophe Card King

Chapter 1552: Chapter 473: Old Xie’s Secret Message_3 Chapter 1552: Chapter 473: Old Xie’s Secret Message_3 “`
….

Before long, West City Leather Street.

The street teemed with people.

Leonard Churchill, as usual, planned to stroll through the marketplace first.

Having mingled here for months, he had grown very familiar with the place.

Whether it was the formal intelligence market or the Black Market of Giant Spirit City, he had established reliable sources for goods and intelligence.

To those disguised as Adventurers, the Speculative Traders in the marketplace were familiar faces by now; upon seeing someone he knew, Leonard could even exchange greetings and inquire about new merchandise.

Yet, Leonard preferred to browse the stalls run by new faces.

New faces meant Adventurers fresh from treasure hunts in the Magical Beast Forest, with more than just quality goods in hand.

More importantly, Leonard could deduce recent discoveries by observing the ancient relics they unearthed.

“Look this way, just retrieved from the Great Dragon’s lair, Fifth-Order Fire Dragon Scales, high-grade material for reinforcing armor…”

“Third-Tier Trix Aviation Pterosaur hatchlings from Windbreak Cliff, yours for just Three Thousand Gold Coins, making soaring the skies no longer a dream…”

“Selling all kinds of maps: ‘Dark Magic Forest,’ ‘Theramore Lake,’ ‘Darklight Temple,’ ‘Blood Ring Mine’… various up-to-date maps related to missing civilizations.”

“…”

Leonard walked along the street, looking and listening.

The noisy hawking of the street vendors filtered into his ears, piecing together fragmented information like a jigsaw puzzle.

From the features of the relics for sale, he could analyze plenty of intelligence.

Dig sites, danger levels, monster distributions, types of relics, the era of civilization… and so on.

Leonard’s current deductive abilities allowed his brain to function like a highly efficient, centralized computer.

He visited daily and had accumulated a vast amount of information in his mind.

He even knew better than many Adventurers about the provenance of the wares on the stalls.

So, he often found significant bargains.

Consequently, Leonard had earned quite a lot over the past month and revelled in it.

Of course, he also noticed that the number of Adventurers in Giant Spirit City had recently multiplied.

The reason was the discovery of new relics, triggering another “treasure hunting wave.”

The civilizations of this Cavern World were layered upon one another like a multi-tiered cake.

Humans, through their propagation and migration, had left behind countless ancient relics.

Buried relics from ancient civilizations often uncovered extensive sites.

Particularly many dwelled within the Magical Beast Forest.

Thus, such waves of treasure hunts recurred every decade or so.

It wasn’t unusual in itself.

Yet, Leonard noticed that the recent prominent relic discoveries all seemed related to the “Altranc civilization.”

Meaning, the Adventurers had found relics most likely considered erased from the missing history by the Holy Church.

Leonard frequented the marketplace and had also noticed that since the “Royal Academy incident” a month ago, the market had seen a visible increase in patrol personnel.

While others might not understand what they were patrolling for, Leonard guessed they were searching for relics related to those heretical artifacts associated with the Sect of Light.

Once discovered, they would be confiscated and destroyed.

This didn’t impact Leonard much, but he was more interested in the “Emperor’s Relics.”

Coincidentally, several of the recently unearthed Curse God Cards were concentrated within a certain perilous area.

….

Before long, the market visit came to an end, and it was already 8 p.m.

He went to the Information merchant to gather some intelligence.

As usual, there wasn’t much to go on, mostly related to adventures in the Magical Beast Forest.

Initially, Leonard wanted to find out if there was anything amiss within the Three Great Kingdoms.

After all, Princess Sofia of the Red Dragon Royal Family was a Follower of the Light; it seemed improbable that the Royal Family had no ties with the remaining factions of the old regime.

Yet, to his frustration, there was not a whisper of news from the Information merchant.

The lack of news, however, led Leonard to conclude that inside the Three Great Kingdoms, a “major upheaval” might be underway.

He had once played the role of a professional Information merchant, so he was well-versed in the trade.

For the all-knowing Information merchants to know nothing could only mean the Holy Church had directly interceded to seal the news.

Otherwise, the gossip-mongers daring to spread scandals about Kings and Empresses wouldn’t be in the dark about everything.

No news was, in fact, news itself.

For the current Leonard, he could infer accurate information from the deliberately erased intelligence.

Within his “I am the World” ability, no event existed in isolation; everything was bound to the world by numerous strands of cause and effect.

Whether the Royal Family was in chaos was evident by examining the King’s recent political activities, the significant conferences he attended, and changes in the accompanying ministers… such details were quite telling.

Like a puzzle, even if a small piece was missing, extrapolating from the other parts was sufficient for a rough picture.

From the current intelligence, Leonard surmised the state of the Ariel Empire was already in dire straits.

At least, he thought, something akin to a coup might have occurred in the Silver Dragon Kingdom!

Nothing had erupted completely; the Holy Church was adamantly suppressing it.

In the deduction, the entire empire appeared poised for an imminent storm.

Another issue was the suddenly silent “Crimson Sect” that had been causing an uproar previously.

Those Vampires seemed to have vanished altogether, leaving no trace of disturbance.

Leonard certainly didn’t think they were eradicated.

Instead, it was likely they were out of control.

To prevent panic, the news was stifled.

There was much and varied news, most of it having little to do with Leonard.

His inquiries were more to refine his “I Am the World” ability.