Smoke did not rise in gentle spirals.

  It was expelled.

  Forced out of Vhal-Dorim's chimneys as if the city itself were breathing with difficulty.

  The industrial district pulsed beneath an opaque sky. Steam escaped from side valves. External gears turned in steady cycles. Rails vibrated under the weight of wagons loaded with ore and alchemical residue.

  Nothing there was silent.

  Nothing was clean.

  Nothing stopped.

  Until today.

  An entire sector had been sealed off with provisional metal barriers. Municipal guards kept onlookers at a distance. Workers formed uneven lines under the attentive gaze of assistants dressed in white.

  The symptoms were visible.

  Irritated, cracked skin.

  A dry cough that produced a harsh, metallic sound.

  Hands trembling faintly, even when still.

  Darkened veins marking the skin like ink trails beneath the surface.

  It was not rare.

  Accelerated industrialization demanded a constant price.

  Not the contamination.

  The one who had assumed control.

  The Church of the Solar God.

  No debate.

  No resistance.

  When white robes bearing the golden sun insignia crossed the gates, the crowd opened space naturally.

  As if it were inevitable.

  As if it had always been expected.

  Gepetto observed from a distance.

  Not with his original body.

  His body remained seated in the rented workshop far away, eyes closed, breathing steady.

  It was the Hunter who stood among the crowd — posture firm, expression neutral, blending in with those pretending not to stare.

  He analyzed.

  Recorded.

  Calculated.

  A Solar priest stepped forward into the center of the sealed area.

  There was no exaggerated theatricality. No dramatic display. His voice was firm but not raised. Each movement seemed shaped by repetition, not by a need to impress.

  The workers were aligned.

  One by one.

  Before the intervention, the priest imposed a simple condition.

  "Do you acknowledge that you ignored established limits?"

  The first man, his face marked by dark stains, nodded with difficulty.

  "Do you acknowledge that imprudence leads to corruption of the body?"

  A weak murmur.

  "Do you acknowledge that only the purifying light restores what has been degraded?"

  Silence.

  Then a nearly whispered, "Yes."

  Only then.

  The light emerged.

  It did not fall from the sky.

  It did not erupt into spectacle.

  It emanated.

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  A warm, golden radiance — contained, yet dense.

  It coursed through the worker's body as if sweeping away invisible impurities. The skin began to clear. The darkened veins receded slowly. The coughing stopped after one final spasm.

  The man inhaled deeply.

  For the first time without pain.

  The crowd did not applaud.

  Did not shout.

  It watched in silent reverence.

  There was relief.

  There was gratitude.

  Voluntary submission.

  The process repeated.

  Organized. Efficient. Methodical.

  After each healing, assistants approached with clipboards. Names were recorded. Addresses. Workplace affiliations.

  Small temporary solar medallions were distributed.

  "Return for preventive spiritual review in thirty days."

  Discrete pamphlets circulated:

  Recommended contributions.

  Priority access to spiritual services.

  Special protection for devoted families.

  Nothing was imposed.

  But everything was structured.

  Gepetto did not need to hear every word to understand the mechanism.

  Industry generates contamination.

  Contamination generates fear.

  Fear generates dependence.

  Dependence sustains institutions.

  He did not question the miracle.

  The energy was real.

  The purification measurable.

  What unsettled him was not the effectiveness.

  It was the model.

  Gods that delimit domains.

  That require formal acknowledgment.

  That distribute conditional favors.

  That organize followers under rigid hierarchies.

  Not illusions.

  Powerful. Limited.

  The absolute does not fragment.

  Does not compete.

  Does not require confession.

  Beneath the ritualized golden light, he felt a quiet misalignment.

  Not absence of faith.

  But absence of recognition.

  This was not Unity.

  It was competitive multiplicity dressed as divinity.

  He did not hate the priest.

  He did not despise the workers.

  He despised the structure.

  As the ritual continued, something diverted his attention.

  A different insignia embroidered discreetly inside the priest's mantle.

  Not the standard solar symbol.

  A variation.

  An inner circle crossed by three vertical lines.

  Small.

  Subtle.

  Intentional.

  He searched his memory.

  In the game, the Church possessed divisions — inquisitors, healers, observers.

  But that specific mark…

  Nothing.

  No concrete recollection.

  He remembered broader events clearly:

  Political crises.

  Institutional ascensions.

  International conflicts.

  But not minor details.

  Not emerging subdivisions.

  Not subtle deviations.

  This was new.

  New.

  Variable.

  A contained discomfort passed through his calculations.

  He was not inside a perfect repetition.

  He was inside an adaptive version.

  The difference was subtle.

  But structural.

  The priest raised his hands once more. Light spread across another trembling body.

  The crowd breathed as one.

  Gepetto remained still.

  The world was not merely following the script he remembered.

  It was responding.

  And responses generate unpredictability.

  The vapor of the industrial district faded behind him.

  The Hunter moved through narrower streets, where the scent of coal gave way to ink, damp paper, and refined oil. Buildings grew less imposing, more improvised. Open windows revealed shelves packed with technical volumes and hastily sketched schematics.

  The academic sector had no monumental chimneys.

  It had dim light filtering through dirty glass.

  Exhausted students bent over cluttered desks.

  Ideas no one funded.

  The contrast was symbolic.

  Where the Church operated with ritual and warm light, here there was calculation and trial.

  Where priests aligned the faithful, professors aligned hypotheses.

  Dependence existed on both sides.

  Only its nature differed.

  In the industrial district, they depended on miracles.

  Here, they depended on funding.

  The Hunter entered an improvised laboratory in the back of an old printing house. The space was too small for the equipment crammed into it. Glass tubing wound along the walls. A handmade ventilation system vibrated under strain.

  At the center stood a metal cylinder connected to charcoal filters and layers of treated fabric.

  The engineer responsible did not notice the visitor immediately. He was adjusting a side valve, his forehead streaked with soot.

  "This won't withstand industrial pressure," he muttered to himself.

  Gepetto assessed quickly.

  Not yet.

  But the principle was correct.

  The filtration system reduced toxic particles before external release. If scaled, it would drastically decrease workers' continuous exposure.

  Reduce contamination.

  Reduce the need for healing.

  Reduce dependence.

  No praise.

  Only technical questions.

  Seal precision.

  Production cost.

  Average installation time per factory.

  The engineer answered hesitantly at first, then with growing enthusiasm.

  What he lacked was funding.

  Access to factories willing to test the prototype.

  Someone prepared to assume initial risk.

  Gepetto recorded mentally.

  Profile one: viable.

  In another building, a medical researcher organized flasks filled with neutralizing compounds.

  Results were inconsistent — but promising. She studied ways to break toxic alchemical bonds without divine intervention.

  "If we stabilize the formula, recovery could happen in hours, not days," she explained, defensive even before being questioned.

  She had already been rejected by three patrons.

  The argument was always the same:

  "Why invest in this if the Church already solves it?"

  Exactly.

  Profile two: disruptive potential.

  The third was farther away, in a nearly abandoned room of the biomedical institute.

  A young researcher synthesized antidote compounds for common intoxications. Not miracles.

  Replicable protocols.

  Measurable results.

  He spoke too quickly.

  Expecting interruption.

  "It's not perfect yet. But it's repeatable. And it doesn't depend on divine affinity."

  Repeatable.

  That word mattered.

  Miracles depend on presence.

  Methods depend on scale.

  Profile three: strategic.

  The Hunter left the academic sector as the sun descended behind industrial towers.

  Gepetto processed the equation.

  He did not need to defeat the Church.

  Only reduce how often it became necessary.

  Faith organizes masses.

  Industry transforms cities.

  Knowledge alters balance.

  Capital directs flow.

  If he controlled the flow, he would influence the balance.

  No speeches.

  No public confrontation.

  No declared opposition.

  That night, in his distant workshop, his body opened its eyes slowly.

  Documents were arranged.

  Accounts redistributed through intermediaries.

  Minor stakes acquired under discreet names.

  A private foundation was born.

  No propaganda.

  No manifesto.

  Clear criteria:

  Urban applicability.

  Industrial scalability.

  Collective risk reduction.

  Priority technical sharing.

  Silent clauses:

  Partial exclusivity.

  Early access to results.

  Proportional patent participation.

  Production priority under emergency conditions.

  He did not purchase geniuses.

  He constructed infrastructure of dependence.

  A network that would grow not through faith — but through practical necessity.

  When factories adopted filtration systems.

  When intoxications were neutralized in laboratories.

  When antidotes were distributed before priests arrived.

  The choice would not be ideological.

  It would be convenient.

  And convenience reshapes behavior faster than doctrine.

  At dusk the following day, he watched Vhal-Dorim from the workshop window.

  Chimneys continued releasing steam.

  The Church prepared another ceremony in a different district.

  The Academy remained underfunded — for now.

  He did not intend to confront gods.

  He intended to make miracles optional.

  Change does not begin with blasphemy.

  It begins with substitution.

  One item remained unresolved.

  The player behind Armand de Veyr.

  He had no direct access to Insir. No embedded presence. No channel through which information would flow naturally. The newspaper could confirm events. It could not explain intentions.

  Observation from a distance was not enough.

  He needed a fixed point inside the Empire — not to interfere, not yet, but to watch. To accumulate. To understand the shape of someone whose game knowledge and strategic choices he could not yet map.

  A marionette.

  Not the Hunter, whose profile was already operational in Elysion. A new one — built for stillness, for patience, for a role that required neither combat nor confrontation. A presence that could exist inside Insir's commercial or diplomatic margins without drawing the kind of attention that proximity to a duke inevitably carried.

  He did not have the chassis prepared.

  He did not have a cover identity established.

  He filed it as a priority, not a plan.

  The difference mattered.

  Plans required conditions he did not yet possess.

  Priorities waited for those conditions to arrive.

  Steam rose thicker that night.

  And for the first time since arriving in this world, he realized he was not the only one building quietly.

  Somewhere in the city, another structure was taking form.