Chapter 176 | Transmigrated with a Sanity Gauge

Lu Yuan opened his eyes in the early morning.

At the edge of his vision, greyish-white text emerged:

【Sanity: +12…103/120】

Laurina hadn't let him drink the potion last night, saying that continuous consumption would lead to resistance.

When he went downstairs, Laurina was already at the workbench.

Two crucibles, one large and one small; the large one was heating up while the small one had already been removed from the fire, the stench of sandworm blood permeating the entire first floor.

Lu Yuan didn't disturb her; he washed up, tore off a piece of dried meat, and gnawed on half a piece of hardtack.

Laurina didn't even look up. "You haven't scraped the sandworm skin yet."

"I'll do it when I get back."

Lu Yuan grabbed his notebook and coat and headed out.

The branch office. Nine o'clock in the morning.

There was no one else in the archives.

Lu Yuan went straight to the bookshelf area to compare the coordinates on the foil.

Imperial global maps, maritime literature, geographical gazetteers, and meteorological records.

He flipped through everything that might involve North Sea coordinates.

The result was the same.

Bronze City was an inland city, so the accuracy of maritime data was limited; above sixty degrees on the vertical axis was almost a total blank.

The approximate location of the coordinates was in the blank area at the northernmost end of the map, consistent with the direction where the 1107 expedition lost contact, but further and more to the north.

To get an accurate fix, he would need at least high-precision charts from the Imperial Navy Department.

He simply couldn't get his hands on those.

Lu Yuan noted the information in his notebook and began putting away the maps.

As he reached the last roll, his finger paused for a moment.

At the very bottom of the index strip were two file numbers associated with the 1107 expedition.

Behind the numbers, there was no "Available for Review" notation; in its place was a small dark red square stamp.

"Headquarters Sealed."

The ink on the square stamp was very fresh. It hadn't been stamped over a decade ago.

Lu Yuan's gaze lingered on it for a moment before he rolled the map back up and returned it to the shelf.

He didn't dig deeper. Files sealed by headquarters couldn't be opened with the branch's authority, and asking would only expose his line of investigation.

Leaving the archives, Lu Yuan walked along the main street, planning to buy some bread.

On both sides of the road were rows of brick buildings, three or four stories high, with cast-iron patterns embedded in the window frames; most of the ground floors were shops.

The sun had risen, and the gas lamp posts cast faint shadows.

Several open-topped horse carriages carrying cargo passed by him, their iron wheels clattering loudly against the stone slabs.

The carriages were piled with wooden crates and hemp sacks, driven by workers in coarse cloth shirts.

The meeting wasn't until two in the afternoon, so there was no rush.

There was a bakery at the street corner with a wooden sign blackened by smoke; Lu Yuan went in and bought two loaves of white bread, wrapped them in oil paper, and brought a portion for Laurina as well.

When he returned to the Alchemy Workshop, Laurina had already finished the first batch of sandworm blood distribution.

The sealed bottles were arranged by color depth on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet, their labels handwritten in her neat script.

"For you." Lu Yuan placed the bread by the workbench.

Laurina glanced at it, didn't say thanks, but picked it up and took a bite.

"Not bad."

Lu Yuan didn't stay idle either; after discovering that Guard could only be practiced once a day, he started trying to figure out how to increase that frequency.

He continued this until the afternoon; having gained nothing, Lu Yuan arrived at the meeting room ten minutes early.

Unlike the heavy atmosphere of two days ago, this meeting didn't have a somber opening.

Kraus sat at the head of the table with only a cup of tea in front of him, not even holding any documents.

His coat was draped over the back of his chair, revealing a faded greyish-white shirt underneath.

His face showed neither pressure nor relaxation, just a flat kind of exhaustion.

The people present were the same as last time: Raymond, Karl, Helen, Hoguer, and a few Nightwatchers he didn't recognize.

Lu Yuan sat in the seat near the door.

Raymond reported first.

His voice was flat, carrying a hint of helplessness.

"All three disappearance sites have been re-investigated. The Viscount's manor has had a drastic change in attitude—polite but uncooperative—and there's nothing new from the Baron's manor. The merchant representative provided some supplementary materials, but they highly overlap with existing clues."

He closed the folder.

"Regarding the abandoned house, the scene was incinerated, making it impossible to extract new evidence. There is still no trace of Morris."

A one-sentence summary: Three days had passed, and there was no breakthrough.

Kraus picked up his teacup and took a sip, showing no expression of surprise.

He had known this would be the result from the start.

Hoguer followed up with a few words.

The three Ascension Society strongholds in the outer city hadn't made any major moves; the daily personnel entering and exiting were fixed with no signs of expansion, but also no intention of retreating.

"They're pinned there," Hoguer said bluntly.

Kraus looked at Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan only said one thing.

"No new progress on the Morris front for now."

Kraus didn't press him.

He looked at everyone.

"The three-day deadline is up."

His voice didn't rise, and his tone didn't change.

"The results are not ideal, but they were expected. The procedures that needed to be followed were followed, and the places that needed to be checked were checked."

He set down his teacup.

"The investigation will continue without a set deadline. Raymond, your team will maintain its current organization, but do not slack off on subsequent matters."

"Lu Yuan will be a separate team; you're still watching Morris. Hoguer, maintain observation of the outer city, but do not initiate contact."

The three of them nodded respectively.

Kraus paused for a moment.

His gaze didn't land on anyone in particular, but rather on the district map of Bronze City hanging on the wall.

"The orders from the Nightwatchers headquarters have come down; we are to simply maintain our functions."

Kraus's tone became a bit more serious.

"However, publicly trampling on imperial regulations is not permitted."

"So just do our jobs properly. Leave no room for maneuvering unless we have evidence."

The room fell silent for a few seconds.

"Meeting adjourned."

The sound of chairs moving followed.

Everyone stood up and walked toward the door one after another.

As Raymond passed Lu Yuan, his pace slowed for a beat.

"Come find me anytime if you need something."

Lu Yuan nodded.

Raymond didn't linger, following Karl and Helen out the door.

Hoguer was the last to leave; before exiting, he looked back at Lu Yuan, said nothing, and left.

The sound of footsteps in the corridor gradually faded away.

Only two people remained in the meeting room.

Kraus was about to stand up when he saw that Lu Yuan hadn't moved, and his movements paused.

"Is there something else?"

"Something I want to discuss privately."

Kraus's gaze lingered on him for an instant before he sat back down.

Lu Yuan tore a page from his notebook, placed it on the table, and pushed it across.

On the paper were the coordinates he had transcribed.

Six sets of numbers arranged in two rows, accurate to two decimal places.

Only the coordinates.

Kraus looked down at it.

"What is this?"

"Found among the items obtained during the previous investigation," Lu Yuan's wording was brief. "It has no direct connection to the current inner city disappearance cases, but the coordinates point toward the North Sea, roughly overlapping with the route of the 1107 Northern Sea Joint Expedition."

He paused.

"Further, and more to the north."

Kraus didn't speak.

His finger pressed against the paper, but he didn't pick it up. His gaze remained fixed on those numbers.

The meeting room was very quiet. The sound of a carriage passing by outside, its wheels grinding over the stone road, drifted in from a distance and then vanished.

A few seconds later, Kraus looked up.

He looked at Lu Yuan.

He simply stared at him with a look Lu Yuan was very familiar with—the measuring gaze unique to veteran Nightwatchers.

Kraus was judging him.

The silence lasted for several seconds.

Then Kraus picked up the paper, folded it twice, and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

Not the folder on the table, not a drawer.

His breast pocket.

"Understood."

Two words.

"Also," Lu Yuan added, "the two file numbers in the archives associated with the 1107 expedition have been sealed by headquarters. The square stamp is fresh."