1831 Everything With Aleck's current mental state, he crumbled without much effort on Leonel's part. He didn't even consult the various elders of his family, he simply used his authority as Patriarch to directly force them in line.
When Leonel saw this, he didn't say anything, but he made a mental note of it. From his analysis, Aleck's prestige in the family was high enough to get away with this, but unless there was a change, there would likely be a straw that broke the camel's back later on down the line.
The common people could be forced in line like this because they didn't understand what was going on anyway, but the rich, powerful and affluent couldn't be, at least not without tangible evidence and reason for what they were doing.
Only Aleck was aware of Leonel's fearsomeness, so it made sense for him to bow his head. But while the others trusted Aleck, if his choice didn't bear fruit, then the inevitable result was for them to lose respect for Aleck as opposed to suddenly coming to trust Leonel.
If Aleck realized this or not, he didn't seem to acknowledge one way or another. Instead, he did as Leonel demanded and revealed everything about his family, everything from census information, to their relationship with surrounding Sectors, even down to how many young geniuses they had sent to the Void Palace.
In truth, Leonel didn't need any of this information. The Etching Metal Organization already had such detailed analysis on every organization, family and business within Earth's borders. However, by cross referencing them, Leonel was able to tell how truthful Aleck was being was or not. And in the end, there were even a few reveals that even the Etching Metal Organization hadn't been aware of.
For one, the Thrusting Skies Organization had been contacted by the Cloud Race for cooperation. Aleck and their family elders hadn't agreed or disagreed, maintaining a neutral sort of stance.
This told Leonel something very important. The Cloud Race had methods of contacting various families that were nigh undetectable. In fact, they were so precise that they could even weed out potential spies from other families ahead of time so that such information would never leak.
And that was the second thing Leonel learned. Many of the Skies family's spies had suddenly been weeded out one day, with even a few agents of the Etching Metal Organization suffering.
If Leonel was correct, this was likely related to the mind reading abilities of the Cloud Race. How could they perfectly replicate another's identity if they weren't also able to go through and replicate all of their memories?
The Cloud Race was likely using this method to gain the trust of many families all while implanting their own spies. Leonel didn't believe that there weren't any members of the Cloud Race that had remained behind, and as expected, Leonel did find one among the elders, one that was very much against Aleck's sudden change.
The change caught Aleck and the elders off guard, but the battle was equally as abrupt and short. Surrounded from all sides, there was simply nothing the Cloud Race individual could do.
In the end, Leonel ended up taking their corpse into a snowglobe. He had learned quite a bit about the Cloud Race through the Void Library, but there was little that could compare to having the real thing in his possession.
The last thing of interest that Leonel learned that wasn't part of the Etching Metal Organization's information was actually related to the Chaotic Water Sector. This time, it wasn't due to the organization's missing it, but rather because that Sector wasn't within their jurisdiction as such they only had some miscellaneous information about it.
According to Aleck, the Cloud Race was targeting very key Sectors that contained natural resources of note.
At first, Leonel was a bit confused by this.
The Chaotic Water Sector, at least before the Cloud Race arrived, was about as powerful as the Thrusting Skies Sector. Both were semi-impressive, but nothing to write home about in the grand scheme. There were dozens of Sectors on their level.
So why them?
The obvious answer was that it was much harder to infiltrate the stronger families, and this was what Leonel had always assumed, until Aleck turned his perspective on his head.
The Chaotic Water name, and Thrusting Skies for that matter, all came about for a reason. copyrighted © content.
The Chaotic Water Sector was known not only for its exceptionally dense Water Force, but namely a very unique galaxy known as the Chaotic Water Galaxy where this thickness reached its apex. In that place, Water Force was so high in concentration that it suppressed all other things, even to the point that all colors were tinged with a slight hint of blackish blue.
The closer you got to the center of this galaxy, the more exaggerated the effects, until you finally did make it to the center and walking through the air felt like wading through water.
The Thrusting Skies Sector had a very special Galaxy much like this but instead for Lightning.
That was when it clicked for Leonel.
The point of this wasn't the resources, at least not in their current state. Rather, the Cloud Race was interested in monopolizing these resources after Earth's evolution influenced them to evolve themselves!
If Leonel was correct, if the Skies family allowed their World Spirit to be assimilated by his mother's World Spirit and allowed their heritage to fade, the evolution of their Galaxy would skyrocket and very soon, the resources on hand would become almost too many to spend even in several lifetimes.
In a place of such high Force concentration of a single kind, just the sheer amount of Force and Pure Force Crystals would be mind boggling, let alone the other natural treasures that might appear.
When Leonel got to this point in his thought process, he looked toward Aleck.
He didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before. If he wanted to assure the loyalty of these families, this was the obvious way to do it.
Leonel grinned. This changed everything.