It didn’t take long for Jay to return to his rented room near the university.

It was early afternoon and the traffic wasn’t so bad at this time of day, compared to the early morning and late afternoon when the streets were full of commuters.

After making himself comfortable, he took the gecko-shaped hairpin out of his pocket and carefully observed it.

While on his way home, he didn’t dare to take it out of his pocket on the off-chance that it might be seen by its owner.

Even when he checked it for tracking devices, he didn’t have the leisure to observe every detail of its structure.

Now that he was in a relatively safe place, he could finally see the strange hairpin in all its glory.

He always felt that he had to at least perform a basic observation of his Identification targets.

He found it fun when some of his guesses about an object’s characteristics were proven right by the acquired information from his ability.

Although it seemed like some sort of mini-game in itself, perhaps it was a manifestation of his desire to preserve some semblance of self-dependency.

His ability was quite useful and all, but deep down he felt that it wasn’t something that truly belonged to him.

Instead, it was granted to him by an unknown influence for no apparent reason.

Although he had come to live with the fact of its existence, there was still a possibility of it being taken away from him, and even worse, during the time when he would need it the most.

It was a lingering fear that permeated deep within his psyche, one that wouldn’t be cleansed anytime soon.

-

The gecko-shaped hairpin seemed like it was made of an amalgamation of ceramic and metal, which was quite similar to the materials used for resistors and other electronic components designed for exposure to high temperatures.

It had a maroon color, quite unlike real geckos, at least those that existed in his country. If he took off his glasses, he would likely mistake it for a tiny patch of spilled blood.

As for the shape, it was quite intricately made, considering its size and the apparent difficulty of working with small materials. It seemed like something that was custom-made, which wasn’t something anyone would want to lose.

He didn’t know if it was some sort of heirloom or something, but it was too late to go back on his actions now.

Having pocketed it out of curiosity and necessity, he could only see it through and take responsibility for his actions.

After observing the hairpin's physical characteristics and finding nothing amiss, he proceeded to use Identification on it through touch.

There was a high likelihood that he would be able to figure out the identity of the owner through the ‘history’ aspect of his ability.

However, he wasn’t worried about any form of counter-investigation, as he had already gone quite far from the vicinity of the mall, and it had already been a while since he found the hairpin.

As mentioned by Mr. Arthas in the past, it was quite unlikely for most ascendants to be able to sense objects and phenomena with enough separation in space and time.

Of course, it wouldn’t hold true for people with information or divination-related abilities, which were quite rare by themselves. Even then, they would require a qualified medium in order to compensate for the distance in spacetime.

All things considered, he was quite safe from external factors, only leaving him with the tiny possibility of encountering difficulties from the object itself.

On the bright side, it wasn’t likely to happen, considering it was far too ordinary compared to the likes of the existence of Sorrow itself.

Immediately after using Identification on the hairpin, many details, including the basic characteristics of everything in recent contact with it, were absorbed into his mind and formed into new memories that seemed more like ‘experiences’ than mere information.

He didn’t find anything interesting with the other data sets, such as the material composition or the manufacturer.

Every detail about it seemed ordinary except for a single data set gleaned from the ‘history’ aspect of his ability.

It was about the last person who wore the hairpin, which was somewhat equivalent to its owner, at least according to common sense.

The person in question was named Anne, with the last name strangely missing from the data set, along with many other important details.

Based on this matter alone, he was quite certain that it was the same person with whom he had his first transaction. His instincts gave him the certainty to proceed with this assumption.

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It should be mentioned that he already had sharp instincts even before developing the rudimentary form of metaphysical senses.

After the recent qualitative change to his metaphysical qualities, he had become even more trusting of his instincts, of course, provided that there were no glaring contradictions with his own observations.

However, even with this fascinating information, he still didn’t achieve what he wanted out of this Identification attempt.

He wanted to capture a glimpse of the metaphysical world through the strangely-shaped hairpin, but there wasn’t any useful information regarding this matter except for the identity of the owner.

Even then, the information regarding Ms. Anne was missing some important parts that defined her identity, essentially cutting off the only lead he had to knowing more about the metaphysical world.

It seemed to be protected by some sort of esoteric encryption that he had no way of unraveling at the moment.

To be fair, even if he did acquire important details about Ms. Anne’s identity, he couldn’t really go and ask her about what made the gecko hairpin special, not that he should in the first place.

-

Regrettably, his hopeful first attempt at exploring the metaphysical world had prematurely ended in disappointment.

Of course, he wouldn’t discard this matter entirely, as the apparent reason for the current situation was most likely his insufficient metaphysical qualities.

He had no choice but to keep this matter in the back of his mind for now, along with the many mysteries that he didn’t have the capability to uncover at the moment.

Speaking of which, he had been too engrossed about the recent upgrade that he actually forgot about Sorrow.

The recently developed rudimentary form of metaphysical senses might have some effect on their way of interaction, potentially allowing him to finally sense the true form of his companion and even enable it to stay by his side in the physical realm without inadvertently affecting the environment negatively.

He would have to bring this matter up with Sorrow on their scheduled correspondence tomorrow.

-

---

-

Later in the day, during the late evening, outside a dimly lit interrogation room in a hidden bunker in the middle of nowhere.

Arthas and Vergil had just finished interrogating a covert asset of a local provincial official, the latest unexpected lead in their investigation into the sudden disappearance of certain operatives from their organization.

They had been investigating for several weeks, yet they still couldn’t find anything related to the mastermind.

Instead of discovering any metaphysical traces, they stumbled upon the clandestine actions of several local government officials in various neighboring provinces around the capital.

It turned out that the officials in question had been making criminals and relatively unknown individuals disappear without a trace for several years.

From their perspective, this was a massive oversight on the part of the Kawal members stationed in the corresponding areas.

However, dissatisfied as they might be, they didn’t have the authority to reprimand the members in question, as those members belonged to the same level of seniority and were assigned to regions far from them with no overlap of responsibilities.

-

By sheer coincidence, they happened to witness the abduction of a reclusive elderly individual living alone in the mountains, carried out by the man they had recently interrogated in the room.

However, they were vaguely aware that this sudden discovery was no mere coincidence, especially at their level, where they had already been exposed to vastly different applications of metaphysical concepts .

It seemed like someone out there was trying to push them in some direction, with the reason indeterminable at the moment.

Of course, they welcomed any form of assistance they could get, as long as it led to even a small amount of progress.

Even if the mysterious entity ended up having malicious intentions towards them, they merely prepared for the possibility in the back of their minds and went with the flow for the meantime.

This was a manifestation of confidence borne from personal strength.

They were grateful enough to accept unsolicited help with unknown intentions, yet self-assured enough to believe they could handle any potential accompanying problems as they arose.

-

Although the word ‘interrogation’ clearly described their recent action, they didn’t perform it through conventional means like torture and negotiation, as they had much better ways of getting the same results.

Since the captured man was an ordinary individual, they didn’t have to resort to advanced metaphysical means to extract information.

They used a hypnosis artifact in the form of a pendulum, a standard-issue device among higher-level members in their organization.

However, despite its apparent usefulness, it had been quite ineffective in most situations they encountered.

It wouldn’t work properly on ascendants, not even on new ones like Jay, let alone the much more powerful metaphysical entities they regularly encountered in their line of work.

Of course, it was more than enough to work on ordinary individuals, so they always carried it with them despite its apparent limited usefulness.

From the mouth of the interrogated man, it was revealed to them that some local government officials had been abducting ‘irrelevant’ people for many years, with those individuals disappearing without a trace even by their standards.

What frustrated them the most was that the man didn’t know much beyond delivering the abducted individuals to various locations throughout the entire province governed by his employer.

Although they considered disposing of the man themselves, they knew that it might alert some related parties, which could be detrimental to their supposedly covert investigation.

They also couldn’t just erase the man’s memories and let him go, as there would inevitably be some metaphysical traces left on his person that could potentially reveal their involvement.

Of course, they had already decided on a feasible course of action, though it would require the assistance of specific personnel. That was the reason why they were standing outside the interrogation room instead of doing something else.

-

Vergil noticed that his partner was unusually stern, so he stopped fiddling with his phone and addressed him.

He knew well that beneath the impassive face was a smoldering anger that could only be quenched by blood.

“Do you think they were too irresponsible?”

Vergil was referring to the Kawal members assigned to the interrogated man’s province.

Arthas was quiet for a while before letting out a deep sigh, expressing his dissipated anger and resignation regarding the recently discovered situation.

“Not really. They were just doing their duty, and I can’t blame them for that.”

Kawal was essentially an ascendant organization that operated solely within ascendant society, though it called itself a servant of the entire country.

Its members were only tasked with involving themselves in disruptive metaphysical phenomena, as the regulation of mundane society was considered the responsibility of the corresponding mundane organizations.

Even so, Arthas felt that ascendants shouldn’t be dismissive of the plight of ordinary people, inadvertently allowing these transgressions against humanity to happen, even if it didn’t fall under their job descriptions.

They had quite a long time to discover and even address these clandestine operations, yet nothing was done about them even today.

Those people, even the criminals, didn’t deserve having their lives on the palm of others.

Although he didn’t know the true purpose behind these abductions, it was highly likely that it wasn’t done with good intentions in mind.

With these thoughts in mind, he found it hard to think well of the people that had the power to prevent the matter but chose to abstain from involvement instead.