"Yes, yes. Legacy has been around for thousands of years, at least that's what I've cobbled together. It has to have been at least that long considering the kind of foundation they have. But they don't have any solid documents about that sort of time, so I'm just spitballing honestly."
Alex didn't seem to have any intention of holding anything back, but the more he was , the more cautious Sylas was.
If he wasn't lying, then the file he had shown Sylas should have been a top-secret matter. How could just anyone access Sylas' file like that? And why was Alex being so bold with the information he was handing out?
Legacy didn't seem like such a flimsy organization. Sylas had had a handler follow him around for more than a decade and he wasn't even aware of it. Such an organization wouldn't have such obvious, leaking holes.
Alex wasn't the first Legacy member that Sylas had interrogated, but he was the only one with so much information. Something about that was fishy.
However, Sylas didn't choose to press on it. Instead, he wanted to see just how far Alex was willing to go.
Sylas didn't believe that anyone could lie so perfectly. One way or another, they'd either make a mistake or let something real slip. The only way to assess if Alex was truly telling the truth or not was to ask him so many questions that he either stumbled over his words, or it was obvious that he was actually telling the truth.
"You didn't answer my first question," Sylas suddenly said. "You and Lauren. Also, how do you have access to such information? What is your ranking?"
"Little 'ol me?" Alex chuckled. "I'm a Bronze."
Sylas' eyes narrowed. Alex was so strong and only designated as a Bronze by the organization? His clone alone could have killed Sylas back then had he not acted first. And his current self was capable of fighting against Sylas fused with the Basilisk King. That was truly...
'No... according to these rankings and the evaluations done, they're not based on strength, but rather something like potential. Alex might be a Bronze, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not their strongest.'
"As for Lauren, I don't actually know much about her. When you're in Legacy for a while, you'll realize that they're very... peculiar with how they do things. Sometimes they'll give you a full slate of information, and at other times they'll just send you a location and you won't even know who the leader is supposed to be.
"All I know about that woman is that she's a Gold. She's very dangerous, and she's also part of a much larger plan the organization has brewing. However, as for what that plan is, I have no idea."
"So you didn't know that she had come to steal Cassarae's necklace?"
"That's what she came to do? Damn, that treasure must have been something quite amazing."
"Is she the informant?" Sylas asked.
"Informant?" Alex tilted his head in confusion.
Sylas' eyes narrowed. While he was in the Amazonian Wilds, he had suffered several times at the hands of people who seemed to have more information than him.
First, when he went to gather the City Stele from the gnoll village, second when he entered the Basilisk King's Dungeon, and third when there was a sudden attack on Castle Main while he was away by a group he still didn't have an understanding about.
All of these things weren't coincidences, and Sylas was particularly sensitive to such things. He tended to have an attention to detail that allowed him to avoid trouble before it ever came, which was also why being in this wild world where there was lurking danger everywhere was so absolutely frustrating to him.
He was certain that there was an informant of some kind, but Alex didn't seem to know about
Whether he was lying or not... that was unknown.
"Were you responsible for the attacks I suffered in the Amazonian Wilds?"
"Nope." Alex shook his head.
"What is the current mission of Legacy with Veridian?"
Alex shrugged. "You're asking for something too overarching. If I was going to give you an answer, it would just be that they want to use it as a stronghold. But I don't think that's the answer you want to hear. Those deeper plans aren't something that I'm privy to."
"Why are they so focused on academia?" Sylas asked.
"You might not have heard the saying before, there's an opposite side of the coin to 'ignorance is bliss', it's 'knowledge is suffering'. At some point, when you gather enough intelligent people together, you either run the world into the ground, or you pierce through a glass ceiling and find out that you're very small.
"I'm sure you can guess that Earth is very much the latter case. So then you're faced with another two choices, you either let everybody know or you hide it to avoid mass panic."
"You're saying that Legacy is the result of people who've reached the extremes in their fields?"
"Basically. When you get to a deep enough understanding of any field, you'll start to bite at the edges of the Summoning. And when you do, you'll realize that our world is just a small corner. There've been many Renaissance men of the past that have found clues toward the Summoning all on their own, and pretty much every time they make the same decision."
Sylas' eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything about this.
Ultimately, maybe that was the decision all powerful people would make. Sometimes out of greed, sometimes out of compassion.
Sylas had a lot to say about the decisions they had made, but what he never thought about was the decision that he would make in their situation.
He felt that he already knew the answer to that question without having to think very much.
He would probably make the same decision.