Alice was stunned for two seconds, then she covered her mouth with her hand and looked at Edwina with innocent eyes. After Edwina looked at her for more than ten seconds, she realized that Alice was really good at pretending to be innocent, so she slightly emphasized her tone and asked again: "Taste? Taste?" After Alice was silent for two seconds, her left hand drooped naturally, and her right hand was raised, with her palm facing outward, three fingers together, and the thumb and little finger bent close to the palm, and then she said firmly: "I promise, the book is no different from when I first got it!" Edwina remembered the sleeve whose wrinkles were no different from the beginning, and looked at Alice frowning slightly, and fell into deep thought. After being looked at by Edwina for more than ten seconds, Alice finally couldn't bear the pressure, silently put her hands behind her back, and lowered her head guiltily. Edwina felt that she fully understood what happened. She took a deep breath and asked in a gentle voice: "Why did you do this?" "Because..." Alice carefully raised her eyes and peeked. After confirming that Edwina at least did not look angry, she stammered and explained, "I, I want to taste what the book tastes like..."
Edwina continued to ask in a gentle voice without changing her expression: "Why do you have this idea?" This attitude made Alice feel relieved. She gave up the posture of escaping and explained by pinching the corner of her clothes: "Because I hope to gain knowledge by eating the book, and then, I thought of it..." The whole logical chain was connected. Edwina looked at Alice and smiled: "Someone in the church has really done this kind of research." "Huh?!" Alice widened her eyes and looked up in surprise. Edwina saw her expression and knew that she was interested, so she continued: "A saint in the church was once curious about the same question as you. After research, he invented a kind of magic. "This magic can be released on ink, injecting the knowledge you have into the ink. As long as you drink the ink, you can master the knowledge injected by the caster. "Let's not talk about the taste of the ink. After many experiments, the effectiveness of this magic has been confirmed. "For a period of time after that, this magic was very popular in the church. Everyone liked to pass on knowledge in this way. I also received and passed on knowledge in this way, but... "Everyone soon discovered that after our bodies excreted the ink, the knowledge also left with the ink..." Alice fell into deep thought. Edwina then asked: "If you want to try it, there should be some ink in the captain's room. I also master this magic... Do you want to try it?" Alice shook her head decisively, and then asked curiously: "Then this magic is not very... very useless?" Edwina shook her head and said: "For ordinary extraordinary people, it is indeed as Emperor Roselle said, useless, tasteless to eat, and a pity to throw away. "But for the 'Reader', it is not like this."
Alice was slightly startled, ignoring Emperor Roselle who was checking in at various places, looking at Edwina who did not intend to elaborate, and asked curiously: "Are you like the 'Secret Peepers'? To a certain extent, knowledge represents power?" After a pause, she suddenly remembered that Edwina could imitate the extraordinary abilities she had seen. A flash of inspiration came to her, and she blurted out: "The prerequisite for you to imitate extraordinary abilities is not to have seen them, but to have a full understanding of them, which is knowledge! ” This time it was Edwina’s turn to be surprised. The conditions she gave were obviously not enough to deduce this result. Even the steps of the middle seat ladder seemed very forced. Such a jumping way of thinking is obviously fundamentally different from the step-by-step logic of the "detective". She is more like directly holding the answer in the search process. After looking at Alice, Edwina realized that this might be the particularity of the "destiny" path. Excessive spirituality and spiritual intuition bring not only danger, but also the kind of mysterious induction. Sometimes they can guess the answer to some things without divination. This is a reasoning process dominated by intuition. Similarly, this irrational and illogical way of thinking is also more suitable for interpreting language... Edwina looked at Alice thoughtfully, without explicitly admitting it, but also without denying it. Instead, she smiled and asked another question: "What is the origin of your gesture just now? " The question about Roselle came to Alice's lips but was swallowed back. She clearly realized that no matter whether Roselle said it or not, she asked this question, which was equivalent to giving Edwina a clear clue. Alice didn't care that the members of the Tarot Club knew that Roselle had a relationship with her or them - anyway, they didn't dare to talk nonsense, but Edwina... The "Hermit" Cattleya, who was a lesson from the past, impressed Alice. She realized that these adults were not much better than her as a child in keeping their promises. No, maybe worse than her. Tsk, hypocritical adults. Alice spitted hard in her heart before speaking: "This is the swearing gesture of the Boy Scouts... I don't remember which country's Boy Scouts it is from, and you won't know it even if I tell you. Anyway, in the version I saw, the three fingers together represent loyalty, friendship, and bravery." Boy Scouts... This is a completely unfamiliar word. Alice used "children" and "army" to spell out a phrase. Edwina roughly understood what she wanted to express - an army of children. But... let children join the army? Although there is no law to protect minors in this era, and no one cares about children's human rights, with the prevalence of the Beyonder army, Edwina can't think of what the army composed of children can be used for. This sounds more like a joke. However, Alice's words are enough for Edwina to make a certain guess: "Before the First Epoch... was there a civilization?" Alice widened her eyes. This is no different from affirmation. Edwina then asked: "Are there many countries in that civilization?" Alice pursed her lips. In this case, Edwina curiously asked the question she was most concerned about: "Will that civilization allow children to join the army? From your description, it seems that more than one country will do this..." Alice was silent for more than ten seconds, then raised her head and said sincerely:
"At that time, being extraordinary was not a game for a few people. Everyone would awaken strange powers at the age of eighteen and be recruited by the army. "At that time, we called these people superpowers..." (End of this chapter)