Coren frowned, the expression he showed when he was in disbelief at what he heard.
"You mean, you found a whole pod of whales, and every whale in the pod is about the same size as this white whale?"
"Yes, and they are all white." Xia Ye added with a smile.
"How many whales are there in that pod?"
"8-9 items."
"Then, I think you are lying, Miss Xia Ye." Curran shook his head slowly.
"Why?"
"Although I haven't seen it with my own eyes, I can guess how dangerous this huge beluga is, but you said you encountered 8-9 such whales. If what you said is true, I don't think so at all. You were able to come back alive, not to mention killing this whale during the siege of the whales and dragging its carcass back."
"When we found this whale, it was alone, and the whale group was still about 100 nautical miles away from it." Xia Ye explained, "However, you are right, Chairman Curran, even then, we would not have been able to Escape from the whales..."
"but?"
"It's not 'but'." Xia Ye smiled, "It's 'because'. Therefore - I used some uncommon means to allow us to escape the pursuit of the whales."
"..." Kelan looked at her without saying a word.
"you do not believe?"
Xia Ye had foreseen this situation in advance, and if Ke Lun still didn't believe it, she had to ask Tang Li to replay the scene when the whales appeared through a fantasy to Ke Lun.
But Curran's answer was beyond her expectation: "No, I believe what you said, Miss Xia Ye."
As she spoke, she pressed the back of her prosthetic hand. With a "click", a small screen popped up. Curran turned the screen and Xia Ye saw a number on the screen: 99.
"99 means 99% of the probability of telling the truth. My prosthetic hand integrates a polygraph contract function. Although it can be used very limited times and can only detect polygraphs on one sentence each time, at critical times, it can still detect lies. Very useful." Curran smiled.
Xia Ye vaguely felt that she was being tricked: "Which sentence of mine did you detect a lie on? 'Every whale in the whale group is a white whale of the same size as itself'?"
"of course not."
Curran picked up the knife with his prosthetic hand, cut off a piece of whale meat, put it into his mouth, chewed it and swallowed it, and then said slowly:
"What I tested was this sentence - 'I used some unusual means to allow us to escape the pursuit of the whales'."
"..." Sure enough, he was tricked, Xia Ye thought helplessly.
"This sentence is actually true. It is not a bluff." Kelun stared at her, "Miss Xia Ye, it seems that I underestimated your strength before."
You didn't underestimate it before, but now you overestimate it, Xia Ye thought to herself, because the content of the "rift" contract has changed.
Forget it... Whether it's an underestimate or an overestimate, as long as it's not an accurate estimate, it's not a bad thing for you.
“I thought we could be more honest,” she said, keeping her expression carefully controlled to “angry, but not really angry.”
"This is my candid performance, Miss Xia Ye." Curran said, "I could have kept silent, but I still told you frankly. It is good for both of us to know the other party's strength accurately, because it is good for both of us. We are far more likely to cooperate than to confront each other."
"I hope this is the truth." Xia Ye said.
"It's true, I promise."
Although Curran's guarantee did not add any credibility, Xia Ye did not pursue the matter further and returned to the previous topic:
"In summary, this is what I want to tell you: we did not encounter one beluga, we encountered a swarm of them."
Chris, who had been silent until now, finally spoke: "Could it be that there is something near that sea area that can cause whales to mutate, and that it mutates these whales into beluga whales?"
"Then we were lucky enough to meet these white whales?" Xia Ye asked with a smile.
"..." Chris was silent. Of course she also knew that attributing the reasons to coincidence or accidental explanations was often the wrong explanation.
"You want to say... that all the whales in the waters west of the Western Islands are this kind of white whale?" When Chris said this, she felt her heart pounding.
"Yes, and my guess goes further."
"What is it?"
"I think those beluga whales are not special mutant whales. They are the same species as the 'baby whales' living near Debsota, but they are what the 'baby whales' look like as adults."
Xia Ye explained her complete speculation in detail. She had only told Yaha this theory before, but now, Curran and Chris became the second and third people to hear it.
After listening, they fell into a long silence.
No matter Curran or Chris, the first thing they thought of was the same thing——
"Miss Xia Ye, if your guess is correct, then wouldn't the 'voyage ship' back then be..." When Curran said this, he could no longer continue.
Chris followed her words: "Isn't it true that I fell on the eve of success?"
Xia Ye glanced at the two people with complicated expressions and nodded: "I think so. In fact, I have always been curious about exploring the Ether Sea. How do you view the relationship between the scope of exploration and the benefits of exploration?"
Chris and Curran looked at each other.
"There is a positive correlation. However, exploration risk is also positively correlated with scope.
"Moreover, as the scope of exploration increases, the growth rate of risks is much greater than the growth rate of returns. In other words, from a statistical point of view, the deeper you go into the Ether Sea, the lower the net return of magic you can obtain. , after reaching a certain threshold, this net income may even become negative." The person who answered was Chris.
If Ke Lun said this, Xia Ye might not be so surprised, but she didn't expect that even Chris thought so.
"Why do you think so?" Xia Ye asked curiously.
This time, it was Curran who answered: "This is what we learned at Bavlia Academy. Miss Xia Ye, in fact, the question you asked has been studied by scholars a long time ago. They referred to all the people who have arrived in the past. After a series of complex modeling and calculations, we finally came to this conclusion based on Debsota’s traveling witch’s knowledge, combined with our understanding of the etheric sea.”
"But don't you think this conclusion is a bit counter-intuitive?" Xia Ye frowned.
Curran shook his head slightly: "It depends on what is 'intuition'. For those of us who were born in the Lower City, the conclusion learned at Bavlia Academy is intuitive. After all, if this conclusion is Wrong, then why have only powerful traveling witches been able to travel in the etheric sea for so many years?”
(End of chapter)
