New Gods of North America.

Chapter 401 Guess
As a time traveler,
In a sense, Wayne is actually quite "informed".

For example, Wayne is more receptive to the concept of the so-called "Extraordinary People".

According to his understanding, assuming that "extraordinary power" is also a kind of "power" or "energy", then the reason why extraordinary people can do things that ordinary people cannot do is...

Perhaps it is just according to some special "law of conservation of energy" that is consuming the extraordinary power or spiritual power in the body.

Under this premise, it becomes easier to understand that different extraordinary people will have roughly similar "fields" and different extraordinary abilities.

It may be like different acids or bases, and different elements form different "compounds".
For example, when metal reacts with hydrochloric acid, it will produce potassium chloride, sodium chloride, etc., which will have some generally similar characteristics, but the specific analysis will be different.

Then the same "compound" may eventually take on different forms,
It is like using sugar as the raw material, but when it is actually made into a finished product and appears on the market,
However, there are sugar products such as syrups, sugar cubes, cakes, etc. that look almost completely different, and they can even ferment into many other types of products such as alcohol and vinegar.

If we continue to follow this logic,

As Beyonders ascend in rank, they slowly become "inhumane", which is actually easy to understand.

For example, installing steel products on a wooden sailing ship is called "strengthening" or "reinforcement" at a minimum. Installing cannons may make it a "warship", and welding the entire hull is called an "ironclad ship".
If the welding is not strong enough and the load is too heavy, the wooden sailboat itself may "disintegrate and collapse".
If the wooden "main body" is turned into an "accessory", and the most basic power system is changed from "sail" to "steam engine", and wheels or wings are added,

The final thing may have little to do with the three words "wood", "sail" and "boat", and the underlying operating principles will also become completely different.

The "hardware" aspect is easy to understand. You can get a general idea by referring to "mechanical modification".
The "software" aspect seems a bit mysterious. Even the so-called "cyberpsychosis" is hard to come to a conclusion in the science fiction world...

According to the concepts that theologians of the Holy See have dug out from the Holy Scriptures,
"Free will", or human "soul", should be a unique thing with the dual attributes of "fragile" and "tenacious".

For example, even ordinary people can "destroy" a soul by destroying the body, and can "change" a free will through faith and education.
But according to the theory of faith in the Holy Spirit, free will and soul are "gifts" from the Holy Spirit, but they are things that cannot be easily "erased" - even more powerful "evil gods" or "devils" cannot easily shake those noble wills and pious souls.

Wayne asked Inissa and Lina, and then thought about it for a while.
It is still unclear whether "resurrection" is a feasible operation in this extraordinary world.

Judging from the "Lucky Coin" incident in which "Mrs. LaLaurie" was investigated and led, the earlier "Seven Deadly Sins" case of changing the holy emblem, and Wayne's personal experience of being pulled into an illusion by the "Magic Mirror",
"Extraordinary powers" or part of the "extraordinary abilities" can obviously act directly on the "spiritual level".

But even if the "change" is simple,
If the whole thing is moved intact, the difficulty should be completely different...

If you think about it simply, "changing a soul" may be as easy as changing a captain in the army. The operation can be completed immediately with a single order.
But if you think about it in a complicated way, it might be like facing a pile of shit blocks that maintains a delicate "multiple balance". If you dare to touch it, it will immediately collapse completely in front of you...

Even if you rebuild one that looks "exactly the same",

It may also no longer be “the one” that it was before.

The reason why Wayne thought of the "reincarnation" was mainly because he accidentally read the will of Reverend Pycelle.
A bad old man who feels like he might die at any time, deceives others into taking a certain drug for a long time, which has the effect of affecting their "souls".

It’s not that Reverend Pycelle can’t be “passionate about scientific research”, but even if it’s “scientific research”, there has to be a goal or direction, right?

As a pure American native, Wayne is now more simple in this regard.
Since someone wants to drive away the "indigenous people" on a piece of land, he or she must first suspect that the other party wants to "occupy it for themselves" or "want to sell it for money."

After thinking about it for a while, he felt that he couldn't figure it out. Taking advantage of the fact that the next day was Sunday and the matter might involve the pastor of the church, Wayne ran to the cathedral in Richmond again.

……

Wayne originally thought that telling Tom Hagen about his suspicions would be a "troublesome" thing to explain.

Unexpectedly, Tom Hagen's reaction was much faster than Wayne had imagined:

"Wayne, you mean to say that you think Reverend Pycelle might be conducting some forbidden experiments, with the ultimate goal of replacing souls and occupying other people's bodies?"

Wayne shook his head repeatedly, "It's not 'I think', I'm just 'guessing' and thinking 'it's possible'."

Tom Hagen spread his hands, indicating that it was "safe to talk" in his office.
But he quickly fell into thought, "If it is Reverend Pycelle, it is really a bit surprising... We have excluded him from the list of suspects several times."

"Do you already suspect someone is doing this?" Wayne asked.

Tom Hagen shook his head:

“It’s not what you said.

"In George Berg, the holy emblem in the parish church was first contaminated, and then the criminals involved were silenced. Someone also transported a so-called 'magic mirror' there, and it almost caused another accident.

"Leaving aside the latter, the former, whether in terms of motivation or implementation, was an act that was clearly malicious."

Wayne silently extracted the key words from those incidents and asked tentatively, "The Church of Light?"

"Ah."

Tom Hagen did not deny it. "Obviously, they have always been there. And it's like an old wound that flares up from time to time."

But Tom Hagen still seemed to find it a little unbelievable:

"The Church of Light is now like a rat in the gutter in America. Apart from secretly 'spreading the plague', it is basically busy continuing its existence and growing stronger... Pycelle is a senior priest. Although he has had many minor problems over the years, he has never had any fundamental problems. I didn't expect that he would now be involved in the affairs of the Church of Light."

Wayne couldn't keep up with his train of thought:

"Wait, weren't the potions I sent over before identified as 'problematic'? Why do you doubt him so much based on this speculation alone?"

"For some things, if you can roughly guess the 'result' that the other party wants, then it will be easy to work backwards."

Tom Hagen said, as if something suddenly occurred to him.
Then a look of contempt appeared on his face, "Oh, coward."

(End of this chapter)