Cthulhu Panel: One organ mutates every day

"Didn't your section chief assign you any special traits?" Charlotte asked while flipping through the documents.

"Section Chief? No, not at all." Wayne glanced at Matthew. The section chief said he had made arrangements, but he hadn't seen anything.

Matthew frowned and also indicated that he hadn't seen the section chief make any decisions.

"Oh, that's strange, let me look again."

Charlotte continued explaining to herself:

"Actually, acquiring characteristics is quite simple."

"Under each old sequence, there are multiple characteristics."

"First, it is usually done through mystical rituals to communicate with the past, to ask the past to look upon us, and to receive a certain characteristic bestowed by the past."

"Secondly, after the special properties enter the body, they often come with pollution. You need to rely on your five dimensions, especially the two selected dimensions, to withstand the corresponding pollution and allow the special properties to achieve a stable balance in the body."

"As for which trait you choose is willing to bestow upon you, what strength of trait it is, and what price you will have to pay in the process, it all depends on the will of that ancient being."

"The higher the intensity of the characteristics you receive, the greater the degree of reality deviation you can induce, and the stronger your sixth-dimensional characteristics will be."

"Our Special Affairs Bureau's mysterious rituals are quite standardized. We assess five dimensions and use a wealth of case studies to determine roughly what level of characteristics you can withstand."

"Although the heretics also perform similar mysterious rituals, they do not evaluate them according to the five dimensions. Instead, they completely treat themselves as containers of characteristics. The result is that they cannot withstand the pollution contained in the characteristics and die on the spot."

Wei En listened attentively. She felt that the older sister who had been transferred from headquarters was explaining things quite comprehensively.

The process of receiving characteristics is completely passive and full of uncertainties.

In that case, we should choose those with a high survival rate.

With your own stats, you can slowly develop your character without taking risks to acquire special traits.

The best outcome would be to safely conduct a mysterious ritual, be watched by an ancient being, receive their characteristics, and then successfully achieve a symbiotic balance with the pollution that comes with those characteristics.

My current five-dimensional situation is:

Strength 3, Agility 2, Observation 5, Knowledge 1, Willpower 1.

Now it's a matter of choosing two dimensions from the five dimensions: should we choose the 050 sequence "Agile Observation" or the 053 sequence "Knowledge Observation"?

Both the 050 sequence and the 053 sequence have "observation".

The remaining choice is between "Agile" and "Knowledge".

"Agility" measures the degree of control over the body, and theoretically, one's "breathing" is more suitable for developing in "agility".

However, there is a "Knowledge" item in my panel. Although I haven't added any points yet, I think my development in the "Knowledge" dimension will be very fast in the future.

But isn't there any "power observation"?

My own sport is definitely more suited to developing in the dimension of "strength".

Wayne prepared to search again for the old sequence of "Power Watch".

Matthew asked, "That's strange, haven't we received any new telegrams from headquarters?"

"No, I haven't received any messages about new recruits being promoted to full investigators," Charlotte said.

"That can't be right. I just led him through the messenger's testing process. It was several senior engineers from headquarters who did the testing. The information should have been transmitted to headquarters in time by now," Matthew said, puzzled.

"etc."

Charlotte flipped to a page with information on personnel from the Seventh Department, stared at it for a few seconds, and exclaimed in surprise:

"Wayne Weber, are you the messenger?"

"Yes, I am the messenger. What's wrong, messenger?" Wayne asked.

"The messenger... uh, that's not how the messenger acquires its traits." Charlotte frowned slightly, looking conflicted.

"What is the process for the messenger?" Matthew asked.

"The messenger's acquisition ability requires the successful return of previously received tokens, which means... facing the past head-on." Charlotte's expression was somewhat grim.

Now I know why all my other colleagues are gone...

They must have known all along that a messenger was coming to obtain information about the contamination, and they made up various excuses to run away and avoid it.

Face the past! No one wants to face the past!

They actually dumped this kind of work on me, a newbie transferred from headquarters. It's outrageous!

"Return the keepsake? Confront the past?" The pocket watch and the image of the gray-haired little girl resurfaced in Wayne's mind.

Of course, that may not be His true appearance.

Matthew was also a little embarrassed, not expecting that the messenger's process would not require any mysterious rituals, but rather to confront the past.

"However, your information has already been filed, and the token is kept by headquarters, so you don't need to bring it. Our Second Section will assist you. I'll coordinate with the Second Section at headquarters."

Charlotte walked to another corner of the office, picked up her codebook, and began using encrypted telegrams.

The Second Section was a secret security section, not under the jurisdiction of the branch bureau. The Second Sections in each city were subordinate to the headquarters.

As for what secrets the Second Division was protecting, Wayne didn't know yet, and could only guess that the Second Division's work was directly related to the Great Old Ones.

A moment later, Charlotte stopped the telegram communication, turned around and instructed:

"Regarding your acquisition of special features, the bureau is already processing the relevant procedures, and I happen to be the person in charge. I will take you there."

"Still under review? Why is it taking so long?" Wayne asked, puzzled.

Charlotte spoke calmly, but became very professional when talking about work:

"Here's the thing, our Second Division isn't under the jurisdiction of any branch of the Special Bureau; we're directly under headquarters. Regarding confronting the past, we need to coordinate with the colleague from the Second Division who was with that past person. It's a cross-city collaboration, and we're already in contact with the Second Division colleagues in the metropolis."

"Metropolis? That...is she in Metropolis?" Wayne hesitated. He remembered that the original owner had met that little girl at a corporate banquet in Metropolis.

"Yes, she's here. We can prepare to leave. Before we arrive in the metropolis, the relevant matters there should be approved. We can just wait for news on the road." Charlotte returned to her desk and handed the rating book back to Wayne.

"Huh? Leaving so soon?" Wayne really didn't expect this new female colleague to be so decisive.

"I hate procrastination. I'll contact someone now and buy the earliest train ticket to the Metropolis this afternoon as soon as possible." Charlotte had already made it clear that she was in charge of this mission, and she stopped complaining about her colleagues in the Second Section avoiding and running away. She just wanted to do her job and complete the mission responsibly.

Wayne was genuinely puzzled: "But...but, if we're going to confront the past, don't we need to prepare anything? Are we just going to set off like this?"

Charlotte glanced at Wayne and rolled her eyes expressionlessly:

"So what methods do you think we should prepare that will be useful when facing the past?"

That makes sense; it seems like preparing anything is pointless.

"Fine," Wayne said helplessly.

Charlotte twirled the codebook between her fingers:

"Don't worry, our Second Division is very experienced. You're not the first messenger to acquire special abilities. Normally, when messengers confront the Old Ones and acquire special abilities, there have been no cases of death. Of course, the specifics depend entirely on the mood of that Old One... that is, that important figure."

"Understood." Wayne turned to look at Matthew.

Matthew sighed, "Since the Second Division is accompanying us, it's not convenient for me to follow. Be careful."

Charlotte tilted her head, her fingertips twirling her blonde hair:

"We're leaving this afternoon, and we might not be back until tomorrow. If you have any work to finish, do it quickly."