Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 470 - 85: Mind Plague

Chapter 470: Chapter 85: Mind Plague

"Diophano?" The Dragon of Imagination couldn’t help but ponder.

"Yes," Medea said, "That’s what I saw in my memories, at least."

"I suspect Diophano was just one of the infection’s transit stations," the Dragon of Imagination said, "since the Queen was just an ordinary person without any Extraordinary Power."

"Moreover, considering the timeline, it was the low period of the Magic Tide a few years ago, and the Level Limit was only 5," Aske added, "This sort of long-term infection model, from A to B, then from B to C, is certainly not achievable by low-level Ability."

"But if that’s the case..." The Dragon of Imagination looked at Aske, and Medea’s pupils also constricted slightly.

A certain terrifying feeling gradually began to rise from the hearts of the three of them.

The last peak of the Magic Tide was about four hundred years ago. That means, the mastermind’s scheming...

Had it started hundreds of years ago?

"That’s just absurd," the Dragon of Imagination flatly denied. "Hundreds of years ago... that was the era of the Charlemagne Dynasty! Was the mastermind already able to predict that hundreds of years later, the Saxony Dynasty would have an Emperor Otto and use Ability to scheme against him?"

"What if the scheming didn’t start with the last Magic Tide, then is there a way to freely use Ability beyond the restrictions of the Magic Tide?" Medea tried to reverse her thinking.

"If there really is such a method, the mastermind wouldn’t need to adopt such a hidden approach," the Dragon of Imagination said coldly. "With this method, it could easily have recruited enough disgruntled Demigods during the lows of the past Magic Tide, and there would have been no power in the world to stop it."

Medea was at a loss for words. Clearly, international politics were generally Stable during the low period of the Magic Tide because Demigods were constrained by the Magic Tide from taking action.

If there really was such a method that broke the constraints of the Magic Tide on Demigods, the world would have been in chaos long ago.

"I’m more inclined to believe it’s long-term scheming," Aske proposed another possibility, "Your Excellency the Dragon of Imagination, have you heard of a category of Law related to ’prophecy’?"

"Are you referring to ’Fate’?" the Dragon of Imagination asked in surprise. "But such Laws usually predict only very limited fragments of the future, and besides, the future isn’t immutable. The act of observation itself is a disturbance, and upon foreseeing the future through the Fate Law, the future has already changed once the foreshadowing occurs."

"Don’t forget about the butterfly effect," Medea also disagreed with the notion, "The flap of a butterfly’s wings in the North Continent may cause a Storm in the South Continent. Even slight changes over hundreds of years could cause significant alterations to the future hundreds of years later."

"Simple foreknowledge definitely can’t facilitate advance scheming, but what if the situation is more complex?" Aske sighed. "Let me give you an example."

"Let’s say someone claims to be able to predict the outcome of a sports match, and lists all possible outcomes, dividing them into three categories: win, lose, draw, and sends them to three separate groups of users."

"If the result is a draw, he finds the group to whom he sent the draw prediction, divides them again into three subgroups, and sends them predictions for the next match. As users continue to be culled, there will always be some who are left, for whom his predictions are never wrong."

"Are you saying... Oh! I understand now!" Medea exclaimed, clapping her hands.

"What do you mean?" The Dragon of Imagination, Bruno, was still not catching on.

"Your Excellency, suppose now I am a mastermind from hundreds of years ago," Medea said excitedly, evidently admiring this Conspiracy, "Through Laws like Fate, I predict that as national power grows, the Frank Empire is bound to conflict with the leading Church Court on the continent, but I can’t predict when, or in what form, the conflict will come."

"So, I pick out a great number of Frank Nobles from that era and infect their Minds with the idea of becoming enemies with the Church Court, using a Hidden method."

"Of course, in this era, the Frank Empire is no match for the Church Court, so even though people harbor these thoughts, they wouldn’t rashly advocate for war in real life."

"But as a Mind Plague, this thought would spread at a certain time, transmitting to healthy individuals around the infected."

"As time goes on, most of these Nobles would have fallen, while a few still active in the higher strata of the Empire infect fresh and healthy Nobles with these thoughts."

"Thus, like a virus, the idea takes deep root in the higher echelons of the Frank Empire, and no matter how governments change, as long as the top ranks don’t completely refresh, there will always be some infected Nobles from the old days remaining to spread these thoughts anew."

"Until one era, the Empire begins to possess enough strength to oppose the Church Court, and this virus is then activated and breaks out, prompting the ruling upper class to lean more towards becoming enemies with the Church Court, eventually leading to intense conflicts and opposition."

Listening to Medea’s conjecture, Aske suddenly remembered a certain disease called "hepatitis B," where the virus integrates its genetic material into human liver cells and produces new viruses continuously to infect more healthy individuals. Relying on this mode of transmission, the hepatitis B virus on Earth has survived for at least several thousand years.

Perhaps the Mind Plague is akin to a variant of a biological virus. It is Hidden and hard to detect, with an extremely long incubation period, non-lethal (the patients may never become aware throughout their lives), and has strong contagious capacity, which would make its continuation over centuries plausible.

"This is indeed..." The Dragon of Imagination was at a loss for words for a moment. Lacking medical research and understanding of the mechanisms of biological virus transmission, merely from listening to Medea’s description, an inconceivable feeling arose.

"If it spreads as you say, then this Mind Plague is most likely to be transmitted randomly," the Dragon of Imagination calmed himself and analyzed after a moment. "Because the mastermind can’t predict the future path. Moreover, if Transcendents from the Mind Sequence happen to encounter the infection, they should notice it."

"But in the circle of Mind Transcendents, I’ve never heard any rumors of such a Mind Plague."

"Uhm," Medea also felt something was amiss, as random transmission seemed too uncontrollable to remain undetected for centuries; it wasn’t a very convincing explanation.

"Maybe we have heard of it," Aske suddenly said. "Otherwise, how would the Enchanting Demon Queen know about it?"

"Let’s do this," the Dragon of Imagination decided in the end, "The above is just our speculation, and currently, there’s no evidence to speak of."

"I will investigate further regarding Theophano the Queen. As for the source of the Enchanting Demon Queen’s information, I leave it to you to confirm."