Chapter 91: The Four Powers

After entering the school, Adam immediately began to familiarize himself with its environment. If they were to be attacked, the place that they were in right now would be projected in the psychic world, so this would be the battlefield if a battle were to arise.

In contrast with Adam, Shae's attention was focused elsewhere.

"You just mentioned that the people from the congresses and the Psychic Church have already arrived, right?"

"That's right, they already arrived a few hours ago, and they notified us that the pawn shop would be sending people here as well."

"Why are we so late?" Shae asked as she turned to Adam for an answer.

After all, out of their team of four, he was the only one who actually belonged to the pawn shop.

"I don't know, either." Adam had no idea exactly how May had planned everything, so he could only take a guess. "If you ask me, the pawn shop is only here to help, so we're only here to provide assistance."

Shae considered this explanation for a moment and decided that it made sense.

The congresses represented the government, and the government had a duty to capture these psychic mutants responsible for terrorist attacks, so they had an obligation to participate in this operation.

As for the Psychic Church, that was also a semi-official organization. Most importantly, Carlin Asylum was being managed by Li Peng, one of the Psychic Church's bishops. Hence, they were one of the main liable parties for this psychic mutant outbreak, and they also had an obligation to clean up the mess that they had caused.

.

However, the pawn shop was different. It was a solely privately owned for profit organization, and even though it had a collaborative relationship with Mechguard for the purpose of further development, at the end of the day, it had no direction obligation to participate in this operation and was only here to provide assistance.

"No wonder May kept telling us to avoid risk as much as possible," Shae murmured.

"Avoiding risk is the way to go. What could a ragtag team of noobs like us possibly do anyway?" Hook mused.

"If we're not going to take any risks, then there's no point for me to be here!" Nie Yiyi objected.

"Quit bickering! The battle hasn't even begun yet, and we're already fighting among ourselves. All of us have our own objectives, so we just have to focus on being ourselves."

As the group was quarreling with one another, they were led by the security guards into a large building that served as both a school building and an office area.

They rode the elevator to the top floor, arriving in a large room that could've been a conference hall or the principal's office, and there were already around a dozen people gathered in the room.

After bringing Adam and the others into the room, the two security guards turned to a white-haired old man and reported, "Principal, these people are from the Fairness Pawn Shop. We've already verified their identities."

"Welcome! Please come in." The principal made his way toward Adam and the others, and he could see that Adam was walking at the very center of the group, so he immediately approached Adam to shake his hand. "I am the principal of Mirror Lake Primary School, my name is Zhou Tan."

"Hi, my name is Adam, and these are my colleagues."

Adam only took a quick glance at Zhou Tan before shifting his attention to everyone else in the room.

There really wasn't much to observe in the principal of a primary school. He was a gentle and refined man who appeared to be around 60 years of age, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses that had been popular the previous century. Even if he were doing nothing but walking on the street, going about his daily activities, one could easily pick him out as a principal.

Hence, Adam placed most of his attention on the other people present.

There were several people standing behind the principal, presumably also administrators of the school, so they could also be ignored.

In addition to them, there were two groups of people standing in the room, and there was a clear divide between them, much like a layer of oil sitting on a body of water.

The people in the group that was closest to Adam were all wearing signature robes of the Psychic Church. These robes were given to members of the Psychic Church upon entry into the organization, and there were no rules stipulating that the robes had to be worn, but it was considered customary for members of the Psychic Church to wear these robes in official settings in order to display their allegiance.

There were a total of seven people from the Psychic Church present. As the largest adapter organization in the world, the Psychic Church naturally possessed a huge number of members, so it was no surprise that they had sent far more people than the pawn shop.

However, Adam could sense that these seven adapters weren't all that powerful. This feeling stemmed from his telegnosis. Telegnosis was an amalgamation of all one's senses, and those with powerful telegnosis were capable of sensing danger.

Danger presented itself as a sense of pressure, and the more pressure that one sensed from another person, the more powerful that person was going to be.

As for the other group, that one only consisted of two people, but they were clearly far more formidable.

Those two were from the congresses, and even though they were standing together, both of them were exuding a very clear sense of mutual animosity, and it was as if there were an insurmountable gulf standing between them.

Furthermore, the two of them were also displaying completely different attitudes toward Adam.

After Adam's brief chat with Zhou Tan, the first to approach him was one of the congress representatives, and he was very warm and friendly toward Adam.

"Hello Adam, Cowboy's told me a lot about you."

It seemed like this was nothing more than a standard greeting, but it told Adam everything that he needed to hear.

There were three pieces of information presented in that simple greeting: the man was clearly on very good terms with Cowboy, which indicated that he was from the northern congress resistance army, and the fact that he had heard about Adam meant that he was an ally.

"Hello!" Adam was more than happy to reciprocate the friendliness displayed to him. "These are schoolmates of mine from Layton Academy, and we're all very close friends."

"Layton Academy?" the representatives from the Psychic Church interjected, and they were looking down on Adam and his group with haughty expressions as if they were masters looking down on trainees. "What is the pawn shop thinking sending a bunch of schoolkids to a mission like this? If we get attacked, will we have to babysit you along with all of the children here? This is ridiculous!"

"You wanna say that again?"

In the face of such blatant mockery, Shae's signature fiery temper immediately flared up.

She had reined in her temper during the gathering as she had to secure the trust of the shareholders, and in addition to that, Masao Yamamoto was far too powerful to directly oppose, so even if she had given in to her temper, it wouldn't have done her any good.

However, someone like her could rein in her temper once, but that didn't mean that she could do it every time, and she immediately snapped here, with her anger fueled by the indignation that she had suffered last time.

"I may only be a student, but I've heard that only talentless adapters turn to the Psychic Church for employment. You get a stable income and a strong backer by working for the Psychic Church, but at the end of the day, you're just a bunch of lapdogs with no freedom."

"What did you just say? Are you looking down on the Psychic Church?"

A middle-aged woman from the Psychic Church immediately stepped forward with a combative expression.

"No no no, I'm not looking down on the Psychic Church. Otherwise, I wouldn't be going to Layton Academy," Shae replied with a shrug, but as soon as the tense atmosphere was defused slightly, she added, "I'm just looking down on you. The Psychic Church is a very powerful organization, but even the most illustrious organizations will inevitably have some scum among their ranks, isn't that right?"

Shae turned to the rest of her group as she spoke.

"Why are you dragging us down with you?" Hook sighed with a resigned expression. "I don't want to make an enemy out of the Psychic Church."

"The battle hasn't even begun yet, and you're already fighting among yourselves." The representative of the southern congress finally spoke up, and she took a glance at the two quarreling parties before changing the subject. "Now that the representatives of the pawn shop have arrived, let me explain our plan to all of you again. We just communicated with the principal earlier, and we decided that if we get attacked, we'll immediately raise the alarm. Once the students hear the alarm, they'll think that a fire drill is taking place, and that'll give us a reason to evacuate them to the Mirror Lake."

"Hold on, if we get attacked, wouldn't we already be in the psychic world? Are there fire alarms in the psychic world as well?"