Chapter 375: Polarization

It is no longer here, but it is not without trace.

Nothing ever leaves absolutely no trace—not even the North Sea monster people reach out to grab from the fishing hole each winter, which still leaves behind a mountain of terrifying legends for mothers to scare children with.

As long as you patiently follow a certain line of thought, you will always find hints that seem plausible but are ambiguous.

The problem is, each of them can be interpreted from multiple angles.

The empty bench was simply forgotten and left behind; the strange scratches came from certain fish’s dorsal fins; even the disordered handprints could be explained as struggles from a fall into the water.

A sea monster may exist—but it is more reasonable that it does not; after thorough investigation, the simplest, most logical conclusion you can reach is this.

Or perhaps, the greatest mercy.

If one truly believed a creature with a body longer than mountain ranges and tentacles more numerous than forest trees lurked along the coastline, that fear would drive one into constant dread, turning them into an irrational water-phobic lunatic in others’ eyes.

What Kraft read was more or less this.

Every region must have its own “sea monster”: on the coast, a giant squid with a tangle of tentacles; in the countryside, a half-real, half-imagined scarecrow in the wheat fields; in castles, a vampire that hides by day and prowls by night.

By extension, in mountainous regions, it is simply a predator lurking deep within the clouds and mist—entirely normal.

For dozens, hundreds, or even longer, human imagination has always shaped fear into a concrete image and passed it down.

Legends often become refined and standardized: are the tentacles like an octopus or a squid? Is the straw fresh or dried? Does it prefer the blood of boys or girls?

Even elaborate countermeasures are devised, teaching people how to avoid harm through various methods.

In short, they have gradually transformed from nameless dread into something… akin to safety rules.

Thus, something that has been whispered for countless generations yet still lacks any concrete form stands out sharply.

It has no defining characteristics—what is known is merely that it is high up, invisible under normal circumstances.

Even when the same pronoun appears in two consecutive passages, it may not immediately be linked together.

Narrators rarely make explicit references, deliberately or inadvertently creating ambiguity—as if they never considered this approach might cause confusion.

Yet strangely, the more you read, the easier it becomes to find it within the text.

Sometimes, opening an entirely unrelated book, you instinctively sense a passage relates to it—even when the narrative perspective and language style differ completely—and you cannot afford to overlook it.

You feel you understand it better, though you have encountered no new information—only witnessed its presence through another’s narrative lens.

If one possessed extraordinary memory and could instantly retrieve and compare every passage read, this strange sensation would become even more pronounced.

On the boundless ocean, isn’t it strange that you keep catching glimpses of familiar wave patterns without even trying?

Thus, it is natural to become intrigued.

Human nature is such: if something draws attention, one tries to understand it—just as the eye automatically adjusts focus when vision blurs, sharpening the image on the retina—something etched into our genes.

They revisit what they have read, attempting to form a concrete concept, and then…

They gain nothing.

Of course, even if intuitively familiar, how could one form any concept from text offering no concrete description?

So they trace its origins through local folklore and primitive beliefs—but the results remain unchanged.

The information obtained is either chaotic or vague; most research ends here.

But some individuals—the particularly sharp ones—feel their reading has changed. Certain phrases sound like poetry, laden with the depth of scripture, yet upon reflection, they cannot be reproduced.

The elusive sensation drives them to obsession and agitation, like viewing through a thin veil: outlines grow clearer, yet the true form remains unseen.

At this point, they may unconsciously eliminate distractions and isolate themselves to better capture fleeting insights.

Psychologically, the sudden “understanding” of difficult information after intense contemplation produces a moment of epiphany—a pleasure that pushes consciousness further into a pathological flow state.

Simultaneously, consciousness becomes hypersensitive to certain words and phrases; even when they appear in completely unrelated passages, they still evoke a distinct feeling during reading.

It is as if, through a thin veil, one has brushed against the scales and fragments of something behind—motionless, yet responding with a faint, almost imperceptible recoil, as if curled inward; the perception judges before thought can: this is no longer ink and paper, but the living skin of something real, hidden beneath the surface.

“A gradual infiltration of altered cognition? Interesting.”

Kraft reviewed his reading results from the past few days, including the special terms he had isolated: “vortex,” “cloud layer,” “high altitude,” “scale,” and others.

His guess was correct—he had indeed sensed previously invisible, hazy phenomena, incomplete, merely outlining a fragmented thread that lured consciousness deeper.

Dominic’s tipping point was likely here: unable to perceive the anomaly in his cognition, he slid helplessly into a vicious cycle.

But here two divergences arise: does the thing hinted at truly exist—or is it merely an illusory bait, luring prey to the hook?

If the latter, there is no need to proceed further; with the current understanding of its mechanisms and typical symptoms, some level of prevention is already possible.

If the former, the matter is entirely different. It implies this thing is merely one small component within a larger system.

Kraft leans toward the former.

What he sensed clearly did not arise from pure fiction, but emerged through specific cognitive filters.

Like putting on polarized sunglasses and seeing what was previously invisible.

The glasses did not instantly alter the world—they merely revealed what was always there but undetectable, now made visible through a specialized cognitive filter.

Perception itself is a subjective structure shaped by the brain’s filtering; this merely adjusted the filter slightly.

Perhaps it should be called “cognitive polarization”?

And this pattern—of beginning to perceive something special after encountering a certain trigger—feels too familiar to be a first encounter; it feels more like a reunion.

He must investigate further, see what lingers above the mountains—or he will never find peace.

Yet progress has stalled; cognition cannot deepen further. He now feels himself spinning in place, shut out. Clearly, it operates selectively—unless one is sufficiently permeated, the core remains forever inaccessible.

Kraft feels he needs something to help break through this barrier.

Perhaps a new way of thinking, perhaps a crucial piece of information, or even a tangible object.

“Looks like I’ll have to send Kup on another long journey—and make Lei Mengde suffer a bit more.”