"You mean to say…"
Ida Emean's voice, as clear and pleasant as wind through the trees, rose in pitch — suspicion brimming in every note: "From these five megascope crystals — which are less research material and more like the whining diary of a father trying to 'save' his son — you managed to learn Genetic Mutation Studies?"
"Almost learned it, not fully," Allen quickly corrected himself. "Besides, not long ago, when I broke into one of Rissberg Group's Civil Cooperative Organization's laboratories in Drakenborg, I also found some Genetic Mutation Stu—"
He stopped short.
He suddenly remembered that, although Ida Emean couldn't read his mind because of the divine wall from the Heliotrop Sign, she could still detect lies.
Sure enough—
"That's a lie," Ida Emean sighed softly. "But not entirely. You did go to that hellhole in Drakenborg, and you are indeed close to mastering Genetic Mutation Studies — just not because of Drakenborg…"
"The mind-reading of a Aen Saevherne really is terrifying," Allen remarked noncommittally.
Even with the divine wall blocking her from reading his thoughts, she could still glean so much from stray mental fluctuations.
Ida Emean's abilities were truly unfathomable.
At the same time, he found himself even more curious about her Mind-Befuddling spell.
"Not every Aen Saevherne is good at reading minds. The mind is the most intricate part of any intelligent creature," Ida Emean blinked playfully, clearly pleased by his indirect compliment, and decided to drop the subject of Genetic Mutation Studies.
"Still, 'almost' learning it doesn't seem enough to save Sol."
"A secondary mutation can only enhance a witcher's physical attributes, and as for a 'Legacy Vessel,' I've only ever heard of broken ones — never of anyone repairing one."
"Sol doesn't have much time. Are you sure you can make it?"
"I have to try," Allen said, watching Ida Emean place the megascope crystal back onto the soft, rounded pedestal. "But for the details of the secondary mutation, I'll have to trouble you to dig them out of Tomas Moreau's mind as soon as possible."
"I'll do my best." Ida Emean stood and nodded. "I've already broken through his mental defenses. As soon as his mind recovers, we should have results next week. However…"
She paused, curiosity in her tone.
"Why not try to find Tomas Moreau's child — that Griffin School witcher named Jerome Moreau?"
"I recall the Wolf and Griffin Schools have always had a good relationship. If you simply had Jerome Moreau ask his father to design an experimental plan for Sol, wouldn't that be easier?"
Ida Emean found Allen's rapid progress in Genetic Mutation Studies — and his extraordinary gift for prediction — remarkable.
But starting a subject and mastering it well enough to quickly design an effective experiment were worlds apart.
This had nothing to do with whether someone was a so-called 'Child of Miracles.'
A miracle isn't something that's utterly impossible; it's something so unlikely that no one expects it to succeed — and yet, it does.
Allen becoming a witcher master at such a young age was indeed a miracle. Learning alchemy and so soon creating new oils and potion formulas was also a miracle…
Ida Emean didn't know the exact details of either case, but a witcher who has passed the Trial of the Grasses would have trained with a sword for at least seven years. For one with exceptional talent, killing a large monster with preparation was extremely unlikely — but not impossible.
Alchemy, for all its depth and breadth of required knowledge, could still be advanced through raw talent — or inspiration.
At its core, it could boil down to gathering magical materials, heating, boiling, and infusing them with magic. But only an ancient, primal discipline like alchemy could be driven entirely by talent.
Fields like Constructology and Genetic Mutation Studies were cutting-edge in the mage world and extremely complex.
To go from learning such a subject to designing a dedicated research plan in a short time… from any perspective, it was impossible — probability zero.
Ida Emean believed in the Child of Miracles — but not blindly.
Honestly, she still didn't understand why both Allen and Vera were so confident.
From her interactions with them, neither was the sort to be blinded by a mere title.
"The Griffin School and Wolf School do get along well," Allen said, glancing around and letting his gaze drift casually toward the second-floor staircase. "And Chief had indeed sent inquiries… but Jerome Moreau has long been missing."
He wasn't just making that up to brush her off.
After learning about the secondary mutation from Allen, and then hearing that Tomas Moreau had a Griffin School witcher son, Sol had — not long after Moreau and Makarov's attack on them — found an excuse to send an inquiry to the Griffin School.
Once they learned Jerome Moreau was missing, the matter was dropped.
But in truth, Allen actually did know where Jerome Moreau was.
The location was in Toussaint — in a place many Witcher 3 players referred to as "Mont Crane Castle." At midnight, a portal in the Crane Castle's basement could take one straight there.
In the Blood and Wine DLC of The Witcher 3, the Scavenger Hunt: Grandmaster Griffin Gear quest's central figure was Jerome Moreau — a clear nod to the secondary mutation questline. So Allen remembered it vividly.
Of course, even knowing Jerome Moreau's location, Allen had never considered rescuing him now to exploit father-son bonds to pry open Tomas Moreau's mouth.
Because Tomas Moreau was a madman.
These were still the exact words of his son, Jerome Moreau:
[The paralyzing spell has faded, but the portal is still closed, so I'm still trapped here. Unfortunately, most of my belongings were left behind at Fort Ussar. Without equipment, I have no way to escape.
I think I'll probably die here.
You took my sword, and everything else that could be used as a weapon. I even had to write this letter on the back of a blueprint.
But before I die, I want to tell you one thing — you're insane. You always have been. A cruel and cold-blooded killer. I haven't felt anything for you for a long time, only hatred. I want nothing more to do with you, and I hope that one day you'll pay for your crimes.
Jerome.]
Because he was dissatisfied with his son's identity as a witcher, he lured him over with a contract, then forcibly imprisoned him and carried out various experiments on his own child.
In the end, the experiment failed. Not only did he refuse to release Jerome Moreau, he confiscated all of his weapons and assigned a golem as his jailer, keeping him locked up until he died.
Could such a father really have studied secondary mutations out of love for his child?
How could Tomas Moreau possibly contribute his knowledge to the witcher school he hated most, simply because of something Jerome Moreau said?
It would be far more likely for him to interrogate in secret, and if that failed, kill the man to gamble on obtaining a sorcerer's memories.
As for Jerome Moreau of the Griffin School, Allen would never just stand by and watch him die. Once the matter of the secondary mutation was resolved, he planned to find a chance to return to Toussaint.
If Jerome Moreau was still alive, he would rescue him and make friends with a powerful witcher who had undergone a secondary mutation.
If he was already dead, Allen would deliver the blueprints for the Griffin School grandmaster gear back to the school, strengthening ties with Erland of Larvik, the Griffin School grandmaster, so they could face the Wild Hunt crisis together. But the chances of that were slim.
Though Tomas Moreau was ruthless, Jerome's death was most likely due to Thomas's sudden passing — leaving no one who knew about the place that could only be reached through a portal.
Thus, Jerome Moreau had been left to starve to death.
Of course, in the game, Jerome Moreau's remains were not found in Crane Mountain, so it wasn't certain that he had died of starvation.
That said, Allen really was curious about the world's first witcher to successfully complete a secondary mutation.
If he wasn't worried that rescuing him might disrupt Tomas Moreau's interrogation, he would have already wanted to teleport to Crane Mountain at this moment.
Having a successful example to study would be quite helpful for research into secondary mutations and saving Zoe.
"Miss Ida Emean, help me find Tomas Moreau's experiment records…"
Allen collected his thoughts and deliberately walked toward the staircase leading to the second floor of the laboratory.
"No problem."
Seeing Allen head for the second-floor steps, Ida Emean went toward a bookshelf in the passageway, asking curiously, "So you're saying that after the experiment failed, Tomas Moreau didn't release his son?"
Following the pull of destiny, Allen stepped onto Chief stair and nodded: "According to Griffin School records, Jerome Moreau first disappeared in the winter of 1101."
"That year, all the witchers of the Griffin School returned to Kaer Seren for the winter — except for Jerome Moreau, who was seeking a master blacksmith to forge the grandmaster Griffin gear."
"Because forging the grandmaster Griffin set was extremely difficult, there were few blacksmiths capable and willing to take it on, and it also took a great deal of time. The Griffin School witchers didn't think much of his absence."
"But from that year onward, no one in the Griffin School ever saw him again."
"They didn't send anyone to search for him?" Ida Emean asked curiously.
"We're witchers, Miss Ida Emean," Allen stepped onto the second floor, leaving two clear footprints in the dust-covered floor. "Whether from the Wolf School, the Griffin School, or the Bear School, we never actively search for missing comrades."
This was indeed a shared understanding among witchers.
After the Trial of the Grasses, Vesemir had warned them of this, and he had repeated it again before they descended the mountain.
Witcher schools were loosely organized to begin with, and not every witcher who skipped wintering at their school would send word — after all, not every town or village had carrier pigeons that knew the school's address.
Besides, the sort of contract or location that could cause one witcher to go missing could just as easily cause another to disappear.
It was the school's way of weighing risks and benefits.
Of course, this wasn't a prohibition — just a custom.
If two witchers had a particularly close relationship and one wanted to search, the school wouldn't actually forbid it.
But such cases were rare.
A year or two of being tied up by a contract and not returning for the winter was normal, but by the time three or four years passed with no news and someone finally thought to search, most traces were already gone. Finding them would be nearly impossible.
Not to mention…
Dying on a contract or in a monster hunt was the fate of all witchers.
The elven sorceress paused for a few seconds at his words before softly saying, "If it were you, surely someone would search for you."
Allen didn't respond, as if he hadn't heard her, and continued: "Actually, even if we did find Jerome Moreau, it wouldn't matter."
"From these megascope crystals, it's obvious Tomas Moreau was no ordinary father."
"He no longer regarded the witcher Jerome Moreau as his child."
"And didn't you notice during the interrogation?"
"His hatred for witchers had become almost like a disea—"
Allen's voice cut off abruptly.
Following the thrum of his spirit, the pull of destiny, he reached the end of the second-floor corridor and stood before a wall faintly carved with patterns.
What is this…? He brushed away the dust from the wall.
Ancient runes, a precisely etched circle…
This wasn't decorative — it was a magic circle.
But strangely, the pull of destiny pointed toward the magic circle, yet not at any specific part of it, nor to anything beyond the wall itself.
The sensation was deeply unsettling.
Like running halfway through a marathon, only to suddenly find yourself halted in the middle of a busy street, bewildered.
"What is it, Allen?" Ida Emean emerged from Chief-floor passage holding a blank-covered parchment book. "Did you find Tomas Moreau's experiment records too?"
"No," Allen shook his head, calling back, "There are no experiment records here, but…"
Feeling the strange stirring of fate in his heart, he hesitated for a few seconds before deciding to be honest: "But what's here may be more important than the records."
Before long, Ida Emean came up to the second floor with the parchment book in hand.
"This is a long-distance directional teleportation circle," she identified it at a glance. "Did you see the destination in your prophecy?"
A long-distance directional teleportation circle… Allen's brow furrowed.
In the game, Tomas Moreau's laboratory had no such thing.
Could it lead to Mont Crane Castle, where Jerome Moreau was imprisoned?
It would make sense — Mont Crane Castle was far from here, but all the interim results of the lab's research would need to be used on Jerome.
But then again, wouldn't keeping Jerome here in the lab be more convenient in every way?
"No, I only just discovered this circle," Allen chose his words carefully. "But I have a feeling the place it leads is very important to me."
"You don't know the destination, but you think it's important…" Ida Emean gave him a sidelong glance and frowned. "So you want to go through it and see where this suspicious teleportation circle leads."
It was a statement, not a question.
"That's right," Allen nodded, openly admitting, "I really do want to."
.....
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