The North American Gourmet Demon Handbook

He looked so annoying that Kate had to resist the urge to kick his stool away.

"What have you done to little Jimmy?" Miss Crestol couldn't help asking.

Seeing that Miss Crestow was willing to communicate, Kate began to comfort her, "Don't worry, Ms. Crestow, we've put him in a safe place."

"You're a Grand Knight of the Catholic Church, right? I don't think the Catholic Church is a safe place for underage little Jimmy!"

It was obvious that Miss Crestow did not appreciate it at all.

"you!"

Kate gritted her teeth, but couldn't refute. She was so angry that she almost slammed the table and stood up.

Li Shanze suppressed a smile and said, "Don't worry, little Jimmy is in this building, protected by my fellow witches."

"Besides, I'm an atheist. I promise you, as long as you cooperate with us, little Jimmy won't be harmed."

"All right," Miss Crestow sighed, "but you have to promise not to tell little Jimmy anything I reveal, or I won't say a word."

"In fact, Deron McGee believed that West Loken—whose real name I now know is Robert Stroman—was a corporate spy."

This answer was beyond Li Shanze's expectations. He couldn't help but sit up straight and look at Kate.

"Commercial espionage?" Li Shanze asked.

"Yes, corporate espionage."

Once she started talking, Olivia Crestol became talkative.

"I'm sure you've already figured it out. Eternal Life Technology is ostensibly a high-tech company with branches across the United States. In reality, the core personnel of this high-tech company form a loose group of wizards from various schools of thought."

"We, the Brotherhood of the Dead, or rather, Dillon McGee, control the Philadelphia branch."

According to Olivia Crestol, Eternal Life Technology has many different branches, and these branches across the United States encompass all nine major schools of wizards.

But they have only one ultimate goal, and this goal is as obvious as the name of this group - immortality.

And we have made considerable progress in the pursuit of eternal life.

Li Shanze was speechless for a moment.

The pursuit of immortality seems to be the eternal proposition of human beings, a short-lived species.

The column of immortal smoke rising from the elixir furnace has not yet awakened the fairy Chang'e who regrets stealing the elixir, but the epic on the banks of the Euphrates River has already tried to knock on the bronze door of the underworld.

Ying Zheng's bronze chariot was still searching for the Penglai mirage in the East China Sea, and he urgently ordered Xu Fu to take five hundred boys and girls and brave the waves to go away.

Gilgamesh's sword was already pointing at the deep-sea magic grass that was about to be stolen by the snake, in vain letting the blood of the gods dye the morning star of the Mesopotamian plain red.

Taoists in the East depicted the moment of intercourse between Kan and Li in the "Zhouyi Cantongqi", while Faust in the West was rewriting the "Gospel of John" with a quill pen dipped in Mephistopheles' ink.

The fire dragon raised by Emperor Jiajing in the Forbidden City swallowed the 49th drop of virgin blood, and Alexander's expeditionary force aimed at the legendary fountain of life in India.

The tortoise shells of the East and the parchment of the West both record the tireless pursuit of eternity and the impatient betrayal of the moment.

But in Li Shanze's view, the so-called eternal life is just an absurd dream.

The rise and fall of the Nile River never stops for mummies, and the mud and sand of the East China Sea carry with them the rotten bones of those seeking immortality.

The Olympian flame will go out, the cranes in Kunlun's Yuxu Palace will molt, but only the tender grass that springs after dead trees pierces the cage of the earth year after year.

Those who pursue immortality will eventually become the amber of time, and those who fear death will be crowned by the years.

Therefore, even though he had lived two lives as a human, Li Shanze not only did not show any greed or covetousness for eternal life, but instead showed a mocking smile.

"So, you think Robert Stroman is a corporate spy who infiltrated Eternal Life Technology and stole the secret of immortality?"

For some reason, when Olivia Crest saw Li Shanze's mocking smile, she felt an extremely strong anger in her heart.

It was as if her lifelong pursuit had been completely trampled upon and denied by the man before her.

Brotherhood of Time, as wizards of the School of Time, isn't it natural for them to pursue eternity?

"Yes, that's right. Mr. Dillon McKee thinks so too." So Miss Crestow replied, suppressing her anger.

The cunning old gentleman flashed through Li Shanze's mind.

"You mean, Dillon McGee knew that Robert Stroman had infiltrated Eternal Life Technology under an alias and tried to steal the secret of immortality, but he still entrusted Robert Stroman with the important task?" Li Shanze asked.

"Yes, Mr. McKee wants to find out who is behind him and wants to mislead his employer with false information."

"So Dillon McKee found you, asked you to approach him and mislead him?"

"Yes."

"When did you discover that he was a corporate spy—or, more accurately, a witchcraft spy?"

"As soon as he entered the company, he was discovered by Mr. Dillon McKee. Then Mr. McKee found me and asked me to pretend to be the chief researcher of Eternal Life Technology. About three months later, he began to seduce and flirt with me."

Li Shanze found it hard to imagine what it was like to flirt with that burly, bald man who looked like Agent 47.

He also didn't know how this woman, who dressed fashionably, looked young and beautiful but actually had a son, dealt with this flirting.

Considering that the two people had their own ulterior motives towards each other, Li Shanze judged that the progress between them should be very smooth, perhaps they could be said to be birds of a feather.

Li Shanze was speechless.

Kate interrupted at the right moment: "Allow me to ask one more question. After nearly two years of dating, do you still have feelings for each other?"

"How he treats me? I don't know, I can't see any flaws. How I treat him? Not at all, but I believe he can't see any flaws either. We are fully committed even in bed. I have to say, at least I enjoy his strong body very much."

Olivia Crestow said with a smile, and even licked the bloody corner of her mouth.

"Fiancé and fiancée, ha." Li Shanze laughed and shook his head.

Kate clenched her fists, trying to suppress the urge to punch the woman in front of her.

140 Internal Factions of Eternal Life Technology

Kate's anger was not concealed at all, which surprised Li Shanze.

Aren't all of you serious FBI agents trained in interrogation?

Isn't it basic training to control your emotions during interrogation and take advantage of the situation to provoke the other party and make them speak out of turn?

Could it be that this great knight still has a longing for love?

Or was she just taking out her anger on what had happened to her in the past two days?

Many thoughts flashed through Li Shanze's mind.

But now is obviously not a good time to comfort this knight slave girl.

Therefore, Li Shanze chose to shift the topic back to the main topic.

"Who sent Robert Stroman as a corporate spy?"

"No, not sure yet." Olivia Crestow shook her head.

This answer is quite unexpected.

Kate slammed the table in dissatisfaction and stood up. "Not sure? You've spent two years and still haven't figured out which company sent him as a corporate spy?"

"Yeah, not sure. Because Lorcan—I mean Robert Stroman—his memory was tampered with."

A self-deprecating smile played on Miss Crestow's lips.

"Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to figure out that his true identity was Robert Stroman."

As long as Li Shanze recalled the scene of dealing with the half-conscious bald wizard that night, he would clearly know that there was indeed a big problem with the bald wizard's memory.

Li Shanze was not too surprised by this.

But he still asked: "Oh? Why can't you find out his true identity? Don't you wizards have countless methods?"

Miss Crestow shook her head helplessly. "Because he himself doesn't know his true identity at work, when he's with me from Monday to Friday - how could I possibly find out?"

Li Shanze and Kate looked at each other.

Then the two of them took turns, asking questions indirectly, and with the circumstantial evidence from the FBI's investigation into immortality technology, they finally confirmed that what Olivia Crestow said was true.

Neither she nor Deron McGee knew that the bald wizard's true identity was Robert Stroman.

Although they found out that West Loken's identity was fake and was bought from the black market in New York.

But the investigation could only go so far, and no further clues could be found - because the person who sold the fake IDs had long disappeared, and even Dillon McGee could not find any clues even if he used the prophecy.

But a new question arises: why was the puppet undercover planted by Eternal Life Technology in the Philadelphia Police Department able to call Robert Stroman's real wife?

Li Shanze quickly wrote this line of question on the paper.

As the tip of the gel pen rubbed against the paper, Olivia Crestow laughed at herself again.

"Every time I try to use the prophecy spell to examine West Loken's memory, I can't help but suspect that he is actually an undercover agent from another branch of Eternal Life Technology."

Li Shanze paused. "Oh? Why do you say that?"

"Because this is very similar to the method of immortality technology."

"The method of immortality technology?" Kate said seriously, "Does it mean memory manipulation?"

"Well, sort of. We wizards have always believed that the world is composed of two elements: matter and consciousness. So, naturally, when studying immortality, we approach it from these two different perspectives... There are also serious disagreements within the group due to the different emphases..."

Under the guidance of the dualism of matter and consciousness, the wizards of immortality technology have divided their understanding of immortality into two camps - the material fundamentalists and the consciousness immortality faction.

Material fundamentalists believe that consciousness is a by-product of the sophisticated operation of matter, and that immortality must be achieved through infinite upgrades of physical carriers.

Therefore, material fundamentalists tend to be more inclined to physical modification, including genetic modification and adjustment, and the research of mechanical prostheses.

The school of eternal consciousness argues that consciousness is an independent entity that can be freed from the constraints of matter through digitalization, psychic possession, etc.

The school of eternal consciousness is more inclined towards the preservation of consciousness, including cloud-based consciousness, memory uploading and preservation, witchcraft possession, collective consciousness network, etc.

The wizards of Eternal Life Technology come from nine major schools, but what’s interesting is that almost every school has wizards standing in two different factions.

Li Shanze shook his head when he heard this.

Although wizards all advocate dualism, even within dualism there is a distinction between the primary and the secondary.

It seems that wizard factions can be infinitely subdivided...

The performance of the bald wizard Robert Stroman does look a lot like memory manipulation.

And the puppet that made the phone call to report the news seemed more like a consciousness implant.

Both of these are indeed consistent with the research results of the school of eternal consciousness.

Based on the simple common sense lesson that Dillon McKee had given him before, Li Shanze could also judge that Mr. McKee was certainly a materialistic fundamentalist.

“The world is not absolutely materialistic. Matter and consciousness are two different entities. Although consciousness still depends on the intellect to exist, it can also act on matter.”

This is the preface to Dillon McKee's Lessons in Witchcraft.

Therefore, it is not difficult to judge that Dillon McKee still tends to believe that the body is the basis of consciousness.

"So, you and Mr. Dillon McGee both belong to material fundamentalism, right?" Li Shanze confirmed casually.

However, Miss Crestow gave a negative answer.

"Uh, no, those are just the two main factions. We, the Brotherhood of Time, actually have another approach..."

Amidst the stunned gazes of Li Shanze and Kate, Miss Crestol told the story.

The advanced and fashionable financial capitalist time wizard unfolded a bizarre blueprint - the time bank - in front of the inexperienced socialist bumpkins from another world and the conservative and backward Catholic feudal knights.

“Time is capital, causality is compound interest. Existence is debt, the future is mortgage.”

The business scope of time banking includes time storage, time lending, time hedging, and a large number of time financial derivatives.

The basic unit of time is seconds, so it becomes the basic unit of time bank transactions.

Every 3600 seconds is packaged into a share - to be precise, it is called a time share, which is listed on the Time Exchange and represents 1 hour of someone's life.

Time savings - deposit extra time and earn compound interest.

Time lending – mortgaging future time in exchange for current resources.

Time hedging – hedging against the “inflation” risk of lifespan.

Moreover, the "time value" of each person is different in evaluation.

With reference to time lending, those who can control and master more resources can obtain more resources by mortgaging future time.

This means there is an exchange rate difference.

Although every hour can actually add or subtract one hour of life.