Chapter 765: Chapter 640: The Lecture and Its Purpose

The Wudu Exhibition Center is located on the west side of the city’s central axis, a sprawling Baroque-style building.

Four Corinthian columns are embedded in the off-white marble facade, with the carved acanthus leaves on their capitals turning a dingy yellow in the permanent haze.

Above the main entrance hangs the emblem of the Spirit Communicator Association, an eye opened in the palm of a hand, overseeing everyone who enters under the gray-white sky.

Jeming followed the crowd into the main hall of the exhibition center.

He dressed very humbly today; his dark gray coat was washed to a faded color, and the heels of his boots were somewhat worn, forming a sharp contrast with the well-dressed gentlemen and ladies around.

In this city, the public lectures by the Spirit Communicator Association are open to everyone, and the lectures are completely free.

It sounds like it should be suitable for those without much money.

But the reality is that the exhibition center is located in the heart of a wealthy district, and the cost of simply taking public transportation to the wealthy district where the exhibition center is would not be something ordinary citizens are willing to bear.

On the contrary, the wealthy can arrive leisurely, either by private car or a stroll under the guise of walking.

What’s more, the lectures are held on regular workdays, making it almost impossible for civilians to risk losing their jobs to attend a basic lecture.

So those who can truly attend these lectures are those with some assets.

At the end of the main hall was a double oak door, leading to a tiered lecture hall that could accommodate hundreds of people.

The seats were covered in deep red velvet, with folding writing boards on the armrests.

At the front of the lecture hall was a wide podium, and behind it hung a large black slate used for writing and illustrating.

Jeming sat down at a seat near the edge of the third-to-last row. The view wasn’t great, but it was close to the exit for easy departure.

Gradually, more people filled the lecture hall.

By the time the lecture officially started, the entire hall was almost full.

Jeming roughly estimated that there were about four to five hundred people.

Among them, there were well-dressed middle-class individuals, young people looking like students with notebooks, but not a single person dressed as humbly as he was among the low-class residents.

A middle-aged man dressed in a dark blue uniform walked up to the podium. His left chest bore the emblem of the Spirit Communicator Association, and the collar had three gold stripes.

According to the information Jeming recently gathered, that indicated the "senior lecturer" level.

"Good morning, everyone." The middle-aged man’s voice was not loud, but it spread to every corner through the hall’s amplification system, "Welcome to this public lecture on eerie defense knowledge. I am Vito Rain, a specially appointed lecturer by the association, here to explain today’s session."

He turned around and wrote a few words on the blackboard; the chalk made a crisp sound.

"The basic characteristics and evolution patterns of anomalies."

Jeming leaned back in his seat, his posture somewhat relaxed.

He attended this lecture more out of coincidence than real interest, but when Vito Rain spoke the first sentence, he sat up straight.

"Firstly, I want everyone to note a phenomenon." Vito pointed to the first line on the blackboard, "Anomalies of the same type will change their form as the era develops."

The lecture hall quieted down.

"I’ll give an example." Vito turned to face the audience, "The ghost ship phenomenon. Has anyone heard of it?"

A few people in the audience raised their hands.

"The ghost ship is a very ancient type of anomaly, with the earliest written records tracing back twelve hundred years. In those old records, what did the ghost ship look like? Wooden sailing ships. The hull was decaying, the sails tattered, and the ship covered with barnacles and seaweed. It appeared on the ocean surface, luring nearby vessels to approach, then dragged those ships along with their crew into the deep sea."

Vito drew a simple outline of a sailboat on the blackboard.

"Then, three hundred years ago, the image of ghost ships changed in the records. Wooden sailing ships began to decrease, replaced by a new vessel type: steamships with metal hulls. The body was rusted, black smoke puffed from the chimney, but that smoke had no warmth."

He drew a simplified outline of a steamship beside the sailboat.

"And in modern times, in records from the recent fifty years, the image of ghost ships changed once again. Steamships have decreased, and began to appear..."

He paused and wrote a few words on the blackboard.

"Metal cruise ships. Large, modern luxury cruise ships. Brightly lit, but the lights don’t flicker or change, shining persistently, mimicking a kind of ’living’ illusion."

A low buzz of conversation rose from the audience.

Jeming’s gaze fell on the blackboard, the simple lines outlining ship types connecting into a clear evolutionary trajectory in his mind.

The image of ghost ships is not fixed but evolves synchronously with human shipbuilding technology.

It is mimicking.

Or rather, it is "learning."

It seems this lecturer holds genuine knowledge.

Vito’s voice continued: "What does this phenomenon indicate? It shows that anomalies are not static dead entities. They will change their form with the era’s development. More precisely, they will ’borrow’ the most representative symbols of human civilization to shape their own image."

He wrote a word on the blackboard.

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