The chaos of the karmic overload experiment, and the convenient framing of Vera, bought Elias a brief respite from Magistrate Lian's direct scrutiny. He used the time to retreat into the Bureau's vast, seldom-accessed historical archives, a digital labyrinth stretching back centuries. His bootleg Earth Core, now a constant, low thrum against his skin, masked his own unique spiritual signature, allowing him to navigate the data streams undetected. He wasn't looking for errors anymore; he was looking for patterns he hadn't made.
He poured over ancient disputes, long-settled judgments, and the karmic records of long-dead nobles. He started with cases that, upon cursory review, felt "off" – subtle incongruities in the karmic flow that hinted at an unseen hand. It was tedious work, like sifting through sand for grains of gold, but Elias's meticulous paranoia was his greatest asset.
Then, he found them. Not isolated incidents, but a series of anomalies stretching back for months, even a year. Subtle, almost undetectable edits that mirrored his own methods, but with a distinct, unsettling elegance. These weren't the brute-force manipulations of a Rank 6+ cultivator trying to erase someone. These were delicate, surgical alterations, shifts in weighting, imperceptible nudges that subtly altered the karmic outcome of a case without leaving any overt digital scars. The style suggested a deep understanding of illusion, of misdirection, blended seamlessly with an intimate knowledge of the Ledger's internal workings.
The chilling realization hit him: these were the hallmarks of Naga illusionist techniques seamlessly blended with human Sutra AI knowledge. The Naga, with their mastery of perception and reality-warping, would be perfectly suited to such subtle, unseen manipulations. And if these edits weren't his, and they weren't the heavy-handed purges of the mysterious eraser, then it meant one terrifying thing: a Naga spy had infiltrated the Bureau. They were operating from within, an invisible phantom, influencing the Ledger for their own, unknown ends.
The Naga informant found dead in the alley had been watching Elias, yes, but perhaps he had also been a rival, or a failed operative in a larger network.
Elias felt a surge of cold fury. He was being used, or perhaps, simply observed as a useful distraction. He had to expose this phantom user. But how? Any direct confrontation would expose him. He needed to bait them, to force their hand.
He selected a new case, a seemingly innocuous dispute over water rights between two minor Jadeheart farming collectives. A low-priority file, unlikely to draw immediate attention. Elias then, with careful precision, made a subtle, almost invisible edit within the Ledger's data for this case. He didn't alter the judgment. Instead, he embedded a small, digital "trap." He introduced a highly specific, unique sequence of numerical values into the metadata, a kind of digital watermark, that would only be triggered if another Ledger manipulator, operating with a similar level of access and subtlety, attempted to alter the case's parameters.
This hidden sequence, once triggered, wouldn't expose the manipulator directly to the Bureau's oversight. Instead, it would discreetly alert Elias, providing him with the precise time and location of the alteration, an invisible beacon in the vastness of the Ledger. It was a false trail, a ghost in the machine designed to lure out another ghost.
He finished the edit, his heart thrumming with anticipation. The hum of the Ledger seemed to take on a new quality now, a silent conversation between unseen entities. He had cast his line. Now, he just had to wait for the phantom to bite.