New Gods of North America

After a day of slacking off, the classes that needed to be attended still had to be attended.

According to unspoken convention, students who successfully obtained a valid leave of absence usually didn't have to do the homework for that class, or at least could postpone it until after the next class.

However, Professor Albert Meisel, who was in charge of the mathematics course, thoughtfully had someone bring Wayne's homework over...

But Wayne's current focus was on the preparations for the field office.

So, Seth would have to suffer a little longer.

The person who was actually the busiest with this matter this week was Ryan. As the designated head of the field office, he had to prepare the necessary luggage and equipment with the members of the field office, and also had to figure out how to put some of the partners' ideas into practice.

According to Wayne's plan, the field office had to be at least a semi-permanent "branch base" of the detective agency, so it needed to have a relatively fixed foothold. The location was best near the middle of the steam train line, so that patrolling in both directions would be easier.

The town that was initially chosen was Clariceburg, which Wayne and the others had visited before. It had a steam train station, which was convenient for both running away and providing support.

But Wayne felt that the specific location should be decided by the members of the field office themselves based on the actual situation.

History has proven that micro-management like "move the machine gun five meters to the left" is actually not very meaningful in practice, and it's better to clarify the goal and then let everyone发挥 (fā huī - give full play to their abilities).

The only thing that Wayne really insisted on for the time being was that the head of the field office had to send a letter to the detective agency every half month. If there were plans for the entire group to go out into the deep mountains, then they had to write a letter in advance to report it.

The reason for this requirement was to prevent the field office from encountering an accident and collectively "going offline."

Wayne and the others had already witnessed the near annihilation of a bounty hunter team when they were sweeping along the steam train line, and they had also encountered eagle coins that could instantly kill "Slender Man," so it was always best to be careful.

Doug lent two pigeons to the members of the field office to contact the detective agency in case of emergency. Usually, they would send letters through the postal route.

Considering that long-distance communication needed to be kept confidential to some extent, Wayne also had Ryan take a relatively niche book of general knowledge, *The Holy Book*, which he had seen in movies and TV shows, to use as a codebook for writing things that were not suitable for others to see.

He also referred to Lina's work experience and agreed on several code words with different meanings.

Whether the main members of the field office were being hollowed out or purged, or if they encountered external threats, as long as there was a problem with the code words or they didn't match, the detective agency would know how to respond in time.

When David Mills came to inform them of Pastor Bazini's decision regarding the reward for the detective agency, he happened to overhear the partners' contingency plans for some matters related to the field office.

In his own words, "The current level of organization and meticulousness of your detective agency is already very similar to some hidden organizations that are about to launch a major operation."

If it weren't for the special permission from the Bishop, David Mills himself would probably have wanted to shut down the detective agency.

Unfortunately, Pastor Bazini was a bit stingy.

Although he later called Wayne to the church in Georgeberg and internally commended the detective agency's assistance,

the actual benefits he gave to the detective agency were actually some holy water, nominally to enhance the detective agency's defense against evil spirits.

The amount wasn't even as much as Wayne had drunk last month for "digestion."

Wayne was slightly unhappy, so he took the opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

The detective agency was internally commended in the church, right? So, we are considered "one of our own" in the local church, right?

Well, is it reasonable for "brother units" with similar case-handling businesses to learn from each other?

Then Wayne found an entry point from the honest David Mills,

and took the opportunity to choose the nearest rest afternoon to encourage David Mills to arrange for people from both sides to learn and exchange ideas.

Under the premise that Pastor Bazini did not explicitly object,

the detective agency paid for the place and invited David Mills to bring twenty members of the local exorcism department to the detective agency for "collective lessons" and "business guidance,"

and also engaged in "internal exchanges" and "fellow banquets", and even prepared small gifts.

Crafty guys like Lina and Seth took the opportunity to extract internal information from the people who came over. Whether it was useful or not, they secretly organized and archived it first.

It just so happened that there were also people on the other side secretly doing similar things, and then the two sides showed off their acting skills and screened information, which was also a real "internal exchange" taking place quietly.

David Mills is currently the head of the exorcism department in Georgeberg, but after all, he was "parachuted" from Richmond, and the people under him may not all be so convinced of him. Some of the older members still have a bit of a "local" complex.

Wayne certainly couldn't get involved in this kind of internal church friction, but the detective agency's "shooting range" and "arena" could help cheer them on.

Under the rules of "indiscriminate fighting", the agents have now accumulated more or less experience in hitting and being hit, and are also more familiar with the terrain of the "arena."

On the surface, it was "friendship first, competition second", but in private, everyone secretly competed with some members of the exorcism department who seemed to have prejudices against David Mills and the detective agency.

Conner, who had hidden his identity as a member of the Hunter Association, was originally the top of the current arena agent list, and he also had a rare opportunity to openly beat members of the Holy Spirit Church, so his hatred soared.

When things were going well, he showed off all kinds of operations, and when things were going badly, he might immediately admit defeat to avoid giving others a chance to get back at him. He was despised by both sides in the arena, and he was also drunk the most at the subsequent dinner.

After all, David Mills came from the Special Operations Team. Perhaps he was a bit mismatched in management, but his combat abilities were still very outstanding.

The "fluorescence" on his body was somewhat similar to "poison attribute" for most extraordinaires, and even when it broke out, it could play a role in temporarily dispelling or weakening the extraordinary power of other fields within a certain range.

He wasn't weak to begin with, and the agents had to give him some face, so David Mills became a high-profile figure in the local exorcism department.

The person who was more injured was the stubborn and unconvinced Willie.

When the two sides were conducting "friendly exchanges" in the arena, they adopted a team elimination system with several groups of people in a one-on-one match.

A total of eight groups of people participated, and the three people in each group decided the order of appearance in advance. They came out one-on-one with the other side in three matches. Normally, they would play three rounds, and the group with the most total wins would advance to the next round. If it was a tie, there would be an extra match.

Through several rounds of advancement, the winning group was finally determined.

Although it was theoretically a "friendly match", after entering the second round, each group began to take it seriously.

In addition, for the sake of fairness, the overall combat power of each group was roughly balanced at the beginning, and both sides consciously divided the obviously stronger participants into different groups.

So, after tactical iteration, all kinds of winning strategies quickly emerged.

Willie happened to be in the same group as Conner, the strongest of the agents.

And unfortunately, this group finally fought all the way to the final before finally losing to David Mills' group, and was one of the groups with the most total rounds in the competition.

And in a tactical game similar to "Tian Ji's horse race\

,"the "inferior horse" often has to fight the "superior horse"...