"First, I need to master my ability. Then, I need to learn. The more knowledge I have, the more information I can understand."
From Elias's perspective, a "superpower" was just a rare trait. If no one else in the world could speak, then speech would be his superpower. If no living thing had sight but him, then vision would be his superpower. He suspected his info-sense was the same. Information was always there to be perceived; it was just that, for now, he was the only one who could see it.
It was worth noting, however, that when he observed himself, he could find no information about the ability itself.
Maybe I don't understand its fundamental nature yet?
Whatever. Grandpa's asleep. This is my chance to go save Dr. Liang.
The best way to master a skill was to use it. Dr. Liang had been kind to him, and her kidnapping was highly suspicious. He had to save her, no matter what.
Earlier, when everyone else was clueless, he had already figured out she'd been abducted just by observing the scene. There were tire tracks—faint, but present. A normal person wouldn't have seen them, especially twelve hours after the fact, but Elias didn't need to
see them in the conventional sense. He simply focused on a patch of ground, expanded the information of a non-descript mark, and one of the data points resolved as:
Trace left by the braking of a cargo van.
Just like that, he knew. Oh, so that's a tire track.
He then expanded his query from that data point, retrieving other details. The track was made at 7:05 AM by a cargo van. Before the track was made, the van carried four people; after, it carried five.
"Just from the tire track, I couldn't know who was in the van, only who the driver was," he reasoned. The driver was the creator of the track, so Elias could perceive his name, but nothing more. He was, after all, only observing the information of the track itself.
Elias reviewed his process, summarizing it to himself. "I found out the names of the five individuals by identifying their footprints, which were also made at 7:05 AM."
Once he had the timestamp, he could filter all the traces left in that area at that exact moment. He found five sets of footprints. Any piece of information has a creator. By querying the creator of the footprints, he obtained the names, heights, and weights of the five people involved. However, because he hadn't observed them directly, he couldn't access more detailed information, especially their personal histories. He could only perceive their basic physical data at the moment they made the prints.
"For me, the best method of observation is direct sensory input—seeing, hearing, or smelling. I need some form of direct interaction for the richest data," he concluded.
"Failing that, I have to rely on indirect observation. The best indirect medium is an object 'created' by the target, like a footprint or a dropped item. That can give me basic information about the creator."
"For both methods, the bigger the medium, the better. If there's no indirect object at all, the only option left is the brute-force method."
The brute-force method was the most desperate option. The more he contemplated his abilities, the more he felt the limits of being human. The method was simple in theory: if you knew a person had passed through an area, you could analyze every single thing in that area. Unless too much time had passed, they would have left behind some biological fragments—a flake of skin, water vapor from their breath, maybe even a single cell.
The problem was scale. In theory, if his mind could resolve down to the molecular level, he could isolate a single molecule and query who it previously belonged to. But the reality was daunting. A single breath of air contained trillions of molecules. Checking them one by one was impossible. Even now, he couldn't isolate the information of a single molecule, or even a single cell. So while he understood the theory, he knew he couldn't execute it. In practice, he could only query information from objects that were visible to the naked eye. His absolute limit was probably a single strand of hair, and even that would require incredible patience and focus.
"These people were careful. They left almost nothing behind. No one but me could have identified those footprints." The kidnappers had stepped out of their van onto the concrete, and the mud on their shoes had left inconspicuous but lasting impressions. The prints were smeared and degraded, just a few specks of dirt that the most skilled forensic expert couldn't analyze. But to Elias, a 'damaged footprint' was still a footprint. As long as it was a visible trace left by a foot, he could expand its information.
Long before anyone else even knew Dr. Liang was kidnapped, Elias already had the names of the five people involved. He'd even seen the traces under the old tree and knew there had been a witness.
Later, after Officer Meng had told the villagers to disperse, Elias had quietly slipped away, following the van's tire tracks. The tracks led to the main highway. He knew it was impossible to keep up on foot; twelve hours had passed, and the van could have been in the state capital by now. But Elias knew some of Dr. Liang's secrets, and from them, he had deduced the kidnappers' true motive. They were after something specific. They wouldn't have gone far without it.
Sure enough, he hadn't followed the tracks for long before the information on the ground showed that the van had stopped at 7:15 AM. It had pulled over on the highway. Information from the guardrail confirmed that four people had gotten out and hopped over it. Three men and Dr. Liang had stayed behind, while the driver continued on alone.
"I see. So even if the police check the highway cameras and track that van, they'll only catch the decoy," he realized. "They'll think the kidnappers have fled to the county, but they're still right here in the Havenwood area."
After figuring this out, Elias had gone home. To give the police a nudge in the right direction, he had written a ransom note. He had "acted" as the kidnapper, writing a note and tucking it under the police car's windshield wiper while Meng was inside the clinic taking photos.
'We have Evelyn Liang. Trade her parents for her.' Signed, Rhys.
He had written the brazen note to deliberately alert the police that the kidnappers hadn't left. Not only that, he had signed it with one of their real names.
The name he queried from information was what he called a "True Name," which wasn't always a person's common name. It was their
first name. He knew this from observing himself. His own information identified him as 'Huang Xu.' Even though his legal name was Elias Huang, and most people called him that, his True Name was the one his grandfather had given him before it was ever recorded on paper. It had to be a widely recognized name, not just a proposal.
"Aside from special cases like mine, most people's True Name is probably their registered name," he mused. "The police might be able to find something on a 'Rhys'." He had chosen that name because the other three were far too common; Rhys was the most unique of the four.
After doing all this, he had returned home to care for his grandfather. Now, with the old man asleep, he was heading out again.
He had given them plenty of clues. If the police still couldn't find Dr. Liang, he would have to do it himself.