My health recovery is incredibly fast.

"What needs special attention is that it has a pair of tree-shaped, root-like thighs on its abdomen."

"A tree-shaped monster?" Xia Zuo was taken aback.

Hillenburg adjusted his glasses again, his expression focused as he asked:

"Why do deep-sea turtles have roots and large legs? Is it a new mutated species, or... Oh! I know!"

Hillenburg clapped his hands and exclaimed in surprise:

"Could this be Nyxath?"

Why do you think that? Xia Zuo listened from the side, completely bewildered.

"To be precise, this deep-sea turtle is an avatar created by Nyxath ​​using Devantana's shrine," Rexor explained.

"That guy, Nexus, placed the spirit shrine on the first clone beforehand, the one that was originally intended to extend lifespan."

"This clone fell into the hands of the Otherworldly Church."

"Neoxat, even after descending into this body, still knew that he was a member of the Temple and that he must not let the Church of the Otherworld obtain the shrine."

"So he created a second clone and had it escape from the territory of the Church of the Otherworld with the spirit shrine."

"Unfortunately, he could not find any undefiled creatures on the territory of the Church of the Otherworld. His second avatar was a deep-sea turtle that had been modified by a flesh alchemist."

After hearing this, Hillenburg scratched his head a few times, his mind racing as he pondered, muttering to himself, "I get it... I get it... So that's how it is... No wonder the corpse was missing lungs, intestines, and gallbladder... No wonder there were Ner's tentacles..."

Xia Zuo glanced at his absent-minded team leader, his doubts still unresolved. He felt he was missing some crucial, yet universally known, information. He asked the bald man:

"Master, I roughly understand what happened, but... what does this have to do with the tree-shaped monster?"

Rexor looked at Ceretus through the viewing hole in his mask.

Serites nodded at him, spreading his hands and shrugging. "There's no point in hiding the shamanic mess. Once our mission is complete, the outer sanctuary might issue a notice to all the important members, and then almost everyone will know what some of the scoundrels in the shamanic society have done."

“Hoo~ Then let me tell you, Shazo.” Rexor exhaled, his tone somewhat low. “Some members of the Shamanic Society—mainly the fundamentalists—have retained more primitive ritual practices. In pursuit of a longer lifespan, they combine themselves with long-lived trees, transforming into a kind of humanoid tree monster.”

"Doesn't the Temple care about this?!" Xia Zuo pressed his head, his eyes wide, finding the other party's words quite unbelievable. The prohibition against dehumanization was written into the law, and anyone who dared to cross this red line would be severely punished by the Temple.

“We will definitely stop them, Shazo.”

Rexol patted the other person's arm to reassure him.

"But some of them made indelible contributions to the establishment of the Temple."

"Therefore, the Temple allows them to replace punishment with atonement. Every year, the Temple sends people to collect their tentacles, suppressing their power while creating a stable source of spiritual materials for the Totem School and the Alchemy School."

“Nyxat was a fundamentalist before, with a tree-like body and walking on legs like roots.”

Xia Zuo rubbed his temples, nodded silently to indicate that he understood, and then another question popped up, "Then... Master, why did the deep-sea turtle that Team Leader Hillenburg discovered many years ago lose its lungs, stomach, intestines, and gallbladder?"

Hillenburg snapped out of his reverie, a complete logical chain forming in his mind, and spoke rapidly:

"Because Nyxath's second avatar is unstable, it needs these things to repair the damage. This is related to the fundamentalist longevity ritual, specifically..."

“No, stop talking.” Rexol pressed down on the other’s shoulder and shook his head firmly. “That’s enough, Hillenburg. Let these primitive and outdated rituals disappear with time.”

Hillenburg realized he had misspoke, and might even have broken the law, so he immediately shut his lips, clenched his fists, and restrained himself from speaking. He nodded regretfully to Shazo and said:

“Master Rexor is right. These old things are not worth promoting. Like flesh alchemy, they should stay in the dustbin of history. Elemental alchemy is the right path.”

---Aside---

Thank you everyone for your monthly tickets and recommendation votes.

Chapter 60 The Otherworldly Inspector

How can one enter a sub-plane from nature?

This is a simple yet profound question.

If one wants to travel stably and continuously between the primary and secondary planes of nature, one must find a stable passage between them.

However, if you only want to travel across planes briefly and temporarily, you just need to learn a detection spell that can detect plane rifts, then wander around casting spells to find the rift, and then bravely crawl inside—of course, no one would like the consequences of doing this.

In the dark zone of the Mediterranean, the pitch-black seawater was churned by the underwater propulsion array in the diving chamber, and the gurgling sound of the water spread to the surrounding sea area along with the ripples of detection spells.

"Master, about 1600 meters to the side, there is a slowly expanding trail of toxins." Shazo's eyes gleamed green as he stared ahead, pointing to the seabed map on the control panel, and said to Rexor beside him.

“It was a trench where I saw large areas of living sea asparagus,” Hillenburg recalled, then continued:

"However, I remember that the live sea asparagus contains toxins. Perhaps we should go and check it out immediately."

“Hmm…” Rexor rubbed his bald head, “Then let’s skip the two dimensional rifts we just discovered and go straight to the trench where the toxins are present.”

"Okay, I'll go right away." Hillenburg steered the diving chamber to accelerate its descent.

“Oh, guys, we might have found the right place.” Serritus said, sitting cross-legged on his heels in the posture typical of a Witcher meditating, his eyes closed.

“I sense it. There’s a dimensional rift in the trench we’re heading to that’s not in good condition. It’s been damaged by magical energy and is very unstable. Be careful, Hillenburg.”

"Received, Master."

At a distance of 200 meters from the trench, Hillenburg reduced the speed of the diving chamber to minimize the movement of the underwater propulsion array and to contain any excess energy fluctuations, so as to prevent the fragile dimensional rift from retreating back into its burrow like a startled rabbit.

The dimensional channels are arranged in order of increasing stability: fissures, cracks, and channels.

According to the book "Fundamentals of Plane Science", plane rifts can enable brief material exchange between two planes, lasting from a minimum of 1 second to a maximum of 50 hours, with the rate of material exchange ranging from 1 cubic millimeter/day to 1 cubic meter/second.

Generally speaking, dimensional fissures can only exist for less than 10 hours, and the rate of material exchange will not exceed 10 cubic millimeters per day.

Such a change would not attract people's attention in most cases.

Only those masters who have keen observation skills and a sufficiently developed spiritual ocean can perceive the fusion between different planes.

Thanks to the Tower Mage's continuous research into planes, detecting even the smallest dimensional rifts is no longer a problem.

Planar fissures typically appear within a 20-kilometer radius of the plane passage; they do not exist elsewhere.

Xia Zuo followed the Demon Hunter and toured the entire sea area, witnessing no fewer than five dimensional rifts.

They float in the seawater like shards of broken glass. Light shining on them causes a slight refraction, making it barely possible to see their appearance with the naked eye.

“Master, I’ve found the source of the poison.” Xia Zuo turned his head and looked at Rexor, his emerald light shining on the other’s black dragon armor. “I can confirm that they come from inside the rift, because the poison appeared out of nowhere.”

"Note that there are a lot of debris next to the rift." Hillenburg rubbed the orb and saw the scene near the rift, confirming Shazo's judgment.

It was a picture drawn with black blood, small pieces of flesh, and bones.

The living sea asparagus in the trench is intact, but its living environment has been polluted.

The seawater here contains many long, viscous bloody liquids, mixed with fragments of internal organs that have been flattened by water pressure. The remains are affected by the water flow and drift toward the diving room, passing over everyone's heads and feet, leaving streaks of filth.

The dimensional rift that the four were tracking was expanding and contracting, spewing out poisonous blood and chunks of flesh.

Several twisted things, which still retained their root-like appearance under high pressure, were ejected from the cracks and landed on the glass wall of the diving room.

"I'll go get these roots." Rexol placed his hand on the wall, and in a flash, he appeared outside the wall.

He waved his arm, conjuring a water whip that wrapped around the thick roots, and then returned to the diving chamber.

Serites immediately took out a glowing alchemical lamp and projected a faint blue light onto the roots, where dense shamanic characters emerged.

Rexor compared the shamanic script on the roots with the pattern in his memory. "That's right, it's Nyxath's roots, it is indeed his ritual code."

"Puff, puff..." The speed at which the dimensional rift spewed matter became unstable, and fragmented rifts appeared and disappeared intermittently, a sign that it was about to close.

Rexol immediately went back outside the diving room and threw in several glass beads before the rift completely closed.

"Quick! We need to get to the dimensional juncture point right away. The beacon I set up will only last for 3 hours," Rexol shouted as he returned to the diving chamber.

Hillenburg activated the underwater propulsion array, maneuvering the diving chamber out of the blood-stained trench and heading towards the docking point.

“Should we notify the outpost and have the guards from the Thundersea Plane go there first? Nyxat’s clone looks like it’s seriously injured,” Hillenburg asked.

Rexol pondered for a second, seemingly hesitant, then clenched his fists and said:

"Forget it, let's get the outpost guards involved. That stubborn chairman of the Shamanic Society wasted precious time, and we still couldn't catch up with that deep-sea turtle."

“We need to choose trustworthy guards to help us,” Serites said, arms crossed. “Divantana’s shrine has been designated as a forbidden object, and the fewer people who know about it, the better.”

“Let me ask who’s leading the patrol at this time…” Rexor flicked his communication ring. “If it’s someone I know, that would be even better…”

When the dive room was halfway through its journey, Rexol's secret communication ring received a reply.

“Good, Oaks just changed shifts, I don’t think he’ll mind working overtime for us.” Rexol chuckled, seemingly quite familiar with the man named Oaks.

“Hmm…” Serritsmo stroked his helmet and chin. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that guy. I wonder when he’ll voluntarily request to return to the Prime Material Plane. Could it be that after all these years, he still can’t let go of the grudge in his heart…”

"Who cares? He has his own way of living." Rexol waved his hand and looked at a rugged silhouette that appeared at the edge of his field of vision.

Xia Zuo noticed a ball of light directly in front of him that was gradually growing larger; it was a glass sphere that could move freely in the seawater.

Rexol stepped forward, showed his insignia to the other person, and received permission to walk together.

The diving room followed the glass ball into the trench, passing through a series of huge metal doors. With each short distance traveled, the surrounding pressure decreased.

When the diving chamber was clamped by the curved metal claws and placed steadily on the dock platform, the outside was filled with air and the light from the alchemy lamps, and the pressure had returned to normal.

The interior of the dimensional stronghold can be described as an ecological park. Alchemy plants are planted on both sides of the passageway, there is a special area for raising poultry, and there are spacious warehouses to store materials needed for living, working and cultivating, forming an independent underwater space.

All of this is to minimize contact with the outside world and maintain one's secrecy.

Xia Zuo took off his unused diving suit and walked behind the bald man. Four uniquely shaped glass spheres floated beside the group; they were the guardians here, responsible for guiding and supervising Xia Zuo and his group as they entered the dimensional portal.

The others in the group were used to the fact that the main character didn't show up, but only sent glass balls. Xia Zuo, who was new to the place, also suppressed his curiosity and walked into a separate dimensional teleportation room set up for visitors without saying a word.

There is an oval mirror in the center of the room.

The mirror reflected a hazy, gray scene, with blue and purple lightning flashing back and forth.

Before teleporting, Xia Zuo carefully examined the gray mist inside and discovered that it consisted of raindrops the size of fingernails, swept up by the gale and flying around in all directions, hovering in the air for a long time, unable to fall down due to gravity.

Faced with the violent scene, Xia Zuo couldn't help but swallow hard. "Master, am I just going in like this? Should I wear something...?"

“No need.” Rexol pressed down on the other’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You and Hillenburg will stay in the shuttle dedicated to the Thundersea Plane and be responsible for picking us up.”

Rexol looked at the composed Hillenburg, "If the Deepsea Turtle is injured, I need you to quickly prepare a special medicine and use it in conjunction with blessing spells for first aid. There is a medical platform and a corresponding stockpile of materials inside the shuttle, which you can use as needed."

“Leave it to us.” Hillenburg nodded. “I know how to rescue the deep-sea turtle… provided it cooperates.”

“It will cooperate. Let’s go.” Rexor stepped onto the mirror first.

Xia Zuo followed closely behind.