My health recovery is incredibly fast.

Xia Zuo's spirit opened its eyes, ignoring the surrounding darkness, and reached into the folded pocket on its elemental body.

Huh? The folding pocket works fine, but I can't get the things out of it, nor can I move them out using spatial teleportation.

Xia Zuo lowered his head, opened the folded pocket and looked inside, where it was filled with swirling mist.

A thin, hazy mist covered the bottles and jars in the folded pocket. When you reached your finger through them, it went straight through the glass, as if you were touching something unreal.

The folding pocket can be opened, presumably because it uses a coupled installation method, which establishes a direct connection with the spiritual ocean and imbues it with a certain spirituality.

Thinking about it this way, the alchemical arm and the mage's robe should also be usable in the Soul Vision ability.

Xia Zuo brought up the character template and clicked the "Switch Elemental Body" button with his mind.

His spiritual form blurred for a few seconds before clearing up, revealing a universal elemental shell on his body.

Xia Zuo stood up, activated [Blood Sacrifice Spellcasting], and then poured elemental energy into the energy nodes of the elemental body.

[Real-time health regeneration speed] instantly drops to approximately -260 points/hour.

Ten seconds later, the Elemental Body was successfully activated, reducing energy input requirements and increasing real-time health regeneration to -20 points per hour.

It takes 20 HP to maintain the active state of the Elemental Body.

This is such a great deal! You don't even need a blood pack. Just drink a small bottle of resuscitation potion and you can recover all the lost blood.

Brilliant!

Xia Zuo chuckled.

He withdrew from meditation, took out his secret communication ring, and sent a secret message to Christo.

While waiting for a reply, he chatted with Hillenburg.

Hillenburg had finished taking inventory of the bait stock left by Xia Zuo, and he had only one thought:

Xia Zuo is very responsible!

The safe was crammed full of glass bottles and documents, with over 60 different grades of spare bait to choose from, enough to keep the research team running stably for at least a month.

If Xia Zuo moves quickly enough in the crater, he might even be able to return in time to continue developing the amphibious combat golem.

"Click, click..." Christor's secret communication ring rang.

Xia Zuo glanced at the inscription on the jade ring, then said goodbye to Hillenburg and got up to leave the quiet room.

...

The crater is located on an island in the south of the eastern continent, and the climate there reminds Xia Zuo of the southern island in his previous life.

Both are located in tropical regions with temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius year-round. The undulating mountains and significant vertical drops make them natural havens for the reproduction of life.

The topography of the crater is more extreme, forming a very standard circular mountain range.

Xia Zuo emerged from a stone house atop a mountain peak and, under a clear, cloudless sky, enjoyed the magnificent panorama of the ring-shaped mountain range.

"It really is a circle... It's too perfect. How can there be such terrain?"

Xia Zuo raised his hands, made a circle with both hands, and gestured towards the mountain range.

Christo, wearing a hood, came to his side, looked at his surprised expression, and laughed:

"Alright, let's get down to business. After things are settled here, the Temple plans to divide the crater between the Witcher School and the Alchemist School. At that time, you'll have plenty of opportunities to study the natural ecology here."

Xia Zuo smiled awkwardly, realizing he had indeed lost his composure earlier.

"Yes, sir. At your service."

"Use Windwalk to follow me, we'll talk as we go." A blue vortex appeared around Krestor as she steadily flew towards the foot of the mountain.

This is the most common flight technique. It allows you to hover in the air for a long time without changing your shape. Moreover, the cyclone has a protective effect, which can deflect obstacles or block suddenly changing air currents.

In contrast, Xia Zuo's Wind Walk spell has a significant drawback: he can only formally learn the Flight spell after becoming a high-level mage.

Shazo transformed into a ball of air and flew away with Christo.

“There are 28 shaman tribes of different sizes in the crater. The temple has already checked 22 of them, and the remaining 6 tribes will be checked within 5 days.”

Christo pointed northwest, where a dozen or so wisps of smoke were rising.

"Those found to be abnormal during the investigation have been gathered near the spring platform in the crater. Your job is to work with Rena to check these people one by one. If you find someone possessing a spirit shrine, you must immediately control their spirit and not give them the opportunity to destroy the shrine."

Xia Zuo's aura trembled slightly in response.

On his way here, he had already told the other party about the results of his experience with the elemental body.

When examining abnormal individuals, Xia Zuo would wear an elemental shell specifically designed for oil alchemy on their physical body, and a general-purpose elemental shell on their spirit body.

If the opponent has a spirit shrine, Xia Zuo will immediately activate the elemental shell on the spirit body and forcibly control the opponent by relying on the amplification effect brought by the elemental shell.

If the situation worsens, the opponent may summon a spirit shrine in the material world in an attempt to escape, or they may use their spirit body to embrace the spirit shrine and escape under the effect of soul vision.

Then Shazo returned to the material world, using the Demon Hunter School's special oil to track the opponent's spirit, and then worked with Rena to subdue him.

No matter what, we must take down the shrine, even if it means resorting to violence.

“The most troublesome one is the vice-leader who has lost his elemental body,” Krestor said with a hint of worry.

"Based on the experiments we've conducted over the past few days, I have reason to believe that the deputy leader discovered the secret between the shrine candles and the elemental shell long ago."

"While we weren't looking, he used some method to transfer some of the shrine candles onto his elemental body, and then transferred the elemental body onto his spirit, allowing his spirit to leave our sight while wearing the elemental body."

Chris paused, her chest heaving slightly, as if she were sighing inwardly.

“We don’t have enough manpower to track down his spirit for the time being. Our primary objective is to search for the shrine. The crater is surrounded by ocean, so his spirit has nowhere to escape and must be hiding somewhere in the crater.”

As Christo spoke, she led Shazo to the spring platform.

This is a restored rock platform with a mountain stream flowing through its center. Wooden houses in the style of a primeval forest are built on both sides of the river.

Next to these wooden houses was a cluster of alchemy tents resembling barracks.

Temple guards, clad in medieval armor, patrolled the passageways between the alchemy tents, occasionally stepping into one to inspect it before continuing their patrol.

“That’s the settlement of a small tribe,” Christo said, pointing to the wooden houses. “They’re vacant now.”

She looked toward the alchemy tents. “All the aberrant individuals are being held in the camp, one alchemy tent per person. You and Rena will start with the first alchemy tent. You don’t need to go inside with your physical bodies; just use your spirit bodies to observe.”

"Yes, sir."

Xia Zuo transformed into human form and followed the other person toward Reina, who was guarding the entrance to the camp.

Chapter 86 Carving Knife

There are more than 600 people with abnormalities waiting to be screened.

Xia Zuo expends energy to maintain his elemental body, which can last for 20 minutes, allowing him to inspect a maximum of 5 tents.

The temple provided a meditation aid to help Xia Zuo recover his energy, and he would be able to begin the next round of screenings in about five hours.

It was evening more than 20 days later.

All the tents in the camp have been screened.

Xia Zuo discovered four new shrines.

Christo had the guards take away the tribal members who had been screened, and then bring over the abnormal individuals from the remaining 5 tribes.

Several more days passed.

The other three shrines were discovered by Xia Zuo.

If all goes well, a total of 7 shrines will be the results of this screening.

Including the shrines handed over by Nyoksait and the shrines handed over by the escaped deputy leader, the Shamanic Society has a total of 9 shrines.

When the temple interrogated the shrine holders, trying to obtain their names, uses, and characteristics, two tribal members cooperated readily, handing over the shrines and revealing information about them.

The other seven tribal members remained defiant, resisting investigation and refusing to hand over the shrine. They were older, leaned towards the fundamentalists of the shamanistic society, and harbored a natural hostility towards the temple's actions.

The temple granted special permission to use the enchantment that allows the reading of memories.

Xia Zuo observed the spell being cast and witnessed its effect.

Using enchantment magic to forcibly read someone's memories will damage the target's consciousness and thinking, and will also have a certain negative impact on their mental state.

The targets of the spells are all at the level of formal mages to high-ranking mages, possessing ample spiritual depth. Out of compassion and respect for life, the temple presiding over the memory-reading spells will utilize a spiritual medium.

The target will be forcibly given the secret medicine, and then, under the combined effects of the sleeping poison and the [Calm Mind] spell, will be forced into a meditative state, allowing the secret medicine to successfully create a mental medium in the ocean of the mind.

Next, Christo will personally cast a memory-probing spell on the target who is still in a drowsy state.

This spell is called "Control of Will," and it belongs to the Enchanting school, using mental energy.

Christo stands behind the target, her hands hovering above their head.

Tiny specks of golden-white light fell from the palm of the hand and into the head of the target.

Wisps of golden-white smoke, like water vapor, drifted from the top of the target's head and entered Christo's nose.

Christo's eyes were filled with pure golden-white light.

About half a minute later.

Krestor's magical light dissipated.

She lowered her hands, read the information she had gleaned from the shrine to Rena beside her, and then instructed the temple guards to administer a secret potion to the target of the spell to remove the mental medium.

Rena showed the awakened tribespeople the information about the shrines that the temple had read.

The tribal members, who had initially been hostile, immediately deflated. They had lost the leverage to challenge the temple, and were filled with fear and panic.

Now, for these people, breaking free from the shrine and handing it over has become the only way out.

Otherwise, the temple will use a safe and painless method to instantly obliterate their will, disintegrate their bodies, directly erase their life force, and forcibly release them from the binding of the shrine.

Xia Zuo's deterrent power was then demonstrated.

He was the only master-level poison alchemist present.

He revealed the insignia exclusive to poison alchemists, took out a portable alchemy table and a leather case filled with basic toxins, and then collected some sample materials from tribal members to analyze their physical defects.

If this entire sequence of actions is only half completed, the tribal members will frantically sever their connection with the shrine.

The combination of memory reading and the lethal poison proved highly effective, and soon only one tribal member remained, stubbornly resisting.