My health recovery is incredibly fast.

On one side are his own allies, and on the other is the bald guy with whom he's shared many hardships. If the two harbor resentment, things will get really bad.

The thought that the mysterious group's next target was Reina made Xia Zuo hesitant to look Christo in the eye. He feared seeing a pair of eyes filled with complex emotions, and even more so, he feared that this brief eye contact would prompt Christo to suddenly request the termination of the Demon Hunter School's plan and have the Temple Guards bring Reina to her side... This was the thing that made Xia Zuo feel most powerless.

Out of a sense of belonging to his faction, Shazo would certainly support Christo's request, but he knew it would be futile.

In the eyes of the Temple Guard commanders, withdrawing Rena was tantamount to surrendering to the mysterious group. Do not doubt this; in a vast organization that still values ​​honor over efficiency, honor is more important than life and death, especially the honor of the Temple.

Shazo controlled his head, avoiding looking at Christo. After comforting Letunia, he returned to his desk and sat down again.

During this time, Christo remained silent, gazing at Shazo in quiet contemplation, lost in thought.

Everything will be alright… Xia Zuo cheered himself up. Once today's events were over, he would begin implementing the espionage plan against the progenitors…

Rexor knew that the pureblood mages must be feeling heavy-hearted at this moment, and even extremely dissatisfied with the Temple Guards and the Witcher school.

But what needs to be done still needs to be done, and the task must continue.

He returned the way he came and met up with the temple guards outside the stone house.

After some discussion, the two sides agreed that the temple guards would take the members of the eye potion research team back for interrogation, while Rexor would go underground to join Ceretus and the other witchers to protect Rena Crestor together.

Hurley Letunia's disappearance forced the Temple Guard to make some changes.

Neoxat was the first suspect.

The best approach is to take him under control now.

However, this didn't work.

Once a shamanistic ritual is initiated, the meditator will only awaken after the incense in the stone tower has burned out; otherwise, severe consequences will occur.

It is highly likely that none of those who participated in the ritual will return. Their spirits will remain far from their physical bodies, and their spiritual threads may break at any time, resulting in horrific mass deaths.

Awakening Nerxat alone, or removing him from the ritual circle, will interrupt the ritual. Forcibly awakening all meditators will also have serious consequences.

The temple guards came up with the following method:

Send three teams into the altar plaza, and have everyone meditate. One of the teams will then take control of Nyxath.

The other two teams split up, one to protect Rena and the other to gather the members of the dimensional exploration team back to their physical bodies.

Once Rena and the spirits of the exploration team members return to the altar plaza, the temple guards will immediately cast fire spells to accelerate the burning of the incense in the stone tower, shortening the duration of the sacrificial ceremony.

The original sacrificial ceremony would last about 15 days, but after the temple guards intervened, the ceremony would end in as little as one day and as long as three days, depending on how long the temple team needed to find all the members.

If the mysterious group wants to make a move, it will likely be within the next 1 to 3 days.

This approach by the Temple Guards was good news for Christo.

Rena would receive comprehensive protection, which should have made her happy.

But..

When Xia Zuo told her the news, Christo showed unusual confusion, unease, and anxiety, mixed with anticipation; her expression was extremely complex.

"Crestor, what's wrong?" Shazo couldn't help but ask.

"It's nothing." Christo composed herself, lowered her head, and shook her head.

Xia Zuo touched his nose, glanced at Letunia and Xinfeiya who were also keeping their heads down, didn't ask anything, and turned back to sit down at his desk.

Many people came to the altar square.

Temple guards, planar scholars, witchers, and some members of the Holy Mark and Inquisition.

The four temple teams were ready to go. They carefully avoided the scouts who were deep in thought and sat down in an open area near the stone tower.

Not all members of the dimensional exploration team entered a meditative state; 15 agents remained at the altar plaza. They acted as recorders and rescuers for the ritual, and would go to the aid of any agent in distress.

The four temple teams were each led by two agents. The agents distributed wooden plaques to the temple guards, assigned them temporary agent numbers, and then spent about an hour introducing everything about the meditation state and the altar plaza.

When the video orb broadcast this part of the content, it removed the voices of the agents and temple guards, and switched the screen to another location to prevent viewers from reading lip-reading through the agents' mouth movements.

This was done to prevent the leakage of the core knowledge of the shamanic school.

Rexor hid on the pyramid at the edge of the plaza, not severing Shazo's bloodline connection. In fact, as a Demon Hunter, this was the first time he had systematically learned about the altar plaza. While Rexor was eavesdropping, Shazo memorized everything the agent said.

According to the detective, the altar plaza works in the following way to transport spirits to distant places:

The roundabout has many plants, which can be divided into 12 major categories according to their origin, kinship, and evolutionary development.

Although the atoll is far from the mainland and deep in the South Pacific, the plants and animals on the island still maintain contact with those on the mainland. Plants, in particular, are more connected to the mainland – virtually no land animals can cross the ocean, but plant seeds can travel to various places with ocean currents or sea breezes.

According to the statistics of the Tower Scholars, 12 types of plants on the atoll are related to at least 8% of the plants on the mainland. It is possible that the seeds of the plants on the atoll drifted to the mainland, or vice versa, that the plants on the mainland drifted to the atoll.

The altar plaza utilizes the connections between plants when transmitting spirits.

However, it did not utilize alchemy or magic related to plants, but rather borrowed the spirit of plants.

The shamanic school is a school that reveres the three elements of spirit, origin, and ancestors.

These three elements are integrated as one, yet they can also stand independently as separate entities. Furthermore, they can be nested within each other, creating a situation where each element contains the other.

The detective abruptly ended the conversation when he was saying this, without elaborating further.

Given the current time constraints, introducing the philosophical concepts of shamanism is clearly inappropriate.

Back to the main topic:

Shamanism believes that all things possess a spirit.

Those things that appear to lack a spirit are simply those whose spirits are small, transparent, and difficult to observe, but their spirits do indeed exist.

As long as you can communicate with their spirits, you can develop many wonderful uses for them.

After a long period of research, the shamanic school discovered that spices made from plants can help meditators discover the spirits associated with plants.

The higher the quality of the spices, the more plant spirits can be found, and the stronger the connection with these plant spirits becomes.

The shamanistic school spent tens of thousands of years befriending plants all over the world and discovered an exciting fact:

In this world, there exist many creatures that live longer and have a longer history than animals, humans, and demons—these are the ubiquitous plants.

If asked: Who are the true original inhabitants of this world?

The shamanic school would humbly say, "It is a plant."

Seemingly dull plants are actually full of wisdom. They are constantly observing the evolution of civilization from various angles, continuously absorbing all kinds of knowledge, and preserving this knowledge in ways that no human, animal, or demon could have imagined.

The layout of the altar plaza, the patterns of the magic array, the spells of plant totems, the spells of spirits, and so on—more than half of the knowledge of the shamanic school was imparted to the shamanic school by plants.

This path of acquiring knowledge through communication with plants is known within the shamanic school as the Way of Nature. It is a path of advancement comparable to elemental alchemy and elemental magic, and it is one of the deepest secrets hidden within the shamanic school, known only to a very few high-ranking shamans who manage the school.

The audience was quite surprised when the detective said these words.

The guards of the Inquisition and the Temple Guards were strictly disciplined, and the ranks remained barely quiet, exchanging only glances, each seeing the other's surprise.

The members of the Holy Rune Department were buzzing with discussion, and the scholars of the Tower were particularly enthusiastic, their conversation revolving around plants…

No one expected that the shamanistic school would derive knowledge from such humble plants.

Xia Zuo was very curious about the knowledge of plant preservation.

He pulled up the spell template for [Nurturing Spores] and examined it carefully.

In the [Spell Effect] section, it is clearly stated:

[Select a target and devour its template, regardless of race, gender, age, or whether it is alive or dead; it is not limited to creations of flesh and blood, alchemical creations, or magical creations; it is not limited to whether it is a physical entity or an energy body.]

When Xia Zuo first saw this passage, he didn't think much of it except for a silent "Wow, that's awesome!" But at this moment, he realized that the [Spore-Promoting Cyst] was even more amazing than he had imagined...

If you were to choose a plant to engulf, what kind of template would you obtain? And what kind of life would this template give rise to within the sporangium?

The thought of being able to modify templates to obtain [Name], [Gender], and [Memory] gave Xia Zuo a sudden illusion that he was a creator... If he could raise his eight attributes high enough, it was entirely possible to use [Life-Generating Spores] to create a unique world...

Xia Zuo seemed to see a bright future full of infinite possibilities. He could cultivate spore-bearing organisms according to his own will, without having to be confined to the single race of humans.

Suddenly, there were many more ways to deal with Tauvinsett.

The No. 1 breeding entity still uses the character template provided by Calles, and its only purpose is to carry out plans such as sabotage and interference.

For the second breeding species, Xia Zuo originally planned to find someone who could contact Tauwinset, but now he has a better option!

The goal of the second phagocytic organism is to obtain firsthand information from the Bloodline Research Group, so they can simply find an inanimate object or plant in Towinset's office and transform it into a phagocytic organism.

Tawwyncet's desk, teacup, kettle, the stool under his butt, the pipe in his hand, even his shirt, underwear, socks, etc., could all be sources of information for Shazo!

Xia Zuo's body trembled slightly with excitement, as if struck by lightning, and his mind was filled with a wild joy that opened his eyes.

If Entity 2 can be non-human, then Entity 3 can also be non-human.

The role of the No. 3 spawn in the plan was to take the blame, divert the attention of the bloodline research group, and cover the retreat of the No. 1 spawn afterward.

The simplest method is to convert the energy system of the Bloodline Research Group into cysts.

Transforming the entire energy system into a cystic organism may not be feasible, but converting only the key components of the energy system should be possible.

Xia Zuo recalled the general design principles that alchemists used when building research facilities such as alchemy labs.

Adhering to the principles of efficiency, safety, and stability, all research facilities use the same energy system model, namely centralized functional energy system, with the energy hub being the key component.

To facilitate maintenance and repair, the research facility's energy center was designed as a parallel energy module.

An energy module can provide 1 points of non-attribute energy per hour. When several energy modules are connected in parallel, their energy output increases exponentially.

Therefore, all Xia Zuo needs to do is obtain the design drawings of the parallel energy module.

But where can I find this thing...?

Xia Zuo scratched his head, pondered for a few seconds, and then sighed inwardly at his own stupidity... Isn't this exactly An Ru'er's area of ​​expertise? He can just ask her when he gets back to Xingye Academy.

With the options for breeding organism #3 mostly finalized, only breeding organism #2 remains to be determined.

What could be brought into Tauvinsett's office, never taken out, and yet remain there without being consumed?

Xia Zuo stared at the video feed, lost in thought.

Chapter 16 An Unexpected Meeting

After a brief commotion, the altar square returned to tranquility.

The temple guards entered a meditative state under the guidance of the exploration team members.

The scholars, alchemists, members of the Holy Rune Department, and guards of the Inquisition sent by the Temple to witness the events stood quietly at the edge of the square.