My health recovery is incredibly fast.

Xia Zuo murmured, "Wild element... Temple element... But why have I never seen wild element before?"

Little Golden Bauhinia asked, "Do you remember the white crystal in the hall of the Academy Castle? In the Temple Territory, there are these white crystals floating in mid-air in the important buildings of every human settlement."

“Of course.” Xia Zuo nodded.

Little Golden Vitex explained:

"This white crystal has an important function. It can transform wild elements that appear in nature over a large area into temple elements. Within half a second of a wild element appearing in nature, it will be encased in an octahedral crystal shell and become the untamed element you know."

Xia Zuo frowned as he listened. "So, the person who arranged the white crystal knew about the existence of the wild element? Which department was responsible for arranging the white crystal?"

“This is the work of the Holy Emblem Department,” Little Golden Bauhinia replied.

“However, within the Holy Rune Department, apart from the highest levels, no one else knows about the existence of wild elements. In the eyes of most members of the Holy Rune Department, the white crystal is merely a signal relay device for secret communications, teleportation, and dimensional signals. I know you are certainly skeptical of what I am saying, but that's alright. If we're lucky, we'll wait a little longer, and you'll see the most compelling evidence.”

Chapter 24 [Elemental Invasion]

The visiting party assembled at the temple is about to depart.

Excitement and anticipation were written on everyone's face, and a joyful atmosphere filled the air above the group with laughter and chatter.

The first encounter with mysterious things will be recorded in the "Chronicles of the Temple," and each member of the team will leave a significant mark on the history of the Temple.

The caution and awe that should be shown when facing mysterious things vanished under the control of the faceless man.

The alchemists and tower mages under his command gathered together and cobbled together a logically consistent and seemingly feasible analysis, proving from different angles that covering the entire body with metal could protect visitors from harm.

The participants in writing the report were originally limited to the Faceless Man's subordinates, but when the visiting team was formed and the visiting mission became inevitable, many people who came for the sake of profit also joined in, stuffing their own theories and experimental results into the report, attempting to get a share of the profits when the visiting mission was settled.

Ultimately, an incredibly detailed analysis report, endorsed by numerous alchemists and scholars of the Tower, was submitted to the Holy Rune Department.

Once the Holy Marks Department approves the visit, the mission can officially begin.

There were quite a few alchemists like Xia Zuo who were just bystanders. Most of them noticed the rashness of the visiting group immediately, and a small number of them raised objections to the Holy Rune Department.

Among this small group, a very few with wildly imaginative ideas mentioned spirits, believing that the reason alchemical and magical clones were not affected by the dense fog was that the clones did not possess spirits.

People who offer near-correct answers may lack evidence, but their imaginative ideas are definitely commendable.

Unfortunately, this claim was refuted by the analysis report in the hands of the Holy Emblem Department.

The analysis report listed some evidence to support its negative conclusion.

The most convincing one is:

The harm of dense smoke to living organisms is felt in the flesh. Those unfortunate enough to be exposed to the smoke have their bodies decomposed by it, leaving only their heads floating in the air. This is clearly some kind of alchemical reaction that occurred between the flesh and blood and the smoke.

This conclusion is based on observation of the facts and is considered by the report's authors to be the strongest evidence.

Between the speculations from bystanders and the basis provided by the analytical reports, the Holy Mark Department unhesitatingly chose the latter.

Dozens of official appointment documents were issued from the Holy Mark Department and handed over to members of the visiting team by the Temple Guards.

As a result, the team members acquired official envoy status, and the visiting team transformed from an informal, temporary organization into an official envoy delegation of the temple.

The group inspected their full-body metal armor to ensure that all parts were covered in metal and that there were no cracks on the surface. Then they pressed the button in the chest compartment.

This button connects to the alchemical life support system inside the armor, which can continuously provide fresh air, maintain a suitable temperature, and automatically inject various functional potions to deal with various emergencies.

With everything prepared, the delegation formed three columns and stepped into the smoke-filled area under the watchful eyes of many onlookers, heading towards the nearest white tree.

At this point, the Image Orb could no longer broadcast the footage—the Image Orb itself could move freely through the thick smoke, but the Holy Emblem Department did not want to disclose the process of the envoy group's contact with the White Tree, so it temporarily suspended the broadcast footage from the underground of the circular island.

Viewers watching the broadcast could only imagine the scene amidst the thick smoke. In the atmosphere created by the Holy Mark Department, the delegation appeared to have a bright future, and most viewers eagerly awaited good news.

Xia Zuo pushed the image box in front of him aside and focused on controlling the blood essence servants that were hovering in the thick smoke.

When the Holy Marksmen summoned their delegation, Shazo used his Blood Element servants to find Rexor and the others.

The two demon hunters were in poor physical condition; their bodies below the waist had decomposed into life force, and their vitality attribute value had dropped to around 500 points.

The information from the detection technique indicated that their spirit and body would completely separate in about 5 hours.

Xia Zuo's blood essence servants briefly lingered beside them, creating two smaller blood essence servants that attached themselves to the two bald men, continuously supplying them with life force to resist the separation of spirit and flesh.

When the delegation set off, Xia Zuo had just settled the bald man and the cold-faced man.

Instead of having his Blood Element servants track the envoy group, he turned them around and headed into the deepest part of the thick smoke to search for the whereabouts of Nyxat and Rena.

Isn't it ironic...?

What was supposed to be a rescue mission for the pure-blooded mage and the members of the interdimensional exploration team turned into a wondrous journey of encountering mysterious entities after the appearance of the White Tree.

The safety of the pureblood mage Rena and the agent has been completely disregarded by the Temple.

If anyone connected to Rena and the agents were to ask, the Temple's response would certainly be: We need to determine what the smoke and white trees are before we can devise a rescue plan.

This answer was impeccable, but time was of the essence, and things could change if they were delayed. So Xia Zuo decided to go and rescue Reina himself.

Based on his memory of the people's distribution, he rushed to the foot of the stone tower.

Surprisingly, Rena disappeared, but Nexus remained!

The place where Rena had been sitting was empty, devoid of any remaining life force, completely different from the scene Xia Zuo had envisioned.

As a pureblood mage with physical vitality comparable to a second-generation blood mage, Rena's vitality attribute value is in the range of 8000 to 1, and it is conservatively estimated that she can survive in dense smoke for 80 to 100 hours.

But now... how come she's gone? Xia Zuo was a little confused.

Now let's look at Nexus.

His body is an alchemical bionic body, except for his brain, which is made of flesh and blood.

Ner'xath's spirit was connected to his brain, and after the brain was decomposed by the thick smoke, the separation of spirit and body was complete. At this moment, according to the feedback from the Prophet's Senses, Ner'xath had completely separated from his spirit and body and was heading to the [Land of Eternal Rest] where he had envisioned the progenitor resided.

During the separation of body and soul, the alchemical android skull encasing the brain was unaffected by the dense smoke, so his alchemical android body appeared intact, consistent with the analysis report compiled by the mission members. If those people had seen Nexat's appearance, they would have been even more convinced of their judgment.

Xia Zuo didn't bother with Nyoksait.

He commanded his blood servants to come to where Rena had been sitting and carefully searched everything around them.

Some loose soil, as if it had just been turned over, caught Xia Zuo's attention.

Judging from the marks left by the disturbed soil, it seems that some long, thin object emerged from underground and dragged Rena into the ground.

Xia Zuo took the video box and repeatedly played the footage of the thick smoke eruption.

He was certain that during the time between the appearance of the smoke and its engulfment of Rena, Rena remained seated and did not move.

If anyone or anything did take Rena from underground, it must have happened during the period between when the smoke engulfed Rena and when the smoke engulfed the pyramids.

The timing of this positioning was incredibly precise.

Moreover, the person who took Rena didn't care whether Rena lived or died, only about her physical body...

Based on these judgments, Xia Zuo immediately arrived at the answer:

It was the faceless man who coveted the power of the pure-blooded mage's bloodline who took Rena away.

All of the prophecies made by the Faceless Man came true, and he won the battle against the Temple.

Shazo's mood turned heavy, not because the temple's honor was damaged, but because he felt sorry for Rena and Christo... He had originally planned to use the [Life-Generating Sac] to find the Faceless Man's whereabouts and, if the opportunity arose, rescue the stranded pureblood mage.

It seems that Hughie might be able to return to Letunia intact, but Rena... she might just be an empty shell without any consciousness left...

Shazo was somewhat troubled; he didn't know how to tell Christo about Rena's disappearance.

"Oh right, I'm so stupid..." Xia Zuo slapped his forehead, realizing he had been a bit slow to react.

Since the Golden Vitex clan was able to find out the Faceless Man's movements, they must know something about his identity. Why not just ask them directly?

Xia Zuo looked at Xiao Jinjinghua, "How did you know there was a faceless man in the delegation? What is the faceless man's true identity? Where can we find him?"

"I knew you would ask me these questions."

The little golden chaste tree twisted its stem:

"I can't tell you the answer, Shazo."

"Please believe me, this is not to stop you from saving those two pure-blood mages, but to protect you, all members of the pure-blood mage faction, and our Golden Bauhinia clan. The Faceless Man's abilities far exceed your imagination; he possesses some kind of spacetime ability that allows him to foresee danger."

"But if you find the other person through your own efforts, that's a different story. Please forgive me for only saying this much."

“Okay…” Xia Zuo touched his nose.

Little Golden Bauhinia clearly had something she couldn't say, and to avoid straining their relationship, Xia Zuo decided not to press the matter further.

Within the thick smoke, the Blood Element servants circled around where Rena was sitting a few times before flying toward the location of the envoy group.

The team made a lot of noise amidst the thick smoke.

The pure metal armor has noise-absorbing magic arrays that can reduce the sound of a single piece of armor to a minimum. However, when dozens of pieces of armor are gathered together, the noise-absorbing magic arrays become less effective.

In the quiet, smoke-filled area, any sound would be particularly noticeable, let alone the movement of a group of massive, three-times-sized metallic men.

Xia Zuo found the group of slow-moving metal figures in the smoke-filled altar square with almost no effort.

The nearest white tree to the delegation was about 120 meters away.

The blood element servants maintained a safe distance from the metal people, following well behind the group.

When the delegation was less than 20 meters away from the white tree, the Blood Element servant dug a pit on the spot, burrowed into the ground, and made a hole in the hard ground, coming to a place about ten meters away from the white tree.

At this distance, as long as one remains quiet, one can overhear the conversation between the envoy group and the white tree through the soil.

Xia Zuo set up several magical barriers around himself to block out all sounds from outside the alchemy room, and tried his best to make out the words his blood servants heard in the absolutely quiet environment.

When a large group of people surrounds a white tree, it inevitably creates a sense of oppression, and in severe cases, the white tree may interpret it as a threat or a signal of some kind of attack.

To avoid such misunderstandings, after the delegation stopped near the white tree, they sent only one person at a time to approach and try to communicate with it, while the others tried to relax and avoid making any unnecessary movements.

The first person approached the white tree, looked up at the white tree that was almost a head taller than himself, and introduced himself to the white tree in various languages, including the common language of the temple, the language of the previous era, and ancient languages.

While listening to the other person's awkward conversation, Xia Zuo reached into his alchemy pouch and pulled out a pocket watch to silently keep track of time.

Among the delegation, the person with the lowest vitality attribute value has only 67 points.

It is expected that within 3 minutes at the latest, this member of the delegation will be forced into a state of forced meditation under the effect of [Separation of Spirit and Body].

At that point, there might be some unrest within the ranks.

The reality was completely opposite to what Xia Zuo had imagined.

Three minutes later, nothing seemed amiss within the delegation; even the person who had spoken earlier had fallen silent.