My health recovery is incredibly fast.

“This is related to a sacred vow. That’s all I can say for now. I’ll tell you when the time is right.” Little Golden Bauhinia shook her head repeatedly, refusing to reveal any more.

Xia Zuo wisely stopped asking questions and lowered his head to think.

He actually had some guesses about where the light element originated.

The most obvious answer is the Hall of Creation, which is where the Creation Crystal is placed.

Rexor had mentioned to Shazo that the Creation Crystal contained millions of light elements.

Clearly, this was not the answer Xia Zuo wanted; the Genesis Crystal was at best a place to store light elements.

In his conjecture, the place that could truly be called the source of light elements was the glass dome rooftop above the sea of ​​clouds, which was reached through the Genesis Crystal during the mage ascension ceremony.

The sacred oath mentioned by the little golden thorn flower easily reminded Xia Zuo of the temple, which also made him more certain of his guess about the Cloud Sea Terrace.

The little golden thorn flower's overreaction also reminded Xia Zuo that the domed rooftop above the sea of ​​clouds, though seemingly beautiful, actually harbored hidden dangers and was a place he could not reach at this stage.

Let's find another place to get the light element...

For example, plundering light elements from certain high-level mages... This practice is somewhat dangerous and must be carefully considered.

Xia Zuo took out a hydrating potion to soothe Little Golden Bauhinia and gently stroked the glass dome to lull it to sleep.

Late at night, after Little Golden Bauhinia had fallen asleep, Xia Zuo used his bloodline sensing to remotely monitor his special forces team while taking out a blank notebook to write down his plans for the next few days.

The Spacetime Phase Simulator gave him a taste of the benefits of predicting the future, and Xia Zuo hopes to expand his base again while ensuring safety and secrecy.

At the very least, the secret heavy weapons manufacturing base needs to be put into operation.

Having a trump card gives you the confidence to negotiate with all parties.

As time passed, the night gradually faded, and the first rays of dawn appeared on the horizon, with the brilliant sunrise rising from the distant coastline.

The special operations team, operating day and night, flew swiftly between the mountain peaks carrying miniature cultivation tanks crafted by their master. Blood element servants, responsible for covering the rear, sprinkled alchemical mist along the way to eliminate odors and energy fluctuations.

Near the returning special operations team, there are several groups of Blood Element minions that are designed to mislead trackers, ensuring that any tracker is completely confused and unable to determine which group is the real target.

Last night's mission went very smoothly.

All teams, without alerting the garrison mages, brought back the target's head with an outstanding record of zero casualties.

Instead of heading to the mountain where Xia Zuo was located, the special forces team, under their master's instructions, went to another remote mountain range and placed the miniature culture tanks covered with black alchemical cloth into a cave.

Xia Zuo took control of one of the flesh and blood clones and remotely checked the status of all the incubation tanks.

Xia Zuo did not want to harm these Temple members, as they could become important bargaining chips or suitable candidates for the Spore Cyst Spawn.

These temple members, who work for the Faceless Men, the Demon Hunters, the Holy Marksmen, and the Mystics, will receive different treatment.

The subordinates of the latter three will receive preferential treatment; their cultivation tanks contain mild hallucinogenic drugs that allow them to ignore time and location, temporarily lose all spellcasting abilities, and quickly pass several months in a state between sleep and wakefulness.

The faceless man's subordinates will suffer.

After disbanding the special forces, Xia Zuo specially assembled a group of flesh-and-blood clones of interrogators to thoroughly interrogate the Faceless Man's subordinates.

The location of the Faceless Man's secret base was not Xia Zuo's main concern.

That place was already clear in the future timeline; it was just a hideout underground on the southern border of the Wild Hammer Kingdom, in segments numbered 899 to 903.

What Xia Zuo wanted was a list of personnel.

Who is on the list of people working for the Faceless Man in the Starry Night Kingdom, and who are their superiors?

The Starry Night Kingdom, being Xia Zuo's birthplace and home base, must be protected with extra care, and those who operate clandestinely in the shadows must be resolutely eliminated.

Chapter 35 What can you find out if you investigate yourself?

Under the blazing sun, the Starry Night Kingdom welcomed the sweltering summer.

Dim, the manager of Starry Night Castle, strode through the castle towers under the scorching sun. His enchanted leather armor kept him cool and clean, but it couldn't quell the anxiety in his heart.

He pulled out one icy carrot after another and stuffed it into his mouth, but the sweet and refreshing juice failed to extinguish the flickering sparks of trouble in his heart.

Last night, 12 bizarre and serious disappearances occurred throughout the Starry Night Kingdom.

Twelve shop owners who ran businesses selling ores, magical herbs, and alchemical preparations in different cities of the kingdom were kidnapped by a mysterious murderer at the same time.

These shopkeepers are no ordinary people; they are all alchemists registered at Starry Night Academy, holding official mage status, and all come from the Eastern Continent.

Their mass disappearance alarmed the resident monks.

The message was delivered to Starry Night Academy in written form and was personally placed on the desk of Dean Beatrice this morning by Tim.

A secret message was sent from Beatrice's secret message ring, and Xia Zuo, the culprit behind the disappearances, entered the headmaster's study.

"Good day, teacher." Xia Zuo pushed open the door and entered, greeting him with a normal smile.

He looked at Tim, the bearded man standing by the desk with a slightly grave expression. "Good morning, Tim. You don't look well. What happened?"

“Shazo, I have a very urgent task for you.” Beatrice took out several blank sheets of paper from the drawer and began writing with her silver-sand palm as she spoke:

"Last night, 12 researchers from the Eastern Continent went missing. There were no signs of struggle or spellcasting at the scene. The perpetrator did not appear to have used elemental magic or alchemical tools, and the garrison mages did not detect any energy fluctuations. Dim will tell you the details on the way."

“This is a tricky matter, Shazo. I will grant you temporary spellcasting permission, allowing you to use any spell, any spell, including blood magic and time magic.”

"I only have one request for you: before the sorcerer's investigators arrive, try to find some clues to complete your mission."

Xia Zuo took the newly issued spellcasting permit, glanced at the words on it, and asked thoughtfully:

"Teacher, do you think it was made by a demon?"

There were no energy fluctuations, no signs of elemental magic, so the suspicion naturally points to the hybrid mage.

“Yes.” Beatrice nodded, her delicate eyebrows furrowing together.

"It's highly likely that there are demonic spies infiltrated into the kingdom. To tell you the truth, these 12 missing alchemists are ostensibly researchers from the Eastern Continent, but actually..."

Beatrice stretched out her white fingers and rubbed her temples:

"But in reality, they are intelligence agents from the Demon Hunter School, the Arcane Masters Guild, and other important departments of the Temple. Each of them possesses some top-secret information."

"Perhaps the Temple army has been making quite a bit of a fuss in the eastern part of the Eastern Continent recently, forcing the Church of the Otherworld to increase its infiltration capabilities behind enemy lines, which is why our Starry Night Kingdom has been affected."

Xia Zuo nodded solemnly and slowly, "Okay, teacher, I will do my best. When will the arcane mage's investigator arrive?"

"They'll be here in three hours at most."

“Okay, let’s get going.” Xia Zuo looked at Dim.

The bearded man bowed slightly to the head of the academy, then walked out of the study with Xia Zuo.

About five months ago, while Xia Zuo was still in the secret chamber carrying out a mission to infiltrate the anti-magic field, Dim successfully advanced from a high-ranking mage to an archmage.

His tower is rather unusual; it's an airship that's perpetually suspended in the air, always remaining invisible.

This was specially designed by Dim to make the tower more suitable for his current work.

It was thanks to this fast-moving airship tower that he was able to inspect the crime scenes of missing persons cases in various places within two hours in the morning and compile a complete investigation report.

Xia Zuo remained calm as he read the report written by Dim.

Under his meticulous planning, everything was unfolding according to his plan.

"Dim, where should we go first?" Xia Zuo asked knowingly.

"Spencer City, that's the closest place to us."

Dim reached into the air and pulled open an invisible hatch:

"The missing mage in Spencer City is a member of the Arcane Guild. We need to prioritize dealing with the Arcane Investigators. What do you think?"

“No problem, do as you say.” Xia Zuo followed the other party onto the invisible airship and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat.

Dim input energy into the control panel, and the silent airship flew stealthily towards the horizon without alerting anyone.

Ten minutes later, we arrived at the first stop of the investigation.

Xia Zuo and Dim jumped off the airship that was hovering high in the sky and landed steadily in the backyard of a shop.

Just like the other places where researchers from the Eastern Continent stayed, the front hall of this shop was a storefront meant to be seen by ordinary people, while the backyard was the alchemy room and the cultivation room.

As an intelligence agent for the Mystic Guild, the shop owner also has an intelligence room equipped with a powerful protective magic array. Inside, there are shelves locked with magic, an image box, a safe, and so on.

Now, these containers, which clearly contain classified information, have all been violently destroyed from the outside. The contents of the containers have either been roughly crushed or disappeared along with their owners.

Xia Zuo used blood magic to detect blood patterns, carefully examining the areas damaged by violence several times. He was very satisfied with the special forces team led by his flesh and blood clone.

He looked away from the scattered debris on the ground and shook his head helplessly at the bearded man standing outside the door:

“Dim, there’s no sign of blood magic. I’ll use the time-space container to see what happened last night.”

Xia Zuo summoned a spacetime container as tall as a person, inputted it with attribute-less power, and reenacted the historical scene of last night.

The special operations team, with its flesh and blood clones, used the Sands of Time from another location to disrupt the spacetime information of this area. The places where the missing persons had been at the time of the incident were given special attention by the special operations team.

When Xia Zuo's time-space container swept across certain corners of the room, a very strange scene appeared:

Giant boulders jutting out from the cliffs, waves crashing against the shore reefs, wild animals hiding in the woods waiting for their prey, and the forest sea swaying in the wind...

Natural scenes that shouldn't be here have appeared in the historical scenes reenacted in the time-space container.

Both Xia Zuo and Dim wore expressions of surprise and confusion.

"What's going on?" Dim stared at the scene in the time-space container, somewhat confused about the situation. "Shazo, have you ever encountered something like this before?"

Xia Zuo, after a moment of shock, fell into deep thought. "No, no. This is the first time I've ever seen something like this, a spatial distortion."

He held up his hand and made a circle in front of him:

"The sands of time in this area are strange. The spacetime information they record seems to have been artificially modified, and the spatial coordinates point to a place very, very far away from this room."

"So, when my spacetime container reads spacetime information, the recreated historical scenes become distant landscapes... It's really a headache. What kind of magic can produce this effect?"

Xia Zuo scratched his head and walked towards the door. "It seems our opponent is quite formidable. They may very well possess powerful spacetime magic. I've never heard of any magic that can alter spacetime information like this before."

Tim scratched his furry chin and glanced inside. "Come on, let's go to another crime scene. I refuse to believe that the temporal information of every crime scene has been altered."

Hehe...believe it or not, they really have all been modified.

Xia Zuo was absolutely certain of this.

The disruption of time and space was only the first step in Xia Zuo's attempt to cut off the clues. He also set up many other measures to hinder and interfere with the investigation, and each one left no trace, making it impossible for anyone to guess that he was the one who did it.

For the entire morning, Dim and Shazo did only two things.