My health recovery is incredibly fast.

“Merlindora…” Xia Zuo’s expression was somewhat complicated.

Before today's battle broke out, Little Golden Bauhinia explained everything to Xia Zuo.

The story between Merlindora and Inster Heguman is a rather clichéd but true love story, and these details were clearly unsuitable as current topics until Merlindora brought them up herself. (Note: The main research storyline has been deleted.)

What Shazo truly wanted to say to Merlindora was:

"Thank you for providing me with the information, and thank you for helping me protect Rena and Hugh. Especially Rena, I thought she would become an empty shell because of the loss of her spirit body and the break of her spirit threads."

The potted plant swayed slightly, and the vegetative person with female characteristics stood up, saying with a hint of sadness on her face:

“I also have to thank you, Shazo. Inst Heguman’s consciousness can finally rest in peace.”

Xia Zuo took a slight breath, his tone somewhat uncertain:

"In fact, something unexpected happened at the last moment... The faceless man's chaotic container disappeared in a puff of black smoke."

"Hmm...this is unexpected." Merlindora crossed her arms, rested her chin on her plant-like hand, and pondered for a few seconds:

“I don’t know what happened either, I need to investigate. I’ll have Melina tell you when I have the results.”

“Okay.” Xia Zuo nodded, then turned to look at Rena and Hurley behind him. “I’m leaving them to you. Deliver them to Letunia and Christo quietly. Please don’t reveal anything about me. The fewer people who know what I did today, the better. I think you have a reasonable explanation ready.”

"Rest assured, the oath I made with the Golden Vitex Clan forbids me from revealing your secret," Merlindora said.

"As long as you keep your sacred oath with the Golden Vitex Clan, we will always be your allies. I, Selena, Melina, will always protect your secret."

“Alright, I always keep my promises.” Xia Zuo nodded, glancing at the alchemy equipment and desk in the alchemy room. “I’ll leave the finishing touches to you. I’ll be going now.”

"Go. Once you leave, I will make this base disappear."

Xia Zuo flew out of the cave, took out a large bag of alien time sand and scattered it around, creating a disordered zone that interfered with detection.

The ground trembled slightly as the hole drilled by the giant drilling vehicle closed.

After Xia Zuo completely blocked all detection methods, the passageway leading to the Faceless Man's base had been restored to a completely flat area.

Xia Zuo circled the entire battlefield one last time, then his figure flashed and he vanished into thin air.

Chapter 44 Gamblers Must Not Stay at the House

The battle between Xia Zuo and the Faceless Man did not immediately attract the attention of the resident mages of the Desolate Hammer Kingdom.

With favorable timing, location, and human factors, Xia Zuo precisely controlled every detail of the battle.

The location of the faceless people's base is extremely remote.

Although that area was incorporated into the territory of the Wild Hammer Kingdom, it was not defended by the Wild Hammer Kingdom due to the extreme weather.

Those such as resident mages and patrol teams in the border areas of the kingdom can only operate within a hundred or two kilometers north of the Faceless Man base, and will not venture deep into the scorching southern border.

In addition, Xia Zuo had excellent control over the scale and pace of the battle, preventing the energy fluctuations caused by the battle from spreading further.

These factors directly led to the entire temple being completely unaware of the sudden disappearance of internal hidden dangers.

At most, only two factions will know about Xia Zuo's battle with the Faceless Man.

The first is the Golden Vitex Alchemists' Association.

Given their close ties with the Golden Vitex clan, the Golden Vitex Alchemist Guild would never have informed the Temple about what was happening on the border of the Wildhammer Kingdom.

The second person who might have noticed Xia Zuo's battle with the Faceless Man was the Tree of Fate, Kamashiberlein.

After the faceless person's template is devoured by the [Life-Generating Spores], their spirit will drift normally towards the [Land of Long Sleep].

In this situation, Kamashiberlein, who can understand past history through spirits, will know the whole story.

Kamashiberian estimates there is a 90% chance it already knows the secret about Shazo, but it will not reveal any information to the Temple.

This is all because of the sacred oaths made between the Golden Vitex tribe and various parties:

Anyone or anything that guarantees not to open the place of eternal rest should be treated with respect.

This oath established a front against Vasaksat.

As long as one does not open the [Land of Long Sleep], does not become a "microscopic creature" of "fermented food", and does not become a lackey of Vasaksat, the Golden Vitex tribe will provide assistance to those recognized by the tribe and keep their secrets.

Under the protection of this oath, Xia Zuo and the Golden Vitex tribe established a trustworthy alliance through the bond of Little Golden Vitex Melina, becoming half an ally of Kamashiberlein.

The Golden Vitex clan cleared away all the loose ends for Xia Zuo, freeing him from the constant worry that the temple would discover his unusual behavior.

...

A secret base on the Western Continent.

Xia Zuo's figure appeared in the light.

Feeling relieved after defeating the faceless man, the pure-blood mage faction is now safe, at least for the foreseeable future, no one will covet the power of the pure-blood mage bloodline.

Xia Zuo sat in the chair, recalling the image of the faceless man turning into black smoke and disappearing, feeling a surge of anger that was hard to swallow.

"Strange, strange, I still can't figure it out."

Xia Zuo grabbed his hair and clenched his fist, swinging it twice in front of him.

"Why does an accident always occur when I'm halfway through absorbing the faceless template? It happens in the future timeline and it happens in reality too. What's going on?"

Xia Zuo paced back and forth in the alchemy room, looking distressed.

Merlindora couldn't figure out the reason either, so Shazo could only figure it out for himself.

He could attribute one or two failures to probability issues arising from uncertainty.

But if this happens every time, one has to suspect that there is some underlying problem.

Using the [Breeding Spore] to devour an adult monster can increase the time flow rate of the [Time Phase Simulator] by about one ten-millionth. This is the conclusion that Xia Zuo reached after repeated experiments.

The template for 100% devouring faceless people can probably increase the chances by about one percent.

But now we only have half of the faceless man's template... The other half disappeared with the black smoke, and we can't even track the black smoke's whereabouts. Does having only half of the template mean we'll never be able to get it?

Xia Zuo lightly pounded his chest, barely managing to calm his inner resentment.

Forget it, I'll stop thinking about it and just look at the template first...

Xia Zuo returned to his desk and sat down, then pulled up the message that his cheat system had sent earlier:

"Host detected consuming the character template of Faceless Man Inster Heguman..."

"Progress 1%..."

"Progress 2%..."

"..

"Progress 50%..."

"Warning! The progress of devouring the template has been forcibly interrupted due to uncontrollable external interference."

"Calculating the results of the devouring..."

"Congratulations, host, on successfully absorbing 50% of the character template. Please choose one of the options below as your reward:"

"1. Retain the character template [Wild Element Inster Heguman (50% complete, severely damaged)].

"2. Absorb the character template to gain attribute values ​​and time-space law rewards. After consuming additional vitality attribute values ​​of the host, you can randomly draw spells from the character template as rewards. Each draw consumes 100 vitality attribute values, and there is no limit to the number of draws."

Should we retain the template for the faceless person, or absorb it?

Different choices lead to different futures.

Xia Zuo didn't rush to make a decision. He first used the [Space-Time Phase Simulator] to look at the results of different choices before speaking to the cheat code:

"I choose the second option: absorb the faceless man's character template."

The reason for not choosing the first option is simple... the faceless character template is severely damaged, not just because of reduced attribute values ​​and an incomplete spell list.

His personality and memories are also incomplete, and he often does things by any means necessary to achieve his master's goals.

Using a character template with this level of completeness, the resulting spore spawn will be a menace, creating a great deal of trouble while diligently fulfilling its master's orders.

It would be better to just absorb the template directly.

"Incorporating character template [Wild Element Inster Heguman (Completeness 50%, Severely Damaged)]..."

"The reward contains the law of spacetime, and we are optimizing the host's character template."

"A new entry has been added: [Intensity of Spacetime Laws]. The unit of calculation is [Time Flow Ratio]. The current intensity of spacetime laws is 6000 to 1."

"Continue to absorb character templates..."

"Congratulations, host, for gaining several attribute values ​​and spacetime law rewards. Your [spacetime law strength] has reached 6006:1."

"Consume Vitality attribute points to randomly select a spell from the template?"

The strength of the spacetime laws increased by about one-thousandth, which was far below Xia Zuo's expectations, but it was in line with the predicted results in the future timeline.

This is not due to the incomplete character template of the Faceless Man, but rather because Xia Zuo's own spacetime law strength is inherently very high, far exceeding the level of the Faceless Man.

It was at this moment that Xia Zuo gained a direct understanding of the strength of his own [spacetime law].

Without pondering why he possessed such terrifying [spacetime law strength], Xia Zuo knew that the answer to this question wouldn't be found anytime soon. His immediate priority was deciding whether or not to randomly draw spells.

The Faceless Man's spell list is extremely rich; it could be described as a spell archive.

Xia Zuo only wants three things:

The Chaos Command, which condenses chaotic energy, creates the energy body, the Energy Avatar, as well as the Primal Energy Invasion and the Static Energy Field.

Due to the template being damaged, [Chaos Command] and [Energy Avatar] did not appear on the list of available spells. Xia Zuo could only randomly draw [Static Ability Field] and [Elemental Invasion].

In this situation, is it necessary to become a gambling addict?

Xia Zuo scratched his head, feeling that it would be a waste of such a rare lottery opportunity not to try his luck once or twice.

With his lucky bloodline, it should be a sure thing that he will first unleash the [Static Ability Field] and then the [Elemental Energy Invasion].

"But things don't happen more than three times... If I don't get the spell I want within three tries, I'll stop trying."

Xia Zuo clapped his hands and silently recited:

"Consumes 100 points of vitality attribute value for one draw."

A lottery wheel flashed through my mind, the pointer sliding along the rapidly spinning wheel before stopping after a few seconds: