My health recovery is incredibly fast.

Christo and the others did not press for details, but wisely and tacitly chose to keep the secret.

Everyone in the Temple knows that Hughie and Rena were kidnapped by the Faceless Men, a disgrace to the Temple.

The sudden appearance of Hughie and Rena should be kept low-key, and they shouldn't let outsiders notice. Accidentally revealing that Hughie and Rena have returned to the temple will only complicate matters further.

Thus, the turmoil caused by the Faceless Man within the pure-blood mage faction came to an end with Christor mysteriously inviting Shazor for a meeting.

Xia Zuo's trip to Christo's office was because Christo wanted to tell him that Hughie and Rena were safe and sound.

Shazo's act of pretending to be unaware of the situation and inviting Rexor to go with him was also intended to dispel the rift between the pureblood mage faction and the demon hunter school.

After all, in Shazo's plan, whether it's Krestor, Cynthia, Letunia, or their descendants, or Demon Hunters like Rexor who know Shazo, they will all be forcibly kept on the Western Continent by Shazo.

The sooner the misunderstandings between the two parties are resolved, the better, lest they accumulate and become a hindrance.

“I’ll wait for you here…” Rexor said thoughtfully.

“Yes, Master. I’ll be back soon.” Xia Zuo had anticipated this outcome and walked alone toward the tower of the Tower Scholar.

Convincing Christo to move her family to the Western Continent was no easy task.

Xia Zuo's goal is to take away all the pureblood mages.

This was bound to arouse suspicion from the August family and cause unnecessary trouble.

However, leaving a few pure-blooded mages behind in the Eastern Continent to become expendable pawns to cover the relocation of the pure-blooded mage faction was not the outcome Xia Zuo wanted.

The key was to find a method that was discreet enough to avoid arousing suspicion and that could quickly move all the pureblood mages away.

Xia Zuo already had a complete plan, and the breakthrough point lay in the alien demons of the Western Continent.

It is reasonable for Rexor to conscript a group of pureblood mages to investigate traces of blood magic in the western continent under the pretext of investigating the Otherworldly Demons. Moreover, as the difficulty of the investigation increases, the number of pureblood mages required will also increase, and it is also reasonable to eventually send the entire pureblood mage camp.

Hey, it feels great to have foresight and control over the course of events...

Shazo walked out of Christo's office with a smile.

During their conversation, after Christo subtly revealed that Reina was safe and sound, Shazo casually offered to invite her to the Western Continent to help investigate the traces of blood magic.

As expected, Krestor did not refuse, and Shazo's plan to transfer his pure-blood mage faction had taken a successful first step.

Descending the steps from the tower and returning to the fountain sculpture plaza, Xia Zuo called over the bald man who was waiting there, and together they entered the teleportation room leading to the Western Continent.

...

Beneath the glass dome of the Cloud Sea Terrace.

This is the highest point of the temple buildings.

The enchanted glass dome, with its excellent light transmission, presents a vast expanse of clouds without reservation, while blocking out excess sunlight from the summer sun and keeping the indoor temperature at the most comfortable level for the human body.

The highest glass dome is located in the center of the glass dome complex, closest to the sky.

This space has been set up as a place suitable for multiple people to engage in deep meditation at the same time:

On a circle of metal discs of varying heights, meditators of different ages sat cross-legged. They wore uniform holy robes, their crowns resting on their crossed legs, their hands resting on either side of the crowns.

The slowly floating metal disc helps meditators better immerse themselves in their own mental ocean, much like soothing a baby to sleep.

Celine's figure appeared in a rapidly flashing teleportation beam.

An elderly man with white hair, who had been meditating on a metal disc, opened his eyes and looked at Celine as she approached. The metal disc beneath him moved with a low hum, descending smoothly to the ground and stopping at the same height as Celine.

The white-haired old man had his hair slicked back, the frost-like strands neatly combed behind his head, reflecting a silvery sheen in the sunlight. He had a high-bridged nose, deep-set eyes, and two golden flames burning fiercely within his almost white-gray eyes.

“Lord Bovaru.” Celine stopped in front of the old man, unfastened the alchemy pouch from her waist, and handed it over.

"The task you assigned me has been completed. The images and written records I made while observing Xia Zuo are all in the alchemy pouch."

Bovaru summoned a golden hand, took the alchemy pouch, took out the image orb and manual inside, and shone a beam of light on these information carriers.

The images on the image orb and the text in the manual transformed into phantoms that flew away from their respective carriers, returning to Bovaru's hands along with the golden light.

The flames in Bovaru's eyes flickered a few times before returning to a quiet burning state.

"Go down, Celine."

After Celine left, another metal disc descended, and a graceful female mage, who appeared to be over fifty but still possessed a captivating charm, asked in a calm and unhurried tone...

"Has Xia Zuo discovered our plan?"

Bovaru nodded, and beams of light shot from his fingertips, weaving together to create an image.

Xia Zuo, in the picture, smiled amiably:

“You’re right. I must be extra careful about the dangers of controlled items. Every temple territory is equally precious... If my alchemy mistake paralyzes Starry Night Academy... the temple’s preparations for war might be affected.”

The image freezes here.

Bovaru frowned, his brow furrowing into a deep crease. The white hair combed back of his head showed signs of standing up, and the top layer of his hair seemed to be inflating and contracting like an inflating balloon.

"He was warning us not to set our sights on the Western Continent."

The female mage pondered Xia Zuo's words. As someone who had mastered the laws of space and time and could predict the future, but could not observe what Xia Zuo would do in the future, she read a hint of threat in Xia Zuo's self-deprecation.

Xia Zuo's veiled meaning is nothing more than:

If you dare to cause bloodshed on the Western Continent, I will interfere with your plan to escape the planet.

Further analysis:

I don't want to interfere with your plan to escape the planet, provided that you don't sacrifice the Western Continent.

"What are you going to do, Bovaru?" The mage's facial features were somewhat unnatural, showing a mixture of anger and worry.

If they hadn't known that Xia Zuo's spacetime power was so immense and unpredictable, the August family wouldn't have taken his words to heart.

But now, a simple sentence can bring pressure several times greater than that of the demon army, all because Xia Zuo predicted the August family's plan, saw August's trump card, and could overturn the table at any time, plunging the August family into a situation of betrayal and alienation.

"What do you think of his strength?" Bovaru asked the female mage in return.

"It's hard to estimate, but it should be no less than the family's 7th-ring combat strength."

The female mage pondered before replying:

"Inst Heguman's death was very strange, and we were unable to investigate the specific details of the battle at the scene."

"I suspect that's what Xia Zuo did."

"What's rather strange is that when the battle broke out on the southern border of the Desolate Hammer Kingdom, Xia Zuo was still at Starry Night Academy. Judging from the situation of the pseudo-blood mage legion, the Blood Element Servant spell is insufficient to create a blood magic puppet capable of defeating Inster Heguman, not to mention that the extreme storm between the two continents can block almost all magical sensing..."

As Bovar listened to the female mage's words in deep thought, the flames in his eyes flickered a few times, and he said:

"You mean, he either possesses powerful blood magic unknown to us, allowing him to command special blood magic puppets across oceans, or... he's not alone, and there's a powerful group of allies hidden behind him?"

"Yes." The female mage nodded slightly.

"For someone who has mastered the laws of space and time, you can't simply measure them by their combat strength. You and I both know that. If you want to fight him, you have to strike a fatal blow when he can't retaliate. The perfect opportunity to strike is when he foresees the danger but can't make a move to counterattack."

"Hmm..." Bovaru sat cross-legged on the metal plate, looking up at the deep blue sky and the black smoke at the horizon. His white hair slowly stood on end, making him look like a lion awakening.

"Notify the Arcane Guild to dispatch three arcane combat teams to be stationed at Starry Night Academy, equipped with the newly developed anti-magic field generator, to properly protect the precious Starry Night Academy and the Western Continent."

Chapter 60 Traces of Half-Blood Magic

A secret base in the western mountains of the Western Continent.

Xia Zuo had just finished predicting the future, and the seven-colored light spots on his body were rapidly dissipating.

"Just as I expected, Celine received me personally and drafted a new agreement for me, which was at the behest of the August family. My words were successfully transmitted to Berwald August through the image orb on Celine's body."

Xia Zuo muttered to himself, mentioning the success of his prediction, but his face showed no frivolous joy, instead filled with a shrewd and calculating expression.

Successfully predicting one event is different from successfully predicting a series of consecutive events.

It's not something to be happy about if things develop as Xia Zuo expected, because the situation may very well reverse 180 degrees in the next moment, going backwards with even greater force, making all the past efforts futile.

The key lies in judging people's hearts.

According to Yishazo, the direction of people's hearts is the result of the interaction of three factors:

External environment, personality, and way of thinking.

Changes in the external environment constantly present a person with questions that have no standard answers.

Personality determines what kind of answers a person wants, while mindset influences how they solve problems.

Shazo conveyed his warning to Bovaru with a veiled statement. The external environment, beyond the physical and mental, presented Bovaru with a challenge:

If someone of unknown strength, whose power over time and space surpasses yours, threatens you not to do something, what would you do?

A timid and fearful personality will choose stability and self-preservation; this is the answer they want. Such people will naturally take the approach of avoiding trouble.

What kind of answer would a family head like Bovaru, who leads his family with prestige, controls a large amount of temple resources, and has the power to mobilize the temple army, want?

His answer was already determined, and there was only one:

To ensure the family's plan to escape the planet can be successfully implemented.

Then, the Beauvaru-style problem-solving approach emerged:

Three Templar armies, strong enough to counterbalance the source of the threat, were dispatched to completely surround the target. These armies were both protecting the people and property that the source of the threat cared about and closely monitoring the source of the threat.

When necessary, the Templar army can even use the pretext of raising the defense level to directly control the people and things that the threat source cares about, in order to restrain the threat source. This also includes the purpose of testing the strength of the threat source.

The above problem-solving approach should be the unified response method for every long-time powerful person when facing threats.

After returning to the Western Continent, Xia Zuo closely monitored the future timeline's movements in the [Time-Space Phase Simulator].

As expected, starting today, in the next two to three days, three fully armed elite teams of arcane mages will be stationed around the academy under the slogan of protecting the Satellite Night Academy.

These troops abducted Anru, Beatrice, and others far faster than they killed Shazo, allowing them to strike decisively at crucial moments.

"Fortunately, I had a plan in mind." Xia Zuo smiled slightly.

Responding to every move is a poor strategy; a good strategy is to plan three steps ahead; and the best strategy is to create momentum, taking all variables into account and creating an unstoppable trend.

The three elite mages sent by Bovaru arrived just in time, perfectly aligning with the growing tensions between the Western Continent and the Holy Temple.

Xia Zuo moved to sit at the desk, sensing his flesh and blood clones, checking the controlled goods production line and the mining site, then looking at several special forces teams carrying out secret missions outside, and finally focusing his attention on the cave where spies were being interrogated.

To date, he has used his special forces to capture 26 spies from the Eastern Continent.

Five observers from the Western Continent planted by the Holy Mark Department, six informants from the Demon Hunter School, and three informants from Faceless Man Inster Heguman—these were captured before the final battle with Faceless Man.