I'm not just human!

The thought popped into Xia Fa's mind, and he was startled by his own idea.

If the supernatural can sign secret contracts, that would be terrifying.

After admiring his sculpted muscles for a moment, Xia Fa sat down again with satisfaction and casually sprinkled iron filings all over the vine-covered hut.

Since he was going to have to wait here anyway, and it might even take a day or two, Xia Fa decided to make the most of the time.

After creating a sealed space by sprinkling live iron powder, there are many more things that can be done. Xia Fa plans to first advance the progress of understanding the secret agreement.

After all, he had absorbed a full three smart chips, while the other noble students and church elites who had only absorbed one smart chip were all rushing to finish their barbecue and find a place to start pushing forward. He should also try to push forward.

Xia Fa immediately closed his eyes slowly, imagining his mind turning into a glowing sphere, and quickly passed through the hazy mental body, arriving at the boundary between the mental body and the astral body.

The Ether Source Pact remained huddled in the corner, while the Silver Throne and the Gate of Stars, two overlord-level pacts, faced off against each other, neither willing to yield.

But strangely enough, there are even more places where they merge with each other.

Instead of rushing to advance his understanding of the overlord-level secret treatise, the Gate of Stars, Xia Fa used his spiritual intuition to pierce a small channel within his mental body, like a transparent thin tube extending to the outside world.

In this way, if the Mist Scale Dragon cub succumbs to the Nightmare Octopus's allure and appears, or if any other unexpected event occurs, he can immediately sense it and pull himself out of his meditative state.

After making preparations, Xia Fa immediately looked at the extremely large cryptic text of the Gate of Stars.

He raised an eyebrow, revealing a rather surprised expression.

Before he began to understand it, he couldn't feel it at all, but now that he had begun to understand it, Xia Fa immediately noticed that rings of crystalline light were appearing on the secret text of the Gate of Stars.

However, it wasn't all the cryptic texts, but rather the first ten or so percent of the texts that were not understood. Each cryptic text was surrounded by a hazy, crystalline glow, like the radiance of the sun, only white and semi-transparent.

At first glance, it looks like a smart chip shrunk countless times!

"So that's how it's done..."

Xia Fagang looked at the cryptic inscription that he couldn't understand no matter what last time, and found that he immediately understood its meaning. The faint crystalline glow also disappeared the moment he understood it.

Xia Fa breathed a sigh of relief, because judging from the number of runes surrounding the crystal radiance, his progress this time... was about 21% complete!

This means that you are guaranteed to obtain the secret ability of the Gate of Stars!

"It absolutely has to be a time-hiding technique..."

Xia Fa began to pray in his heart, but for a moment he didn't know whether he should pray to the [Silver Universe] or to the [Absolute Defense].

The former is one of the nine righteous gods worshipped by the Silver Church he has now joined, while the latter is the righteous god he currently worships the most.

So, if I were to calculate it this way, would I be considered a heretic of the Silver Church?

After thinking it over, Xia Fa decided that it was better to rely on himself than on others, so he simply... prayed to himself!

"We absolutely must acquire the Time Concealment skill..."

He prayed to himself and quickly immersed himself in understanding the cryptic text.

The cryptic texts are infinitely mysterious and full of fascinating details. Each time Xia Fa tries to understand them, it feels like he is learning new knowledge and solving one difficult problem after another.

Unbeknownst to him, he became engrossed in the story, and his understanding of the secrets of the Gate of Stars reached 21%.

Suddenly, starlight appeared in the distance, this time from the Celestial Spirit Realm. A purple-white meteor with a long tail crashed into the glowing sphere formed from his mind.

Xiafa abruptly exited his meditative state, yet felt no pain whatsoever; his mind was completely at peace.

Only in his mind did the name of the newly acquired secret bond ability appear.

[Time Hidden]

"It really is time concealment!"

Xia Fa was suddenly overjoyed. It seemed that praying to himself was quite effective.

However, he only thought it as a joke and didn't take it seriously.

……

at the same time.

Putte Farm, in the western part of the Kingdom of Augu.

This place was once the largest farm in the Kingdom of Augu, and was home to many villages of all sizes.

Every evening, as dusk falls, wisps of smoke rise from the tranquil fields, and children, who have been playing, are called home by their parents for dinner—a scene of peace and tranquility.

But all of this was destroyed by the freezing rain and insect infestation at the beginning of the year.

The once tranquil and beautiful village is now almost deserted, with the bones of those who froze to death and the bodies of those who starved to death in the past few months scattered along the roadside.

But in the last few days, Putte Farm has shown a renewed and vibrant vitality.

Under the organization and dispatch of the royal family of the Augu Kingdom, the Silver Church, and the Church of Nature, many refugees were sent back to Putte Farm in an orderly manner.

The refugees were sent back to this place that had once become a wasteland, the home they had fled from. Instead of feeling any sorrow, they were filled with joy.

Because Putte Farm... now has a full ten million acres of land covered with potatoes!

Moreover, those ten million acres of land have themselves become extremely fertile black soil!

Black soil is the best for nourishing people; this is a truth that farmers have known for generations.

The refugees finally resumed their lives as farmers, repairing their slightly dilapidated houses, digging up potatoes for food, and selling potatoes to supplement their income.

At the same time, many refugees, as well as ordinary people from several surrounding cities, and even kind-hearted nobles or those who wanted to show off, spontaneously came to Putte Farm, to that ten million acres of black soil covered with potatoes.

Those with money contributed money, those with strength contributed strength, and those with skills contributed skills. On that black soil, two statues would be erected at regular intervals.

One is a cloud-like mist rising above the earth; this is the ancestor of the mist people, the silent mist of the earth.

The other statue is of a handsome and sunny young man, standing on the black soil in his signature pose of being sculpted with one hand.

It was precisely... that Xiafa won ten million acres of potato fields for the refugees of the Kingdom of Augu!

After the refugees finished building the statue, they have been worshipping it every day for several days now, and will continue to do so.

……

At this very moment, in the Mist God Hunting Grounds, Xia Fa was excitedly examining the specific abilities of Time Concealment.

In his mind, lines of text that he could understand appeared one by one.

[Time Hidden]

[It can hide any inanimate object within a certain area—whether it be a secret treasure, a sealed artifact, an extraordinary metal, or even any ordinary item—into a time rift and release it after a certain period of time.]

[Upon reaching the demigod level, one can temporarily conceal oneself within a temporal rift.]

[Upon reaching the rank of angel, one can hide humans or demi-humans of lower rank into time rifts.]

[Upon reaching the Dominator rank, one can hide any living beings or things below their own rank within a designated area into a temporal rift. The lower the rank, the longer the hiding time, with an unlimited limit.]

Xia Fa's eyes grew brighter as he read, and when he finished, he let out a long, relieved sigh.

At this moment, he could only sincerely exclaim again—truly worthy of being a hegemon-level secret contract, the hegemon among secret contracts!

This ability to conceal time is simply incredible!

Even now, he has thought of things like hiding superhuman bombs in a certain area to catch the enemy off guard, or hiding poison gas in a certain area to ambush the enemy.

Not to mention, as he becomes a demigod, the higher his rank, the stronger his ability to conceal his time will become!

If a sovereign can hide anything within a region, as well as any living being of a lower rank, then wouldn't an Outer God who has signed this overlord-level secret pact be able to hide an entire planet?

As for the nine righteous gods, if any of them have signed the Gate of Stars, wouldn't they be able to hide an entire star field?

Xia Fa's heart was filled with more and more excitement as he thought about it.

Moreover, for him right now, the most crucial thing is...

Finally, I can completely interfere with the divination of the ruling position by relying solely on my own secret abilities and the living iron powder!

No spacetime-related treasures or sealing artifacts are needed, and there are no negative effects or costs to bear!

In this way, whether he kills the demigod Pompeii or that green-bearded man, he can do it without leaving a trace and won't be traced back to him!

"Oh, right, Pompeii..."

Xia Fa peered through the gaps in the vines inside the vine-covered hut at the open space not far ahead. Seeing no sign of even a Mistscaled Dragon cub, he could only shake his head and sigh.

"Forget it, I guess it'll really take a day or two. Let's do a divination first."

Since the progress in understanding the secret contract has been made, and given the possibility of encountering a Mistscale Dragon cub at any time, and the difficulty of exercising, Xia Fa understands that if he doesn't want to waste time, he has no choice but to resort to divination.

In particular, although the Mist Scale Dragon cub is also a demigod, it is definitely much stronger than ordinary demigod-level supernatural creatures.

The gruesome wound on the chain-bound body, running from its left shoulder to its right abdomen—the key to its near-death injury—was likely inflicted by the Mistscaled Dragon cub.

However, just minutes before encountering the binding chains, the divination he performed on the Mist Scale Dragon cub revealed that the cub was almost unharmed.

As fellow demigods, the fact that the Mistscaled Dragon cub could severely injure an opponent of the same rank without sustaining any damage speaks volumes about its power.

Therefore, Xia Fa only wants to stay in top condition at all times in order to deal with any possible Mistscale Dragon hatchlings.

After all, it takes time to crush the distress candy, and it also takes time for Prince Justinian, an angelic being, to descend. During that time, he must withstand the attacks of the Mistscaled Dragon cub.

Thinking this, Xia Fa nodded slightly, his body enveloped in mercury vapor, briefly entering the Silver Throne state.

He didn't enter the Starshine Silver Throne state because there was no need; he simply maintained his seated posture and raised his hands.

Five silver pillars immediately and silently materialized around them, each two meters tall and covered with magical circuits and mechanical inscriptions.

Mercury vapor rose again, and Shafa returned to human form. He turned his head, looking with satisfaction at the "mechanical pillar" he had created.

Since Daponz actually managed to divination with a few useful clues using mechanical divination, Xiafa also decided to abandon the most common and basic divination method of yellow crystal, cast iron, and live iron powder, and switch to mechanical divination.

Of course, his five pillars were not real mechanical pillars, but they were much more effective than Daponz's mechanical pillars.

The reason is simple: he used "star silver," which was transformed from the mystical living silver within his body, to forge the metal pillar.

Divination is essentially about obtaining information from the past, present, and even future from the Protoss realm, and Starsilver is one of the extraordinary metals that is closest to the Protoss realm in terms of mystical concepts.

In fact, no real-world mineral veins produce Star Silver; only extraordinary individuals who have signed the supreme-level secret pact of the Silver Throne can manufacture it.

The effectiveness of mechanical divination performed using the Star Silver Mechanical Pillar is self-evident.

Xia Fa flipped his hand and took out a handful of citrine, which he then crushed into citrine powder and scattered on the ground.

Unlike Daponz, he didn't scatter overlapping circles because he didn't understand them and was afraid of attracting the attention of some unknown entity. Instead, he chose to scatter secret runes one by one.

Those cryptic texts naturally represent various pieces of information about Pompeii, the demigod.

Xia Fa patiently sprinkled the runes, and more than thirty runes took shape one by one in this vine-covered hut.