Chapter 377: Surveillance and the Prototype

Oona had long known that a mind flayer had entered the forest.

As the deputy director of the Containment Division, she naturally had some understanding of this new race.

Their psychic frequency and innate psionic abilities carried a natural pressure; the moment they entered her magical perception range, they shone bright as a torch in the dark of night.

This was the specialty of the rabbit-folk's psychic arts, and Oona was even more so.

A full week ago she had already set her sights on the mind flayer Hart, monitoring his every word and deed each day.

This small favor was nothing much.

After all, she was a guest lodging in their forest; it wouldn't sit right to refuse to help with anything at all.

Besides, the Young Lady zombie overseeing things was busy running magical experiments and wouldn't bother with her in the slightest.

But what surprised Oona was—

This mind flayer's psionic abilities were extraordinarily advanced, nearly on par with the level of a chief brain among their kind.

Yet its flesh clearly showed signs of disharmony and unnaturalness—a biological deformity, a phenomenon of spirit and flesh out of accord.

Oona didn't know how Rod had managed to capture a mind flayer like this, but judging by the creature's recent behavior, it was indeed still within his control.

Hey! Wait!

Perhaps I can use this as a perfectly legitimate excuse to cast a surveillance spell on Rod and this mind flayer!?

"I'm really worried, Rod."

Her wheat-colored little face was creased with worry.

Round, rolling red eyes, paired with a petite round face and little bunny teeth—even with her rabbit ears covered up, she was still just as cute.

Rod resisted the urge to pinch her cheeks and instead gave a tug on Vivian's ear in his arms.

The tree-spirit Young Lady mistook it for some kind of signal and began kissing his chest, clumsily turning in circles—obviously something Tally had taught her.

"This is a dangerous new race the continent has never encountered. From what we've seen so far, they are cunning and evil, cruel and fond of torture, selfish, indifferent, and cold-hearted—absolutely not the sort of beings that can be redeemed. Rod, as a friend, I sincerely advise against keeping this monster by your side."

Oona spoke plainly, first laying out her concerns.

"Of course, I understand that. But she's useful to me—at least, she's useful for now."

"I know Rod must have his own reasons for doing this, and I trust Rod's abilities, but with Scarlett recovering here and me unable to stay in the forest every moment, I can't help feeling a bit uneasy."

"Mm, so what do you mean?"

Oona stealthily let slip a tiny smile, then immediately turned solemn.

"I need to place a surveillance spell on that mind flayer."

"A small matter, just go ahead and place it."

Rod said he didn't mind.

Mind flayers were notorious; having one living nearby naturally caused unease. Oona didn't know the means of his powerful Nu Yi Zhou, so it was only normal to take a few small precautions to ensure safety.

Oona, seeing him agree so readily, inwardly cried that it was a bad bargain.

She should have made an even more excessive request!

"Actually, that's still not enough. I plan to place a spell monitoring psychic control on every girl in the forest—just in case!"

Rod, seeing the rabbit girl before him excitedly pump her little fist, couldn't help raising an eyebrow.

He suddenly recalled that the dog-folk Sharon had mentioned this Containment Division deputy director's eavesdropping quirks to him.

So—the map of Yan State is already fully unfurled this quickly?

He shook his head:

"The girls all came to settle in the forest because they yearn for nature and freedom; I imagine they wouldn't be happy about being monitored by spells."

"I see, that's true enough." The rabbit-folk girl deflated.

"But as for me, I don't mind—you can place one on me. On the condition, though, that you hand over a certain degree of Kong Zhi De Fa to me."

You?

With your psychic resistance, what's there even to monitor?

I'm not even sure I could detect anything.

These thoughts Oona would only keep to herself; saying them out loud was absolutely out of the question.

After all, this was a perfect chance to plant some eavesdropping measures!

She had kept firmly in mind the matter of having offended Rod the first time they met, and would never do the same thing again—but now that the person in question had agreed, it was a different story!

Legal eavesdropping, here I come—hahahaha—

"Of course, of course! I'll teach you how to toggle the spell on and off. To be safe, I suggest you keep it active for at least two hours a day, and the results will be fed back to me."

This was true—Oona would only eavesdrop during those two hours; she wouldn't dare leave herself a hidden backdoor.

The psychic-monitoring spell was cast quickly.

Practiced, as though she had rehearsed it hundreds of times beforehand.

Next, Rod briefly learned how to toggle the spell on and off, and with his grasp of magic, he mastered it swiftly.

Very good.

It wasn't large, but for her size it was certainly not small either.

Then, as if remembering something, she handed over a sphere made of brass.

"Oh, right—here, take this."

Rod took it.

Solid and hefty, with a nice feel in the hand.

"What is this?"

"It's a derivative work of the dwarves of the Magic Control Federation's 【Heart of Locke】. It can examine the user's spirituality and simplify their spiritual, magical accumulation, and physical constitution into simple numbers. It's one of their thirty-six prototype units. I figured Rod would be interested, so I brought one over."

In simple terms, it digitizes everything.

The dwarves' 【Locke Heart】 already bore the shadow of a computer to some degree.

Previously, when going to the Magic Control Union, the queuing and number-calling in the teleportation elevator were all replaced from manual labor to be handled by the 【Locke Heart】; being able to produce something like this now is truly impressive.

Rod weighed it in his hand and discovered that the brass sphere had a black crystal conducting plate about the size of an index finger.

He channeled a sliver of spiritual essence into it.

The black crystal conducting plate stayed blurry for quite a while before faintly displaying the number 【312】.

"Three hundred and twelve?"

Ona leaned over.

She wasn't tall enough, so she could only grip Rod's wrist with both hands and stand on tiptoe to look.

Her cheek pressed against the side of Rod's hand—smooth and bouncy.

"It's a prototype after all, so it's only natural that it's not accurate."

She let go, but the warm touch lingered on Rod's skin.

"What level is 312?"

"According to the numerical settings in the 【Locke Heart】, the sixth tier should be between 100 and 150. Rod is seventh tier, so it should be around 150 to 300."

"That's quite a wide range; it doesn't sound very rigorous."

"Yes, the dwarves are quite troubled by this too. After all, there are too many races on the continent, especially the issue of body size, which causes very large errors and makes it very hard to use numbers to reflect things."

"By the way, what is Ona's magic value?"

"Me? I'm at mid eighth tier. From the tests over this period, I've been hovering between 411 and 415. Oh right, there's also Kexi—she's also mid eighth tier, with values between 450 and 458."

"Kexi... who is she?"

Rod searched through his memory.

The name sounded like it should belong to a woman. If there was a girl whose appearance he couldn't remember, it was most likely because she wasn't pretty enough.

Ona pretended to be displeased, hands on her hips, and pouted with a smile.

"The horned girl you ran into last time when you delivered the magic ring to me—she's the squad leader of the Other-Space Cleanup Team."

Oh!

He remembered now—the horned woman who looked even more manly than he did.

No wonder he couldn't recall her.

Rod flipped his hair in a showy manner: "Sorry, I generally can't retain memories of girls who aren't cute enough. With Ona right in front of me back then, I couldn't possibly see her."

The rabbit-folk didn't really fall for that kind of line, but she understood that Rod was calling her pretty.

She giggled: "Don't say it like that. Kexi has been thinking about you this whole time, always asking me for your address."

(End of this chapter)