Chapter 1398: Checking Memories, Comprehensive Elimination and Disinfection

Kelin and the others did not resist Xia Duo's act of checking their memories; perhaps they lacked the sense of privacy that Xia Duo possessed, or perhaps they believed that refusing would be useless anyway.

But regardless, Xia Duo's spell proceeded very smoothly, almost perfectly reconstructing the scene where these four people met with Tuofu at the time. Although there was a certain degree of subjectivity involved, it was actually not far from the reality.

However, as he watched, Xia Duo discovered some small movements by Tuofu; the other party was not merely conversing with Kelin and the others, but seemed to be casting spells in secret as well.

This discovery made Xia Duo furious; this was nothing short of a provocation. However, because the scene was reconstructed from the memories of Kelin and the others, many details, especially those related to the spells, could not be perfectly restored.

One could not conclude that Tuofu was casting spells based solely on some minor casting movements.

But since there was suspicion, Xia Duo could not just sit by and do nothing.

After stating that the Elf might have secretly cast spells on them, Kelin and the others agreed to the further examination proposed by Xia Duo with almost no hesitation.

"Chairman, what do you mean the Elf might have done something to us?" Jiesi asked with a nervous expression.

"Don't worry. It might just be that some Detection Mediums were placed on you, or your minds were influenced at the time. We will only know exactly what it is after an examination."

After a brief explanation, Xia Duo began to examine the bodies of Jiesi and the others one by one, from the outside to the inside, from the present to the past, and he did not even spare their Souls.

He ultimately concluded that the four of them had indeed been affected by some kind of spell, but time had almost wiped away any traces.

As for a persistent Detection Medium, Xia Duo did not find one on Kelin and the others; perhaps it was never there to begin with, or perhaps it had already been transferred to some corner of the Tower of Time.

At this moment, Xia Duo felt an even deeper sense of approval for Niya's previous decision to adjust the Portal permissions and restrict the members of the Tower of Time from going out!

Of course, there were communication controls inside and outside the Tower of Time; if there were no controls and communications were allowed to enter and exit at will, then couldn't Scrying spells also freely enter and exit via communication spells!

Such an obvious loophole could never have been left by the designer of the Tower of Time, the Great Arcanist Saville; even for the newly emerged Magic Net Background Communication, the Tower of Time had specifically set up control measures for it.

Although the old and new communication controls of the Tower of Time could not determine the information of the communicators on the other end, nor could they know the content of the communications, every single communicator inside the Tower of Time was recorded.

Xia Duo inquired with the Tower Spirit and learned that there had been a total of sixteen external communications from within the Tower of Time over the past few days, all within the scope of normal, legal communication permissions, with no unauthorized illegal communications.

This meant that either those sixteen communications, for which the identity of every communicator could be traced, were problematic, or Tuofu's Detection Medium had not yet been exposed.

Of course, the premise of this speculation was that Tuofu had indeed placed a movable Detection Medium on Kelin and the others.

But regardless, a comprehensive, routine "Elimination and Disinfection Procedure" within the Tower of Time was inevitable.

Generally, an "Elimination and Disinfection Procedure" of this level might not be initiated even once every year or two, and the maintenance cost of initiating it once was calculated in at least ten thousand Gold Coins.

If this were in the past, Xia Duo might have hesitated, but after the profitability of mass-producing Magic Items, coupled with the fact that he had just handled over a hundred thousand Arcane Crystals recently, he did not even blink when making this decision now.

……

Having confirmed that there were no hidden measures left by Tuofu on Kelin and the others, Xia Duo let them go back first; of course, he also arranged for them to attend the advanced training class that hadn't existed before.

Afterward, he notified Niya to initiate the Tower of Time's comprehensive Elimination and Disinfection Procedure.

And Niya's action was very swift; with almost no waiting, Xia Duo, who had just finished sending the message, received a notification from the Tower Spirit—

"Alert: The Tower of Time is about to initiate the comprehensive Elimination and Disinfection Procedure. To avoid accidents, all members must immediately stop their work and return to their respective residences. This procedure will last for 120 minutes."

Immediately following this, Xia Duo heard a series of sounds indicating the closure of functional facilities—

"Arcane Garden closing—

"Library closing—

"Public Level closing—

"……"

Seeing this, Xia Duo immediately teleported to Niya's Study on the top floor. Niya was still there, seemingly waiting for Xia Duo to return. As soon as she saw Xia Duo, she asked worriedly:

"What is the situation with Kelin's group? Did Tuofu do something?"

Xia Duo nodded and explained, "Tuofu might have placed a Detection Medium on Kelin and the others. I can find it, but regardless, let's run the elimination and disinfection first. In any case, the Tower of Time is not short of that little bit of money right now."

As he was speaking, Xia Duo felt a Spell Suppression Field of immense range appear out of thin air, and the Projection Window that had been lit up beside them instantly went dark.

Not just the Projection Window, but even the various Magic Items on Xia Duo and Niya also lost all their Magic Aura at this moment.

Fortunately, the Spell Suppression Field came and went quickly; if they had been in a Suppression Field of this intensity for a long time, Xia Duo's Magic Items would likely not have lasted until the end, one by one.

Of course, the various practical spells Xia Duo had cast on himself did not survive the passing of the Suppression Field.

Fortunately, he was inside the Tower of Time; otherwise, even if there were several more Suppression Fields to come, Xia Duo would have immediately cast at least one Avoidance of Detection spell on himself.

Without this spell on him, he felt too insecure.

……

After the Spell Suppression Field passed, Xia Duo then sensed several Detection Fields involving different levels sweeping over, followed by another Spell Suppression Field.

After cycling through this many times, and including various spells to clear magical or non-magical anomalies, a complete set of the Elimination and Disinfection Procedure was considered finished.

The total duration was the 120 minutes estimated by the Tower Spirit.

During the elimination and disinfection, Xia Duo stayed in the top-floor Study with Niya. Since the Projection Window was temporarily unusable, the two of them chatted while brewing tea.

When the procedure was finished, the Projection Window lit up again, but the view of Savile Town Central Square that Niya had previously set had been reset and turned into a blank screen.

However, Xia Duo was in no mood to reset the Scrying view of the Projection Window at this moment. After finishing the last sip of tea in his cup, he stood up and said to Niya:

"I am going to meet Tuofu. Regardless of anything else, the cost of a comprehensive Elimination and Disinfection of the Tower of Time must be put on her tab!"

"I will watch over you from here and provide support at any time."

Xia Duo nodded and said nothing more; everything was understood without words. He took one last look at Niya, then resolutely teleported to the Public Level, preparing to head to Savile Town via the Portal.