Chapter 307: The Lost Seal Beast

"Why are we talking so much about the clownfish? He is merely a number two figure; there is actually no need to prioritize breaking through him." Du Zhengyi tapped his fingers on the edge of his teacup, somewhat impatiently. "Luo Qi suspects he has a connection to the temple that worships the Da Hei Heaven, but that is, after all, just a suspicion; in reality, there is no tangible evidence. The biggest problem before us remains the organization known as the Lotus Burner. That this organization exists is beyond doubt. That the man surnamed Zhao is the number one figure of the Lotus Burner is also a provable fact. Teacher, if Qionglin wants to investigate this Zhao, it should be relatively easy to get started, right?"

"Indeed, Mr. Zhao is relatively clearer in profile now. His appearance and his origins with the Du Family can both help us narrow down the scope of our investigation. He was not born a Lotus Burner; he must have existed in our society," Pei Shu said.

"As the leader of the Lotus Burner, this Zhao is actually a bit too young," Du Zhengyi said, pondering, having fully entered his professional state. "Teacher Pei, what is your view on this situation?"

"The Lotus Burner's style of conduct has suddenly become aggressive in recent years, which aligns with the situation of their leader being young," Pei Shu said.

Luo Qi listened to the conversation between Pei Shu and Du Zhengyi from the side, gradually beginning to feel bored; the elder Mages were not saying anything particularly insightful. He had been a bit restrained at first, but listening to it, these deductions were all things he had already thought of; they had been talking for ten minutes, and it hadn't exceeded the scope of his own thinking. Regarding the information on Leader Zhao, Pei Shu had not brought any greater depth of investigation; logically, Qionglin should possess quite a bit of information on the Lotus Burner from these years.

Du Zhengyi was also working hard to dig into the past history of the Lotus Burner. "Teacher, now that the existence of the Lotus Burner can be proven, starting from this known condition and working backward, can we reorganize many of the cases we previously overlooked and label them with the Lotus Burner tag? Can we find a watershed moment where the case style changed abruptly, thereby clarifying the point in time when Zhao became the leader? Judging from his age and behavior, I feel this point in time likely does not exceed three years ago. This person is still somewhat manic now, possessing the characteristics of someone who achieved success at a young age; the excitement of first grasping power has not yet faded, so the time cannot be very long."

"That is a very good idea," Pei Shu said. He raised his head to look at the tapestry on the wall and did not speak for a while, as if lost in deep thought.

Luo Qi had a strange feeling that Pei Shu was currently performing a search, doing a search within his mind. If that were truly the case, the storm in his mind must be blowing quite fiercely, which is why such a clever person would experience a moment of stagnation like senile dementia. Luo Qi was inexplicably familiar with this state of his; he also had times like this, just like when he himself fell into the world of Yajian, in a state of working in coordination with several minds.

This thought was like an epiphany; Luo Qi realized there was nothing impossible about it. If one views a person as a god, one will never be able to understand that person. But if one strips away the "divinity" of this person, he is merely a Mind Mage with unfathomable power. Stripping away the modifiers again, he is a... Mind Mage. How a Mind Mage acts, Luo Qi, starting from his own characteristics, could actually fully understand.

He wondered how much information a person's brain could store. Could Pei Shu also be carrying a High-energy Crystal, using the Yajian within the crystal as a supplement to his brain? What kind of High-energy Crystal did he have on him?

Luo Qi remembered that when they first met, Pei Shu connected to the academy's information database to query Luo Qi's information; as a Venerable of Qionglin, did he have other ways to call upon the resources of Qionglin or the academy in real-time? And how did he do it? Luo Qi was very curious.

"I need to find the Calculators to help me complete this work," Pei Shu said. "However, I probably have some preliminary impressions. This little Mr. Zhao has caused me more trouble than the previous fifty years combined. The top priority now should be to organize the manpower in Qionglin to analyze what they are actually trying to do based on this recent series of actions by the Lotus Burner; I am now worried that they must have a grand strategic goal. Judging from Mr. Zhao's behavior of not knowing when to advance or retreat, his goal might be very terrifying. It is a pity that Fan Shi, for the sake of a little power, took the opportunity to stir up trouble; Qionglin is being dragged along by him and still has to waste many resources on him. This is truly an eventful time."

"Leader Zhao is indeed quite dramatic," Luo Qi suddenly spoke up loudly, interrupting Pei Shu. "He also told us something; he said the entire Du Family was executed by Qionglin, so his bloodline is especially precious."

Two gazes were cast at him simultaneously; Pei Shu and Du Zhengyi looked at him in astonishment from both sides. He fiddled with the unpalatable beans boredly, showing indifference to all their reactions. It was indeed indifference, because he knew even more information; he knew that it was the Alien Seal Beast that had slaughtered the entire Du Family, and he had seen it clearly in the Queen's memories. He hadn't had time to share this information with Du Zhengyi yet, and he also couldn't make up his mind whether he should tell Du Zhengyi these things at all.

Du Zhengyi had always been very detached in his attitude toward this matter. Luo Qi could taste that it wasn't the kind of detachment of sacrificing one's family for righteousness—the old captain had a bit of that feeling—but Du Zhengyi's attitude was as if it wasn't his own family members who had died. Yet Du Zhengyi was Du Zhengyi, the genuine Du Family child, genuinely born of the Jiangnan Du Family.

Pei Shu was truly looking at him in some astonishment, but to his surprise, Pei Shu completely skipped over his topic. It was as if, even in front of the potential aggrieved party Du Zhengyi, this topic was not worth mentioning at all. That was a bit impressive.

The point Luo Qi noted that he should seriously ponder was that Du Zhengyi's attitude also seemed to completely agree with Pei Shu's dismissal, and he even looked at Luo Qi with a slight sense of targeting.

Looking at what? Reproaching Luo Qi for driving a wedge between them as master and disciple? Luo Qi glared back at him. "If this matter is classified, I might have brought it up unnecessarily. But Leader Zhao's meaning is that he can find, open, and use the Seal Beast. So I don't know what the need for analysis is; old Zhao is definitely going to open the Seal next and lead his beasts to sweep across our planet."

"Luo Qi." Du Zhengyi might not have always been a very polite person, but he just couldn't stand others being impolite in front of Pei Shu. His tone also became a bit unpleasant. "Even so, there still needs to be a more meticulous analysis."

"Analyze what?" Luo Qi asked back irreverently. "The locations pointed out by Guan Yushan's crystals are all past Seal Lands; even the death of Guan Yushan himself is related to the Seal Lands. Even if the Lotus Burner seems to have known that the locations were leaked and is waiting in these places to give us a hard time, to show off and establish their prestige, aren't these places, in the final analysis, still Seal Lands? Qionglin knows exactly where the existing Seal Lands are; they should strengthen security where it needs strengthening, and manage their own beasts where they need to be managed, instead of coming out and scratching people everywhere."

Luo Qi's words were sharp and biting, with every word hitting the mark. Du Zhengyi looked at him, feeling both angry and unable to accuse him of spouting nonsense as he had in the past. In fact, the truth was that this was the one time Luo Qi hadn't said a single word of nonsense.

"What happened today was an accident," Du Zhengyi said. "Fan Shi violated regulations by using Qionglin's resources. The Seal Beasts in Qionglin's hands are no longer tools for slaughtering humans; the Seal Beasts that have been tamed by Qionglin can only be counted as weapons, and their targets can be directed at anyone. It is meaningless to blame Qionglin for this matter; Fan Shi alone cannot represent Qionglin."

Du Zhengyi was completely defending Qionglin, as if those Alien Seal Beasts hadn't almost cost him his life. Luo Qi knew that whenever it came to this, Du Zhengyi would firmly stand on Qionglin's side; his warrior nature would completely reawaken.

"How great," Luo Qi couldn't help but mutter.

"What did you say?" Du Zhengyi asked, suppressing his anger, his face turning very ugly.

Luo Qi regretted his behavior of being unable to help but mock Du Zhengyi, but he couldn't stop being angry either; it wasn't that he was angry at Du Zhengyi, but he had been holding this anger in for a long time. He was full of dissatisfaction with Qionglin, but as long as he criticized Qionglin, his best friend would instantly stand in front of Qionglin, and Luo Qi would, to some extent, feel a sense of betrayal.

He looked away; he didn't want to look at Du Zhengyi's face while he was angry, and he was always uncomfortable saying unpleasant things to Du Zhengyi's face. "Then how many Seal Beasts does Qionglin actually have? Besides Qiongqi, besides the Aliens, how many other types are there? Can these things be disclosed to Mages? Can you not make everything so mysterious?"

"Keeping it confidential from the outside is, of course, for safety. You have already seen how much trouble arose and how much covetousness was stirred up once one Lotus Burner knew this secret? If the entire Mage World knew of the existence of these Seal Beasts, would people with ulterior motives continue to search for potential Seal Beasts? Once a High-Reaction Mage obtains a Seal Beast, the result is always catastrophic," Du Zhengyi said with a straight face.

"A High-Reaction Mage..." Luo Qi suddenly sneered. "Who is a High-Reaction Mage? And who is a righteous Mage? How is it divided? By whether there is Qionglin's golden light shining on one's identity? It would be fine if any Mage was born a fool, but if one is born carrying high energy, then it is simply that if God says you are 'High-Reaction,' you are 'High-Reaction,' and if God doesn't say you are 'High-Reaction,' you are a Qionglin Great Mage. Li Xu is a Qionglin Great Mage, in charge of identifying High-Reaction Mages, but the thing he should do most is bury himself under the ground of Qionglin first. Fan Shi is also a Qionglin Great Mage, even ranking as a Venerable, and he used Seal Beasts that Qionglin dares not let mortals know about to murder his own kind. We people have no psychological preparation at all; who knows that such things exist in the world? Who supervises who uses those weapons, we don't know. The only right left for all of us is that before going to sleep every night, it's best to be prepared, wash our necks clean, and wait for some unknown thing to touch our beds in the middle of the night and snap our necks."

Du Zhengyi was unable to answer Luo Qi's words for a moment; he hesitated, not wanting to turn the conversation into blaming Luo Qi, but Luo Qi's temper was so high that he slapped away the half-plate of beans left in front of him. Those slimy-looking things rolled everywhere, and Du Zhengyi also couldn't help it anymore. "Luo Qi, don't vent your bitterness and amplify these problems just because you've been wronged."

"What bitterness do I have?" Luo Qi became angry. His biggest bitterness, damn it, wasn't that Du Zhengyi would die soon and the entire Qionglin would refuse to save him after draining his value? "You want to discuss the facts, so let's discuss the facts. Let's first figure out who actually has the High-energy Crystals of the Six Da Hei Markets? Is it Fan Shi, or Qionglin, or the Lotus Burner? Who is actually selling the small Seal Beasts sold in the Black Market? Is it actually Qionglin? Does Qionglin even have a count of its own things? If Qionglin continues to be so mysterious about these things, how are we supposed to distinguish which things are done by Qionglin and which things are done by the Lotus Burner? Can there even be any difference between the actions of Qionglin and the Lotus Burner?"

Du Zhengyi turned his head abruptly to glare at Luo Qi. Luo Qi was furious and wanted to say more, but his knee was suddenly pinched secretly from below. He hesitated and held back even angrier words.

"Can you shut up and stop arguing?" Du Zhengyi said coldly, quietly withdrawing his hand.

Pei Shu had been watching the two of them argue and only interrupted them when he heard this. "The small Seal Beasts might have leaked out from Qionglin."

After a full five seconds, Du Zhengyi reacted. "What did you say?"

Luo Qi was also a bit surprised. "Really Qionglin? This..."

This was practically saying that Qionglin was stupid to the core, with its internal management in complete chaos.

"Things are, of course, not as you think," Pei Shu said slowly, as if seeing through the astonishment of the two young men. "Fan Shi would not be so poor that he would be in a hurry to take this opportunity to sell off Qionglin's property."

"Oh," Luo Qi said. Pei Shu had suddenly started explaining the truth of the matter to him, and his anger receded a little bit without him realizing it.

"Qionglin lost some small things a long time ago," Pei Shu said.

Small things, in Luo Qi's understanding, were probably his little black cat, Ruiqi.

"Someone stole them from the laboratory and sold them to some wealthy Mages, probably as rare pets," Pei Shu said. "Over about ten years, more than a dozen or so were lost one after another. This is a scandal, but it has never been something that needed to attract too much attention."

"I understand," Du Zhengyi said suddenly.

"What do you understand, brother?" Luo Qi asked.

"Someone collected them together and deliberately put them into the Black Market, making these things appear in a cluster," Du Zhengyi said in a low voice.

"Oh." Luo Qi also understood. "Someone is deliberately making you look bad. Heh, eight or nine times out of ten, it's probably the Lotus Burner."