Chapter 365: Thirty-Three Highland Mages

Du Zhengyi scanned the surroundings; it was not that he did not trust Liu Ziyi, but this was standard procedure.

A powerful magic like Spatial Directional Distortion Magic would release several unique magical traces after being used, all of which were rare. Therefore, as long as Du Zhengyi detected any one of them, he could preliminarily confirm that Liu Ziyi and the others had indeed been attacked. However, the test results left Du Zhengyi slightly surprised. As Liu Ziyi cleaned her wounds, she asked him, "Is what I said not correct?"

Du Zhengyi looked back at her. She had an irritable expression and did not make a fuss about the pain or the wounds, handling the bleeding cut on her forehead with clumsy but practiced movements. "What you said should be correct. But why did I only detect three of the seven traces of Spatial Directional Distortion Magic?"

Liu Ziyi paused her work slightly, a dazed expression of deep thought appearing on her face, but she soon figured it out and said without surprise, "That's normal."

"Why?" Du Zhengyi asked.

"This plant is very strange; it lives mainly on energy. The indicators for detecting magical traces are energy residues, and the missing parts were devoured by the plant." She pondered for a moment. "Which three are left? I have an idea. The remaining three types of energy must be the ones the plant does not absorb. Starting from this angle, we are very likely to find the magic that can actually be used."

Du Zhengyi felt that she was indeed smart and would find a real solution sooner or later; he was not worried about this. Moreover, if no one had been here causing destruction, perhaps she would have been able to deal with the plants using human equipment before long.

Solving the plant problem was Liu Ziyi's issue, but solving the human problem was his. He still had some doubts he needed to ask her about. "It took nine minutes from hearing the explosion to me walking here. Another five minutes have passed since I started clearing the scene. Why did the plants completely cover this place in the first nine minutes, but not grow at the previous speed in the last five minutes? At the original rate, the plants should have regrown by now."

"Oh, that's how it is." Liu Ziyi had almost finished cleaning the wound and used a simple magic to accelerate the healing of skin cells. "These plants feed on energy—they truly feed on energy. Energy is like their fertilizer or their growth hormone. When there is energy here, they devour it rapidly, and all the growth capacity of the entire plant is tilted toward this side, as if they know this is where the greatest chance of survival lies. I don't know which God designed this creature; it has absolutely no taste, and its only goal in existence is to survive frantically, as if it were a reincarnated starving ghost."

Du Zhengyi said nothing. He looked at the other Highland Mages and saw signs that they were about to wake up. Two of the Highland Mages had injuries significantly more severe than Liu Ziyi's and needed to be moved out immediately. Fortunately, other Highland Mages remaining in the garden rushed in to help. Du Zhengyi stopped talking to Liu Ziyi and helped the Highland Mages transport the wounded out. Liu Ziyi went to find those among the Highland Mages who could help her; she gathered three people to go to a meeting with her to discuss a feasible solution based on the new line of thought, and then proceed to conduct experiments.

The problem was laid out there, and Liu Ziyi had locked horns with it, her ambition to solve the problem even greater than that of the Highland Mages. However, Du Zhengyi also realized that the Highland Mages were a group of mages whose purpose was to pacify any obsession. Although their home was about to be finished, it was still normal that they did not have as high a competitive psychology as Liu Ziyi, which showed that their cultivation was indeed quite good.

Mage Hashi appeared slightly more worried than them. After Du Zhengyi walked out of the group of crazed plants, he did not have time to look for Luo Qi. He took a quick look to see that Guan Xinyue was still with him, then went to speak with Mage Hashi.

"Was it man-made?" As they walked to a slightly quieter place by the lake, Mage Hashi asked immediately.

"Yes," Du Zhengyi said.

Mage Hashi did not waste words asking for details; he had a concise rhythm that Du Zhengyi liked very much. "How many people can cast this kind of magic from a distance?"

"The vast majority of us here can do it," Du Zhengyi said.

Mage Hashi fell into a brief silence. He did not accuse, and Du Zhengyi did not shirk or protest. The old man and the young man entered into an extremely harmonious cooperative relationship. Du Zhengyi could almost feel that in this moment of thought, Mage Hashi's train of thought had already turned several rounds.

"Where is Mage Zhou Quan?" Mage Hashi asked.

"I have already instructed people to look for him," Du Zhengyi said. But he did not have leadership over these people, and he was not sure that the people he casually entrusted would help him one hundred percent. Although forced by his intimidating presence, they would still execute his orders, but the efficiency would definitely be greatly reduced.

"Du Mage, as things stand, we must face this problem squarely and correct this disaster as an act directed at the Highland Mages. This is not an accident," Mage Hashi said.

"So," Du Zhengyi continued—he was actually a bit taller than Mage Hashi and looked slightly down into the old man's eyes—"so what exactly is the purpose of one of us? Is it because they don't like the precious tapestries of the Highland Mages? Or is there a 'construction maniac' among us who intends to tear down the old house of the Highland Mages and renovate it?"

"Du Mage!" Mage Hashi called out with a hint of reproach.

"Mage Hashi," Du Zhengyi said, looking calmly at the Highland Mage and patiently using Mage Hashi's own sentence structure, "as things stand, we must trust each other and have no more reservations. I implore you to tell me, what exactly is hidden here that might be coveted by others?"

Mage Hashi looked at him in silence. There was some evaluative meaning in the old man's wise and tranquil eyes, but it could not hide his appreciation. Du Zhengyi knew he would definitely speak. As things stood, he had no other choice; the problem was laid out there, and regardless of whether it was him or himself, they had to solve this problem.

"I heard that you are a Gushan Guard," Mage Hashi said suddenly.

Du Zhengyi nodded slightly and admitted, "I am."

"Then you must understand that mages have many ancient secrets that cannot be forgotten and cannot be destroyed; once opened to the world, there will be endless disasters," Mage Hashi said.

Du Zhengyi could understand what he was saying, at least he understood a part of it. But if Mage Hashi was implying that there was a secret of the same level as Gushan underground here, he would really be surprised. If the rare secrets were not one, but two, three, four, or five... after all, it was a bit unreasonable.

"I am not saying that this is also a Gushan," Mage Hashi said. He saw that Du Zhengyi had reservations and knew that he might have misunderstood. "This place might have been one originally, but now the underground here is covered with a Curse, and no one can go down. We mages have been thirty-three in number from the very beginning, selected to serve as the guardians here. The existence of the Gushan Guard is to protect the oldest secrets of mages from being leaked. We are here because the Curse underground cannot be removed; our existence is to protect those with too much curiosity, and also to ensure that they cannot rashly bring the Curse back into the world."