Chapter 178: Spreading Threads of Fate

Chapter 178: Spreading Threads of Fate

With such malicious thoughts, Zheng Yichen glanced back at the Volcano. The entire Volcano was shaking slightly, as if it might erupt any moment. Zheng Yichen curled his lip slightly. What a temper, nothing like the master of the Snow Mountain.

Looking down at the high-quality Fire Crystal in his hand, Zheng Yichen wondered if pressing it against an Ice Crystal would cause some amazing reaction, perhaps creating a super explosion. Thinking this, he placed the Fire Crystal into a different pocket. His pockets weren’t true storage spaces—just products of spatial expansion. Time inside them flowed normally; without preservation measures, things would eventually rot.

The magically-modified Wizard’s Eye hovering above the Stone Forest suddenly flew off in one direction. Simultaneously, the master within the Stone Forest opened her eyes, watching the departing device with slight anticipation. She couldn’t learn the Wizard’s Eye user’s details through it, but she could observe other things. Zheng Yichen’s method was novel—hard for others to imitate.

Once she understood its principles, she could replicate similar effects without alchemical aid—and make a enhanced version, too. Because of distance, Zheng Yichen couldn’t receive the Wizard’s Eye’s real-time feedback yet; he’d have to wait until retrieval. But her preparation ignored distance limits…

The moment it returned to Zheng Yichen, she’d immediately grasp his information. Discovered? She felt completely confident!

Using the Beacon Zheng Yichen left behind, the Wizard’s Eye raced back without pause. Zheng Yichen had calculated the time perfectly and deliberately slowed down, waiting for its return.

Just as the Wizard’s Eye entered his glasses’ signal range, all its recorded data streamed in. Its structure had excellent filtering ability—after all, it used Soul as a core component. Aside from lacking limbs, it resembled an Alchemical Puppet and possessed some intelligent processing. So, Zheng Yichen saw only useful information, excluding static scenes.

For example: that familiar young woman with creamy white hair appeared at the entrance to the Stone Forest. After examining footprints nearby, she simply left—never stepping inside. And damn it all, the direction she went pointed straight toward his position!

Zheng Yichen sighed. Propechy Art was ridiculously over power ed. Even without “accidental events,” the person involved would develop sharpened intuition. Never underestimate the unfairness of this power. Before departing, Dan Marina had explained Propechy Art to him way too thoroughly.

Next came footage after she left the Stone Forest boundary. That pale, corpse-like hand disturbed him greatly. Somehow, the Wizard’s Eye failed to record any other detail about the figure—only that eerie, empty hand floating in the frame. Pure creepiness.

Nothing afterward got recorded either. A brief gap appeared in the data, as if the Wizard’s Eye’s “memory core” had been ripped out. Zheng Yichen remotely stopped the device via his glasses. Better safe than sorry—he needed to fully inspect it before trusting it again. He even halted further data feed.

Hmm! A self-diagnosis first!

Zheng Yichen now fully understood his Mana’s traits. This “self-check” involved flooding the Mana Source within it, unleashing his pure Mana for a complete internal sweep—no mere trickle this time. Any unwelcome additions, no matter how hidden, would get purified and erased!

But… this time it failed. During the sweep, his Mana touched a foreign object hidden inside. Before assimilation could occur, the object blew up. The expensive, painstakingly crafted Wizard’s Eye—soul-split and all—turned to dust while Zheng Yichen stared blankly.

“Oh crap! My treasure!” After a stunned moment, Zheng Yichen yelled out loud. Making a Wizard’s Eye was incredibly hard—not because of physics or Alchemy, but separating a Soul into two pieces while keeping their connection intact. So far, this was his only success… and just got blown to bits by something unknown. Heartbroken, he felt deeply relieved by his earlier decision to run.

Good thing he escaped quickly. Had he lingered two more days near that Stone Forest master, he’d probably be trapped there…

Bottom line: never stay long at any marked location on the map! He curled his lip. His Wizard’s Eye was gone; most residual data was irretrievable.

“Hmm? Gone?” The Stone Forest’s master hadn’t traveled far when she paused, puzzled. The tracker she’d placed in the Wizard’s Eye had vanished. No feedback. Not a trace. A tinge of regret surfaced.

Too long asleep… Had the world birthed something wonderfully new? But with the signal gone, her first intriguing find since waking vanished too. Without leads, tracking down something deliberately concealed elsewhere now seemed… overwhelmingly difficult.

“Hmm~ No clue isn’t hopeless though.” Frowning, the unnaturally pale-skinned woman relaxed. Leads did exist. The Sanctuary Church’s Saintess who passed by earlier must know something. Where Saintesses go, the Sanctuary Church follows. But contacting them… not yet.

Her body wasn’t fully recovered anyway. Alerting them about her reappearance would trigger massive, ugly suppression. Suffering that again… even escaping with mere centuries’ sleep might be optimistic.

So, not that path. Find another route. A person finder? She knew one Witch exceptionally skilled at locating people—dislikable, sure. But hey, being deeply “disliked” herself? Might as well catch up as she hunted her quarry.

“…The heck is this thing?!” In some inn, Dan Marina tilted her chin, eyeing the jet-black threads coiling around her. They bore traces of the Propechy Art she’d used on Zheng Yichen… yet now tangled onto her?!

She figured trouble was coming her way soon.