Chapter 560: Good Stuff Should Be Hidden

Chapter 560: Good Stuff Should Be Hidden

“Hey, why are you so unreasonable? At least let me finish talking,” Rock frowned slightly as he looked at Moser. “Let me finish first.”

“Don’t even think about it. Just get straight to the point. I’ll listen, and then you can add more,” Moser glanced at the bodyguard behind Rock, who wore an expression of agreement. Sure enough, that guy had been tricked plenty by the little moustache in front of him too.

“I want to explore the Stone Forest. With just him alone, we don’t have enough hands. And it’s not suitable to involve The Church people for now.”

“I’m also from The Church,” Oro rolled his eyes.

“But you’re not entirely on the surface. Hmm, that’s it. This matter is important.”

Oro said very seriously, but Moser remained calm. Having been tricked many times gave him plenty of experience. He certainly wouldn’t be easily led along by Oro’s rhythm. Seeing his reaction, Oro couldn’t help but shake his head. “I mean it.”

“A message from the Prophet?” Moser pressed, seeing him like this.

Oro shook his head. The main work of a Prophet wasn’t entirely about prophecy. Prophecy involved reading the Threads of Fate, directly gazing upon them. Doing that itself harmed the Prophet, and that was just reading without involving interference.

Generally, the proper work of a Prophet was similar to a Mini-Map, or locating things that were known or existed but had no clues… Hmm, things, not purposes or the like. That would directly involve a higher level. In short, finding things was easy, but looking for trouble immediately raised the stakes, and the difficulty naturally increased too.

What Liliya did before was the ‘proper’ work of a Prophet. After all, the Witch’s remnants already existed. She was just finding them, not like gazing directly at the Threads of Fate, which was very harmful.

So, asking a Prophet to directly prophesy the purpose of that Derivative Witch was equivalent to interfering with the Threads of Fate… A higher level? A higher level would be like prophesying who would die in the future—a tricky prophecy. Regardless of whether such a thing would happen or not, once that Prophecy Art was successfully activated, that person’s fate would begin to lean towards death, gradually increasing the percentage chance of death until it exceeded 1. Pretty domineering, right? It was like directly giving that person the “effect,” while the “cause” representing the process was left for the Power of Fate to complete. Interfering with the Threads of Fate to such a great extent basically resulted in the caster’s death as the end, certainly nothing good.

Never mind what Prophecy Arts were like in games or movies. In this world, Prophecy Arts worked this way.

Therefore, unless it was critical, Prophets would never directly prophesy that Derivative Witch’s purpose. They were Prophets; they knew many ways to avoid risks. It was like solving a puzzle. Collect enough clues in advance and piece them together. Even if incomplete, once part was done, the rest could be cheated through directly with Prophecy Arts.

Or else… provide the beginning of a solution. However, Liliya refused that suggestion, saying it wasn’t convenient for her to do that now. Also, the Derivative Witch in the Containment Zone had created too many Human Forms. Those Human Forms were all connected to this Derivative Witch, making Prophecy Arts not very effective.

Unless some suitable conditions were met, she would not be willing to take action.

Considering Liliya’s ability, Oro said he believed her at the time. However, he immediately betrayed her, contacting The Church people directly and connecting to other Prophets to inquire about the situation. After checking repeatedly, alright, it was indeed as Liliya said. The Human Forms scattered the Threads of Fate entwined around that Derivative Witch, greatly increasing the difficulty of prophesying about her. To explore useful clues through Prophecy Arts, first, they had to find a way to clear those Human Forms.

It didn’t need to be long, a few seconds would be enough. But the problem was, those Human Forms couldn’t be cleared!!

Under the restrictions of the Containment Zone, those Human Forms hadn’t caused one thing many people worried about: unlimited increase, bursting the Containment Zone. So far, the number of those Human Forms had remained stable. Of course, if not cleaned up, they would still surge.

“Go now?”

“Of course, otherwise why would I come find you?” Oro said matter-of-factly. “Let’s go. Delaying until today is already considered slow.”

After saying that, Oro walked straight out. The bodyguard immediately followed. Among the people in the Containment Zone, besides those from The Church, others inevitably didn’t want him dead. Better to keep an eye on this weakling. Professional? Professionals also varied in strength. For a Ranked Practitioner like him, the bodyguard thought he could only bully him in chess, cards, or games. In other situations, he could slap Oro to death with one hand.

Seeing that Oro gave him no chance to say more, Moser was silent for a moment and then followed. Catching up quickly with the bodyguard, he asked in a low voice, “What stimulated him to be in such a hurry?”

“Probably rushing to work overtime,” the bodyguard thought for a moment and whispered. “Investigating the Cursed Witch matter already took a lot of time before. Now The Church directly pulled him to this Containment Zone.”

“…That’s really miserable.”

“What are you talking about? Clearly, the situation in the Containment Zone must be urgent to wake up to. Although this Derivative Witch is good at hiding, that’s all she can do—just hide. Doing nothing… or repeating one action makes it too easy to expose some purpose.”

Oro, walking ahead, slowed his pace and said, “The root of everything lies in this problematic Stone Forest. Analyzing the distribution of those Human Forms, it’s easy to discover this point too. The proportion of Human Forms inside the Stone Forest and in the outer ring is not balanced.”

“Clearly, the conditions in the Stone Forest could generally raise the strength of Human Forms by several levels. Even if that Derivative Witch’s intelligence isn’t high, she wouldn’t overlook such a problem. The only reason is, she can’t do it! And besides, outsmarting a Derivative Witch with insufficient intelligence isn’t interesting at all. Matters here must be resolved quickly!”

Looking at Oro’s serious and earnest face, the bodyguard and Moser exchanged a glance, not exposing his obvious little thoughts. “But… investigating such matters, you going over might be too dangerous. Even with my protection, things like Flesh Seeds aren’t something you can avoid just because you want to.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do those suicidal things.” Oro took out a Ring from his pocket. The Ring was smooth overall, with deep blue ‘ice lines’ engraved on it. Seeing this, the bodyguard said nothing more, but cursed inwardly. Sure enough, this guy who cherished his life and feared death had quite a lot of good stuff.

Of course, the bodyguard recognized what this thing was. In games, this would be a proper Pink Gear! Something that could be called a ‘Divine Artifact.’ “You really know how to hide things.”

The bodyguard said. He himself hadn’t known Oro had this.

“Good stuff isn’t for showing off, but for using. Possessing a treasure invites disaster.” Oro shook his head. This was a Magic Artifact named Embrace of Extreme Cold. As the name implied, it embraced not only oneself but also enemies. For oneself, it was the so-called ‘icebox’; for enemies, it was a powerful Ice Magic spell. More importantly, this thing wasn’t just for attack; it also allowed the wearer to temporarily gain a special buff state. Put simply, it was ‘Ice Demon Transformation,’ allowing the special Elemental Power contained in the Ring to deeply seep into one’s body, transforming oneself into something similar to an Elemental Being. Regardless of how weak one’s strength was before, after using it, one would definitely possess High-Rank peak strength!

In that state, one could freely use Ice Element powers. The reason this thing could be called a ‘Pink Gear’ was not only because of such powerful effects but also because it simply couldn’t be made by ordinary people. Currently, the few Embraces of Extreme Cold circulating in this world originated from the Snow Mountain. More importantly, this thing had no side effects!

The Ring’s special structure allowed the user to bear the damage of Ice Demon Transformation without burden… This thing flowed out from the Lord of the Snow Mountain because of the Abyssal Calamity period. Some Humans, to gain power against Abyssal Monsters, passed many trials before earning the recognition of the Lord of the Snow Mountain and obtaining such Rings.

Embrace of Extreme Cold: the recorded number was twenty. Over seventy percent were damaged or lost during the Abyssal Calamity. As for the effects this thing displayed during the Abyssal Calamity period? How could something specifically targeted by Abyssal Creatures be considered ordinary?

After initially obtaining Embrace of Extreme Cold, Humans immediately formed an Ice Demon special force… Ahem, roughly that idea. People in this team didn’t require special qualifications; the only requirement was the degree of control over power, with even related training.

Although there were only twenty Rings, the Ice Demon special force always maintained peak combat strength. Deaths didn’t matter; as long as the Ring wasn’t lost, after recovery, it was immediately a new warrior. However, the glory of the Ice Demon special force only had this effect during the early days of Embrace of Extreme Cold’s appearance. Later, after Abyssal Creatures discovered its secret, they immediately began countermeasures, and the special force’s glory began to decline…

After all, losing one meant one less, and they couldn’t be restored. Humans also tried to replicate them. However, things made by the Lord of the Snow Mountain were beyond their ability to decipher. Even if imitations were made, the effects were poor, far from ideal, and even had extremely serious side effects.

Users either died from full-body Ice Crystal transformation or overdrafted their own power and Life Force, leading to death from bodily exhaustion. Whether in safety, performance, or time effectiveness, they were far inferior to the original.

“Feels a bit fake,” Moser voiced his opinion. Oro rolled his eyes.

“Would someone as life-cherishing as me use fakes? Anyway, hurry up and investigate. Also, keep this matter confidential for me. I don’t want a bunch of people unrelated to me coming to trouble me in the future!”