Warlock Apprentice

Oupulia happily signed the secrecy pact.

Rosen didn’t deliberately keep people in suspense and directly spoke about the Seed. Initially, Oupulia was indifferent until he realized the classification of the Mysterious Object, making him speechless.

After experiencing a series of expressions of astonishment and struggles of the mind, Oupulia’s emotions finally calmed down.

”...I suddenly regret signing this pact.” Oupulia rubbed his temples, which were starting to swell, and even though he hadn’t prophesied anything yet, he could sense an endless malice enveloping him.

”Once you know about the Seed, there’s no room for regret.” Rosen said faintly.

”I understand.” Oupulia sighed deeply and began to face reality with resignation: ”What does Lord of the City want me to do?”

”You should know, I want to know more about the Seed.”

Oupulia nodded: ”Alright, I’ll give it a try.”

Saying so, Oupulia slowly walked to the center of the hall, looking solemn, and muttered something under his breath that seemed to be a secret spell. However, if you listened carefully, you’d find that Oupulia was whispering things like, ”Why did I sign the secrecy pact without thinking it through?” and ”Knowing the more you know, the more dangerous it is, yet I still ventured down this path, I regret it!”...

Amidst these regrets, he also mixed in some inexplicable complaints.

For example: ”Why is the floor half stone, half metal today, are they renovating?” ”Is this zebra stripe style the Lord’s new taste, since when did his aesthetic become so strange?” ”The old metallic floor was polished, reflecting skirts beautifully, why change it randomly?”

Angel listened, speechless, yet opposite him, Rosen and Antonio projected by the communicator looked calm, seemingly accustomed to Oupulia’s mutterings.

Antonio even kindly explained to Angel: ”Oupulia isn’t usually like this, but when he gets nervous, he tends to babble nonsensically.”

Once ”nervous” Oupulia reached the center of the hall, he took a deep breath and then raised his wooden staff high.

At this moment, his babbling ceased at last.

Then a mysterious aura began emanating from the tip of his wooden staff.

Under such an aura, Oupulia appeared like a prophet stepping out from ancient times, pondering the direction of the future on the desolate cliff of time.

As Oupulia’s aura grew stronger, the entire metallic hall seemed to transform into a chaotic universe.

Oupulia stood in the center of the universe, surrounded by brilliant stars.

When the aura reached its peak, Oupulia slammed the wooden staff into the ground with a ”boom—”, causing massive ripples of energy to radiate outwards.

At the same time, stars began to fall, and the universe returned to dark chaos. The entire hall instantly became pitch black, and in the boundless darkness, a rustling sound suddenly appeared.

From soft whispers, it turned into a vast sound.

Like a rushing river flowing toward the unknown in the darkness.

Though Angel couldn’t see it, he knew this might be the embodiment of the River of Fate. Undoubtedly, what Oupulia believed in should be the River of Fate, one of the three main divisions of the prophecy school.

This rushing sound continued for a long while, and finally, with a sigh that seemed to come from nowhere, the darkness receded, and light returned.

Oupulia finally raised his head after immersing in the mysterious reverberation for a long time.

”What did you see?” Rosen asked.

Oupulia gently shook his head, a bitter smile on his face: ”I saw nothing.”

”Nothing? What happened?”

Oupulia placed the wooden staff on his lap and sat cross-legged: ”I tried directly searching for clues about the Seed, no luck; I narrowed it down to find information about Seed believers, fate still gave no guidance; I narrowed it further to the Southern Domain and Yirong Country, fate remained indifferent.”

”Then, I used a special method, trying to find nodes with clues in the loops of fate. Unfortunately, I still found nothing.”

Oupulia had exhausted all the methods he could think of, including the most cumbersome Future Enumeration Method in prophecy, yet found not a shred of information.

”Anything related to the Seed is covered by a dense, obscuring black mist, impossible to see through, and...” Oupulia paused, his expression heavy: ”Moreover, every time I probe into the mist, I fall into a bizarre trance. If this trance lasts even a few seconds longer, I feel that my spiritual power will suffer some kind of irreversible contamination.”

This was the first time Oupulia encountered such a bizarre situation in prophecy.

This kind of direct pollution of the spirit felt like some presence in the ethereal had set its will to prevent anyone from uncovering the Seed’s secrets.

After listening to Oupulia, Rosen’s expression grew even heavier.

He had initially considered that divination might not work. He knew too well that mysterious objects were extremely unique; any exploration spell cast on a mysterious object could fail, and even the naked eye, light, and energy could be refracted by it.

Almost every Mysterious Object would bend, weaken, or completely ignore rules.

Divination was no exception.

Rosen thought that as long as it didn’t involve the Seed itself, merely searching for Seed believers shouldn’t cause issues, but things hadn’t gone as expected. Anything and anyone related to the Seed was concealed.

”Such a terrifying effect, deserving of a class of unsolvable uncontrolled objects.” Antonio said softly.

Angel nodded as well; he now understood why some would believe in the God of Seed. Worshiping it granted them shelter under a disorderly mysterious force field, like a divine ”protection”, indeed giving it somewhat of a religious flavor.

This situation seemed to have reached an impasse. Unable to find Seed believers, let alone eradicate or exile them.

What to do?

While everyone was contemplating solutions, Oupulia employed a ”Lucky Decision Spell”, a spell evolved from the ”Luck Choice” and belonging to the Clock of Questions school. Oupulia wanted to try an alternative approach, not seeking the answer directly, but searching for a method to solve the problem from the surface—

”How to resolve the inner turmoil?”

However, after using it, Oupulia didn’t feel any inner vibrations, indicating the Lucky Decision Spell failed.

Oupulia shrugged, not too disappointed. He had tried it casually without expecting actual feedback.

However, just when everyone was at their wit’s end, a breeze blew in through an open window.

This breeze swept through the hall unnoticed until it lifted a tattered piece of parchment from the experimental table, catching the attention of Angel and Rosen.

The parchment floated in the air, revealing a simple symbol clearly visible on it.

A ”Y” on top of a horizontal line.

Seeing this pattern drawn in delicate strokes, Angel and Rosen almost simultaneously thought of something—

”Si Man!”