Chapter 370: Devouring the Talent Circuit
“Seems like these three weren’t living very large.”
No wonder they resorted to such desperate measures. If they encountered a lone Extraordinary, a three-on-one ambush might actually have paid off.
This type of storage artifact didn’t come with any restrictions; whoever claimed it could use it. Xu Zhi checked inside and found it did contain some cores. For an ordinary Extraordinary, it would count as a small fortune, but to Xu Zhi, it was a bit underwhelming.
“Broke bastards.”
Tossing the cores into her own ring, Xu Zhi then slipped the storage ring onto Xiaozhen’s ankle. As expected of a relatively intelligent thrall, Xiaozhen quickly learned how to utilize the extraordinary item.
Having dealt with the little tails following her, Xu Zhi continued heading toward Jiang Qing’s location.
According to what Xiaozhen had seen, Jiang Qing wasn’t alone. She was accompanied by six others, likely acting as her protectors.
Four of them were the ones they had seen before entering the settlement, while the other two looked very unfamiliar.
Right now, the direction Jiang Qing and her six companions were heading toward was the mid-tier zone of the Lost Lands, and they hadn’t stopped. While Xu Zhi had Xiaozhen keep tracking them, she followed from far behind, relying on her connection to her thrall.
If nothing went wrong, the two unfamiliar faces with Jiang Qing should both be [Named]. To be safe, she couldn’t allow herself to be discovered too early.
After traveling continuously for nearly three hours, a message came from Xiaozhen: Jiang Qing and her group had stopped.
They hadn’t stopped of their own accord; rather, they had run into someone coming out from the deeper parts of the Lost Lands.
And judging by their route, Jiang Qing and her group had deliberately set an ambush for this person coming out.
Now, the moment the two sides met, a fight broke out.
“Interesting.”
Xu Zhi picked up her pace. Since she currently lacked her game console, she couldn’t view what was happening through Xiaozhen’s perspective directly; she could only interpret the impressions sent by her thrall. Ten minutes later, Xu Zhi arrived nearby. She stayed at a distance and activated her [Eye of Secrets], looking toward the spot Xiaozhen was guiding her to.
Immediately, a massive influx of information, along with the distant visual scene, imprinted itself into Xu Zhi’s mind.
Over there, Jiang Qing’s group was battling a seemingly immensely powerful Extraordinary. What surprised Xu Zhi was… the attribute of that Extraordinary.
It was [Lantern].
Why would Jiang Qing get into a fight with a [Lantern] aspect Extraordinary?
Xu Zhi recalled the terrified look in Jiang Qing’s eyes when she saw her earlier. Meanwhile, the combat strength of the opposing [Lantern] Extraordinary was quite impressive even among the Named.
If she had to make an analogy, Xu Zhi felt that the gap between those of the Named rank could probably be measured by how far each had walked along their own path.
She herself had just walked exactly one hundred steps. But the ambushed Named individual, in Xu Zhi’s estimation, had walked at least five hundred steps.
If she was considered a first-stage Named, then that person was at least a third-stage.
The disparity between them wasn’t something that could be bridged overnight, and only a sufficiently powerful Named would dare to walk alone in the Lost Lands.
Jiang Qing and her group seemed… to want to kill him.
But this was no easy task. Even though that [Named] appeared injured and incredibly exhausted, under his fierce resistance, members of Jiang Qing’s team were continuously being injured and killed.
The battle raged on for nearly an hour. The four individuals who had followed Jiang Qing here were all dead, leaving only her and the two heavily injured Named protectors. On the other side, the Named who had returned from the deep zone was at the end of his rope, on the verge of death.
Even at this moment, Xu Zhi still didn’t make a reckless move. She wanted to see what exactly Jiang Qing intended to do.
Until she saw that Jiang Qing didn’t kill the man. Instead, the protectors responsible for safeguarding her hacked off his limbs, and amid Jiang Qing’s hesitant expression, they said something to her.
Subsequently, Jiang Qing seemed to steel her resolve. She approached the powerful Extraordinary whose limbs had been severed, used her longsword to slice a wound across his abdomen, and then reached out, groping toward the location of his talent circuit.
Xu Zhi’s eyelids twitched at the sight. She realized that she was likely about to witness something incredibly monumental.
It was a premonition—a premonition that she was currently observing a profound secret.
But because this secret was actively unfolding right before her eyes rather than her prying into it, she didn’t have to suffer any backlash.
The [Eye of Secrets] could perceive the flow of extraordinary energy, and it could also see talent circuits.
Thus, Xu Zhi clearly saw that when Jiang Qing’s hand reached deep inside the abdomen of that [Lantern] Extraordinary—the location where the talent circuit resided—she shouldn’t logically have been able to physically touch it. After all, the existence of a talent circuit wasn’t physical. Yet, after a golden light flashed across Jiang Qing’s eyes, that originally intact [Lantern] circuit suddenly shattered.
Following that, the [Lantern] extraordinary energy and the circuit fragments flowed like water along Jiang Qing’s touching hand, streaming directly into her body.
Then, they integrated into Jiang Qing’s own circuit. Her extraordinary aura began to soar, climbing higher and higher until she broke through to the [Named] rank—and she hadn’t even entered the Mansus!
Xu Zhi instantly thought of a name: Ding Chan!
The only ordinary Extraordinary she knew who could advance directly without experiencing the Mansus and the Great Dream was Ding Chan!
Among the cities that had coordinated the siege against Ding Chan, Lingzhou was naturally one of them.
Could it be that Lingzhou had obtained this method of advancement from Ding Chan?
Then, Xu Zhi thought of the [Grail].
The Extraordinaries of the [Grail] were the same; they didn’t need to pass through the Mansus and the Great Dream.
Was there some kind of commonality between them?
Numerous possibilities and conjectures swirled in Xu Zhi’s mind, but guessing alone wouldn’t yield answers.
She made a bold decision.
No longer concealing her aura, Xu Zhi picked up her pace and stepped out from the woods behind them.
Catching Jiang Qing’s surprised and wary gaze, she spoke with a smile: “What a coincidence. We meet again.”
“What exactly are you doing here?”
Jiang Qing’s face, already somewhat pale from exhaustion, drained of color entirely upon recognizing that the newcomer was Xu Zhi. The two protectors beside her immediately shielded her with utmost vigilance.
“Xu Zhi.”
She first called out Xu Zhi’s name with a complex tone, then replied with what sounded like a sigh, “I’m afraid it’s no coincidence.”
Xu Zhi tilted her head in confusion, assuming Jiang Qing realized she had been tailed. “Then I’ll just ask directly. I’m really curious—what were you doing just now?”
“Did you… eat his talent circuit?”
With every word Xu Zhi spoke, the expressions of Jiang Qing and the two in front of her turned a shade uglier.
Before Jiang Qing could answer, the Named protector blocking her path spoke up directly: “She saw it. We have no choice but to kill her.”
They recognized the person before them and knew she was Xu Zhi. Originally, they thought that if Xu Zhi hadn’t seen anything, they could pretend nothing happened—after all, the Bright Academy possessed numerous methods and might just be able to trace a retrocausal path to find out they killed her.
But now, they had no choice.
