Don't disturb the sorcerer's scientific research

Chapter 224 If nothing unexpected happens...

For most people in Goward, the disappearance of a few children is not a big deal.

In this city known for its outstanding people and beautiful scenery, missing persons cases are somewhat taboo.

This one committed murder and robbery, that one manufactured and trafficked drugs, and another formed a criminal organization.

A child abductor slipped in during the process.

It feels like our levels don't match up; I'm sitting at the same table as a pimp.

In addition, people frequently disappear here, only to be found dead in some ditch a few days later, so the residents have long been used to it.

Besides the Solidarity Society.

Because of their shared ideals, they want to pursue their ultimate ideal world, so every member is important and should be protected. Life is above all else.

That's why they took it so seriously, sending almost all their manpower to search for it.

After making some inquiries, Jia Xiu learned that the gang had a very clear division of labor: those without combat capabilities searched within the manor area, while those with some combat capabilities went to the wasteland areas further away than the suburbs, as well as the city, to search in groups and areas in a planned manner.

We don't know about other aspects yet, but so far, this cult with its bizarre ideology has demonstrated quite good organizational skills.

As for the effect...

It's just passable.

Getting a large group of people to act has always been a challenge, and the difficulty doubles as the number of people increases.

Everyone has their own ideas.

Jia Xiu could clearly see that someone here was genuinely anxiously searching for the missing child.

Most of them were just slacking off.

It's the kind of person who acts like they're very busy, rushing around with the crowd, but actually not really looking around carefully.

Jia Xiu guessed that it must be those people who came to the manor just to receive that crown on the appointed day.

Can understand.

Why risk your life for a few crowns?

Jia Xiu sincerely hopes that the organization can find the children as soon as possible to avoid becoming a prime suspect.

Perhaps he has become a prime suspect.

He noticed that ever since he came out of the room that was temporarily used for "charity," an unfamiliar horned demon had been flying in the sky and hovering above his head.

It looks like they're using a high-altitude view to find the child, but in reality, they're keeping a close eye on him.

Every time Jia Xiu secretly glanced at the sky, he could see the horned demon's gaze.

It's obvious they're tracking them.

The tracking technology isn't very good either.

It must have been Paula's idea.

Jia Xiu sighed and prepared to join the search team, otherwise he wouldn't know what else to do.

If Mia were here, she could have "Mia the Fortune Teller" do a divination right then and there to see if these kids are destined for good or bad fortune.

It's probably not easy to calculate. Big data requires data to exist first, and they don't have much data about the manor.

Jia Xiu really hoped it would be auspicious.

If it's a murder, then you shouldn't be the first person to run into the crime scene.

If a highly suspicious person is the first to discover the crime scene, in Detective Conan, they could start playing the culprit's signature regret background music.

What was that theory again?

Many prisoners tend to return to the scene of the crime, to see the progress of the investigation, or to admire their own work.

That's how it's portrayed in movies.

Therefore, when Jasmine heard Elizabeth say she smelled blood...

My heart skipped a beat.

If there really is a bloodshed, should he first find the place where the incident occurred, or should he not go looking for it at all?

"Are you sure?"

Jia Xiu countered with a question.

Elizabeth replied confidently, "Of course I'm sure. Are you questioning a vampire's sensitivity to the smell of blood?"

Jia Xiu scratched his head in frustration.

Although vampires don't drink blood as much now, their super sensitivity to blood, cultivated through years of bloodlust, still exists.

If a vampire says they smell blood, then there must be blood.

"Is it human?"

“It’s human,” Elizabeth said definitively, “and not very old.”

Jia Xiu's heart was no longer in turmoil.

The situation is spiraling out of control; the question now is just how bad it will get.

"You can even tell someone's age by smell?"

"Of course, the blood of children, adults, and the elderly tastes completely different, as does the blood of healthy people and sick people."

Jia Xiu had no idea how they could tell by smell. He could imagine whether someone was healthy or not, but what was the difference in blood smell caused by age?

"where?"

"To the northeast, probably... six or seven hundred meters away."

Elizabeth Navigation is reliable; you can even smell the distance.

Jia Xiu hesitated briefly, but decided to go and take a look anyway.

If the source of that bloody smell has a chance of survival, it's always better to avoid dying once. Even if there is a way to resurrect, the process of resurrection is essentially suffering twice.

Moreover, deliberately avoiding that direction or implying that others should look in that direction would appear even more suspicious.

Anyway, it wasn't him who did it, so there's nothing to worry about; it's just a bit of a hassle.

The gang probably doesn't need a high crime-solving rate, so they wouldn't need a memory recovery technique.

If things really come to the point where he takes action without finding out the reason, he can still run away.

Guided by Elizabeth the Navigator Bat, Jash quickly ran toward the source of the bloody smell.

The horned demons in the sky immediately followed.

Soon, Jia Xiu found the target location.

"Um, are you sure this is the place?"

Looking at the place in front of him, Jia Xiu had some doubts.

Before me was a grain cellar, a basement used for storing grain. This was a common type of functional building in this era, found everywhere in villages and towns except for bustling cities where farming was completely unnecessary.

The estate had ample reserves, with the grain cellars overflowing with millet.

Jia Xiu felt a sense of satisfaction when he saw the granary overflowing with grain.

It might be due to an ingrained genetic predisposition to farming and hoarding.

The current question is, why does this place smell like the blood of young humans?

“I know it looks weird, but it really smells like this place.”

Elizabeth replied.

"It's probably not buried very deep, maybe less than two meters deep."

The closer Elizabeth gets to the scent source, the more accurate her location becomes.

Could it be that the naughty child was running around playing and accidentally fell into the grain pile and was buried to death?
A grain pile is actually a very dangerous thing. If you hoard enough grain, it will have a similar effect to quicksand. If you fall in, you will most likely be "sucked" in and then gradually submerged.

But if it falls into the grain cellar, there's no reason for it to bleed so much.

Jia Xiu looked at the scale of the millet piled up here. With the magic he currently possessed, it wouldn't be easy to deal with it.

After thinking it over, he decided not to let Elizabeth take action now. So far, Jashu's team's activities in Gowald have not exposed Elizabeth, the original vampire.

The later you reveal your trump card, the better.

So Jasmine lured Margaret to his home.

Putting aside the academic research aspect, the mentor is still very qualified to be a mentor in terms of his mastery of magic alone.

Margaret didn't waste any words. "How much do you need to move?" "About two meters of grain."

Margaret quickly cast a spell, and then, affected by the levitation spell, piles of grain floated out of the granary like a dark cloud.

People nearby noticed the commotion and looked over curiously.

Jia Xiu noticed that the horned demons in the sky were descending, presumably because they had noticed their movements and were becoming wary.

It's likely that Paula's orders were to launch an attack if they were found to have done anything even more suspicious.

Jia Xiu hoped that the horned demon would not attack, otherwise it would be the one to suffer.

As the grain in the cellar gradually decreased, approaching the depth Elizabeth had described, Jasmine immediately detected a clear magical fluctuation.

Beneath the millet, a spell was being cast.

There is a conspiracy.

This clearly goes beyond the scope of child abduction or accident.

Rather, it was a premeditated act carried out by a spellcaster with a certain level of magical skill.

“Very close.”

Jia Xiu reminded him.

Margaret also slowed down the speed at which she manipulated the millet to float in the air.

A dozen seconds later, a small, semi-transparent, faintly glowing force field appeared in the grain cellar.

Margaret, with her excellent basic magical skills, recognized the type of magic at a glance.

"Bouncy Magic Ball!"

she blurted out.

There's a bouncy ball in the food; that's definitely not a scene that should be there.

The so-called "bouncy spell" is a common fourth-circle spell used for protection.

Once successfully generated, it can block physical attacks and allow physical entities to pass through it.

Most practical spellcasters will choose to learn the Bounce Orb spell.

It can effectively solve the problem of an opponent carrying a sword getting close to you.

"Should I pull this bouncy ball out directly?"

Margaret inquired.

She was a little confused about the current situation, so she decided to leave it to Jia Xiu.

Jia Xiu replied, "No need. Let's bring all the surrounding grains to the surface first, since we're not sure if there are any other spells connected to the elastic sphere."

He suspected that the bouncy ball was hidden in such a concealed place because it didn't want to be discovered. If it were discovered, there might be countermeasures such as traps.

No wonder the people in the manor searched for so long without finding it.

Who would have thought he'd be buried inside?

After a long time, the food around the elastic orb was also removed, exposing the entire orb and its contents.

"how so!"

Margaret's voice trembled slightly, perhaps from fear, or perhaps from anger.

The onlookers screamed and gagged.

The horned demon in the sky remained relatively calm; after all, it was a demon and had witnessed far more bloodshed than most. However, it quickly departed, presumably to inform the person in charge.

Jia Xiu was also moved by what he saw.

Inside the elastic sphere was a pale corpse, not very old. Jia Xiu didn't recognize it, and he breathed a slight sigh of relief when he realized it wasn't Little Jack.

Of course, this person is also pitiful, but since it's not someone they know, their suffering is less.

Now he knew why Elizabeth could smell it from so far away.

One issue is that she is extremely sensitive to the smell of blood, and the other is that she bleeds a lot.

The blood formed a totem or something like an unused magic circle within the orb.

The composition is quite complex, and it's not clear what the imagery is yet, but the bloody and frenzied "brushstrokes" have a distinctly demonic style.

Violence, eccentricity, and a hodgepodge are precisely the most prominent features of the demon race's style.

Its specific effects still need to be studied carefully.

The codes for totems and magic circles have many things in common, and sometimes they are used together, so you can't tell them apart without looking closely.

Jia Xiu is inclined to believe it is some kind of magic array.

What's worse, among the symbols drawn in blood, there were also several ritual offerings that are usually only used in magic circles.

The offerings here are fresh organs.

The organs were removed intact, placed in designated positions, and appeared to be arranged in a carefully crafted way, intertwined and tied into fancy knots.

So far, this case perfectly fits the characteristics of a psychopathic killer who suffers childhood trauma, grows up to take revenge on society, goes astray, believes in some evil doctrine, and eventually goes completely insane.

The question is, can these kinds of evil rituals in this world really summon anything?

It's really dangerous.

Margaret looked at Jashy, her eyes seeming to ask what to do now.

She had never experienced anything like this before.

"Don't get close yet, wait for the people from the manor to come. Find a place to put those grains down, so they don't float in the air."

Jia Xiu said quickly.

Besides what was inside the orb, he also keenly noticed that right below the orb was an engraving with a spell that he estimated to be something like a fire wall.

If someone tries to break free of this bouncy ball without paying attention, they'll likely be engulfed in flames.

There was indeed a trap.

The person who orchestrated all of this—oh, no, it's not even certain if they're even human—has really thought things through a lot.

Jia Xiu now intuitively felt that this matter was probably also related to the secrecy of the manor.

This doesn't seem like a simple case at all; doing this in the world of magic must have a grand purpose.

He turned his head and paused for a moment.

Although I have participated in some battles and faced demons and vampires head-on, I have never seen such a tragic scene.

His actions were merely for self-preservation or to determine the winner; the methods might have been somewhat torturous, but he had absolutely no inclination to go that far.

Even as he turned his head, Jia Xiu's mind was still racing.

He was wondering why he had to do such a thing.

Is it for gaining power through sacrifice, or to summon something? And what will this thing do after it appears?
Since the emergence of the Holy Light, the evil gods on the human side that required such sacrifices have been wiped out.

This is also the core reason why Holy Light developed into the largest sect.

Even a god needs to be able to fight.

That means it can only be a demon god from the demon race.

Which one will they believe...?

After mentally preparing himself and restoring his sanity, Jia Xiu looked over again.

He discovered that the murdered child, wrapped in a magic sphere, was positioned in a posture similar to that of a sleeping infant; pale, eerie, yet somehow peaceful.

The person who did this must be seriously mentally ill.

Jia Xiu cursed under his breath.

Suddenly, they discovered a line of small characters carved on the child's body.

The script appears to be one of the many messy languages ​​spoken by the demons.

Jia Xiu didn't know exactly what it was, but anyway, the Eye of the Runes had been translated.

May you find peace in the darkness.

Task progress +4%

[Current progress: 5/100]

(End of this chapter)