Just as Fan Zhuo’s mind was racing, a lazy and charming voice rang out in his head without warning.
“Little guy…”
“You’re chatting quite happily with that ice lizard…”
It was Ye Ying!
Fan Zhuo’s body froze instantly.
“You’ve completely forgotten about this poor little fox for the entire night…”
He was panicking right now. He subconsciously replied in his mind, ‘How do you dare speak at a time like this! They’ll notice you!’
“Giggle…” Ye Ying let out a silver-bell-like laugh. “Just them? They’re far from it. Not to mention them, even that self-righteous judicator can’t hear my voice.”
“What?” Fan Zhuo was a bit dazed.
“Little guy, did you forget? Didn’t the Mother Tree ‘speak’ to you in front of everyone back then too? What they sensed was only the life force fluctuations that the Mother Tree couldn’t completely suppress. As for what was said… they won’t know a single word.”
So that was it.
Fan Zhuo breathed a half-sigh of relief, but Ye Ying’s next words made his heart jump again.
“However, speaking of which…” Ye Ying’s tone became meaningful. ” ‘I’ll come find you after I deal with these troublesome guys’… ‘At that time, you can do… whatever you want’?”
She mimicked the tone Fan Zhuo had used when he promised the Mother Tree.
Wait.
The corner of Fan Zhuo’s eye twitched uncontrollably.
‘You… how do you know?!’
“Isn’t our power all in your ‘lake’?” Ye Ying’s thoughts carried a hint of small, jealous resentment. “I can hear your conversation very clearly…”
Fan Zhuo felt cold sweat break out again.
No, why did it feel like these magic beast girls were using his own golden finger more skillfully than he was!
His backyard was on fire while there were pursuers ahead; life was truly becoming impossible.
He had to solve the trouble in front of him immediately.
“Warden Assistant Fan Zhuo, Warden Assistant Fan Zhuo? What are you daydreaming about?” Elsa’s voice pulled him back from his mental world to reality.
She keenly noticed that Fan Zhuo’s momentary lapse in focus and the change in his expression just now were definitely not faked.
‘What is he… thinking about?’
Elsa felt she was becoming more and more curious about this handsome saint. The sense of mystery about him — the kind that made her want to peel him back layer by layer — was becoming stronger and purer.
“Ah… it’s nothing, Professor.” Fan Zhuo took a deep breath, and that impeccable, holy smile returned to his face. “I was just thinking about how to explain things to everyone so that you can understand what just happened.”
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the crowd before finally landing on the energy detector in Lily’s hand, which was still flashing with data.
“It’s actually quite simple,” he said slowly. “I came here because the holy power monitoring system in the C-zone experienced a minor malfunction.”
“A malfunction?” Kyle immediately sneered. “Keep making things up! What does a holy power monitoring system malfunction have to do with you meeting an S-class demonic entity in the middle of the night? Is that dragon going to fix the system?”
“Mr. Kyle, please do not use your shallow understanding to speculate on the workings of holy power.” Fan Zhuo’s tone remained gentle, but his words seemed to say: ‘You are still a student, so please listen carefully.’
This caused Kyle to turn red instantly.
He no longer paid attention to the flushing Kyle and instead turned to Elsa and Lily, speaking in a sincere, academic tone.
“The seal of C-01 Prison is linked with the holy power monitoring system of the entire C-zone. The energy fluctuations here directly affect the stability of the whole system.”
“I noticed an abnormal energy feedback from the surveillance terminal, and the source pointed directly to C-01, which is why I came to investigate.”
“As for the energy residue detected by Miss Lily’s instrument…”
He paused, a perfectly timed look of “helplessness” appearing on his face.
“That is the mark left behind when I attempted to use my own holy power to soothe and calibrate the prison seal, inevitably coming into contact and clashing with Lady Ignis’s dragon might.”
“Otherwise, as a mere warden assistant who hasn’t even reached the strength of a bishop, how could I have come out alive from the hands of the Frost dragon princess?”
This explanation sounded… somewhat… reasonable?
A saint jobholder who wasn’t even a bishop going to have a private tryst with an S-class dragon princess?
That wasn’t a tryst; that was delivering a meal.
Elsa pondered for a moment. She had to admit that Fan Zhuo’s excuse was logically sound.
She followed up with a question, “You said the holy power monitoring system in the C-zone… malfunctioned?”
“Yes.” Fan Zhuo nodded. “The prison’s equipment is a bit old, so it’s inevitable that small problems occur occasionally.”
“In that case,” a glint flashed in Elsa’s eyes, “could you take us to visit your monitoring system terminal? It just so happens that our academy’s magical engineering has made quite a few achievements in this area. Perhaps… we can be of some small help.”
Here it comes.
Fan Zhuo sneered inwardly.
This was their true goal. Under the banner of “academic exchange,” they were infiltrating and investigating the prison’s core secrets step by step.
If it were Old John, he probably would have started looking for excuses to refuse by now.
But Fan Zhuo smiled and readily agreed.
“Of course.”
He made a “please” gesture, his posture as elegant as if he were inviting a noble lady to dinner.
“It is our prison’s honor to receive guidance from the Royal Academy of Magic. Everyone, please follow me.”
Would Fan Zhuo really take them to that core facility located deep underground, composed of countless pipes and gears, which was the lifeline of the entire prison?
How could that be possible.
That was one of the prison’s highest secrets. Not to mention them, even Fan Zhuo himself wouldn’t have been taken down there so soon by Old John if it hadn’t been for the emergency last time.
He led the curious mages through the circular corridor of the C-zone, bypassed a few forks, and finally arrived at a seemingly ordinary small cubicle located on the edge of Zone B.
The room wasn’t large and was empty inside, with only a terminal that looked quite new embedded in the wall.
“This is… your monitoring terminal?” Kyle looked at the simple, almost shabby room, the disdain on his face growing stronger.
“This piece of scrap metal can monitor the entire Zone B and C-zone? Did your prison budget go toward buying alcohol?”
“Kyle!” Elsa scolded him once more.
However, her eyes were also filled with confusion. This place did not look like the core of a complex system at all.
Fan Zhuo didn’t explain. He simply walked to the terminal and tapped it lightly.
*Hum—*
The entire room lit up instantly.
On the cold metal walls, countless streams of eerie blue data poured down like waterfalls, converging on the floor into an incredibly complex and constantly changing three-dimensional map.
On the map, countless points of light flickered. Every point of light represented an energy source.
This sudden sight startled everyone from the magic academy.
“This is… are these all rune arrays? How exquisite… and it’s a dynamic calculation…”
The alchemist girl Lily’s eyes lit up instantly. She practically pressed herself against the data map, letting out an obsessed exclamation of praise.
“So beautiful…”
Even Elsa was surprised by the scene before her.
This kind of technology was still in the theoretical and experimental stages, even at the Royal Academy of Magic, which was famous for its magical engineering.
Who would have thought that such a mature application could be seen in a demonic entity prison?