Pillar of Yita

However, Fang Hong did not forget that the Hand Orders of the Arcanists came from the Stars and Moon Council. If they are indeed tied to these Blind Followers, then isn’t the Stars and Moon Council involved too? If that’s the case, the Blind Followers’ reach is excessively long. The Stars and Moon Council is in Colin—Northern Territory of Ishurian, but the Blind Followers are not Dragon Worshippers.

Moreover, how do the Arcanists plan to deal with the Invokers who intervened? Kill them? But ordinary methods are ineffective against Invokers; even if they lose Starlight, they would just return to the Stargate. The Arcanists should be aware of this ’Stargate Port’ matter.

Or are they planning to keep them imprisoned here? But that doesn’t seem viable either, as the news might eventually leak out, and the sandstorm won’t last indefinitely.

Fang Hong was momentarily perplexed about what these Arcanists intended to do.

However, he had roughly gathered the information he wanted.

So he remained silent for a moment before speaking: ”Regarding how to rescue you, I have a plan, but I need to confirm some details and the whereabouts of others. So you might need to wait a bit. I’ll leave this thing here; if there’s anything you need to contact me about, just tap the shell lightly three times.”

”Is that okay?”

ZXC nodded to show agreement.

Fang Hong coughed lightly, feeling slightly embarrassed: ”Remember to be gentle; this thing is quite expensive.”

ZXC looked at him with a somewhat peculiar gaze—through the Eye Crystal of the Clockwork Fairy.

”By the way,” Fang Hong hurriedly diverted the topic: ”There’s something you might need to help with.”

”Please, go ahead.”

”Below this cellar, there’s a hidden chamber. Try to find its location; it contains a kind of wine called ’Desert Blood.’ If possible, help me find it before I return.”

ZXC was stunned: ”Wine?”

”I previously accepted a small task related to it.”

ZXC nodded again, thinking to himself that Fang Hong truly was different from them, having the leisure to explore hidden tasks even under such circumstances. The place where they were detained was essentially an old abandoned underground wine cellar, devoid of any prison facilities. Although a lock was added outside, they could still move freely within the cellar.

Only then did Fang Hong decide to leave.

However, before leaving, he suddenly remembered something and, a bit curious, mentioned: ”Oh, by the way, earlier when you were sailing at sea, how did you keep track of time? Since it was mentioned that the Arcanists confiscated all your personal belongings?”

Upon this mention, ZXC sighed slightly.

”Your people came up with a method. They broke open a crack in a wooden cup used for holding water, making a makeshift water dripper, and used silent heartbeat counting to calculate the time for each drip. A normal person’s heartbeat is roughly ninety times per minute. Of course, there’s significant error, but it’s better than having no concept of time at all.

... That’s how we monitored alternately and roughly determined this timeframe; hence I mentioned it was between six and seven hours.”

Fang Hong was surprised upon hearing this. This crude time calculation indeed helped a lot—within Tansnier’s approximate hundred-mile sailing range, only Bain was the sole city. Had the three of them fallen into deep sleep upon boarding, he would be in deep trouble now.

After all, cities with fortress characteristics, if extended to Tansnier’s twenty-four or even thirty-six-hour sailing range, wouldn’t stop at Bain alone.

Who would have thought that that fatty Luo Hao had such a knack for this.

He then lifted his Wind Goggles, glanced at the two Guards not far away, and saw that they were still oblivious to the ongoing activities in the cellar below. Only then did he reassuredly turn and leave.

Next, with the guidance of Miss Tata—of course, Fang Nini as well—Fang Hong identified the locations of two additional underground cells holding ’prisoners.’ These places naturally had Guard watch, but the guarding Strength was not tight. Fang Hong repeated the maneuver, getting the Clockwork Fairy inside.

Inside, he finally found Luo Hao and Wu Xiaopang, and of course, the Miss Priestess and others. However, as he expected, Luo Yu was not detained here. Furthermore, from Wu Xiaopang, he learned another piece of news: Xiangzi was also captured, and probably held together with Luo Yu.

After finding the others, Fang Hong did not rush to release everyone, but instead asked them to stay calm and collected—for even if he truly wished to do so, it wouldn’t be impossible—these few ordinary Guards couldn’t stop him.

However, a rescue method of finding and rescuing place by place, then carrying others to save the remaining—akin to a ’prison riot style’ rescue—was clearly not something he favored. He had planned early on that if he wanted to create chaos, he could have done so, but in a scenario where the Strength disparity was overwhelming, it was obviously not a good idea.

The best course of action for now was to suddenly launch before everyone could react, rescuing as many as possible within the shortest time—then withdrawing as quickly as possible along the pre-planned route.

Ideally, no one would notice from start to finish; that would be perfect.

But clearly, the possibility of that is small.

After finding the others, Fang Hong released the Clockwork Fairy, starting to confirm the general terrain and Guard Strength distribution of the outer zone.