Lord of Prayer

Chapter 234: Chapter 171: The Prying Gaze

Rainbow City Commercial Street was bustling and lively, teeming with pedestrians.

Zhou Chen walked down the street, a cup of lemon tea in hand, scanning his surroundings.

He was searching for the whereabouts of Professor Charles.

The Wish Map showed that Professor Charles was somewhere in the commercial street and hadn’t moved for a long time. Zhou Chen wanted to seize this opportunity to find him before he started darting all over the place again like a madman.

But even after making a wide sweep of the commercial street, Zhou Chen couldn’t find the eye-catching cursor. This was the first time he’d ever encountered a situation like this.

He sat down in an outdoor chair at a streetside café, sipping his lemon tea. He watched the traffic flow by on the road as he compared it to the map in his Spiritual World…

’That’s right, this is the place. The locator cursor is less than five meters away. Even if he’s hiding in an underground building, I should still be able to see the cursor’s outline. Don’t tell me he’s in the sky?’ Zhou Chen subconsciously bit his straw, his mind filled with questions.

Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine. He sensed a pair of eyes watching him from some dark corner!

The gaze was incredibly intense, filled with a savage, hungry, and greedy malice that was deeply unsettling. And yet, hidden within it, there also seemed to be a profound sense of… ecstasy?

An Ascender’s intuition told Zhou Chen the general direction of the gaze’s source. He warily looked over, but there was nothing there—not even a single person. Immediately after, the hidden gaze vanished. It left Zhou Chen with the hairs on his arms standing on end, a faint chill running through him despite the scorching Sun.

’What was that…’

Zhou Chen’s heart pounded in his chest. A sliver of his consciousness ascended to the ancient and solemn Round Table Hall. There, he materialized a pure Crystal Ball and made a wish to perform a divination on the impending crisis.

The Crystal Ball lit up instantly, a scarlet color blooming within it. It spread like a drop of fresh blood in water, dyeing the entire orb a deep, crimson red.

’Fuck…’ Zhou Chen drew in a sharp breath. ’This is a terrible omen!’

But he soon discovered that hidden within the deep crimson was a brilliant, shining gold, mixed with flecks of pink.

’Gold means good fortune, and pink means… romance? Looks like it’s a mixed bag. This means that prying gaze is dangerous, but it could bring me unexpected benefits… and romance…’

Zhou Chen tapped his fingers on the Obsidian Round Table. After a moment of contemplation, he waved his hand, dismissing the divination’s Power. The Crystal Ball returned to its pure, flawless state.

’Show me the watcher’s current state.’

He made another wish. From within the Wish Bottle, the star motes he had harvested from gamblers during the Alchemy Competition surged out in a brilliant torrent, carrying vast quantities of Star Dust. It poured into the Crystal Ball on the Obsidian Round Table. After all the wish energy inside the Wish Bottle was exhausted, a small pool of the diluted water from the Wishing Fountain floated up and shot into the Crystal Ball.

Zhou Chen’s expression immediately darkened. ’Why did that take so much wish energy?’

The Crystal Ball flickered with specks of light. A blurry image appeared, like static on an old television screen. After a few seconds, the picture gradually sharpened, achieving a crisp 4K resolution.

A figure appeared in the image. He wore a white lab coat and looked incredibly young, perhaps only about eighteen. He had classic Western features: light brown, slightly curly hair, a high-bridged nose, pale green eyes, and the distinct air of a scholar.

Zhou Chen frowned. ’Is this the one who was watching me?’

A blinding light flared up. The young scholar was holding a welding torch to an iron plate. The floor around him was strewn with countless parts, large and small. He appeared to be assembling something.

’Show me his name.’ Zhou Chen materialized a piece of paper and a pen, making another wish.

The pencil was lifted by an invisible force. It stood on its tip and, with a SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH, wrote a name on the paper.

—Charles Toby.

Charles!

Zhou Chen was stunned. ’This scholar is the Professor Charles I’ve been looking for?’

’According to Li Xiye, Charles is supposed to be an old man with thinning hair and a face full of wrinkles. This guy looks like he just started college.’

’Eternal life… Could Charles have activated the Eternal Life Machine and de-aged? Did he really become an Immortal? Or is he in some kind of even more peculiar state?’ Zhou Chen mused as he continued to watch the image.

The view in the Crystal Ball gradually zoomed out, revealing that Charles was in what looked like a high-end laboratory. Just as Zhou Chen tried to find more clues, the image in the Crystal Ball began to distort and fade, eventually disappearing completely.

’The divination time is up. Continuing any longer might attract the attention of Charles… No, it would likely attract the attention of that Forbidden Ancient Book.’

’Charles must be carrying some kind of anti-divination or divination-jamming Artifact. That’s why this divination consumed so much wish energy. The culprit is undoubtedly that Forbidden Book.’

Zhou Chen sat on the Obsidian Throne, stroking his chin as he looked at the navigation map materialized in mid-air. Charles’s location was right nearby.

But there was clearly no high-end laboratory in his vicinity.

’Underground? Or in the sky?’ Zhou Chen leaned back in his chair. ’The sky is unlikely. In the year 174 of the New Calendar, the man-made marvel known as the Celestial Floating City hasn’t been built yet. There can’t be anything up there.’

’Underground? That’s a possibility. Many secret labs are built deep underground. If Charles wants to avoid the trouble caused by the Eternal Life Machine and the Forbidden Book, his best bet would be to hide somewhere no one can find him. He could cut himself off from the world and continue his research without any distractions.’