Investigating The Dam

With the new information received, Xuan Yueji went to the dam, following the river.

Upon arriving at the dam, he saw the soldiers working fast to fix the dam with the materials paid with his money. It was actually Chen Shi's money, but not that it mattered since the man said he could use as much he wanted. Besides, money was only a material that could be earned again.

No big worries at all.

Standing on a tree that hid him from the soldiers and citymen's view, Xuan Yueji looked on as they worked. Stacking the wood like beavers would, every soldier was in orderly lines carrying at least fifty pounds of wood in their hands. Seeing the amazing sight of the soldiers carrying so much wood it covered their heads, Xuan Yueji appreciated them on the inside.

However, when he looked to the side and saw the civilian men doing nothing but stand aside waiting for the soldiers to do the hard work for them, he frowned. As time passed and Xuan Yueji waited, he still saw no signs of the men wanting to help the soldiers. His frown deepened, he got down from the tree and went towards the shuzhu.

As Xuan Yueji got closer to the shuzhu, he finally saw him approach him, so the shuzhu greeted, "Shuzhu."

Nodding his head in recognition, Xuan Yueji asked, "Did you get good materials?"

"Yes. I listened to you and bought the most expensive wood," the shuzhu reported.

"That's good," Xuan Yueji said. "But, why do you guys build it like animals?"

Indeed, the dam looked like a beaver home. The soldiers were orderly and neat, but the dam itself was not the same. The wood was stacked randomly, but in important places that blocked the water.

"Ah, this was how it was built originally," the shuzhu answered.

"This was how it was built at the very beginning? From the moment the priests set it up?" Xuan Yueji asked, his tone deep and concerned as his face scrunched up in a frown.

A bit embarrassed, the shuzhu said with a quiet voice, "Yes."

Xuan Yueji then changed his facial expression back to a calm one as he said, "You can be excused now. Go do your work."

"Yes, sir," the shuzhu said with deep respect as he bowed.

Leaving the spot he was just at, Xuan Yueji called out Lu Lianhua's name while climbing onto another tree and hiding himself.

"What is it? Stop calling out for me," Lu Lianhua said with annoyance apparent in his tone.

Sighing, Xuan Yueji apologized, "I'm sorry. This time, I really need your help. I need you to look at the dam."

Mad at Xuan Yueji, Lu Lianhua said with a threatening tone, "You called for me because of a dam?"

Xuan Yueji could tell based on Lu Lianhua's tone that he was calling him crazy. Honestly, he could understand why. What person in this world would ask for a powerful person's help with a puny dam?

Coughing in response to Lu Lianhua's question, Xuan Yueji explained, "I wouldn't ask for you, but the priests told me that a big and life changing spell was used to create this dam. I need you to take over for me. I don't know how to fix this dam. You know I don't deal with magic and stuff."

Hearing his words, Lu Lianhua calmed down and asked for more information, "Do you know what spell was used? How large the expanse was? When was it placed? What items were used if any was used at all?"

At the questions being shot at him, Xuan Yueji could only answer with, "I don't know any of those."

With a scolding voice, Lu Lianhua asked, "How do you intend to ask me for help when you don't even have the basic information?"

With a pitiful look, Xuan Yueji complained, "It's not my fault. Go yell at those priests for knowing nothing. So famous, but know nothing. What a waste of their title."

"Fine," Lu Lianhua sighed, giving up when hearing Xuan Yueji's pitiful voice of complaint.

If there was one thing to note about Xuan Yueji, it was that he did not speak with a pity tone much. In fact, he did not complain much either. He was someone that would rather keep everything in and use action to reciprocate at the correct time or moment.

Essentially, Xuan Yueji was a person that by nature, held deep grudges. He was also a person that repaid favors back in full. However, he did not use fast methods, nor did he use words to say "thank you" to someone.

He was someone that used actions to give revenge if need be. If it was to thank someone, he would help them by using the power that he had with him. And if there were favors to be repaid, he would keep it at the back of his mind and repay them when that person was at the hardest moment of their life.

Anyhow, Xuan Yueji returned to the deep dimension of their realm and had Lu Lianhua take over. No matter how smart and skillful he was, he could not tell what the spell is without seeing it firsthand. Even if he could get a visual from looking through the eyes, he could not get a feel for it like he would normally get if he was in possession of the body.

Taking over, the hair turned green and so did the eyes. The first thing Lu Lianhua did was to also change his clothes to a green silk robe instead of the black color that Xuan Yueji wore. It would be bad if he got mistaken for Xuan Yueji.

With a completed transformation, Lu Lianhua started teleporting around the dam. Since he first came out, he was already able to feel the presence of the spell. This told him that the spell was a powerful spell that impacted not only a small area, but a big place.

Walking around a perimeter that Lu Lianhua felt gave off a heavy presence of Bai Shuixian, he circled the entire thing while invisible due to the amount of people gathered. In the perimeter that he was circling, he could sense that there was something giving off familiar vibes to him. The only person that could give him that feeling was Bai Shuixian since he was a part of her.

However, this begged a question. Why is her presence on this spell? It was this single question that started to formulate multiple other questions.

But, Lu Lianhua was incredibly smart by not trying to investigate this single spot in order to answer any of those questions he had. Instead, he left a mark on the spot that he was standing at and moved onto another location that would let him ask more questions. Lu Lianhua's style of investigation was different from the rest of the norm.

Lu Lianhua did not create questions ahead of time and answered them one by one as he passed sites. Instead of doing that, he would examine all the sites within the shortest period that he could with detail and formulate the questions while he passed. In the end, he would remember each of those questions and answer them when one by one when passing through each other.

This meant that he would have not only one answer for each question he had, but multiple. With the different numbers of answers, he would combine all of them into one answer that would most fit accordingly to the rest. In a way, it was like a game where he had to match the puzzles with each other.

As he passed by another site, Lu Lianhua finally got a feel for the size of the spell. Only now could he understand why Xuan Yueji asked for his help. The spell did not cover just the dam, but it seemed to have spread throughout the entire country.

If not for the borders that were built with inscriptions, the spell would already have leaked into the other countries. From what Lu Lianhua could remember, the upper continent had already banned the use of spells that created a major impact on the world. It would mean that whoever set this up was someone willing to be punished for the greater good or just in case, the greater bad.

Continuing his investigation, Lu Lianhua discovered other notable things. One important finding was that the original spell used was either changed, maybe altered internally or another spell was used on top of the previous spell. The second important find that he got was that the center of the spell was nowhere to be found.

Generally, all spells have a center or a center-of-command. It was where all the inscriptions, scrolls, and materials used to create the spell could be found. If someone managed to find the center of a spell, they could alter the spell and change the intended use of the spell or they could place another spell on top of the center, eventually creating an effect of a singular spell with two spells.

However, it seemed that someone had used magic to hide the center. Otherwise, Lu Lianhua would have already found it considering his skills to teleport to places. Not only that, he was very familiar with the geography of the continent and could remember many things as though they were at the back of his hand.

Though he did not investigate this area back then due to the dimension having chaos within itself. The dimension had collapsed on itself essentially and many of the alters and personas were disappearing, getting merged, and many other things happening crazily with no pattern. At the time, Lu Lianhua was in a deep sleep to cultivate so he did not know what caused the chaos in the dimension, and he only knew the final effect that the chaos had on all the remaining alters.

Going back to his first finding, Lu Lianhua became frustrated as he teleported back and forth between multiple places, trying to find the center. He had an inexhaustible amount of energy, so he was not worried about tiring himself out. The thing that he was worried about was that the center could have been hidden and altered by Bai Shuixian.

From his analysis, Lu Lianhua was able to get an answer that told him the spell should have been different about a few decades ago. It took him a bit of time, but he eventually found that the spell was indeed large and affected a huge area, but it did not affect the entire country. Instead, it only affected the southern part of the country.

Recording all his answers with a mental note, Lu Lianhua was also able to connect the ties between the White Tiger Forest and Yuezhong. He had investigated the forest five years ago since he could not ignore the heavy presence of someone familiar to him. That time, it was not Bai Shuixian but another person.

With the sun starting to set, Lu Lianhua had not finished his investigation, but he was able to fix the spell in order to stop it from breaking the dam every year. Even when the sun had already set, he was still investigating, examining, and analyzing although breathing out sighs of frustration once in a while. As time passed and the moon came out, he eventually teleported to the capital and had Xuan Yueji take over, but did not know that Xuan Yueji did not plan to return to the capital until a month later.