Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 816 - 81 Philarx’s Guess

Chapter 816: Chapter 81 Philarx’s Guess

"Hahaha, that joke of yours wasn’t funny at all," Pannis laughed in a stilted tone, curling his lip as he said, "You’re simply not cut out for telling jokes. No matter how much you try to learn from us, you’ll never get it. Just give up."

"I wasn’t joking with you, and I never joke," Philarx insisted without smiling, his face serious. "The stories you just told with your own lips, Mage, about using time magic, constantly plundering others’ time to restore youth, which of those does not fit my characteristics? If I were to judge, I’d say the most suspicious person would definitely be myself."

"Alright, alright, let’s set aside the issue of characteristics for now," Pannis pressed his temples with a headache and had to admit, Philarx was absolutely right. Although there was no concrete evidence pointing to his old friend, his known characteristics did indeed resemble those of the person in question. However, Pannis did not believe his dear friend could be the leader behind the Sands of Time, not only because of their close companionship in arms but also for a more crucial reason: "I’ve told you before, Passion and Indulgence, the two young legends from Aske’s ranks—members of the Shadow Hand. They have met the leader of the Sands of Time when taking on assignments, more than once. With your fame, the Shadow Hand will certainly have your image. Even if they haven’t met you, they’ve seen your image, so they would recognize you when receiving the commission. Otherwise, they’re not fit to be thieves and assassins. And not to offend you, but they took on the commission about a year ago, and with your current physical state, I doubt you could have traveled all the way to the City of Innocence to issue orders, so can you please stop making trouble for yourself? Are there any other suspects besides you?"

"Felic," Philarx replied expressionlessly on his aged face, without a second thought: "My student, also a Mage, might have learned time magic from me and wanted to restore his teacher’s youth, so he did these things."

"I told you it was a Demigod," Pannis countered, his forehead vein throbbing as he clenched his teeth: "I can tell, at most, Felic ascended to Legendary rank just one month ago, and a year ago he was still a Gold Rank Mage. Do you think Passion and Indulgence are blind? They can’t tell the difference between Gold Rank and Demigod Rank. I tell you you’re not cut out for jokes, why don’t you believe me?"

"A Demigod," Philarx mulled it over as if seriously considering it this time before saying, "Victor."

"Who’s that?" Pannis asked confused, hearing a name he never heard before: "Why have I never heard of him?"

"My student, a Demigod Mage," Philarx seemed to have made up his mind to center the conversation around himself, speaking earnestly: "A laboratory faction, who spent nearly two-thirds of his life in a lab, so although many knew of such a Demigod, almost none knew his name."

"Hey, enough already," Pannis began to feel like he had over the years angered others to the point of wanting to hit him and was now experiencing retribution: "Felic just told us, your Demigod student died years ago, didn’t he? You’re not even sparing the dead." Sighing, he even considered for a moment if he should be more restrained in the future, but dismissed the thought in less than a second, angrily pounding on the table: "What’s gotten into you, starting to speak so unseriously all of a sudden? I didn’t provoke you, why are you suddenly not speaking seriously?"

"Hmph, didn’t you say you didn’t want to ask me this anymore?" Philarx glared back energetically, thumping his magic staff heavily on the ground and shouting, "Why do you want a serious answer from me now? I’m not begging you to ask."

"Uh... why do you hold such grudges?" Pannis grimaced, at a loss for words, remembering only now his old friend’s habit of holding grudges over trivial matters, with any slight displeasure to be avenged through various means. Clearly, not wanting to burden him with a third question earlier, due to concern for his health, had wounded Philarx’s pride, leading him to take revenge in this way—nearly driving Pannis mad. Fortunately, it was only nearly, for his strong heart prevented insanity, leaving him to say helplessly with normal sanity, "My apologies, Lord Philarx, please forgive me. I won’t underestimate you again. You definitely didn’t beg me to ask, I begged you for an answer, will that do?"

"That’s more like it," Philarx huffed again, leaned back into his chair relaxed, finally falling silent in thought under Pannis’ relieved gaze, murmuring, "Let me think, a Demigod Mage, the scope isn’t broad, there are about twenty known Demigods across the races, and even fewer Mages. However, the problem is with those hidden Demigods of the races, whose existence is mostly unknown to everyone."

"That’s the kind of trouble I’m worried about," Pannis voiced: "If it really is one of those hidden Demigods, that would be very troublesome indeed."

"I have a suspicion," Philarx mused for a long time before looking up and saying, "I believe the person behind the Sands of Time may not necessarily be human, it’s very likely to be other intelligent beings of different races, perhaps even from some of the longer-lived races."

"Your reasons?" Pannis tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair thoughtfully and said, "Is it because humans don’t have hidden demigods? That does make sense, humans’ lifespans are too short, indeed without the possibility of going into hiding."

Exactly as Pannis said, humans do not have unknown demigods, the very reason being that human lifespans are quite short compared to many other races. When a creature ascends to Demigod Rank, the first time they open their Inherent Psychic Domain, a particularly powerful energy fluctuation erupts, which all demigods of the Yarran World can sense, just like in the Crying Cave, when Pannis was awakened by Catherine’s persuasions, found direction, and successfully unfolded his domain, demigods from the Elven Forest to the Deep Sea Temple would notice, recognizing another peer’s birth. If familiar, they could even identify the new demigod through certain characteristics, so the emergence of each new demigod is noted. However, when a demigod dies, it cannot be sensed, meaning that no one knows whether a particular demigod is still alive or not. Thus, if some of the longer-lived race’s demigods grew weary of conflict and sought seclusion, after several generations, the shorter-lived races would forget these recluses, while those with shorter lifespans would find it difficult to do the same as they would pass away from lifespan exhaustion before being forgotten. Therefore, races like humans, Beastmen, and goblins did not have hidden demigods, with the longer a race’s lifespan, the more of its hidden members.

Yet, Philarx shook his head and said, "That’s just one of my reasons, but it’s not the main one."

Pannis was startled, and with a frown said, "I understand, you’re considering it from the victims’ perspective."

"Yes, that’s the reason," Philarx nodded and said, "It seems you also understand, the majority of those from whom time has been stolen are humans, of course, there are also people from other races, but they are indeed the minority, right?"

"Indeed, most of them are humans," Pannis admitted, "I get your point, you think that, given a choice, humans would not necessarily act against their own kind first, a more reasonable choice would be to target other races, like Elves, which would be less of a psychological burden."

"Cough cough," Muir, sitting beside Pannis, plucked at his lute strings with an odd expression and coughed. Pannis patted Muir’s shoulder consolingly and said, "It’s not like I’m singling out your race on purpose, it’s just because my glance drifted and saw you; bear with it. And besides, what I’m saying is also the truth, isn’t it? But Philarx, I think we can’t think like this, what if the perpetrator intends to conceal their identity and, anticipating our line of thinking, deliberately targets only humans? Wouldn’t that lead us astray?"

"I’ll ask you a question," Philarx trembled as he lifted the teacup in front of him to his lips, and even with both hands, the severe shaking still caused a good amount of tea to spill, but the seven people in front of him just happened to be communicating with each other through glances at that time, and no one saw his embarrassment until he put down the teacup. The old man wiped the tea on his face and cleared his throat before asking, "Who do you think has a longer lifespan and more time between humans and Elves?"

"Cough cough," Muir coughed twice more and muttered while rubbing his neck, "Strange, why does my throat always feel itchy?"

"If we don’t compare with Elves, you won’t feel itchy, so let’s compare with the Sea Race," Pannis was well aware of the Elves’ importance to their race, rolled his eyes without paying any more attention to the coughing Elf, and turned to Philarx, "You make a good point, compared to humans themselves, those longer-lived races are better targets. If one chooses the long-lived races as targets, one individual’s remaining time could be ten times, even dozens of times more than targeting humans. Theoretically, humans should not be the primary targets."

"Of course, this could also be explained by the generally stronger abilities of the longer-lived races," Philarx found a flaw in his own conjecture, "Like the Elves, okay, like the Sea Race, those long-lived members of the Sea Race living in the deep sea for thousands of years, even their newborns are quite potent. It takes a lot of courage to target them. Let me think this over for some days, I’ll sort out my thoughts and try to consider which individuals are the most suspicious." (To be continued. If you like this piece, you are welcome to vote for it at qidian.com, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)