# 595
Chapter 595
The Mysterious Gaze
Lin Qiye stood on the shoal for a long time before finally making up his mind and raising his hand once more…
This time he didn’t use Somersault Cloud, but Erosion of Utmost Darkness.
A wisp of black light flickered between his fingers, condensing into a coin-sized sphere. Holding that speck of darkness, Lin Qiye looked up at the night sky above, eyes full of vigilance.
A moment later, the terrifying gaze descended again!
He felt like a deadly beast had locked onto him; every hair on his body stood on end. Without hesitation, he dispersed the darkness in his palm once more.
The gaze lingered over the area—this time longer than before. If its first sweep had been cursory, now it was a meticulous search.
It seemed puzzled that this aura had appeared twice in succession.
Only after about two minutes did the gaze finally fade. Lin Qiye exhaled in relief.
So the gaze really is triggered by Forbidden Ruins.
He had tried a second time to test whether the gaze depended on the type of Forbidden Ruins or the amount of mental power injected.
The first time, with Somersault Cloud, he’d poured in a huge amount of mental power; the second time, with Erosion of Utmost Darkness, he’d used the bare minimum—barely Lantern-realm level. Yet even that faint ripple had drawn the gaze.
In other words, it can sense any Forbidden Ruins fluctuation?
And if it finds the source, what then?
Lin Qiye didn’t know, but he could guess it wouldn’t end well.
This is Japan; the gaze spilling from the void most likely belongs to a Japanese deity. If it discovered an outsider like him, it wouldn’t exactly invite him to tour Takamagahara.
But without Forbidden Ruins, he was just an unusually fit ordinary man—easy prey if anything happened.
The situation had turned ugly fast.
Frowning, he thought hard, then began scouring the shoal.
Five minutes later he returned lugging a seawater-soaked black log.
Squatting, he used the wood to scratch lines in the sand. When he stood up, a complex black circular magic array lay at his feet.
It was the most basic directional summoning array.
In the past he’d conjured arrays directly in mid-air with mental power, instant and invisible—but that would definitely be noticed. So he changed the method:
First draw the array manually with surrounding materials, then in a single instant flood it with mental power to activate the spell. The Forbidden Ruins activation would be compressed into a split second.
From the two earlier tests he was certain: as long as the ripple lasted only an instant, the mysterious being couldn’t lock on; otherwise he’d already have been found.
Perhaps this was the only way to hide Forbidden Ruins from its perception.
When the array was complete, Lin Qiye drew a deep breath and pressed his palm to it.
Mental power surged.
On the deserted shoal beneath the dark sky, a blinding flash of sorcerous light erupted, lighting a corner of the heavens!
At the same moment he sensed the terrifying gaze stab through the void again—this time laced with unmistakable anger!
Drawn three times in a row yet finding nothing, its pressure was several times stronger than before; Lin Qiye’s body shook uncontrollably.
Clenching his teeth, he stood rigid, forcing himself not to collapse, but his feet sank deep into the gravel.
The gaze combed the area for more than five minutes before finally withdrawing.
The instant it vanished, Lin Qiye almost crumpled, strength gone.
No more experiments.
He suspected that if he lured it again, it might simply camp here.
If he had to test again, it would have to be days later, somewhere else, giving it time to cool off.
Recovering, he walked to the huge black array and groped among the stones at its center…
His eyes lit up.
When he pulled his hand out, a snow-white long blade rested in his palm.
White Slash.
“Praise the god of magic,” he murmured, lips curving.
He gripped the hilt and swept it at empty air; dozens of meters away the gravel split under a deep slash mark.
And this time—no gaze.
So forbidden objects can be used normally…
He pondered.
Whatever the case, in this land where Forbidden Ruins were banned, he now had a safeguard. A blade, yes—but behind it lay a far more crucial fact:
Hand-drawn arrays worked, which meant… he could summon the nurses from the Asylum of the Gods one by one.
How many mysteries were locked in his hospital? He’d lost count.
Those nurses weren’t human; more precisely, they were spectral mysteries. Whether they’d attract the gaze remained to be seen, but even if they too couldn’t use Forbidden Ruins, their racial talents alone could accomplish plenty.
A Zhu, for instance, could still turn into a spider and spin webs; Uncle Beller could produce purple mist without Forbidden Ruins; Hongyan could shatter half a mountain with raw strength.
He could quietly raise mysteries beneath this modern metropolis.
He shelved the thought for now; the next summoning would need a cooling-off period, and the mysteries hadn’t signed contracts yet—still early days.
Scuffing the array away with his foot, he wrapped White Slash inside his trench-coat and headed toward the city center.
He couldn’t walk the streets carrying a naked blade; he needed a saya. Supposedly Japan respected sword culture—finding one shouldn’t be hard.
But the immediate problem…
Where was he going to get any money?