Hard to find

It was Ruisha who raised this question.

After learning about the existence of the "Thorn of the End" from Ximu, even if he was favored by the gods, he found it hard to imagine how Phises could sneak into the enemy's territory under such injuries.

"Then maybe... Millianna ran away on her own?" Morina tilted her head, thoughtfully. "Even if her reaction was slow, she couldn't understand when she saw her brother fall. As long as the dean minimized her presence as much as possible before others noticed her, allowing her to leave the Moon Viewing Tower, it's not impossible, right?"

After hearing this, Sorens expressed a certain degree of agreement.

The use of moon magic originally included the ability to deceive the five senses and create illusions that were so real that they were indistinguishable from the real thing.

As the son of the Moon God, Phises should be able to buy some time for his sister's escape in a critical moment.

Besides, the old man took so much trouble to direct their target to Her Royal Highness the Princess, but in the end she was locked up with the culprits and couldn't get any information from them. Isn't this putting the cart before the horse?

"Speaking of which, why is Her Highness Milliana's ring with Mr. Horan?" Sorens looked puzzled.

The familiar question reappeared, but this time the priestess girl clearly had a new direction of speculation.

"I encountered it when I came out to ask for help. Isn't that normal?"

She felt that what she said was very reasonable and even stood up and slammed the table.

"Have you forgotten? That old man never liked the Vice Dean. Perhaps he'd sensed some danger and had been hanging around the Moon Viewing Tower... The princess ran into him when she was escaping and told him about it. She was afraid Mia Rodes would come back and kill her, so she gave him the ring as evidence. Doesn't that make sense?"

Although she had speculated a long time ago that the ring was broken by the princess in anger, but... speculation, discussion, contradiction and self-rebuttal are common.

This is also a possibility.

Although the old man claimed that he had left the academy before the seal fell, this was entirely his one-sided statement and no one could corroborate it.

He waited silently at the back door of the academy, giving them tasks to go and come back. Was this a test and trial for them?

After seeing that they were indeed capable of surviving in the academy, he gave them this letter of introduction, leading all the clues to the most crucial mystery deep within the academy.

"Is there a secret passage in the Moon Viewing Tower that leads directly to the outside world?"

When Sorens realized that Ximu was asking about him, he was shocked. He sat up straight and cold sweat broke out subconsciously.

He was just an ordinary student, the kind who had to work part-time to pay for his studies and could only continue his studies with the secret care of kind professors. He was an extremely ordinary student!

How could he possibly know about something like this in a place like Moon Viewing Tower, which is the sole residence of the dean?!

But he also knew that this was definitely not the answer the other party wanted to hear, so he racked his brains and recalled frantically, and finally found some valuable information deep in his memory.

"Uh... I'm not sure if there are any secret passages or anything like that, but I vaguely remember that when the dean was in seclusion, Her Highness Milliana went to take care of him, but she didn't completely stay indoors with him... I guess the dean gave her some privileges to enter and exit the seal, right?"

"So, she might have the key to the Moon Viewing Tower?"

This was the first time Zhui Nin had heard about this series of events, so she hadn't said anything before. Only now did she finally feel a sense of participation.

Ruixia nodded. "Whether it's a secret passage or a key, as long as Her Royal Highness is still sane, she will definitely know how to enter the Moon Viewing Tower correctly."

But...where did this reclusive prince go after that incident?

They explored everywhere, having already toured most of the magic academy. Aside from those areas that were sealed or inhabited by powerful monsters, they had explored almost every area that could be illuminated, but they found no trace of the blonde princess.

"Where does she usually live?"

Ruixia could only continue to ask questions like this to the only "local" among them.

The innocent country boy was under tremendous pressure and thought hard for a while before he managed to squeeze out some clues from the occasional chats of his classmates.

"Her Highness Milliana rarely shows up in public... but I overheard someone say that after the princess returned from the courtyard, escorted by the knights, she seemed to... indeed head to the upper floors of the dormitory building."

Having said that, Ximu, Ruixia and Moliina looked at each other, all somewhat surprised.

The first place they arrived at was the dormitory building, and they built a base there directly, and even sent mechanical puppets to sweep the building several times.

But it was obvious that neither they had seen anyone similar to Millianna during their several explorations nor through the feedback from the mechanical dolls.

"Hmm..." Molina frowned and scratched her chin, "If she's not in the dormitory building, where else can she go?"

“It’s not strange in other places.”

Zhui Neng settled into a lazy, comfortable position, propping up her chin as she spoke, "Didn't you say that something unusual happened shortly after the dean was assassinated? If she had left the tower to seek help and was affected by the unusual event on the way, wouldn't she have wandered off somewhere else without knowing what was happening?"

That does make sense.

But they are not sure what the great change was that transformed everyone, and how long it took to turn everyone into this state.

However, even if those mutated people have lost all their minds and are neither alive nor dead, they will still repeat some of their previous behaviors in the places they are most familiar with or most obsessed with.

A professor, whose head has turned into a nebula, is studying in a study hall. Students, transformed into slime, are diligently transcribing experimental data. A frantic blacksmith is using up all his materials in an attempt to forge a magical weapon. Miners are mining underground, unconsciously and endlessly...

They seemed to have long forgotten the chaotic invasion, with only a vague memory of their most fundamental past remaining in their minds.

If Milliana couldn't escape the soul-wrecking upheaval, where would she go?

Across the phantom battlefield in front of the Moon Viewing Tower, Ximu didn't notice any figure resembling the blonde woman wandering nearby. In the courtyard, apart from patrolling knights and a few scattered magicians, there was no woman reading in the moonlight...

……etc.

As if remembering something, Ximu suddenly raised her eyes and looked at the brown-haired boy who had already begun brainstorming very consciously, and confirmed: "I remember you seemed to say before that she... likes to go to the courtyard to read when no one is around?"

"yes."

This seemed to be a widely held impression, so Sorens responded quickly.

"Her Highness Milliana is gentle and shy, and doesn't like to talk much. Rather than socializing with others, you can often see her reading in private."

In other words... Her Royal Highness's most well-known hobby is actually reading?

Ruixia immediately realized the point Ximu wanted to ask, and took over the conversation and asked, "--What about the big library? Since she likes reading so much, she should go there often, right?"

Suddenly, Sorens was enlightened and almost stood up from his chair, saying "yes" several times with a look on his face.

"Yes, yes, yes, how could I have forgotten... Besides reading in the atrium, Her Highness Milliana often spends the entire afternoon in the library. There's even a special seat set up there just for her!"

Now I finally have some clues and have found a clearer direction to look for.

The Great Library was adjacent to the workshop. Ruixia had now dealt with the sniper devices on the roof, so crossing the atrium to the Great Library wasn't a difficult task. However...

Everyone looked at the scene of the entrance to the large library displayed on the screen and was speechless for a moment.

"Another seal..."

Morina fell back helplessly, as if defeated by this annoying reality.

"Are these magicians too security-conscious? Huh? They lock the dormitories, they lock the teaching buildings, and now they lock the library doors again! Knowing a sealing spell is a sign of you, right? You have to use it whenever you have the chance!"

This was pure nonsense, so the young magician who was innocently shot next to her could only laugh silently at this moment.

In fact, this operation is not difficult to understand.

After all, the Great Library contained a large number of magical tomes, and the value of this knowledge was inestimable. The people who stayed behind naturally could not allow them to be destroyed in the war - they probably immediately sealed the door as soon as the chaos broke out outside.

"It's okay. If you can't get through the main door, you can try somewhere else."

Ximu looked through the map of the academy and the video information sent back by the mecha bug, but he was not very discouraged.

Judging from the seal pattern on the door of the Great Library, its effectiveness should only be applied to the door... For an assassin who rarely enters and exits through the main door, it is not uncommon for him to find another way in from somewhere else.

The workshop didn't have many floors, and including the roof decorations it was only three or four stories high, but it was easy for her to climb up to the small platform at the edge of the large library.

The windows there also seemed to be protected by magic, but they weren't likely to be sealed tightly... Even if violent destruction would trigger certain restrictions, as long as she had teammates to cover her, she shouldn't have any problem rushing inside.

But before she could bring up this feasible plan, Ruixia sorted out the various documents on the table that had been messed up by everyone, tapped them on the table to smooth them out, and suggested:

"Everyone's been working hard lately, and now that we have new members joining us, why don't we just rush to the new place and take a good rest and get used to the old map first?"