The Absolution Hunting Team’s one cat and two humans did not wait long in the chilly environnt.
Before long, Furry Bean returned with its spoils.
When the black cat saw the gray, dusty figure, its smile froze. Because what Gouzi had brought back wasn’t the black-robed wizard, nor parts of the wizard like clothes or cuffs, but a dry, hard grass nest, edged with a few shabby gray feathers, so unfortunate bird’s abode.
As the black cat reached a paw into the bird’s nest to probe, it accidentally got a bit of bird poop on its paw.
This made it increasingly vexed.
"Wrong! Not this... Do it again!" he scolded Gouzi gratingly. Gouzi drooped its tail, eyes full of innocence. After a few whimpers, it obediently turned around, ’poof’ disappearing into the night again.
Dylan kindly summoned a ball of clean water to help the black cat wash its paw.
"Aren’t you being too harsh on it,"
Mister Blood Werewolf showed great empathy towards his far relative of a quarter-blood, defending it: "In the end, it’s because the wizard’s aura is too mixed, Furry Bean didn’t really get it wrong... If it were us, we might not even find this bird’s nest."
This bird’s nest’s aura coincided with a wisp of that wizard’s aura, which is why Gouzi excitedly brought it back.
"If it were us, we wouldn’t be bothering with a bird’s nest!" The black cat washed its paw, holding it aloft for drying. Hearing this, it tugged its ears irritably and twitched its whiskers: "If you have ti to care about Furry Bean, why not gather so bones from the riverbank, burn them, and see how this bird’s nest connects to the wizard?"
Although Dylan’s divination skills were no match for Xiao Xiao’s, coming from the Clans of the Moon plus years of family influence, he had mastered many secret skills, far better than Blue Bird or the black cat.
Soon, Mister Blood Werewolf found a small, wind-sheltered spot and started a faint blue magic fla. The black cat also collected several bone fragnts from the riverbank, carrying them back to the fire with two paws.
"What animal is this from?"
Dylan used long-handled tweezers to pick up a piece of bone, holding it to his eyes, examining under the moonlight with a trace of interest on his face: "Looks like the scapula of so bovine, but the bone pattern is off... The bone spurs on its edge resemble the third tailbone of a gastric dragon beast..."
"Nothing more than so sacrifice from an illegal little lab, you’re not a cat, what’s with the curiosity!" The black cat quipped, nudging the bone fragnts towards the fla, sowhat impatiently: "If it were really so dragon beast’s bones, do you think they could linger on the North District’s outskirts so long? Wizards here are just lacking in magic power, but their vision surpasses most on the island! Get on with the divination, don’t waste ti!"
Dylan’s gaze traveled past that bone, he lowered his head, surprised looking at the black cat.
"Your understanding of Northern District Wizards is always amazing... Is it because of Sister Korma?" Noting how the last few words made the black cat’s face harden and unsheathed several sharp claws, Mister Blood Werewolf decisively returned to the subject: "Ahem, besides, it’s not that I’m not divining now, you know..."
He tapped one bone against another, making a slightly dull sound:
"Like this, the bones on this riverbank suffer severe soak and infestation from water vapor and miasma, needing to be slowly grilled with a small fire first until inside and outside dry consistency matches, only then can it be pierced."
The fire roasting the bone fragnts made faint sizzling sounds, attracting several little flying bugs to probe at the riverbank. The black cat idly swiped its paw, shooing away these cold-resistant mosquitoes, but its ears attentively rotated, missing no surrounding sound anomalies.
When the first piece of bone was nearly roasted, Furry Bean returned once more with a trophy. Rembering the first unsatisfactory experience, this ti, the black cat did not prematurely waste its excitent.
Lucky yet unlucky, Furry Bean brought back a frozen grass snake this ti.
"No wizard transformation magic, nor any curse or other magic traces," Dylan quickly examined and tossed the grass snake in front of the black cat: "If interested, you can take a few bites to try it... Afraid of parasites, just discard it. But roasted snake at tastes really good... Pity, Fatty isn’t here."
The black cat only looked like a cat, not truly a stray cat, naturally wouldn’t casually eat an untreated grass snake. It flung the grass snake far away with its paw, only then solemnly looked at Furry Bean.
"No bird’s nest! No grass snake! Want people! Like him, an animal with one head, two arms, and two legs, understand?" The black cat gestured with its paw, laboriously explaining to Gouzi.
Furry Bean blinked, happily whimpered twice, and turning around, ’poof’ once again vanished into the corner of the rock.
"I suddenly worry it might catch you a monkey."
Dylan took a handful of straw from the bird’s nest, burnt it into ash, ticulously sared it onto a piece of dry bone, worriedly warning the black cat: "After all, the aura is massive, maybe there’s a monkey scent in it... But monkeys aren’t the worst... If Furry Bean drags so student from school, or even a teacher, then we’ll be in big trouble!"
Zheng Qing almost imdiately recalled Furry Bean causing trouble in the past—after "Magic Wand" ca out last year, when Zheng Qing first beca ’World’ and had a minor conflict with Professor Trudeau in the Anti-Curse Teaching and Research Room during so ’miscommunication,’ Furry Bean had once dragged back that top registered wizard to dorm 403.
"Probably not, shouldn’t be." The black cat’s tail drooped, ears flickering with slight unease: "Furry Bean is smart, wouldn’t randomly hassle innocents..."
"Smart? Innocent?"
Dylan picked up a feather from the bird’s nest, wavering it before the black cat: "Don’t try to use your cat brain to fathom a dog’s thinking... Especially as Furry Bean isn’t a normal dog."
Speaking this, he already tossed the feather into the fire, burning it into charred debris, mixing it with the previous grass ash, saring it upon the bone fragnts. Then he drilled, burnt, the cracked bone fragnts in the night issued eerie crackling sounds, charred bone patterns mingled with intermittent pitch black and brushwood ashes, forming secret text belonging to the diviner.
Dylan seriously interpreted under the moonlight for quite so ti.
"Good news is, this bird’s nest does indeed intersect with First University’s faculty and students, I believe that black-robed wizard is definitely among them." The temporary diviner could glean little information from the divination, the result was lukewarm: "Bad news is, too many intersecting teachers, staff, and students... In the fleeting glances I see, many people rely passed under the bird’s nest, trying to use this bird’s nest to find our target is entirely impossible."
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