Location- Sun Blossom City, Circle Headquarters
Feeling that something was amiss here, the agitation that I felt thinking that Mike may have discovered my darkest secrets had subsided. With that, I used my soul pupils to scrutinize the pebble pointed out as Ji Feng by my calamity soul gem. Upon a thorough inspection, my soul pupil could not find the calamity soul gem in the pebble or anything odd about it. This was puzzling but also worrying. Because whatever Mike did to Ji Feng was now able to mess with two of my most trusted abilities. Considering the infinite types of cards out there, it was not impossible for a card to exist with an ability that would counter two of my most unique abilities but the probability of meeting a such card was very low. So, I had enough reasons to be worried.
Calming myself down I began to use my soul pupils and ears to scan the soul pathway arrangement, vibrations, and signatures of the pebble pointed out by my calamity soul gems and other pebbles in the surrounding. All this data was collected, organized, and stored by Hive AI. Why do this? The idea was simple, I wanted to use the data collected on the soul pathway arrangements, vibrations, and signatures of all the pebbles to find the difference between the pebble pointed out by my calamity soul gem and other pebbles in the surroundings, no matter how minute they were.
It did not take long for Hive AI to complete its task. And after comparing the data gathered from the pebble in question and the pebbles in the surrounding, it had found that there was no difference in the soul pathway arrangements and the signature but there was a minute difference in the soul pathway vibration of the pebble in question when compared to the other pebbles. Deducing that the pebble in question was different or something about it was different from the other pebbles.
Apart from this conclusion, Hive AI was also able to uncover another anomaly among the data of the other pebbles in the surrounding. It found another pebble that had the same soul pathway vibration as the pebble in the question. Meaning that the pebble too was different or something about it was different from the other pebbles.
Following the conclusion of my calamity soul gem, let us just say that the pebble in question was Ji Feng then what or who was the other pebble? Asking this question a sudden thought popped into my mind, blowing the whole case wide open.
The brilliant thought that I had was, what if the card used by Mike was not a high-level stealth type card but a high-level disguise card? What if Mike had used his high-level disguise card to disguise himself and Ji Feng as pebbles? That would explain why the calamity soul gem pointed out the pebble in question as Ji Feng. If Mike had turned Ji Feng into a pebble then it would explain why my calamity soul gem felt Ji Feng's calamity daughter gem inside the pebble. But this did not explain why soul pupils were not able to see through their disguise.
Unless Mike's high-level disguise card was not only capable of disguising the targets by changing their appearance but also changing their soul pathway arrangements and signature too. Even the soul pathway vibrations were almost spot on if not for the Hive AI I would have never noticed the minute differences in the soul pathway vibrations. Since soul pupils' forte was soul pathways so it was still disappointing that soul pupils could not tell Mike's disguise apart. But I only blamed myself for not having a higher realm to bring out soul pupils' true potential.
I know the conclusion I arrived at was weak without evidence, but it made much more sense than the other theories I could think of. The only way I can prove this conclusion was by forcing Mike to deactivate his disguise. So, I moved from the center of the battle array formation to pick the pebbles. I could not order anybody from the extermination squad to pick up the pebbles but I did not as they and their position were what made this battle formation array if one of them moved the others will feel the burden of it or in extreme cases, the array formation will break down. Therefore instead of ordering my subordinates, I went to pick up the pebbles.
Just as I was moving to pick up the pebbles, I realized the potential dangers to it. What if Mike manages to turn me into a pebble similar to what he did to Ji Feng? Then it would be game over for me, being trapped as an inanimate object. I say this because ever since I had concluded that Ji Feng had been turned into a pebble I have been trying to contact him through Hive AI but I did not get any response as if his soul too had been turned into a soul of a pebble.
Whatever card Mike was using its effect was scary and I did not want to be a victim of it so I decided not to step out of the array formation to pick up the pebbles, leaving us with two options,
One, I could summon a summons and have it pick up the pebbles and bring them to me but if Mike wanted to, he could turn the summons into a pebble or use it as a means of transportation to get to me and transform me into a pebble or something worse.
Second, since Ji Feng was unresponsive I could use my authority to take control of his calamity daughter gem remotely through the Hive AI connection. Upon achieving remote control over Ji Feng's calamity daughter gem through the Hive AI, I would order it to disintegrate its current body and restructure a new one. A reasonable plan but it was not without flaws.