Qingque had always thought her job was just about doing a bit of maintenance here and there, and maybe playing some Celestial Jade when things were slow.
But now she had to deal with this guy who had completely wrecked the Matrix of Prescience.
"You're telling me there's a Stellaron hidden somewhere on the Xianzhou?! And you want me to handle a divination of this magnitude?!"
Qingque felt that this was asking a bit too much from a low-level employee like herself.
"The people from the Astral Express came all the way here just to tell us this?"
"And something about the Stellaron Hunters? That famous 'slave of fate,' El-I—o?"
"Is this some kind of joke?!"
I haven't bothered anyone, Qingque thought, so why is all this trouble landing squarely on my shoulders?
No wonder Master Diviner Fu was nowhere to be found. She must have known this job was a hot potato, right?
While Qingque wouldn't go so far as to bad-mouth Fu Xuan like that, the Master Diviner's current disappearance certainly gave her that "novel" impression.
Talk about being thrown in at the deep end! This was a whole new level of being forced into a situation.
Qingque looked at Noldrei suspiciously. "You're not just pulling my leg today because I beat you twice at Celestial Jade, are you?"
Noldrei felt that Qingque was slacking off far too much. Even he, someone who barely worked, was starting to find it unbearable.
He urged her, "You can find out if it's true by doing a divination! Otherwise, what's the point of your Divination Commission? To be like Fu Xuan? 'I've calculated it, but it's as if I haven't. The outcome matches my divination, but I'll still say everything is under my control.'"
Stelle looked at Noldrei in shock. "Is this how you normally talk about your friends?"
Qingque waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it, friend. I actually think the same thing! It's just that the Master Diviner has a bit of a temper, so I rarely dare to say it out loud. This man here is my professional mouthpiece. As an outworlder, he can bad-mouth my Master Diviner all day, and she has no authority to shut him up. We Xianzhou people value being refined and courteous, especially when working in a public office. Anyway, enough talk... I'll help you divine the time and location of the Stellaron crisis."
Qingque had operated the Matrix of Prescience a few times before. Although she didn't have the Master Diviner's omniscient eye to activate it at will, a small task like this wasn't a major problem for her.
It made sense if you thought about it. If Qingque really had to perform divinations for every little thing, how would she ever find time to slack off?
"Huh? Hey? Something's not right here…"
"Eh?! This can't be!"
"Did I miscalculate?! How could it be related to the Master Diviner?"
"What? How could this be?"
After using the Matrix of Prescience for her divination, Qingque quickly stopped tapping her fingers.
The young woman clutched her head, her face a mask of complete and utter confusion, as if her brain had short-circuited.
"Why? Why is it like this?"
"How could the Master Diviner be involved? This shouldn't be happening."
Seeing Qingque's state, Stelle grew anxious and pressed, "Well? How did it go? Did you find the Stellaron's location?"
Snapping back to reality, Qingque nodded blankly. "I found it, but the problem is... the circumstances leading to the Stellaron crisis are a bit confusing. Um, it just doesn't feel like something the Master Diviner would do."
Stelle was about to die from impatience. She urged, "What is it? Just spit it out already!"
Qingque's expression turned solemn as she faced Noldrei. "I did indeed find the Stellaron's location. It should be in the Cavern over in the Scalegorge Waterscape. The problem is, the main person responsible for triggering the Stellaron's eruption seems to be our own Master Diviner of the Divination Commission. I don't get it. My boss doesn't seem like the type to pull a stunt this big."
Noldrei remarked with admiration, "That's incredible. I never thought Fu Xuan was capable of such a world-shaking deed."
With a complicated look, Qingque said, "Stop admiring her and let's go. I think we should hurry up and stop my boss. If this continues, she's going to become a criminal of the Xianzhou."
Noldrei privately thought that while Fu Xuan might have stumbled into a trap, it probably wasn't the outcome she had intended. He mainly knew that Fu Xuan didn't have the ability to save and change Dan Shu's fate.
Qingque still couldn't understand how the ever-capable Master Diviner could be in such a chaotic mess.
She had been focusing most of her energy on the Divination Commission lately and was unaware that Fu Xuan had been trying to break free from the influence of divination, wanting to see what she was truly capable of on her own.
It just so happened that the moment Fu Xuan had this thought was precisely when a Lord Ravager had infiltrated the Xianzhou to stir up chaos using the Stellaron.
Suddenly, Qingque felt the heavy responsibility of the Xianzhou settle on her shoulders.
"Wait a minute! I'm just a low-level worker who likes to slack off! Why am I being forced to do this terrifying job where I have to be as cautious as if... as if treading on thin ice?"
Stelle now knew the location of the Stellaron.
This was the first time since her memory began that a mission had gone so smoothly. The objective had never been so clear, and it filled Stelle with a sense of exhilaration.
Stelle quickly said, "Let's not worry about the Master Diviner for now. Where is this Scalegorge Waterscape you mentioned? Should we go find the Stellaron? Wait…"
Stelle suddenly remembered that the Stellaron Hunter, Kafka, was waiting for her outside.
Noldrei seemed to have thought of the same problem.
If Qingque could calculate the specific location, there was no reason the Stellaron Hunters couldn't do the same.
Stelle asked again, "In your divination just now, did you see any interference from the Stellaron Hunters?"
Qingque shook her head. "Not at all. They weren't involved in the slightest. There wasn't a trace of the Stellaron Hunters' actions in my divination. Forget the Stellaron Hunters; they contributed less to this than my own Master Diviner."
Stelle exclaimed, "Wow, your Master Diviner is playing the long game, huh! A rebel inside the Xianzhou?"
"How is that possible? Hiss… Could it be that the Master Diviner really couldn't wait any longer and decided to make a move for the General's seat? That can't be right…"
Qingque fell into deep thought, starting to wonder if the Fu Xuan she had worked with for the past century might have been an impostor.
She was dazed for a moment before shaking her head fiercely, pulling herself out of the strange conclusions of her divination.
"Noldrei, my good man! I'm leaving the rest to you!" Qingque had no intention of asking the Astral Express for help. She could see that wherever they went, trouble and chaos were sure to follow.
But Noldrei was different. His upward momentum seemed limitless.
Qingque knew her own luck wasn't great, so she decided to entrust the job to someone with better luck.
"My Master Diviner can be pretty stubborn sometimes, so you can decide how to handle her! It looks like this Stellaron crisis is inevitable now, so let's focus on saving people first. We can figure out how to deal with the crisis itself later."
Noldrei clearly noticed the difference in how Qingque and Fu Xuan handled the results of a divination.
For Fu Xuan, divination was a tool to push for a higher ceiling, to achieve the best possible outcome.
For Qingque, just using divination to maintain the bare minimum and prevent rock bottom was a blessing she'd thank the heavens for.