So did this count as Supernatural Power, or was it more like a sudden illness?
Hard to say.
What was certain, though, was that the pain in his fingers was growing stronger, and seemed to be spreading.
Fu Qian flexed his fingers, feeling the sensations they sent back.
It wasn't affecting his movements yet, but if it was supernatural in nature, that was undoubtedly worse news.
It meant that even while moving around in the Outer World, he could still be affected by the supernatural.
Worse still, it seemed capable of marking him for his competitor.
Whether the Old Hunter knew someone was racing him or not, if he really had retained some of his supernatural abilities and spotted someone with a supernatural aura, the reaction he might have wasn't encouraging.
Of course, even so, this trip had still yielded a great deal.
For one thing, he had found traces of the two missing people, and even pieced together their possible movements, as well as those of his opponent.
For a task with a constantly approaching countdown, this kind of discovery was almost worth any price short of death.
For another, a question he'd had before now seemed to have an answer—when Jane and Old Man Hake had met.
Jane had said herself that she was supposed to have Wednesday off, but had come in to cover for Rachel after Rachel skipped work.
By rights, someone called in at the last minute shouldn't have arrived too early.
So how had "Hake," who'd arrived especially early that day, met her?
Considering what was happening here at Art Prison, there seemed to be a more reasonable explanation: could Jane have met "Hake" not today, but earlier?
Perhaps yesterday morning?
Otherwise, if "Hake" had still been asking about the missing people that morning,