At ten o'clock, in the club, boom boom boom... flames shot up around the central stage, and the music suddenly rose, instantly elevating the atmosphere to its peak. A voice rang out through a magical amplification, "Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome the beloved Rose Barbara!"
The round stage in the center sank, and a hot-bodied mature woman slowly rose up. As soon as she appeared, she sent out flying kisses, immediately causing a stir and screams all around.
A bald head popped out between Ge Zheng and Norodon, and the old man Tommy, half-asleep, asked, "Did I miss anything?" Ge Zheng smiled, "Sir Tommy, you've arrived at just the right time!"
A face-to-face private service left the old man Tommy's eyes almost shut, and his limbs weak, his legs trembling. Ge Zheng smirked, his purpose was about to be fulfilled.
"Everyone!" The voice echoed in the club, "Tonight, we have a special program. As long as you're willing to pay a hundred gold coins, you can have the opportunity for a close dance with Miss Barbara. Sign up now!"
Without hesitation, Ge Zheng tossed a handful of coins, "This gentleman is signing up!" The old man Tommy struggled like a crab, "I'm not going..."
With a shove from Ge Zheng behind, the thin-bodied old man Tommy flew up on stage like a kite. The crowd was disappointed that the first place had been taken by this old man.
Tommy let out a scream, and then fell silent, because his mouth was blocked by Miss Barbara's chest...
That night, the extremely exhausted old man Tommy was carried back to Dongsheng Academy by Norodon. In the academy, Norodon happened to meet the school patrol team. According to Norodon, he found the unconscious Teacher Tommy on the side of the road and carried him back without hesitation, so he was commended by the school for respecting teachers and the elderly.
Norodon was quite tired. After carrying Teacher Tommy, he immediately rushed back to his dorm. Before long, there was a knock on the door, and a girl was standing outside. Unlike the heavy makeup on stage, she looked more delicate without it. Her hands twisted uneasily in front of her, slightly lowering her head, giving off a slightly insecure vibe. Wrapped in a thick coat, she was securely covered.
Norodon hadn't planned on actually doing anything, but seeing the girl's eyes made him feel uncomfortable. Originally, the plan for tonight was to figure out the tattoo on the girl's chest, then give her the money and send her off.
"Where's the money?" The first thing the girl asked after coming in. Norodon threw a crystal card that Ge Zheng had left before leaving.
"Take off your clothes," Norodon said coldly. He felt uncomfortable, thinking, what the hell is this? How come the master wants to see the girl's chest, but I have to do it instead. He wasn't the first to feel aggrieved by Ge Zheng, and the lesson is from the great adventurer Solgad.
The girl turned her back, and at the moment he spoke, a blush spread from her face down to her neck. The girl seemed malnourished, with slightly yellowish skin, as if spread with a thin layer of strawberry jam on cheese. Although Norodon had no improper thoughts, he couldn't help but feel a little enchanted.
The girl undid the ties on her coat, still not turning around, her face flushed. Slowly, she opened her arms, and the heavy coat slipped off her shoulders, revealing a slender and graceful figure before Norodon's eyes.
From the neck down, smooth shoulders, an alluring slim waist, ample hips, long legs, perfect curves, and tender skin were illuminated by the dim magical light, The girl was mentally prepared, just wanting to quickly end tonight's "business", even if it meant taking off her clothes and putting them back on later. Clearly, she was extremely disgusted with this business.
Norodon tried to maintain his noble demeanor, but his throat couldn’t help but move, making an unexpected sound.
The girl's shoulders twitched slightly, and she lifted her head slightly, with a slightly cold look at the corner of her eye. Norodon felt a moment of sorrow: in her eyes, he must be no different from those men who lusted after beauty. He was also suddenly surprised: what did she think of me, and what did it matter to me? She was just a dancer!
"Where is it?" The girl asked without any emotion. Norodon suddenly felt a sense of injury. Perhaps her life was really very tragic, but did that mean she had to think so poorly of all men in the world?
In fact, it wasn't entirely the girl's fault. Most women would think that way: would a good man come back to a place like the Rhinoceros?
This brought about a paradox: would a good woman go back to a place like the Rhinoceros?
So, just as there were good women who were forced by circumstances to become strippers, there were also good men who had to accompany friends to social events.
Norodon pointed to his bed, "Lie flat on it."
The girl walked over and lay down flat on the bed, closing her eyes. After a moment, she felt two hot breaths on her chest, causing her to feel nauseous, and suddenly a piercing coldness!
The moment she'd been waiting for had finally arrived, she thought sorrowfully, but this was better than having to go to that kind of place every night, maybe one day...
She was ready to resign herself to her fate for what she thought was a worthy reason. But those two warm breaths on her chest didn't lead to the expected outcome, it had not occurred as she had anticipated.
Tears had slipped from her eyes into her ears, but the man who should have come up hadn't made a move.
The girl was slightly puzzled and squinted at the situation before her—the scene that had shocked her: Norodon was holding a piece of magic crystal, it flashed with magical light as he turned it towards her chest!
"What are you doing?" The girl jumped up, glaring at Norodon with hostility.
From the bottom of his heart, Norodon was very grateful to Ge Zheng and respected him greatly; but tonight, the master Ge Zheng was a bit "overbearing". Norodon had a sudden inspiration: to start by asking the master for forgiveness...
Nolodon put away the magic crystal in his hand, and the magic images had also been recorded. "You see, Miss, you can tell from the conditions of my dormitory that I'm not a wealthy person. How could I possibly hand over three thousand gold coins in a single night?" The girl rushed to grab her coat, the crystal card was in the pocket of the coat. Nolodon said, "There's no need to look. The crystal card is real. Someone else has taken a liking to you. I'm just taking a picture for that person. Take it to show him. If he takes a fancy to you, you should thank your lucky stars. Your future wealth and glory could be limitless..."
"Damn it!" The girl quickly put on her coat, tightened her belt, and left without looking back. Nolodon asked from behind, "How did you get the tattoo on your chest?"
"That's not a tattoo, it's a birthmark!"
Nolodon was just playing a prank, but after the girl left, he felt uncomfortable. What if Master Ge really took a liking to her? What would he do?
Nolodon slapped himself hard. "You're despicable!"
...
The magic crystal emitted a captivating magical light, and on the magic screen, a pair of perfect silhouette peaks was being displayed. Ge Zheng liked this kind of type, but he completely ignored the attractiveness in the image now.
If you're not an alchemist, it's hard to understand just how tempting an alchemical equation can be to an alchemist.
Between the two peaks, a delicate picture was depicted. Unlike most of the equations Ge Zheng had seen before, this one was very exquisite, even though it was depicted on a person's body, it could be considered a work of art!
A top-quality magic crystal continuously provided the magical energy needed for the image magic on the screen. Ge Zheng's gaze was intense and deep, and beside him was a thick, large book. The contents of the library seemed to be this type of large and heavy books.
The page he opened recorded this "human body formula."
This formula was imprinted on a girl's body during an alchemical ritual in her infancy, and usually the chosen location was her chest, occasionally also her buttocks and waist. The ritual seemed extremely cruel to outsiders, but for the baby being performed on, it was an absolute disaster. Throughout the whole process, the baby would cry incessantly.
It was said that there would be nothing visible on the body of the newly imprinted baby, and it would only slowly become apparent as the body began to develop. Therefore, unless told, the girl would think of it as a magical birthmark, not a tattoo.
This custom originated from an extinct mysterious sect thousands of years ago. Despite the cruelty of this process, it was considered a sacred ritual in this sect, and being chosen was considered a great honor for the girl being targeted.
They believed that the human body was a divine and sacred gift, and only such a sacred thing could bear the most sacred formula.
This tradition had long disappeared in the river of history for thousands of years, but it had suddenly reappeared before Ge Zheng today.
Ge Zheng found this formula very strange, not because of its content...
The image showed a hermaphrodite dual-faced person. The entire body was in black, with the male side being darker, and the female side slightly lighter. In the male's hand was a sword entwined with poisonous thorns from his arm to the blade. In the female's hand was a holy chalice, and remarkably, there were two lines carved on the chalice, dividing it into thirds, with one-third liquid inside and three poisonous snakes gushing out of the chalice in a fountain-like manner.
At the feet of the two-faced person was a seven-headed dragon wearing seven crowns, emitting furious flames. Inside the seven crowns on the dragon's heads were seven gems, each inscribed with a mysterious magical language.
The surrounding area of the equation was also labeled with many annotations in this kind of magical language.
In general, a hermaphrodite was considered to represent a perfect and harmonious form, similar to the Philosopher's Stone. However, on this equation, the two-faced person didn't wear a crown on its head, suggesting a different meaning.
"Two-faced" from another perspective had a very blasphemous connotation: incest. The most discussed topic was mother-son incest.
In the doctrine of that mysterious sect, the human body formula was the most sacred formula, so why would such a "blasphemous" image appear? Ge Zheng found it difficult to understand.
He had read this book before and had some understanding of the human body formula, but he had assumed that he wouldn't encounter such a formula in the current Star Forging World, so he hadn't delved deeply into it. However, he knew that this kind of formula had a sacred meaning. The day he first saw this equation at the Green Rhino Club, he felt that something was amiss, hence his consideration of the equation as strange.
To crack this equation, he needed to start from the annotations in the magical language on it. But here was the problem: Ge Zheng had never studied this kind of magical language!
Although the library was rich in books, it didn't have everything. Ge Zheng didn't understand this language, but it seemed familiar to him: he searched through his image magic data and indeed found that the dark alchemy master had used this kind of magical language when they fought.
Ge Zheng borrowed Nolodon's student ID and went to the library of the East Victory Academy. Thankfully, it was in the city of Delson now. If it were in the city of Obaz, Ge Zheng would have truly been at his wits' end.
Having spent an entire day in the library, Ge Zheng finally found this kind of magical language, a very rare independent magical language system: the Saya Quantum Magical Language. It was an independent magical language with no ancestry or sub-lineage (of course, one could independently create a sub-lineage, and it was precisely because of this possibility that Crosse had tried using this magical language to crack Ge Zheng's alchemic attacks). They were created out of thin air and were used by only a small group of people. The Saya Quantum Magical Language atoms originated from a mysterious sect thousands of years ago, the Saya Mystical Cult, and this sect happened to be the one that advocated the "human body formula."
After looking at it for a while, Ge Zheng couldn't help but smile. This Saya Quantum Magical Language bore some resemblance to the commonly used Genesis Magical Language system.
He borrowed a book titled "Compendium of Independent Magical Languages" with Nolodon's student ID, and with the thick black rhino-hide cover of the large book, he returned to his temporary laboratory.
Comparing the interpretations in the book, Ge Zheng first began with the seven black dragons under the two-faced person's feet. Each of the seven gemstones on the seven crowns of the black dragons had a label. Ge Zheng carefully checked them one by one and translated their meanings.
The results surprised him even more, because the meanings of these seven words were: pride, avarice, intemperance, lust, anger, hatred, envy.
How could these seven vices appear so openly in a divine human body formula?
Increasingly more irrational elements piqued Ge Zheng's interest even more. He enthusiastically translated all the notes and then began to decode the equation one by one.
First, he looked at the main figure, the dark-colored hermaphrodite. Unless it was in the context of that black alchemy, black wasn't a very positive symbol. "Black-colored hermaphrodite..." Ge Zheng muttered to himself, which then turned into, "Black incest..." Suddenly, a flash of insight crossed his mind, and he swiftly retrieved a book from the library: on the dark cover floated a pair of devil horns with the words "Demonology Encyclopedia of the Underworld."
After flipping through the book, he indeed found a unique creature: the three-eyed Abyssal Serpent.
For beasts, mother-son incest was not a big deal and was fairly common within a group. Ordinary Abyssal Serpents had four red eyes, but if they were offspring of mother-son incest, they would have three eyes and be entirely black.
Ge Zheng smiled; he needed a dark summoner.
In the female's hand, she held the Holy Grail, containing one-third liquid, and three poisonous snakes gushing out in a fountain-like manner. In alchemy, serpents could imply sublimation and signify the initial state of matter, the primal state in the natural world.
Three snakes; did they represent a third of the substance? Ge Zheng couldn't be certain about his judgment; it seemed too presumptuous. If it was really this simple, why was the chalice divided into thirds, and the liquid also divided into a third? This image continually emphasized a number: three.
Upon careful analysis, the snakes represented the primal form of matter, and by extension, in nature, they could also signify the state in which matter exists. Thus, the three serpents represented the three major realms of alchemy: the animal realm, the plant realm, and the mineral realm.
Ge Zheng exclaimed, "The Trinity!"
Further extrapolating, from the Trinity's perspective, it could also be the heavenly realm (the divine realm), the human realm, and the underworld. He looked at the book in his hand: the three-eyed Abyssal Serpent of the underworld, and animals. Then there should be two more materials.
After pondering for a while, he took out a sheet of parchment and a pen he had made to record: Orchid Seeds, Mythril Alloy.
The Orchid Tree was a fortuitous plant. In the human realm, there was a large tree that could grow to the size of a few people standing together. The bark of the old tree continually withered away, and if the seeds of an old tree fell onto the trunk of another old tree, they could take root and grow even within the withered bark, eventually growing into a small tree. This was the Orchid Tree. Orchid seeds referred to the seeds of the small tree growing on the body of an old tree.
Coincidentally, such trees usually had black bark.
On the continent, there was a legend about Mythril Alloy: It was a metal bestowed upon beings by the gods. The legend stated that in the divine realm, a Mythril mine would be accompanied by Mytherium. Ordinarily, these two materials would not interact with each other, but when thrown into a divine furnace, they would easily be refined into a deeply black alloy, Mythril Alloy.
Even though a new material had been born, it entirely canceled out the "divinity" of the two minerals, becoming mere ordinary metals, leaving one to wonder why the gods had given them to beings in the first place.
Ge Zheng wasn't sure if this legend was reliable, but there had never been a Mythril mine on the continent, yet this strange alloy was always found in various places. It seemed to serve a variety of purposes, although it was never the top-tier material.
Three-eyed underworld snake: animal kingdom, underworld.
Parent-child tree seed: Plant kingdom, human realm.
Secret alloy: Mineral realm, divine realm.
The man held a sword in one hand, which was covered with thorns, indicating an intense reaction. Thorns entwined—after pondering for a while, Ge Zheng was startled by the conclusion he had reached: the sword had already shown an extremely intense reaction, and adding thorns to it, was there a possibility of an explosion happening with this reaction!
After repeatedly pondering, Ge Zheng believed that his conclusion was probably correct. He combined it with the surrounding magical annotations for further research, and became more and more certain. It seemed that this alchemical process had to be handled carefully this time.
Seven black dragons spewed flames, and with their dragon wings, they hinted at a "sublimation" within the flames, which was the initial refining process. And Ge Zheng knew that this process was very intense and could lead to an explosion, so it would be best not to use an expensive furnace, so as not to incur a loss.
The remaining question now was the significance of the seven gemstones on top of the seven black dragon heads: pride, avarice, lack of restraint, lust, anger, hatred, envy.
Each of the seven gemstones was connected by dashed lines, linking different steps and materials, with different annotations. It seemed like different additives to be added into the reaction at different alchemical stages.
Ge Zheng couldn't fathom what these seven gemstones represented. He spent a long time searching the library of the intellectual research institution without any success. Ge Zheng suddenly remembered having seen a book "Compendium of Dark Alchemical Materials" in the library of Dongsheng Academy, and decided to go back to the library to take a look.
In the library, relying on his memory, he easily found the book and, looking through the index, a term caught his eye: Vice Gemstones.
Ge Zheng immediately found that page, and indeed, there was a list of seven gemstones. This was an ancient term, rarely used nowadays.
The Vice Gemstones was just a symbolic appellation, and the seven substances it represented were not gemstones. "Pride Gemstone" was an allusion to secret silver, "Avarice Gemstone" to the magic thorn flower, "Lack of Restraint Gemstone" to the raw gold ore, "Lust Gemstone" to the scales of the dragon, "Anger Gemstone" to the eye of the nine-headed snake, "Hatred Gemstone" to the goblin cave soil, "Envy Gemstone" to the molting of the demon horned viper.
"Snap," Ge Zheng closed the book, tucked it under his arm, and prepared to borrow the book. However, as soon as he stepped out, he was stopped by the middle-aged, chubby librarian with an emotionless voice, "Students can only borrow one book at a time." He still had not returned the book "Comprehensive Guide of Independent Magical Language" he had previously borrowed.
"What?" He was taken aback, and the librarian slapped the library rules on the wall behind him, making a loud noise, "Are you new here?"
Helplessly, Ge Zheng had to reluctantly put down the "Compendium of Dark Alchemical Materials," but fortunately, he had already remembered the entry for Vice Gemstones.
"Excuse me, how many books can a teacher borrow?" Ge Zheng suddenly remembered his recommendation letter from Parachelsus. "There's no limit for teachers."
Nodding his head, Ge Zheng expressed his thanks, and internally calculated that it would be good if he could become a nominal supervising teacher here. He would not have to teach, and would also be able to use the school's resources for free.
After leaving Dongsheng Academy, Ge Zheng went directly to the Adventurer's Guild. The materials needed for this alchemical formula were all very strange, and it was unlikely that ordinary material shops would stock them. He could only hope for the Adventurer Guild's consignment shop.