解密 is far more complicated than encryption, so it took longer to crack. Fortunately, Closer's psychology helped Ge Zheng; it took a day and a half to unlock the magical locks on both rings. So Ge Zheng praised Closer as a good person, and it wasn't without reason.
Once the rings were opened, a smile appeared on Ge Zheng's face. Truly, Closer's wealth was quite substantial...
Outside the Delson Royal City, ten miles southwest, is the famous Grave Mound. Here lie the buried criminals who had been executed, as well as those dead thugs with unverifiable identities who died in street fights.
The royal guards of the city did not like the task of digging graves for the bodies. Every time they pulled a cart full of bodies, they would roughly dig a big hole and throw all the bodies inside, casually covering them with soil. In the evening, nearby monsters would pull the bodies out and eat them clean.
On another moonlit night, a hand reached out from the center of the graveyard in the dark. It was obvious the royal guards had been lazy again.
The sparse woods around the cemetery echoed with the roars of beasts, and the smell of the bodies attracted the attention of the monsters. Claws would easily dig out a body and the carcass would be easier to catch than hunting for herbivores.
The hand in the center of the graveyard had been buried for several days, yet no monster dared to approach within ten meters of the hand. Even high-level monsters, who despised consuming the bodies, would avoid that area when passing through the graveyard.
The monsters that were eating the bodies suddenly jolted and pricked up their ears, their eyes glowing green in the night, nervously staring at the empty space.
The fingers of the hand in the open field suddenly moved, and then again, the thumb, index finger, middle finger...
A crack suddenly appeared in the ground, and with a "whoosh," the owner of the hand suddenly stood up straight from under the ground, shaking the soil off, covered in dust.
He moved his limbs, checked the wound on his chest, which had already healed. He noticed the numerous green eyes around him and couldn't help but snort in disdain, looking around with a sharp gaze. The monsters, who had been stunned, suddenly felt a chill rising from under them and, despite their food, fled into the woods.
Closer had scared off the monsters, and suddenly touched his fingers, his face suddenly changed, and he hurriedly searched his pocket again, finding them empty!
"Ah!" a shrill cry rang out above the graveyard, startling the birds in the woods, and the monsters, who had just fled into the forest, were once again frightened, running further away.
"Damn it, that's all my belongings..." Closer knelt on the ground, his hands clenched into claws, wailing in anguish towards the moon.
...
On the table lay all the materials for this alchemical process, all of which were of excellent quality, with more than half of them found in the two storage rings of that "good person," the dark alchemist. This good person was wealthy, and not one less than top-grade materials were found inside the storage rings.
Ge Zheng didn't feel bad about spending someone else's money, so he simply replaced the slightly unsatisfactory valuable materials with these top-grade ones.
What surprised Ge Zheng the most was that he found three weirdly colored magic crystals inside one of the rings, each containing three sealed soul fires of bone spirits! Ge Zheng had already designed this item in his mind, but the new discovery of the soul fires inspired him to make some small changes. With the assistance of the soul fires of the bone spirits, the one undead magic core from the python crocodile could play its role even more effectively.
The flames roared as Ge Zheng used his true essence to activate the magical flames, the magic cloak controlled the temperature of the flames, and the pre-treated materials were put into the furnace one by one.
All the materials had fused together, and Ge Zheng controlled the smelting furnace with one hand while using true essence to ignite another furnace.
The undead magic core was slowly melted in the super-high-temperature flames. Melting the magic core and magic crystals was not difficult; it was easy once they were ground into powder and heated. However, doing that would easily reduce the quality of such high-level magic cores, something Ge Zheng couldn't bear to do.
It was a long process to melt the completed magic core, much like cooking porridge, it required slow and controlled heating, testing the alchemist's control. The fire couldn't be too small, or the magic core wouldn't soften; the fire couldn't be too large or the magic core would explode.
After half a day, the undead magic core had been melted into a pool of semi-transparent light gray liquid with a metallic sheen. Fine beads of sweat had appeared on Ge Zheng's forehead.
Without reciting a spell, he activated a small wind magic and a sealed strange crystal containing the soul fire of the bone spirit slowly rose in front of him. Concentrating true essence, he gently blew towards the soul fire in the crystal, but the soul fire did not come out as he had expected.
Ge Zheng was surprised; the seal looked ordinary but was quite sturdy. Taking a deep breath, he increased the amount of true essence and blew harder, but the soul fire still did not emerge.
This greatly exceeded Ge Zheng's expectations. What's troublesome now is that he's controlling two furnaces with both his hands, it's relatively easier on this side with the Mahe Liquid, as the Mahe core solidifies after cooling, and can be remelted if necessary. But on the other side, the raw material has already melted into a furnace, if it cools now, it would be completely ruined.
Ge Zheng, with a grimace, retracted one of his hands, it was slowly cooling the Mahe Liquid, and quickly returned to its original shape. It melts slowly, but cools quickly.
Ge Zheng held a Ma Crystal that sealed the Lich's Soul Fire in one hand, continuously inputting Qi into the other furnace.
He was already finding this quite laborious, after all, the time taken for this refining process was not short.
The Ma Crystal shimmered with a strange brilliance, it was a type of crystal Ge Zheng had never encountered before. He didn't pay much attention to it before, but now with the situation at hand, he realized that this Ma Crystal might be out of the ordinary.
He cast an Appraisal Spell at it, and a line of magic text appeared: Unknown item.
It wasn't that the item was unable to be appraised, which meant that it wasn't of particularly high grade. But because it was a new item, even the Appraisal Spell didn't know what it was exactly.
Ge Zheng felt a bit helpless, as his Qi continued to be consumed from his other hand, and he was almost running out of energy.
He took another look at the crystal in his hand, unwilling to give up. His mental power delved into the Ma Crystal, wanting to see what secrets lay within.
A surge of massive information overwhelmed his mental power, and then transmitted into his brain. The sudden inundation of such a massive amount of information made it difficult for him to bear, he let out a miserable cry, and his internal Qi instinctively surged out violently, and in an instant, he exhausted the last of his Qi, and was separated from the Magic Flame on the furnace. At the crucial moment, the magic flame suddenly soared several meters high, and then quickly extinguished.
Ge Zheng's head felt as if it had been split open with an axe, he lay on the ground for a long time without moving. He didn't know how much time had passed, but finally, the intense pain in his head lessened a bit, and he tentatively shook his head. To his surprise, he felt much more relaxed after shaking his head, so he continued to sway his head back and forth and finally got up unsteadily.
Picking up the Ma Crystal, Ge Zheng revealed a wry smile: It turns out, this is a peculiar alchemical creation, utilizing the Lich's Soul Fire to form a stable mental structure, used to store one's mental information. In just a moment, Ge Zheng had discovered that a large amount of dark alchemical knowledge was stored inside.
After a moment of swaying, it seemed that the headache had subsided, Ge Zheng took out the other three peculiar Ma Crystals and found that each contained a Lich's Soul Fire. Ge Zheng probed the information within them with his mental power.
This time, being prepared and with his own control, the overwhelming flood of information didn't reoccur. Ge Zheng was able to smoothly read through some of the information, it seemed that this was the "good person's" alchemy notes, recording all his new experiments and theoretical explorations.
Furthermore, Ge Zheng even found the method and encryption rules for the creation of the "good person's" ten artifacts in the notes.
Although it wasted a furnace of raw materials, with this harvest, Ge Zheng felt that it was still worth it, and was very pleased. Since the appearance of the Disaster Puppet, Ge Zheng had been curious about dark alchemy, but unfortunately, Parlachie Sulcus held very little relevant information in his library.
He opened the furnace and poured out the waste material.
With a clang, an iron disk fell out. The surface of the waste material was covered with fine patterns, like vines. Ge Zheng felt it was a great pity, as the raw materials used in this furnace were all high-quality materials, valued at least 100,000 gold coins, and yet it was just wasted like this.
He shook his head, and casually threw the iron disk into the corner.
"Roll, clang…" The iron disk rolled into a pile of waste in the corner, and faintly emitted a glow from within the waste.
The two storage rings of the "good person" had a very large space inside, and there were many things inside. Ge Zheng looked for a while and finally gathered enough new raw materials for a new furnace. Occasionally, if a material was missing, he also found a substitute.
After a thorough search, he indeed found the Lich's Soul Fire separately stored in four crystal balls deep within the ring. Ge Zheng grinned and a new creation began.
Although he had only briefly read the information in the "Memory Ma Crystal", he had gained some inspiration, and the concept for this creation had undergone some changes.
Dark alchemy was only a bit radical in its guiding principles, and the means used were just a bit extreme, and it didn't have anything evil in itself.
Ge Zheng sat cross-legged, operating the Ge Family's Secret Script to gather Qi. In this world with dense spiritual energy, it didn't take too long for him to recover sixty percent of his Qi, and he estimated that this would be enough to handle this alchemy.
Smoothly and without any problems, Ge Zheng blew the Lich's Soul Fire out of the sealed crystal ball, and the greenish Soul Fire looked like a mischievous rabbit as it jumped into the furnace and the flames surged. The Soul Fire joyfully churned within the flames, feeling extremely comfortable with the Undead Magic Force.
Ge Zheng slowly lowered the temperature of the flames, the process was very slow, and the Soul Fire didn't realize that the surrounding Undead Magic Force was slowly cooling, by the time it reacted, it had become viscous, and it had already merged with the Ma Core, at this point it couldn't escape.
When the Ma Core completely cooled, it was no longer in its initial shape, but had turned into a solidified fire shape, with a faint green mist visible within the light gray color.
Ge Zheng watched with satisfaction as the Lich's Soul Fire and the Undead Ma Core combined, and he threw it into the raw material furnace, controlling the flames with both hands, and embarked on the final refining step.
As he had contemplated, Ge Zheng used ice magic to create a mold and then slowly poured the liquid from the furnace into the mold. In a cloud of mist, he quickly engraved a series of magic arrays onto the new creation.
Amidst a hissing sound, a novel alchemical creation was born.
It had a shell-like, pure white and beautiful exterior. When the shell was opened, it revealed an elegant pale green interior, flowing like a liquid between the two shells, but never spilling out.
Pure and powerful Undead Magic Force was hidden between the two shells, and on the exterior of the shell, a series of hair-thin, purple lightning flashed and vanished.
It was a creation with both Undead Magic and Electricity properties.
The purple lightning was a specially treated psychic electric wave, which not only didn't harm the Spiritual Beasts but would continuously stimulate and enhance the strength of the Spiritual Beasts.
Ge Zheng was very satisfied with his creation, it seemed that after absorbing some knowledge of dark alchemy, the effect of the creation exceeded his expectations.
Ge Zheng then made a small metal frame that was connected to four belts underneath, the frame was able to hold the shell perfectly, and the four belts crisscrossed across, able to secure the shell to his chest from his shoulders and sides.
Considering that Gronia was a girl, Ge Zheng had made the metal frame and belts very exquisite, carving delicate patterns onto them—this was something he had learned after arriving at the Delson Royal City, that good things also needed good packaging.
During the alchemical process, Ge Zheng didn't feel any fatigue. This time, after exhausting his own Qi during the Alchemy, being overwhelmed by the massive information, he had only restored sixty percent of his Qi and began the refining process again. The second round of refinement almost depleted Ge Zheng's Qi.
After the back-to-back hardships, the joy of success buoyed his spirits, but when he stopped, he immediately felt all over fatigue and weakness, barely able to stand.
As he pushed open the door, he stumbled downstairs. Along the way, Honest Dunk saw him, and put down the dishes to quickly come and support him. Solgweave, who had initially come to remind Dunk to serve the food, was delighted to see Ge Zheng looking weak, as this was an opportunity to show his affections. He immediately rushed up and carefully lifted Ge Zheng, then steadily carried him downstairs.
Dinola and Comings looked at the two men with strange expressions, Rodekweave's carefulness towards the two of them gave off a scent of "tenderness" in their eyes. Comings was originally half-skeptical of Dinola's words, but after a few times, he was convinced that Mr. Rodekweave's feelings were uncertain, but Mr. Rodekweave definitely had malicious intentions towards him!
Even though the expressions of the two were different, in the eyes of others, it gave rise to different speculations.
Seeing Dinola's expression, Neradon smiled inwardly: Dinola is feeling jealous, it turns out that this violent woman has a thing for the boss.
Seeing Rodekweave's expression, Comings sighed inwardly: It's not necessarily Rodekweave's fault for falling for a man, he's also helpless, his concern for the boss just showed that he genuinely cared…
This whole group had turned into a chaotic mess.
Honest Dunk came in with a big cooking pot, smiling, "Hehe, the main course is here. Today we're having a mixed stew and uncontrolled porridge…"
Gloria buttoned up that work of hers on her body, and strands of purple lightning zipped and crawled toward her trunk and limbs. Gloria's body trembled, her arms spread open, floating from her seat. Maintaining a butterfly-like posture in the air, the pure white shell on her chest emitted a faint, clear force of souls, pulling Gloria.
This posture made her originally moderate chest appear particularly upright.
After a brief moment, Gloria's communication with the new equipment of power had ended, and she settled back into her seat. However, the food on the table no longer interested her; she impatiently took out her snake wand, "K, I'm not eating, I want to go out and test the power of the new equipment!"
Seeing the unusual phenomenon just now, almost everyone had no appetite, and they all quickly followed Gloria to the open space behind the house. Only Solgwillen smiled with satisfaction: "You've all left, so this is all mine. With no one watching, Solgwillen could enjoy a big meal without worries. It protruded its tongue, rolled it across the table, and the mountain of food disappeared in an instant.
"Uh…" The wise dragon burped at length and patted its belly, "Ai, recently lovesickness has affected my appetite…"
The golden snake wand waved into the air, and a gray light screen spread over the top like a dark cloud, blocking the warm sunlight outside, making the area under the gray light screen chilly.
It wasn't clear what spell Gloria had just uttered, but in an instant, a gray shadow surged from behind her, with demons flying wildly under the gray screen.
Gloria held the snake wand in her hand, relaxed her arms, and her whole body's power released, the shell on her chest slowly opened, and the misty green seemed to attract the attention of all the war spirits! "Swoo-sh, swoo-sh swoo-sh…" All the war spirits rushed to the shell instinctively; regardless of their size, they all turned into tiny people as soon as they entered the shell, feeling extremely comfortable bathed in the green mist. Purple fine threads of lightning kept entering their bodies, stimulating and enhancing their strength.
Gloria's snake wand suddenly trembled. She exclaimed in surprise, "This can't be…"
But as she let go, the snake wand, like a live snake, darted into the shell!
K approached and saw the tiny people floating in the green mist. He couldn't help but be surprised and thought to himself: Why do they look so much like infant states…
Gloria exclaimed in delight, "My snake wand is also a quasi-artifact. It seems that this work is approaching the level of a top quasi-artifact!"
Quasi-artifacts also vary in quality; it is said that the top quasi-artifacts can already compete with ordinary artifacts. However, this is only hearsay because artifacts only exist in legends, and apart from some miracles, no one has seen an artifact so far.
"K, thank you. I will immediately give you the remaining gold coins," Gloria looked at K with more than just gratitude in her eyes. Diora was not happy on the side, arms crossed, and pouting.
"By the way, what is this work called?" Gloria asked.
K scratched his head, he had never thought about naming his works, it seemed that none of his works had a name. However, on this continent, a famous name is like a nickname in the rivers and lakes on Earth, it can greatly enhance the visibility of the work.
He casually said, "You can name it yourself, after all, it's for you." Gloria caressed the white shell and praised, "She's really beautiful! Let's call her the Tear of the Goddess!"
Although K felt that this name was too feminine, he did not object, after all, it was something for women to use.
"By the way, how long have I been inside?" K felt hungry and guessed that it had been a while.
Combes said, "Sir, including today, it's been five days. Lord Aquina has sent someone to inquire, and your class is scheduled for tomorrow, I don't know if you can make it on time? Count Delkomonde has also come to see you twice."
K sighed secretly, realizing that the matter of the human formula would have to be delayed further. He nodded, "Dunk, prepare something for me to eat, I'm starving. Let me rest for the afternoon, and I still have to go to class tomorrow."