Mechanical Alchemist

Chapter 136: Wilderness town

When Su'en returned to the transport team's camp, it was still early morning and the camp was not yet packed up.

The night watchman was smoking boredly around the camp, and there were flickering lights in the darkness.

He quietly sneaked back into the tent from the top of the rock wall, and no one noticed.

After being busy for most of the night, Su'en now had some free time and began to count the spoils of the night.

The "Iron Knight Order" was a peripheral member of the umbrella organization after all, and their equipment was pretty good. They could sell it for a good price.

But what Su'en cared most about was the storage ring of the fortune teller.

Inside, there were some strange divination materials and the crystal necklace he used for divination before.

Upon identification, it turned out to be an ancient cursed item.

[Sereya's Crystal Pendant]

Description: A crystal necklace engraved with the words "To my beloved Sereya".

Curse characteristics: When faced with difficult choices, it can help you make decisions; the exchange cost is equivalent lifespan based on the level of the divination object.

Explanation: Although the refining technique is not too sophisticated, it is an alchemical necklace full of love. Wearing it can greatly reduce the chance of being detected by divination below the second level. It can also be used as a material for becoming a "Pendulum Diviner".

Su'en felt that the name "Sereya" sounded familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere. But because it was also a common female name, he didn't think too much about it.

In terms of effectiveness, this was a very practical necklace.

Su'en had been worried about being detected by fortune tellers before, and the "anti-detection" attribute of this pendant happened to solve this problem.

He could also accept the curse characteristics, as it only affected lifespan when using divination.

Su'en was not a fortune teller by profession, although he had learned some divination skills, he didn't think he would forcefully divine like the previous owner, causing himself to cough up blood and lose lifespan.

It was good enough to have passive attributes when wearing it.

The item was good, so Su'en wrapped the pendant around his wrist to conceal it, muttering to himself, "Indeed, robbing professionals accurately is the 'shortcut' to obtaining profession-exclusive items."

After counting the spoils, Su'en lay down on his sleeping bag, carefully recalling what had happened that night.

Now that he had figured out the origin of the original owner, Su'en felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders.

He also understood the reason behind the bounty in the black market. It must have been done by the original owner's hostile forces outside the tower.

Even if he was exiled to this underground world, they still wanted to exterminate him.

But this was also good, at least the enemy was not a major family in the inner city.

All Su'en had to face was a useless wanted order.

No one recognized him before, and now that he had injected the "x serum", who could associate his blue-skinned, muscular self with the appearance of the original owner, a delicate noble boy?

.......

Before long, the assembly order sounded in the camp.

The transport team began their new day of escorting.

They had heard that there would be monster attacks in the d24 area, so everyone in the team was on edge. But after a few days of travel, their journey went surprisingly smoothly.

d24, d25... as they continued on, they only encountered a few small-scale aberrant monster attacks, but there was no dangerous battle.

Along the way, they saw many traces of battles, but the bodies had been cleared. It seemed that a powerful team had come before and cleared the way.

Without any battles, the hunters in the team enjoyed their leisure.

Finally, after several days, they arrived at the ruins of Dawn City.

......

Returning to Dawn City, the "birthplace" he had just crossed over from, Su'en felt quite emotional.

In the past, it was like a burial ground, lifeless.

But now, with "Storm Manor" as the center, there were various buildings being constructed all over the place.

From a distance, the camp was brightly lit, and the tall steam boilers emitted white smoke. These boilers provided a continuous energy supply to the large workshops in the camp, accelerating construction...

In the manor, there were two sets of large mechanical devices composed of various tanks and pipelines, like a chemical plant. They were the "air filtration device" and the "drinking water treatment device". These were the most important devices to ensure that the hunters could survive in the underground world with rampant dark energy.

It was more like a war town than a camp.

The hunters had built a mega-sized hunting camp that could accommodate over a hundred thousand people using stones and steel frames. Caravans were constantly bringing various building materials from Old Lingdun City. In the near future, this place would become a bustling small city...

However, when Su'en saw Storm Manor, his gaze became distant.

Returning to the familiar place, he remembered Pestoya.

The little ghost girl who had given him the materials to advance as a "Puppeteer".

"Storm Manor has been occupied, which means the cursed space has been broken..."

Su'en frowned slightly as he thought of the petite girl who suited his taste, even though she wasn't human.

Oh, almost forgot.

It seemed that she had also given him a brooch, buried somewhere.

......

Arriving at the ruins under d33 area, the concentration of dark energy was several times higher than in Old Lingdun City.

For humans, this was a dangerous area where staying for too long could easily cause physical deformities.

But for Su'en, it had no effect at all.

Instead, he felt comfortable all over in this environment.After the amplification of the "x serum," Su'en's body felt very comfortable with this high concentration of dark spiritual power. He didn't even need to meditate anymore, as the increase in his dark spiritual power was almost the same as when he used to meditate.

Moreover, there were no signs of distortion due to absorbing this dark attribute energy too quickly.

This concentration was only on the hillside, and there was still a "particularly dense area" in the ruins city in the far distance, where black mist filled the air.

It could be predicted that in this environment, Su'en's dark spiritual power would skyrocket. Perhaps within the next month or two, his dark spiritual power might reach the threshold of a second-order professional.

If he found suitable advanced materials by then, he might even successfully break through to the second order.

...

"Alright, our hiring contract ends here. Thank you all for your dedicated escort. According to the contract, there was no loss of goods, so an additional ten percent of the escort fee will be paid..."

"Oh, praise generous Mr. Abagon!"

"Our guild will return to the city in ten days. If any friends are interested in continuing to take on escort missions from our guild, you can sign up at our guild office in the camp..."

"..."

Upon reaching their destination, Su'en and the other hunters' mission was completed.

Abagon distributed the remaining hiring payment to everyone and went to make the delivery.

Since there was no fierce battle and no additional combat allowance, Su'en only received the basic commission, but it was nearly a hundred thousand lisuo.

High risk brought high returns.

After receiving the money, everyone dispersed.

Su'en looked into the distance at the nearby camp but didn't rush over.

The abhorrent warrior was his lifesaving tool and naturally had to be carried with him.

However, its three-meter-tall body was too conspicuous. Even with the shroud of a burial cloth, it would be easily discovered in crowded places.

Moreover, because the undead had vital signs, they couldn't be put into a storage ring, which was the most troublesome part.

Su'en thought that when considering his second-order advancement direction, he must prioritize awakening materials for "space abilities."

Otherwise, if he controlled too many puppets in the future, he would probably have to walk around with a long string of them like walking ducks.

After some consideration, Su'en bought a steam dog from a returning merchant caravan and disguised the undead as cargo carried by the mechanical dog, making it less noticeable.

...

Su'en led the mechanical dog towards the hunting camp.

At this moment, there was already a long line at the entrance of the camp.

Before coming, Su'en thought that the camp in the Dawn Ruins would be a scattered camp full of tents. He didn't expect that in such a short time, it had already grown into a walled town.

There were heavy machine guns and cannons on the city walls, and some fully armed guys were setting up checkpoints at the gate.

He thought it was an identity check, but it turned out to be collecting an entrance fee.

Su'en calmly assessed the guard layout at the city gate and instinctively estimated whether he could escape unscathed if a real conflict broke out.

Then, he silently lined up at the back of the queue.

He listened attentively to the conversations of the people in front, and also understood the general situation in the city.

The high entrance fee also made the newcomers to the hunters' camp complain.

"Damn it, staying in this camp for one night actually costs three thousand lisuo for the entrance fee? I only earned a hundred thousand from the escort, and it will all be spent in a month?"

"A month? You're thinking too optimistically! I heard from a guy who went in before that everything in this camp is expensive. The ordinary-looking women in Old Lingdun City cost three to five hundred, but here it's five thousand. Even drinking water is ten times the price of Old Lingdun! And food, medicine, and ammunition supplies are all several times more expensive..."

"So expensive? Aren't we risking our lives to hunt in the wilderness just to earn money for these unscrupulous merchants?"

"It's not that expensive, actually. We're all here to hunt in the wilderness, who is here to settle down? At most, we'll resupply and rest in the city for a few days. Besides, those big consortiums spent a huge amount of money to build the city and brought in so many facilities. Naturally, they have to recover the costs..."

"Damn it, I haven't even started making money yet, and I have to spend this unjust money..."

"If you don't want to pay, you can camp outside the city. It's just that the attacks from the anomalies near the ruins are frequent, and there are also raiders and thieves. You might end up losing your life while sleeping..."

"There are actually ways to avoid paying the entrance fee."

"What do you mean?"

"Join one of the five major consortiums' hunting teams. As long as you obey their orders and participate in some collective hunting missions, it's fine."

"Join the hunting team of the five major consortiums?"

"Yes."

"You'll get a salary when you join. Then, the treasures discovered during the hunt will be sold to them first, and there aren't many other restrictions. I asked, and the prices are reasonable."

"..."

After listening for a few sentences, Su'en roughly understood the situation in the camp.

Several major consortiums in the inner city built the camp and then implemented this entrance fee.

If you didn't want to pay, you had to join their hunting teams and follow their orders to carry out some specific exploration tasks.

Su'en had no intention of joining these consortiums' hunting groups.

After all, he wasn't risking his life to make money from hunting.

He was well aware that those consortiums probably wanted "cannon fodder" to explore the cursed space.

After all, no one knew the danger level of the "cursed space" in advance, and it required someone's life to explore it.

It would be a pity if a high-level professional died inside. It would be better to send some cannon fodder to explore and roughly understand the level of danger.

Before long, it was Su'en's turn in the queue.

He paid the money, received a colored badge to hang in a conspicuous place, and smoothly entered the city........

Su'en had no intention of setting up a tent outside the city. A scavenger who couldn't even afford the entrance fee probably didn't have anything valuable. He wanted to check out the scavenger market in the city first, hoping to find the materials he needed. If he couldn't, he would go to the Scavenger Guild to gather some information, rather than blindly plunging into the dangerous ruins.

There were no ordinary residents in the scavenger camp, nor any superfluous buildings.

Weapon shops, firearm shops, machinery shops, medicine shops...

Upon entering the city, both sides of the street were filled with various supply shops.

The signs all bore the names of the major businesses in the inner city.

After a few steps, he could see the familiar red and green lights of the city.

Opportunistic merchants had opened bars and entertainment venues in the camp as soon as possible.

Perhaps to avoid the hassle of explaining, signs with prices were hung at the entrances.

"Courtesans from 3500"

"Rye beer from 400/bottle"

Despite the prices being ten times those in Old Lingdun, business seemed to be booming.

As Su'en passed by, he saw scavengers arm in arm, laughing and joking as they walked in.

It was no easy feat to bring such a group of delicate and weak courtesans to the underground, so the high prices were somewhat justified.

The uncertainty of life put a lot of mental pressure on the scavengers, they needed to vent. Food and drink businesses, therefore, had a bigger market here. Besides, scavengers who managed to come out of the ruins alive always had money in their pockets.

Su'en walked on.

He had seen the camp's layout at the city gate earlier and knew that there was a street to the east specifically designed for scavengers to sell their goods.

Leading his mechanical dog, he walked two streets and heard the bustling noise of a market in that direction.

"Freshly emerged silver-grade material from yesterday's ruins, 'Owl's Eye'..."

"Come, come, newly unearthed ancient alchemy scrolls, limited quantity..."

"Ancient weapons, a two-handed sword that cuts through iron like mud, alchemy crossbow, dwarf shield..."

"Freshly produced cursed materials, black iron, silver grade, beautiful prices..."

"..."

Hearing these voices, Su'en became interested.

The names of many rare materials appeared in the merchants' mouths.

In Old Lingdun, it was impossible to see silver materials being hawked at a stall anywhere.

Even in the black market of Shadow Alley, silver materials were a rare hot commodity.

But here, they were being sold by scavengers as common goods.

This was the advantage of a primary source of goods.

Because there were no shops, ancient items worth hundreds of thousands were casually placed on a ragged cloth on the ground for sale.

There were many people coming and going on the street.

There were well-dressed opportunistic merchants, and more scavengers dressed as adventurers.

Most of the cursed items left over from ancient times were rare goods. Even black iron materials were much better than those refined in this era.

Here, scavengers who wanted to advance their professions could find truly high-quality materials.

As soon as Su'en entered the market district, the first stall caught his attention.