Chapter 48: Proceeding with the Plan
The Deep Sea Monster Fish.
The alchemy cabin.
The alchemy formation’s light stabilized, and under Zi Di’s control, it quickly formed into the framework of a rat.
The final step: top quality lacquering.
The magic lacquer was a temporary mixture and had an extremely short shelf life. In essence, it was a coating of magic camouflage, part of a branch of alchemy skills that pertained to camouflage.
After a moment, the alchemy formation stopped for a break.
The lacquer’s strange odor was sucked out and fresh air was pumped in.
As this phase of alchemy came to an end, Zi Di was pleased to see a hundred scouting puppets.
These freshly made alchemy puppets were no longer shaped like bird, but instead like rats.
I already mastered this step of making alchemy puppets.” Zi Di said to herself.
The craving for knowledge was an intrinsic part of all magicians.
Zi Di had been rather busy.
Mainly doing meditation, as through frequent accumulation she could raise her magician level.
After that, she practiced necromancy until her spirit and energy were squeezed to their limits.
Every day she would integrate the exploration maps and use them to calculate the possible teleportation points, thus be able to discover where the Green Jade Gold Coffin might be.
After that, she also made time to study how to control the alchemy formations and make these alchemy puppets.
She let no chance to grow slip by.
“To be able to operate this alchemy formation could be considered a form of improvement.”
“But I still cannot create these alchemy puppets by myself.”
“As far as those alchemy blueprints are concerned, I lack too much alchemy knowledge and cannot comprehend most of them.”
“If I had more time…”
Zi Di sighed to herself.
She conducted a final inspection of the scout puppets.
She noticed a defective one, while the rest met standard.
The girl stored most of them, then took about 30 of them and gave them to Cang Xu.
Cang Xu had a space pouch, thus it was easy for him to secretly transport them.
“Tower spirit, how is the plan progressing?” Zi Di asked.
The white crystal ball flickered, then the tower spirit’s voice transmitted, “Currently, the scouting smelt rat alchemy puppet blueprint modification is 58% done. Estimated time to completion is 17 hours and 36 seconds. Repairing the tower spirit, constructing the corresponding alchemy formations, and using time magic can improve designing efficiency.”
Zi Di shook her head and said, “Continue to modify”, then left it to its devices.
The tower spirit was not in perfect condition, and had been badly damaged, at best it could only display 30% of its capabilities.
Repairing the tower spirit was very difficult, and while building supplementary calculation alchemy formations was feasible, they lacked the relevant alchemy materials. As for time magic, such a thing was rarely seen, and the tower spirit’s database contained nothing on it.
Even if there was, Zi Di probably wouldn’t even be able to cast it successfully.
Zi Di took out some blood and began to study it.
When she lived, she cultivated fire magic and researched medicine.
She quickly became engrossed, and in her concentration, completely forgot about the passage of time.
Only when an alarm rang did she snap out of it.
The test tube in her hand was filled with a blue medicinal liquid. If one shook it, they could still smell the scent of blood.
“Still a work in progress.”
“But I already seen hope of success!”
Zi Di was very confident in her research into this medicine.
She took time to rest, she had to improve her condition so her meditation would be more profitable.
In a lively port market, vendors were selling all kinds of ocean fish.
The streams of people seemed to weave.
Most of them were gathered in one place, a temporary slave shop, where they loudly haggled with each other,
Hei Fei’s group was selling some beastmen slaves there.
In a dark street corner, a scouting rat was watching this unfold.
In the castle sewer, a few rats quickly crept through, and every time there was a fork in the path, one would branch off.
On a moored ship, there was a scouting rat quietly sneaking in.
These alchemy puppets were also crawling into caves.
The scouting bird models flew through the air, and monitored from above, while the scouting rat models hid in the darkness and spied from the shadows.
The survivors’ adoption of this scouting plan was very wise.
The scouts in the castle, church, merchant alliance shop, and Hunting Guild branch were all very cautious, and only skittered on the outside, and did not brave danger to go deeper in.
Those in the tunnels were far more reckless, and sometimes for the sake of intelligence, they would not hesitate to sacrifice themselves and even incited attacks.
The survivors had limited funds, and with the alchemy materials they purchased, they only had enough to make 500 rat model puppets and replace 60 of the bird models.
Their funds were nearly depleted.
But soon, they would obtain benefits from the Hunting Guild.
Completing missions for them had profit.
The survivors completed these missions well, not just to criterion, but exceeded the standards by a lot.
However, in reality, they were scouting even deeper. Delivering just a small piece of the scouting map was enough to complete a mission.
Thus, the survivors obtained some more funds.
Frequent completion of these missions also caused Zong Ge’s rank in the Hunting Guild to rise quickly.
Of course, this lead to more scrutiny.
The scouting smelt rat was refined.
This special alchemy puppet model had stronger materials and was bronze level, surpassing ordinary ones.
A bronze level investigating puppet!
Because its construction cost was far greater than ordinary puppets, after careful accounting, Zi Di only made 5 of them.
The 5 were dispatched to the tunnels to search for the Green Jade Gold Coffin.
Getting what they paid for, the survivors’ exploration rate of the subterranean depths skyrocketed.
In the wake of this, something even more valuable was discovered.
“A smelt rat puppet was destroyed here.”
“A subterranean magma river.”
“Please let me see.”
Zi Di presented the magic image to the dragonman youngster.
When the dragonman youngster saw the small cluster of sparkling orange crystals, he asked, “Some kind of crystals? Are they valuable?”
Zi Di replied, “Of course. The scientific name of this is the flame crystal cluster. It forms in harsh conditions and is very expensive and rare, the Hunting Guild and Clam Cloth Merchant Alliance shop will purchase it at a high price.”
The Clam Cloth Merchant Alliance wouldn’t buy magic beasts, but in this aspect, they hadn’t disagreed yet.
“If we sell it, how much money would we get?” The young man asked.
Zi Di shook her head, “We need that alchemy material, and don’t intend to sell them, at least on Snake Rat Island.”
“This will let others know that we have already been to the depths of the cave systems.”
These flame crystal clusters aren’t easy to obtain.”
“It has magic beasts guarding it, many of whom are silver level, along with large numbers of iron level and other lesser beasts.”
“It is also difficult to harvest, even the slightest collision will cause them to explode into fragments.”
Please reclaim the smelt rat puppet and do your best to gather that crystal cluster.”
The dragonman youngster nodded, “I understand. It just so happened that I have a battle skill I need to practice in real combat!”
He moved at once, and snuck into the subterranean space.
His arrival immediately provoked a rat group.
A fierce battle of one against many broke out on the bank of a magma river.
Battle skill – Surge!
During this fight, the young man frequently used this new battle skill.
This battle skill matched the Bursting Explosion battle qi, but it wasn’t an attack skill, rather it helped the young man move.
Every time he used it, the young man’s battle qi would suddenly rush forth, pushing his body where it surged from.
For example, when he used it on his fist, his fist’s strike would become faster.
When it was applied to the bottom of his feet, an explosion would detonate under his soles, allowing the young man to jump higher and run faster.
The Surge battle skill enormously increased the young man’s movement ability, however it to use it well, he needed a lot of practice.
The young man was doing his utmost to adapt his body to this battle skill.
Only through constant combat would his body be able to use the Surge battle skill on instinct.
As he fought, the young man gained a lot of experience using the Surge battle skill.
However, he wasn’t able to obtain the crystal clusters.
During the fight, the smelt rats accidentally destroyed the crystal clusters.
The crystals exploded, and the leftover pile of fragments scattered across the battlefield.
The port, on a ship deck.
Zong Ge presided over military training.
“Continue striking, don’t stop!”
“Begin training one on one, the loser will jump off the ship and swim three laps!”
Zong Ge roared from time to time.
He drilled the sailors to their limits.
Not only in weapons training, but also in boarding actions, hook throwing, and other routine maritime combat drills.
Bang bang bang.
Sometimes, Zong Ge would order a ship or two to go sail out into the sea and practice shooting cannons, creating a lot of noise,
After proceeding like this for several days, the survivors’ leadership gathered together again to discuss.
“I have bad news.” Zi Di murmured, “The Two Head pirate group has appeared in nearby waters.”
“The Two Head pirate group’s commander is Lan Lu, a two headed man-beating magician. He has dual silver level cultivation in battle qi and magic!”
“Their presence here is unusual.”
“According to pirate customs, these waters are Rou Zang’s hunting ground.”
“Lan Lu shouldn’t be here.”
“Perhaps, after Rou Zang was seriously injured, Lan Lui believed that he is weak and wants to annex Rou Zang’s pirate group. Or perhaps Rou Zang invited Lan Lu over to deal with Snake Rat Island. Like how Tan Qiu wants to ally with others, Rou Zang is doing the same.”
Zi Di analyzed.
Cang Xu followed up, “I have turned over the town’s cemetery, but didn’t find any necromantic materials.”
“The Sheng Ming Sect priest here had cleaned and purified them too much.”
“Our necromancy resources are already bottomed out.”
Currently, these necromancy resources are mainly consumed by meditation.
With the help of the meditation room, Zi Di and Cang Xu built a negative energy environment. By doing this, although it could improve their meditation gains, it also depleted much of the necromancy resources.
Zong Ge also brought bad news, “After these days of training, our sailors have been voicing their discontent openly. The only change is that the formerly disobedient pirates now follow orders. Although the fisherfolk are more obedient, they lack killing intent, so don’t expect too much of them.”
“With Kuai Tu’s leadership, the shiba inu beastmen have distinguished themselves, unfortunately there are too few of them to assume the duty of being our backbone. Furthermore, everyday Cang Xu draws their blood and even peels their flesh off, now they all fear and are suspicious of him.”
Cang Xu took the blame for Zi Di’s actions.
Zong Ge continued, “The cannon training uses up our ordinary shells, which are currently still abundant. But the sailors’ shelling abilities have only shown small improvements.”
“I plan to lead a small team into the underground and conduct live combat drills.”
“Truth be told, don’t count on them becoming elites.”
“Alas, we need better soldiers.”
However, the survivors’ funds were once again hollowed out. The money they made these days was converted into materials that were used to make alchemy puppets.
The dragonman youngster laughed, “Those are unimportant matters.”
“Our plan has smoothly made progress.”
“Zi Di, you have already developed the medicine, right?”
Zi Di nodded, “I have already had the scouting rat models sneak the medicine into Hei Fei’s ships.”
“However, those ships are heavily guarded, if we want the medicine to take effect, we can’t be too hasty.”
“Apart from that, the rumors we slyly spread are also gradually taking hold.”
“Very good, then our plan will proceed.” The dragonman concluded.