Mechanical Alchemist

The energy in both the inner and outer cities was immense.

Even after the incident Su Lun caused in Old Lington, she managed to find a decent doctor within an hour to help Su Lun deal with the backlash of the Black Sickle Curse.

Because Su Lun precisely controlled the strength of his slash, the curse backlash wound from the Black Sickle was not severe. With the help of the "X Serum" and the expensive life-prolonging "Life Transmutation Alchemy Formation," he made it through without any real danger.

Then it was time for the escape plan.

Originally, Su Lun intended to go alone and find an opportunity to join a miscellaneous group to Dawn City, but Qian Tiao's arrangement was clearly more appropriate.

She arranged a legal identity for Su Lun.

To avoid exposing his identity, Qian Tiao didn't arrange for him to join a Scavenger group associated with the Cross Society. Instead, she had him join a merchant caravan from the inner city.

Su Lun became a freelance sniper hired for a Scavenger Guild mission, possessing a registered badge and a series of recognized certificates issued by the Scavenger Guild, and his background could withstand scrutiny. He replaced a Scavenger called "Johnny."

....

One day, a massive transportation team was making its way through the deep, dark catacombs at a steady pace.

This was the seventh day Su Lun had been accompanying the "Thornbird Merchant Caravan."

In the team, the roar of steam machinery was constant, coming from dozens of steam-powered mechanical dogs. These simple mechanical animals lacked combat capabilities but could carry heavy loads, and their smaller size allowed them to navigate through the rugged mine tunnels of the catacombs. They were the mainstream means of transport used by Scavengers for hauling heavy items.

A large Scavenger camp was currently being constructed near Dawn City, requiring a lot of building materials. It was a good opportunity for merchants to make money, so there were a large number of transportation teams heading underground during this period.
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The Scavengers, who were just about to undertake relic hunting in the ruins, also took on the merchants' hiring as a side job to earn some money for escorting the cargo.

The owner of the goods had hired five fully equipped small-scale Scavenger groups and some reputable lone Scavengers from the Scavenger Guild. There were about one to two hundred people in total—Su Lun blended in without attracting any attention.

Even though they had already encountered several small-scale mutant monster attacks over the past few days, which resulted in a few deaths, fortunately, there weren't any significant losses.

And because "Johnny" was a hired lone Scavenger, he had few acquaintances and hung at the back of the team without anyone bothering him.

Of course, this was a loner persona Su Lun deliberately crafted to conceal the abnormalities of his body.

Due to the side effects of the "X Potion," his skin had turned blue.

To avoid attracting suspicion, he always wore a gas mask and had expensive prosthetic skin gloves on his hands, leaving no bit of skin exposed.

Fortunately, Scavengers hunting in the catacombs are usually fully armed, so this disguise was not particularly conspicuous.

...

The transportation team moved steadily towards the depths of the ground.

On his back Su Lun carried a backpack and a large black box, which was a sniper rifle case used to hide the presence of his scythe, as he had failed to find a new body to create a living corpse in the past few days.

While walking, a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy happily ran towards the tail of the team.

He was waving a gas mask in his hand and shook it at Su Lun, excitedly saying, "Mister Johnny, can you help me see what's wrong with my mask..."

This half-grown lad was named Tommy and was the youngest son of the leader of the "Drunkard Scavenger Group." Because he longed for adventure, his big-hearted father had brought him along.

The day before yesterday, during an unexpected mutant monster attack from above, Su Lun casually killed a monster and saved this boy, who was almost bitten in the neck. As a result, he earned the friendship of the Drunkard's group.

After his father brought him to thank Su Lun, the boy didn't act shy and would occasionally ask Su Lun for advice on marksmanship and mechanical skills.

"Mister Johnny, your parrot mask is really pretty," he said.

Tommy looked at the mask on Su Lun's face with eyes full of envy and pouted, "Compared to yours, mine looks like a 'Ugly Duckling Mask'."

"Heh, let me see..."

Su Lun took the so-called Ugly Duckling Mask from him. He didn't find it bothersome and examined it carefully.

Of course, there was no comparison.

The mask that Su Lun wore was not an ordinary gas mask but a Plague Doctor's Beak Mask that he had modified.

He had killed Sergey and thought he wouldn't need the thing.

But unexpectedly, after injecting himself with Serum X, Su Lun found that his cell activity became extremely high, and his body could automatically metabolize even slight toxins without any effect on him.

He had also tested the mask's curse features a few days ago. By carefully observing the attribute panel, he concluded that his current cell activity could almost withstand the side effects of the mask. Coupled with the top-grade antidote potions refined by Danny, the chances of being poisoned to death were extremely low.

Thinking it was necessary to wear a gas mask to cover his face anyway, he decided to simply modify the appearance of the beak mask.

After all, whether it was the 99% protection rate against poisons or the long-term wear that could enhance his resistance to toxins, there were no better gas masks than it.

But because it was a trophy object, in order not to be recognized, Su Lun had also transformed the originally cool and mysterious beak mask into a gaudy "Parrot Mask."

Not only did he change the main color from black to the yellow-green of a parrot, but he also added a mechanical device like a windshield wiper to clear the vision of the goggles. He even added a piece of mysterious-looking black cloth to cover the beak. This was the mainstream punk style in the market.

It was a simple mechanical modification, but it completely changed the style of the mask, making it look now "common."

Yet it was precisely this useless modification that caught little Tommy's keen interest.

Watching Su Lun check his work, Tommy muttered to the side, "Mr. Johnny, I want to make automatic flip-up goggles so that it can rest on the hat when I need a wider field of vision. But it always creaks, and no matter how much oil I apply, it still feels stiff..."

"Oh?"

Su Lun noticed that the young Tommy had a talent for mechanics, at least the idea was interesting.

He took a simple look and pinpointed the problem, saying, "Actually, you have done rather well. You can slightly shift the position of the gears here, so that the force transmitted through the steel wire will be smoother. It's jamming because you made the device too complicated. The more complex the mechanism, the more likely it is to have problems..."

Little Tommy listened very carefully by Su Lun's side.

Soon after, Su Lun handed the mask back.

The boy had a good grasp of the concept. He seemed to understand completely and beamed with joy, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Johnny. I think I know how I need to modify my 'Ugly Duckling Mask' now!"

With that, he cheerfully ran off.

Su Lun watched him go and smiled to himself.

The boring escort task had its small pleasures.

....

A few hours later, the day's journey ended, and the convoy came to a halt.

"Alright, we can stop here, we'll camp here for tonight!"

The one shouting was called Abagon, a tall and skinny old man. His face, as stringent as his personality, always made people feel stern. He was the most prestigious person in this transport team and also a manager of the "Thornbird Commerce Association" from the inner city.

At his command, excited cheers erupted from the group.

They could finally rest.

Mechanical dogs circled around the perimeter, gathering the commerce association's people inside. Those from the inner city always disdained staying together with the people from the outer city.

And the Scavengers had to set up their own camps.

Su Lun also took out a marching tent from his backpack, set it up in an inconspicuous corner for himself to sleep, and then crawled inside.

Finally, it was time to rest, and Su Lun felt this was the most comfortable time of the day.

He led the "Invisible Walking Corpse" into the tent, and then unwrapped the corpse cloth to reveal the rune-inscribed corpse and the large black scythe.

Su Lun also took off his poison-resistant mask, exposing his strangely blue skin to the air.

If a stranger were here and saw the two blue-skinned beasts in the tent, they would surely be terrified.

But Su Lun was used to it.

He took out a rune brush and began to reapply alchemical materials to the dimmed runes.

This was a Scavenger who had perished in an attack the day before. His body was intact, so Su Lun collected it to use as material.

As he refurbished the runes on the walking corpse, he examined the changes in the corpse's muscles and mumbled to himself, "The X serum has quite a significant individual variance in amplification. It seems that melee professions are better suited for creating walking corpses.

It's a pity that the body of the second-tier professional from before couldn't be taken out, otherwise, using their bodies could withstand more slashes..."

Although the backlash was always a clean cut, the recovery ability varied greatly.

Even though the walking corpse had been injected with three doses of the "second-generation X serum," Su Lun found that this female corpse was far inferior to the previous male one. Under the same conditions, the number of times it could withstand backlash was significantly different.

However, the impact wasn't too great... after all, they were expendable.

...

Thinking of the "X serum," Su Lun looked down at his own arm, the muscles bulging and knotted under his blue skin, his eyes reflecting a complex emotion.

He had been on the move for several days, and even without any high-intensity training, his muscles were continuously swollen with a pumped feeling.

It was an indication of rapid muscle growth.

His data panel made it even clearer, as almost all body-related stats had more than doubled, except for spiritual power.

Moreover, this growth was continuing at a diminishing rate and was expected to be fully assimilated over the next few months.

Once the serum was completely absorbed, Su Lun could anticipate his physical fitness surpassing that of an average melee professional by a significant margin!

Besides the increase in body stats, there was another very noticeable enhancement in his abilities.

That was the efficiency with which he absorbed "Dark Spiritual Power" during meditation, which had improved drastically compared to before the serum injection.

Previously, a night's meditation allowed Su Lun to increase by one unit of Dark Spiritual Power.

But now, a night of meditation increased it by three units!

Although the Dark Spiritual Power in the catacombs was indeed richer than in Old Lington, it wasn't to the extent of tripling.

And it wasn't just a matter of concentration, but also absorption efficiency and sensation.

Su Lun felt that previous meditations were like forcibly infusing his body with Dark Spiritual Power. But now, even if he didn't use breathing techniques actively, Dark Spiritual Power would automatically seep into his pores. Not only was his body free of any signs of deformity, but he also felt a delightful sensation, like drawing silk.

It was like... the vastly improved "Elemental Affinity" that Magicians spoke of.

Su Lun also estimated that with his current state, he should soon be able to meet the minimum attribute requirements to advance to a second-tier professional.

Moreover, with his body strengthened and a surge in Dark Spiritual Power, his capacity for containment would be very high, and he reckoned that he could at least endure second-tier Gold-grade or higher advancement materials and alchemical bio-enhancements.

This also made Su Lun look forward to his upcoming trip to Dawn City even more.

If he could find a powerful space curse object, there would be no concern that his body couldn't handle it, and miss the chance to integrate that kind of high-order profession materials.

....

Su Lun almost finished applying runes to the animated corpse, then wrapped it up again with the burial shroud.

At that moment, something occurred to him, and he took out a pitch-black doll from the storage ring.

This was an experimental item, a cursed doll which solidified the incantation of "Curse Magic·Grass Man".

Su Lun named it "Voodoo Doll".

But since this was a new creation, there was still too much functionality and data that needed testing before it could be used in combat.

Considering the half a month left of this tedious escort mission, Su Lun collected some blood samples to test. It was convenient that Mr. Abagon, the manager, had fallen off the mechanical dog during the previous journey downhill, spilling a bit of blood.

An idea flashed through Su Lun's mind, and a faint, apologetic smile appeared on his face, "With a distance of over a hundred meters, the effect should be decent... My apologies, stingy Mr. Abagon, but you will have to serve as my test subject."

Murmuring to himself, he took out the collected blood sample and smeared it on the alchemic formation on the back of the doll. The luster flashed away, and the doll seemed to instantly come alive, a grey fog appearing on the face of the doll, which originally had no features. It vaguely resembled Mr. Abagon, looking somewhat eerie.

Having a familiar understanding of the "Grass Man" incantation in his memory, there was naturally no reason for failure.

He picked up a runic steel needle, and then stabbed it into the doll's leg.

The incantation wasn't the sort that could easily kill with one strike, especially from a distance, without enough blood samples, not targeting the heart or head, it could only inflict torment.

No sooner had he stabbed the needle in than Su Lun's acute hearing allowed him to instantly hear a scream.

"Ouch..."

He had no idea what Mr. Abagon was doing, but judging from a scream, it seemed quite painful.

"Subtracting the time it takes for sound to travel through the air, from the moment of stabbing to the target's scream, there's been a delay of about 1.3 seconds. I wonder if it's his slow reaction, or if it's due to a delay caused by the distance of the spellcasting..."

Su Lun muttered to himself, then recorded the experimental data in his notebook: 'September 1st, Test Subject #001, average middle-aged male... Blood sample quality E, one hundred thirty meters, needle stab in the calf, 1.3 seconds delay until scream...'

He recorded the data.

After some thought, Su Lun took the runic steel needle and stabbed the same leg of the doll again, then pricked up his ears to listen.

"Huh... The scream was noticeably slower this time, maybe he was braced for it on that leg? Should I try the other one?"

Su Lun thought for a moment and then stabbed the other leg.

Shortly afterward, he heard Mr. Abagon's cries of agony and his cursing, and Su Lun finally confirmed something, adding a note in his journal: 'It is essentially confirmed that the spellcasting distance and reaction speed are inversely proportional, subsequent tests should focus on precise measurements of distance and delay...'

Then, after a few more stabs, he barely heard any screams, and the blood samples also became very faint.

Su Lun recorded further: 'Spellcasting consumes the target's biological samples, significantly reducing the curse's effectiveness, spellcasting distance drastically reduced...'

....

Su Lun tested the first version of the "Voodoo Doll" and came up with some fresh inspiration.

He pulled out a new piece of wood, planning to carve a doll that incorporated some improvements for a Magician.

But as he was carving, footsteps approached from outside the tent.

Tommy came in to inform him that Mr. Abagon had summoned all the mercenaries for an emergency meeting.