Mechanical Alchemist

When Su Lun saw that one of the casually opened mechanical boxes contained a brand-new set of "Frost Giant" mech armor, he immediately realized that this batch of goods was not some "used mechanical equipment" that the Steam Party had bought for the inner city.

This kind of top-tech mech armor, not even fully issued to the elite forces of the inner city's City Guard, was impossible to have been sold to an outer city gang.

Without looking at the other boxes, Su Lun knew that the cargo in this truck far exceeded expectations and was of immeasurable value.

Not long ago, he had heard through the high-level professional circles in the black market that someone was seeking this type of armor, with a price tag exceeding fifteen million risos.

What was most critical was that the configuration of this escort team gave Su Lun a very strange feeling.

Would an ordinary transport squad be escorting something so valuable?

But after giving it a slight thought, it seemed quite reasonable.

The Steam Party's escort team had always been very active.

Who would have thought that a bakery, which sold bread every day, would occasionally mix in a package of powder that wasn't flour?

In the outer city, second-tier professionals were big shots, usually too dignified to rob a batch of "used mechanical equipment."

But in reality, the escort team led by the 'Barbarian' Bak was nothing but bait to divert attention. They might not even know what they were actually transporting.

Special armored vehicles and abomination warriors were the real security for this cargo.

Normal robbers trying to hijack this transport wouldn't be able to stop the special bomb-proof truck, and even if they did, upon opening the cargo hold and facing the "abomination warriors," it would be nearly impossible for an ordinary first-tier professional squad to survive.

Even if there were second-tier professional criminals, without the means to subdue the monsters, they could easily get trapped and killed, or get delayed until the Steam Party's reinforcements arrived.

Even if they managed to escape, they certainly wouldn't be able to take the goods with them.

Thinking this way, such a low-profile escort method wasn't far-fetched at all; in fact, it was quite ingenious.

Moreover, once Su Lun fully understood what the cargo was, he understood even better why the owner had chosen such a low-key method of transport.

....

Kai looked at the "Frost Giant" armor and suddenly felt at a loss.

In his life, he had never seen anything so fine.

He looked at Su Lun and asked, "What do we do now?"

"What else can we do? We've already stolen it, so of course, we'll take it away," Su Lun said with an unconcerned smile, and then added, "We'll just clean up the scene a bit."

They had killed the people and the monsters; at this point, even if they backed out, the cargo's real owner would definitely investigate thoroughly.

Upon hearing this, Kai's eyes lit up with delight: "Haha, that's exactly what I was thinking!"

With the boldness born from gang life, he had been thinking the same thing, but he worried that his greed would bring fatal trouble to the gang, and to Su Lun.

After all, the greater the value, the more the owner would pay to find the culprits. Many a robber had fallen on such ventures.

Now that he heard Su Lun echo his thoughts, he felt relieved.

You can't get rich without windfalls!

Scared of what!

The two started happily unpacking various boxes and packing everything up.

.....

The storage ring is a rudimentary use of the laws of space in alchemy. Because it's a subpar space, it can't be made too large—the larger it is, the easier it collapses, and the costs increase geometrically. A normal storage ring has about an eighth of a cubic meter of storage space; a larger one could have half a cubic meter.

Even Su Lun only got his hands on a storage ring of about one cubic meter after killing Jack, a noble student in the dungeon. It was barely enough to hold a puppet, but completely inadequate for these sizable mechanical pieces of equipment.

They had no choice but to take all the mechanical equipment out of the boxes. Any parts that could be disassembled or folded were crammed into storage rings. The large items that couldn't be disassembled were grouped together.

Those from the inner city used an iron box over two meters long to transport this "Frost Giant" mech armor, but the actual space occupied by the items inside was less than a third of the box. They probably wanted to avoid any scratches or damages to the enchanted plating, for aesthetic reasons or something...

But Su Lun and his fellow robbers naturally didn't have such concerns.

The two treated the mechanical arms and legs like firewood, brutally bundling them together, and wrapping them with canvas they had brought, so they could be easily transported on motorcycles later.

Their actions were quick, and it didn't take long to unpack most of the boxes.

Five suits of armor, ten handheld cannons, a number of light/heavy external mechanical skeleton parts, fifty rune pistols, twenty mechanical rifles, fifteen boxes of alchemy bullets, and various ordinary ammunition grenades...

Inside the truck, besides the shockingly valuable armor and ammunition supplies, there were all sorts of functional items like chemical protection suits, gas masks, instruments, and accessories.

Su Lun began to suspect that no one in the outer city could make use of such sophisticated equipment.

When he saw the batch of laboratory equipment, a strange thought immediately popped into his head, "Could it be that these supplies were being sent from the inner city to a secret experimental base in the outer city?"

These high-quality biohazard suits would be useless to the outer city dwellers and would typically only be found in laboratories.

And as if to confirm his suspicion, an unexpected incident occurred just then.

"Crack," a sound like a glass bottle shattering crisply echoed through the carriage.

Su Lun turned around and saw Kai looking innocently back at him.

Kai hadn't figured out what had happened, pointing to the fragments of the storage ring and the box on the ground, he said truthfully, "I... I saw that the box contained potions, so I put them into the storage ring. I didn't expect the storage ring to shatter..."

Kai had never encountered such a situation and didn't understand what it meant.

But Su Lun thought of something, and his expression briefly froze.

The storage ring shattered?

He immediately opened that box and then appraised it.

Sure enough, inside were things that operated on a higher plane of the Space Law than the inferior space of a storage ring.

There were neatly arranged five potions!

[X Serum Essence]

Detailed explanation: An active substance extracted from the bodies of super-cognitive "abyssal creatures," injecting and gaining substantial enhancement of bodily attributes, increasing the threshold of rank, remodeling bloodlines;

Effects: The subject will gain significant boosts over the following months post-injection. Dark spiritual power endurance limit increased by 230%-570%, strength by 270-350%, toughness by 220-325%, cell vitality by 880-1100%, maximum cell division count by 50%...

Results fluctuate due to uncontrollable mutation factors; after blood remodeling, inheritance of that abyssal bloodline is obtained, along with related growth traits, with each advancement in rank, an extra 3-10% increase in all attributes;

Side effects: The effects of this serum are extremely violent, and human injection who do not possess a bloodline higher than that of the abyssal creatures results in a 100% mutation; after mutation, attributes undergo non-directional mutation and gain substantial attribute enhancements; it will cause your skin to turn blue for a very long period of time;

...

"X Serum?!"

Su Lun's gaze became fixed as he instantly became deep in thought.

He never imagined that he would find five vials of the legendary "X Serum" in this batch of goods.

When he had seen that "Abomination Warrior" earlier, he had guessed that the big shots from the inner city had not given up on the research of that project.

But upon seeing this batch of potions, he realized that the experiment was actually so close, even located in the West City district!

He also knew that his guess was indeed correct, this batch of goods was really a supply meant for a secret laboratory the inner city had set up in the outer city.

"Things are getting a bit complicated, huh..."

Su Lun murmured to himself.
Find adventures on empire

However, since the goods were in hand, any troubles were a future concern.

What he was more interested in was the value of the potion.

After all, those statistics appraised were just too eye-catching.

"Even a tenfold increase in cell vitality wouldn't reach such an exaggerated recovery ability. That Abomination Warrior must have undergone some mutation in its body after mutation..."

"Cell vitality and division count are attributes directly linked to lifespan; no wonder the big shots from the inner city are obsessed..."

"It also grants partial inheritance of the bloodline traits... If it doesn't cause mutation, it's practically a divine potion!"

"..."

Just speaking of the body's enhancement, this "X Serum" was ridiculously beyond human.

Dark spiritual power, strength, toughness, cell vitality... it was like an all-dimensional doubling of attributes.

It was even a significant leap beyond the attribute enhancements from a first rank advancement!

The feeling was that a single injection would immediately grant one a superhuman physique.

But that 100% mutation rate was just too glaring.

Su Lun looked at the information appraised from the potion, and a myriad of thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.

Suddenly, he had a flash of inspiration.

X Serum + Mutation Inhibitor Potion = Undead, ah!

That "Research Diary on the Undead" had detailed methods for creating undead, and now it seemed all the hardware conditions were met?

Previously, without any clue about the whereabouts of the "X Serum," Su Lun had not paid much attention to the contents of the diary.

But now that he had several real potions in his hand, his thoughts immediately became agile.

Now that he had "X Serum," although the mutation inhibition formula was still in the research phase for the Black Tower, it wasn't much of a problem for Su Lun.

Because the diary contained a detailed formula!

Su Lun had always speculated that the undead could wield that forbidden weapon, the Black Scythe... If he could truly create undead, it might well add a powerful trump card to his hand!

Moreover, if the "X Potion" could be used on the undead, could it also be used on humans?

If the mutations in the living could also be suppressed, wouldn't he soar to great heights instantly?

Thinking of this, Su Lun felt that he should go back and take a good look at that "Research Diary on the Undead"...