Mechanical Alchemist

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In the complex dungeons, Su Lun was playing a monster-hunting game with the trial team from "Black Tower Alchemy Academy."

But unknown to them, right above them on the surface streets, a large tank truck disguised as a water delivery vehicle had pulled to a stop in a hidden alleyway.

Several people in black were holding some sort of device, scanning the sewer entrance as if searching for something.

Soon enough, the device lit up with a red glow, and the leader among the people in black spoke.

"Have you confirmed their location?"

"Yes, the target is about two hundred meters below ground, exploring deeper towards the west."

"Release the mutated creature down there."

"Yes, boss."

As they spoke, they opened the valve of the tank truck and inserted the pipe into the sewer entrance on the street. Following a series of gurgling noises in the pipeline, streams of black, oil-like sludge began to slowly pour into the sewerage.

....

The shooting game of the students continued.

Su Lun strolled along leisurely with them, and though he hadn't ventured this deep the last time, he was not at all unfamiliar with the surroundings.

This dungeon, apart from the ancient subway tunnels left behind, was also riddled with holes dug by monsters, creating a network that led who knows where.

The mutated creatures of the sewer had their own territories, and Su Lun knew that they were about to reach the nests of those crawling creatures, a huge space akin to an underground hub station.

"Haha... Captain Jack just shot and killed eight monsters, all with headshots, living up to his reputation as the academy's top Sharpshooter."

"Our team has already collected seven pieces of cursed material, we've exceeded the trial task."

"Hey, Garen, you're setting your sights too low. Captain Jack isn't interested in these ordinary materials; we need higher quality silver materials. Hopefully, we'll encounter more elite creatures, preferably of the 'bizarre' category, and maybe even find Gold materials. Then our trial scores will surely be recorded on the academy's wall of honor..."

"Miss Lena, you see, our team is bound to come in first this time. The score from this trial will be the best coming-of-age gift..."

"..."

The four teams of five moved steadily forward, without a sense of crisis.

During their downtime, the young students would chat and banter with each other.

Su Lun, the guide trailing the team, seemed to be at leisure, so he took the opportunity to observe each student closely. Even though they all wore gas masks and night vision goggles, their outfits, skin tones, and builds hinted at their personalities.

Although he couldn't see the faces of the female students clearly, it was easy to guess that they would be the center of attention, and surely not bad-looking.

Especially that "Miss Lena," always surrounded by boys fawning over her.

Su Lun only occasionally glanced in passing, showing little interest in looking closely at those delicate female students. He was more interested in the bodies of the monsters.

Although the chance of finding "gray mist" on the mutated creatures' corpses was low, the sheer number of monsters they killed made up for it.

Along the way, as the students plowed through the monsters, Su Lun also collected two clumps of gray mist.

From the memories of the monsters, he extracted a more detailed map of the dungeons, as well as some "reverse joint movement techniques."

Although these techniques were not congruent with normal human anatomical movement patterns, they were undeniably suitable for him, a Puppeteer with high agility attributes.

It was-like "Five Animal Frolics" from his previous life, imitating animal postures to train the less commonly used small muscle groups. The climbing skills of these creatures gave Su Lun the impression that he could scale walls as nimbly as a gecko, maximizing his agility.

With money to be earned and fragments to harvest, Su Lun thought this mission wasn't bad, at least for the moment.

...

Before long, they arrived at an expansive open space, roughly the size of six or seven soccer fields, with a very high ceiling.

From the layout of the buildings, it could be discerned that this was once a hub station of Old Lington's underground rail transit network.

Clearly, this was the monsters' den Su Lun remembered.

When the trial team arrived, the monsters were momentarily startled and hid in various holes and structures.

The students were very excited, having spent the earlier part of their journey in narrow tunnels where most of the monsters were killed by the more skilled marksmen. Now in such a spacious area, everyone saw the chance for real combat, and they all rushed forward excitedly.

"Wow... this really is the monsters' lair, there are so many mutated creatures!"

"Haha, now it's our turn to shine!"

"Team Three, follow me; we need to catch up with our trial scores..."

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"..."

Each of the four five-person teams chose a direction and began their purge operation. Of course, aside from the team led by the plump Charlie, which purposely lagged behind, everyone else appeared very active.

The two teaching assistants didn't follow them. Instead, they chose a high vantage point to stand, holding notebooks and recording the performance of each student. From that position, they could oversee most of the area and provide timely rescue in case of an emergency.

Su Lun also selected a distance that was neither too far nor too close, observing everything that was happening around him.

Although the task was easy, he never let down his guard. The students might have been safe, but he didn't believe that, should he face real danger, those instructors would definitely save a member of the social underclass like him—a gang member.

He was indeed very familiar with this space. Su Lun knew it was the lair of those "zombie breed" mutant creatures. However, he didn't know how many monsters there were here, or what kinds of mutant creatures...

He glanced at the buildings and then at the numerous dark holes above his head, his gaze slightly heavy.

His intuition for danger told him that something lurking in the darkness seemed to be watching their line of people.

The two teaching assistants were observing the team's progress while casually chatting.

"The new generation 'Night III combat suits' do have strong protective capabilities. But overly relying on equipment can also cause the students to lose a large part of their essential crisis response abilities. The trial might not achieve the desired effect..."

"Yeah, when we had our trials, it was still the first generation. The defense was quite inferior compared to now. Tsk, these kids should suffer a bit. Anyway, didn't the Academy issue an order to increase the trial difficulty?"

"Let's find an opportunity to test their adaptability later."

"Yeah, there will probably be a chance for that soon..."

The two instructors didn't avoid Su Lun while chatting, and from their words, it seemed they might take some action to raise the difficulty of the trial.

But on reflection, it made sense. With bodyguards at all times, those students wouldn't have any sense of vigilance.

And just while the two instructors were chatting, an unexpected situation suddenly arose!

....

The students, grouped in fives, were reaping the lives of those mutant creatures.

But just then, out of nowhere, a mutant creature over three meters tall burst forth. It charged like a gorilla and bowled over an entire team.

Immediately after, someone shouted, "Be careful, everyone, it's a 'zombie breed grotesque'!"

Upon hearing that, Su Lun's pupils shrank sharply, and he focused his attention on the action.

A "grotesque" is defined as a cursed creature stronger than others of its class, with a certain intelligence, usually capable of leading other mutant creatures.

To put it simply, it's a BOSS monster.

And depending on their strength, grotesques are categorized as normal, silver, gold, lord-level, and so on.

The common classifications of grotesques mainly include: zombie breed (humanoid), ghost breed (spiritual body), and beast breed (monster).

If we go into more detail, there are also some extremely rare special categories like "myth breed," "elf breed," "phantasmal beast breed," "abyssal breed," and so on.

And nearly 100% of the time, mutant creatures that reach the "grotesque" level will produce cursed materials, whose quality far exceeds that of the same tier silver and gold materials.

This is the type of creature Scavengers are reluctant to face, yet eagerly anticipate hunting.

....

"This zombie breed grotesque is really strong... But those combat suits' defense is also ridiculously exaggerated," Su Lun noted, looking at the sudden event unfolding before him. After a slight surprise, he wasn't much impressed.

It would be odd if there weren't one or two BOSSes in such a large group of mutant creatures.

The two teaching assistants clearly foresaw this, yet didn't warn the students in advance, making those who rushed in suffer a setback.

However, what surprised Su Lun even more than the ferocity of the creatures was the "liquid combat suits" worn by the students.

In that instant, the "zombie breed grotesque" had slammed into several students, sending them flying. From the sound of impact and the speed of the bodies flying backward, Su Lun deduced the monster's impact force was immense, no less than a heavy truck decking someone.

If it were an ordinary person, such a hit might have been lethal on the spot.

But from that hit, the few students who were sent flying got up unharmed, though disheveled.

Su Lun's keen eyes allowed him to clearly see what had happened and quickly analyze some attributes of the combat suits: "The blue light on the suits must be the energy supply system, and the alchemical runes are at least second-level 'Sturdiness Runes' and 'Toughness Runes'...

Quite the strange material, acting like a non-Newtonian fluid, absorbing the majority of the impact energy with vibrations."

At that moment, Su Lun noticed that the blue light of the runes on the student who took the heaviest hit had dimmed. The student swapped out several new energy crystals, like changing batteries, and Su Lun sighed inwardly, "Ah... Using 'Cursed Crystals' worth ten thousand a pop as energy, no wonder the defense is so strong. Another piece of expensive black tech..."

Such protective gear, not to mention whether it could be bought outside, was so extravagantly costly that ordinary Scavengers, even if they could afford it, couldn't justify such an expense.