Returning from the abyss

Chapter 434 Lilian's Time
The smell of old bookstores is still the smell of paper and ink, mixed with some sense of obsolete and the faint smell of incense that protects books.Lu Ning approached the dimly lit shop, and immediately saw a person sitting in front of a screen.

This is a man with long black hair, and he didn't take care of his hair very carefully, letting it hang down naturally.He was also wearing a black robe that looked like pajamas, loosely tied around his waist, and his chest was slightly open.He had a serious face, holding an old book in his hand, sitting cross-legged on a futon, reading the book so engrossed that even Lu Ning walked in without disturbing him.

There were no tables and chairs in this bookstore, only a dozen futons and three hard couches on the floor. Lu Ning was stunned for a moment, and the wind brought by the door finally disturbed the room and rang the wind chime by the window.

The boss closed his fingers slightly, put down the old book between his arms, looked up, his expression was still as serious as when he was reading.

"Buying books or reading?"

"Ah... uh... I want to buy a book."

"what book?"

"I... want to find books on magic and alchemy." Lu Ning explained the purpose of this trip.

The boss nodded slightly, supported the ground with his hands, and stood up. His large robe was dragged on the ground. Fortunately, the place seemed to be cleaned frequently, and the ground was not dirty at all. In some places, bamboo mats were even spread.

"Alchemy is easy to talk about, but magic contains more content. Be more specific."

"Uh... crystallization magic."

Now the boss looked at Lu Ning suspiciously, the look in his eyes clearly meant that you didn't look like someone who could practice crystallization magic.

"I need to understand, not study." Lu Ning explained.

The boss looked even weirder.

"Alchemy, crystallization magic?"

Those who can learn these two things at the same time are not the rich and powerful families of the country, that is, the royal children of countries above medium-sized, and small countries may not even be able to afford it.

"Just tell me if there is any." Lu Ning gave up explaining.

"I don't know if there is anything you need. The rule here is to tell you by category, and find the book yourself. If you want to read after you find it, you can pay two copper coins for tea and you can read it here for a day. If you buy a book, you can pay and take it away. "

The boss explained slowly, and came to a pile of books with a bulging robe.

These books were not placed on the bookshelf, but were packed in a basket, and even buried the basket when it was so full.

"Alchemy is all here."

"what?"

"The basic theorem of alchemy is rigid and lackluster. The three primary, intermediate, and advanced books can almost cover the core knowledge of alchemy. What's more, it's the extension of creativity brought about by different experiences. Basically, it's almost poor. The alchemist who sold the trousers sold the letters for some material money and saved them, of course I also screened them, those nonsense letters can’t be exchanged for a copper coin from me.”

The corner of Lu Ning's mouth twitched, wondering how many copper coins the old alchemist's biographical letter could exchange for in the hands of the shopkeeper.

"Thank you, about the crystallization magic..."

"here."

This time it's on the bookshelf.

The number of books on crystallization magic is much less, probably because many people can't afford to learn it. The amount of books here is just a row on the bookshelf.After pointing it out to Lu Ning, the boss went back to read a book, and Lu Ning hurriedly asked him his name.

"My name is Anri."

The boss left a word.

Lu Ning began to take out the books from the basket. These letters were completely different in size, paper quality, and degree of preservation. She was really afraid that if she moved too much, they would shake and fall apart.

In this pile of books, there are also many books of the three great books of alchemy, "Elementary Alchemy", "Intermediate Alchemy" and "Advanced Alchemy".Some are annotated, and the other part is simply handwriting inspiration notes in the margins of the pages, making most of them look dirty.

With Lu Ning's current knowledge of alchemy, that is, she can understand some things in elementary alchemy, but she quickly eliminated a few useless manuscripts.

In alchemy, the formula is the foundation, and the imagination is the flesh and blood. As a kind of "exchange" discipline, its exchange cannot be determined by the alchemist's subjective will. To explore the mysteries of these exchanges is every alchemist. Favorite thing to do.And among them, if you see those that are contrary to your own way of thinking, even if they are not necessarily wrong, they are of no benefit to you.

While Lu Ning was looking for a book, another person walked into the bookstore.

This is a girl wearing a white mage robe, who looks about the same age as Lilian, with a small bell-shaped ornament tied around her waist, which is also the only ornament on her body.After entering the bookstore, she bowed respectfully to the owner Anli, put two copper coins on a futon, and then came to the bookshelf.

Lu Ning glanced at it out of the corner of her eye. She was walking around the bookshelf marked with magic spells, and pulled out a book from time to time. It seemed that her goal was very clear.

In the classification of magic, divine art is a big category.Its effect is carried out by meditation and prayer, and sometimes even requires memorizing extremely long prayers and learning awkward oracle.The most troublesome thing is that if you need to perform divine spells belonging to different gods, you have to learn several more divine languages—the languages ​​of those gods are completely different.

Although Catherine and others commented that magic arts "doesn't cost much money", but magic arts highly value talent and hard work, and the average life span of magicians is shorter than that of other magicians.

"It's not easy either way."

Lu Ning muttered something in a low voice, not letting the girl hear, but the boss raised her head and glanced at her.

Fortunately, such a large basket of manuscripts can always find some ideas similar to Lu Ning. She picked out three books, and chose a cleanly annotated "Elementary Alchemy", and took them to the boss together.At this time, the girl was already sitting beside her quietly reading a book.

"Have you bought it?" The boss took the book and flipped through it casually, "I'll give you a silver coin, and I'll give you a change."

"Uh……"

"No money?" The boss looked up at her.

"No, just... can it be cheaper? I want to save some to buy materials."

"Collecting books also costs money, and I'm not a place to collect garbage." The boss curled his lips, "If you are really poor like this, you don't need to do alchemy and crystallization magic, learn from Geoffrey and practice God The technique is much more reliable.”

"Mr. Anli, magic is not suitable for everyone. Many people spend their entire lives unable to find a god they can pray to." The girl raised her head.

"I'll just pay." Lu Ning hurriedly took out a silver coin.

"Are you an alchemist?" The girl glanced at the books, "I don't know much about alchemy, but if you really want to learn something, there is a shop called Rainbow Mushroom, where every day There will always be alchemists refining potions on site, which may provide you with a lot of experience."

Lu Ning glanced at her in surprise: "Understood, thank you very much. Your name is... Jiefuni? I'm Lilian, nice to meet you."

"It's nothing." Geoffney smiled slightly, and continued to look down at the book.

After receiving the silver coins, the boss stuffed the four books back into Lu Ning's hands, and said casually, "Welcome to come again next time."

Lu Ning took the book, put it in the wide pocket inside the apprentice's robe, and walked out of the bookstore.

"You really like to meddle in your own business."

"The gods advise us that when we encounter help within our ability, we should lend a helping hand."

"Has the god ever said how to make money?"

"Exchange diligence and wisdom for corresponding wealth."

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【Rainbow Mushroom】.

Can you imagine a shop with five colorful giant mushrooms actually growing instead of words on the signboard?
Lu Ning asked two or three people, they all pointed in a direction, and then said with a mysterious smile, "You can definitely recognize it", now she understands why.

What an intuitive "rainbow mushroom".

Even in the wizarding world, there are commercial competitions, so there must not be only one alchemy shop. The popularity of this shop is probably due to the blessing of such a personalized signboard, which is not low.There are also a lot of bustling people in the store, and even the shop assistants wear rainbow mushroom hats that are unbearable to look at.

After Lu Ning walked in, a "mushroom" greeted him immediately.

"Welcome to Rainbow Mushroom! Whether it's utensils, materials, formation maps, or letters! If you have time, you can also watch the mid-level alchemist refining potions on the spot! The process is completely open and transparent!"

"Excuse me about the place where the medicine is refined..."

"It's right in front, in the big room behind the corridor! Just go in and please keep quiet and don't disturb the alchemist's work." The clerk said enthusiastically, "I hope you can trigger more inspirations! What else do you need? Is it?"

"Thank you, I can just go shopping by myself." Lu Ning nodded to the clerk.

"Then you can find any clerk if you need something, every member here will serve you!" The clerk bowed and turned to leave.

This is a shop that does business.

After walking around the store for a while, Lu Ning realized that the store's reputation must not only be due to the signboard.The attitude of the clerks is undoubtedly satisfactory, and the placement of the items in the store is also very particular. The rooms separated from the front and back display different products, but they are not arranged according to rarity or type.However, this seemingly chaotic arrangement miraculously guides the customers in the store. It stands to reason that such a hot store should be a little crowded, but Lu Ning feels that she is following the crowd very smoothly, and there is no delay at all. No.

"It's alchemy thinking." She quickly figured out how to arrange it here. All the things are placed next to related items in alchemical thinking, so that when a customer sees the product, he will conceive it in his mind. What will happen when you use it together, you will see the right thing with a glance, and your steps will naturally move over.

From this point of view, the person who designed this layout must be a person with extremely high attainments in alchemy.Lu Ning curiously followed the crowd into the room of the intermediate alchemist.

The room was very quiet, only the slight sound of collisions between the bottles and the alchemy table and the small sound of adjusting the instruments.Four alchemists wearing light gray alchemy robes are skillfully refining at one end of the room.And the alchemy table they used was also an obsidian alchemy table processed with inscriptions, which was an expensive item that Lilian had never seen in her entire life.

The four alchemists are refining different things, from left to right are potions, runestones, rare metals and artificial life.

The subject of alchemy can theoretically refine all things in the world, even things that do not exist in the world, through "exchange".Including the "World Stone" in Lu Ning's mission, according to the content recorded by the old alchemist, it is the epitome of a world.Of course, it is impossible for an intermediate alchemist to reach that level, but what is in front of him is enough to make people greedy.

Runestones are one of the "non-existent" things created by alchemists and students.A stone naturally containing runes, even if it only contains one piece, is a precious material that can be used in a large number of magic disciplines, and the refining process is extremely complicated.Rare metals, of course, are magic metals and composite metals that are rare in the world. This is the reason magic and martial arts mages most want to find an alchemist as a friend, because there are some things that you may not be able to buy even if you can afford them. .

As for the last artificial life, it was almost the pinnacle of an intermediate alchemist.

The creatures produced in this way have all the same characteristics as life except the soul, and their composition can be varied.And after injecting instructions during the alchemy process, these beings became the most loyal servants and partners.The most basic "golden artificial life" is made at the cost of a large amount of gold through a widely recognized transformation formula, and is usually used to supplement guard forces, or even military use.

Lu Ning quietly walked to the vicinity of the potion refiner, and the other three were still far away from her. She always grabbed everything at hand first.

Compared with the three time-consuming alchemy processes, the potion alchemist's output is very high.But this is not to say that this alchemist is low-level. Lu Ning found that he didn't need to use scales and other measuring tools to weigh other than liquid materials, so he just squeezed it and put it directly into the alchemy formation.When she looked carefully, she found that there were actually three drainage tubes in the refining formation, which meant that he was using the same refining formation to refine three potions at the same time!

No wonder he is so fast!
Lu Ning began to carefully feel the flow of magic power on the refining formation and the status of each material.In addition to the rarity of various raw materials that cannot be imitated, she can still learn a lot.

Soon a potion was refined, and the alchemist quickly removed the drainage tube, placed the prepared substrate in another position of the alchemy array, connected a new drainage tube, and pulled out some gold rods Guided the flow of magic power, then corked the finished potion and put it aside.

A clerk there hurriedly put a label on it. Lu Ning saw the alchemist's mouth move, probably telling the clerk what potion it was.

And what attracted Lu Ning most to the method used by this alchemist was the frugality.

The continuous flow of magic power on the alchemy array saves the use of magic liquid; refining three medicines at the same time saves time; the most important thing is...these medicines are different.

(End of this chapter)