Arcane Journey

Chapter 99 The Alchemist
A thick forest of fungi blocked Brian's way. The fungi here were dense and abundant, with various types, and some mushroom-shaped fungi were even more than ten meters high.

Brian listened, and heard a hissing sound in the fungal jungle, as if there were countless small voices whispering something in a language he couldn't understand.

He stood there thinking for a moment, when the moist breeze lifted a strand of disobedient hair on his forehead, he was stunned and guessed where this fungal forest led.

And he could clearly feel that although these hisses sounded rather weird, they were not dangerous.

Because it's just the tremolo of air blowing over the mushrooms of the dense fungus.

In the deep and dark underground world, it is almost impossible to see the breeze blowing on the face.

It can be seen from this.

In this dense fungal forest, there may well be a hidden path to the surface.

"Did you find anything?" Looking at Bryan who was standing there in deep thought, Sisaiah came up to him, looked at the scenery of the flora, and whispered to him:

"I just saw a few centipedes and small spiders from the surface world on a blue-capped mushroom. Does this mean that this place is likely to have a road to the surface?"

"That's right." Brian nodded, took note of the location here, turned around, and said, "When we finish dealing with the matter here, we will return to the surface directly from this fungal forest."

Hearing Brian's plan, Hesaiah was overjoyed, and quickly caught up with him, "Didn't you say that you want to find a black spire here, do you have an approximate location?"

"Not yet." Brian shook his head slightly, looked thoughtfully at a highland not far from the fungal forest, pointed his finger, and said to her:
"The position over there should be the commanding height of the entire tunnel. Let's go over there, and we should be able to observe the approximate position of the minaret from above."

He and Hesaiah walked quickly to the vicinity of the hill.

It was found that the stairs leading to the top of the mountain were not stacked in concentric circles, but a spiral slope spiraling from the bottom of the cave to the top of the hill.

He also felt that the radiation of the veins on the surrounding stone walls was like an invisible wind blowing, constantly changing the light and shadow.

The light and shadow flowed forward along the stone wall, and then circled the hill, until it reached the top of the mountain that was too dark because of its height.

Layers of hills form a natural ladder, and there is a slope next to it from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, forming a shortcut up the mountain.

"I didn't expect the spiral stripes produced by the radiation of the leylines to have affected the changes in the mountain." Brian looked at the hill in front of him thoughtfully, and said to himself:

"It's no wonder that with the enhancement of the radiant energy of the leylines, it will greatly reduce the difficulty of most demon lords descending their avatars in the material world."

He hesitated no longer, and came to the top of the mountain with Hesaiah.

Just when Brian was about to investigate the surrounding environment, he suddenly heard many mixed voices strangely.

He can clearly distinguish the source of every sound, the rhythmic knocking of blacksmiths, the whistling of the furnace of Aldus King City, the irritated roar of the red dragon Argotus, the crazy screams of the Dilro dwarves, and the death party. Hugh's lingering, even some snippets of dialogue.

The sound of the city above the cave roof fills it like a storm of noise that cannot be dispelled.

Obviously, this is the effect of the radiation of the earth veins, trapping all the sounds above the tunnel here.

"There is a cave there." Hesaiah looked forward, looking at a double door of Zeke wood reinforced with thick steel forging.

"Go and have a look." Standing on the top of the mountain, Brian locked on a steeple surrounded by hazy darkness in the distance, and after noting the location, he became interested in Hesaiah's new discovery.

When he arrived near the cave, he realized that it was not a cave, but an area separated from the main tunnel by stone bricks and gates.

Although the lock on Zeke's double doors was very strong, it still couldn't trouble Brian, who was a spellcaster.

He threw a second-level spell "Knocking" directly at the lock, and the solid door lock fell off automatically with ease.

"Be vigilant, this is very likely the secret base of the gray ghost."

Brian used telepathic voice transmission to explain to the sword mage beside him.

The two deliberately lowered the sound of their footsteps, gently pushed the door open a gap for entry and exit, and quietly got in.

The sickly shimmering caverns were filled with large, earth-filled pits filled with fungi of all kinds.

At least in these pits, Brian recognized a wide variety of fungal plants such as ghost-faced mushrooms, dimple mushrooms, Neil Hogg's nose, torch bacillus, and even some new varieties that have been cultivated.

Mushrooms and fungi of all kinds grew here and there on the floors, walls and ceilings, emitting a lavender phosphorescence.

The air was cold and damp, filled with the strong smell of manure, and the corners of the cave were filled with a mixture of rotting mushrooms, dirt, and animal carcasses.

Several thin, cloaked figures were busy shoveling well-mixed dirt into nearby wheelbarrows.

On the edge of the pit, there is also a large barrel-shaped copper tank, and a long copper pipe protrudes from the copper tank to the vertical pit, which looks like a sprinkler for fungal irrigation and fertilization.

There is no doubt that this is a fungal garden.

In addition to a few Dilo dwarven workers who took care of the fungus, Brian also saw three heavily armed gray dwarf warriors stationed here, leaning listlessly under the canopy of the mushroom in a daze.

With a thought of Brian's mind, the volley sword shining with light blue crystal light appeared in front of him, streaking with cold light, easily clearing away all the guards here.

The two of them didn't waste time, they passed through the fungus cultivation garden silently like ghosts, and continued to walk deep.

After clearing out five more thieves guards, dispelling and avoiding several traps and magic barriers in a row, they came to the eastern half of the cave without any danger.

Due to the low terrain here, the whole area is divided into two floors, connected by a Zeke wooden slope in the middle.

"You go to the west, and I'm in charge of the east." Brian instructed the sword mage next to him through telepathic voice transmission, and walked towards his destination along the shadows.

As soon as he reached a well-equipped laboratory on the upper floor to the east, he heard exclamations and fighting sounds from the lower floor to the west.

Obviously, the sword mage has already fought the enemy.

Brian looked around. He saw that in the laboratory, there was only a workbench, a desk, a cabinet displaying various bottles, and a dome oven.

A duergar alchemist was concentrating on continuing his research, and ignored the sound of fighting coming from below.

Even the figure of him walking in seemed unconscious, buried on the experimental table without raising his head, concentrating on studying a sparkling fire tongue mushroom.

Brian was about to speak when the dark shadow twisted.

A figure wrapped in shadow energy held two daggers with cold light and fiercely stabbed at his heart and neck respectively.

This is a thief who is proficient in lurking and sneak attacking.

—— "Arcane Barrier!"

Suddenly, Brian propped up a protective force field for himself in time, blocking the thief's two daggers one meter away.

——"Second Ring Spell: Explosive Flame!"

The moment the force field emerged, he quickly took out his staff and recited the incantation. The moment the thieves concentrated on the force field barrier, the dazzling fire burst out from his body.

The thief, whose pale pupils were reddened by the flames, looked startled, and retracted his attack in time. With his flexible reaction ability and speed, he successfully avoided the raging range of the flames.

Brian took this opportunity to see clearly that the thief who attacked him was a Dilo dwarf.

Based on his ability to avoid his instant "Explosive Flame Technique", it can be judged that the strength of the opponent is about the third level.

I saw that he missed the blow, and immediately extinguished the flame ignited by the corner of his clothes, and disappeared out of thin air.

Brian glanced at the gray dwarf alchemist who was still concentrating on his research. He held his staff and stood there calmly, motionless.

As a wizard, he naturally knows how to use his own advantages to deal with rogues who are good at stealth and sneak attacks.

Moreover, in the game world, he can proudly say that there are not a thousand rogue players who died in his hands, at least eight hundred.

Whether it's a trickster with both combat skills and a shadow guard assassin in the City of Shadows, or a shadow dancer and ghost dancer who are good at lurking, he has a set of tried and tested methods.

In the long silence.

The sounds of fighting on the lower level to the west faded away, but Brian's side remained silent.

Only the occasional soft sound from the calm gray dwarf alchemist.

At this moment, Brian has plenty of time to compete with this third-tier thief for patience.

Because as long as the battle on Hesaiah's side is over, support will come quickly, and he doesn't even bother to risk using spells to find the opponent's location, just wait quietly.

"Crack!"

A faint sound came from a dark corner.

Brian's expression froze, and the other party finally couldn't help but tried to use long-range attacks to deal with him.

With a sharp sound of piercing the air galloping towards him, he unexpectedly discovered that the crossbow shot at him did have the property of destroying demons.

Demon-breaking equipment is a must for the chopper team to deal with spellcasters.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to break their protective magic with just a physical attack.

"boom!"

The force field barrier hit by the demon-breaking crossbow made a crisp sound like broken glass.

With a thought, Brian used his telekinesis ability to lock onto the Demon Breaker Arrow, which had lost most of its strength by the protective barrier, forcing it to stop flying and fall to the ground.

At the same time, sneak attacks by thieves followed closely.

He had already expected the attack of the thieves.

——"Mage Armor!"

This time, he didn't choose to defend and counterattack, but quickly put a shield on himself.

Because he had already judged the thief hiding in the dark through the weak magic fluctuations, and used some kind of magic item to bless the spell shield.

With the blessing of "Spell Armor", the thief missed two consecutive attacks again. He was about to retreat when he suddenly noticed an invisible ripple floating in the air.

——"Psychic explosion!"

This ripple was like a menacing sledgehammer, hitting the depths of his mind heavily, knocking him to the spot in an instant.

Seeing the thieves in a state of shock for a short time, Brian concentrated, and the second control psychic power came in an instant.

——"Star Entanglement!"

A mass of viscous astral energy was extracted by him from a distant star realm, and it floated out of thin air at the bottom of the thief's feet, sticking it tightly to the ground.

There was a hint of panic on the thief's cold expression, he quickly raised his feet and jumped, trying to get rid of the elastic slime.

"Pfft!"

In this short moment, Brian calmly controlled the volley sword, quickly appeared from behind him, and mercilessly cut him open.

"Target is dead!"

"Draining soul energy."

"Acquired experience points: 3500 points!"

…………

In the battle between wizards and thieves, wizards can rely on their full range of spells, so that even if they miss many times, they still have a chance to gain the upper hand.

And thieves are different.

Once they are hit by the wizard's control spell, even if they are only slightly affected, they are likely to be caught by the wizard in an instant to meet their continuous control and attack spells.

Bryan is not only a wizard, but also a Psionist, which allows him to have a huge room for manipulation with the cooperation between magic and psychic power.

With his current strength, even if a Tier [-] thief breaks through his shield with a sneak attack and powerful magic weapon without the first time, it is very likely that he will be killed on the spot by a simple one-ring spell.

As for the fighters below the legendary level, it's not worth mentioning. This group of fighters can almost be hung up by him in all directions 360 degrees without dead ends.

This is the insurmountable gap between spellcasters and physical professions.

After searching for the loot, Brian walked towards the gray dwarf alchemist.

"Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

Seeing Brian approaching, the gray dwarf alchemist finally recovered from his focused research, and begged for mercy with a look of fear on his face: "I can give you whatever you want to know and any potion you want."

Brian looked at the gray dwarf calmly: he was bald, thin, and his eyes were bloodshot. "You are an exile, what's your name?"

"My name is Rocio Barbacan, my lord." The alchemist replied quickly:
"In order to buy alchemy knowledge, I was exiled by the family because of stealing. I was forced to join the gray ghost, relying on the refining potion, and obtaining the research resources they gave. But I can assure you, I have never killed a person, then A group of thieves locked me here, and apart from refining poison for them, I have been focusing on my own research."

While listening to the duergar's explanation, Brian looked at the counter where various bottles were stored.

Various high-quality alchemy potions, such as Blazing Glue, Acid Bottle, Mind Resistance Potion, Flame Breath Potion, Life Potion, etc., are all placed here.

From the fineness of the potion, he could tell that the alchemy mastered by this gray dwarf had already reached an advanced level, perhaps not as far away from the master level as imagined.

He glanced at the many books that the alchemist put on the table that recorded how to use fungi to refine magic potions, pondered for a moment, and said to him, "I won't kill you, but the premise of all this is that you will serve me."

"When I entered here, I observed your cultivation garden."

After thinking for a while, he added in a professional tone, "In my opinion, the fungi you planted are simply appalling compared to the mushroom people. That's why the quality of the potions you refine has always been difficult to improve." .”

"That's right, that's right, your lord is right." The alchemist nodded his bald head in agreement, and smiled wryly:
"Of course I know these reasons, but I have never learned the technique of growing fungi. I can only slowly try to cultivate new qualities through the cultivation garden."

"If you are willing to follow me, I can not only give you abundant resources, but also provide you with several mushroommen who are good at planting to serve you, and even teach you the potion technology of mushroommen."

Bryan stated his conditions, "As for my conditions, in addition to serving me for life, you must help me train apprentices as much as possible and increase the production of potions."

"But." The gray dwarf alchemist looked hesitant and didn't know how to speak.

"I know what you're worried about." Brian saw through his thoughts and said with a smile:
"Don't worry, I can assure you that as long as you agree to my conditions, I will ask the King of the Deep to release your status as an exile. If you show enough value, I can even transfer the entire Vortex I will give it to you as your private domain."

The gray dwarf alchemist was delighted when he heard this, and then his eyes widened, looking suspiciously at the half-elf wizard who obviously came from the surface.

"If you don't believe it, you can leave with confidence and find a way out. I won't stop you." Brian didn't bother to explain too much. He took out a few bottles of potions that he needed from the counter and said to him:

"Of course, if you think my words are trustworthy, then you should stay here for the time being and don't run around until the notice to release your status as an exile is personally handed over to you."

"I am willing to wait, my lord. Rossio is willing to stay here and serve my lord for the rest of my life." The alchemist gritted his teeth and nodded hastily.

"Then you stay here honestly." Brian left behind a sentence, turned and left.

As soon as he walked out of the laboratory, he met Hisaiah who came towards him after the battle.

"Injured?" Noticing the blood on the sword mage's wrist, he asked subconsciously.

"It's just a small injury." Hesaiah snorted softly and said nonchalantly, "The gray ghost thieves, including their leader, have all been cleaned up by me."

"This is a healing potion, take it."

He handed her a bottle of potion, and then, as usual, he stretched out his hand and threw her a simple cleansing technique, which cleaned the blood from her whole body and made her look radiant again.

Seeing the wound on his wrist gradually healed, Hesaiah hesitated, caught up with Brian, took out a dimensional bag, and handed it to him, "I have scoured the wealth accumulated by the gray ghost, and it is all here."

Brian stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the smiling sword mage. For a moment, he was a little at a loss.

"No matter how ambitious the goal is, it must be based on wealth." Looking at Brian's funny expression, Hesaiah couldn't help laughing, "Besides, I've never been short of money, take it."

Brian was stunned for a moment, and couldn't help admiring Sisaiah's exquisite face with a smile.

He suddenly found that this noble lady at this time was really attractive.

She is like a walnut, the outer hard shell has cracks, as long as she is willing to put more effort, she can take out the delicious pulp at any time, put it in her mouth and taste it to her heart's content.

But in that case, it is inevitable that there will be broken shells on the pulp.

It's better to let her take the initiative to break the hard shell and clean it up, and bring it to her own mouth for perfection.

Of course, this was just a whim, but he never thought of actually putting it into action.

"It's because you think too much. I never said that I was short of money." Brian took the dimensional bag from Hesaiah's hand calmly and said to her, "I'm called careful budgeting and thrifty housekeeping. I don't look like you. This kind of loser..."

Realizing that something was wrong with his words, he quickly shut up, turned around and left her a back view.

Sisaiah didn't think much, she was amused by Brian's strong argument, and laughed out loud.

Looking at his back, she suddenly realized that he also had such an interesting side.

She put away the smile on her face and caught up with him, "Where are you going next?"

"To Black Spire."

Brian seemed to think of something, and joked to her: "When the problem here is resolved, I will take you to witness a kind father and son filial piety staged by the gray dwarf prince for us."

　There is only one update today, and I have to get up early to drive back to the company tomorrow.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)