Category: The Azure Longsword

Chapter 24: Steamrolling

“Third, Eleanor seemed to have some difficulty maintaining stability when she was taking the attacks just now.” Asker turned to Eleanor again. “Don’t you know how to deflect force with the shield?”

“Deflect force?” Eleanor showed an embarrassed and ashamed expression. “Can you elaborate?”

“Raise your shield.” Asker said.

Eleanor raised her shield as instructed.

“Stand with your feet one in front of the other, your center of gravity temporarily on the front foot, and your back foot lightly touching the ground.” Asker said, “The moment my attack lands on the shield, move your center of gravity to your back foot.”

“This way the shield will move back slightly.” Eleanor tried it out.

“The essence of moving back is to enhance the buffering of your arms, so as to better deflect the force on the shield.” Asker added, “When moving back, if the attack landing point is on the left side of the shield’s midline, you tilt the shield to the left; conversely, tilt it to the right. Avoid the enemy’s attack hitting your shield vertically at 90 degrees, otherwise you will have to bear all the force head-on, understand?”

“I understand!” Nuo raised her hand and said, “Assuming that an attack with a force of N comes vertically, and Eleanor tilts the shield by a degrees. Then according to the orthogonal decomposition of force, Eleanor actually only needs to bear the force of N*cos_a, and cos_a is less than 1.”

“I don’t understand.” Eleanor said tearfully. This seemed to be mathematical knowledge, right? However, she grew up in the castle, and literacy and martial arts were taught by private tutors hired from outside. She had never attended any formal school.

“Almost.” Asker said, “If the tilt angle is greater than 45 degrees, then the swords and knives that land on the shield will be more likely to slide off than be blocked. There is a kind of small round shield in Franconia, not much bigger than an adult’s palm, and Franconian mercenaries can skillfully use this kind of small shield to slide or deflect the enemy’s attacks. It may not be convenient for you to slide off attacks with the kite shield you are using, Eleanor, but you can still deflect force.”

“Okay.” Eleanor tried tilting the shield.

“Let’s move on.” Asker finally said, “The visibility in the forest at night is very low, everyone should be vigilant, especially pay attention to the sounds in the surrounding environment. I was able to find that Dream Eater just now because I heard the faint sound it made.”

Everyone nodded. Suddenly, a lark’s chirping sounded from the side. Eleanor shuddered, immediately raised her shield and spear, and looked around. Peggy also quickly disappeared from her spot. Nuo took out her mobile phone from her bag and said embarrassedly:

“Sorry, everyone. It’s my phone ringing.”

“Turn off your phone ringtone!” Asker said, both amused and annoyed. When players ran dungeons, it was already a professional habit to put their phones on airplane mode, how could they cause so much trouble?

“Hello, sis.” Nuo walked aside and answered the phone. “I’m working. Why are you still awake so late?”

“I’m working overtime on the group’s acquisition case.” On the other end of the phone, Capasirin, Nuo’s eldest sister, drank a cup of coffee and complained, “The Duke of Normandy is biting the price of 6 pounds per share and refusing to let go. My business negotiation team has been grinding with him for three days… Forget it, what’s going on with that picture on your social circle? Dream Eater? You little girl are quite capable, you have become an extraordinary being, right? What Sequence are you?”

“Life Sequence.” Nuo whispered.

“Oh, haven’t you always wanted to be a doctor?” Capasirin sighed. “It’s okay to be a doctor, but you don’t have to be an extraordinary being. Don’t you know that becoming an extraordinary being will reduce fertility? Mother will definitely cry again when she finds out.”

“Then don’t tell her yet, sis.” Nuo said coquettishly. “We are exploring a deserted island on the Black Sea now, I’ll talk to you later, bye.”

“Wait! Don’t hang up!” Capasirin sat up. “Have you joined some team? Is it reliable and formal? Don’t be one of those that cheat money and sex… What’s the name of the team?”

“I’m not a child!” Nuo said angrily. “Our mercenary group is called ‘Azure Longsword,’ do you even know it?”

“No.” Capasirin said, “Instead of joining such an unknown small mercenary group, I might as well arrange it for you. I know the leader of the Iron Cross Mercenary Group in the Holy Roman Empire, I can ask them to recruit you!”

“Sister, I joined the mercenary group because I want to become an extraordinary being, not to travel and find bodyguards, or to have a bunch of people running around to serve me.” Nuo said bluntly. “Instead of worrying about your sister, you might as well think about getting married soon! Bye.”

“You…” Capasirin’s angry voice sounded, and then the phone was hung up. Nuo stomped her foot irritably and came back with a grumpy expression.

“Okay.” Asker nodded. “Everyone, pay attention, put your phones on airplane mode…”

“Sorry.” Medea took out her vibrating phone. “I have a call to answer too.”

“Hurry up and come back.” Asker’s face darkened.

Medea stood where she was, glanced at the number, answered the phone, and said directly:

“I quit, I resign.”

“Don’t you understand what resignation means? It means I’m done playing with you guys!”

“Treason? Yes, I’m betraying you, come and bite me if you dare!”

She hung up the phone fiercely, dragged the entire address book into the blacklist, and then directly turned off the phone. Looking up, she saw the others staring at her in astonishment.

“Miss Medea…” Eleanor opened her mouth.

“Don’t ask.” Medea said impatiently. “Personal matters, not convenient to talk about.”

“Okay.” Asker waved his hand. “Have the rest of you turned off your phones? Let’s go!”

The team set off again and soon found a clearing in the forest, where three Dream Eaters were wandering.

Out of the desire deep in their spirituality, extraordinary creatures would often actively attack extraordinary people. These Dream Eaters obviously hadn’t found everyone’s presence yet. Eleanor stared at them and asked in the mental channel:

“Do we go around, or take them down?”

“Take them down.” Asker replied, “They are all experience points. Peggy, go around and wait first, see that big rock over there? Jump off the rock and launch a surprise attack. At the same time, Eleanor, charge forward with your shield, I will support you from the side. Medea, maintain the mental suggestion, Nuo, you follow Medea.”

“Understood.” The girls replied in unison.

Peggy quickly completed the flanking maneuver and said so in the channel, so Eleanor took the lead and charged out of the forest with her shield.

Opening move: Shield Bash.

The classic centurion tactic of ancient Solomon was to charge and hit with the shield, then stab the enemy’s abdomen with a short sword. In the knight tactics of the Holy Solomon Empire that had been passed down to this day, the short sword was replaced with a spear, called “Drachenlanze” (Dragon Spear).

Eleanor first slammed into the Dream Eater on the far right with her shield during the full charge, sending it flying, and at the same time, she stabbed forward with the spear in her right hand, piercing the Dream Eater’s body in the air, and then slammed it hard on the ground.

The other two Dream Eaters were startled and turned around, at this time, a figure jumped down from the big rock behind them. Peggy raised her short sword in the air, stabbed downwards in a graceful diving posture, and pinned a Dream Eater to the ground with the help of gravity. After landing, she rolled quickly and instantly disappeared into the grass behind the tree.

With a clang, the long mouth of the other Dream Eater suddenly popped out and hit Eleanor’s shield. The latter immediately deflected the force by tilting the shield, deflecting the Dream Eater’s long mouth to the side.

Asker fired continuously from the side, chasing after the Dream Eater that had fallen to the ground at first. The Dream Eater rolled left and right on the ground in a panic, but was still hit by bullets continuously. Coupled with the wound on its abdomen that was constantly bleeding, it soon collapsed to the ground exhausted.

The last remaining Dream Eater turned around and tried to flee. Asker and Eleanor charged forward at the same time, one with a sword and the other with a spear, blocking its escape route from left and right. With a flurry of slashes, they killed the Dream Eater on the spot, then turned around and finished off the remaining two Dream Eaters with low HP.

“Review?” While Peggy was collecting materials over there, Eleanor asked. She liked this kind of post-battle analysis and review session very much, which could help her quickly find her own shortcomings.

“Hmm.” Asker said, “Who taught you that Dragon Spear move?”

“My father.” Eleanor replied. “Is there a problem?”

“The movements are standard, and the rhythm is good.” Asker commented, “The only problem is, after piercing the target with the spear, why throw it to the ground instead of throwing it at other enemies?”

“You mean, use it as a temporary weapon?” Eleanor said thoughtfully.

“Dragon Spear is not just an attack skill, it is also a grappling skill. In the professional circle, control skills are often much more valuable than attack skills.” Asker said, “Imagine, now you are standing in a narrow environment, facing two enemies at the same time. You must quickly break through one first to avoid the danger of being attacked from both sides. Should you risk your firepower to kill one of them? Or should you prioritize controlling one and then take the opportunity to kill the other?”

“I understand.” Eleanor said, as if a new world had opened up to her. “I first use Dragon Spear to pick up one, and then throw it at the other enemy. If the other party dodges, I can pursue; if the other party is knocked down, I can take the opportunity to use the spear to string the two together.”

“That’s almost what I mean.” Asker said, “If we go deeper, it will be two different fighting styles. The former emphasizes the suppression of combo flow, while the latter emphasizes the active creation of opportunities for a sure-kill flow, including the depth of the Dragon Spear piercing and the direction of throwing it out are different. But now let’s lay a good foundation. After this dungeon is over, I will give you targeted training.”

“Okay.” Eleanor nodded.

“Medea.” Asker turned his head. “Is the spiritual burden of maintaining communication heavy? Can you use the ability of Fire I to assist in output at the same time?”

“Because of a certain reason you know, my Fire I is a bit unstable.” Medea said after pondering for a moment. “If you want, I can try.”

After collecting the alchemy materials, everyone set off again, and along the way, they dealt with dozens of Dream Eaters one after another. This kind of extraordinary creature was originally a fragile assassin-type mob with low HP and defense. The only tricky extraordinary ability was invisibility. Once they encountered someone like Asker who could see through camouflage, it was almost effortless to fight them.

Soon, they pushed to the first boss.

Chapter 23: The Dream Eater

From the outside, the island looked like an ordinary deserted island, with a mountain in the center and lush forests surrounding it. What was strange was that there were no birds singing or insects chirping in the forest, as if it had fallen into a strange silence. Only the rustling sound of the sea breeze blowing through the leaves made it seem extraordinarily mysterious in the night.

“Everyone, pay attention, I’m going to introduce the dungeon rules now.” Asker clapped his hands, attracting everyone’s attention.

“Dungeon?” The good student Nuo raised her hand. “What is a dungeon?”

“Let’s first clarify a concept.” In order to make it easier for himself to command later, Asker decided to instill some “player common sense” in everyone. “During the mission, we may explore some dangerous areas, so we need to be vigilant throughout the process and adhere to the team combat regulations. We call these dangerous areas ‘dungeons.’ The act of entering a ‘dungeon’ is called ‘running a dungeon.’”

Strange terms… Everyone looked at each other, silently memorizing them in their hearts.

“When running a dungeon, you need to pay attention to the difference between mobs and bosses.” Asker continued to popularize professional terms. “Mobs are weak enemies. Bosses are powerful enemies. A dungeon is often composed of several bosses and many mobs. The standard for fighting mobs is efficiency and pursuing no injuries, while the standard for fighting bosses is to preserve oneself. Of course, the most important thing is to obey orders, listen to commands, understand?”

“Understood.” Everyone replied sparsely.

“Medea.” Asker snapped his fingers. “Open the team communication channel.”

“Communication channel?” Medea wondered.

“Establish a mental link with me and the others.” Asker said.

Medea curled her lips and established a mental link with everyone. Immediately, everyone began to communicate online:

“Is this mental communication?” Nuo’s voice sounded in everyone’s minds. “It’s real! I just thought about it, and the sound automatically sounded in my mind!”

“I’ll try it too!” Eleanor followed suit in the mental communication. “Hello, Nuo, how are you?”

“I’m fine!” Nuo responded.

“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa！.” Peggy started spamming.

“Stop making noise!” Medea said angrily. “Frequent communication is a great burden on my spirituality!”

“Everyone keep quiet, private chat is prohibited in the team communication channel.” Asker said. “If anyone disobeys the instructions, Medea, you ban her… that is, cut off her connection.”

Immediately, the channel fell silent.

“That’s it.” Asker said, “Eleanor, take the shield and go to the front. Peggy on the left, me on the right, Medea and Nuo in the middle. Next, once we encounter an enemy, Medea will first cast a group mental suggestion to make them try to attack Eleanor. Eleanor, don’t think about counterattacking, just focus on blocking with the shield.”

“Peggy will flank from the left and kill the enemy, prioritizing those without armor or with light armor, leaving the heavily armored enemies to me. Nuo will pay attention to the battlefield situation throughout the process, focusing on taking care of Eleanor and healing her in time. Have you all remembered?”

“No.” Everyone shook their heads repeatedly.

“Then I’ll say it again…” Asker said, both amused and annoyed. These were very simple dungeon running knowledge, and players wouldn’t need any nonsense, but unfortunately, the girls in the team were all newbies. He repeated it twice, and everyone finally understood.

Eleanor had the best defensive equipment in the team, so the task of rushing to the front and attracting attacks was given to her. In order to ensure that the attacks would not accidentally injure others, Medea needed to continuously cast mental suggestions (which was also known as directional hatred).

Without having to worry about being attacked, Asker and Peggy could focus on output, one dealing with lightly armored enemies, the other dealing with heavily armored enemies. Nuo was responsible for healing, this was the so-called five-corner combat model.

“Let’s go when you remember it clearly!” Asker waved his hand. “Speed up, move!”

So everyone set off in a chaotic manner. The reason why it was chaotic was because the team formation was not strict, and there were often people who fell behind because they walked too fast or too slow. If the opponent was a team of professional players, they could basically seize the opportunity to break through the formation with a surprise attack and isolate and divide the team members.

However, compared to ordinary players, the girls’ discipline was still much higher, and the NPC mercenaries in this world were even more incomparable. Did NPC mercenaries have any tactical awareness? This was still a question.

Entering the forest, everyone scanned their surroundings vigilantly and nervously. Since it was not yet 4 a.m., the depths of the forest, where the oil lamps could not reach, were shrouded in deep and thick darkness, and for a while, everyone even felt a little paranoid.

However, seeing the calm demeanor of their leader, Asker, everyone felt a little more at ease. At this moment, a gunshot suddenly rang out.

Asker had somehow drawn out Aphrodite and pulled the trigger at the back of a tree. A scream rang out, and a figure was blown out.

It was a transparent monster, which began to bleed after being hit by the bullet, and its figure gradually emerged. It had the size of a porcupine, curled ears and long hair like hard thorns all over its body, but its mouth was a long and thin tube, curled up and tightened like a whirlpool.

“Be careful, everyone, this is a Dream Eater!” Medea warned in the channel.

Eleanor immediately shuddered. She remembered the legend her father had told her when she was a child. It was said that this invisible extraordinary creature would sneak into people’s homes in the middle of the night and suck people’s brains with its thin tube mouth.

Sometimes the victims would wake up in their sleep, but even though their consciousness was awake, their bodies could not move, and they could only feel that they were being pressed down by some invisible monster.

“Eleanor, charge and shield bash, Peggy, flank and backstab, Medea, use suggestion!” Asker immediately gave the order.

Eleanor charged forward with her shield. Under Medea’s suggestion, the Dream Eater also quickly turned its head towards Eleanor, its curled long mouth suddenly stretched out like a chameleon and hit Eleanor’s steel shield hard.

The force of the long mouth’s ejection was so great that Eleanor was even slightly knocked back, and the steel shield almost flew out of her hand. In the next second, Peggy appeared behind it at an almost instantaneous speed, her short sword stabbing fiercely at its buttocks.

The sword entered the flesh, and blood gushed out. The Dream Eater cried out in pain, raised all its hard thorns, and suddenly bit back. However, Peggy had been taught the essence of agility output, which was “one hit, then move,” and she had already run far away, not even taking the short sword that was stuck in it.

“Eleanor, advance, everyone else retreat, Medea, maintain the mental suggestion!” Asker said quickly, firing three shots in a row with Aphrodite in his hand, forcibly pulling the Dream Eater’s attention back with new pain.

Eleanor took the opportunity to approach, slammed her left shoulder against the shield and slammed it hard, knocking the Dream Eater’s head back, and her right spear shot out like lightning, piercing its soft abdomen.

There was another loud bang. The dying Dream Eater ejected its long mouth again, violently colliding with Eleanor’s shield. At the same time, Peggy had already rushed behind the Dream Eater, pulled out her short sword, and stabbed it again with her backhand.

The Dream Eater, covered in wounds, finally ran out of its last bit of HP and collapsed to the ground with a wail. Light blue extraordinary power emanated from its body and disappeared – automatically absorbed by the five people present, becoming everyone’s experience points.

The first battle was won. Because it was the first time they had successfully killed an extraordinary creature, the girls were both relieved and excited. Nuo was the first to rush forward, taking out her mobile phone and taking pictures of the Dream Eater’s corpse.

“Can I post it on my social circle, Asker?” She turned to ask Asker, her big eyes full of hope.

“Go ahead.” Asker said, both amused and annoyed. Why were these girls’ thought processes completely different from those of players? Shouldn’t they check the drops first?

“If only we were in my father’s territory.” Eleanor said regretfully, “Uncle John could make it into a specimen and hang it on the wall of the castle’s inner hall as a trophy.”

“It would be a waste to make it into a specimen.” Asker said, “The spiritual material on the Dream Eater is the skin at the base of the longest thorn on its back, the color will be a shade lighter than other places.”

“I see it.” Peggy said as she pulled out her short sword, grabbed the longest thorn of the Dream Eater, and cut off the skin around it and put it away.

Nuo had already finished taking pictures, it was a picture of her making a victory gesture in front of the Dream Eater’s corpse, and she uploaded it to her CM social circle, and soon people started liking it.

“Our newcomer is very strong, killing an extraordinary creature at level 1? And it’s a Dream Eater?” A user from the Life School commented.

“Nuo? Where have you been? You haven’t even called home for so long, our father is furious!” This comment seemed to be from her sister, whose nickname was “Eldest Daughter of Dawn, Capasirin.”

“Dream Eater? Could it be that you encountered people from Dreamland Paradise?” This comment was posted by Kieran Bonat.

Nuo was about to ask what “Dreamland Paradise” was, when Kieran followed up with another reply: “If you confirm that this Dream Eater is not wild, I suggest you run away quickly. Those people from Dreamland Paradise are crazy about finding the fragments of Paradise Mountain, they are like mad dogs biting and killing everywhere, they can’t be messed with.”

“Asker, is Dreamland Paradise some kind of secret organization?” Nuo looked up and asked Asker puzzled.

“It’s a secret sect that masters the Dream Sequence and possesses the ‘Dream Angel’ bloodline path.” Asker said, “The Dream Sequence is the natural enemy of the Desire Sequence, Medea will have to be careful later.”

“???” Medea was stunned for a while, then suddenly said, “My Queen Mother did seem to warn me before that I must be careful of extraordinary people from the Dream Sequence when I’m outside.”

“Queen Mother?” The other girls turned their heads when they heard this.

“Ah, no.” Medea said casually, “I mean mother… slip of the tongue. Speaking of which, if it’s really those people from Dreamland Paradise, what should we do?”

“What else can we do when we are already in the dungeon?” Asker said with his arms crossed, “Treat them as bosses and take them down. Let’s review this battle first, there are still many problems.”

He walked to the place where the Dream Eater was hiding at first, behind a big tree, turned back and said to everyone:

“I fired the first shot. The question is… why didn’t Eleanor, who was walking in the front, find it?”

“Ahem.” Eleanor said awkwardly, “It was hiding in a very good position, covered by trees, it was hard to see in the night, and it could also turn invisible.”

“It’s true that we can’t blame you for this.” Asker said, “Eleanor’s main task is to focus on how to guard against sneak attacks from the surroundings. Otherwise, if you are killed at the beginning, there will be no more dungeons to run. For enemies who are not attacking but ambushing, you can’t devote more attention to finding them.”

“Nuo, write it down.” He stared at the Dream Eater and said, “Our team needs a scout next.”

“A scout?” Nuo wrote down quickly. “We need a character who can scout the enemy.”

“A ranger, thief, or assassin will do, responsible for controlling the overall battlefield situation and providing an early warning mechanism for the team.” Asker said, “Second, one problem exposed in this battle is that our output is still too weak.”

“The Dream Eater’s attack burst is very strong, which means that Eleanor can’t counterattack while defending with her shield. Peggy is an agility output, her output curve has ups and downs, and my pistol’s firepower is still weak. If we had another output, then when Peggy made her first round of flanking attacks, we could attack from both sides, focus fire together, and shorten the kill time by half.”

“So we need to find an output?” Nuo also roughly understood that “output” meant damage dealer. “What kind of profession do we need specifically?”

“For a creature like the Dream Eater, another gunman would be enough. I mean a professional gunman.” Asker said, “If the Dream Eater had more HP, what we need might not be a gunman, but a melee warrior, equipped with armor-piercing weapons such as a heavy axe or a mace.”

“Then recruit another gunman and a melee armor-piercing warrior.” Nuo quickly wrote it down.

“In very few cases, if the enemy has very high physical defense, such as ghosts, then we need an Arcane Mage.” Asker concluded, “Before the roles are filled, I can act as the gunman, Medea can act as the mage, the key is to recruit a thief and an armor-piercing warrior.”

Chapter 22: The Lonely Island in the Black Sea

“Choose a mission.” Asker looked away, forcing himself not to think about the unexplainable question of “why there are only beautiful NPCs in my team.”

“Can we choose any mission?” Nuo also stared at the screen and began to copy the scrolling mission content above.

“Yes.” Asker said, “The missions above can be freely accepted, the only problem is the cost-effectiveness.”

“Cost-effectiveness?” Eleanor was a little puzzled.

“First of all, everyone needs to understand that the content, difficulty, and reward of the mission are all given by the mission publisher themselves.” Asker pointed to the screen and said, “The Mercenary Guild is just a third-party platform for information exchange, and generally does not and cannot audit or restrict the authenticity of the mission, so there will inevitably be problems of false reporting of mission information.”

“For example, when the enemy is actually a goblin tribe with ogres, the mission publisher is afraid that no mercenary will accept it, so they lie and say that there are only two or three goblins. This kind of deliberate lowering of the mission difficulty is the most common.” Asker continued, “For example, the mission reward is 100 pounds, but the mission publisher is a farmer from a nearby village. How can a farmer possibly be rich enough to spend 100 pounds to release a mission? There is no doubt that the other party is offering a false price, and from the beginning, they have planned to pay less or even default on payment afterwards.”

“If we waste a lot of time on this kind of mission with cost-effectiveness problems, it will undoubtedly be very detrimental to the development of the team.” Asker finally concluded, “A senior who used to be a mercenary once said that the best mercenaries are not those who can fight the most, but those who are best at getting the mission reward into their pockets.”

Nuo nodded constantly beside him, writing down a sentence in her notebook: How to actually get the mission reward (circled in emphasis).

“Then how can we distinguish from the vast list of missions those that are truly cost-effective and worth doing?” Eleanor asked.

“This can only be seen from experience, practice makes perfect.” Asker stared at the screen and said, “Eh, Paradise Mountain?”

“Paradise Mountain?” Nuo looked at the screen, but did not see any words related to “paradise.” She saw that Asker had already communicated with the lady at the counter, it seemed that he wanted to take on a certain mission, and the latter replied fluently:

“Azure Longsword Mercenary Group, number MS-995017-247, requests to undertake the ‘Black Sea Fishing Boat Missing’ mission, number 1000000012763212. The mission publisher has a message, do you want to listen to it?”

“Yes.” Asker said.

So the lady at the counter took out a microphone from under the desk and clicked on the corresponding audio file on the computer:

“I am the village head of Burgas Village in the Thrace Province of the Empire. Last month, several fishermen from our village went fishing in the Black Sea and disappeared on the same day, never to return. The latitude and longitude coordinates of the last fishing boat signal were 43 degrees 32 minutes 11 seconds north latitude, 32 degrees 2 minutes 26 seconds east longitude.”

“The families of the missing and other villagers in the village have raised about 3 pounds as a reward. If you can find and rescue them, we are willing to pay 3 pounds to thank you; if you only find their remains, we are also willing to pay 30 denarius silver coins to thank you.”

“Let’s take this one.” Asker made the decision.

“Then please scan the QR code under the counter and download our ‘Constantinople Mercenary Guild’ APP.” The lady at the counter said, “Your default account is the full spelling of the mercenary group name, the default password is eight 8s. After logging in, you can publish mission logs online and listen to relevant mission audio. After completing the mission, you only need to bring the people or remains to the guild, and the reward will be credited to your APP account, please remember to bind your bank card.”

“A month has passed, the probability of the victims surviving should be very low, right?” Medea analyzed, “If we only find the remains, I’m afraid it won’t even be enough to cover our round-trip boat fare.”

“Anyway, we are just practicing, it doesn’t matter what mission we take on.” Asker said with a smile, “Maybe there will be unexpected gains.”

Unexpected gains? Medea frowned, hearing the implication in Asker’s words. The others were taking on a mercenary mission for the first time and were still in a state of ignorance, so they did not raise any objections.

The Black Sea was located north of Constantinople, and to its north was the Principality of Kiev. The two countries mainly traded in fur and timber, and there were fleets running corresponding routes. Asker and the others searched around the Golden Horn pier and finally found a merchant ship willing to carry them.

“43 degrees 32 minutes 11 seconds north latitude, 32 degrees 2 minutes 26 seconds east longitude?” The shipowner looked at the string of coordinates and said, “I did see a newly emerged island in the waters near there recently when I was running the route to Ochakiv.”

“A newly emerged island?” Nuo was immediately interested when she heard this. “Have you gone ashore to see it?”

“Little girl, being too curious is not a good thing at sea.” The shipowner shook his head and said with a smile, “Anyway, it must be either crustal movement or some kind of supernatural event that caused this new island to appear. There may be some dangerous extraordinary creatures on it. For example, there is a large venomous snake island near that sea area, full of snakes with spirituality. If you are bitten, you will die immediately. The venom is so strong that it is said to even annihilate the soul.”

“Snake Island?” Nuo immediately felt goosebumps all over her body.

“That’s right, so this newly emerged island may not be safe either.” The shipowner said, “The missing fishermen you are looking for do have the possibility of being stranded and forced to go ashore there, but I can’t let my sailors risk their lives for this. At most, I can only send you to the shallow waters near the island, and then give you a small boat to go ashore on your own.”

“One day later, my freighter will return from Kievan Rus’, and will wait for you near that island for a maximum of two hours. If you don’t show up, we will leave on our own. And, you need to pay 5 pounds for a one-way ticket. Pay 1 pound in advance, and pay the remaining 4 pounds after getting on the boat. If you can come back alive from the island, you will need to pay another 5 pounds.”

In other words, even if they could find the missing fishermen, this mission was destined to lose 7 pounds. Medea did not speak, squinting at Asker, only to hear him readily agree:

“Okay, here is the 1 pound banknote in advance.”

Sure enough, Asker was not aiming for the mission reward at all. Was there something wrong with the identities of the missing fishermen? Or was it the island itself? Medea secretly wondered.

“Okay.” The shipowner took the banknote and said, “My cargo should be loaded, come with me.”

The freighter docked at the pier was called the “White Iliana,” a coastal freighter that had been running in the Black Sea for many years. The center of the ship’s deck was a recess for containers, and the sailors ran back and forth on the passageway next to the recess and close to the bulwarks, responsible for maintaining the normal navigation of the freighter.

Asker and the others boarded the ship, immediately attracting curious eyes from the surroundings. These sailors were all ordinary people, with neither extraordinary power nor any firearms or weapons, no wonder the shipowner said it was impossible to let these sailors go on an “adventure.”

After reporting to the port office in Constantinople, the White Iliana officially set sail. The departure time was 6 p.m., which was dinner time. The members of the mercenary group were therefore fortunate enough to enjoy a “sea dinner” in the cabin with the sailors: hard-boiled salt water spaghetti, a small bag of ketchup, beans and pork stew cans, and sardine cans.

Peggy picked at the beans in the pork can boredly, her face expressionless. Eleanor had a good appetite and ate all the spaghetti dipped in ketchup, then started to work on the sardines. Nuo opened two cans, but lost her appetite after just smelling them, and slowly ate the spaghetti with a fork.

“Here.” Medea handed Nuo a sausage. “I just bought it from a sailor.”

“Thank you.” Nuo thanked her politely.

“You didn’t use your Mind I ability to ‘buy’ it, did you?” Asker said teasingly.

“Mind your own business.” Medea rolled her eyes.

Asker ate a little of each dish and filled his stomach. Looking out of the porthole, night had gradually fallen, and the sailors had returned to their cabins to rest, leaving only a few people on watch. The shipowner asked the first mate to bring a few sleeping bags, which did not look like the sailors’ bedding, probably the captain’s own collection.

So everyone lay down in their clothes in the cabin. At about 3 a.m., Asker was awakened by a knock on the door and opened his eyes.

“You have arrived at your destination.” A sailor opened the cabin door and said.

Peggy climbed out of her sleeping bag and pushed Eleanor next to her awake. Medea sat up, covering her mouth and yawning non-stop, her beautiful wine-red hair also messed up. Only Nuo seemed to be a little grumpy when she got up. Eleanor called her for a long time before she woke up, and she was a little depressed.

Everyone walked out of the cabin and saw the outline of the island faintly emerging from the night on the left side of the ship. The first mate directed the sailors to put a day’s worth of dry food for five people, ropes, oil lamps, two oars, and a few signal flares on the small boat hanging by the side of the ship, and then shouted for the members of the mercenary group to get on the boat.

After paying the remaining four pounds, the small boat carrying everyone was gradually lowered into the cold sea water. Now even Nuo, who had not woken up yet, was fully awake, looking at the undulating sea around her and asking:

“Are we rowing over now?”

“Of course.” Asker said. He and Eleanor each picked up a pair of oars, paddling the water and pushing the boat towards the island.

Although the island looked not far away, it took everyone half an hour to reach the shore. Fortunately, there was a beach next to the island, so the small boat was smoothly washed ashore by the sea water.

“We must tie the rope to the tree on the shore, otherwise the small boat will be washed away by the rising tide.” Asker said. Everyone worked together to tie one end of the rope to the iron nail at the bow of the small boat, and the other end to the tree trunk on the shore.

Asker looked at the beach and felt relieved. This island… was indeed the same as the game in his previous life. The only difference was that in his previous life, countless player guilds landed on this island, and there was almost a group PK incident on the shoal, while in this world, only his five-person team came to the island.

That shipowner was right. A new island that suddenly appeared for no reason was most likely caused by a supernatural event. It was definitely dangerous, and the benefits were not necessarily there, so NPC mercenaries who felt it was not worthwhile would basically not come.

However, for players who were immortal, any danger was simply a joke. Players only cared about whether the benefits were big enough. Since this island was brought by a supernatural event, there was a high probability that there would be high-value things on the island that matched the corresponding difficulty.

And it turned out to be true in the end.

Chapter 21: Azure Longsword

“It arrived so quickly?” Nuo was astonished.

She had only submitted the application at noon, and in the afternoon she was notified that she had successfully joined the Life School and was pulled into the internal group chat. Along with the notification came a same-city package from the Landscape Architecture Association, which contained the special brandy blended with 10 kinds of fruits, three Flowers of the Eden Tree, and the topaz ring symbolizing the membership certificate.

So what are we waiting for? Let’s start brewing the potion!

Taking out the newly bought crucible, Asker poured the brandy into it, and immediately the rich aroma filled the entire study.

Asker scooped out the Corfu olive oil and poured a spoonful into the brandy. The liquid in the crucible immediately showed a clear stratification. He took out a Fruit of Eden again, skillfully cut it in half with a plastic fruit knife, took out two seeds and crushed them, and threw them into the crucible.

The fragments of the Fruit of Eden seeds passed through the oil and fell into the brandy, quickly dissolving. At the same time, the oil layer changed, its height was constantly decreasing, while the height of the brandy was constantly increasing, as if a mysterious force was constantly transforming the oil into brandy.

“Who wants to eat the rest of the Fruit of Eden flesh?” Asker asked the onlookers, holding the Fruit of Eden that had been cut in half and had its seeds removed.

“Can’t we save it for next time?” Nuo raised her hand and asked.

“It’s already cut open, and the spirituality will dissipate before tonight.” Asker said, “It’s better to eat it.”

Everyone looked at each other. The Fruit of Eden was a spiritual material! Could it be eaten? Wouldn’t there be some kind of mutation after eating it?

Seeing that everyone didn’t dare to eat it, Asker took a bite. The flesh was not sweet, but surprisingly delicious, juicy, with a small amount of extraordinary power. He finished the whole Fruit of Eden in a few bites.

Eating the Fruit of Eden alone was no problem, in addition to satisfying one’s cravings, it could also replenish extraordinary power. But before digestion, one could not eat other spiritual materials, otherwise, once the two were mixed in the stomach, it would become a flesh crucible refining potions, and it was destined to fail, and the consequences would not be much better.

Finally, Asker carefully took out the Flower of the Eden Tree and gently placed it on the surface of the liquid. The flower was like a small boat with a hole in it, slowly sinking to the bottom of the liquid surface, and at the same time, the petals gradually changed from the original pink to a brilliant pale gold.

Finally, the flower sank in the liquid, and the whole pot of liquid also turned pale gold. Asker poured the potion into a bottle and handed it to Nuo: “Excited?”

“Excited!” Nuo said excitedly. She was finally going to become the extraordinary being she had dreamed of, how could she not be excited?

“Then calm down first.” Asker took the potion back. “Being too excited will increase the risk of losing control.”

“Then what should I do?” Nuo asked with a mournful face.

“You meditate first.”

So Nuo sat down on the floor and meditated for about five or six minutes before opening her eyes and saying calmly, “I’m ready.”

She took the potion handed over by Asker and drank it all in one gulp, even chewing and swallowing the flower inside. Immediately, pale gold lines appeared on her face and neck, carrying a strange and mysterious aura. Her hair suddenly grew longer at a speed visible to the naked eye, so long that it almost dragged on the ground and coiled several times. The sound of her heartbeat in her chest began to amplify to the point where it was clearly audible, as if a heavy drum was being rhythmically beaten, making Eleanor next to her nervous, afraid that she would lose control and die in the next second.

Finally, Nuo, who had returned to normal, stood up, and the bones all over her body suddenly crackled.

“It worked.” She said.

“How do you feel?” Eleanor asked with concern.

“I feel…” Nuo said in a chanting tone, “Great.”

She took out a pen and paper from the pocket on her chest and began to write quickly, then showed it to everyone:

A Life I extraordinary can ignore obstacles and sense nearby living things; can freely control the growth of plants, the reproduction of microorganisms, and the cell differentiation of animal tissues; can help companions heal wounds through physical contact.

The last one truly reflected her value as a “healer.”

“That’s great.” Asker said, “So now we are all level 1. What we need to do next is to digest the extraordinary power corresponding to the extraordinary characteristics in our bodies as soon as possible, and prepare for the second potion formula.”

“Eleanor, Crusader path, the next potion is Perfect Physique X, I have the formula.”

“Nuo, Singer of Life path, the next potion is Spirit I, I also have the formula.”

“Peggy, Lord of Impurity path, the next potion is Life Steal I, the formula and materials are all ready, waiting for digestion.”

“Medea, Infernal Succubus path, the next potion is Desire I, I have the formula, and I am still missing materials.”

He handed the formulas for Perfect Physique X and Spirit I to Eleanor and Nuo respectively. The latter was recording the potion progress of each member of the team, and suddenly asked:

“Asker, what is your bloodline path? Do you have the next potion formula?”

“I chose ‘Weapon Master’.” Asker replied, “The next potion is Sharp Weapon I, which can give me the ability to use any sharp weapon, such as knives, swords, spears, daggers, etc. I remember the formula, and I am currently only missing materials.”

“Okay.” Nuo nodded. “So the top priority of the team is to digest the potions as soon as possible.”

“That’s right.” Asker said, “But since we are all level 1, we basically have combat capabilities. We can register with the Mercenary Guild first, and then take on some combat missions to practice.”

…

The civilian NPC teams in the game are basically divided into two types. One is the mercenary group, and the other is the adventure group.

The difference between the two is that the daily business of the mercenary group is to take on commissions from the guild and make money by completing tasks; while the daily business of the adventure group is to explore ruins (dungeons), fight extraordinary creatures, and collect some ancient objects to sell for money.

If we include illegal organizations that are not officially recognized, then there are also thief groups, assassin groups, bandit groups, pirate groups, and so on, and the organizational forms are endless. But in essence, the ultimate goal of all teams is to make money.

A team that cannot make money, even an idol group, cannot survive.

In the mysterious world where extraordinary power exists, teams have another ultimate goal: to become stronger. These two are not actually in conflict, of course, having money can make you stronger, and RMB warriors are the best example. Although the cost of becoming stronger may be becoming poorer in the short term, it is still enough to make a fortune in the long run. Asker killed a level 2 from the Spirit School and earned about 700 pounds. How long would it take to earn the same amount of money just by relying on his two shops?

If it is a player team, then the motivation is even purer – for fun. So basically everyone will register a mercenary group, and in fact, they will do everything, whether it is dungeons or missions.

Coming to the Mercenary Guild in Constantinople, after going through a tedious application process, Asker finally got the mercenary group application form. The first option made everyone worry.

Mercenary group name.

“How about the Justice Knights?” Eleanor suggested.

“No!” The others refused immediately, such an old-fashioned name would make people laugh to death.

“It should be a fierce name, with a murderous aura.” Peggy said, “Avengers?”

“Rejected. It will cause copyright disputes.” Asker said.

Peggy: ???

“How about a wild and unruly name?” Medea suggested, “Flaming Rose?”

“No.” Asker said, “Too girly.”

“What do you mean too girly?” Medea said discontentedly, “There are 4 women out of 5 people in our team, what’s wrong with having a beautiful name?”

“I’m the leader.” Asker said. This was more convincing than whether the name was beautiful or not.

“Are you all incapable of coming up with a name?” Asker expressed his despair.

“Or.” Nuo finally spoke, “We can use an ordinary name. For example, Azure Longsword?”

“Let’s go with that.” Asker made the decision.

“Wait, is there any special meaning to Azure Longsword?” Medea protested. “Azure? Longsword? It doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“Ahem.” Nuo said awkwardly, “The name Azure Longsword comes from a legend I read before.”

“So it still has an origin, doesn’t it?” Asker replied, “You can take a look at the names of common mercenary groups, basically they are all called sword, shield, spear, etc. Because the name is the first impression a mercenary group gives people, for example, a weapon name will let people know that this mercenary group is mainly focused on combat.”

“Eleanor’s ‘Justice Knights,’ no mercenary group would call themselves a knight order now. Knights are only loyal to their lords, which will make people think that we only serve nobles, and the prefix ‘justice’ implies that we are very picky, so it’s rejected; Peggy’s ‘Avengers,’ sounds like the name of an assassin group, because people who need revenge will only look for assassins, this name will definitely not pass the guild’s review, rejected; Medea’s ‘Flaming Rose,’ flame is a symbol of mages, do you know what rose is a symbol of? Drama, balls, and prostitutes! There will be a lot of messy customers coming to the door, so it’s also rejected.”

“Then let’s just call it ‘Azure Longsword’.” Hearing his reasonable explanation, the three girls couldn’t refute and could only give up.

So the Azure Longsword Mercenary Group was officially established. Asker looked at the member list of his team and suddenly had a thought.

The occupational ratio of our mercenary group is very reasonable. MT, control, output, healer are all available, he himself is not only the commander, but also can act as any role except healer when necessary, but…

Aren’t there a bit too many female members? How come I seem to be the only male? The gender ratio is a bit out of balance!

Of course, as Asker, who grew up in a modern civilized society, naturally would not have any discrimination against women.

Especially in the game, the gender of NPCs is just an attribute, and there is no evidence that female NPCs are weaker than male NPCs. Otherwise, the game “Iron and Fire” would not be able to pass the review in the politically correct Europe and the United States.

Hmmm, this must be just a coincidence. I didn’t deliberately choose female members to join my team, it’s just that all the suitable people I met happened to be female NPCs, hahaha.

Asker convinced himself in his heart, and when he looked up at the girls, they were indeed very promising combat talents.

For example, this heroic beauty with long golden hair, Eleanor, with a steady personality and solid combat skills, was very suitable to be an MT(Main Tank).

And for example, Nuo, the youthful and beautiful girl with short flaxen hair, who was a graduate of a medical major, was there anyone more suitable to be a healer than her? No.

Then there was Peggy, the little beauty with short black hair and small braids hanging down on both sides. She was on the bloodline path of a vampire, and her combat power was second to none at low levels. Wouldn’t it be a waste not to be an agility output?

And then there was Medea, the charming woman with wine-red hair, a Mind Psychic on the Succubus path. Could there be a second Mind Psychic in Constantinople? Maybe there is, but I don’t know them at all!

So it’s not that I deliberately chose female NPCs, it’s because they are the best candidates for my team’s role positioning, everything is the choice of fate!

Asker looked at these four beauties of different races, ages, occupations, and even hair colors, and suddenly felt a little guilty.

How come they are all beautiful NPCs? Is this a coincidence too?

Being looked at by Asker with inexplicable eyes, everyone showed puzzled expressions.

The girls: ???

Chapter 20: The Life School

“I’m sorry, we don’t have the brandy you want here.” The bartender said politely. “We have fruit brandy, but we don’t have brandy that contains 10 kinds of fruits at the same time, because different fruits have different sugar contents, and mixing them together will affect the taste of the brandy. If you don’t mind, I can make you a glass with the specified fruits and pure brandy.”

“That won’t do.” Asker said regretfully. The formula clearly stated that it was fruit brandy, and it would not work to mix it with fruits after it was brewed.

Nuo’s pretty face was also full of frustration. The two had already run to no less than twenty taverns in the city, and none of them had the so-called “10 kinds of fruits blended brandy” in the formula, and the reasons for not having it were exactly the same.

“Do we really have to go to the winery to brew it ourselves?” Nuo asked, messing up her hair frantically. “It would be convenient if it was my family’s winery, I could find a brewing expert to find a way. If we have a winery here to brew it, it will take at least a week according to the normal process, right?”

Asker ignored her unconscious flaunting of wealth such as “my family’s winery” and said:

“Well, a week is not too long. For normal extraordinary people, it is normal to spend two or three years searching for formula materials.”

Of course, the “normal” here referred to NPCs.

“I know.” Nuo said distressedly. She was just feeling a sense of urgency because Eleanor was the first to become a level 1 extraordinary.

“In that case, we can only use a more radical method.” Asker said.

“What method?” Nuo’s eyes lit up.

“Take this.” Asker tossed her the topaz ring he had taken from the corpse last night. “Let’s go find someone from the Life School.”

“Is this the identity token of the Life School?” Nuo took the ring and turned it over to examine it, only to see two sentences engraved on the bottom of the gemstone ring.

Beware, druids.

Many strokes through with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.

“Oh.” Asker also saw the sentence. “That’s the entry motto of the Life School: the oak tree is the sacred tree of the Life School, referring to the Life School itself; the little axe that is continuously swung refers to the seemingly insignificant but endless external dangers.”

“I understand.” Nuo felt that this sentence was very stylish, so she took out her precious notebook and copied the sentence on the title page of the notebook.

“What kind of people are in the Life School?” Reading the famous quote repeatedly, Nuo seemed to see an ancient and mysterious organization with a long history, going through wars, changes, and the vicissitudes of life. Countless extraordinary people sacrificed themselves one after another, just to keep the school standing in the long river of time.

“If I really have to label them.” Asker thought for a moment and said, “Farmers, poor, vegetarian, old-fashioned, a bunch of old men and women.”

“Uh.” Nuo felt that some kind of fantasy in her heart had been shattered.

After taking the Junburg subway for a few stops, the two soon arrived in front of a building. Nuo looked closely and saw that the sign hanging on the building read:

Constantinople Municipal Association of Landscape Architecture.

Passing through the porch, the two entered an open-air courtyard, where countless flower beds were separated by gravel roads, planted with a variety of exotic flowers.

There were researchers in white coats, gardeners in blue overalls, and some who were obviously nobles from their clothes, pointing at the flowers and talking about something.

Asker took Nuo and directly found the oldest lady at the scene, and took out the topaz ring to show her.

The old lady with a bewildered face: ???

“Sorry.” Asker said, then found an old man next to him and shook the ring in front of his eyes.

The old man with a puzzled look: ???

“Sorry.” Asker said, then turned to look for the next target. Finally, a middle-aged man in a gardener’s uniform couldn’t stand it anymore. He came out and pressed Asker’s shoulder, saying:

“Who are you, sir? Our association does not allow non-members to enter and exit at will.”

He dragged Asker to an empty corner. Nuo saw this and smiled bitterly and anxiously, but she could only follow quickly.

When they arrived at the corner, the middle-aged man lowered his voice and said:

“Who are you? How did you get this ring?”

“It’s like this.” Asker then told the story of how he spent 40 pounds at the extraordinary party to buy a note that pointed to 44 Doroc Road, then was attacked in the house, and finally killed the attacker in self-defense.

As for how he found this place, he lied that he found soil on the soles of the corpse’s boots in the house, so he suspected that it was someone in the imperial capital who was engaged in work related to flowers.

“So that’s how it is.” The middle-aged man took the Life I and Radiance I formulas and the topaz ring he handed over. “Thank you very much for bringing these things back, they are indeed from our Life School.”

He sighed faintly: “The deceased was also a member of our school. Recently, the Spirit School’s attacks on us have become more and more frequent, and we have had several conflicts in Constantinople.”

“Sir, are you not worried that we are spies from the Spirit School?” Nuo asked cautiously. She originally thought that the other party would be suspicious and defensive, and use various clever tests, just like in the legends. Unexpectedly, Asker just told the truth, and the other party immediately believed it.

“Not worried.” The middle-aged man said with a smile, “The Spirit School are all Spirit Sequence ability users, and the spirits all around are their eyes and ears, so they don’t need to hire spies at all.”

“You are here for the materials of Life I or Radiance I, right?” He looked at Asker again.

“That’s right.” Asker said frankly, “My companion here, she wants to obtain the potion materials for Life I, and currently lacks an auxiliary material, fruit brandy.”

“The main material comes from our deceased fellow member, right?” The middle-aged man asked solemnly. For a moment, Nuo thought that the other party was going to make a fuss, but then she saw Asker also ask seriously:

“That’s right, do you want to buy it back?”

“200 pounds.” The middle-aged man said, “Or the equivalent main material, 3 Flowers of the Eden Tree.”

“Deal, we choose the main material.” Asker nodded and said, then explained to the puzzled Nuo, “The extraordinary characteristics harvested from the corpse will retain the spiritual will of the deceased. If it is made into a potion and taken, the probability of losing control will be a little higher. For the Life School, they can obtain information from the remaining spiritual will and find clues about the murderer who killed the deceased, so this transaction is beneficial to both of us.”

“This young lady is still an ordinary person?” The middle-aged man looked at Nuo with interest.

“Yes, she is about to get started.” Asker said with a smile, “There is still a lot of esoteric knowledge that needs to be popularized to her.”

“I have a suggestion.” The middle-aged man said seriously, “I wonder if you would like to join our Life School?”

“Me?” Nuo asked in surprise.

“Yes.” The middle-aged man nodded. “Join our Life School, and you will have the opportunity to access more Life Sequence formulas, as well as exchange and purchase corresponding main materials. If you have enough merit, our ‘Shepherd of Trees’ bloodline path can also be given to you.”

“Why choose me?” Nuo looked at Asker blankly, then at the middle-aged man, feeling as if a huge pie had fallen on her head. For a moment, she even had an unreal feeling.

“Because the Life School is in urgent need of fresh blood.” The middle-aged man said with a smile, “Don’t tell me you think that joining our school is like in the legends, where we still implement strict and lengthy political review, cautious and cumbersome character assessment, and one-way contact to ensure the secrecy of the master-disciple system? It used to be like that, but that system has been proven to be outdated. At least in the past hundred years, the expansion of our Life School has lagged far behind that of the Spirit School.”

“The Spirit School released the low-level formulas of the Undead Sequence, using the gimmick of becoming an extraordinary being to attract newcomers. This method will certainly attract a lot of people with impure minds, but the rapidly expanding scale can make up for these shortcomings. However, our former council of elders used the old way of managing families to manage the school, and the final result could only be that the speed of development lagged far behind.” The middle-aged man took out his mobile phone from his trouser pocket. “You two, would you like to add me as a friend?”

Your school is too up-to-date! Asker thought to himself, how is this different from the Life School he knew in his previous life? The two had no choice but to take out their mobile phones and exchange CM friends with the middle-aged man.

(CM, short for Community, is a mobile social software in the world of “Iron and Fire,” similar to a combination of WeChat and Renren. CM company is located in Solomon City on the Italian peninsula and is an international Internet company.)

The other party’s nickname was directly his name “Kieran Bonat,” Asker’s nickname was only his name “Asker,” and Nuo’s CM nickname was “Princess.Norah.”

Kieran and Asker were stunned for half a second, then turned to look at Nuo. The latter immediately blushed, with an embarrassed expression of shame and humiliation, and waved her hands in a panic to explain:

“That! The nickname of the CM account was created when I was a child! Because the nickname cannot be changed once it is set, and there are too many friends in the address book and I don’t want to delete them, so I have been using it until now…”

She almost couldn’t go on, covering her face as if she was about to cry. Who would have thought that just to join a secret organization, they would have to exchange CM friends!

Asker said with a straight face: “It’s okay, Your Highness, I also had a secondary school syndrome.”

“That’s right, Your Highness.” Kieran also said seriously, “I often call my daughter ‘little princess,’ and she seems to be very happy.”

“Don’t call me Your Highness.” Nuo said weakly, with an expression of resignation, “Just call me whatever you want.”

“Ahem.” Kieran coughed, “I’ll send you a mini program first. After you click on the link, fill out the application form inside. After the application is approved, I will pull you into the group chat of our Life School.”

With a pale expression, Nuo took her mobile phone and started to fill out the form. Asker chatted with Kieran for a while, discussing and exchanging some esoteric knowledge, and then left with Nuo.

Kieran looked at the application form submitted by Nuo on his mobile phone. Her name was “Nuo Valennis Licinius,” which was a classical Solomon name, and not many people in the Italian city-states would use this kind of name now. It was within his expectation that she had no family background in any extraordinary family.

So he clicked the approval button.

About two hours later, while he was working diligently in the flower bed, he suddenly received a call from Elder Boreas.

“Where is the new applicant?” The elder said seriously.

Kieran hurried to the entrance of the association building: “She should have left.”

“Good, if she makes any requests, contact me as soon as possible.” The elder said.

“That young lady, is she really some kind of princess?” Kieran heard something wrong with the elder’s tone, a feeling of being overly serious. A strange thought suddenly popped into his mind.

“She is not “Your Highness”” the Grand Elder said in a strange tone. After a long pause, he added, “However, she far surpasses her.”

Chapter 19: Because You Were Originally a Good Person

Although many people are reluctant to admit or realize it, in fact, most people have a certain dark side in their hearts, whether they are players or NPCs.

For example, in the world of “Iron and Fire,” there are often NPCs who renege on their promises after releasing missions, and even try to kill the players who completed the missions.

And the players are immortal, so why would they be afraid of this? If you want to mess with me, of course I will fight back directly, but it is very troublesome to be calculated by NPCs all the time when doing missions.

However, there is an organization whose NPCs will never calculate players, that is, the “Blade Warriors” within the territory of the Holy Solomon Empire, composed of extraordinary warriors who hope to serve their lords with their swords. They master the “Kingsguard” bloodline path, the first Sequence of which is Justice X.

Whether it is a murderous bandit or a sneaky thief, as long as they drink Justice X, they will all become knights of noble character.

They keep their word, do not play tricks, do not bully the weak, and will definitely give the rewards they promised to the players. If the difficulty of the mission is 100 points, they will never say it is only 99 points. If the players complain that the difficulty is too high, they will even take the initiative to add money. They are a shining example among the NPCs who release missions, a friend of the players.

What’s even more amazing is that this change in personality is not gradual, but the moment the potion takes effect, it cuts off the dark psychology of the NPC and directly removes it.

Asker still remembers a mission called “One Drink to Forget,” which was about a drunkard NPC who had just joined the Blade Warriors. Because chivalry did not allow him to drink excessively, he could only ask the player to find him good wine.

When the player found the wine, the guy even brought the bottle to his mouth, but in the end, he still couldn’t drink it, his face full of pain, entanglement, and helplessness. So the name of Justice X spread among the players, and they gave it the nickname “Honest Man” potion, meaning “Drink this bottle of milk, and you will be an honest man.”

According to some adventurous players, after drinking Justice X, your game character can no longer steal, provoke, or kill for no reason, nor can you break into the homes of NPCs without permission. Even some players who like to swear found that even some aggressive words were blocked, such as “What are you looking ******” and “What ****** are you looking at,” which became “beep!” when they came out of their mouths, causing a lot of complaints from uncomfortable players.

Of course, there are also those who feel that it is very immersive after getting used to it again.

“Ah, I don’t feel anything.” Eleanor said puzzled.

“How can you not feel anything?” Asker was quite surprised. “Don’t you have a feeling of ‘I don’t know why, but I’m being forced to turn over a new leaf,’ or ‘I didn’t have a choice before, but now I want to be a good person’?”

“No.” Eleanor said honestly.

“If someone on the side of the road asks you for donations in the name of ‘a child at home is seriously ill and needs help’,” Asker thought of a classic psychological test question online and asked, “what would you do?”

“Donate money.” Eleanor blinked. “See how much money I have on me.”

“What if the other party is a liar?” Asker immediately asked, “In fact, there is no sick child at all, he is just using this name to cheat money and squander donations?”

“If I can be 100% sure that he is a liar, then I definitely won’t donate money.” Eleanor said in a matter-of-fact tone, “But even if there is only a 1% chance that it is true, why wouldn’t I donate? Maybe it can save the life of an innocent child, right?”

“So that’s how it is.” Asker sighed, “So you were a good person from the beginning.”

“Because her values are already very upright, so even after taking the Justice X potion, her mentality has not changed at all?” Medea said thoughtfully.

“That’s great.” Nuo, who thought she wouldn’t donate money in this situation, said guiltily, “Eleanor, you are really a kind and good person.”

“I don’t know if it’s my illusion, but I feel like you are mocking me?” Eleanor said suspiciously.

“No, this is not mockery. In this cruel era, there are fewer and fewer people like you.” Asker touched his chin and sighed, “Once upon a time, I was also a pure-hearted teenager, how did I become so dark and suspicious now?”

He muttered and turned to Nuo and instructed, “Nuo, pay attention not to let Eleanor handle the team’s funds, I’m afraid she will be cheated out of all her money in the future.”

“Okay.” Nuo nodded.

“Wait a minute!” Eleanor cried and laughed, “Why did you suddenly start looking down on me! Don’t look at me with that pitiful look!”

In addition to affecting her mentality, Justice X also provided Eleanor with a certain amount of physical and mental strength, making her six attributes significantly improved. Another thing worth mentioning was the “Smite Evil” ability. According to Eleanor, who automatically acquired the relevant knowledge, this ability gave her a stronger ability to strike evil. When fighting evil enemies, her six attributes would receive a significant bonus.

“The question is, how do we judge who is evil?” Medea asked, thinking to herself that I wouldn’t be classified as the type that “Smite Evil” would work on, would I?

“Free heart certificate, if I remember correctly.” Asker said, “The premise is that Eleanor needs to sincerely believe that the enemy is evil, then the ability of Smite Evil will take effect on her.”

“Eh! Then, if I use the ability of Mind I to exert mental influence on Eleanor.” Medea’s eyes lit up and she said, “As long as she thinks that the enemy in front of her is evil, then no matter who she faces, wouldn’t she be able to exert the bonus of ‘Smite Evil’?”

“You are a genius.” Asker said, both amused and annoyed. Of course, this method had been explored by players and nicknamed “Justice Warrior Sleepwalking Style” or “Hypnosis Flow,” but it was not discovered until much later in the plot. The fact that Medea could come up with such a cheap trick without any hindrance the second she heard about the characteristics of Justice X showed that this woman was a schemer herself.

Eleanor’s mouth was half open, as if she had never thought of this. She hesitated and said:

“But… wouldn’t it violate the true meaning of justice to interfere with the judgment of good and evil with mental abilities?”

“What is the true meaning of justice?” Medea asked disdainfully.

“Justice is…” Eleanor tried to speak, but was interrupted by Medea’s righteous words, “The true meaning of justice is to defeat the enemy! Only by surviving can you have a say. How can dead justice be justice? If it’s dead, you say it’s evil, and it becomes evil. Can it still get up and talk back?”

Eleanor didn’t refute, but her expression clearly showed that she didn’t accept it.

“So now in our team, there are two people who are still missing potions.” Asker quickly came out to smooth things over and changed the subject, “Medea, how are your potion materials?”

“I haven’t collected the Menarche yet.” Medea burst into tears. Other spiritual materials were easy to say, even if the origin was far away, there would always be merchants selling them. This strange thing depended on the right time. In order to avoid attracting attention, Medea secretly contacted dozens of poor families in the city, all of whom had 12 or 13-year-old adolescent daughters, and bribed their parents with a lot of money – as for when their daughters’ menarche would come, only God knew.

Maybe tomorrow? Maybe next year? It was simply unpredictable.

“Nuo’s Life I, we already collected the formula and main materials last night.” Asker didn’t tell everyone about last night’s battle, but took out the Life I formula and showed it:

-Ingredient-

• Three Flowers of the Eden Tree

-Subsidiary-

• Two Seeds of the Fruit of Eden

• One spoon of Corfu Olive Oil

• 200ml of Fruit Brandy (Rakijas)

-Processing-
Take fruit brandy (the brewing ingredients must include the following 10 kinds of fruits: plum, pear, apricot, peach, raspberry, orange, apple, cherry, banana, red date, no honey is allowed), add one spoon of Corfu olive oil, crush two Seeds of the Fruit of Eden and add them. Finally, put in three Flowers of the Eden Tree, with the pistils facing up, and let them sink naturally. After the petals change color, the liquid can be drunk.

“We have both the Fruit of Eden and olive oil.” Nuo said in surprise.

“The main material, Flower of the Eden Tree, can be replaced by the extraordinary characteristic of Life I.” Asker thought for a moment and said, “Only the auxiliary material, fruit brandy, we have to go to the taverns in the lower city to find it.”

“And Peggy and Eleanor, you two have just been promoted to level 1, and the extraordinary power inside has not been fully digested.” Asker looked at the two of them, “You must practice through actual combat to transform it into corresponding physical and mental strength. Today I will go out with Nuo to collect auxiliary materials, you two go to the training ground under the hotel last time to spar. Medea, you watch over them and don’t let any accidents or injuries happen.”

“Oh, okay.” Medea replied absentmindedly.

So everyone went out and acted separately. Peggy, Eleanor, and Medea went to the training ground, while Asker and Nuo went to the wineries in the city to look for auxiliary materials. In the room opposite the ancestral home, the Church spy yawned as he watched these people go out.

“This young nobleman is very strong, he actually took in 4 girls for the night?” The spy muttered, writing down the recorded information on the document in his hand. But he knew in his heart that this was just routine.

Unless the other party blatantly used extraordinary power, or something strange happened in the house, even if his surveillance records were submitted, it was very likely that no one would pay attention to them, and they would probably be thrown into some wastepaper pile.

He twirled his pencil boredly, rested his hands on the windowsill of the surveillance, stared at the empty house and door, and narrowed his eyes lazily.

Chapter 18: A Contest in the Dark

At 11:30 p.m., Asker accompanied Nuo to Doroc Road in the slums.

“Will it be dangerous?” Nuo looked at the dark road on both sides and the homeless people sleeping in the alleys, covered with cardboard boxes. She whispered with some fear.

“Nuo, there is danger everywhere,” Asker said lightly. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come with you.”

“Hmm.” Nuo nodded, still feeling a little uneasy.

Arriving at the door of house number 44, she reached out to knock, but Asker stopped her.

Asker raised the hilt of his sword and knocked on the door.

Is he worried that there are extraordinary traps on the door? Nuo immediately had the urge to take notes again.

The door opened, and inside was darkness, only a faint figure could be seen sitting on the bed. Asker sneered in his heart, it was indeed an enemy.

Nuo carefully glanced inside, and suddenly felt a chill, as if something had invaded her body and was fighting her for control. Her thinking became sluggish, her senses dulled, and Nuo felt it difficult to breathe. She wanted to scream, but found that the vocal cords in her throat were out of control and she couldn’t make any sound.

Asker encountered the same situation, but he was already level 1, and his spirituality was much stronger than Nuo’s, so he could barely move. As his body gradually became disobedient, he did not show any panic, but slowly turned his wrist, aiming the muzzle at the darkness on the left.

Bang!!! The roar of the Desert Eagle sounded, and Nuo only felt as if she had been hit in the face with a sledgehammer, blood almost oozing from her ears and nose… At the same time, her body quickly returned to normal. She stumbled and grabbed the door frame, just in time to see Asker light the flint, illuminating the scene in the room.

It was a simple shack of about twelve square meters. A young man in a yellow priest’s robe was sitting on the bed, his eyes rolled back and his face was blue and purple, obviously dead. Another body was in the shadows behind the left door, a middle-aged man in his thirties wearing a black robe, with a large hole blown open in his chest by the elephant hunting bullet. He was lying in a pool of blood, his face still showing an expression of disbelief.

“That’s a Spirit II extraordinary,” Asker stepped forward quickly and began to search the young man’s belongings on the bed. “Spirit II can freely manipulate nearby spirits and attach them to inanimate objects, such as a pistol, so they can shoot. Or invade living bodies and compete with the spirits inside for control.”

“Of course, it’s not foolproof.” He pointed to the body in the corner and added, “The higher the Sequence of the extraordinary, the lower the possibility of being successfully possessed by a spirit. From the moment I entered the door, I was holding the pistol in the arm armor of my cotton armor. Just turning my wrist and pulling the trigger, I could still do it in the state of resisting spiritual invasion.”

“So that’s how it is.” Nuo felt inexplicably ashamed. The moment the door opened, Asker had already assumed a posture ready to fight back with his gun, while her subconscious first reaction was to stick her head in to look. The gap in actual combat experience between the two was too big.

And even if she was on guard, her first reaction would definitely be to treat the corpse sitting on the bed as the enemy. How could she have imagined that the real enemy was hiding in the darkness behind the left door? By the way, how did Asker know?

“Two birds with one stone, you are lucky, Nuo.” Asker took out two formulas from the sleeve of the corpse on the bed. “Life I and Radiance I, this is a Life School extraordinary who tried to advance to level 2, but unfortunately he died here before he could put the formula into action.”

He finally pulled off the topaz signet ring from the corpse’s finger, glanced at it, turned around and went to search the body in the corner. Nuo looked at the corpse on the bed and bit her lip uneasily: “So… inviting me here was actually a trap?”

“Maybe.” Asker said, “Maybe the “Life School” learned at the party that someone was looking to buy the Life I formula, so they lured you here to join the organization, but were intercepted and killed by someone from the Spirit School. Or maybe the interception happened earlier, and it was the Spirit School people who attended the party. They suspected that you were a newcomer who wanted to join the Life School, so they deliberately lured you into this trap.”

“I think it’s the latter. If they were willing to let you join the organization just because they learned that you were looking to buy Life I, then the Life School would be too hasty.” Asker analyzed, and finally found his target: the Spirit I formula, the Life I extraordinary characteristic belonging to the corpse on the bed, and the Spirit II extraordinary characteristic of the murderer himself.

This time it was a real bargain! Asker thought with satisfaction. Three Sequence I formulas, two extraordinary characteristics (lv1 and lv2), and the ring of the Life School, the combined value was at least 600-700 pounds. The players on the game forum summarized that “murder and arson lead to a golden belt, while farming and development lead to elimination” was not a random joke. The price difference between the mysterious world and the secular world was really too big. The total price of his two shops in the imperial capital was only a little over 1200 pounds, and now he had recovered half of it by killing an extraordinary.

“Let’s go.” He took Nuo and left the scene.

“Are the Life School and the Spirit School mortal enemies?” Nuo asked curiously.

“The Life School is also called the Druid School, originating from the ancient Kate people. They master the ‘Shepherd of Trees’ bloodline path, whose main Sequences are ‘Life’ and ‘Radiance’.” Asker explained, “The Spirit School originated from the ancient Siris people. They master the ‘Spirit Witch’ bloodline path, whose main Sequences are ‘Spirit’ and ‘Undead’.”

“The two schools were once close allies in the Third Epoch. At that time, the military power of the ancient Republic of Solomon almost conquered the entire continent. Both the Siris and Kate people were forced to submit to the Solomon people, so they also had the intention of joining hands to resist the common enemy. The ‘Singer of Life’ bloodline path was the product of the honeymoon period between the two schools.” Asker explained in detail, “Later, in the Fourth Epoch, with the division of the Solomon Empire into East and West, the Siris people were completely integrated into the Eastern Solomon Empire and began to regard themselves as Solomon people, while the Kate people were annexed by the Germanic people. As their ideologies and cultures gradually diverged, the two schools eventually broke up.”

“To make matters worse, because the two schools were too closely related during the Third Epoch, they both knew and possessed a lot of confidential information about each other. Therefore, after the breakup, both sides wanted to put each other to death.” Asker said leisurely, “As the saying goes, the most bitter hatred comes from those closest to you, and this is probably the reason.”

“Is that so?” Nuo immediately began to imagine, her mind filled with the tragic story of the two schools’ entanglement of love, hate, and hatred over thousands of years.

…

The next day, Asker woke up from his bed in the study and saw that the window on the third floor was open. A bulging package was placed on the desk, with a note attached to it, written in delicate handwriting:

Cash on delivery

M.C. (short for Mia Cinquemani)

P.S. There is a Church spy at your door

“Asker! Asker!” Nuo rushed in and shouted in a panic, “Our house has been burglarized! I just checked our belongings and found that 210 pounds are missing! The thief also left a note saying that it was payment for the goods…”

She stared at the package on the desk in a daze. Asker covered his forehead and said helplessly:

“Yes, your spiritual materials have arrived. She took the money too.”

“The goods have arrived?” The other three girls came upon hearing the news.

The package on the desk was opened, revealing a dazzling array of spiritual materials. The Galya Canyon river water was contained in a mineral water bottle with the label torn off, about 400 ml; the Fruit of Eden was a light green apple-like fruit, wrapped in three layers of plastic film; the Corfu olive oil was filled in a glass jam jar.

The Vila eagle feathers were tied with hemp rope, there were six or seven of them; the Bosnia Bay geoduck was packed in a plastic bottle; the Golden-Striped Leech paste was packed in an empty makeup powder box, with a label on it, handwritten with a big word: Stinky.

The service of the Thieves Guild was really too thoughtful, they actually delivered more than the amount on the order, obviously they had taken on a lot of business from extraordinary people before, so they also took into account the material loss of potion preparation failure… Asker thought to himself, then said:

“Since the materials are all here, let’s start preparing the Justice X potion.”

“What about my Life Steal I?” Peggy protested, the materials for her potion formula had also been collected.

“You?” Asker glanced at her, “Have you digested all your Flesh I extraordinary characteristics?”

Medea echoed, “It is very dangerous to take a level 2 potion without digesting the level 1 potion completely. Because the original potion in your body has not been ‘tamed’, taking potions of other Sequences is prone to ‘runaway’, which greatly increases the risk of losing control of spirituality.”

Seeing that Peggy was too depressed to speak, Asker waved his hand helplessly: “Let’s do what we can first.”

Eleanor immediately set up the crucible excitedly and started to help Asker. First, she measured out 100 ml of Galya Canyon river water with a beaker, poured it into the crucible, and lit the fire. Four minutes later, the river water boiled, and Asker took out a pair of Shadow Worm Beast’s Eyes and carefully placed them in the center of the boiling water.

With a pop, the eyeballs of the Shadow Worm Beast burst in the boiling water, and ink-like black liquid flowed out from the cracks in the eyeballs, quickly dyeing all the water black. The originally boiling liquid surface also calmed down strangely, and there was no response no matter how the flame below heated it.

Asker took out the reagent bag containing the diamond powder and poured it in. The powder dispersed in the liquid and seemed to dissolve quickly. Finally, he took out the Vila eagle feathers and put them in one by one.

Dots of light appeared in the pitch-black liquid, like a galaxy in the night sky, giving people a feeling of depth just by looking at it. Asker sniffed the smell, and after confirming that there was no problem, he poured it into a beaker and handed it to Eleanor.

Eleanor took the beaker containing the potion, her throat twitched, closed her eyes, and drank it all in one gulp. Then her skin began to glow. Her golden curly hair suddenly turned silvery white, and her pink lips turned pale. She opened her eyes blankly and unconsciously, her pupils turned into golden crosses, with faint rotating patterns.

She opened her mouth and let out a long, meaningless sigh, and her whole body slowly returned to normal.

“How do you feel?” Nuo asked with concern.

“I’m fine.” Eleanor looked at her body. “It feels like I’ve had a sunbath, my whole body is warm.”

“Has your mentality changed?” Asker frowned and asked, “There are many records in history showing that after taking Justice X, extraordinary people will obviously feel that the dark side of human nature has been violently stripped away, resulting in temporary psychological discomfort.”

Chapter 17: Perfect Physique X

“Kill him!” The gunmen roared furiously, raising their guns and firing.

Asker rolled and dodged behind a nearby house. Countless bullets rained down like a storm, kicking up dust from the ground. Looking at the chaotic scene of random shooting, Asker sighed.

The most important thing for a gunman was positioning and movement, followed by tactical awareness, and finally their own control and reaction speed. These gunmen actually chose to charge head-on, their positioning and movement knowledge close to zero; they were still shooting at the empty ground when they had lost sight of the target, and their tactical awareness was also nonexistent. Dealing with these trash NPCs really felt like a strong man beating up a child.

The opponent was too weak, it was not even exciting!

The gunmen were still shooting at the empty ground, while the other part of the gunmen had quietly split up, taking advantage of the time when their companions were attracting the enemy’s attention with gunfire, they outflanked and tried to sneak attack from behind. As a result, when they went around to the back of the house, they saw no one.

Just as everyone was stunned, a burst of intensive gunfire rang out, and several of the outflanking gunmen fell down.

“Rooftop! He’s on the roof!” The gunmen reacted one after another, and just as they raised their muzzles, they saw a figure flash past from the roof and disappear behind the eaves.

“Intercept him with your men! Patrick, what are you doing over there!” The leader of the gunmen roared angrily. During the outflanking just now, he asked his confidant Patrick to take three or four people to stay on the other side of the house, for fear that the enemy would notice and run away. As a result, the enemy jumped off the roof in that direction, but there was no gunshot from Patrick’s side.

“Patrick and his men are all dead!” The gunman who rushed over there turned his head and shouted, “Just now, when he was on the roof!”

Before he finished speaking, another gunshot rang out, and the leader of the gunmen fell to the ground. The bullet went through his skull, leaving a black hole in his forehead.

“The boss is dead too!” The gunmen shouted in panic, continuing to charge in the direction of the gunshot with their guns. Although ferocity and bloodiness were still supporting them to continue fighting, they had lost their command after all, and the formation originally used for outflanking immediately fell apart.

“Left! The brothers on the left are down, he’s on the left!”

“No! The bullet came from the right!”

“Above! He’s on the roof again!”

“Suppressive fire! What are you all doing? Can’t even lock onto one person?”

As the gunmen continued to howl and get killed, the rest finally began to waver. From the beginning of the battle until now, more than twenty people on their side had been shot and killed, and the other side had not even lost a single hair. Even in many cases, they only caught a glimpse of a back, and then they could not find the target. Five or six seconds later, the gunshots rang out again, and as his companions fell one after another, everyone realized that the man had already moved to another direction.

This battle could not be fought anymore! It was completely like a mouse chasing a cat, a dead end! Soon the remaining people reached an agreement in horror, dispersed, and fled for their lives.

Asker hid in the shadows of the corner, quietly watching the gunmen flee, and did not pursue. These trash NPCs didn’t even have extraordinary characteristics, killing them was a waste of bullets. Did bullets not cost money?

He walked out of the corner, looked at the corpses all over the ground, and sighed helplessly again.

After this massacre, no one stopped him from leaving the slums, and the city guards didn’t even show up… Everyone knew that the slums were a chaotic area, and no one was willing to patrol there. So Asker returned to the ancestral home without any hindrance, only to see that everyone else had returned.

“The Shadow Worm Beast’s Eye and the Thick Scales have been purchased, and the diamond powder and iron oxide powder have also been bought. It cost a total of 130 pounds.” Medea handed over the banknotes. “In addition, I bought a set of alchemy equipment, which cost 1 pound… This is the remaining 419 pounds.”

Asker also did not refuse and took back the banknotes. A set of alchemy equipment cost 1 pound? God knows how much Medea had embezzled here, but it didn’t matter, anyway, banknotes were meant to be spent. Especially the money in the game, there was really no heartache in spending it.

Seeing that he didn’t say anything, Nuo couldn’t stand it anymore and said:

“Everyone, the potion to become an extraordinary being is our own business, it’s not good to use Asker’s own funds, right? I suggest that we pay for the materials and formulas ourselves. If we don’t have the money, we can ask Asker to advance it from our future salaries.”

“Hey, the idea of a salary advance is good.” Eleanor echoed, “I agree.”

“We have no problem with that.” Peggy and Medea both expressed their opinions.

“Okay.” Asker said with a smile, “The materials I ordered should arrive tomorrow, a total of 230 pounds. Plus the 130 pounds you spent on procurement, and the 100 pounds already spent at the party, the total price is 460 pounds. According to our contract, the current monthly salary is 2 pounds. If calculated on an average basis, your salary for the next 5 years will be gone.”

Everyone: ???

“How about this.” Seeing everyone’s awkward silence, Asker said with a smile, “The potion formula materials are originally a large expenditure, even far exceeding your daily expenses. Why don’t we set up a ‘Team Extraordinary Fund’ and put all the team’s profits into this fund. We will not raise our salaries in the future, and everyone can receive 2 pounds from the fund every month to maintain daily living expenses. As for the potion material expenses, they will be paid from the team fund. In this regard, we need an accountant…”

“Then let Nuo be in charge.” He patted his head and appointed.

“Oh, okay.” Nuo also readily agreed. Everyone knew that she was very rich, although they didn’t know the specific amount of her wealth, anyway, they didn’t have to worry about her embezzling.

“As the founder and leader of the team, I personally invested 520 pounds.” Asker stated, “Except for the balance of the materials I ordered, this is all the funds I have left.”

“I can also invest 500 pounds.” Nuo said a little guilty. In fact, she could take out ten times the amount of funds, but after all, she couldn’t exceed Asker’s contribution, otherwise, if the investment ratio exceeded that of the founder, she would be suspected of seizing power.

“I’ll contribute 200 pounds.” Medea said readily. This was the intelligence fund allocated to her by the Seljuk Empire, which she had embezzled, so she didn’t feel bad about paying it out.

“I have no money.” Peggy said.

“I… I’ll contribute 5 pounds.” Eleanor was quite ashamed, this was all the property she had on her.

“That’s it then.” Asker clapped his hands and settled the matter.

Thus, the small team initially established its own small treasury, with a starting capital of 1225 pounds. In this era when the registered capital of a company only needed to be about 100 pounds, 1225 pounds was already a considerable amount of property, but it was a matter of minutes to throw it into the mysterious world – even the materials for Sequence I potions were sold for 100 pounds each.

However, everyone was not in a hurry to worry about the funds, because Asker was about to start refining his first potion.

“Please keep the alchemy rules in mind.” Asker said as he set up a small crucible on the desk and lit a fire under it with a portable alcohol can. At the same time, he tore open the packaging of a pair of disposable plastic gloves. “First, safety; second, cleanliness; third, secrecy.”

The girls all stared at his every move, even Medea – in the Seljuk Empire, her potions were all finished products delivered directly by the court. Since she made up her mind to betray the country, she had to prepare all these things herself.

Asker unscrewed the bottle cap and first poured in the Strength X potion, covering one-third of the height of the crucible.

“Note that the total volume of liquid cannot exceed half the height of the crucible, otherwise a larger crucible needs to be replaced.” As Asker said this, the potion quickly boiled, and bubbles began to gurgle out. As the water gradually evaporated, bright red crystals precipitated at the bottom of the pot.

“If there is an existing potion, evaporating the water by heating is a common method to obtain the extraordinary characteristics contained in the potion.” Asker carefully scraped off the crystals and placed them in a petri dish covered with filter paper. “However, some Sequences that are opposite to high temperature, such as frost, shadow, etc., cannot be heated, so they can only be left to stand and then blown with a fan to allow the solvent to evaporate naturally. Some solvents are oily and more troublesome, so more advanced methods need to be used.”

He replaced it with a new crucible and repeated the same procedure, obtaining the extraordinary characteristics of Intelligence X and Agility X – beautiful crystals of ocean blue and grass green respectively. Next, Asker added about 20 ml of absolute ethanol to the new crucible, and then added the three extraordinary characteristics at the same time.

The absolute ethanol immediately boiled at room temperature, but the water level did not drop at all. The color of the liquid suddenly changed from red to blue, from blue to green, and from green to red. It changed faster and faster, and finally gradually turned into an opaque milky white, calming down.

“If it is an existing high Sequence potion, you can tell whether it is successful or not with spiritual intuition.” Asker picked up the beaker and fanned the air above it with his hand. “Otherwise, you can smell it like this. If it fails, you will feel dizzy when you smell it. If it succeeds, you will have a desire to drink it when you smell it.”

He tilted his neck and drank the potion in the beaker in one gulp, then immediately opened his mouth and gasped, “This alcohol is too strong, I can’t stand it.”

“Asker, your eyes!” Nuo exclaimed. In the eyes of the girls, Asker’s iris began to turn white. The muscles all over his body began to swell, faintly tightening the collar and cuffs of his cotton armor. His lips turned bright red, the pores all over his body seemed to open, his hair stood on end, and the blood vessels in the whites of his eyes almost bulged. Large bumps bulged from his neck, as if something was surging under his skin.

Gradually, the abnormality subsided. As an ordinary person who had never drunk a potion before, Asker’s body had excellent tolerance for Perfect Physique X, so there were no signs of conflict or loss of control.

It was a success. Asker slowly felt the abundant spirituality welling up in his body. Perfect Physique X brought him a lot of extraordinary power and also accelerated the conversion speed of extraordinary power into physical and mental strength. His explosive power, muscle control, endurance, reaction speed, as well as thinking ability and willpower concentration, were all significantly improved. There were no longer any shortcomings in all aspects of his body, and he was no longer prone to illness, poisoning, or aging.

He was now a real level 1.

Chapter 16: The Swindler

“Let Mia get the Vila eagle feathers for you,” Maestro wrote on the paper. “And the Golden-Striped Leeches…”

“I know where to find the Golden-Striped Leeches,” Asker said. “Inside the seventh mountain, there’s an abandoned ‘Sunken Palace’ called Mocius, right?”

“Yes,” Maestro nodded. “That reservoir has long been abandoned by the Empire. They say it’s haunted. The water drawn from it is red, with a faint smell of blood, undrinkable. Our people have explored it before, but most never returned… Are you saying there are Golden-Striped Leeches there?”

“Leeches are found all over the continent, and Golden-Striped Leeches must live where there are many people because they need to consume a large amount of blood,” Asker explained. “Usually, the Golden Leeches in the city are quickly discovered and eliminated by the Church because they prey on victims. However, the underground reservoir in Constantinople is an exception because someone is raising fish there… Have you never counted the number of fish?”

“We did notice that the number of fish each year doesn’t match the number of fry we put in,” Maestro said awkwardly. “But we thought it was because the reservoir was connected to the outside, and some fish escaped through the waterways.”

“So it was actually the Golden-Striped Leeches stealing our fish?” Mia said angrily. “I’m going to kill them all!”

“Then you’ll lose a fortune,” Asker said leisurely. “The spirituality of dead extraordinary creatures dissipates quickly, losing its original value.”

“Ahem, Mia,” Maestro winked. “We can seal off that pool and go in regularly to hunt Golden-Striped Leeches and sell them to rich people like Master Achilles.”

“Good idea.” Mia’s eyes lit up. “Esteemed Master Achilles, since you want Golden-Striped Leeches, you must have collected ways to deal with them, right?”

This girl… As soon as money is mentioned, she changes her tune to “esteemed.” Asker slandered in his heart but smiled on the surface:

“Of course. Golden-Striped Leeches like warm, humid, and dark places. After they are full of blood, they will attach themselves to walls or ceilings, emitting a faint striped golden light, hence their name. Dealing with them is even simpler. A stun grenade and a flashbang can stun their bodies and disrupt their spirituality, then you can just drag them back with a large net.”

“So that’s how it is.” Mia began to rub her fists together. Obviously, military supplies such as stun grenades and flashbangs were not impossible for the Thieves Guild to obtain.

“Then all the items on the list are complete,” Maestro said. “10 pounds of Galya Canyon river water, 30 pounds of Fruit of Eden, and we’ll charge you 70 pounds for the geoduck. These spiritual materials all involve overseas smuggling channels, so the price will be 50%-70% higher than buying locally. Vila eagle feathers, Golden extraordinary leeches, the market price is originally 120 pounds each, but in return for your clues, we will only charge you half the price for each, a total of 230 pounds.”

“I’ll pay a 30% deposit first, which is 69 pounds,” Asker replied readily. At this time, what he needed most was to collect the potion ingredients as soon as possible. For this reason, whether it was providing information on spiritual materials to the other party for free or bearing a little insignificant price premium, it didn’t matter at all. “But it must be delivered tomorrow.”

“No problem.” Before Maestro could speak, Mia had already agreed and then stretched out her hands confidently. Asker twitched the corner of his mouth, counted out 69 pounds of banknotes, and stuffed them into her hand.

“This 69 pounds is my income from the feathers and leeches!” Mia shouted at Maestro. “Consider it an advance!”

Maestro ignored her and just clapped his hands and called another thief over to row Asker out.

Sailing in the waterway corridor, Asker looked at the dark water in the distance and asked casually:

“What is Maestro’s position in the Thieves Guild?”

“He is our Shadow Mentor,” the rowing thief replied respectfully.

…

Leaving the Aspa reservoir, Asker continued to the next location.

There were five people in the team. The bloodline paths and potion formulas of the other four had been determined, but his own had not been revealed at all. No one asked for the time being because everyone subconsciously felt that with Asker’s knowledge, he must have already prepared the most suitable bloodline path and potion combination for himself.

And that was indeed the case.

The bloodline path Asker planned to choose was the same as the one he chose when he played the game in his previous life, called “Weapon Master,” an extraordinary path that was extremely good at combat. Weapon Masters could master the use of sharp weapons, blunt weapons, bows and crossbows, firearms, and shields. They were good at attacking, blocking, and dodging, could observe the surrounding environment and enemy information, design corresponding tactical plans, and also possessed strong combat intuition, able to anticipate upcoming dangers.

The first Sequence of this bloodline path was the cornerstone Sequence, Perfect Physique X. This Sequence potion would greatly improve the conversion efficiency of the extraordinary’s physical strength and mental strength. At the same time, all attributes, including explosive power, endurance, control, reaction speed, intelligence, and willpower, could be developed in a balanced and comprehensive manner.

For extraordinary beings, there were three most troublesome problems: first, figuring out the sequence combination order of the bloodline; second, obtaining the corresponding potion formula; and third, collecting the ingredients in the formula. If one was a member of an extraordinary family or organization, the first two were basically not a problem, and the third could also be exchanged and purchased within the family/organization. If one was a player, then none of that was a problem, as any problem that could be solved with RMB was not a problem.

Asker was not an RMB warrior in his previous life and could not smash through the entire bloodline path by waving red bills. Therefore, he could forget about other potion formulas, but he had to memorize all the Sequences of Weapon Master. The formula for the first potion, “Perfect Physique X,” was:

-Ingredient-

• One Humerus of a Gaul Orge

• One Tendon of Fenrisulfr Wolf’s Hind leg

• One Remnant of Phantom

-Subsidiary-

• 20ml ethanol

-Processing-
Thoroughly corrode the Humerus of the Gaul Orge and the Tendon of the Fenrisulfr Wolf’s Hind leg with the Remnant of Phantom, add anhydrous ethanol and stir well, let stand for 24 hours before drinking.

The ingredients in this formula were more troublesome. Gaul Orges lived in Inner Gaul and Outer Gaul, Fenrisulfr Wolves were on the northernmost tip of the Scandinavian peninsula in Navia, and Phantoms roamed the northern coast of the Southern Continent (from Cairo to Tunis). If he were to collect them all by himself, he would have to travel all over the world.

However, Asker knew of a shortcut.

The three most common cornerstone potions in the cornerstone Sequence were Strength X (increased explosive power and endurance), Agility X (increased control and reaction speed), and Intelligence X (increased intelligence and willpower). The corresponding main materials were exactly the Humerus of a Gaul Orge, the Tendon of a Fenrisulfr Wolf’s Hind leg, and the Remnant of a Phantom. Therefore, in theory, as long as one could obtain the potions or extraordinary characteristics of Strength X, Agility X, and Intelligence X, they could replace the main materials of Perfect Physique X.

So where could one find the three cornerstone potions? Constantinople. As the Queen of Cities, Constantinople’s advantage lay here – it was the intersection of East and West trade, and it was also located in the intersection of the Northern, Eastern, and Southern Continents. Coupled with its developed commerce and trade, almost everything in the world could be found here.

Asker slowly came to the slums of Constantinople, where most of the residents were poor migrants, such as Anatolians or Thracians, as well as Saxons and Jutes. Of course, there were also local gangs, which was a common problem in all cities with slums.

At the intersection of two nameless streets, Asker stopped in front of a stall, stared at the vendor’s goods for a long time, and suddenly sneered:

“Heh, gene serum?”

“You are right, esteemed sir,” said the vendor, a Jute who looked like a profiteer, with a short mustache and his hands clasped together in a fawning smile. “This is the gene serum from the Solomon Church. Physique I can increase your strength and endurance, Physique II can increase your agility and reaction speed, and Mind I can increase your intelligence and willpower. What’s even more amazing is that after the scientific modulation of the priests of the Solomon Church, all gene serums do not have the risk of losing control that is characteristic of potions, so they can be taken repeatedly. The more you take, the stronger you will become.”

“Hehe.” Asker picked up a small bottle and shook the liquid inside.

He knew that it was not a gene serum at all. This profiteer named Herosoth had somehow obtained the potions of Strength X, Agility X, and Intelligence X. Instead of selling them properly, this guy was selling them by diluting the three cornerstone potions with water, under the guise of “gene serum,” and he didn’t know how many novice players he had deceived.

During the open beta, game guides were relatively scarce. A bottle of “gene serum” probably only contained a drop of potion, and the rest was tap water. After taking such a thing, one could only increase a little bit of extraordinary power and could not cause a qualitative change in extraordinary characteristics. However, novice players didn’t know this, so a large amount of players’ hard-earned money flowed into the pockets of this profiteer.

It wasn’t until a certain player guild killed this guy that the truth of the scam came to light.

“How much?” Asker asked.

“10 pounds a bottle,” the profiteer said.

“Give me a bottle of Physique I.” Asker took out a banknote and gave it to him, then took a bottle of “Physique I” and drank it.

“No reaction.” He asked knowingly.

“The gene serum doesn’t work that fast,” the profiteer said with a chuckle. “It needs to be digested by your stomach…”

Before he finished speaking, Asker had already drawn Aphrodite and pointed it at the profiteer’s forehead:

“Ten times the price if it’s fake, understand?” Asker said coldly. “100 pounds.”

“This…” The profiteer’s eyes rolled. He knew that the other party was not being fooled at all, but deliberately finding fault knowing that there was a problem with the potion. “I keep all my money at home, I didn’t bring it with me…”

Just waiting for you to say that! Asker thought to himself, and said, “Don’t even think about running away, I’ll go back with you to get it.”

Just waiting for you to say that! The profiteer also thought fiercely in his heart, and agreed repeatedly.

There were no police patrols in the slums, so Asker held the profiteer hostage with his gun against his lower back all the way to the profiteer’s house.

Asker opened the door with the key and saw five or six burly tattooed men sitting inside, looking at him with unkind eyes. At this time, the profiteer who was being held hostage skillfully rolled on the spot and shouted:

“Someone’s looking for trouble! Kill him…”

Before he could finish speaking, a blood flower bloomed on his body. Asker actually shot him accurately while he was rolling at high speed. The gangsters in the room immediately erupted, scrambling to draw their guns, but Asker shot and killed two of them first.

The remaining three gangsters finally pulled out their submachine guns and fired a volley of shots towards the door, only to realize that Asker had already flashed out of the door.

“After him!”

A gangster with a gun rushed out of the door first, quickly scanning left and right, but did not find Asker. At this time, another scream came from behind him – it turned out that Asker had gone around to the side of the house and killed two more people through the window. The only remaining gangster was finally terrified and lost all courage to continue fighting, crawling and rolling towards the distant street.

Just as he was about to rush around the corner, a bullet pierced his back of the head.

These gangsters were used to bullying the poor, so Asker had no psychological burden in killing them. He entered the profiteer’s house leisurely, skillfully rummaged through boxes and cabinets, and soon found a hidden compartment behind an oil painting on the wall of the study on the second floor.

There were three bottles of potion inside, the crimson one was Strength X, the dark blue one was Intelligence X, and the light green one was Agility X. Each bottle of potion seemed to have been used up by about one-third.

After the spiritual materials were made into potions, the extraordinary characteristics, once formed, could not be separated again. If a portion of the potion was poured out, as long as it did not exceed one-half, the extraordinary characteristics would remain in the original potion, but the extraordinary power would flow out.

In other words, there was no problem in using these three bottles of potion as the main materials for Perfect Physique X. However, the extraordinary power was estimated to be only two-thirds.

Asker put away the three bottles of potion and left the house, only to see a large group of armed thugs rushing over.

Chapter 15: The Sunken Palace

The group split up and began their tasks. Asker took the subway to the northern district of Constantinople, arriving at the foot of Fifth Hill. He stopped before a partially submerged house called the Cistern of Aspar.

He knocked on the door.

“Beneath the eagle’s wings,” a voice whispered from behind the door.

“Lies the shadow,” Asker replied.

The door creaked open, and a burly, bald man with an eyepatch peered out. His remaining eye scanned Asker with suspicion. “I don’t know you, kid.”

“But I know you, Maestro,” Asker said with a smile, unfazed by the man’s gruff demeanor. “They say Constantinople is the Queen of Cities, the crossroads of East and West. Half the world’s goods can be found here. And the other half, the forbidden goods, can be acquired through the Thieves’ Guild’s black market.”

“How did you find this place?” Maestro asked, unimpressed by the flattery.

“A mutual acquaintance,” Asker replied vaguely.

“Right. And next, you’ll invent a name I’ve never heard before and swear they’re blood brothers with someone in our guild.” Maestro’s gaze lingered on the silver pistol at Asker’s hip. “A Desert Eagle… only fools or experts use those hand cannons.”

“Which one do you think I am?” Asker asked, his smile widening.

“If you were a fool, you wouldn’t have found this place.” Maestro spat on the ground. “But I doubt you’re a Church informant or a royal spy. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to stroll around with a Desert Eagle.”

“Indeed. I also know your guild uses Constantinople’s Sunken Palace as a base,” Asker said, his voice laced with amusement. “If I were with the Church or the royals, you’d be finished by now.”

“Come in.” Maestro stepped aside, his suspicion seemingly abated. “Don’t blame me if you get killed.”

“I’m confident in my ability to protect myself,” Asker replied, stepping inside.

Every city’s Thieves’ Guild had a hidden base, often in unexpected locations. In Constantinople, it was the Sunken Palace, a network of ancient cisterns beneath the city.

In modern siege warfare, city walls were no longer the final line of defense. The urban environment, with its towering buildings and intricate subway networks, could turn any siege into a nightmare of urban warfare. Therefore, besieging forces often resorted to tactics that undermined the defenders’ morale, such as cutting off power, water, and food supplies.

For water, Constantinople relied on a system similar to that of ancient Solomon: vast underground cisterns, fed by aqueducts that tapped into the Black Sea. These cisterns, built by the Eastern Solomonic people, mimicked the style of ancient Solomonic aqueducts, featuring towering Corinthian and Doric columns, vaulted ceilings, and intricate decorations.

Unlike typical palaces, however, these underground structures were partially submerged, with over twenty kilometers of navigable waterways connecting them. The waterways were designed to accommodate boats, allowing for easy transportation.

The Constantinople Thieves’ Guild had established its base deep within this network of Sunken Palaces. Maestro steered a small boat, while Asker sat comfortably in the stern, his gaze sweeping across the dark water and the forest of columns that stretched into the distance. Some areas were illuminated by flickering lamps, but most were shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Maestro had mounted a powerful battery-powered spotlight on the bow, illuminating their path.

Asker peered into the water, spotting schools of fish darting beneath the surface. The Thieves’ Guild had clearly stocked the cisterns with fish, ensuring a sustainable food source. There’s no way they achieved this without some sort of arrangement with the Constantinople Water Authority, Asker thought, amused.

After half an hour, they approached a larger, dimly lit cistern. Here, the Thieves’ Guild had constructed a miniature city atop the water, mimicking the design of Venice. Wooden piles had been driven deep into the cistern floor, supporting a network of stone walkways coated with waterproof sealant. They even had their own blacksmith, market, clinic, and security force, all illuminated by colorful lights powered by the guild’s own generators.

The flickering lights, reflected in the rippling water, created a surreal and dreamlike atmosphere.

“Fresh meat!” Maestro steered the boat towards a makeshift dock and leaped onto the walkway. “Old Sol! Issue him a pass!”

A hunched old man scurried over, eagerly pinning a rat-shaped badge onto Asker’s gambeson. He even wiped the greasy surface with his sleeve.

“Behold!” Maestro gestured grandly, his voice filled with pride. “The Thieves’ Guild’s Sunken Palace! The Eighth Wonder of the World! You’re one of the lucky few to witness its splendor.”

“Truly impressive,” Asker replied dryly. “Especially the fish farming.”

“Hahaha!” Maestro roared with laughter. “We even have a ‘waste recycling system.’ Otherwise, all the nobles in Constantinople would be drinking our piss!”

Their so-called “waste recycling system” was essentially a compost heap. A large opening in the cistern ceiling allowed sunlight to filter through. According to Maestro, this opening connected to Second Hill, providing ventilation and illumination for the entire underground complex. The Thieves’ Guild had piled soil beneath the opening, creating a compost heap for their waste. The fermented compost served as fertilizer for hops, allowing them to brew their own beer.

I have to hand it to the game designers… Asker thought, his expression carefully neutral. Maestro, eager to showcase more of their hidden city, launched into a detailed tour. Asker, however, cut him short.

“I’m here to purchase some goods.”

“Ah, you’ve come to the right place, kid.” Maestro grinned, revealing a set of yellowed teeth. “We have all sorts of forbidden goods, as long as you can afford them.”

Asker produced a list of items. Maestro scanned it, his brow furrowing.

“Riverwater from the Garr Valley in Western Francia… Fruit of Eden from Syris… those shouldn’t be a problem. We have contacts in the West. A tablespoon of Olive Oil of Corfu? We sell it by the barrel, but fine, I’ll throw in a tablespoon for free… Panopea Abrupta from the Bathnia Gulf? Hehehe, you’ve got some… needs, kid.”

“No,” Asker corrected. “These are all ethereal materials.”

“I know they’re ethereal materials.” Maestro scoffed. “Why else would you specify their origins? But these ingredients aren’t used in the same elixir formula. You’re only interested in the Panopea Abrupta, aren’t you? Trying to hide it among other ingredients… Master Achilles, that’s not how you build trust.”

“You know who I am?” Asker asked, surprised.

“We know all the nobles in the city,” Maestro replied. “Especially the wealthy ones. In fact, we took note of your name the day you sold your shops to the Church. We were planning to pay you a visit, see if we could… relieve you of some of that cash…”

“Well, I’ve brought the cash to you,” Asker joked.

“Indeed, indeed.” Maestro chuckled. “Selling you forbidden goods is preferable to robbing you and getting killed. We don’t want to end up like that vampire.”

“So, you can provide all the materials on this list?” Asker asked, seeking confirmation.

“Two are impossible,” Maestro replied, his expression turning serious. “Golden Leech and Valar Eagle feathers. We have no leads on those.”

“I have a lead,” Asker said. “Valar Eagles prefer to nest in high places. I’ve heard they nest atop the Hagia Sophia and the Palace of the Golden Throne. They also incorporate their own feathers into their nests, allowing their hatchlings to imprint on their scent.”

“The Hagia Sophia and the Palace of the Golden Throne… those aren’t easy places to reach,” Maestro chuckled.

“Indeed. The Hagia Sophia is right under the Church’s nose. I doubt you’d dare go there. But the Palace of the Golden Throne shouldn’t be a problem.” Asker smiled. “Your guild has Shadow sequence Transcendents, correct? I’ve heard they enjoy climbing tall structures and taking ‘leaps of faith.’”

“We occasionally climb tall structures, but we avoid ‘leaps of faith,’” a voice said from behind Asker. “If our Shadow magic fails, we’d end up as a splattered mess.”

Asker turned and saw a young woman leaning against a wall, casually flipping a dagger in her hand.

“And this is…?” Asker looked at Maestro.

“Mia Cinque Mani,” Maestro introduced. “Our newest recruit, a Shadow I Transcendental.”

“Can you climb to the top of the Palace of the Golden Throne and retrieve some Valar Eagle feathers?” Asker asked the girl. “One hundred pounds.”

“No problem,” Mia replied.

Her voice sounds familiar… Asker thought, a memory stirring within him. “Justice X?” he asked tentatively.

“It’s you?” Mia chuckled, recognition dawning on her. “So, you were the one who bought my formula this afternoon. It makes sense now. I should have realized when you mentioned Valar Eagles. The Justice sequence… hehe… if it wasn’t so incompatible with my profession, I would have kept it for myself.”

“Aren’t the Shadow and Justice sequences incompatible?” Asker asked, surprised. “There’s no bloodline path that incorporates both, is there?”

“Incompatible? Bloodline?” Mia frowned, clearly unfamiliar with those terms.

“Incompatible means consuming a new elixir sequence that clashes with your existing traits. A bloodline is a combination of compatible elixir sequences,” Maestro explained, his voice stern. “Mia, why didn’t you tell me about the Justice sequence formula?”

“Well, I… acquired it from the palace last week,” Mia mumbled, her cheeks flushing.

“You must report all supernatural items before taking action. How many times have I told you?” Maestro’s voice boomed. “With your limited knowledge, you could have triggered a mutation if you had consumed that Justice elixir!”

“Yes, yes, I understand.” Mia, knowing she was in the wrong, relented.

“She’s at that age,” Asker said, adopting a knowing tone. “Tell her not to do something, and she’ll do it just to spite you. Like a stubborn mule. Give her a challenging task, and she’ll forget all about her rebellious streak.”

“Hey! Who are you calling a mule?” Mia shouted, her face reddening.