Synthesis-type adventurers

Chapter 31 The Mad Alchemist

The two continued their trek in the darkness.

At the end of the sewage ditch was a vertical shaft, with a heavy cast iron cover leading directly to the heart of the scrap yard, outside of which was Old Hansen's container hut.

"Avira," Rhodes stopped at the bottom of the shaft, looking up at the few streaks of pale light leaking through the crack, "once you get up there, if you're unlucky enough to run into the Gear Brotherhood or the Guild, you are absolutely not allowed to draw your sword unless you hear my order."

Ivyra placed her hand on the hilt of her sword, her tone slightly hesitant: "Even if the other side attacks first?"

"Even with a cold steel blade at your throat," Rhodes said matter-of-factly, his clear eyes seemingly having long understood the essence of this cannibalistic society, "not fighting won't necessarily kill you, but if you do, you'll be the ones who die. Remember, we're here for the money, not to throw our lives away. We don't have the resources to go toe-to-toe with the guild's heavily armed enforcement teams."

"...Yes, ma'am."

Rod climbed the ladder to the top, then used both hands to support the heavy cast iron manhole cover above his head, slowly lifting the rusty metal block upwards.

"Safety."

Rhodes gestured to Avira below, climbed out of the well, and waited for a long time before pulling Avira, who was wearing heavy plate armor, out. Along the way, he broke several rotten iron ladders.

This is the shady side of that towering mountain of scrap metal, where massive piles of industrial waste form a natural barrier, perfectly positioned in the blind spot of the guild's encirclement.

A dozen meters away, at a corner, stood that inconspicuous container house, converted from a shipping container, all alone.

"You stay outside and keep watch," Rhodes whispered to Avira. "If anyone from the guild approaches, knock on the door immediately to warn me."

Avira nodded slightly, her figure disappearing into the dark shadow cast by a pile of discarded metal plates.

Rod straightened his disheveled collar, took a breath of the stale air to compose himself, and pushed open the half-closed iron door.

The door hinges turned, producing a piercing friction sound.

The room was not as chaotic as expected.

On the contrary, the alchemy table, which was usually piled with clutter, was cleaned spotless, and all the blueprints were neatly stacked in a corner.

Old Hansen sat in an old swivel chair, his back to the door.

Hearing the iron gate close, he slowly turned around.

Upon seeing the other party's condition, Rhodes' pupils contracted slightly.

At this moment, the deathly dejection of yesterday had completely vanished from old Hansen.

His face was flushed with a sickly redness, and two balls of ghostly fire, like white phosphorus, burned in his eye sockets, making him look somewhat frightening.

On the back of his hand, which was as withered as tree bark, the bulging veins were an eerie purplish-black color, and beneath the veins, one could even see some tiny living creature wriggling and crawling.

Judging from this appearance, it is probably the last moment obtained by burning the potential of life, which is also known as a final burst of energy before death.

"You've come," old Hansen said in a hoarse voice.

He stared at Rod, a grotesque smile spreading across his face, revealing a set of broken, blackened, rotten teeth.

"I knew you'd come. Rats like us, when they smell profit, won't even let a mousetrap catch them."

Rod didn't speak, but calmly pushed the door latch into place and quickly scanned the room.

The buckets of inferior engine oil that were originally piled in the corner were gone, and several thick wires emerged from the cracks in the floor, eventually converging on the rudimentary device in Old Hansen's hand.

In the center of the device, there is only one bright red button.

"Stop looking," Old Hansen said, shaking the detonator in his hand. "There are twenty barrels of high-explosive alchemical fuel buried in the foundation below. I extracted it from the wreckage of an old military airship; it's extremely pure. With just a flick of my finger, not a single intact screw will be left within a radius of twenty or thirty meters."

Rhodes' heart skipped a beat; he was already prepared to run away at any moment. He frowned slightly and probed, "So, you called me here just to find someone to die with while watching the fireworks?"

"Heh heh..." Old Hansen let out a strange laugh. "Watch fireworks? No, I'm not the kind of person who repays kindness with enmity. I'm here to pay back a debt."

He pulled a thick notebook from his pocket—the cover was made of some kind of magical beast leather, rough and tough, with no visible writing, only countless scratches of varying depths.

"Those two bottles of medicine you forced into my mouth yesterday," Old Hansen looked directly into Rhodes' eyes, "high-purity tranquilizer, potent flesh activator, and the ratio... tsk tsk, it's practically a textbook example of interventional therapy."

Rhodes' heart stirred slightly.

The situation was critical at the time, and he simply chose the two most potent medicines based on his intuition and the system's descriptions, without any regard for the proportions.

But in the eyes of a master alchemist, this accidental operation became a profound and unfathomable professional skill.

"Such extravagant drug administration methods, and such precise dosage control," Old Hansen said to himself, "aside from those few chief alchemists who live a life of luxury in the towers of big cities, only wild men like us who make a living among piles of corpses would dare to do this."

He leaned forward, his eyes, burning with ghostly fire, fixed on Rhodes' face.

"Tell me, kid. What school of thought are you? Human transmutation? Or grafting onto other life forms?" Old Hansen raised an eyebrow and hesitated for a moment. "Don't try to fool me. There's a scent about you that I'm very familiar with... well, 'inhuman scent' would be a more appropriate description."

Rhodes' heart skipped a beat.

The [All Things Aphorism System] would never produce such inexplicable effects on its own unless it loaded related negative aphorisms.

The only explanation might be that when he came into contact with the red dragon's corpse, he stripped off the [Fragmented Red Dragon Blood] entry, or it might be the residual aura from when he detonated the Dragon Breath entrenching tool.

For alchemy masters with epic-level attributes, especially those who have come into contact with forbidden knowledge and have been corrupted by ancient gods, it seems reasonable that they would notice something unusual that mortals cannot perceive.

I'll probably have to be more careful from now on.

"..."

Rhodes chose to remain silent.

At this point, any explanation would be superfluous and might even expose flaws.

Maintaining mystery and letting the other party fill in the blanks is the most skillful form of deception.

Sure enough, faced with Rhodes' silence, the light in old Hansen's eyes grew even more intense.

"Hmph, not saying anything? I'll take that as a yes?" He leaned back in his chair smugly, the rotting wooden planks groaning. "I knew it. Those hypocrites in the guild, all talk about morality and righteousness, but all they want to do is grab people like us, dissect us, and squeeze every last drop out of our research."

He roughly slapped the notebook in front of him and said indignantly, "The Theory of Neutralization of Different Bloodlines—this is the only thing I've ever worked on in my life. Those bastards sealed off the entire Southern District just for this thing."

"They thought it was just a madman's experimental diary about how to sew monster limbs onto people... Of course, it did involve some research on the ancient gods."

"What a bunch of fools," old Hansen sneered. "They have no idea how this book describes how to make the fragile human body contain the divinity of those higher beings."

Upon hearing this, Rod's heart began to pound again.

Does it contain "divinity" that accommodates higher beings?

Isn't this the key he was looking for—the key to loading the [Fragmented Red Dragon Blood]?

"What's the use of this thing?" Rhodes suppressed the pounding in his heart, his tone feigning indifference, even carrying a hint of disdain. "Turning people into monsters? I've seen that kind of low-level trick all the time on the black market."

His gaze landed meaningfully on the back of Old Hansen's hand, where the veins were bulging, and he said coldly, "Besides, look at yourself. You're riddled with holes from pollution and decay. Is this what you call your achievement?"

"Stop fooling yourself, old man. I can smell the stench of decay emanating from you even through the door."