ALL NOVEL Chapter 99 Ringworm and Helmeted Slug
Xia Zuo pondered for a moment and asked, "Then who should we go to tomorrow?"
"Balaz Firehammer, a researcher of the Ore Alchemist Association." Diem said.
Xia Zuo thought about it and asked: "Does Balazs Fire Hammer have something similar to a cane hat?"
Dim nodded, placing the tip of his index finger in the center of his forehead.
"To prove his innocence, Balazs will wear a piece of jewelry here with a fiery red gemstone set on it. If the surface of the gemstone is as beautiful as new and there are no cracks, then there is no problem. This is the same as the ore alchemist. It has something to do with the association’s meditation method, and I don’t know the specific situation either.”
"Does the Biological Alchemist Association have something similar?" Xia Zuo asked again.
Dim shook his head, his beard brushing back and forth in front of his chest, "The Biological Alchemist Association doesn't even have meditation methods. All their members come from other associations or universities."
"In that case, the Bioalchemists Association is the most suspicious." Xia Zuo rummaged around in his pocket and found a blank notepad, intending to use it to record the affairs of the Bioalchemists Association alone.
"Dim..." Xia Zuo pondered for a few seconds, "Do you already have a clear clue? I mean... you actually knew that there was something wrong with the bioalchemy researcher, right?"
He just thought back to a few days ago, when he met Dim for the first time, how did the other party change the topic to investigation? It seemed that when the breathing method was mentioned, Dim asked about the idea of investigation.
The main force behind the development and iteration of breathing methods is bioalchemy.
Dim scratched his beard, crossed his arms, and shrugged his shoulders, "Hmm, yes. But I can't tell you. The head of the hospital told me to guide you more. I think you did a good job today. , keep it up, and you will find abnormalities soon."
The next morning, Xia Zuo and Dim visited Balaz Firehammer. The other party expressed his enthusiasm for the visitor with a loud voice and splashing spit.
Xia Zuo put on gloves, headgear and shoe covers as usual, and checked Balazs's alchemy room, alchemy diary and inventory.
Ore alchemy has little intersection with the other two alchemies, but it has a deep relationship with ordinary people.
Xia Zuo then focused on checking the inventory of rare minerals and regulated metals, and also visited the hazy glowing magic mine.
Later that day, Xia Zuo and Dim returned to the hotel and made an appointment to go to the third researcher's stronghold early tomorrow morning.
The researcher arranged by the Bioalchemist Association in Starlight City is a woman named Emily Cardin.
Xia Zuo was extremely surprised when he saw her for the first time.
Emily's alchemy robe has many small bulging pockets.
Bioalchemists need to work with different animals.
There are many ways to give commands to animals, but only a few animals can understand the spoken language, gestures or body language of their owners.
The simplest and most versatile way to control animals is to use color cards to convey instructions.
Since animals see different colors through their visual organs, a set of color cards must be matched for each animal.
The biological alchemist's robe will have many pockets to hold color cards, which is obviously different from the alchemists of other disciplines.
Emily's stronghold is also larger than the first two researchers.
Two glass rooms are located on both sides of the corridor behind the store. Plants are cultivated in the glass room on the left, and animals are kept in captivity on the right.
After the three of them greeted each other, Xia Zuo asked to check the alchemy room and the alchemy diary.
Emily tangled her hair with her fingers, twirling the ends of her hair around her fingertips.
After thinking for a few seconds, she said in a sincere tone:
"Xia Zuo, you know that bio-alchemy will not be taught in Xingye Academy. I want to take you to understand this alchemy first to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings."
"Okay, thank you, Emily." Xia Zuo took out the three-piece inspection suit and put it on.
"Follow me." Emily asked Xia and Zuo to follow her.
She took the visitor directly to the warehouse.
There are more culture tanks here. Starting from the left hand side of the entrance, they are divided into four areas. The areas are distinguished by floors of different colors.
Emily pointed to the four areas in turn and said, "The raw materials of bioalchemy are divided into four types according to their survival methods - companionship, symbiosis, parasitism and independent survival."
She looked at Xia Zuo beside her and warned in a gentle voice:
"When you calculate the quantity of raw materials, you need to note that the main body and companions of companion raw materials are calculated separately. Symbiotic raw materials are combined into one and counted as one. Parasitic raw materials must be classified and counted. Some parasites are in the same It can only parasitize one organism at a time, and some can parasitize multiple organisms at the same time. I don’t need to say more about the raw materials for independent survival, just calculate it normally."
Xia Zuo nodded and glanced at more than forty culture tanks. The things in them were all kinds of things.
There are frogs with potted plants such as garlic, orchids, and chrysanthemums growing on them, snakes strung together with rattan, and lizards with glowing lantern flowers growing on their heads...
Plants and animals are harmoniously combined, but upon closer inspection, there is always an indescribable feeling of weirdness.
The ones that look more in line with common sense are the only raw materials that can survive independently.
It's like an air jellyfish that can swim slowly even though the cabinet is filled with air. Bleeding sand-walking lizards that swim on dry sand and leave watermarks. Strange grass-like creatures that turn into withered flowers and branches when they see people coming...
Xia Zuo had a feast for his eyes today, seeing many monsters that had only appeared in classics - not all monsters were arrogant, and the monsters brought to the Western Continent were all relatively docile and easy to control.
Emily introduced all the display cabinets and took Xia and Zuo back to her alchemy room.
There are three more types of instruments in the bio-alchemy room than in the conventional alchemy room: anatomy table, air-drying box, and closed clean workbench.
The daily alchemy work is also more complicated. There are as many as 20 alchemy diaries in the past 14 years.
Just when Xia Zuo was about to see darkness for once, Emily took out a manual from her pocket.
"This is my own conclusion... Well... how should I put it? It is recorded in this manual. I feel something is wrong, but it cannot be said to be a violation of regulations."
Xia Zuo and Dim looked at each other. He took Emily's manual and flipped through it quickly.
Emily entangled her hair with her fingertips, raised her head slightly, looked at the ceiling, frowned and said in thought:
"I have known the other four bioalchemists for a long time. We are all students of Boying Academy. It must be at least more than 20 years from the first year of enrollment to now..."
Xia Zuo rubbed his chin and nodded his head, writing down the name Boying Academy.
There are limited books introducing the Eastern Continent in Starry Night Academy. Because the differences between the two places were too great, Beatrice intentionally limited the intelligence on the Eastern Continent. Mage colleges in the Eastern Continent, such as Boying Academy, have never appeared in the library of Starry Night Academy.
"I have the best grades and am the first person in the same class to become an expert biological alchemist. So my instructor arranged for me to be stationed in Starlight City and be responsible for preparing strange materials."
Emily stretched out her right hand, clasped her fingers and said:
"The performance of Shiksa, Meade, and Bailey is the same as when they were studying in the academy. The demand for alchemical raw materials, the amount of scrap, the quantity of products, the success rate of alchemy, and the yield rate are in line with past performances. Number."
Emily raised her index finger and emphasized her tone, "Only Hemster's alchemy level is not stable, and the success rate has dropped a bit."
She frowned and pinched her chin, "But it hasn't exceeded the threshold, and it's still within control. Before you arrived, I took advantage of the opportunity to transport raw materials and went to Hemst's alchemy room and warehouse to check Many times, nothing out of the ordinary.”
Emily shook her head, looking a little helpless, "Hey, I don't know what to do. After reporting it to the mentor, I just left it aside. I myself am not suitable for questioning him carefully. Every alchemist has I have a product I am developing, and if he feels that I am probing his creativity or trying to plagiarize his alchemy ideas, I will have to explain it to my mentor..."
Xia Zuo listened and read the contents of the manual.
He rubbed his brows, feeling that things were a bit tricky. This manual was of great significance and revealed part of the secret of the secret breathing method.
The secret medicine of the breathing method is essentially to plant a symbiotic organism called annular worm into the body of the practitioner.
Ringworm is a product of bioalchemy. It is a fungus outside the human body and an insect inside the human body.
There are many types of it. The one approved by the Mage Temple for use in the Western Continent is the one with the smallest side effects. Its internal code name is Level 1 Painless Ring Breathing Insect.
The process of the ringworm entering the practitioner's body is called implantation.
If the implantation is successful, the ring-breathing insect will transform the practitioner's body, improve the physical quality, and give birth to special functions. In the days that follow, it will live and grow with the cultivator.
If implantation fails, the ring-breathing insects will also improve a certain physical quality and then be excreted from the cultivator's body.
The lifespan of ringworms is 50 years.
In the first 20 years, it will absorb the practitioner's vitality. But in the next 30 years, it will release its own vitality and deny the practitioners.
Let’s talk about it digitally. For the first 20 years, ring breath insects reduced the vitality attribute by 1 to 3 points. In the next 30 years, the vitality attribute will increase by 1 to 3 points.
When Xia Zuo read this, he looked through the templates of breathing method practitioners he had encountered in the past and found that they were indeed correct.
Hemst, whom Emily mentioned, is mainly responsible for the recycling and reuse of ringworms.
When the cultivator dies, or the implantation fails, or the cultivator takes the initiative to take medicine to remove the ringworm, the ringworm will transform from worms into fungi and stay in the intestines of the practitioner.
At this time, the ringworm has lost its activity. If it is fed to the armored slug as feed, the slug can be converted into the main raw material for making ringworm.
Hemst's daily work is to collect the corpses of breathing practitioners, dissect them to obtain the withered ring breath worms, and use the helmeted slugs to refine the ring breath worms' main materials.
With a 100% success rate, one helmeted slug corresponds to one ring-breathing insect main material.
When Hemst was at Boying Academy, the average success rate was 98%. Since previous years, the success rate has dropped to 96%, which is only 1% higher than the warning line of 95%.
Xia Zuo finished reading the contents of the manual, handed it to Dim beside him, thought for a while, looked at Emily and asked:
"Emily, if I understand correctly, you suspect that Hemster deliberately lowered the success rate in order to obtain more helmeted slugs, and then used the excess slugs to do some private work, right?"
Emily nodded, "But I'm just suspicious. I can't make any more moves."
Xia Zuo glanced at the clock on the wall, "If you don't mind, I want to read your alchemy diary carefully. It may not be finished until after ten o'clock in the evening."
"Excuse me, Xia Zuo." Amy extended her arm to the desk.
She and Dim walked towards the door of the alchemy room and gave up the space here to Xia Zuo.
…
11pm.
The moonlight shines outside the alchemy room.
Xia Zuo put down his pen with a tired look on his face, closed his eyes and meditated for two minutes, then cleared the table and got up to find Dim, who had been waiting next door for a long time.
The two said goodbye to Emily and returned to the hotel without saying a word.
After looking at the radishes in the backyard as usual, Xia Zuo walked into Dim's storage room.
"I know why you're not in a hurry, Dim."
Xia Zuo rubbed his chin and paced back and forth around the table, "Actually, you have locked onto Hemster a long time ago, and you already have evidence."
Dim sat down, took out a carrot, took a bite, and said:
"Hmm, yes. Before applying for an investigative researcher, we must first obtain key witnesses and physical evidence, otherwise the Mage Temple will not agree. What the two of us are doing now is just routine, and by the way, we hope that the traitor will surrender voluntarily That’s all.”
Xia Zuo nodded with a deep expression.
After carefully reading Emily's alchemy diary today, he was 80% sure that Hemster used his work to ink a small number of armored slugs, made them into other types of ring-breathing insects, and sold them privately to others. people.
Xia Zuo stated his findings to Dim in a calm tone, and asked at the end of his words:
"If what I said is correct, can you tell me what the key evidence is? Have you already obtained samples of Hemst's homemade ringworm?"
Dim reached into his alchemy pocket and took out a locked, heavy metal box.
He did not open it, but just put it on the table to display, "There are 12 withered ring breath insects in it. Their styles are completely different from those used by the Warrior Guild. But in the days before today, we cannot compare these ring breath insects with Hemst is directly connected."
Dim paused and scratched his beard, "As for the witness...Piedov counts as one, and now Emily counts as one. In addition to these two people, when I was following clues related to Piedov, I met More than 10 victims arrived. The ring-breathing insects in the metal box were stripped from their bodies."
"Then can we go directly to Hemster?" Xia Zuo asked.
Dim nodded, a smile appeared on his bushy beard face, and took out Emily's manual from his pocket, "Of course. To be honest, Emily's performance exceeded my expectations, and I didn't expect her to Just take out this manual that ties all the evidence together. Maybe she got the instruction from her mentor."
"However, we need to contact Hemster in another way." Dim put away the metal box and manual, pointed at the other party and said:
"I will drive the carriage to Sbrier City in the open. You, use wind movement to go there, keep an eye on the target, track him, record all his actions, as well as the people and objects he comes into contact with."
"Okay, leave it to me." Xia Zuo touched the wrist guard. It seemed that Beatrice had already guessed all this, so she took out the temporary anti-detection barrier a month in advance.
When Dim saw Xia Zuo's movements, he patted Xia Zuo's shoulder with his broad right hand.
"Be safe and don't take risks. Don't let your guard down just because Hemster is just a mage apprentice. Even with the anti-detection barrier in hand, there are still many flaws in the wind movement, so you should pay more attention."
Xia Zuo solemnly agreed, then scratched the back of his head, "Dim, will Hemster run away to the west and hide in the wilderness outside the kingdom?"
"It's possible." Dim looked as normal, as if he expected this, "If he really does this, we will continue to chase him until we catch him."
Xia Zuomosuo put the secret message ring on his left thumb, chatted with Dim some more about the itinerary, and then returned to his room to rest.
Thanks to book friend 20211021070949200 for the 1500 points!
Thanks to Ervya, Shuhuangyou Shuyou, Time-honored Brand 159753, Wilderness iiiiii, Fantasy Rain and Moonlight, and Book Friends 20211021070949200 for their monthly votes!
Thanks to many book friends for their recommendation votes~
There is a little glitch in the background creation, and the main plot will appear in the next few chapters. I have to think about important settings again, so today I will update 4400, and I will resume two updates tomorrow. Please forgive me.