An Order Comes In

Chapter 2: An Order Comes In

"Living Mercury Solution?"

Amber Xiu tapped his skull. He had heard of this alchemical potion before. It seemed to be a defective product recently created by the Alchemist Association, a byproduct of the New Slime Cultivation Project.

In recent years, the Council of Alchemists had been troubled by its lack of new creations. This made those arrogant alchemists extremely anxious. In their eyes, neither mages, warlocks, nor gods could compare to the bottles and jars in their hands.

They were obsessed with the grand fantasy that alchemy could create anything. Hundreds of years ago, they had even dreamed of creating a true god through alchemy. But they had forgotten that the God of Alchemy truly existed.

The god could not tolerate such near-blasphemous behavior, so he gave those arrogant alchemists a failure they would never forget.

The God-Creation Project failed completely. The God of Alchemy also punished all alchemists, and no alchemist could ever again draw inspiration through his divine power.

For two hundred full years, the great Alchemy City Alchemia did not produce a single new magical potion formula. Until many years ago, the President of the current Council of Alchemists finally broke the god's seal and created a new formula, saving Alchemia from gradual collapse.

This Chairman was also a legendary figure. He broke the god's curse, saved Alchemy City, and revised its rules. No longer was entry restricted by race or nationality. He also provided large quantities of affordable magical potions as benefits, drawing countless talents into the city in a short time. After several decades, it finally flourished again.

Amber Xiu had only come to Alchemy City in recent decades. It was precisely because of Alchemy City's tolerance that he had dared to reincarnate here as a lich.

But as that legendary figure grew old and gradually retired behind the scenes, the alchemists began another round of courting disaster. They once again became obsessed with creating new species that did not exist in the world, one direction being the creation of Metal Slimes.

But without that genius Chairman's involvement, the experiments failed again and again. The Metal Slimes they created could only be called piles of slime corpses, so the project was changed into Living Mercury Solution, which could only be used to melt and break down metal.

Beyond that, other messy experiments involving new species also failed one after another. Alchemy City wasted enormous resources, leaving its finances extremely strained. As the economy declined, the elves of Silver Moon High Court swiftly kicked it while it was down. Their massive price hikes on magical potion ingredients made Alchemy City's financial troubles even worse.

The result was the collapse of countless potion-related industries. Even an Undead Creature like Amber Xiu was affected. All sorts of investments lost money, and he fell completely into a financial crisis.

Damn High Elves!

Amber Xiu cursed again before replying through the Necronomicon.

[Diga Ultraman: You need it for an experiment? I heard this potion is a failed product. All slimes turned into mercury lose their vitality.]

[Crown of the Headless Knight: I know, but the solution retains the slime's trait of eating anything. I have a special situation here and need Living Mercury Solution to deal with some metal trash.]

[Diga Ultraman: Secret savings?]

[Crown of the Headless Knight: What secret savings? Goddess of the Undead above, don't make up rumors out of thin air!]

[Withering Rose: Looks like it really is secret savings. Why did an undead like you get married in the first place? And to a Bone Dragon, no less.]

[Crown of the Headless Knight: You wouldn't understand the wonders of marriage. Cut the nonsense. Brother Diga, can you get it or not? I'll cover the teleportation fee if I have to.]

[Diga Ultraman: I can try, but it'll probably be expensive. Recently, the Council of Alchemists has been trying every possible way to cut costs and improve efficiency. They've even inflated the price of this failed product, probably trying to recover some expenses.]

[Crown of the Headless Knight: Twenty thousand Gold Coins per bottle. I can pay half as a deposit first.]

A picture slowly appeared on the yellowed pages of the book. It depicted a precious Magic Material: Dragon Bone Vine.

Legend had it that only a legendary Bone Dragon that had slept for a hundred years might grow this vine on its body. It was an extractant required for many high-grade magical potions.

As the image became clearer and clearer, the Dragon Bone Vine emerged from the page and transformed directly into a physical object. One of the Necronomicon's special functions was designated teleportation of small objects through the book.

This Headless Knight really gave it as soon as he said he would. No wonder he married a Bone Dragon. Her dowry must have been substantial. With the High Elves constantly driving up potion prices, this Dragon Bone Vine was worth at least twelve thousand Gold Coins. The deposit alone was excessive. This old brother must have quite a lot of secret savings to hide.

"Damn those High Elves. Sooner or later, I'll tear down your Silver Moon High Court!"

Amber Xiu cursed, then replied to the Headless Knight, "I'll place the order right away. It'll arrive within five days at most."

Closing the Necronomicon, Amber Xiu immediately gathered magic power and created a Magic Crow.

Such a minor spell was effortless for a legendary spellcaster.

The crow had only one ability: to deliver Amber Xiu's letter containing the purchase information into Alchemy City. In a few days, a merchant caravan would deliver the Living Mercury Solution to Amber Xiu's Ancient Castle.

A mage's life was just that convenient.

But after writing the purchase letter, Amber Xiu brought out a pile of skeletal materials from the cabinet, preparing to continue his experiment.

"Hmph, discriminating against the undead, are you? I'll show you that there's absolutely nothing wrong with my paper."

With a wave of Amber Xiu's hand, the neatly arranged skeleton was dismantled by an invisible force and turned into individual bones.

The bones floated around Amber Xiu as he sank into thought.

Skeletons were clumsy because the structure of human bones was simply too complicated, while death inflicted tremendous damage on the human soul.

Every necromancer had to go through this beginner stage. The Undead Creatures they created had low-quality souls, so their movements were clumsy. A skeleton made this way was like an idiot piloting a mech. It took who knew how many years of practice to precisely control every joint.

That was why most wild undead creatures needed vast amounts of time to train their control, something Amber Xiu found utterly meaningless. The soul was like a computer. Its processing power was already limited, yet it wasted resources on balancing the body. How could its movements not be clumsy?

"Why do skeletons have to be humanoid? Why do they have to walk on feet? Wouldn't four wheels be much simpler?"

The structure of bipedal walking was inherently inefficient. Intelligent life evolved the ability to walk upright only so that both hands could use tools, but the movement itself was extremely difficult. Even living human children needed about a year of growth before they could stagger about, and even after four or five years, they might still fall while running.

But they were already undead, so why obsess over whether they had two legs or eight?

If the original form was stable enough, there would be no need to worry about falling. The processing power saved from balancing could be used on other movements, naturally making them better. If those other movements were further limited to simple, repetitive segmented actions, the soul would find them even easier to control.

Amber Xiu opened several scrolls. They contained several new skeleton forms he had carefully designed. Originally, these designs had already been published in Legendary Spell for discussion and research with necromancers everywhere.

But now, Amber Xiu could only create the new skeletons according to his original designs.

There were already quite a few household skeletons in the Ancient Castle, but to impress his fellow necromancers, Amber Xiu needed to create Skeleton Warriors that cost less yet possessed greater combat power.

"Traditional Skeleton Warriors can only fight with cold weapons..."

Amber Xiu began carefully separating the bones, turning them into individual components and assembling them together. Then he took out a glass jar and removed a translucent ball of light from within.

This was a Simulated Soul. Not only could it create souls from nothing, it could also modify them. This soul's processing power was so low that it was nowhere near enough to control an entire skeleton body. But if it only controlled one or two joints, it could handle that easily. It only needed a little modification...

Amber Xiu was busy when a scream suddenly came from outside the Ancient Castle. He immediately put down the bone in his hand. The Soul Fire in his eye sockets condensed, like human pupils narrowing.

One of the Magic Traps he had designed had been triggered. Someone had infiltrated his Ancient Castle by abnormal means.