Demonized Weapon Oil

Ian's mana flowed steadily into the magic array under the guidance of his spirituality, like a trickling stream. As the silver patterns on the plate slowly lit up, a simple alchemy array took shape.

Ian didn't feel strained; everything flowed naturally.

It took Ian an hour to engrave the alchemy array, plus familiarizing himself with and understanding the properties of all the materials. It was almost noon when Ian finally began the actual process.

Before starting, Ian had been constantly worried about failure. But once he got to work, he found it was as easy as eating or drinking, encountering no difficulties.

He began to add materials according to the knowledge in his memory, starting with the first step: purifying the materials.

The essence of alchemy is equivalent exchange.

Understanding, purification, decomposition, transformation, construction, solidification, and refinement—these are the seven stages of an alchemist's process.

An alchemist will reorganize or select parts of these nodes based on the actual situation to complete the alchemy process.

Soon, as the materials were consumed and the array solidified, a mass of semi-solid, semi-liquid yellow grease floated in the center of the array.

As Ian reined in his spirituality, his precise mana control pushed aside the chaotic mana from the refinement array. He then completely withdrew from the alchemy array to avoid his own characteristics affecting the demonization process.

Subsequently, Ian relied solely on his spirituality to activate the pure mana, already structured by the alchemy array, to complete the demonization of the grease.

As the array's refinement concluded, the silver plate of the alchemy array dimmed, fell to the ground, and shattered into several pieces.

The bright yellow demonized weapon oil was held aloft by his spirituality, its mana light thin and stable, utterly devoid of impurities. Its quality was undoubtedly top-tier.

Ian's face was filled with joy, and he quickly used a pre-prepared silver jar to seal the demonized weapon oil.

Only a little over two hours had passed, and the entire alchemy process had been smooth and seamless, completed in one go.

In Ian's memory, even his previous self's best state couldn't achieve such delicate and stable control.

Using such a simple alchemy array and average quality materials, he had completed the refinement of top-tier weapon demonized oil in just two hours.

If other alchemists knew about this, they would likely be stunned.

Ian calculated; he had surplus materials for everything except the coordination crystal.

The weapon demonized oil refined this time was about three pounds, with a cost of around 20 gold coins.

On the third floor of the Bounty Hunter Guild, Ian had seen weapon demonized oil sold with other formulas. One pound cost about 30 to 60 gold, but its quality was clearly inferior to his.

Thinking about it this way, he was astonished himself.

Three hours, tenfold profit—it sounded illegal!

Ian wished he could just keep refining, and he could buy a second-tier battleship in a year, assuming someone was willing to sell one.

However, his spirituality and mana were largely depleted at the moment, so he definitely couldn't continue today.

"Knock, knock, knock..."

As Ian was lost in thought, there was a knock on his door.

Within Ian's perception, there were two people outside the door: the inn's attendant was nervously standing at the door knocking, and a few meters away, an extraordinary individual wearing a boat hat stood with a hand on the hilt of their sword, looking vigilant.

Ian wasn't too surprised. The extraordinary individual might be from the Breath of the Ocean. That extraordinary individual had appeared outside the door shortly after he began alchemy but hadn't rashly interrupted him.

The commotion from the alchemy array earlier was quite significant. If no one came to investigate, Ian would have found it abnormal.

In his past life, Ian had been timid and fearful, lacking freedom, living as a commoner, a pawn.

Reborn into this life with a cheat, he wouldn't act recklessly, but he also didn't want to walk on thin ice, living in constant fear.

The extraordinary beings in this world were all based on spirituality, their power derived from emotion and intuition, not reason and logic.

Suppressing one's true nature would only make the path of the extraordinary arduous.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

Ian opened the door, his gaze directed at the extraordinary individual not far away.

"First..."

"You can go down," the sword-wielding extraordinary individual interrupted the hesitant attendant and stepped towards Ian.

"Hello, I am Damir from the Whaling Group. First, welcome to the Breath of the Ocean."

Damir wore a silver-grey leather hunting outfit. He was half a head shorter than Ian, with a lean build and a gaunt face, giving him a somewhat stern appearance.

The sword at his waist had a unique design: no handguard and no counterweight, straight and smooth, neither too long nor too short, exuding a peculiar mana aura.

"However, according to regulations, no uncontrolled rituals are allowed in public areas. Your ritual just now lacked necessary protection, and if it had gone out of control, it could have caused immense damage."

"Fortunately, nothing went wrong this time. I hope such a scene won't happen again. What do you think?"

Damir spoke quickly, fearing Ian might misunderstand, and pulled a stiff smile to his lips.

The spiritual fluctuations from earlier were prolonged, condensed, and possessed an indestructible quality. He felt he was far inferior and concluded that Ian must be a mature Extraordinary Sequence professional, not to be trifled with.

Ian was well aware of this regulation. It was proposed by the Extraordinary Professions Union and incorporated into legal statutes by various countries.

However, it was primarily used to prevent evil rituals, such as spirit summoning or shadow summoning.

Alchemy arrays are not included in this category. Although alchemy arrays also fall under the umbrella of rituals, they have been continuously refined over thousands of years and inherently contain accident prevention mechanisms. They no longer explode at the slightest provocation like they did a thousand years ago.

It seems Damir hasn't witnessed an Alchemist's refining process before.

"I think you're mistaken. That's the fluctuation of an alchemy array, not some unknown ritual!"

Ian stepped aside, revealing the entrance to the Gate of Opening, allowing Damir to see the scattered fragments of silver alchemy array plates and silver jars filled with enchanted weapon oil strewn about the room.

"This..., uh..."

Damir was stunned. An Alchemist was refining Mana products in an inn, not at the Alchemist Fellowship, and without any precautions?!

At the sixth-floor staircase, Lia, who had been observing the situation, noticed things were escalating beyond her expectations and hurried towards them.

The sixth floor was the Whaling Group's private area, mainly used for daily meetings and gatherings, and was protected by a concealment array. Ian hadn't sensed the situation on the sixth floor before.

"Damir, you're too reckless, rushing over without understanding the situation."

"My apologies, sir. I apologize on his behalf."

The Whaling Group was currently in a honeymoon period of cooperation with the Alchemist's Guild. Offending an Alchemist rashly was indeed unwise.

The sudden appearance of the figure made Ian's eyes light up. Although the scar on her face marred her beauty somewhat, her aura and figure were captivating.

Ian wasn't acting out of lust, nor had he become bolder after stepping into the extraordinary. The main reason was that he had been here for a week and had only encountered men.

Some old customs from the past still lingered in this era, such as the prohibition of female crew members on ships, though extraordinary individuals were an exception.

There weren't many women on Paradise Island either, and even the occasional women encountered were usually heavily bundled up and in a hurry.

So, seeing a beautiful woman suddenly did indeed make his eyes light up.