Fang Linyan took out the Voodoo Doll, held it in his hand, and silently recited a short incantation. He immediately felt as if something inside his body had been sucked into the doll. Then the Voodoo Doll twitched slightly, releasing a wisp of blackish-red energy. It would have been hard to see if you weren't looking closely.
The blackish-red energy swirled in the air before dropping to the ground, where it transformed into a small, semi-transparent dark red spider that seemed both real and illusory. It bounded across the ground at astonishing speed. Unless you looked closely, you would have had a hard time noticing it.
That was the benefit of Fang Linyan's earlier choice of the Six-Eyed Red-Bellied Spider: it could greatly enhance the Blood Spider's speed, making it perfect for ambushing people.
The Blood Spider covered the dozen or so meters in just a few seconds. What's more, it even used the arm of the man in the car to propel itself forward, yet he remained completely oblivious.
Finally, following Fang Linyan's mental command, the thing sank its fangs straight into the man's throat!
The man's eyes flew wide open and he opened his mouth to scream, but his neck quickly began to swell and redden. All that came out was a hoarse "Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr." Worse, a sudden, intense pain spread from his neck throughout his body. He clutched his throat with both hands and kicked wildly, even stomping on the accelerator. The Hellcat's engine roared at the top of its lungs, belching thick clouds of bluish exhaust from its four tailpipes.
Fortunately, the car was in neutral. Otherwise, that stomp would have sent it shooting forward!
It was worth noting that while the bite looked serious, it could only cause intense pain and numbness for a short time. As the saying went, the very thing that made it useful could also be its undoing: the Blood Spider caused pain by having black magic inflict agony on the soul, not by damaging it. Once the black magic wore off, the pain quickly subsided, and the bite on his neck would heal within hours. In fact, the physical harm was barely worse than a mosquito bite.
Contractors, whose souls were far stronger than ordinary people's, were highly resistant to the Blood Spider's bite. They certainly wouldn't collapse from a single bite the way an ordinary person would.
There was no getting around it. The Blood Spider was only a basic form of black magic. To increase its killing power, Fang would have to use a Geometric Yellow-Bellied Widow, but the summoned Blood Spider would be slower. After biting an enemy, its venom would also need time to take effect rather than working instantly. And even once the poison took hold, it wasn't especially powerful; it simply lasted a long time and caused considerable suffering.
Because of these obvious drawbacks, Fang had treated it as nothing more than a prerequisite skill after learning it, and had almost never used it.
Taking advantage of the man's pained struggles, Fang Linyan strode forward and hauled him out of the car. He gave him a quick search as well, taking his wallet and a pistol from his waist before jumping into the car himself.
The Hellcat's engine was still running, which suited Fang Linyan perfectly. He floored the accelerator, wrenched the steering wheel around, and sped off.
Since this was the first time Fang Linyan had done anything like this, he was understandably nervous, his heart pounding wildly. It wasn't until he'd driven nearly twenty kilometers that his racing heart finally settled. He turned the wheel, drove down a side road, and came to a slow stop behind a rocky hill.
First, he counted up what he'd gotten from the man. There were about four hundred dollars in the wallet, and the pistol was a common Beretta. A large travel bag sat on the back seat. Fang Linyan opened it and found something wrapped up tightly. After peeling away layer after layer, he discovered that the contents weren't the drugs he'd expected, but a small bag of black granules with a sharp, peculiar smell.
Fang Linyan then spotted a half-torn label beside the bag. The letters TIC were just visible on it. His heart stirred. He hurriedly took out two of the granules and pressed one with his fingernail, finding that it wasn't hard and that his nail left a mark.
Then he pressed the two granules together. Under the warmth of his hand, they gradually fused! Seeing this, Fang Linyan was overcome with delight. This had to be the extremely rare TIC Rare Element Additive. It was widely used in casting, blending, processing, and other fields, and even a small amount could give metal exceptional ductility.
That was why TIC Rare Element Additive was widely used in aerospace, in precision castings for sixth-generation fighter jets, and in the construction of diamond-shaped submarines. Demand far exceeded supply, and the government had placed it on its list of specially controlled materials.
Compared to this small bag of TIC Rare Element Additive, the profits from drugs were mere pocket change. If he took this stuff to the industrial raw materials market, buyers would snatch up every bit of it without even asking the price.
Fang Linyan took another road and stopped in the nearest town to stock up. While he was there, he bought a few books to quickly look up various facts about this world.
An hour later, Fang Linyan arrived at a Greyhound Lines stop, part of the nationwide bus network. He abandoned the Hellcat and bought a ticket to Worcester, Massachusetts.
Why go there? Worcester was a famous college town, home to Clark University, founded in 1887, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Fang Linyan had already carefully checked the phone book's yellow pages—the same way the Terminator did when Schwarzenegger searched for Sarah in Terminator 1—and found a dozen related businesses there. TIC Rare Element Additive would be easier to sell in Worcester, and the city was only a few hundred kilometers from his destination, Boston, so it was more or less on the way.
Once aboard the bus, Fang Linyan saw that there weren't many passengers. He went to the back, took up an entire row by himself, and soon drifted off to sleep as the bus rocked along. He slept for a good six or seven hours before someone woke him. The bus had stopped at a rest area to refuel and undergo maintenance, and the passengers were being let off to eat, use the restroom, and so on.
Before you continue