Although this mission only lasted seven days, Wang Zhen still wanted to find a place to stay.
He needed to come up with a plan—a truly explosive one. To do that, he needed a safe place where he could think it through and run the numbers.
Wang Zhen didn't follow the newcomers anymore. He had Little White keep an eye on them instead. Although it looked like a crow, it had more than ten times the stamina of a real one, so Wang Zhen wasn't worried about it losing track of them.
Although he had burned Kayako's haunted house to the ground, Wang Zhen still found a high-rise hotel nearby. He paid a hefty sum to book a suite on the top floor, facing the ruins of the haunted house.
The ruins were only three hundred meters away in a straight line, making this the closest spot that met Wang Zhen's requirements.
Standing before the spacious, brightly lit window, Wang Zhen looked down at the ruins of Kayako's house and began to work out how he could earn more rewards. After all, the technologies he and Tifa had their eyes on required both reward points and side-story points.
"Kayako... She was the mistress of that haunted house."
"She had a husband named Takeo Saeki and a son named Toshio Saeki."
"Then one night, Takeo Saeki hacked Kayako to death and killed himself. Their six-year-old son, Toshio Saeki, disappeared."
"According to the movie, the whole family became evil spirits, each with powerful supernatural abilities. Kayako could spread her curse through videotapes like a plague. Anyone who watched one would be cursed—in fact, Kayako would locate them and then kill them."
"Takeo Saeki's knife ignored defenses. Anyone it hit would suffer direct damage to their internal organs."
"Toshio Saeki could teleport, and anyone he caught would be temporarily frozen."
Wang Zhen recalled the abilities of the family of evil spirits. Individually, they were easy to avoid once you knew what they could do. But while the family had fought like cats and dogs when they were alive, they fought as a team after death. The way their abilities worked together made them a real challenge.
Kayako's family. Family, family...
It looked like those ruins still had a use!
Wang Zhen realized that although the family could leave the house to kill, their powers were always at their strongest at home—that house he had burned to the ground, leaving nothing but bricks and rubble.
But to the evil spirits, the house's location served as an anchor. Even though he had burned the house down, that probably hadn't severed the anchor. The spirits would still be lingering there, because that was the only place where their power could reach its peak.
"But I don't just want to kill the whole family. What I really want is to use the Philosopher's Stone Transmutation Circle to turn them into a Philosopher's Stone."
"That'll make it a bit more difficult!"
"But Marx once said, 'At ten percent profit, capital becomes restless; at fifty percent, it's ready to take risks; at a hundred percent, it will trample every law; at three hundred percent, it will sell you the very rope you'll hang it with!'"
"The reward points and side-story points for Kayako's family are already worth a three-hundred-percent profit. So taking a risk is unavoidable. But first, I need to test a theory. Only if it's right can I earn that three-hundred-percent profit. Otherwise, I'll have to settle for a portion of it."
Wang Zhen's theory was that the Philosopher's Stone transmutation could be expanded!
After all, Alucard's Dead River contained more than three million lives—an entire nation's population. When he released the Dead River, it had covered all of London!
What about Wang Zhen's Dead River?
A Philosopher's Stone Transmutation Circle ten meters in diameter!
Ten meters in diameter—that was the range of Wang Zhen's Dead River!
"I'm not Seras Victoria, the busty, pure-hearted policewoman who was over the moon just because of Captain Bernadotte and stopped collecting anyone else. The result was that she only had one blood-red wing. That was her Dead River ability, sure, but it was still much weaker than Alucard's."
Wang Zhen knew that Seras Victoria's Dead River ability, her blood-red wing, had a limited range, but it could fly, slice, and extend. It was an excellent combat ability all the same. But Seras Victoria was a Warrior, while Wang Zhen considered himself a mage. Naturally, he wanted wide-ranging spells.
"Tokyo is too bustling, and too important. If something goes wrong, it could cause all sorts of complications."
"Then I'll find somewhere inconspicuous nearby."
After making up his mind, Wang Zhen began studying the Philosopher's Stone Transmutation Circle, especially the National Transmutation Circle. He couldn't set up such a vast transmutation circle for now, but he could use his Dead River ability to support it. That should let him expand the circle's range.
The problem was, expanding the Philosopher's Stone Transmutation Circle would slow the transmutation dramatically. If he got attacked, the transmutation would fail!
So neither the timing nor the location could be wrong. A failed transmutation would be a minor problem; getting hurt would be much worse.
Wang Zhen took out the map of Japan he had prepared earlier and began studying it, especially the map of Tokyo. He took a break midway to check on Zheng Zha and the newcomers Zhang Jie was leading through Little White. It turned out Zheng Zha and the others had found a hotel too.
"Who knows how many of those people will still be alive tomorrow? That whole family of evil spirits is absolutely furious. Once night falls, they'll definitely come out for revenge. Let's see which of the newcomers is lucky enough to survive." Wang Zhen watched the newcomers through Little White. They seemed completely unconcerned and had even started hitting on women. He smiled to himself.
Suddenly, Wang Zhen had an idea. He took a closer look at the area around the hotel where Zheng Zha and the others were staying through Little White and spotted an office building. It was a simple, upright rectangular prism. If he set things up properly, he could fit the entire building perfectly inside a transmutation circle!
Wang Zhen told Little White to circle the spot, then hurried over to the office building to inspect it in person. If the conditions were right, he naturally wanted to make something happen here in Tokyo!
After all, Kayako's family was here too. If he played his cards right, he could not only acquire a Philosopher's Stone, but pin the blame on Kayako as well!
He could also use the incident to see whether Japan in this era of declining spiritual power had any magical artifacts for dealing with evil spirits.
"In the original story, a handwritten Buddhist scripture by a high monk appeared. It managed to hold Kayako back for a moment. I wonder if there are any better ones?"
By then, Wang Zhen was already standing across the street from the office building.
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