Alchemical Bomb

A middle-aged man slid swiftly down from a tree dozens of meters tall.

With a head of tousled gray-brown hair, unshaven stubble, and a fitted azure formal suit somehow worn with the air of a serf's rags, he carried the weathered, down-and-out aura of a wandering knight.

His amber eyes were fixed on the wild rabbit roasting over the campfire, sizzling with grease, unable to move away.

Every seasoning Yin Ming used had been purified and optimized through the Scavenger Gourd.

In this era, where even salt carried a bitter taste, it was absolutely cuisine beyond all bounds.

"A seventy-year-old crone, with chicken skin and crane hair—what's there to look at?"

There was one drawback to being a wizard: mental power could only strengthen the five senses and spiritual perception; it could not become Divine Sense and leave the body to observe things.

One could not grasp every change in the surrounding grass and trees. Only when the other party made some noise, or formed killing intent toward oneself and triggered a sense of danger, could the target be discovered.

"Then you're completely mistaken! Wendy Chris's skin is even more tender than that of a twenty-year-old girl."

Johnny Green swallowed, his face mysterious. "Do you want to know the secret of her immortality?"

"No! Only noble lords living in comfort would think about immortality."

Suddenly, a stranger popped up and claimed he wanted to tell him the secret of immortality. If Yin Ming could believe that, the money he had used to build his laboratory back then would have long since been wired to Qin Shi Huang.

Yin Ming glanced at Green's equipment, ignored him, and continued turning the rabbit over the fire.

"True enough! But someone else will want to know."

Johnny Green was not annoyed at being rebuffed. He simply squatted down and continued chatting. "You seem very interested in my equipment. Unfortunately, I can't give it to you. How about I trade one gold coin for your roast rabbit?"

A monocular telescope!

A flintlock arquebus!

This was the first time Yin Ming had seen firearms since coming to this world, so naturally, he could not help taking a few extra looks.

"Here."

Yin Ming tore off half the rabbit and handed it over. "No money. I only have one request: don't say another word to me."

"You... Fine, then! Finding someone else is the same."

Johnny Green accepted the half-roasted rabbit.

He chewed and swallowed meat and bones alike. After finishing it, he left with a carefree stride, truly not saying another word to Yin Ming.

"..."

This guy was probably planning something.

Golden Lion County had been peaceful for over two hundred years.

Could something really go wrong just two months after I arrived here?

Although Count Golden Lion had an unclear relationship with the Abyssal Quasit, that did not prevent this from being a good place for secluded cultivation.

Quasits only needed chaotic souls that had died by murder. As an old serf who knew the truth, he no longer met the conditions to be murdered—and could instead enjoy the Quasit's protection.

"Ah..."

Yin Ming let out a long sigh, and the joy of breaking through his realm was swept clean away.

He tore off a rabbit leg and savored it carefully, purely to satisfy his appetite.

For filling his stomach, he still had to rely on Grain-Repelling Pills.

As the Scavenger Gourd's materials gradually became more abundant, Magic Beast meat, all kinds of fruits and vegetables, and medicinal herbs were all available.

After two rounds of improvement, the Grain-Repelling Pill not only filled the stomach, but also provided a balanced diet and tasted fairly good. It just lacked the pleasure of taking huge mouthfuls of meat.

"..."

Late at night!

Yin Ming suddenly heard a faint sound.

In Blackstone House No. 101, two doors down, old Jason quietly slipped out through a crack in his door.

Acting furtively, he went to a pile of rubble, took a round black metal sphere the size of a pomelo from between the stones, and headed toward Golden Lion Castle.

"What is old Jason trying to do?"

Yin Ming instinctively felt that

old Jason's strange behavior was connected to the middle-aged man he had encountered during the day.

So he slipped out as well and followed old Jason from afar.

Old Jason sneaked all the way to the rear of Golden Lion Castle, raising his head to examine the towering castle, which loomed in the darkness like the shadow of a colossal beast.

By then, the guests attending the birthday banquet had dispersed.

The castle no longer had its daytime bustle. Only several knights stood guard at the main gate.

"I just need to throw this thing at the castle?"

Old Jason wiped away his sweat. He had no intention of sneaking into the castle, and raised the metal sphere before hurling it toward the castle.

The heavy metal sphere did not even fly three to five meters before striking the castle's hard stone wall and rolling down.

With a thunderous boom.

Without any warning, the black sphere instantly bloomed with boundless light, erupting with a roar that pierced the eardrums.

A powerful shockwave spread in all directions from the black sphere as its center.

[Wizard's Hand.]

The instant the black sphere hit the ground.

The wizard's spiritual perception sent Yin Ming an incomparably intense sense of danger.

It made his scalp go numb. At a speed beyond his limits, he drew the spell's energy circuit and infused it with magic power.

A transparent giant hand loosely clasped his body, forming a layer of armor around him. The blast wave followed close behind.

"Thud!"

Yin Ming's body felt as though it had been struck by a hammer, and he was sent flying more than ten meters like a tattered sack.

Only after the explosion subsided

did Yin Ming crawl up from the gravel and rubble. His ears rang without end, his arm had been cut by stones thrown up by the blast, and his internal organs ached faintly as if they had shifted out of place.

Fortunately, he had cast his wizardry in time, and his physical constitution was sturdy enough that he did not suffer serious internal injuries.

"Pah! My first injury in another world was actually from curiosity and watching the excitement."

Yin Ming spat out a mouthful of sand and dirt, then pulled the stone fragment embedded in his arm free. He took medicine from the Scavenger Gourd and applied it to the wound, quickly stopping the bleeding.

"A range of five meters, an explosion radius of five hundred meters—which genius invented this weapon?"

The power of the black sphere's explosion was comparable even to First-Ring Wizardry.

Old Jason, at the center of the blast, had naturally long since been reduced to nothing but ashes and fragments.

The sturdy Golden Lion Castle had also been left with nothing but broken walls and ruins. Even with the knights' formidable vitality, they died in the violent explosion without letting out a single cry.

"The human heart is treacherous. I treated you to roast rabbit, and you treated me like a Japanese!"

Only now did Yin Ming understand that Johnny Green had originally wanted to trick him into doing old Jason's job, one that left not even bones behind.

Once he realized Yin Ming was not easy to fool, he cut his losses in time and gave up on his own initiative.

Serfs like old Jason, in their thirties, had basically reached the end of their lives! As long as they were offered a little profit, they would dare do anything. They were the best targets.

"..."

"Charge! An Alchemical Bomb can kill even a Grand Knight. Anything alive in the castle isn't human—there's no need for anyone to carry a psychological burden. Kill them!"

Johnny Green emerged from the darkness.

Leading over a dozen warriors armed with flintlock arquebuses, he launched a charge toward Count Golden Lion's castle.

"Pfft!"

Hearing the words "psychological burden," Yin Ming could not hold back a laugh.

So they were afraid of accidentally harming humans in battle, and had therefore killed all the humans beforehand?

"Roarrr..."

Amid the shattered ruins, a millstone-sized boulder rose into the air.

The corpse of a manor steward rapidly mutated, the muscles of its body swelling several times over in an instant.

Its height shot up from 1.8 meters to 2.4 meters, and blood-red muscles burst through its skin, directly exposed to the air.

Quasit Bloodline: Colossus!