Alchemical Bomb

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

A mess of grayish-brown hair, unshaven stubble, and a fitted teal formal suit—yet he somehow wore it with the air of rags on a serf, carrying the weathered, down-and-out aura of a wandering knight.

His amber eyes were fixed on the sizzling roast rabbit over the campfire, unable to look away.

The seasonings Yin Ming used had all been purified and optimized through the Scavenger Gourd.

In an era where even salt tasted bitter, it was cuisine that absolutely crossed the line.

"What was there to look at in a seventy-year-old hag with chicken skin and crane hair?"

There was one downside to being a wizard: spiritual power could only strengthen the five senses and spiritual perception. It could not transform into divine sense and leave the body to observe things.

One could not grasp every blade of grass and tree in the surroundings. Only when someone caused a disturbance, or harbored killing intent toward oneself and triggered a sense of danger, could the target be discovered.

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

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

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

A stranger had suddenly appeared and claimed he wanted to tell him the secret to 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 does want to know."

Johnny Green was not annoyed by the rebuff. He simply squatted down and kept talking. "You seem very interested in my equipment. Unfortunately, I cannot give it to you. How about I trade one gold coin for your roast rabbit?"

A monocular telescope!

A flintlock musket!

Since arriving in this world, this was the first time Yin Ming had seen firearms. Naturally, he could not help looking twice.

"Take it!"

Yin Ming tore off half the rabbit and handed it over. "No charge. I only have one request: do not say another word to me."

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

Johnny Green accepted the half-roasted rabbit.

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

"..."

This guy was probably about to stir up trouble!

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

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

Although the Golden Lion Count had an unclear relationship with Abyssal Quasits, that did not stop this from being an excellent place for secluded cultivation.

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

"Ah..."

Yin Ming let out a long sigh. His good mood from breaking through a realm was swept clean away.

He tore off a rabbit leg and savored it slowly, 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 grew 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 could not only fill the stomach but also provided balanced nutrition and tasted fairly good. It simply lacked the sheer pleasure of devouring meat by the mouthful.

"..."

Late at night!

Yin Ming suddenly heard a faint sound.

In the Blackstone House numbered 101, two doors down, old Jason quietly slipped out through the crack in his door.

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

"What is old Jason planning?"

Yin Ming instinctively felt that—

Old Jason's strange actions were related to the middle-aged man he had encountered during the day.

So he slipped out as well and followed Jason from a distance.

Jason sneaked all the way behind Golden Lion Castle, then raised his head to study 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 possessed its daytime bustle. Only several knights stood guard at the main gate.

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

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

The heavy metal ball flew barely three or five meters before striking the castle's hard stone wall and rolling down.

A thunderous boom rang out.

Without the slightest warning, the black sphere instantly blossomed with boundless light and erupted with a deafening roar.

A powerful shockwave spread in all directions from the black sphere's center.

[Wizard's Hand.]

The instant the black sphere hit the ground—

Yin Ming's wizardly perception delivered an incomparably intense sense of danger.

His scalp went numb as he drew an energy circuit for the spell at a speed beyond his limits and poured magic power into it.

A transparent giant hand loosely clenched around his body, forming a layer of armor that wrapped around him just as the explosive shockwave arrived.

"Thud!"

Yin Ming's body felt as though it had been struck by a hammer. He was hurled more than ten meters away like a torn sack.

Only after the explosion faded did Yin Ming crawl out from the sand and shattered stones. His ears rang without end, his arm had been cut by flying debris, and his internal organs ached faintly as though they had all shifted out of place.

Fortunately, he had cast his witchcraft in time and his physical constitution was strong enough that he had not suffered severe internal injuries.

"Pah! My first injury in another world was actually because I got curious and came to watch the excitement."

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

"A five-meter throwing range and a five-hundred-meter blast radius. Which genius invented this weapon?"

The black sphere's explosive power was comparable to that of a first-circle witchcraft spell.

Jason, who had stood at the center of the blast, had naturally been blown away without even bones remaining.

Even sturdy Golden Lion Castle had been reduced to ruins across the ground. Despite the knights' formidable vitality, they had not even let out a single cry before dying in the violent explosion.

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

Only now did Yin Ming understand that Johnny Green had originally wanted to fool him into taking on Jason's job of being blown apart without a corpse left behind.

When he realized Yin Ming would not be easily fooled, he promptly cut his losses and gave up.

Serfs in their thirties like Jason were basically already at 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. Any living thing inside the castle is not human, so no one needs to carry a psychological burden. Kill!"

Johnny Green emerged from the darkness.

Leading over a dozen warriors armed with flintlock muskets, he charged toward Golden Lion Castle.

"Pfft!"

Upon hearing the words "psychological burden," Yin Ming could not hold back his laughter.

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

"Roarrr..."

From amid the ruins, a millstone-sized boulder flew up.

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

His height shot up from one meter eighty to two meters forty. Blood-red muscles burst through his skin and were laid bare in the air.

Quasit Bloodline: Colossus!