Element Crystals

Yin Ming carried Johnny Green into the cave.

He took out some medicine from the gourd, stuffed half a pill into Johnny Green's mouth, crushed the other half, and sprinkled it over the wounds. That was that.

Yin Ming had directly named the medicine Golden Sore Medicine. It was made from one fungal extract and two plant extracts, with powerful anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, hemostatic, and healing properties.

"I'm only responsible for saving him. Whether he lives or dies is none of my business."

Having said that, Yin Ming began taking stock of Johnny Green's—his belongings.

Black Powder: half a bag.

Bullets: 72.

Flintlock musket: 1.

Miniature Alchemical Bombs: 2.

Damaged collapsible monocular telescope: 1.

"Alchemical Bombs!!!"

Yin Ming's face lit up with delight. He had not expected such an unexpected windfall.

Though muskets could also threaten First Circle creatures, they were far too slow!

Not that the bullets themselves were slow!

Rather, the process of pulling the mechanism, igniting the powder, and sending the bullet out of the barrel was too slow!

A bullet's trajectory was a straight line. Without enough gunmen forming a curtain of fire, it was difficult to hit an enemy.

Alchemical Bombs, especially the one Old Jason had used, had an explosion radius covering five hundred to a thousand meters. Their power was fully on par with offensive First Circle wizardry.

Their only drawback was their short range. Ordinary people could use them too, but only in limited numbers.

"Store!"

Yin Ming prepared to store the Alchemical Bombs in the gourd for analysis.

Yet the fist-sized metal spheres did not move in the slightest.

"Can't store them?"

Yin Ming stared in astonishment. Until now—

Other than living creatures, only two things could not be stored in the gourd: Red Nose's Soulstone, and the blood within it that retained vitality.

A Soulstone?

Would those two crouching dragons and fledgling phoenixes take bombs for Soulstones?

In other words, there was a strong possibility that Alchemical Bombs involved technology for preserving the active properties of supernatural creature blood.

"Talismans!"

If he solved this problem, he could seal wizardry within paper Talismans.

Just imagine it—throwing out a thousand Wizard's Hand Talismans at once. Wouldn't a Quasit be swatted like a mosquito?

The Alchemical Bombs were seamless as one piece. He could not even find an opening to dismantle them into components. Wary of accidentally triggering an explosion, he set them aside for now.

"Store..."

Yin Ming stored the musket, Black Powder, and bullets in the Scavenger Gourd.

[Name: Musket.]

[Materials: Flint, ironwood, unknown alloy.]

[Unknown alloy: 73% iron, 20% unknown metal, 7% mixture of copper, tin, and carbon.]

[Unknown metal: Structure overlaps 90% with metallic iron. Its strength, toughness, melting point, and other properties are all three times those of iron.]

[Note: A weapon from a backward age, yet made with top-grade materials. Evaluation: A chamber pot rimmed in gold.]

[Extractable: ...]

The flintlock musket's structure was utterly ordinary.

The barrel used the unknown metal, allowing the chamber to withstand explosions of greater intensity.

[Name: Bullet.]

[Materials: Unknown metal, impurities.]

[Extractable: ...]

The bullets were steel balls slightly smaller than the gun barrel.

The material was sturdy, but there was nothing else special about them.

There was nothing extraordinary about either the musket or the bullets. That meant the issue could only lie with the Black Powder.

[Name: Black Powder.]

[Materials: Saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal, Element Crystals.]

[Note: Ordinary Black Powder, its power enhanced tenfold by Element Crystals.]

[Extractable: ...]

Yin Ming's eyes suddenly lit up!

His gaze settled upon the tiny, fine-sand-like crystals mixed into the Black Powder.

They were brilliantly multicolored, containing an incomparably pure energy.

"Element Crystals! Formed from Heaven and Earth energy condensed without conversion."

"Mana Energy Crystals, whether condensed by wizards, demons, Magic Beasts, or other creatures, are formed by converting Heaven and Earth's elemental energy into biological energy that can be stored, absorbed, and used by the body."

Yin Ming's eyes gleamed. Clenching his fists, he murmured, "I knew it, I knew it... the gourd still has enormous potential waiting to be unearthed in certain areas."

Whether it was analyzing, breaking down, and purifying items—

Or stimulating his brain's nerve cells to keep his mind running at high frequency—

The Scavenger Gourd spent more than half its time idle.

What a waste!

Such a waste!

An utter waste!

Even sweatshops knew to run twenty-four hours a day—let the people rest, not the machines.

An Innate Spiritual Treasure!

No lifespan limit, no durability limit—if it did not operate more than twenty-four hours a day, how could it have the face to call itself an Innate Spiritual Treasure?

"Store!"

Yin Ming did not select a target.

Instead, he sucked the air around the gourd into it.

[Name: Air.]

[Components: Helium: 73.1%, oxygen: 25.9%, rare gases: 1%.]

[Rare gases: Carbon dioxide: 0.03%..., water vapor: 0.3%, dust: 1%, elemental energy: 0.0001% (only detectable after the gourd owner's spiritual power breaks through 10 points!).]

[Note: Air containing supernatural elements.]

[Extractable: Element Crystals...]

"Continuously absorb air and extract Element Crystals!"

The instant the words left his mouth, an Element Crystal the size of a grain of sand appeared at the center of the gourd.

Air was constantly drawn into the gourd, while the Element Crystal rapidly grew with time, becoming a grain of rice, a soybean, a broad bean...

"Bang..."

Yin Ming raised the musket and pulled the mechanism.

Accompanied by a flash of fire, the metal bullet burrowed half a meter into the hard rock wall.

Forget a flintlock musket—its power surpassed even that of a sniper rifle.

"So that's how it is!"

Yin Ming had no particular love or hatred for firearms. He had not test-fired the gun merely to satisfy an itch.

He poured out the residue left in the chamber after the powder ignited and stored it in the gourd for a second analysis.

"So that's how it is!"

Aside from the residue left by the burned Black Powder, the Element Crystals remained within the residue. Only the energy they contained had dropped to two-thirds of its original amount.

The purpose of Black Powder—

Was not to explode and provide kinetic energy for the bullet.

Rather, it used the explosion to ignite a second time and trigger the energy within the Element Crystals.

The principle was like a hydrogen bomb, which required a small atomic bomb to explode and provide the second ignition.

If he optimized and purified the Black Powder, or replaced it with more effective smokeless powder—

Then adjusted the distribution structure of the powder and Element Crystals—

Yin Ming could obtain firearms with even greater power, perhaps even create bombs of astonishing might.

"What a genius concept! Unfortunately, the details were handled... far too crudely."

Yin Ming did not stint on his praise. After a pause, he said:

"Strength cannot be raised in a single day. This world is strange and unpredictable, and I have no protector walking the path beside me. Having one or two unorthodox external tools at hand is not a bad choice either."

Yin Ming believed that great power should belong to oneself and had little interest in relying purely on external means.

Otherwise, after refining the Scavenger Gourd, his first thought would not have been how to cultivate and attain the Dao, but how to find uranium mines by every possible means.

"Water, water..."

Yin Ming had been engrossed in studying the Element Crystals.

He had also discovered that Element Crystals could accelerate mana recovery. As long as the body touched an Element Crystal, the efficiency with which his spiritual power runes converted mana increased twenty-twofold, though at the cost of draining the Element Crystal's energy.

Half a day passed. He had even forgotten there was a severely wounded man on the brink of death in the cave, until a weak groan came from Johnny Green and jolted him awake from his thoughts and plans.