Scavenging Corpses

Moonlight shimmered like silver threads, the tiny veins drifting in the thumb vial like a swimming worm.

Li Ziran was infinitely satisfied.

This organ was so faint it could almost be ignored, but if placed in a human auction house, it would certainly spark a blood-soaked scramble.

Elven veins possessed magical conductivity even faster than Mithril.

If a spellcasting professional possessed a set of Elven veins, the speed at which they drew elements from the Elemental Tide and the speed of their casting would both increase geometrically.

Li Ziran did not dare casually estimate the value of this vein, but at the latest Storm City auction, a single Flame Imp vein had sold for one gold coin.

Flame Imps merely possessed decent spellcasting talent and specialized only in fire magic, yet even their veins were highly sought after. There was no need to mention the all-capable Moon Elves.

Li Ziran held the thumb vial, his hands trembling.

He had only occasionally seen the extraction method for veins in ancient texts. They mentioned that they could only be extracted from corpses that had decayed to a certain extent, but did not specify exactly how far they needed to rot.

He had merely tried his luck, never expecting to truly refine one.

He carefully slipped the thumb vial into his inner pocket, then finally let out a breath. The way he looked at the Minotaur gradually became kinder. Even if everything left was useless, he had already made back his costs.

Corpses were treasures to Necromancers, but they were also one of the ways Organ Witch Doctors acquired precious organs.

Organ Witch Doctors could often dissect corpses and form their own unique organ market.

With the veins removed, the Moon Elf corpses before him were nothing but heaps of rotten flesh. Yet Li Ziran still refused to give up. In the Wasteland's heat, flesh rotted, but bones did not spoil.

Although Elven skeletons were not top-tier goods, they had spent years steeped in magical elements and were bound to carry some magical properties.

But Necromancers would not pay a high price for bare bones. They preferred corpses that still had flesh and blood.

When summoning skeletons, the corpse's flesh and blood needed to decompose into the bones, so that the summoned skeletons would possess abundant spirituality.

Pure skeletons could also be summoned, but they were merely ordinary consumables.

If Necromancers did not want them, that meant there was no market for them. He had no intention of wasting his limited space on useless bones.

Elven ears, however, were different. Within their long, slender ears grew a section of ear bone half a finger in length, one of the keys to Elves' sharp hearing.

Of course, ear bones were not organs. Without the eardrum and outer layers, they could not achieve the sensitivity they were meant to have.

Li Ziran had his eye on them entirely because they took up no space. He had recently been planning to modify organs.

His mental power had now reached a certain level, allowing him to try fusing organs. These ear bones could be paired with the eardrums of other creatures and used for practice.

Just gathering necessary materials.

"You two, do as I do and pull off this piece of cartilage from the ears!"

Li Ziran demonstrated. It did not require much skill, so he did not want to waste too much energy on it.

There were many Moon Elf corpses, and he was wondering whether he might refine another neural network.

The basement was dim and stifling. The Minotaur and Horse Dwarf kept looking at each other, filled with resentment. The Minotaur in particular had never accepted a job like this before—helping a human pull off ears.

It would be laughable if word got out. He could not figure out this human's identity, but he felt the man was anything but ordinary. From what he had just done, he was definitely a Necromancer.

Still, he did not care. It would be even better if he was a Necromancer. Perhaps they could establish a relatively stable corpse-selling channel in the future.

After pulling off an Elven ear, he looked up at Li Ziran. The other man was already buried in the heap of flesh and blood, stained crimson from head to toe. It was impossible to tell who was a corpse and who was alive.

Only when Li Ziran occasionally raised a hand and tossed out some rotten mess that might have been liver or intestines could they tell where he was.

The corpse flesh had already been piled entirely in one corner, while the cleaned skeletons lay on the other side. There was not much useful left in the pile of flesh, but Li Ziran still seemed unwilling to give up.

He truly did not want to give up.

The entire corpse-scavenging process made him want to cry. He had not found a single neural network, the most valuable thing.

These corpses had decayed terribly. Still, he wanted to see whether there might be any Elfstones.

They were not stones, but a kind of crystal.

Ancient texts recorded that Elves absorbed elemental power year after year. After reaching the rank of Archmage, those elements might naturally settle and form distinctive Elfstones, also known as Element Stones.

Such stones could conveniently help mages of the same type comprehend the Elemental Tide. Set into a magic wand, they could also give rise to unique magic.

They were somewhat similar to the magic crystals of Magic Beasts, but their effects were better. Calling them treasures of rare beauty would not be an exaggeration.

But for an Elfstone to form, the Elf had to be an Archmage, and even then, it depended on luck.

Li Ziran did not truly believe that all his painstaking searching would uncover one. He was simply following the tradition of a corpse scavenger—never letting anything that might possibly appear slip through his fingers.

He also understood that these Elves had died so completely that there was likely no Archmage-level existence among them.

After all, such figures lived deep within the rainforest year-round and might not emerge even once in several centuries.

But what if there was an Elfstone?

It was a crystal. It would not rot away with the flesh.

Li Ziran carefully cleared away the flesh. This process required extreme caution. Elfstones were only as large as grains of rice, and the slightest carelessness could send one flying away with a slap of his hand.

Every handful of flesh had to be filtered through a scalpel. His mental power could fully envelop the scalpel and help him sense the finest details.

Even so, Li Ziran was not at ease. After using mental sensing, he still had to inspect everything bit by bit with his naked eyes.

The Minotaur had long since grown impatient. It had been noon when they entered the basement, but now dusk was approaching. Staying in an enclosed space for so long was driving him mad.

"Li Ziran, are you done? I've got business outside!" The Minotaur had urged him no fewer than ten times, only to receive even more tasks in return.

The man actually had him and the Horse Dwarf pick through the flesh alongside him. He swore he had never done anything so disgusting in his life, but he gave in.

An order!

Li Ziran gave him an order: one hundred and ten fresh corpses, fifty thumb vials, and three bottles of recovery potion, for a total price of four silver coins.

He roughly calculated that he could buy the corpses from his old acquaintances nearby, while the thumb vials and recovery potions were available at the neighboring alchemy shop. Altogether, they would cost only three silver coins.

That meant he could earn one silver coin. How could he possibly give up a deal like that?

Li Ziran had also offered a reward. Whoever found something in the flesh that glowed and was the size of a grain of rice would receive one silver coin.

"Honored guest, is this it?" The Horse Dwarf broke open a section of leg bone and pointed at a remaining grain of bone marrow inside.

Though it was something visible to the naked eye, Li Ziran examined it again and again before finally shaking his head. "No!"

The Minotaur could not help laughing inwardly. The Horse Dwarf had gone mad over a silver coin. If it were truly so easy to find, this human would not have offered a reward.

He had seen clearly that this human truly had goods in his belly, and he was no ordinary person.

The Minotaur casually smoothed out the flesh, wiping it around a few times. It reminded him of panning for gold, where a whole basket of sand contained only a few grains.

He had originally intended to toss it away, but a streak of moonlight seeped out from the flesh.

"There really is something?"

The Minotaur could not believe it. He rubbed it hard between two fingers. It was like sand, giving off a faint moonlight, exactly as Li Ziran had described.

But then he hesitated. Could this really be worth a great deal?

"Is this it?" The Minotaur pinched it up before Li Ziran.

Li Ziran's eyes lit up. It still needed to be identified, but its moonlight was pure, and his mental power adhered to it with exceptional smoothness. It was very similar to the Elfstone described in the ancient texts.

However, he was not a qualified appraiser and needed to examine it carefully.

"Here." He directly tossed over a silver coin.

The Minotaur did not catch it, nor did he hand over the Moonlight Elfstone. Breaking from his usual manner, he held out five fingers and said, "Five silver coins!"

Li Ziran sneered, picked up the silver coin from the ground, and tucked it back into his inner pocket.

People like this could not be indulged. Elfstones were valuable, but not everyone recognized them. He dared guarantee that fewer than five people in Mading'er Town knew what this was. If there had not been heaps of Elven corpses here, even Li Ziran would not have dared say it was an Elfstone.

"Honored guest, is this it?" At that moment, the Horse Dwarf raised another breastbone. Set in the very center was an identical moon-colored speck.

Li Ziran glanced at it, used tweezers to pry out the glowing speck and place it in a thumb vial, then casually handed him a silver coin.

The Minotaur looked at the silver coin in the Horse Dwarf's hand, then at the blue speck clutched in his own. His heart itched unbearably.

He hesitated. If he handed it over, he could get one silver coin.

But since the other party was willing to offer one silver coin, this thing had to be far from simple.

One silver coin was not enough for him to care that much. With that thought, he directly pocketed it.

But the moment his hand left his pocket, he discovered that at some point, his arm had become coated in a layer of oily green slime. His entire body tightened, as though some force were compressing him without end.

He struggled to turn around and saw that human pointing a magic wand at him.

"No... please..." He could not even finish speaking before he completely turned into an emerald-green frog.

The Horse Dwarf beside him was dumbfounded. He had seen Li Ziran turn frogs into slaves, but this was the first time he had seen a person turned into a frog.

And it had happened in an instant.

Li Ziran stepped out of the corpse pile. With a crunch, he snapped the frog's neck, tied its hind legs with a red string, and hung it from the back of his waist.

"Continue!"