While everyone in the Black Market had fallen into a frenzy over the treasures from those ruins, the trench-coated pair in the corner shop quietly watched it all.
They were members of the Umbrella Organization and had clearly come into contact with more classified intelligence.
Seeing those Ancient Relics, the young man naturally guessed where they had come from.
He asked, "Boss, is this the batch of goods the Crimson Dagger-Axe Wilderness Hunter Group stole from them before? There are so many good treasures. It looks like the ruins they found weren't simple either."
"Mm."
The woman in the trench coat nodded.
But she seemed to recall something, and a contemplative look appeared on her face. After pondering for a long while, she said, "That ruined city should be the City of Dawn hidden within eternal darkness from the old records and legends. The organization had previously sent people down there in secret to investigate. It seems they confirmed the location of the ruins. That was an alchemical city personally planned and built by Sir Isaac himself, so it's no surprise it produced so many treasures."
"What? The City of Dawn?!"
The young man clearly did not have the clearance to know certain classified details.
But upon hearing that name, he immediately became excited.
Because it was a legendary place that all alchemists had dreamed of for a long time—the City of Dawn, the sacred land in the hearts of alchemists, where the Alchemical Demigod Sir Isaac had once lived!
In his excitement, the young man suddenly thought of something and urgently said, "This is bad! Boss, should we quickly notify the higher-ups and have the entire city suppress the news? Otherwise, once this gets out, the Wilderness Hunters will definitely swarm out to search for those ruins!"
"No."
Hearing that, the woman in the trench coat shook her head, her gaze deep.
After pausing for a moment, she slowly spoke a meaningful sentence. "The auction's intelligence has always been under the control of the upper ranks. This news may well have been deliberately leaked by some big shot above."
"Huh?"
The young man clearly did not understand at first.
But after thinking about it, he understood what his superior meant and asked again, "But... if it really is the legendary City of Dawn, once the news spreads, won't the treasures in those ruins be taken by the Wilderness Hunters?"
"Taken? Taken where?"
The woman in the trench coat shook her head dismissively, as though she had already seen through the essence of the matter.
With a half-smile, she said, "Most Wilderness Hunters risk their lives leaving the city to hunt the wilderness for money. The treasures they find will eventually appear in auction houses in the Inner City. When the time comes, the big shots above only need to spend some money to buy them back."
The young man was still somewhat confused. "But it would be a pity if rare treasures, such as Sir Isaac's miraculous Alchemy Manuscripts, fell into the hands of Wilderness Hunters."
The woman in the trench coat said, "Don't worry. The more advanced an Ancient Relic is, the less useful it is in the hands of people at the bottom. Otherwise, what do you think the upper ranks monopolize High Tier alchemical knowledge for? The commoners in the Outer City do not even know how to use truly advanced Alchemical Items. Take Silver Blueprints and Golden Blueprints, for example. How many professionals in the Outer City, practicing low-level Breathing Techniques, can use them? They are useless sitting in their hands, so they can only put them up for auction."
Listening to his superior's explanation, the young man seemed rather frustrated and weakly argued, "But how much would that cost?"
"How much do you think tonight's auction made? Hundreds of millions? A billion? Heh. Do you know how much profit Old Lindun makes in a day if the price of residents' drinking water rises by ten percent?"
The woman in the trench coat raised a delicate brow and said flatly, "You think too simply of the financial magnates."
The later auction items had nothing to do with Suren. Buying that blueprint had already drained all the savings in his pocket.
There were plenty of treasures, but he had the desire and not the means.
What gave him an even bigger headache now was what came after obtaining the blueprint.
Alchemy Implant Gear required more than just a blueprint. It also required materials. To say nothing else, the main material for this blueprint was "spider legs with cursed properties," preferably materials produced by elite-level or stronger monsters.
A blueprint was like a mold. You could be given a top-grade mold, but what materials you chose to manufacture it with was your own decision.
Use gold, and you got gold gear. Use silver, and you got silver gear.
The final product's effects could also differ vastly.
That was why there were many identical Implant Gear designs on the market, yet their finished combat power varied.
The prices of cursed materials like Spider Legs varied enormously, from ordinary-grade ones to Gold Materials. That was not even counting special cursed properties, such as poison, elemental traits, resistance, toughness, and so on. The better they were, the more expensive they became.
As Suren recalled, ordinary Spider Legs were sold on the market for only tens of thousands.
But after getting such a good Golden Blueprint, he naturally could not be thinking about low-end Black Iron Implant Gear.
No matter what, he had to get a Silver Quality main material, right?
If so, Suren estimated that the main material alone would cost at least two to three hundred thousand.
Moreover, the better the main material, the higher the quality required of the supplementary materials. Add in enchanting and the labor cost of crafting it, and Suren estimated that producing a Silver Quality Eight-Armed Spider God Spear would cost another five hundred thousand or so.
"Ah, being short on money is still a huge problem."
Before, he had worried about finding a good blueprint suitable for himself, and Suren had even thought he had money to spare.
Now that he had found a blueprint far beyond his expectations, it had greatly exceeded his budget.
Still, expensive things had their reasons for being expensive. For Suren, this Eight-Armed Spider God Spear Blueprint, which seemed exclusive to an Abomination Puppeteer, suited him perfectly.
Once it was successfully crafted, his combat power would increase severalfold at the very least.
To say nothing else, his ability to survive would greatly improve. If he truly had this Implant Gear, then even if he encountered an incident like the attack at the Tube Building last time, Suren was confident he could handle it alone even without Kai.
That was the significance of Alchemy Implant Gear to professionals!
The auction had ended, but most customers did not leave immediately and instead wandered through the market.
The Black Market was especially lively today. There was not only the auction; every shop had also put out many treasured goods, waiting for customers to come by.
The organizers had also specially erected temporary iron racks so those scattered peddlers could set up stalls and sell goods that were not valuable enough to make it onto the auction stage, yet were still hard to come by.
Stalls were everywhere, and all kinds of shops were dazzling to behold. There really were quite a few good items.
Suren also wandered around among the crowd.
With only a few thousand Liso left on him for living expenses, he naturally was not there to shop.
He wanted to look for business opportunities with the perspective of a transmigrator.
Forget about crude methods for making soap, perfume, or alcohol—the basic get-rich skills of transmigrators. To alchemists, that was old hat; even beginner apprentices could master dozens of obscure methods.
Suren also thought of the "high-profit businesses" written into criminal law in his previous life.
Become a drug kingpin?
No. Potion Studies was one of an alchemist's most important core skills. There were not a hundred kinds of hallucinogenic potions to be found in the Black Market, but there were at least eighty.
Open a brothel?
That was an industry the gang bosses and financial magnates were involved in. A nobody like Suren was not qualified to meddle in that kind of big business. Besides, the entertainment industry was a long-term game; it was impossible to get rich overnight.
As for gambling?
Suren spent every day at the gambling den and had watched countless people lose everything.
If he truly gambled with the mindset of winning money, he would definitely lose.
As for businesses like monopolizing resources, there was even less point in considering them. The class structure of this world had already solidified. The Inner City financial magnates monopolized all resources, and people from the Outer City could forget about getting involved.
So the fastest way Suren could think of to make money was to use the All-Seeing Eye to find a huge bargain in the Black Market.
That was why he wandered around, examining the goods in every shop and on every street stall.
And sure enough, after walking for a while, he really spotted an opportunity to pick up a bargain.
It was a crude stall. Several simple test tubes sat on a piece of black cloth, and they appeared to contain potions.
A "fat man" wearing a black cloak that concealed his face was probably the stall owner.
At that moment, he seemed to be arguing with someone.
It was precisely the argument that drew Suren's attention.
"Your potions don't even have a production serial number or lead seal from the Potion Guild, yet you dare ask thirty thousand?"
"Heh, your trash potion claims to have effects comparable to a top-grade Healing Potion?"
"And this one—you claim this two-hundred-thousand potion can increase a person's Containment Value and let them overload-fuse Alchemy Implant Gear? Hahaha. Even the Potion Guild has never heard of such a miracle drug. Why not just say it can bring the dead back to life? Do you take us for fools?"
"..."
Faced with the customers' questions, the stall owner looked completely at a loss. He wanted to explain something, but it seemed he could not explain a single question clearly.
Suren walked over and examined the stall owner.
The bloated body under the black cloak was probably a disguise. That irregular obesity looked more like a Mutated Monster than a human.
And the subtle movements of his body showed that the stall owner was somewhat nervous. He did not look like a merchant who frequently operated in the Black Market.
After observing the man, Suren looked at the several potions on his stall, and his eyelids twitched slightly.
No wonder those customers had spoken so harshly earlier. These potions looked absolutely terrible!
They were nothing more than ordinary cheap test tubes filled with red, green, and other unidentified liquids.
Everyone knew that any potion produced by a legitimate manufacturer came in containers marked with brand inscriptions.
After all, potions were often used to save lives, and almost every potion sold on the market had special lead seals and anti-counterfeit markings.
Therefore, no one would buy potions without lead seals and anti-counterfeit markings.
Although there were indeed some inferior counterfeit medicines on the market, even those counterfeit peddlers put plenty of effort into their packaging. No one had ever dared make something this obviously fake!
The several potions on this street stall gave people the impression that someone had casually found a mineral water bottle, filled it with some yellowish-brown liquid, and claimed it was iced tea. Then they had the nerve to sell it for three dollars?
And even if it was not fake.
How could he prove it was genuine potion?
Potion Appraisers were prestigious professions among the upper class, and they could only be found in the Inner City.
Pick it up and take a sip?
There were only four potions from this little workshop. Who would dare drink one?
Or perhaps the moment someone picked it up, they would accidentally drop and shatter it, then be asked to compensate tens of thousands.
No matter how one looked at it, there was definitely something wrong with those potions.
Suren had initially assumed it was some sort of scam, but seeing the stall owner's helpless attempt to explain himself made him curious. He focused his gaze on one of the potions and scanned it with the All-Seeing Eye.
But the moment he looked, his gaze froze.
A line of information appeared above the little red potion.
Special-Effect Healing Potion Details: A high-purity Special-Effect Healing Potion. Stops bleeding rapidly and accelerates wound healing; contains almost no impurities and has absolutely no side effects.
"It really is a Special-Effect Healing Potion?"
Suren was genuinely surprised.
He might be a layman when it came to potions, but the All-Seeing Eye could not be wrong.
This unbranded workshop product was actually the kind of special life-saving medicine that sold for eighty to a hundred thousand per vial on the market?
So selling it for thirty thousand was cheap?
Seeing this, Suren vaguely felt that the stall owner had probably been telling the truth.
At that moment, he shifted his gaze to the green potion priced at two hundred thousand.
The instant he looked, even though Suren had been mentally prepared, his eyelids still twitched.
Mutation Tolerance Enhancement Potion Details: Increases the body's tolerance for cursed properties by 10–18%; restricted to Tier 1 Professionals; there is roughly a 3% chance that the drinker's body will grow flesh mushrooms, but compared to its effects, that is an utterly negligible side effect.
"He really wasn't bluffing. But a miraculous potion like this costs only two hundred thousand?!"
With just those simple lines of description, Suren felt as though he had discovered an enormous business opportunity.
What did an average increase of around fifteen percent in tolerance mean?
It meant a professional's combat power could be forcibly raised by a huge margin!
Professionals who could previously only withstand Black Iron Implant Gear could overload-fuse Silver Quality Implant Gear after taking the potion. Those who could withstand silver might even be able to implant Gold-Tier Implant Gear.
To professionals, this was an invaluable treasure!
The key was that no such potion with such heaven-defying effects had ever been heard of anywhere in Old Lindun. If this stall owner had truly made it himself, then setting aside the potion's value, the patent for the formula alone could instantly make him enormously wealthy.
Just who was this stall owner?
Why did he not go to the Inner City?
Was he a wanted criminal, or something else?
Suren felt this was a perfect chance to pick up an incredible bargain.
But he still had doubts. On a whim, he used the All-Seeing Eye on the stall owner.
Then—
Huh? What was going on?!
Suren could use the All-Seeing Eye to inspect his own attributes, but when he looked at others, there was usually only a simple description identifying them as human.
Yet for the first time, something different appeared above this stall owner's head.
It read: Semi-Mutated Human.
(To avoid being accused of spoilers: it's not that wanted woman.)
P.S. Brothers, don't stockpile chapters lately. If there's an update, please come out and tap it. I'm begging you all~
Thanks to Zhu Muyandad for 1500, Twilight Melody for 1500, If There Is a Next Life for 1100, One-Thought Tiger for 500, Old Yang 1979 for 500, Shuxian Who Loves Leisurely Books for 500, Carefree Imperial Maple, Eastern Sea Desert, Zijing Yuming, I Love Tritium, Celestial Daoist, CHINABO, Scroll Master, Great Dream Awakened, Then Knowing Things, Wang Heng 2016, Sleeping zzz, Choose a Slightly Shorter Nickname, and North of the Southern Wall. Thank you all for your support and tips, brothers—you're amazing!
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