Mutated Humans and Potions (Monthly Tickets, Recommended Tickets Wanted)

While everyone in the black market was reveling over the treasures produced by these ruins, the pair in trench coats at the shop in the corner quietly watched everything.

They were members of the Umbrella Organization and had clearly come into contact with even more top-secret intelligence.

Seeing these Ancient Relics, the young man naturally guessed where they had come from.

He asked, "Boss, are these the things the Crimson Ge Wilderness Hunter Group had stolen from them before? There are actually so many valuable treasures. It seems the ruins they found were no ordinary ruins."

"Mm."

The woman in the trench coat nodded.

But she seemed to have thought of something else. A pensive look appeared on her face, and after pondering for a while, she said, "That ruin city should be the 'City of Dawn hidden in eternal darkness' from the legends in the ancient texts. The organization had secretly sent people down from the tower to investigate it before. It seems they've confirmed the ruins' location. That was the Alchemical city personally planned and built by Sir Isaac back then. It's no wonder it produced so many treasures."

"What? The City of Dawn?!"

The young man clearly was not yet qualified to know certain classified secrets.

But when he heard that name, his expression immediately brightened.

Because this was a legendary place that all alchemists had yearned for—the holy land in every alchemist's heart, the City of Dawn where "Alchemical Demigod" Sir Isaac had once lived!

In his excitement, the young man suddenly thought of something and hurriedly said, "This is bad! Boss, should we notify the higher-ups immediately and have the whole city lock down the news? Otherwise, once this information spreads, the Wilderness Hunters will definitely swarm toward those ruins!"

"No."

The woman in the trench coat shook her head, her gaze deep.

After a moment, she slowly spoke with profound meaning: "The auction's information has always been under the higher-ups' control. This news might have been deliberately leaked by one of the bigshots above."

"Huh?"

The young man clearly did not understand at first.

But after thinking it over, he understood what his superior meant and asked again, "But if it really is that legendary City of Dawn, once the news spreads, won't the treasures in the ruins be taken by the Wilderness Hunters?"

"Taken? Where would they take them?"

The woman in the trench coat shook her head dismissively, as if she had already seen through the essence of the matter.

She said with a half-smile, "The vast majority of Wilderness Hunters risk their lives leaving the city to hunt the wastelands for money. Most of the treasures they find will eventually appear in the Inner City's auction houses. When the time comes, the bigshots above can simply spend some money to buy them back."

The young man was still somewhat confused. "But it would be a pity if those rare treasures, such as Sir Isaac's miraculous Alchemy Manuscripts, fell into the hands of the Wilderness Hunters."

The woman in the trench coat said, "Don't worry. The more advanced the Ancient Relics, the less useful they are to people at the bottom. Otherwise, why do you think the higher-ups monopolize advanced alchemical knowledge? When it comes to truly advanced Alchemical Items, the commoners in the Outer City don't even know how to use them. Take Silver Blueprints and Golden Blueprints, for example. How many professionals in the Outer City who practice low-level Breathing Techniques can actually attune to them? Holding them is useless, so they can only put them up for auction."

Listening to his superior's explanation, the young man seemed rather frustrated. He weakly argued, "But how much money would that take?"

"How much do you think the auction made tonight? Several hundred million? A billion? Heh. Do you know how much profit the residents of Old Lindun make in one day after the price of drinking water rises by ten percent?"

The woman in the trench coat raised her delicate brows and said indifferently, "You're thinking too simply about the financial clans."

The subsequent auction items had nothing to do with Suren anymore. Buying that blueprint had drained every last bit of his savings.

There were plenty of treasures, but his heart was willing while his strength was not.

What troubled him more now was what came after obtaining the blueprint.

An Alchemical Implant required more than just a blueprint. It also required materials. Not to mention anything else, the primary material for this blueprint was "Spider Legs with cursed properties," preferably material produced by a monster of at least elite rank.

A blueprint was like a mold. The top-grade mold had been handed to you, but what materials you used to make something with it was your own choice.

Use gold, and you get a gold item. Use silver, and you get a silver item.

The final product's effects could vary enormously.

That was why there were so many identical implants on the market, yet the combat power of the finished products still differed.

The price of the Cursed Material known as "Spider Legs" fluctuated greatly, from ordinary quality to Gold Material. That was without even mentioning special cursed traits, such as poison, elemental properties, resistance, or toughness. The better the material, the more expensive it was.

As far as Suren remembered, ordinary Spider Legs seemed to be sold on the market for only tens of thousands.

But having obtained such an excellent Golden Blueprint, he naturally could not settle for a low-end Black Iron Implant.

No matter what, he had to get a Silver Quality primary material, right?

In that case, Suren estimated that the primary material alone would cost at least two or three hundred thousand.

Moreover, the better the primary material, the higher the required quality of the supplementary materials. Adding the enchanting and crafting fees together, Suren estimated that refining a Silver Quality Eight-Armed Spider God Spear would cost another five hundred thousand or so.

"Ah, being short of money is still a major problem."

Earlier, he had worried that he would find a good blueprint suitable for him, and 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 blueprint for the Eight-Armed Spider God Spear, which seemed to be exclusive to an Abomination Puppeteer, suited him perfectly.

Once it was successfully refined, his combat power would rise severalfold at the very least.

Not to mention anything else, his survival ability would greatly improve. If he had this implant, then even if he encountered the Tube Building attack again, Suren was confident that he could handle it alone, even without Kai.

That was the significance of an Alchemical Implant to a professional!

The auction had already ended, but most of the customers did not leave immediately. Instead, they wandered around the market.

The black market was especially lively today. There was not only an auction; the various shops had also brought out many treasured items, waiting for customers to come knocking.

The organizers had even specially set up some temporary iron racks so that the scattered vendors could set up stalls and sell the items in their possession—goods too valuable to be ordinary merchandise, yet not valuable enough to make it onto the auction stage.

Stalls could be seen everywhere, and the various shops were packed with dazzling wares. There really were quite a few good things.

Suren also mingled with the crowd and wandered around.

With only a few thousand Liso left for living expenses, he naturally had not come to spend money.

He wanted to search for business opportunities through the eyes of a transmigrator.

Forget about things like homemade soap, perfume, and alcohol—the basic methods transmigrators used to get rich. To alchemists, those were things they had already played with and discarded. Even entry-level apprentices could master dozens of unconventional methods.

Suren also thought of the "profitable trades" written into the criminal code in his previous life.

Become a drug lord?

No. "Potion studies" was an alchemist's most important specialty. In the black market, one could find at least eighty or a hundred types of hallucinogenic potions.

Open an entertainment venue?

That was an industry run by gang bosses and the financial clans. A nobody like Suren was not qualified to get involved in such a major business. Besides, the entertainment industry relied on long-term development; it was impossible to get rich overnight.

What about gambling?

Suren spent every day in gambling dens and had watched countless people lose everything.

If he went gambling with the mindset of winning money, he would definitely lose.

As for other businesses, such as monopolizing resources, he could forget about those as well. The class structure of this world was already fixed. The financial clans of the Inner City monopolized all resources, and anyone from the Outer City could forget about getting involved.

Therefore, the fastest way to make money that Suren could currently think of was to use the All-Seeing Eye to find a huge bargain in the black market.

That was why he wandered around the whole time, sizing up the various shops and stalls.

And sure enough, after walking for a while, he really found an opportunity to pick up a bargain.

It was a crude stall. Several rough test tubes were placed on a piece of black cloth, and they seemed to contain potions.

A "fat man" wearing a black cloak that covered his face was probably the stall owner.

At that moment, he seemed to be arguing with someone.

The sound of the dispute was what drew Suren's attention.

"Your potion doesn't even have a production batch number or lead seal from the Potion Guild, yet you dare ask for thirty thousand right off the bat?"

"Heh, you call this lousy potion's effects comparable to those of a 'top-grade Healing Potion'?"

"And this one—you claim that this potion costing two hundred thousand can increase a person's Containment Value and allow them to fuse with an Alchemical Implant beyond their limits? Hahaha. Even the Potion Guild has never heard of such a miraculous potion. Why don't you just say it can bring the dead back to life? Do you really take us for fools?"

"..."

Faced with the customers' questioning, the stall owner looked utterly flustered. He seemed to want to explain, but could not clarify even a single question.

Suren walked over and looked the stall owner up and down.

The bulky body beneath the black cloak was probably a disguise. Because of the irregular distribution of the fat, it looked more like a Mutated Monster than a human.

The slight movements of his body showed that the stall owner was somewhat nervous. He did not look like a vendor who frequented the black market.

After observing the man, Suren looked at the several potions on his stall, and his eyelid twitched slightly.

It was no wonder the customers had spoken so harshly. The appearance of these potions was simply too awful!

They were nothing more than the most ordinary cheap test tubes, filled with unidentified red and green liquids.

Everyone knew that as long as a potion was produced by a legitimate manufacturer, its container would bear a trademark and inscription.

After all, potions were often used to save lives. Nearly all the potions sold on the market had special lead seals and anti-counterfeiting marks.

Therefore, no one would buy a potion without a lead seal or anti-counterfeiting mark.

Although there were indeed some inferior fake medicines on the market, those counterfeit vendors also put plenty of effort into the packaging. No one had ever dared to make something this fake!

The several potions on the stall before him gave the impression that someone had casually found a mineral-water bottle, poured in some yellow-brown liquid, and claimed it was Kang Shuai Fu iced tea—then had the nerve to ask for three yuan?

Besides, even if they were not fake, how could he prove that they were real potions?

A Potion Appraiser was a prestigious profession in upper-class society. They could only be found in the Inner City.

Take a sip?

There were only four potions from this tiny workshop. Who would dare drink one?

Or perhaps he could pick one up, accidentally drop and break it, and then demand that the stall owner pay tens of thousands?

No matter how he looked at it, there had to be something wrong with these potions.

Suren had initially thought this was some kind of scam, but when he saw the stall owner's helpless attempt to explain himself, he became curious. He focused his gaze on the potions and scanned them with the All-Seeing Eye.

But the moment he saw them, he froze.

A string of information appeared above the small red potion.

Special-Effect Healing Potion

Detailed Description: A high-purity Special-Effect Healing Potion. It stops bleeding rapidly and promotes the rapid healing of wounds. It contains almost no impurities and has absolutely no side effects.

"It really is a Special-Effect Healing Potion?"

Suren was genuinely surprised.

Although he was a layman when it came to potions, the All-Seeing Eye could not lie.

This crude, unbranded product from a tiny workshop really was the life-saving potion sold on the market for one hundred or eighty thousand per bottle?

So selling it for thirty thousand was actually cheap?

Seeing this, Suren vaguely felt that the stall owner had been telling the truth.

At that moment, his gaze fell on the green potion being sold for two hundred thousand.

Even though Suren had been mentally prepared, his eyelid still twitched when he saw it.

Mutation Tolerance Enhancement Potion

Detailed Description: Increases the human body's tolerance to cursed properties by 10–18%. For Tier 1 Professionals only. The potion has an approximately 3% chance of causing mushrooms to grow on the user's body, but compared with its medicinal effects, this was already a negligible side effect.

"He really wasn't exaggerating. But this kind of miraculous potion is only being sold for two hundred thousand?!"

Those two simple lines of description made Suren feel as though he had discovered a huge business opportunity.

What did an average 15% increase in human tolerance mean?

It meant that a professional's combat power could be forcefully raised by a large margin!

A professional who could previously only bear a Black Iron Implant could use the potion to fuse with a Silver Quality implant beyond their normal limits. Those who could bear silver might even be able to implant a Gold implant.

To professionals, this was a priceless treasure!

The key was that no one in all of Old Lindun had even heard of a potion with such an unbelievable effect being sold. If the stall owner really had refined it himself, then setting aside the potion's value, the patent for its formula alone could instantly make him a tycoon.

What was this stall owner's background?

Why did he not go to the Inner City?

Was he a wanted criminal, or something else?

Suren felt that this was an excellent opportunity to "pick up a huge bargain."

But he was also puzzled. Then, on a sudden impulse, he used the All-Seeing Eye to look at the stall owner.

And then—

Huh? What was going on?!

Suren could use the All-Seeing Eye to view his own attributes, but when he looked at other people, all that appeared above their heads was a simple description identifying them as human.

However, something different appeared above this stall owner's head for the first time.

It read: Semi-Mutated Human.

(For those worried about spoilers: he isn't the wanted woman.)

P.S. Brothers, don't let this chapter gather dust lately. Whenever there's an update, please bring it back out and give it a click. I'm counting on you all~

Thanks to 'Zhu Muyan's Dad' for 1,500, 'Twilight Melody' for 1,500, 'If Life Has Another World' for 1,100, 'One Thought Tiger' for 500, 'Old Yang 1979' for 500, 'Shu Xian Who Loves Reading Idle Books' for 500, 'Carefree Maple Rider', 'East Sea Desert', 'Purple Thistle Rain', 'I Love Tritium', 'True Man Following Heaven', 'CHINABO', 'Scroll Master', 'Only Upon Awakening from a Great Dream Does One Know Matters', 'Wang Heng 2016', 'Sleeping zzz', 'Pick a Shorter Nickname', and 'North of the Southern Wall'. Thank you all for your generous support. You guys are awesome!