Chapter 159:
Chapter 159:
“Ding”
In the survivors’ camp, Leading Pigeon, who was discussing the trial contents and tonight’s dinner with his dormitory good sons, suddenly heard a wonderful sound.
Then he looked down and found that a quest had popped up on his character interface:
?Alchemist Profession Quest: ‘The Evaluation of Apprentices’ has been triggered!
Quest Content: Tris’s alchemy workshop has encountered an unprecedented crisis, but the great and beautiful Lady Tris is busy with the internal affairs of the Blood Vulture Clan and cannot extricate herself. Therefore, she hopes her alchemy apprentice can help her resolve this problem.
Quest Objective: Please go to Tris’s alchemy workshop immediately and complete the preparation of 50 Blazing Gels and 50 Combustion Oils!
Note!
This is a collaborative quest that can be completed with other players aspiring to walk the path of an alchemist!
Note!
This quest can be shared with a maximum of 10 players.Quest Time Limit: 8 hours.
Quest Reward:
1. Players who have already obtained the ‘Alchemist Apprentice’ profession will receive 3 Basic Alchemy Scrolls and be officially employed as an apprentice in Tris’s alchemy workshop to receive personal guidance from Grandmaster Alchemist Lady Tris.
2. Players who have not yet obtained the ‘Alchemist Apprentice’ profession will be judged on the Quality of the prepared products to determine if they are qualified for a profession change.?
“Wow!”
Good Pigeon immediately let out a strange cry and showed the profession quest he received to his other good sons. Ah Yuen widened his eyes and said:
“The NPC has even delegated the authority to recruit apprentices to you? Damn, this game has truly refreshed my understanding of freedom, and it even comes with a beginner profession change quest for manufacturing?
I remember quite a few players wanted to get a side profession!
Aren’t you going to charge a fee for this?”
“Charge? Our good Pigeon would never do such a bad thing.”
Good Pigeon was excitedly rubbing his hands.
He opened the forum feature in the game and started editing a post. As far as he knew, very few little players had chosen a manufacturing profession so far.
This was definitely a great opportunity.
However, a profession like alchemist sounded like it required intelligence, so the brash melee fighters could just step aside.
As soon as he posted the thread, people immediately responded. Brother Meow recommended his old buddy, and the Joy Stick group also had two people. North Forest Dog’s Paddle from the Fierce Male Fighters was very interested, and the second and third batches of little players also eagerly signed up. Good Pigeon had to set the selection criteria to Intelligence ? 6 to filter out quite a few people.
However, what surprised him was that Lumina had also signed up.
“Sister Lumina, didn’t you become a bard? And your main profession should be gunner, right?”
Good Pigeon curiously asked in a private chat:
“You only have one profession slot left. Are you sure you want to learn alchemy? The announcement said you could switch to an administrative profession later. Are you sure you don’t want to try that out?”
“I’m not interested in becoming an official, and my squad also needs an alchemist.”
Lumina was quite open-minded.
As she bid farewell to a few friends and gathered towards Pigeon’s side, she said:
“We’re about to put together a five-person squad. Before the next friend logs in, we need to confirm all the support roles. A bard is already a support class, so pairing with an alchemist side profession is simply perfect.”
“You make a good point.”
Pigeon was quite impressed by the gaming attitudes of the few members in the girls’ squad. They were casual enough, unlike Brother Meow and those cunning socialites who had to calculate every little thing even when playing a game.
He quickly organized a group of people and headed towards Tris’s alchemy workshop in droves, ready to begin his “corporate slave” career in the otherworld.
Meanwhile, Murphy had just managed to fob off Tris and immediately let out a breath of relief as he closed the office door.
Not bad, Tris!
The vampire lord thought to himself as he massaged his slightly aching brow. Not bad for a golden-rank Spirit Sovereign. Her Intelligence is truly impressive. In just half a month, she not only self-taught the players’ language but also roughly grasped the players’ current state through occasional conversations.
But thinking about it, this didn’t seem to be much of a problem.
Anyone who could become a golden-rank powerhouse in this world had to be exceptional, a one-in-a-million genius. Their intelligence was undoubtedly outstanding.
It’s just that her curiosity was perhaps a bit too strong.
“It’s a good thing that the little players’ connection to this world entirely relies on the test management system, and I’m the only node. If this were really a summoning spell, Tris would probably have happily summoned her otherworld warriors by now to act as guides for this crimson witch in the otherworld.
These Spirit Mages have indeed inherited the suicidal tendencies of spellcasters across countless dimensions.
They’re really not afraid that after all the hardships of opening an interdimensional portal, they’ll be greeted on the other side with a nice, wakeup Ivan, are they? Even a golden-rank powerhouse can’t withstand a nuclear bomb.”
With these thoughts, Murphy walked over to the desk and opened the weapon case that Tris had given him earlier.
Inside was a coiled blade whip.
There’s nothing special about its appearance, it’s just the classic blade whip shape most commonly used by the Midnight Hunters of the Blood Vulture Clan. It has a sword hilt and a bat guard like a one-handed sword, but instead of a blade, it’s connected to triangular wing-like sharp serrated blades, making the whole thing look like a monster’s barbed tail.
Tris is also a vampire, and an old fossil nearly 500 years old, so the blade whip she personally crafted is imbued with the dark artistic sense that vampires can never seem to shake off.
She even enchanted each triangular blade, giving it the signature crimson color of “blood-tempered” weapons.
And this isn’t just for looks!
It means this blade whip also deals a certain amount of spirit damage.
The entire blade whip is composed of 16 triangular blades connected by a rope made from the tendons of the two-legged wyvern, renowned for its toughness and stretchiness, after being processed by alchemy.
When connected, it reaches over 3 meters long, with a maximum striking distance of 10 meters when fully extended.
But this is a non-standard weapon, and only vampires and shadow elves use these types of whip weapons across the entire continent.
Proper use of this requires extensive practice and a certain level of skill. Otherwise, it’s easy to end up in the awkward situation where the whip lashes out and leaves the enemy unharmed while you’ve lost your left hand or decapitated an ally.
However, the blade whip’s lethality is equally formidable.
Young Lady Femis is a blade whip master. Murphy has seen her cleanly decapitate an Astral Realm mountain cat trying to ambush her from the maximum striking distance with a single lash.
But the blade whip in Murphy’s hands isn’t meant for attacking.
This is his “primary weapon” as a Summoner. If he had to say, this thing is more like a spell-casting tool. He reached out and grabbed the whip’s guard, and its properties immediately appeared before his eyes:
Name: Astral Realm Beast Tamer’s Hunting Whip – Classic Vampire Blade Whip
Quality: Standard – Commander
Traits: Exceptional Cutting, Extreme Durability, Astral Realm Summoning, Hunting Stimulation
Effect:
I. Beast Tamer’s Principle:
This weapon is a spell-casting tool custom-made by Grandmaster Alchemist Lady Tris for Astral Realm Summoners. When wielding this weapon to perform Astral Realm summonings, it will effectively reduce spirit energy consumption and increase the obedience of the summoned Astral Realm creature towards the summoner.
Lashing a summoned Astral Realm creature with this weapon will put it into a ?Kill Command? state, causing it to viciously attack the target designated by the Summoner.
II. Tris’s Focus:
Since Lady Tris has engraved the ?Precise Swift Summoning? spirit spell onto this weapon, it can be used as a dedicated spell-casting tool, granting +2 specialized summon slots.
The wielder can designate two Astral Realm summons for this weapon. After applying a spirit mark, they can swiftly summon the creatures without using summoning spells through this weapon!
Note!
Activating this Effect requires consuming 3 times the spirit energy.
Crafter: ?Blood Vulture Grand Duchess? Tracy Cavendina Chia Lorraine Lessenbra
Item Description:
?Beast Tamers must abide by the ?Otherworld Animal Protection Act? and respect the freedom of movement of Astral Realm creatures. If any beast tamer is found abusing their summons, please immediately report to @PeacefulTransia.?
“As expected of Tris! This ‘Swift Summoning’ is an advanced technique that I, a novice Summoner, have yet to master, but she’s directly engraved it onto my Summoner tool. If this thing were sold on the black markets of other regions, it would easily fetch several thousand gold coins.”
Murphy caressed the blade whip in his hands, feeling Mama Tris’s love and protection, warming his cold vampire heart.
Then he coiled the thing up and hung it on the weapon hook of his combat belt.
We know our own affairs best.
As a vampire lord who walked the path of the sword, he would need some time to familiarize himself with and hone his skills with this unconventional weapon. He would definitely have to seek guidance from the Young Lady, a Grandmaster of whip-wielding, after she returns.
Next, Murphy picked up the Frostfang blade he had previously seized from the Count of White Mountain.
Earlier, when Tris left, she casually helped him remove the spirit resonance from this ceremonial blade of the Nordtov royal family, allowing him to re-bind it.
Naturally, a gift from the royal family would have been imbued with the knowledge of the royal Spirit Mages. However, breaking this thing’s spirit binding was a mere trifle for a Spirit Sovereign like Tris.
She had already reached the golden rank over 300 years ago, while the Nordtov Kingdom had only experienced its first regime change after its founding when she was playing with spirit energy.
“Hum”
Murphy’s Dark Spirit surged out from his fingertips, enveloping the exquisite and luxurious hilt and blade of the Frostfang. After completing the first spirit resonance with this spirit weapon, its power was fully opened to Murphy, this wretched vampire who had mastered all sorts of NTR methods.
This scene gave Murphy a strong sense of déjà vu.
He patted the lazy Desire Demon Blade at his waist and said softly:
“I took you from Salrokdar as well, and now the Frostfang blade is the same. Add to that my outstanding descendant Adele… I can’t help but feel that my otherworldly life seems full of fate’s malice and mockery.”
“Swish”
The cold blade was drawn.
As Murphy’s wrist rotated, wisps of visible cold air dispersed from the two-finger-wide slender blade of this noble sword.
This thing’s name wasn’t wrong!
This level of extreme mastery over the cold winter spirit energy was unmatched across the entire continent, except by those Northerners who lived in the land of ice and snow and worshipped the God of the North Wind.
“Count Andrei has a special Nord nobility profession, Frost Spirit Swordsman.”
Murphy’s fingers lightly brushed the chilling blade as he narrowed his eyes in thought:
“The Nords of the Great Wilderness have a racial affinity for manipulating winter, and it’s said that the Ket living on Greenleaf Island in the Isa Kingdom also have a certain natural spirit affinity due to the influence of the Avalon Church. So after all this, does that mean us Silan living in the heart of the continent don’t have any special talents?
No!
It’s not that we don’t have anything.
Silan are skilled with their tongues and diplomacy, even the stubborn white silver dwarves within their borders have become their allies thanks to King Louis.
Perhaps that’s a talent in itself.
Maybe I should have Tris try modifying the human templates for the little players, so that even in human form, they can possess these special spirit abilities?
Hmm, this should be done within at most two ‘major version updates’ to enhance the gaming experience for ordinary players.
Speaking of which, the number of Black Iron Trial passers will definitely peak in a few days, so the Blood Vulture Clan’s ‘Welcoming Ceremony’ should be put on the agenda as well.”
“Swish”
With a flick of his wrist, Murphy performed a sword-drawing stance utterly different from the Tomb Guard Sword Arts, horizontally sweeping the cold blade in his hand before smoothly sheathing it.
As he took a step back, the two thick candles placed on either side of the desk smoothly dropped onto the surface, the cuts clean and frozen, fully demonstrating the exceptional excellence of Murphy’s newly acquired “weapon” in this regard.
“Time to patrol the territory!”
With this thought, he sheathed the new weapon at his waist and walked out of the office with the most elegant bearing, hands clasped behind his back.
At the same time, in a top floor room of Fort Crimea, the military stronghold at the southernmost point of the Transia region where the Foul Swamp, Dark Mountain Range, and Kafhoka Plains converged.
The weak and haggard attendant Vesta of the Count of White Mountain was half-kneeling on the luxurious wool carpet, not daring to raise his head. He had rushed to the nearest Nordtov territory at top speed over the course of two days and one night to report the situation to this important figure of the Thorn Clan before him.
He was now awaiting this lord’s decision.
The room was so quiet that even a needle dropping could be heard clearly. Vesta was already weakened from his injuries, and now he could even feel his heart beating like a human’s.
“So, you’re saying that the Count of Kadman has requested you to find a high-ranking member of the Thorn Clan for him?”
A chilling voice came from the front.
It had a hint of the characteristic rolled ‘r’ sound of the Northerners, sounding rather distinctive at first, though it also carried a certain elegance and propriety befitting a lady’s voice.
But Vesta only lowered his head in greater humility.
He replied in trembling tones:
“Yes, grand duchess. The Count of Kadman did indeed give such an order. He emphasized that he would give the Count of White Mountain treatment befitting his status, but he only gave us three days.”
“Alas, this Blood Vulture Clan really is like a hydra. Despite suffering such a heavy blow, they still have such an outstanding figure emerging to turn the tide. From your description, he sounds about the same age as Andrei.
They’re just children, yet why is it that others’ children are so outstanding?
It seems the so-called blood of the hero king Boris has brought no advantages to his unremarkable descendant Andrei.
Truly pitiful, in every sense of the word.
If only he and Angelina’s genders could be swapped, it would be perfect.”
The grand duchess of the Thorn Clan stood in the highest room of Fort Crimea.
She gazed towards Transia, her golden twin braids playfully draping over her shoulders from beneath the exquisite felt hat trimmed with polar bear fur.
She wore a long red and white dress with distinct Nordtov court styling, carrying herself with the grace of a noble lady stepped out of a painting. Upon closer inspection, this grand duchess bore some resemblance in her features to Count Andrei of White Mountain, who had been captured by Murphy.
“Now go change into something more presentable. After nightfall, you will accompany me to the Crimson Citadel to visit the Blood Vulture grand duchess.”
The Thorn grand duchess waved her hand dismissively at the kneeling Vesta behind her.
“But your master has erred, and he must be punished. You too. The White Mountain faction has proven its incompetence, from now on, it no longer exists, until Andrei can once again prove himself capable of leading a faction.
Do you understand?”