Chapter 1 Explosive Solution

Giek's demolition plan perfectly solved the security restrictions of the Royal Library, and Suren felt that things suddenly became simple.

He contacted Kitt using the communicator.

That guy was still racking his brains, pondering how to find loopholes to bypass the security patrol.

After all, it was the ultimate challenge of the thief profession, and he was very interested.

But after designing several plans, he didn't have the confidence to escape unscathed. He was waiting for Suren to send more detailed information to see if there was a breakthrough.

Now, listening to the demolition plan Suren was talking about, Kitt immediately agreed.

As long as they could directly blast their way into the treasure room, the manuscript would be within reach.

Although there were still some other advanced restrictions, they were not a big problem for Kitt. This guy himself was proficient in various lock-picking skills and restriction cracking. Now, the title of "the Number One Thief of Lingdun" was not just for show.

All that was left was to wait for Giek to concoct the finished explosives, and then find a suitable opportunity to strike.

Later, Suren didn't even need to worry about it.

...

Not long after, Suren and Shabina left the Royal Academy.

They originally planned to invite Reina together for dinner. But Shabina said that she suddenly had an epiphany state of advancing to the fourth tier, a rare opportunity. She found a safe place to fuse materials and advance.

Suren also expressed his support.

After wandering around the Royal Library, he also gained a deep understanding of the foundations of the Luying royal family and those old noble families.

Lingdun was full of hidden dragons and crouching tigers, and the city of Lingdun was now turbulent. The stronger Shabina was, the more secure they would be.

In the evening, Suren had dinner with Reina. Then they rode the motorcycle to the Vaughn Brotherhood's territory together, hung out in bars, and experienced the nightlife.

Because Suren had wiped out the gang's president and a bunch of core members, the Vaughn Brotherhood was almost collapsing. The Rolling Stone Bar and those nightclubs that were originally under the gang's protection had also changed hands. It became the territory of another gang.

After inquiring about the news, someone in the underworld had been looking for the troublemakers these days. But because Suren and the others had done a clean job and hadn't left any indicative information, there was no threat.

Suren always felt that the mysterious "Curator" had other purposes in having this gang spread the [Crimson Potion], so he and Reina wandered around various nightclubs.

Bars, underground boxing matches, casinos... even brothels were visited.

Reina, who had been a good girl since she was a child, gained a wave of knowledge and had her eyes opened to the life of the lower-level underworld. But Suren couldn't find any useful clues. Those who originally sold drugs privately seemed to have hidden themselves.

Even the patients with Red Death seemed to be fewer.

Obviously, they had stirred up the grass and startled the snake.

After visiting several nightclubs and dancing until two in the morning without any results, Suren and Reina returned to the apartment together.

Another night of gentle dreams.

...

In this way, two days passed, and Suren smoothly obtained the batch of coveted Mafa imported equipment.

According to Suren's requirements, the king of the Lingdun underworld arranged for people to load the goods onto a ship and transport it to the agreed coordinates at sea, and then all the crew members disembarked and left.

Suren didn't find any hidden tricks, and no one came to ambush him, so he directly teleported over and stuffed all the equipment on the ship into the Small Void Realm.

Then he let the empty ship sail automatically, heading towards the open sea.

With this batch of equipment, the productivity of Suren's War Workshop instantly skyrocketed dozens of times.

Now, the Small Void Realm had become a large-scale mechanical war factory. After those new equipment were installed and debugged, and with the cooperation of the precision instruments on the submarine, the mechanical armor assembly line was directly formed!

As long as there were enough materials, dozens of soldier-level mechanical armors could be produced every day. Even the officer-level elite armors above the third tier had a production capacity of nearly one per day.

It was conceivable that in time, Suren's mechanical puppet legion would reach a true legion scale.

And there was a complete logistical support system for replenishment, repair, and maintenance at any time.

Moreover, through this period of deliberation, the Runic Golem assembly line had also been completed. In addition, Dr. Banks and those Mafa mechanical engineers had made significant breakthroughs in their joint research on the Overlord Mechanical Octopus, and a new batch of mechanical octopuses had also been put into production.

Suren's puppet legion was quietly growing stronger.

But the problem came again.

After not lacking equipment, there was a shortage of materials again.

The construction of the War Workshop was due to two opportunities, one was robbing the Mafa submarine, and the other was the Full Moon Masquerade incident. The equipment was almost complete, which allowed Suren to have almost the best mechanical factory in the world without spending much money.

But materials were really expensive.

All the controlled materials that the Thunder Cat Merchant Guild had managed to obtain before were invested, but they would probably be exhausted soon.

Also, many of the components used in high-level officer-level armor were top-quality scarce materials that couldn't be bought even with money.

Fortunately, there was now another safe channel.

With the smooth arrival of this equipment, Suren also secretly praised the energy of that "Shadow Duke" as being exaggerated. Thinking that he had already revealed his need for mechanical equipment, he would simply go to the Full Moon Masquerade next time to purchase a wave of mechanical materials.

...

Suren stayed in Reina's apartment and didn't go out much.

But through the newspapers he subscribed to, he learned about the current events in Luying.

In the past two days, the *Lingdun Daily* and the *Queen City News* had been fiercely fighting each other.

The reason was that before the new drug launch of "Buckey Pharmaceutical Company" even began, a large number of fake [Crimson Potions] had appeared on the market.

This potion was cheap and had a certain effect on suppressing the symptoms of Red Death. But those fake potions also had some slight side effects, such as vomiting and diarrhea.

Therefore, this also caused the Lingdun Health Department to make trouble for Buckey Pharmaceutical Company, directly disrupting their new drug launch plan.

Suren knew that this was fake medicine thrown out by Yekaterina to disrupt the market, and it was also an emergency plan to deal with the spread of the [Crimson Potion].

But because the original [Crimson Potion] couldn't be found to have any problems.

Such a move could only delay the launch time of the potion and could not completely solve the problem.

When the Red Death broke out on a large scale, this potion would eventually be rolled out, and even the Luying government would support it.

After all, behind this pharmaceutical company was a large wave of Luying dignitaries led by Councilor Rodriguez. Those nobles were still waiting for this special medicine to treat Red Death to make huge profits, and they would never let anyone cut off their financial path.

Even if the other councilors opposed it, it wouldn't work!

Suren looked at the situation in the newspaper and didn't think of a better way to break the situation.

Unless the source was found and those god believers were uprooted, no one could do anything about this move.

But that Outer God, except for the "Rodricka Empress Cruise Incident" that was accidentally exposed, had hardly made any big moves.

Intuition told Suren that the calmer the sea, the more dangerous undercurrents were lurking beneath the surface.

Those Outer God believers were also infiltrating and developing in Lingdun in various ways because of the "Freedom of Religion Act." When that Outer God's conspiracy was completed and exploded, the problem would probably be a disaster for the entire Alchemy Plane.

But with that believer lurking in the Bonner royal family secretly manipulating things, policies could not stop the development of god believers.

No one could do anything about it.

Power had become the key to the current predicament.

...

In the following days, Suren stayed in Reina's apartment. He would only go out to nightclubs at night to look for clues.

It wasn't until five days later that he went out.

Suren was going to visit the Puppeteer Guild because the final of the "National Puppeteer Competition" would be held there today.

Kama and Aberk happened to be participating.

Suren, as their teacher, also planned to go to the scene to see the performance of his two disciples.

The Puppeteer Guild was originally a very niche profession in Luying, but because Suren had stirred up a puppeteer craze in the Moros City-State in the previous battle, puppeteer had now become one of the most popular career choices for apprentices.

Therefore, there was this national competition.

Even for this puppeteer competition, the organizers had offered very generous prizes.

Lingdun had no shortage of anything, just various ancient relics.

Suren saw the competition's promotional flyer in the newspaper, and the prizes even included a few puppeteer profession items that he coveted.

The bad news was that the participants were limited to entry-level puppeteers below the third tier.

Otherwise, Suren would have wanted to participate even if it meant losing face.

The good news was that among the puppeteers below the third tier, the strength of the Kama siblings was probably in the top few.

Not long after, Suren rode his motorcycle to 19 Gunpowder Street in the Franklin District. That red brick building that looked like a church was the Puppeteer General Guild.

A huge emblem was hung at the entrance of the building. The pattern on it was a hand with five fingers pulling threads.

When Suren arrived, it was like a concert, with a sea of people.

Everywhere here, you could see professionals wearing cloaks, with a crow perched on their shoulders, and holding various bizarre scythes.

They didn't look like puppeteers at all, but more like death impersonators at a masquerade ball.

They weren't strong, but their equipment was complete.

Suren couldn't help but smile as he looked at these guys imitating him.

However, there were also some serious puppeteers carrying their own puppets in the crowd.

Naturally, you had to show off your skills here. Some of the "people" in the crowd were not living people at all.

Suren had just seen a scarecrow puppet in the crowd, exuding dark energy fluctuations. This was a curse-style puppet; there was also one carrying several brass clockwork puppets, a classic mechanical style; then there was one leading a zombie deer, a beast puppet style; carrying several large knives on its back, a weapon style...

Suren didn't underestimate his peers at all.

There were many branches of the puppeteer profession, and there were several puppeteer grandmasters in Luying, and their levels were very high. This profession didn't start strong, but puppeteers who usually surpassed the third tier were not weak in combat power at the same tier.

...

This puppeteer competition brought together puppeteers from all over the empire to join in the fun, and it was also a rare exchange event for puppeteers.

Because there were so many people watching the finals, a temporary alchemy market gradually appeared on the street outside the venue.

Puppeteers from all over the world were selling some puppeteer professional tools, threads, wood, implants, job materials... Of course, the most popular were crows and cloaks.

There were also many good puppet-related items that were usually gathering dust in the warehouses of merchant houses or were unsold at auctions, and they were also re-displayed on the shelves of shops.

Suren didn't rush in because he had obtained an inner-field ticket in advance.

He strolled through the market.

The best-selling items at the stalls were finished puppets.

Luying had no shortage of rich people. Many of those who came to watch the competition were wearing Royal Academy uniforms. Those little nobles forcibly raised the prices of various commodities several times over.

Suren exclaimed that the prices of those low-level puppets were outrageous.

Fortunately, he didn't need finished puppets for puppeteers of his level now.

After all, he was already a top master in this field, and it was difficult to find someone better than him in puppet making skills.

Even if there were, they were mostly ancient relics and would not be sold in the market.

After wandering around, he gained a little.

Suren bought a few volumes of puppet classics from other schools, and he also unexpectedly picked up an ancient puppet secret scroll.

He only spent a few thousand Reese to buy a remnant scroll of the Qi Control Thread Secret Art [Thread Control - Qi Stream Needle Rain], which was worth at least hundreds of thousands.

Knowledge-related items had a digestion threshold, which was very tasteless for beginners, and they couldn't understand it even if they bought it.

What's more, the little nobles never lacked knowledge. There were various classics in the Royal Academy that they couldn't finish reading in their entire lives, and they wouldn't care about the things on the stalls.

This was the difference between noble and commoner professionals.

When commoner professionals were still gloating over picking up a little resource, noble professionals had already been immersed in the resources accumulated by their families for thousands of years.

...

Not long after, seeing that the competition was about to start, Suren entered the competition venue in the guild.

This was a circular little theater, originally able to accommodate a thousand people, but it seemed a bit crowded because the competition was filled with several thousand people. The croaking of crows and the noise of people mixed together.

Roughly estimated, there were at least a hundred crows in the competition venue!

Suren's ticket was in the last row of the inner field, not very conspicuous, but he could just see the entire competition venue.

The competition hadn't started yet, and he heard people behind him discussing the competition fiercely.

"Oh my, the prizes for this competition are really generous. The Alchemy Guild has really spent a lot of money to make a name for itself. The first prize is actually a rare fifth-tier [Iron Sand Puppet]. Tsk tsk, this thing is both offensive and defensive. If you really get it, even if you can't win against a fifth-tier professional, you can at least save your life under the hands of a third or fourth-tier professional. I'm really envious..."

"I've also heard of this puppet. It's always been a collection of the Puppet Guild. I didn't expect they would be willing to take it out as a prize. Not only the first prize, but the second prize is a very rare gold-quality thread implant; the third prize is the version of the four-color elemental core structure diagram... The prizes for the top ten are all rare treasures!"

"I heard last time that the Roman Kingdom appeared a puppet treasure [Four-Color Elemental Heart]. The guild also sent an adventure group to look for it, but they didn't get it. I don't know who it fell into..."

"It is said that it fell into the hands of the "Grim Reaper". He has an indestructible gargoyle puppet in his hand, which is very strong. I estimate it's the strongest puppet in the world, even stronger than Grandmaster Aubrey's set of [Seven Dwarfs] elemental puppets."

"The strength of the "Grim Reaper" is recognized. One person against two hundred thousand. In our Luying, one puppet player is one. No one dares to say that they can do it..."

"Indeed. The battle in the Moros City-State really showed the power of our puppet-style professionals with strength."

"..."

As Suren listened, he heard various versions of boasting about himself, which made him laugh and cry.

Those old men in the front row of the Puppet Guild had unnatural expressions on their faces as they listened.

The strongest puppet inheritance was in the Lingdun Puppeteer Guild, but now there was a foreign puppeteer who had suppressed the reputations of everyone. These masters' old faces were also a little embarrassed.

But most of the people watching were young people, and they were all talking without restraint.

"Who do you think can get the first place this time?"

"Of course it's Aubrey Grandmaster's closed-door disciple, Elsa Bach. That Marquis's young lady awakened the [C-019 - Double Heart Person], which is an excellent puppeteer talent. Whether it's inheritance or puppet quality, it's top-notch. There is absolutely no opponent within the same tier. What's more, there is also her battle record of defeating a third-tier professional before..."

"I don't think that's for sure. Haven't you heard that the heir of the Boyle Mechanical Puppet lineage has come to the imperial capital? During the Rodricka Empress Cruise Incident, I heard that two puppeteers were very strong. They seem to have also entered the top ten."

"That's right. The noble lady's battle records are just for listening to. There's a lot of water in life-and-death battles. I heard that those two from Boyle had their whole family killed by pirates and have been drifting at sea ever since. They are true real combatants..."

"What bull Boyle? Dare you underestimate our Royal Academy's number one puppeteer? Too naive! Just watch. When you really fight, you will know where the gap between nobles and commoners lies..."

"..."

Suren was pondering who could get the first place as he listened to those people's analysis.

He thought Aberk had the greatest chance of winning the championship.

Don't look at him as just a first-tier professional. The talent of the second-stage [Seven Apertures Exquisite Heart] is enough to beat several Kama if he really fights with all his strength.

It was completely enough to deal with a group of puppeteers who were at most second-tier.

...

Big shots always appear at the end.

Suren looked at his pocket watch. The competition was at ten o'clock, and there was still one minute left.

At this moment, the venue suddenly quieted down, and a white-bearded old man led a few people in.

Suren had read the information. This white-bearded old man was Aubrey Hernandez, the president of the Puppeteer Guild, and also one of the recognized grandmasters of puppets in the world. He was the heir of the Elemental Puppet lineage.

And he was followed by two young people. One was someone Suren recognized, the young master of the Roberts family, Alex Roberts, who was almost killed on the cruise ship.

The other was a handsome young man with a complexion as fair as a vampire.

Without thinking, they were probably young masters from top noble families.

Otherwise, the president of the Puppeteer Guild would not have personally accompanied them.

Suren didn't care about any nobles at first, but when he saw the ring on the young man's hand, his pupils suddenly shrank: "That ring is actually in this person's hand?!"

[Lilith's Vampire Ring]

Quality: Legendary

Description: Wear the ring and you are a high-level blood clan;

Curse Characteristic: You can use this ring to absorb the target's essence and blood, and gain high efficiency to restore your own injuries and physical strength; long-term use of this ring can prolong life and maintain youth; using this cursed object to absorb the target's essence and blood will also absorb alien mental power, which will lead to mental confusion; sacrificing pure virgin blood of equivalent energy is required to weaken part of the curse backlash during use. The more pure, the better the weakening effect;

Detailed Explanation: This is a dark-type cursed object made by a certain demon hunter in the Dawn Era using the finger bones of the vampire progenitor. It possesses part of the vampire ability of the progenitor, which is almost immortality; it can be used as a career advancement material. After fusion, it greatly enhances physical strength and obtains related abilities such as 'Blood Devour'. Physical enhancement can be obtained by devouring the target's flesh and blood. When fusion conditions are met, the Fallen Angel bloodline suppresses the abyss bloodline of the ring, and the probability of distortion is less than 16%;

"Is this guy from the Rodriguez family?"

Suren had asked Mr. Mirror, the seven-hundred-year-old bloodline, on the ship if there were any suitable career advancement materials for him in Lingdun.

That old vampire had mentioned this ring.

Suren only knew that the ring was in the hands of the Rodriguez family.

He thought it would be in some old guy, but he didn't expect a young man to be wearing it?

Suren watched, his pupils shrinking slightly, and said to himself, "What a strong cursed object. With it, you almost have the immortality of a vampire..."

After reading the identified information, Suren was sure that this cursed object was exactly what he needed, greatly enhancing his physical body and having 'Blood Devour' ability!

The most important thing was that he fully met the fusion conditions!

Suren's modified Fallen Angel bloodline was higher than the level of the abyss vampire, which directly led to him having a greater probability of success.

Although the 16% probability of distortion was still not low, but if he got another distortion-resistant potion from Dr. Banks, he could definitely suppress it to within 8%!

When Suren saw this, he immediately became interested.

...

"However, why is his soul so strange... Could it be because of the ring?"

Suren sensed it again, and this pale-faced youth's strength should be very strong.

But the soul fluctuation was very strange, even colder than a real vampire.

Suren immediately became suspicious and his mind raced.

After these few people came in, they directly sat in the front row.

Suren also heard someone beside him recognize the identities of a few people.

"Hey, what's the background of those two noble young masters that they can have President Aubrey accompany them?"

"You don't know that, do you? Those two are young masters from top noble families. The one in white is called Alex Roberts."

"The surname Roberts, could it be one of the six great councilors?"

"What else?"

"Wow, no wonder. What about the other one?"

"This other one is even more incredible. That's Augustus, the second young master of the Duke Rodriguez family, the second awakening of the [B-010 - Gluttony]. When he graduated from the Royal Academy three years ago, he was already a sixth-tier professional. He's a true peerless genius! He's been hailed as one of the 'Top Ten Strongest Geniuses' in the Royal Academy for the past hundred years."

"Oh, you mention it and I also remember. The Royal Academy three years ago was really full of geniuses. That young master William from the Regardi family was also one of the 'Top Ten Geniuses'. I heard he also advanced to the sixth tier after graduating. And that Miss Yekaterina from the Lance family is said to be very strong too..."

"Oh, you mention Miss Yekaterina and I get angry! Damn it, how could such a beautiful angel get married? Oh, God, if she really has to get married, I think young master William from the Regardi family can barely match her. But she's actually going to marry a second son of Regardi, and I heard he's a good-for-nothing, the son of a mistress..."

"You don't understand the mystery of this. The royal family doesn't allow the first-in-line heirs of the two major families to marry like this. The various forces will definitely not allow this kind of strong alliance. Only by marrying a second son, preferably a good-for-nothing, will they not be hindered..."

"..."

Suren listened carefully to the popular science of the crowd behind him.

He heard that the one wearing the vampire ring was called Augustus Rodriguez, and all kinds of halos of this young master...

But before he had time to think about it, he actually ate his own melon while chatting.

"The 'good-for-nothing' of the Regardi family?"

Suren's eyes twitched.

That good-for-nothing seemed to be talking about himself?

He listened to those people's popular science, and the image of that purple-haired Yekaterina suddenly flashed through his mind, and he also thought of Katyusha.

It was a rather complicated feeling.

However, those people were probably wrong. Yekaterina chose "Fick" not only because he was the second son of the Regardi family.

More importantly, he was Suren!

Thinking that it was just a transaction anyway, Suren didn't care about these gossips.

He thought of some other things and muttered in his heart, "Tsk tsk... A young genius? I'm afraid he's not a young man, but an old immortal wearing a young man's skin."

There were many geniuses in the world, but it wasn't so easy to meet them.

At least this young master Augustus had a big problem.

Suren thought of something, his eyes narrowed slightly, and he said to himself, "His soul fluctuation should be because he has been using the vampire ring for many years, which is why it's so mixed and cold. Solidified appearance, eternal youth... What exactly is this old guy trying to do?"