Chapter 1 The Heavy Loss of the Oliver Family

The Oliver family suffered heavy losses this time, and Denzel was furious.

The five major consortiums in the camp joined forces, determined to capture the rampant "SS-ranked wanted criminal, Soren," and the search was more intense than ever.

Over the next period, Soren changed hotels every two or three days to appear more like an ordinary wasteland wanderer, avoiding the attention of keen intelligence agents due to staying in one place.

Even so, he encountered room checks several times.

But there were never any problems.

In the massive amount of harvested memories, Soren had countless identities that could withstand scrutiny and provide verifiable origins.

He even forged various identification documents for his false identities to cooperate with the inspections, and the inspectors never saw through them once.

Although he frequently moved his residence, Soren was essentially staying holed up in hotels and not going out much.

He didn't go to the wasteland wanderers' guild, the market, or the tavern...

The last battle had harvested too much knowledge, and he needed a lot of time to digest what he had gained.

Finally, after causing a ruckus for half a month, many other wanted criminals were caught, but he was not among them.

The commotion gradually died down.

.......

One day, Room 301 of the Rose Hotel.

The small room was filled with books and tools.

Because he almost always replaced sleep with meditation, Soren simply used the bed as a bookshelf, stacking it with various scrolls and research materials.

Mr. Black had sent him a set of introductory classics from the Black Tower Academy, which he had been reading slowly before. Because there was no one to guide him, those obscure pieces of knowledge required a lot of time to comprehend and understand.

But after the last battle, harvesting fragments from more than a hundred elite inner city soldiers, those basic pieces of knowledge almost filled in all of Soren's shortcomings in the field of low-level alchemy.

But memories will fade on their own, especially those harvested memories that were not very profound.

Soren didn't want to waste these valuable pieces of knowledge, so for the past half month, he had repeatedly taken out the classics to cross-reference and read them, deepening his impressions and truly imprinting the knowledge in his mind.

It wasn't just various pieces of knowledge.

After Soren harvested the memories of the puppet master, Lloyd, his own level of crafting eerie puppets also skyrocketed.

Looking back, apart from the [Black Hole Doll] that Mr. Black had helped him make, all the eerie puppets he had made before were too crude.

The last battle had also given him a lot of inspiration.

Now, Soren planned to make a batch of new, high-level eerie puppets suitable for combat.

......

Inside the not-so-spacious room, a blue light cross covering the entire room floated in the air.

From the cross, strands of silver thread hung down, suspending seven or eight lotus-root colored dolls that didn't touch the ground. There were also some unfinished broken hands, broken feet, and carving tools floating in the room, making the scene look extremely eerie.

After Soren returned and carefully compared the incantations on the scroll, he also discovered the missing parts of the [Puppet Theater] in his memory.

That's why he would spend some time every day practicing the proficiency of this puppet mastery.

Even though it was a room for one person, there would often be a group of people "dancing."

.......

At this moment, Soren was concentrating on installing a third head on an eerie puppet.

At the same time, he was also using the eight-armed spider limbs to control carving knives, carving shapes and engraving rune grooves on four or five wooden figures that had not yet taken shape...

He was simultaneously working on the production of seven or eight dolls all by himself.

Busy,

yet methodical.

Soren was wearing coarse cloth work clothes, and his face was already dyed rainbow colors by various paints.

Just then,

there was a crisp "crack."

Soren frowned slightly.

Just trying it with a silk thread, as soon as the magic pattern was activated, one of the heads of the newly made three-headed doll suddenly fell off and rolled far away on the floor.

Soren didn't even look at the rolling wooden head. The silk threads hanging from the cross had already wrapped it up and handed it back to the workbench.

It was as if the threads all over the room were his "hands."

"Another failure..."

Soren held the broken end of the puppet, frowned, and muttered, "It seems that a three-headed doll is already the limit. Any more heads will affect the stability of the structure and cause the runes and enchantments to conflict with each other..."

He analyzed the reason and recorded it in detail in the notebook next to him.

Perhaps he was a little tired. After this failure, Soren didn't continue tinkering with puppet research.

As soon as the incantation was withdrawn, the cross on the ceiling also disappeared, and the threads all over the room vanished.

The eight-armed spider spears also put down their work and were busy putting away all kinds of materials and semi-finished products.

"Hoo..."

Soren slowly exhaled a breath of air, stood up, and moved his joints.

He looked at the seven or eight finished eerie puppets placed by the wall and showed a satisfied smile, muttering to himself, "The commonly used second-tier runes are almost mastered, and the finished product rate of the eerie puppets is also steadily improving. All the [Nightmare Dolls] have been engraved with second-tier runes, so the influence of ordinary eerie puppets on high-level professionals will be very strong in the future..."

Suddenly, he thought of something, and a faint smile appeared in his eyes, "Tsk, tsk, if I use these advanced dolls to cast [Night Parade of a Hundred Eerie Things], I'm afraid there aren't many second-tier professionals who can handle it..."

The strength and efficacy of the current eerie puppets were no longer comparable to the batch from half a month ago.

If a hundred eerie puppets really came out together, Soren felt that even if he faced the pursuers from that time head-on, he would have the power to fight.

This was a truly puppet army that posed a threat to high-level professionals.

However, there was still one problem that had not been solved.

Thinking of something, he frowned again and murmured, "The multitasking has reached its limit. This is a big problem..."

.......

Soren was not lacking in the number of eerie puppets, the means of manipulation, or the means to perfectly solve the problem of thread entanglement.

He had even mastered the [Puppet Theater], and the number and efficiency of puppet manipulation had greatly increased.

But that problem still had not been solved.

He found that it wasn't just him, but all puppet masters faced this dilemma, even Lloyd, who was known as the "Puppet Master."

That was the problem of the "actual" number of manipulations.

Soren was now very familiar with the skill of [Multitasking], and had almost reached the limit of what he could currently distract himself with.

He could now simultaneously manipulate seven or eight puppets, as flexible and varied as real people, reaching 100% manipulation;

But if the number of manipulations increased to more than a dozen, the completion of the movements could reach about 70%;

If it exceeded twenty, the completion of the movements would only be below 40%;

And simultaneously manipulating a hundred, he could almost only do some simple movements, such as changing direction, spitting fire...

The previous "Night Parade of a Hundred Eerie Things" was strictly speaking not even a finished incantation,

It was more accurately Soren's future career planning direction.

Taking it out now was still just a trick to scare people with quantity.

Even if he used the [Puppet Theater], it seemed that he could precisely control countless puppets. But in reality, the number that could be precisely controlled could not escape the shackles of this "multitasking limit."

Soren knew where the root of the problem lay.

Because he had a data panel, he had long discovered the pattern. That was, after the spirit stat increased, this "multitasking limit" was also slowly increasing.

But it wasn't completely proportional.

Soren guessed that the amount of spirit and the efficiency of use would affect this "multitasking limit."

To solve this problem, he felt that he urgently needed a mental power cultivation secret method.

Moreover, he felt great after harvesting more than a hundred people last time, but he also clearly felt that if he continued to absorb like this without control, he would probably not be far from losing his mind.

.......

Soren didn't continue to stay holed up in the hotel room. Instead, he packed up and planned to go out to inquire about the news.

More than half a month had passed, and the commotion caused last time had almost died down.

Recently, there had been new topics in the camp.

That was the coming of the "Wasteland Wanderer Frenzy"!

The news from a month ago had only recently reached the underground.

It was said that the Black Tower had issued an order requiring the major families in the inner city to send elite teams to explore the wasteland.

And it wasn't just elite teams.

To prevent those major families from disobeying in secret, the Duke had directly issued an order requiring those influential major families to send their first in line heir to Dawn Ruins in person.

This move had a very obvious effect.

To protect the safety of those precious young masters and ladies in the family, those lords and ladies had to send the strongest security team over.

This one order directly mobilized a large number of high-level professionals from the inner city to explore the wasteland, second-tier, and even third-tier!

Disobey?

The family would be gone the next day.

In the old Lunden of the lord system, the Duke's mansion possessed unquestionable authority.

Therefore, during this period, the population of Dawn Camp had exploded.

Those gorgeously dressed young masters and ladies, leading their luxuriously equipped guards, arrived one after another. There were also maids, butlers, and servants, a mighty crowd of tens of thousands of people, directly cramming the entire wasteland wanderer camp.

.......

The camp was so lively that Soren couldn't stay holed up any longer, so he naturally planned to go take a look.

As soon as he walked out of the room, he saw a noble lady with freckles all over her face scolding her butler in the corridor.

Beside them, there was also a group of more than a dozen heavily armed bodyguards.

"This damn place, the accommodation is so bad, I can't even rent a suite with a bathtub? If there's no bathtub, how am I supposed to bathe every day? Butler Albert, spend as much money as it takes, can you find me a decent suite?"

"Oh~ Miss Sophia, it's not a matter of money. The environment in the camp is like this. Even Miss Quinna of the Edward family, who arrived a day earlier than us, only found a single room that's half the size of yours. If the owner of this Rose Hotel wasn't a friend of the Lord, this room wouldn't even be available..."

"Really? Quinna's room is even smaller than this?"

"Absolutely true! And the young master of the Campbell family, who came the day before yesterday, has been camping for two nights because he missed the room arranged for him in the 'Blacksmith's Inn.' Now he wants to go back, but the room is already full. Oh, you probably wouldn't want the environment of the 'Blacksmith's Inn' because it's really too terrible, ten times worse than here... at least ten times! Miss, why don't you stay here first, and I'll go take another look to see if I can find something better..."

"Hmph..."

The arrogant freckled lady heard that the accommodation conditions of her peers from the same family were even worse than her own, and the resistance on her face dissipated a little.

At this time, she happened to see Soren, dressed as a wasteland wanderer, walking out of the room.

Her arrogant neck, like a rooster, immediately raised, revealing a look of disgust, "I would actually live in a cheap hotel with dirty wasteland wanderers, oh, heavens, kill me..."

After complaining, she plunged into the room and then "bang," slammed the door shut, showing her dissatisfaction.

The butler also saw Soren, but suddenly seemed to have discovered a treasure, his eyes lit up, and he quickly greeted him, saying, "This gentleman, may I ask, can you give us your room? As you can see, we merchants have too many people, and the accommodation is not very convenient... Of course, as compensation for your generosity, I will pay ten times the rent..."

His tone was still polite, but Soren raised his eyebrows slightly as he listened.

No wonder even though he had hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign, the waiters were still knocking on the door to call for temporary price increases, and the price increase was almost ten times what it was half a month ago.

So that's how the rooms were being inflated.

But he had no intention of transferring the room, and replied, "Sorry, I also have a lot of people in my room."

Saying that, he ignored these people and went straight downstairs.

.......

Having not gone out these past few days, the streets in the camp were crowded with people.

When Soren came out, the streets were full of the standard teams of young masters and ladies, with butlers, servants, and a group of guards.

The young ladies and masters of top families like the Reis family had already received some news and arranged for people to come and set up camp in advance, so there was no problem with accommodation.

When the young masters of slightly lesser families came, the problems were big.

The luxury hotels were already full, so they could only choose the cheap hotels where the wasteland wanderers used to live. Even those with private bathrooms, like the one Soren used to live in, were hard to come by.

This made those delicate young masters and ladies suffer a lot, and all over the place you could see people who looked like butlers going to hotels to inquire about accommodation and then coming out with a gray face.

Soren was walking along when he happened to encounter one.

The fat young master in the team looked a little familiar, so he took another look.

"Young Master Charlie, oh, how lucky... I've booked you a luxury suite! It was Madam Melinda of the 'Ackerman Family' who helped you get it..."

"Hey, hey, I say, Mr. Old Franz. Accommodation is a small problem, have you contacted the wasteland exploration team? I want the kind of wasteland exploration team with real exploration experience! You don't really think the Duke wants us to come to the ruins just for accommodation, do you?"

"Young Master Charlie... this... I went to the wasteland wanderers' guild, and all the major wasteland exploration teams that are registered have already been hired. I've only hired two heavy wasteland exploration teams..."

"Heavens, Franz, what are you still doing here? Go squat at the city gate and immediately sign an employment contract when you see a wasteland exploration team returning! No matter how much money it costs, within five days, I want to hear that you've hired at least three wasteland exploration teams led by second-tier professionals!"

"Yes, Young Master..."

The old butler was scolded into submission, handed over the key, and went to the city gate in a panic.

The fat man looked at the key in his hand, his face full of worry, and sighed as he entered the hotel.

Soren looked at the big fat man, who originally only seemed familiar, but now listening to his style of doing things.

Wasn't this the little fat man Charlie who bribed him in the underground cave?

"Heh heh..."

Seeing this guy's strong desire to survive, Soren smiled.

However, this guy's worries were not unreasonable, at least Soren agreed with his statement that the Duke's Mansion sent them here, definitely not for a spring outing.

Seeing this acquaintance, Soren raised his eyebrows, and a black-haired girl suddenly appeared in his mind.

The first in line heir of each major family has to come, so... is Reina coming too?

Without thinking much, Soren planned to go to the wasteland wanderers' guild to take a look first.