659 The Hospital (1/2)

The pile of photos were taken from five victims. Some had rotted. Buck explained to Heidi,

”Three days ago, some workers took off earlier in the evening because some magic circles in Claire broke. On their way back to Sardni through Egret, they heard a bitter scream from the victim in the first picture. They checked on it. One of them was a magic apprentice. The murderer had left. They only found the body, not even any footprints. Later, we found four more bodies hidden around in the sewers. All the organs were gone, and no clues were left.”

Heidi nodded, ”The body was badly rotten. The case might have happened even earlier than we think, and I'm sure there are more bodies to be found. But I wonder why the murderer did not simply destroy the bodies.”

”It's not easy to destroy the bodies. There are no piranhas in the rivers in Rentato. The bodies had to be moved to the black forest.” said Buck. He had been assuming that the murderer was not a powerful sorcerer or knight, but maybe just an ordinary man. He saw no point in a sorcerer or a knight attacking those poor people.

Heidi shuffled the photos and asked, ”Any missing people reports from the recent months?”

Buck looked a bit embarrassed, ”Egret is a poor district, and is full of people who come to Rentato seeking opportunities. The population is constantly changing, so even the gang leaders can't figure out who have gone missing…”

Heidi put down the photos, ”I'll take a look at the bodies and the scenes where the bodies were found. It's hard to tell from the black and white pictures.”

She had a bad feeling about these cases. All the victims' organs had gone missing. There was definitely something going on.

Heidi's words were exactly what Buck had been expecting. He hurriedly stood up and said, ”Please come this way.”

He walked to his police car and opened the door for Heidi. After Heidi got in, Buck walked around the car and got in the driver's seat.

Turning on the engine, the steel machine monster started roaring.

”The size of a car has been greatly reduced…” Heidi made this heartfelt comment when she saw the comfortable interior of the vehicle.

Buck grinned, ”That's true. In the past, a car was too big to run on the streets. Those sorcerers simplified the magic circles for producing cars and also lowered the requirement for materials. Part of the magic steam engine has also been replaced by the new energy resource…”

An older-version vehicle would take up all the space of a street in Rentato. After the improvements, however, now at least two cars could run through the streets in opposite directions and the sidewalks could still be retained. But still, cars were very expensive and only the nobles and national departments could afford them. Although Buck was one of the leaders in the police department, if he had not been picking up Heidi, he would not have access to this car.

Heidi gave the metal door of the car a gentle stroke and felt the texture. She knew that it was because of Layria and Katrina's contribution to materials science that the requirements of alchemical circles could finally be lowered to such a degree.

She knew how difficult the simplification was. Thanks to the guidance and development of new alchemy and element research, material synthesis had also made good progress.

Apart from Layria and Katrina, those sorcerers from Atom Institution like Lazar and Rock, as well as Larry, Ulysses, Timothy and K… Thousands of sorcerers were doing their best.

Material science required countless experiments to gather experience. Even prophecy could only do a little to help. There was no luck in this field!

Those ideas that the dwarves brought from their own steam culture also had inspired the sorcerers who tried to simplify the production of cars. They had thus extracted the energy-intensive resource: coal burning element. Also, they had started looking for new alternative energies such as solar power, which was once only used in magic towers.

The sorcerer's knowledge was profound. Their old ally, the elves, were also a great help.

Thinking of the great changes that had been taking place in the congress and in the four countries along the strait, Heidi felt very encouraged. She was proud living in such an era.

Heidi thought to herself that although she was not as talented as Annick and Sprint in the microscopic realm, and not as patient and sensitive to the properties of materials, she believed that she would make her own achievement in artificial intelligence, and one day she would win the Holm Crown prize.

Her fists clenching, Heidi encouraged herself. She was rather thrilled thinking of the future that, once soul pieces were added in, those cold machines could also think and deal with most problems like human beings and even faster than many arcanists. Among the six students of Lucien Evans, only Heidi and Chelly had not yet won a top prize.

Very attentively Buck drove the car. He said to Heidi, ”Lady, we're first heading for the mortuary in Violet Hospital.”

”No problem.” said Heidi. She would like to take the chance to visit the hospital, which had made many followers of the Church realize that the Saint Truth was not the only power that could cure diseases. The Congress of Magic could also do the job!

Although Buck was feeling a bit nervous driving, he still did not want to leave his important guest alone, so he tried to start a conversation, ”Cars are not yet fast enough. In the future, the speed should be further improved by advancing power magic circles and finding new resources. Herald of Arcana and Magic said that the Lord of Storm, Atom Controller, the Lord of Elements have finished the initial theoretical research on radioactive element decay. Does that mean that the decay energy can be used to power cars in the future?”

”Nuclear you mean…” Heidi was a bit amused. Obviously, Buck was piling up the terms that he saw in the newspaper.

Nuclear power was a major focus in Atom Institution, and the research was led by Mr. Lucien Evans in person, with his closest friends and students as supporters. This most cutting-edge energy was even too powerful and precious for most senior-ranks, not to mention using it in powering cars.