200 Heavily Refined Equipment Part 1 (1/2)

The intelligence regarding Cloudflow was unsettling. After asking a few more questions, Saleen allowed Hogina to leave. As Hogina was leaving, she gave Saleen a magic fragment which had been polished from the horns of a magic beast. This magic fragment could be mosaicked into the magic sound array, and if Saleen ever needed something from Hogina in the future, he could contact her privately using this fragment.

As Saleen accompanied Hogina to the door, he saw that Sumano, the old disciple, was still waiting outside, and felt pity for him. Then, Saleen said, ”Leave your contact information. If I ever require your help, I will go and look for you.”

Sumano became flustered, and said, ”Mr. Saleen, please don’t say that. I will be waiting at the bottom of the tower every day. If you have any instructions for me, I will be just downstairs.”

”How could I make you do that?”

”I... have already accepted your payment.”

Seeing that Sumano behaved so awkwardly, Saleen did not want to push him anymore and let him be. Saleen then went back into the apartment and began discussing official matters with Lex.

”Lex, how did your men manage to uncover my teacher’s background?” Saleen felt that something had been wrong when even Hogina had never heard of Jason’s name. Jason might not have been an expert, but his background was not too common either. By all rights, he should not have been unknown in Alchemy City.

”He traveled from Alchemy City to Loulan before passing through Laiyin and then reaching Sikeqinya. He never concealed his identity at all. My men simply tracked his movements from Sikeqinya all the way back to Alchemy City. It was that simple.”

”I think we should ask Sumano first.”

”No, Alchemy City will be able to trace my origins very soon. There aren’t many people with the Grukos surname in Qin. It will look very fishy if we go and look for your teacher immediately. Besides, my men did not enter the city to investigate further at that time. Let’s just stay here for now. After two months, we will ask Hogina again.” Lex was not anxious, she simply needed a nod from Saleen.

There were too many complications surrounding the hell of god’s punishment, and Saleen did not want to publicize that he was searching for his teacher. Saleen’s main objective was to recruit more mage masters after locating his teacher. Furthermore, these mage masters needed to originate from the same teacher as Jason because outsiders could not be trusted.

His teacher’s teacher must have been a sorcerer. It would be good if he was a grade-9 sorcerer, because any sorcerer below grade-9 was still considered small fry in Alchemy City. If such a tremendous benefit was leaked to outsiders, then all hell would break loose.

Now that he had thought of this, Saleen could finally suppress his urge to try and obtain more information on his teacher.

This apartment was large enough with over one hundred meters of space, although it paled in comparison to the viscountess’ residence. The rooms were partitioned nicely, especially the room next door. The wall between two rooms was filled with solid magic materials and only metallic beams were used. The brick wall had been wiped with isinglass before being painted with magic powder and a sound cancelling magic array had been set up. Lastly, a layer of wall cloth had been put on.

The training chamber was the largest room but there was only one of them while there were six meditation rooms. All these rooms did not require any decorating. Lex took out the miscellaneous items from her god’s ring and helped decorate the rooms belonging to Sika and the other people.

Besides the main door of this house, only the crystal floor-to-ceiling windows in the flower room were connected to the outside world. Lex placed two metal plates outside the door in that six meter wide hall, creating temporary protection at the entrance of the apartment. Logically, no one would dare to create trouble in Alchemy City, but one would never know when a madman would come and create trouble, just like that Cloudflow mage clad in a grey robe.

It was good to be vigilant. At the very least, the people living in the apartment would be more at ease.

After the decorations were completed, Lex purchased a list which detailed all the goods sold in Alchemy City. Even though this list did not contain any magic items, it had cost almost one thousand gold coins. Before Saleen saw the list of goods, he had been denouncing it, but when the list was delivered, he no longer felt that its price was exorbitant.

This list was actually dozens of books, and each book was four times the size of an average magic book. When a book was flipped open, there were even a detailed table of contents. All the pieces of paper used to produce these books had already been sufficient for creating low grade magic scrolls, not to mention that there was meticulous information ranging from the grade of an item and price fluctuations to pictures.

Books read by an average nobleman were made from normal pulp, while slightly more expensive ones were made from parchment. This kind of paper which was used to create scrolls was highly resistant to tear and could be preserved for centuries. On the other hand, the average commoner used parchment to create contracts and vouchers. These books were practically being given away for free because their production costs absolutely exceeded one thousand gold coins.

However, Saleen knew that this transaction was not a loss to Alchemy City. Even mages from Cloudflow were here in the city to procure materials. It just went to show what great business Alchemy City enjoyed.

Alchemy City was still guarding the southern sea for the empire. It was just that the taxes collected by Alchemy Port were hundreds of times higher than that of Lex’s county.

Lex and Saleen were not afraid of being disrupted during their meditation, but Daniel was. Of the six meditation rooms, five of them had been converted into two alchemy laboratories and two fencing rooms. Fortunately, Lex had brought along all the required materials. No one in Alchemy City would have expected someone to bring so many burdensome items along with them.