The career of an evil alchemist that started with picking up a crazy sword girl

Lu Lin was helpless, so he promised to return Lan Jie's money as soon as possible after selling the things he refined in the next city, so the brother felt a little more at ease.

On the third day, after Lu Lin repeatedly confirmed that all the things he needed to buy were purchased, he let Lan Jie drive off.

Speaking of how to drive an Earth Dragon...

I don’t know whether to call it a classic or funny.

There is a long pole on the balcony on the first floor. A fruit bait that can continuously emit fragrance will be hung at the front of the pole. Just put the fishing rod out and let the fruit hang in front of the ground dragon. Lure the earth dragon forward.

Of course, this does not mean that the earth dragon is really so stupid that it will not find that it cannot eat the fruit, but after being trained by the Chamber of Commerce, this is a signal for it to move forward. According to the training content, it is actually replaced by The same goes for other indicators.

As for why it is done like this, on the one hand, it is to get started with training at the beginning, and on the other hand, many customers like this design very much.

Lan Jie, who is responsible for guiding the earth dragon forward, can control the direction of the earth dragon just by sitting on the balcony and controlling the direction of the long pole.

It's a very easy job, but it's also very boring, but someone has to do it, and no one else can do it except Lan Jie.

So... for the next month, he will probably be able to do only this one thing every day.

Even Lu Lin couldn't help but lament that Lan Jie had paid too much for this family.

When he gets the chance, he must make up for it to his good brother.

To this end, what Lu Lin has to do is, of course, work hard to make alchemy and make money.

However, Lu Lin, who was originally full of confidence and felt that he could complete alchemy casually with the support of cheats, was frustrated after his first alchemy after getting the intermediate alchemy formula.

He suddenly discovered that unlike the step-by-step way of survival such as setting up formations and making puppets, the intermediate difficulty alchemy and the elementary difficulty alchemy carried out in the alchemy cauldron were completely different worlds.

Refining the primary formula is like drawing a gourd, as long as you follow the alchemy manual, you can successfully complete the alchemy.

But the intermediate formula is different. Every time Lu Lin performs alchemy, he will encounter various unexpected situations. Although he has the knowledge in his mind to know how to deal with most situations, he must first identify the cause immediately. , and the response and action are fast enough to solve these emergencies.

If any of the thinking, reactions, and actions fail to keep up, the alchemy will fail this time.

This is still a situation where he knows the problem. Sometimes, the problem even exceeds his knowledge reserve.

In other words, although he already possesses the ability of an intermediate alchemist, it does not mean that he has the ability to 100% refine all intermediate formulas.

When encountering these situations that exceed his knowledge reserve, if he does not want to admit defeat directly, he must rely on his own knowledge and understanding of the situation to make emergency judgments on the spot.

At this time, Lu Lin finally fully understood why the task required him to complete a thousand times of medium-level alchemy.

He had underestimated alchemy before and thought he could become a high-level alchemist if he had money.

But look at him now. He only has a brain full of knowledge, but he is still far away from becoming a truly qualified intermediate alchemist.

Lu Lin, who was originally floating in the sky, was pulled down and slapped directly to the ground.

Fortunately, he is not a person who will become decadent because of this setback.

Dish, then practice.

He already had so many advantages over other alchemists that he had no right to complain.

Soon, Lu Lin was immersed in the study of alchemy.

The days flew by and a week passed.

This week Lu Lin has been obsessed with the formula of the intermediate magic stone.

Lu Lin failed all the first few times, and the success rate on the first day was as low as less than 20%.

The success rate improved slightly the next day, but it was not ideal either.

It wasn't until the fourth day that Lu Lin's refining success rate made a qualitative leap, with the success rate reaching nearly 80% that day.

On the fifth day, perhaps due to some expansion, the success rate dropped in the morning, but then gradually stabilized. On the penultimate day, Lu Lin failed only once in the whole day, or because the problems he encountered really made him unable to do it. The clue is that it should be a rare and difficult situation.

And just when Lu Lin felt that he had achieved great success and was just about to show off his skills and start mass production of intermediate magic stones, Lan Jie found him and told him some unexpected news.

The first city they might encounter on the way that they initially investigated turned out to be not far ahead.

In other words, according to Lan Jie's initial guess about the travel time, after this supply, they may face the problem of being unable to find the next supply point for more than 20 days.

Chapter 73 Do you understand that a dead Taoist friend will not die but a poor Taoist?

That afternoon.

"Boss, I'm back..."

Lan Jie's shouts came from downstairs.

Lu Lin immediately stopped what he was doing, came to the stairs and looked down.

I saw several workers helping to transport boxes of supplies in. Lan Jie stood aside with a serious look on his face.

Seeing him like this, Lu Lin felt a knot in his heart and asked, "What's wrong? Is the material procurement not going well?"

"No, it went very smoothly. Boss, although your batch of magic stones is not large in quantity, they are relatively few mid-level magic stones on the market. Not to mention that you actually sold two gold coins. After taking into account the cost, you made a profit of eighty or ninety. Silver," Lan Jie said, "is more than enough to replenish material consumption and alchemy raw material inventory."

"Then your expression is..." Lu Lin asked doubtfully.

"There's something bad... ah, yes, just leave it there, thank you for your hard work!" After Lan Jie said goodbye to the workers who had finished moving things, he turned around and continued, "There is bad news."

"Supply problem?" Lu Lin asked.

"No, not really. In fact, the number of days I estimated before was wrong," Lan Jie said. "I estimated it based on the speed of the horse-drawn carriage running to the merchant. I saw that the earth dragon was walking slowly, and I think it should be about the same. Today and them After talking about it, I found out that because of its long strides, the Earth Dragon is actually much faster than a horse-drawn carriage, and we won’t be able to use it that long at all!”

Lu Lin watched Lan Jie tell his great discovery seriously, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

He always felt that his brother... Although he was quite clever most of the time, he didn't seem to be completely clever, and his mind would get stuck from time to time.

"Isn't that great?" Lu Lin asked doubtfully, "What's the problem if it's not a supply problem?"

"It's the dungeon," Lan Jie said.

"Dungeon?" Lu Lin was stunned.

Encountered a dungeon?

We just left home not too far ago, right?

Although he may have read a lot of news about underground cities in Diling News, Lu Lin, who had been living near Diling Town before, had always subconsciously felt that underground cities were something far away from him.

But he didn't expect that he had just left the bottom of the valley and hit it so quickly.

"Well, I remember, there will be monsters near the dungeon, right?" Lu Lin touched his chin, "Are they blocking our way forward?"

"Yes, it's not just us, everyone who wants to go to Oga City like us has to pass through the surrounding area of ​​that underground city," Lan Jie said, "Moreover, that underground city has only appeared for a few months. The Holy Cult has not sent anyone yet, and the local system to fight against monsters has not been established yet..."

"It's been several months since they appeared and they haven't sent anyone here yet? Is the efficiency of the Holy Cult so poor? You're not deliberately waiting for things to get big before you can gain reputation with the divine soldiers..." Lu Lin's mouth twitched, "Forget it. , it’s better that they didn’t come, so as not to bump into them, come on, can’t we take a detour?”

"It's not possible," Lan Jie said, "The underground city affects a very wide area. If you want to avoid it, you have to go into the mountains. It's also unsafe. You must avoid it. The best way is to turn back and leave. There is another way to the city of Erga, but that will take several times longer.”

"Hmm..." Lu Lin frowned.

Now Li Mi is still wanted, and they don't know how long it will take for him and Lan Jie to come to light, and they can't guarantee that the Holy Church will not take action against them.

The threat of the Holy Cult was behind him, and Lu Lin didn't want to wait too long.

"So, if we have to pass through this area, how dangerous will it be?" Lu Lin asked, "Can we handle it?"

"It's difficult, there are too few of us," Lan Jie said, "Although I know Sister Liumi is very strong, and you, boss, have a lot of things in your hands."

"But the reason why these monsters are troublesome is not only because they can fight, but also because many of them have very high intelligence."

"In a situation like ours, once we encounter a group of smarter monsters, even if they can't defeat us, they will probably attack our earth dragons. After killing our earth dragons, they can rely on harassment and sneak attacks. Trapped us to death slowly in the wild."

"Hiss...this is more troublesome than I thought," Lu Lin felt a little confused.

There are indeed two levels of difficulty in dealing with the monsters that have brains and the monsters that don't.

"So there is no good solution?" Lu Lin asked, "Is this road just cut off? Doesn't the Holy Religion not care about it, and neither do the local lords?"

"No, there is a way," Lan Jie said, "We can wait nearby for a few days and wait to set off with the joint armed caravan."

"Joint armed caravan?" Lu Lin was a little confused, "Can you tell me more specifically?"

"You also said before that this road cannot be cut off like this. After all, there are actually quite a lot of goods traded on this road," Lan Jie explained, "But if a small caravan wants to pass through this area, , the risk is too great.”

"Although the caravans of the large chamber of commerce have the ability to rent military escorts from local lords, the cost is too high and uneconomical."

"So, some large chambers of commerce began to take the lead in organizing joint armed caravans. They would attract a large number of small caravans to join the team and then set off together."

"In this way, people in small caravans can also be protected by the guards of the large chamber of commerce, but in exchange, they need to temporarily add their own armed forces to the guards, or pay a sum of money for crowdfunding for escorts, so that the big merchants can The cost of recruiting troops for the Chamber of Commerce has been greatly reduced."

"I understand," Lu Lin nodded, "You mean we can go with them."

"That's right," Lan Jie nodded, "I have inquired about it. If we only have one house-carrying earth dragon, if we want to join, we only need to hand over twenty silver coins, but..."

"Just?" Lu Lin asked.

"However, this kind of large caravan also has disadvantages. It moves slowly and is a huge target. It will definitely be attacked during the process, and it will definitely not be just once," Lan Jie said, "Although the large chambers of commerce will form enough guards, this "enough"... Let's put it this way, they are merchants after all, and they have to consider the budget. They may think that the force they have formed is enough, but no one can tell what the actual situation is. In the past, I have heard of many cases where the large chambers of commerce saved budgets, resulting in insufficient armed forces when attacked, and finally the entire caravan suffered heavy casualties."

"Well... merchants," Lu Lin touched his chin.

It is just like what Lan Jie said, businessmen have their own limitations. Since the purpose is to make money, it is impossible to spend too much money.

"So, what do you think we should do?" Lan Jie asked, "Take a detour? Or go with them?"

"It is impossible to take a detour," Lu Lin shook his head, "In fact, we have no choice in this matter, right?"

Lan Jie sighed and smiled bitterly: "Indeed, our situation is no different from those small caravans. Their only choice is this, and it is obviously the same for us."

"Go and sign up with them tomorrow, and then give me a few dozen silver coins, and I will go to the city," Lu Lin said, extending his hand to Lan Jie.

When he heard Lu Lin wanted money, Lan Jie immediately showed a vigilant look and asked, "What do you want money for?"

"To buy some materials," Lu Lin said, "Didn't you just say that I might not be able to defeat the monsters at that time, so I must be prepared."

"Ah? Boss, what are you going to prepare?" Lan Jie asked in confusion, "You don't have any trump card to deal with large-scale monsters, do you?"

"If I have that method, can't we just go by ourselves?" Lu Lin rolled his eyes.

"That's true..." Lan Jie nodded, "It's not about preparing a trump card, what is it?"

"Xiao Jie, remember one thing," Lu Lin patted Lan Jie on the shoulder, "When running away, we don't need to run faster than the danger, we just need to run faster than other caravans."

Chapter 74 Master, there is a demon ahead!

A few days later, noon.

After settling Li Mi, who had just eaten lunch, to sleep, Lu Lin went downstairs and walked to the balcony.

Lan Jie was sitting on the balcony at the moment, holding a swordsman novel bought from the city. He put away the long pole that guided the earth dragon, and the earth dragon was eating grass slowly.

Seeing Lu Lin coming over, Lan Jie raised the novel in his hand as a greeting.

"What's the situation?" Lu Lin said, leaning on the balcony railing and looking forward.

At this moment, they were in the grassland outside the city gate. At the city gate in front, a large caravan was gathering.

This caravan is said to have hundreds of people, more than a dozen large-scale house-carrying earth dragons, dozens of ordinary house-carrying earth dragons, in addition to a large number of freight carriages, and some other freight vehicles.

In addition to the caravan, there is also a mixed guard team of more than a hundred people composed of caravan guards and lord troops. Half of the people in this team are equipped with various mounts, and there are even a few knights riding small flying dragons.

"The situation..." Lan Jie put the bookmark into the page and closed the novel. "To be honest, it's not very good."

"Is the guard force not enough?" Lu Lin asked.

"Maybe it was enough before, but I heard some rumors," Lan Jie said, "At the beginning, the dungeon here was rated D-level, and the monsters nearby were not very strong. The team they formed before only needed to bring a guard team of 70 or 80 people."

"Then what?" Lu Lin asked.

"It's like this. When the dungeon first appeared, it was almost rated the lowest D-level," Lan Jie said, "but this does not mean that these dungeons are really D-level dungeons, but because it appeared for a short time, the impact on the surrounding area is not great, and the rating is evaluated based on the harm it brings to the surrounding environment. Even if it is a very dangerous dungeon, the impact will not be too great at the beginning."

"In other words, as time goes by, if it is a low-level dungeon, it will be fine. If it is a more dangerous dungeon, will the rating gradually rise?" Lu Lin asked.

"Yes, about three months ago, the underground city ahead was upgraded to D+ level," Lan Jie said, "The reason is that most of the guards of the caravan that crossed the area died, and brought new monster reports."

"Three months..." Lu Lin frowned slightly.

"Yes, since then, the guards of the caravans passing through this area have been formed according to our current standards, but..." Lan Jie frowned, "The last caravan set out twenty days ago, and recently I received some gossip that the guards of that caravan seemed to have suffered heavy casualties."

"But the source of the news was not found. I went to inquire yesterday and heard that the small caravan was arguing with the caravan that organized this operation."

"The small caravan wants the big chamber of commerce to increase the number of guards, but the big chamber of commerce does not want to increase the cost."

"However, after all, with this kind of news, the big chamber of commerce itself is also uneasy, and later the big chamber of commerce is still planning to give in."

"They asked to collect an additional fee from all the small caravans participating in the team, and then add a part of it to expand the guard force."

“But who would have thought that these small caravans would start making trouble again. Some were willing to pay to add guards, some felt it was unnecessary and didn’t want to pay, and some didn’t want to pay but wanted to add guards.”