Chapter 34 - 15: [Life Magic Potion Science]

Chapter 34: Chapter 15: [Life Magic Potion Science]

The morning sun, just past six o’clock, shone down on the streets of Luojie City, reflecting between the bright white stone brick walls.

People came and went on the roads, but most were merchants; very few adventurers were idling on the streets.

Mid-to-Advanced Adventurers were usually still resting, as they needed sufficient sleep to maintain an active, healthy state for missions. Those who had already awakened were at the training grounds, workshops, or barracks, honing their strength, refining their skills, or coordinating with their teammates to plan future tasks and team arrangements.

Meanwhile, a large number of low-to-mid-tier adventurers were clamoring and crowding around the entrance of the Alliance Hall in the center of Luojie City, anxiously waiting for the doors to open exactly at seven in the morning.

One reason was that by arriving a little earlier, they might be able to snatch up missions that were relatively simple, had no ability or level requirements, yet offered a slightly higher payout before anyone else could.

Another reason was that, as mentioned before, most low-tier adventurers lived day by day. Trapped by life and unable to move forward, they had no savings; skipping work for a day meant going hungry for a day. They had to at least earn enough for today’s food and lodging first.

They had abandoned their pasts and gone through immense hardships to get here, flocking to the Barren Land in search of their dreams like gold prospectors of the Supar Empire, only to find that this place held no such future for them.

After all, the Barren Land had never promised them anything. It was all a one-sided fantasy.

Many residents of the habitable zones had actually never laid eyes on the Barren Land of the Demon Realm in their entire lives. However, with great creativity, they combined half-true, hearsay tales of sudden wealth with their own fantasies of striking it rich just by plucking a blade of grass. They let their imaginations run wild, passing the stories by word of mouth, confidently referring to the Barren Land as a "land flowing with Gold," calling it "El Dorado" and the "Creator’s Garden."

These rumors, born from mild and severe hysteria, lured courageous young people—as well as those who had courage but no sense—onto a dream-filled journey toward the compost bin of the Demon King’s Garden. It was like taking a slide, slipping smoothly right into the gaping maws of the flora and fauna of the Underground City.

When life, existence, and dreams all passed through the intestines of reality, turned into feces, and were squeezed out of life’s stinking anus, they landed with a loud clang like a steel pipe hitting the ground.

True adventurers who had actually spent time in the Barren Land, on the other hand, would always advise young people:

"Don’t come!"

It wasn’t out of fear of having their business stolen, but because there were already far, far too many people permanently left behind in the Barren Land. Maybe they were still alive, maybe they were already dead. But once someone arrived, it was very difficult to ever leave.

From the moment you stepped foot in this place, you were no longer a human of civilized society, but a part of the food chain ecology of the Demon Realm.

Welcome to the absolute bottom of the food chain, you dumbasses. Deep underground, in their magnificent domed palaces, the Demon Monarchs yawned, absently scratching the chins of Earth-Devouring Demon Insects. They stroked the verdant vines and colorful fungi entwined around white stone relief railings, reached out to pick up the leftover plates from breakfast, and casually dumped the adventurers’ remains into their flowerpots.

6:55 a.m.

In the very center of Luojie City, a massive, towering building constructed of white stone bricks sat quietly. Adventurers crowded in front of its oak doors, which were engraved with a golden giant eye and a crest of cast-iron hands.

Viewed from above, the dense crowd resembled a massive swarm of ants, surging anxiously like a tide at the entrance of the hall, clamoring loudly.

Five or six Alliance Guards of the Light Armor Alliance, draped in dark blue surcoats and wielding spears, shouted at the entrance, trying their best to maintain order while holding back the crowd.

"Stop pushing! The doors are opening soon!" one Guard shouted. "Line up! Line up! Line up! Line up, for fuck’s sake! Those submitting yesterday’s missions, line up early! You’ll have to line up at the counters once you get into the hall anyway, so why not just line up now?"

"The clerical staff in the hall are posting the new mission request forms on the wall! Wait a little longer! Otherwise, there’s no point in going in; the walls are completely empty!" another Guard roared. "Can you all just fucking maintain some order?"

The crowding adventurers were mostly rookies, usually below level three, and predominantly young.

"Rookie" usually meant "lacking experience and ignorant of the rules."

"Low-level" often equated to "running around like headless flies, not knowing which way to go."

"Young," more often than not, was synonymous with "an energetic, hot-tempered, impatient stubborn mule."

Adventurers who possessed all three of these messed-up traits simultaneously were usually the ones Alliance Guards feared seeing the most. This meant "an inexperienced, rule-ignoring, blind stubborn mule charging recklessly right in front of you," and your job was to keep them in order.

It was like forcibly tying ropes to a herd of screaming, frenzied wild donkeys, with the other ends of the ropes tied to your own limbs and neck. It sounded like some sort of cruel torture; a certain unlucky Transmigrator who reincarnated into a suit of armor by mistake might have called it "Shang Yang."

"Every morning around this time—about six fifty-two, I reckon—I always wonder why I ended up in this state," Guard Three said, chatting with the colleague beside him. As he shouted, he reversed the shaft of his spear and poked away the adventurers who got too close, like a shepherd herding sheep.

"Maybe it’s because when I studied Magic Potion Science at the Imperial Maxwell Academy as a kid, I was a young, dumb, rich-kid master who didn’t study hard. I didn’t learn a damn thing, and I couldn’t become an excellent Alchemist. Then my old man’s shipping business ran into a storm and unexpectedly went bankrupt. My family moved out of our mansion in the Imperial Capital into a shabby little house, and they could no longer afford to put me through Maxwell Academy."