Chapter 368: Upgrade, Change Equipment, and Fight the BOSS

"That's it... I've already confessed everything, let me go..."

Because of the pain, the man's whole body muscles were twitching violently uncontrollably, and the features on his face were twisted together.

His voice was even more trembling, with a crying tone.

"Are you sure you've confessed everything? If I wake up your companion later and he says something you didn't confess, then don't even think about keeping your left leg." Gao De said expressionlessly.

"I'll think again... I'll think again..." The man was immediately panicked, his eyes widened, and he hurriedly shouted incoherently.

His body trembled even more violently, and he hurriedly thought for a moment, and added some scattered information here and there.

"Next, shut your mouth." Seeing that the other party had nothing else to say, Gao De scolded.

Subsequently, he raised his foot again, randomly chose one among the men who had fainted on the ground, and stepped heavily on his chest.

Accompanied by the sound of slight bone cracking, the man arched his whole body like a shrimp, and then immediately began to retch, and the foul-smelling green water was spat out gurglingly.

His body was still twitching slightly, and the previous man, who was pale due to massive blood loss, saw this scene, and his face turned even paler.

After he finished spitting out the sewage in his stomach and his consciousness cleared up, Gao De pointed to his companion's right leg where the flesh was gone:

"Answer whatever I ask, unless you want to be like him."

Hearing this, the former's facial muscles twitched involuntarily again.

Actually, he would rather be a monkey than a chicken.

With the miserable state of his companion in front, Gao De's interrogation of the second person proceeded exceptionally smoothly.

He grasped some details and asked repeatedly, confirming that the confessions of the two people did not have logical contradictions, and only then was he satisfied to take out the parchment that had been prepared long ago and write down the general context of the whole thing based on the two people's confessions.

Subsequently, Gao De did the same, "waking up" the remaining people, letting the seven people press their blood-red fingerprints on this confession, and only then was he satisfied to roll up the parchment and put it back in his bosom.

Leaving traces in everything is a good habit for work.

The whole thing is actually not complicated.

The seven people were originally members of the Embroidery Nail Gang.

The so-called Embroidery Nail Gang is actually an interest-based gang in Lagos City, with rusty nails as the gang logo.

Such gangs can basically be seen in any city, and their nature is diverse.

There are survival-based gangs composed of the poor, wanderers, and even the unemployed. These people struggle to survive at the bottom of society and have to huddle together for warmth.

In addition, there are resistance-based gangs composed of the oppressed and idealists, faith-based gangs composed of some belief or mysterious power as the core, and interest-based gangs composed of the goal of obtaining wealth and power.

The reasons for the appearance of these gangs basically revolve around "economic inequality, noble oppression, racial and cultural discrimination, power vacuum, belief."

And they usually take illegal trade, violent crime, intelligence trading, resistance activities, belief and rituals, protection and service as their main activities.

The relationship between gangs and cities is particularly complex.

On the surface, as the ruling class of the city, mages and nobles should try their best to eliminate the existence of gangs that would lead to social instability.

They seem to be doing so.

But the fact is that as the ruling class, the nobles are not only indifferent to these gangs but even tacitly support them.

Because these gangs often have intricate cooperative relationships with nobles and merchants.

They provide some illegal services such as assassination and smuggling for nobles in exchange for the nobles' protection and funds.

Or they offer tribute every year to reach a stable benefit transfer relationship with the nobles.

The Embroidery Nail Gang is like this.

It has cooperative and interest relationships with many nobles and even merchant firms in the city.

To put it directly, the Embroidery Nail Gang is equivalent to the black gloves of big figures, handling some dirty work for them that they are inconvenient to do because of their status.

And the reason why the seven of them came to the Ma Ke Ke district and raised the larvae of the foul-smelling water salamander in the water here was a long-term transaction received by the gang. They were only responsible for execution, and the specific details were not clear.

It's just that many things can be inferred.

The purpose of letting them raise the larvae of the foul-smelling water salamander was to create panic in the Ma Ke Ke district and force these poor people to move away from here.

And the vested interests who drove away the poor in the Ma Ke Ke district were only the nobles and rulers of Lagos City.

The existence of the Ma Ke Ke district has always been a tumor that is difficult to eliminate and is growing day by day for Lagos.

From the perspective of Lagos City's overall development, the existence of the Ma Ke Ke district seriously hindered it from attracting merchant investment and developing industries.

Because the image of the Ma Ke Ke district is a huge negative label for Lagos City's overall environment and development potential.

Nobles own a large number of industries in the city. If Lagos City cannot develop, it means their wealth cannot grow, and even shrinks.

Another point is that due to poverty and lack of opportunities, the crime rate of the poor in the Ma Ke Ke district is often high, and criminal activities occur frequently.

This seriously affects the social stability and public security of Lagos, not only requiring nobles to invest more manpower, financial resources, and material resources to maintain public security, but also lowering the evaluation of them by higher-level nobles and even the royal family.

Coupled with the poor sanitary conditions in Ma Ke Ke, this not only affects the environment and deteriorates the water environment around Lagos, posing a potential threat to the safety of the city's drinking water source, but also easily triggers diseases that spread on a large scale.

These will lead to a significant decline in Lagos City's attractiveness to foreign populations and talent.

And for the nobles of Lagos, the prosperity of Lagos City is closely related to their wealth and status.

So, they have always wanted to eliminate this tumor of Ma Ke Ke to improve Lagos's city image and increase urban land value and investment value.

But how easy is that?

The Lagos official was not without attempts.

For example, carrying out large-scale renovation projects, for example, implementing forced demolition.

But large-scale renovation involves many parties, and the demands of all parties are difficult to coordinate, especially involving the interests of many nobles, so the promotion was hindered.

And the funds required for large-scale renovation are an astronomical figure, which is difficult to allocate.

Finally, it ended up with nothing, which was also expected.

Forced demolition will trigger fierce conflict and resistance.

If the scale of the conflict is small, the nobles can indeed suppress it.

But the poor population in the Ma Ke Ke district is over 200,000. Even if these nobles have great energy, they cannot cover the sky with one hand.

So, the Ma Ke Ke district has existed in the dissatisfaction of the nobles and has grown stronger.

Bright ways don't work, so use some dark tricks.

This is very normal for nobles.

Of course, these are all speculations.

So Gao De only recorded a simple note in the confession and did not expand on it in detail.

And the entire Embroidery Nail Gang has two big bosses.

The remaining eight small bosses, dozens of backbone members, and more than 300 ordinary members make it a medium-sized gang in Lagos City.

The most powerful existence in the Embroidery Nail Gang is their gang leader, Ansel Biden, a senior second-circle mage.

The second is the second-in-command, Aldrich Xiao, who is also a second-circle mage, but according to their confession, he succeeded in upgrading his circle in the middle of this year.

In order to show his strength, the Embroidery Nail Gang even held a grand celebration banquet for his circle upgrade at that time.

Then the remaining eight small bosses are all first-circle mages.

The one who handed the mission of raising water beasts to them was the second-in-command of the Embroidery Nail Gang, Aldrich Xiao.

Aldrich Xiao... Gao De recalled the content of the confession and thought about it for a long time.

Undoubtedly, this Aldrich is not the initiator either, just a person who handles the transfer of the mission.

The real mastermind should be the noble in the city, as these seven people guessed.

The water beast chaos in the Ma Ke Ke district, although the impact and harm are not particularly large, the affected population is as high as 200,000, which is enough to be considered a major event even if it is just the poor.

If Gao De can solve this matter in one fell swoop, a first-class merit is not out of the question.

However, this has already involved the ruling class in Lagos City, clearly not something he, a Hai Shao Bing apprentice mage, can take on alone.

Gao De also did not try to find out the truth of this matter with his own strength.

The target he aimed at was only Aldrich.

Take down Aldrich, and then go back to report.

Aldrich's mage rank is second circle.

In fact, in the Hai Shao Bing, the mission reward for clearing second-rank water beasts is the third-class merit grade.

But don't forget, Gao De is still a first-circle apprentice mage.

The evaluation of merit, the strength of the completer is also a very important indicator.

A first-circle Hai Shao Bing mage, if he encounters a situation where the first-rank water beast becomes a second-rank one due to incorrect intelligence when executing a normal mission, let alone clearing it, even if he just drives the second-rank water beast away, considering the first-circle mage's rank, there is a high probability of obtaining a second-class merit.

Then Gao De, when executing the water beast expulsion mission, accidentally discovered the inside story of the mission and took down Aldrich, who is a second-circle mage, is even more so.

There is a high probability that he will get more than one second-class merit.

It's just that a first-circle mage fighting a second-circle mage is too risky.

Don't look at Su Naifa fighting a fifth-circle with a fourth-circle, but she is Su Naifa, a fierce existence with a series of titles such as "Controller of 【Blizzard】, Awakener of Enduring Zhenbing Spells, Daughter of Boreas, the last pure-blooded Ice-born of the contemporary era, Ice-born."

In the vast northern realm, Su Naifa is the only one.

And Gao De is just a Hai Shao Bing apprentice mage.

Although he has the title of "King of the Northern Realm," it is loud enough, but this title happens to have nothing to do with strength.

Gao De knows how many pounds he has.

With his current strength, under normal circumstances, he definitely has no hope of defeating a second-circle mage.

So, if the opponent is the Embroidery Nail Gang leader Ansel, Gao De definitely won't think about anything, just go back to Doen and report the confession with fingerprints.

No matter how great the merit is, you have to be alive to get it, right?

Under normal circumstances, these gangs definitely dare not easily offend Hai Shao Bing mages and will not cause him trouble.

But if he hits the door, the other party is definitely not a soft persimmon and really wants his life.

But this Aldrich happens not to be a normal second-circle mage.

He only upgraded to the second circle in the middle of this year.

The current time is the middle of the Ice-sealing Month (November), and it has been less than half a year since Aldrich upgraded his circle.

A mage's strength is determined by many aspects. Apart from mage rank and expertise, the most important are spells, experience, and equipment.

Among them, spells account for the highest proportion.

Other mages learning spells is not as easy as Gao De.

For those who are not gifted, the time spent building a spell model is at least half a year.

This Aldrich can be a boss in a gang with no future, how high can his talent be?

That is to say, Aldrich, who has only upgraded his circle for less than half a year, now at most has mastered a second-circle spell, and it is not necessarily a combat spell, and maybe he hasn't even mastered a second-circle spell yet.

Equivalent to a second-circle mage who hasn't changed jobs to learn new skills.

Compared to a first-circle mage, Aldrich has more "expertise," "circle-up casting," and "elemental flesh" abilities brought by high rank, as well as more abundant mana and more powerful mental power.

To be honest, relying on these is enough to absolutely crush a first-circle mage.

But now Gao De, although not as good as Su Naifa in terms of combat power in the same realm, is definitely not something an ordinary first-circle mage can say.

Throwing away his bottomless spell library.

First is the power of 【Ice-sealing Blade+】, which is infinitely close to a second-circle spell, and under the further strengthening of 【Mid-level Ice Blessing Body】, it is enough to threaten a second-circle mage.

Second is his 【North Wind】 as a former seventh-rank Enduring Zhenbing magic weapon. Even though its power has declined significantly over time, its remaining power still exists.

After taking Wolf Blood Ginseng, Gao De's mana surged to 39 drops of liquid, which allowed him to barely use 【North Wind】.

In addition, the third-rank Mandola Magic Eye also has a very strong auxiliary effect on combat.

More importantly, Gao De can also "level up" and "change into a new set of equipment" before going to "fight the boss."

His current mana is 39 drops of liquid.

The progress of the 40th drop of liquid mana has not been completely condensed under the medicinal power of Wolf Blood Ginseng, but the progress has also been pushed forward by more than half.

According to the current progress, under the condition of appropriate magic medicine assistance, it should only take three or four days to be completely condensed.

Once the 40th drop of liquid mana is condensed, he can smoothly break through to the middle stage of the first circle.

A first-circle mage is also divided into three small levels: early, middle, and late.

Every breakthrough of a small level can bring a not-small improvement to a mage's strength.

Then there is the first-circle rune construct he prepared for himself, the design drawing has long been drawn.

Now he also has money in his hand, just need to buy corresponding materials, and he can transform the design drawing into a physical object.

Once he puts on the first-circle rune construct he tailored for himself, his combat power can soar by another big level.

If he can pull the battlefield to the water area, he will be more confident.

However, this needs to be planned from a long-term perspective and cannot necessarily be realized.

After counting this, Gao De gritted his teeth and made up his mind.

There is risk, but he can rush!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 369 =====