Chapter 84: Airship

"I came at the beginning of last month. I should have arrived in Bremen City earlier than you, right?" Gao De laughed.

He walked into the room and sat down by the unlit fireplace.

Pierre brought two cups of hot tea and sat down opposite Gao De.

"That is indeed faster than me. I didn't finish handling everything until almost the middle of the Sun-Shining Month, and I didn't arrive in Bremen City until the 14th."

"How come you were suddenly in such a hurry to leave Hogen City?" Pierre asked curiously; Gao De's trajectory was far beyond his expectations.

Gao De picked up the porcelain cup, took a light sip of tea, and said truthfully, "At the time, I felt your reminder made a lot of sense. After returning, I discovered that the mana concentration in the suburbs of Hogen City had increased significantly, and both signs of the formation of earth veins were matched."

"Most importantly, I later discovered..." Gao De told Pierre in detail about his discovery at the sewer entrance.

"Ma Su Rats," Pierre, who heard the inside story, couldn't help but sigh. "The culprit behind the scenes turned out to be them."

"Have you heard of Ma Su Rats?" Gao De asked curiously.

He only knew this term through "Feng Ling Yue Ying."

"I've heard some things before. These are earth-vein creatures that only appear in the Yadian region and have a symbiotic relationship with a strange plant called the Blood Thorn Vine." Pierre nodded.

"The eyes of Ma Su Rats possess the supernatural ability of hypnosis, but they don't possess much lethality themselves. As long as you dodge the hypnotic red light emitted by their eyes, you can easily kill them."

"And their eyes are common potion materials; a pair of eyeballs is worth about 3 gold."

"Because their combat power is extremely weak, and the weight of the eyeballs is extremely light, they are easy to carry. Accumulating a lot makes a lot, so even if these Ma Su Rats aren't as valuable as those powerful earth-vein creatures, they are still one of the favorites of hunters."

This was easy to understand. It was like the corpse of a burrowing worm; it seemed far more valuable than a Ma Su Rat, but if there wasn't a caravan traveling together, how would Gao De have the means to transport it back to the city? But Ma Su Rats were different. Not to mention that you only needed to dig out a pair of eyeballs, even if you wanted to take the whole Ma Su Rat, there wouldn't be much weight burden.

"A pair of eyeballs is worth 3 gold...?! " Here, Gao De's mind kept echoing with one sentence, and there was only one word "pain" in his heart.

In Hogen City, that 【Fire Arrow】 of his had killed at least 7 Ma Su Rats!

That was at least 7 pairs of eyeballs, at least 21 Saint Xi En gold coins! 21 gold, just thrown away by himself for nothing? It's fine, with that fire arrow of mine, the eyeballs were probably roasted, so they definitely couldn't be used anymore. Gao De comforted himself in his heart, and only then did he feel better.

"It's just that these Ma Su Rats aren't common; they only live where Blood Thorn Vines grow." Pierre was still talking eloquently.

"They are typical gregarious earth-vein creatures and have a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with Blood Thorn Vines."

"Blood Thorn Vines love to eat the blood of living creatures, but they cannot move themselves, so they need to rely on Ma Su Rats to hypnotize living creatures and then bring them to their surroundings for them to suck blood."

"As a reward, after sucking blood, the Blood Thorn Vine will secrete blood mist to help the Ma Su Rat grow and enhance its supernatural abilities."

"And the combat power of the Blood Thorn Vine is considered one of the most powerful among 0-Circle earth-vein creatures."

"If the Ma Su Rat feeds it enough blood food before it reaches adulthood, the Blood Thorn Vine even has the possibility of growing into a 1st Circle earth-vein creature."

"Magic users want to hunt Ma Su Rats to get their eyeballs; not only is it hard to find them, but they also have to face the threat of the Blood Thorn Vine. However, the Blood Thorn Vine ultimately cannot move, so there are limitations."

"So compared to the risks faced when hunting other earth-vein creatures, the cost-effectiveness of hunting Ma Su Rats is still very high."

"It's a pity that Ma Su Rats, this kind of earth-vein creature, have only appeared in the Yadian region before, making us magic users living in the Bremen region only envious."

"I didn't expect that they would appear in the sewers of Hogen City now," Pierre exclaimed in wonder. "If I were twenty years younger, I might have killed my way back to Hogen City."

Gao De nodded in agreement upon hearing this. A group of Ma Su Rats, at least a hundred of them, a pair of eyeballs for 3 gold coins, that would be a profit of hundreds of gold coins... but although the individual strength of Ma Su Rats isn't strong, if you think about it seriously, wanting to obtain a large number of Ma Su Rat eyeballs really isn't a simple matter.

After all, these are gregarious earth-vein creatures; even ants can bite an elephant to death if there are enough of them.

And you can't use spells with too much destructive power to attack Ma Su Rats.

If a spell like a fire arrow is thrown over, the Ma Su Rat is dead, but the eyeballs are nine times out of ten ruined, and the meaning of hunting is gone.

"You kid, tell me the truth, what is your magic user level now?" Pierre looked Gao De up and down and asked seriously.

The rank of a magic user is very difficult for outsiders to detect, even for a high-circle magic user toward a low-circle magic user, it is the same.

Gao De hesitated for a moment, but still answered, "Second-Rank Apprentice Magic User, I just broke through last month."

"Second-Rank Apprentice Magic User..." Pierre muttered. "You're not even sixteen yet, right?"

"No." Gao De shook his head. In fact, he was only thirteen this year. "Your talent is good; it's not impossible to advance to a 1st Circle magic user in the future." Pierre sighed.

"Although I don't know where you learned some craftsmanship, judging by your knowledge, I think you don't have a mentor, and you're even less likely to be from a magic user family." Pierre said very directly.

Having had so many contacts with Gao De, he had long had a deep understanding of Gao De's "shallow knowledge."

"A wild magic user, it's not easy to become a 1st Circle magic user. You wait..." The little old man sighed, then stood up, walked into the living room in the hall, and after a while, came out with a notebook.

He handed the notebook directly to Gao De. "Take it back and look at it more when you have time."

Gao De asked in surprise, "What is this?"

"When I was young, didn't I make a living by hunting earth-vein creatures? This is the earth-vein creature data I recorded."

"It includes the specific names, appearances, characteristics, supernatural abilities, approximate value, and specific valuable parts of various earth-vein creatures..."

Pierre spread his hands. "Detailed data on earth-vein creatures is only available to high-circle magic users, magic user organizations, and officials, and generally won't be sold. These were all recorded and explored by me bit by bit."

"Although I spent over a decade as a professional hunter of earth-vein creatures when I was young, the types of earth-vein creatures I actually recorded aren't many, just twenty or so."

"After all, my strength was limited, and I could only pick earth-vein creatures I was familiar with and easy to handle."

"But these are common 0-Circle earth-vein creatures in the Bremen region, so they should still be a little useful to you."

Gao De took the notebook as if it were a treasure. "It is extremely useful."

Not to mention if you really run into an earth-vein creature, knowing the other party's characteristics, abilities, and weaknesses will bring a huge advantage in battle.

Just the analysis of the value of earth-vein creatures alone is enough to make this notebook worth a thousand gold.

Otherwise, for Gao De, the situation where a treasure mountain like Ma Su Rat eyeballs was in front of him but he knew nothing about it would definitely happen again.

If he didn't have enough understanding of earth-vein creatures, even if his mana was sufficient, he wouldn't be able to carry out hunting activities for earth-vein creatures well.

The risk is high, and the return is small.

The two sat in front of the fireplace, accompanied by the occasional sound of pedestrians outside the window, and talked for a long time.

It was mainly Pierre telling his experiences and some experiences of hunting earth-vein creatures in the wild when he was young.

Perhaps this is what they call: once a person gets old, they like to reminisce about their "glorious years" with the younger generation.

Gao De listened intently, feeling both anticipation for hunting earth-vein creatures and gratitude toward Pierre.

He and Pierre were not related, just having done a few jobs, but the help Pierre gave him was a lot, a lot.

"When I was young, I always wanted to go out and see, for example, go to Saint Xi En City to see, but unfortunately, I never found a way, which is quite regrettable." Seeing that they had been chatting for a long time, Pierre was also ready to end this pleasant chat.

"Now that I'm old, my mentality is also old; instead, I feel that being able to live a stable life in one place is quite good."

"To go from Bremen City to Saint Xi En City, is there no way to go directly?" Mentioning Saint Xi En City, Gao De actually had questions, so he followed the topic and asked.

He had been in Bremen City for a month, and during this time, he had searched for ways to go to Saint Xi En City, but he hadn't found any news at all.

"Generally, if you want to go to Saint Xi En City, you can only go by water."

"But there is no direct water system connecting Bremen to Saint Xi En, so you can only keep transferring."

"If you want to go from Bremen to Saint Xi En City, you have to transfer at least five or six times, right."

"So troublesome..." Gao De's brows were already furrowed.

"But if you're talking about a direct way, it's not that there isn't one, it's just that ordinary people can't come into contact with it." Pierre changed the subject and said again.

"What is that?" Gao De's curiosity was instantly piqued.

"Airship." Pierre said lightly.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 85 =====