Chapter 279: A Long Voyage and Alchemy!

"How many more days does the Xiangyang need to prepare before it can set sail?" Yun Mu asked Brenna.

"It can depart tomorrow morning."

Brenna looked at the three-masted sailing ship moored at the shore, her tone somewhat incredulous: "I previously had some sailors at the port try to sail it, and the speed of this three-masted ship is actually faster than a steam armored ship."

"Those sails of hers seem to be just for show, because no matter the wind direction, the Xiangyang can always sail forward, but strangely, she only moves when the sails are lowered."

"After all, this is a Ghost Ship," Yun Mu reminded her.

"Mm, I know," Brenna nodded: "It is precisely because I know this that I am merely surprised."

"Things linked to the Supernatural Realm are often this absurd, just like how non-Transcendental Mechanics cannot imagine how steam engines drive Steam Mecha."

"Hm?" Hearing this, Yun Mu appeared somewhat puzzled: "Those Steam Mecha, and high-end instruments, can only be used by Transcendental, right?"

"That's not the case." Brenna knew her previous words had caused a misunderstanding for Yun Mu, so she began to explain to her:

"Aside from the fact that piloting a Steam Mecha requires a strong physique, things like Energy Towers, or even steam computers, can be operated by ordinary people."

"It's just that the cores of those machines—oh, no, the factories and assembly lines that produce the core components of the machines—are all crafted by Transcendental, which is why those assembly lines can imbue machines with incredible power."

"I can certainly explain to you the principles of steam energy rods and Steam Cores, as well as their internal structures, but this kind of thing, even if a non-Transcendental Mechanic knows them, they cannot create them."

"Actually, I feel this is more like a kind of magic power. A kind of mechanical magic created by our country, belonging to the Frost Person."

"Mechanical magic." Yun Mu rubbed her chin; she had mostly understood what Brenna meant.

As everyone knows, steam engines have limits, because at the end of the day, they are merely doing work through the steam of boiling water.

Whether it is the Energy Towers of the Frost Kingdom or Steam Mecha, wanting to rely entirely on steam to operate is basically an impossible task.

But this world has Transcendental, and Mechanics can imbue machines with more powerful attributes.

With the same construction, machines made by Transcendental are simply stronger than those made by ordinary people; by the same token, those assembly lines that produce steam energy rods are enchanted equipment crafted by the hands of Transcendental.

Because they are enchanted assembly lines, they can produce machines that ordinary people cannot make; that is more or less what Brenna meant.

"How does the capability of the assembly line compare to the Mechanic themselves?" As soon as she finished speaking, Yun Mu felt she had asked a redundant question.

Sure enough, Brenna, standing beside her, looked at her with some confusion, but still answered her: "Of course, what a Mechanic crafts by hand is stronger, but... the parts of the machine and such can all be completed by the assembly line, as long as the Mechanic themselves performs the final assembly."

"Actually, the performance gap between the two isn't large, only about a one to two percent performance increase; what truly creates the gap is the Mechanic's ability to enhance the machine."

"Whether it is 【Overload】 or 【High-Efficiency Endurance】, or even 【Automatic Repair】, these abilities are not things that non-Mechanic Transcendental can master."

So these are the Supernatural abilities of Mechanics, all of which are abilities where you can judge the general effect just by hearing the name. Yun Mu listened to Brenna's explanation as if listening to a popular science video, recording these pieces of knowledge in her mind one after another.

Then she noticed that the current time had reached the point where she originally intended to carry out the commission she had accepted from the Painter Association.

"Let's chat here for today; I still have some things to do."

Hurriedly bidding farewell to Brenna, Yun Mu left the port terminal and walked toward the outskirts of the northern district of Frostfall City.

She had accepted a commission to eliminate a designated Monster; according to the information left by the client, that Monster had recently made a home in a cave near the sea in the north, not far from the city.

Because it would threaten the residents living nearby, a Transcendental was needed to take care of it.

As for what exactly that Monster was, or whether it had any kin, there was absolutely no information.

The only thing known was that every night, the howling of a monster would ring out inside the cave.

As for whether this guy's level would reach Lv20, there was no need to worry about that.

A guy capable of occupying a wild cave and howling every night without being beaten to death by nearby Monsters should, at the very least, be a powerhouse among Second-tier Elite.

Besides, even if that guy's level wasn't enough, she could go find other Monsters!

Anyway, she had to leave the city; as long as she wandered in the wild, finding a Second-tier Elite level Monster to grind wasn't a difficult thing.

"Phew, is it over there?"

Led by a local from the outskirts of the city, Yun Mu arrived outside the city and, from a distance, saw the cliff by the beach eroded to a smooth surface by Rain and Wind, and below the cliff, that pitch-black cave.

"The sound comes from there; I implore you to please resolve it." The fisherman who brought her requested with a sincere tone.

"Rest assured, I will."

Yun Mu nodded solemnly, and without even bringing a torch, she dove into the interior of the cave alone.

She possessed the ability to see at night; this bit of Darkness in the cave could not stop her.

"Clatter—"

The sound of cave bats being startled reached her ears; Yun Mu noticed these guys were watching her in the pitch-black cave, and once she got too close, they would flap their wings and fly to a place further away from her.

Regarding this, she didn't pay much attention, just continuing forward with an expressionless face.

They only looked scary; ordinary bats generally would not attack humans.

Not to mention she didn't even bring a torch.

*Squish squish*—the sound of something squirming on the ground rang out; Yun Mu turned her head to look and saw at a glance a small-sized Slime devouring bat feces.

Eww—

Although the Slime's ability to decompose items is very powerful, and those feces wouldn't even leave a residue after being devoured by them, making them efficient cleaners of nature.

Logically speaking, there shouldn't be any feces inside their bodies, but Yun Mu still subconsciously felt a bit disgusted.

Disgusted, she decided to spare this Slime's life.

*Squish squish*—the Slime with zero intelligence naturally wouldn't know that because of its feces-eating behavior, Yun Mu had decided to let it off; it just quietly squirmed in the corner of the cave, squirming and squirming.

Subsequently, a tremor came from the ground, and under Yun Mu's surprised gaze, two Undead wearing tattered cloth clothes and holding scimitars crawled out from the ground.

"How could there be Undead here?"

And they happened to appear right in front of her.

Yun Mu's intuition told her at the first moment that something was not right, and after these two Undead woke up, they actually completely ignored her, a living person, and walked toward the depths of the cave with a stumbling gait.

This was very wrong; naturally born Undead would absolutely not be like this.

They have no reason and would only crazily attack the nearest living person they could perceive.

In the current situation, there was only one possibility, and that was that they were being controlled. If it wasn't done by a necromancer, then it was likely some kind of Monster capable of controlling the dead.

Yun Mu leaned more toward the latter; after all, what kind of necromancer would be bored enough to howl in a cave every night, with a sound loud enough for residents living on the edge of the city to hear?

However, speaking of Undead, Yun Mu remembered the Music Box she had obtained from Chef Torres; this thing was simply too useful for dealing with Undead.

Besides that, she also had a piece of equipment capable of Summon Undead Wizard; without much hesitation, Yun Mu decisively took out the Phylactery of the Undead Wizard and summoned the Undead Wizard sealed within.

【Undead Wizard lv25 (Elite)】

Just like her current level, it could reach a maximum of lv50, but because it mainly summoned Undead to fight, it performed poorly in turn-based Dungeon games and was basically useless.

But in reality, the Undead Wizard was still quite powerful.

Yun Mu saw him wave his hand, and eight skeleton soldiers with raging spiritual flames burning inside their skulls were summoned by the Undead Wizard.

Among them were five skeleton guards, two skeleton archers, and one skeleton priest.

That's right, a skeleton priest, the kind that could heal teammates; it cast a beam of holy light with a wave of its hand, which was absurd and made one wonder if it was really an Undead.

"Ga-ga-ga-ga."

The Undead Wizard's mouth opened and closed, making the sound of clashing bones, yet miraculously, Yun Mu was actually able to understand what he meant.

"There is a very rare Undead inside?" To confirm she hadn't misunderstood, she asked the Undead Wizard.

"Ga-ga-ga." Hearing her words, the other party nodded repeatedly.

It turned out that what lived in this cave was that rare Undead, though the other party didn't seem to be a skeleton, but rather a zombie-like creature with a small amount of flesh, otherwise it wouldn't have been able to let out those annoying roars every night.

"Ga-da-ga-da."

The Undead Wizard seemed to be saying that the moisture here was too Heavy, and the aura of that rare Undead also had a Damp smell, so it was likely a Drowned Corpse similar to a zombie.

"Ga-da."

If the dead flesh of that Drowned Corpse could be handed over to him, he would be able to summon a Drowned Corpse to fight next time.

"Fine, fine, fine, I'll give you his corpse once I'm done cleaning up."

Regarding this, Yun Mu naturally agreed without any hesitation.

After all, her original goal was to resolve the Monster Stationed here, and Undead were the same thing, not to mention it could enhance the Undead Wizard's combat ability.

"Come to think of it... so you can actually continue to level up?" Yun Mu glanced at the quality of the Phylactery; it was only blue, and according to the description of the equipment item, this was due to energy dissipation caused by too much time passing.

"Ga-da-ga-da-ga-da."

The spiritual flames inside the Undead Wizard's skull burned violently; according to him, the Undead Wizard was originally one of the Supernatural professions, and the so-called Phylactery was merely a container for them to store their souls.

"Then I'll work hard and try to get you to level up without using the Blacksmith Shop..." Seeing this, Yun Mu soothed him.

The human and the Undead chatted casually like this, and soon arrived at the deepest part of the cave.

The two previously resurrected Undead were right here, and besides them, there were dozens of Drowned Corpses wearing tattered cloth clothes and holding various weapons.

Looking at their appearance, Yun Mu guessed that these must be Pirates who had drowned in the sea.

And surrounded by these ordinary Drowned Corpses, a high-level Undead with his left hand replaced by an iron hook, wearing a Captain's uniform and a pirate hat, appeared before them.

【You have encountered an enemy—【Drowned Undead Captain lv24 (Elite)】】 Very good, the level is sufficient now.

Looking at the message prompt popping up on the Game Panel, the corners of Yun Mu's mouth couldn't help but curl upward.

Come out, Prism Tower! She injected a large amount of Spirituality into the painting 【Prism Tower】; the next second, the already cramped cave was instantly packed with five thick, electrified, and automatically rotating Prism Towers.

Eight minutes later.

"Done."

Yun Mu clapped her hands, looked with satisfaction at the large number of corpses lying on the ground, and then retracted the summoned Prism Towers.

Opening the advancement panel, as expected, she now only had the task of reaching Emerging in work reputation left to complete.

There was no need to rush this, because being anxious wouldn't help; Yun Mu had confidence in "Torina's Adventure Journal", but exactly when it could be completed was not something she could decide.

It could be today, it could be tomorrow, or even the next second; all of these were possibilities.

Having the Undead Wizard dispose of all the corpses of these spirits, Yun Mu returned to Frostfall City to bring the news of the task completion back to the Painter Association.

Afterwards, taking advantage of the afternoon while Neisen was home from work, she chatted with him about adapting his novel into a Comic.

This included "Night of Rolling Stone Town".

"The updates in the Frostfall City Weekly won't be any less, it's just that the Comic in Rain Curtain Magazine will be clearer." She persuaded him like this.

In the end, perhaps because of Yun Mu's status, or perhaps because Yun Mu had indeed helped him quite a bit before, Neisen sold her this favor.

Now there was no need to pay copyright fees; in its place, the revenue after the Comic adaptation would be split, with more money going to Neisen as the original author's copyright income.

Regarding this request, Yun Mu naturally agreed very readily.

After all, earning a little less money wouldn't have much of an impact on her, but the more the Rain Curtain Magazine developed, the more people would know about her works, and that was what she truly cared about.

And after discussing the Comic adaptation with Neisen, the sky had turned completely dark.

Yun Mu returned to Frost Bank, and after drawing a Spiritual Painting as per her routine, she went straight to bed to sleep and rest.

Early the next morning.

That is, October 24th, 4243 of the Heral Calendar, the 24th day since Yun Mu transmigrated.

Not long after waking up, she was pulled by Brenna onto the deck of the Xiangyang—at this moment, the Xiangyang had taken on a brand-new look, and one couldn't tell at all that it had previously felt dilapidated.

The recruitment of crew members was also very smooth; no, it would be better to say that most of the crew here were people specifically arranged by the King, who had come along with Brenna.

Their professional competence was beyond reproach; the only problem was that their loyalty to Yun Mu, the nominal Captain, was not high.

However, she wasn't too worried about this matter; after all, compared to ordinary sailors, these people would absolutely never betray Brenna, so there was no need to worry about them causing any trouble.

Besides, they were loyal to Brenna, which was equivalent to being loyal to her, wasn't it? If you ask why, it was naturally because she had already thoroughly won Brenna over~ Hehe.

(End of this chapter)