Chapter 169: The Fire of Knowledge is Reignited

Sa Wa felt she was in an unprecedentedly good state. A question would arise, and soon she would have an idea. She would verify it casually, and it would actually succeed.

Moreover, the verification process was also very smooth, because the dragon beside her was not only a knowledge base that answered every question, but the expressionless man beside him was an all-purpose toolbox. He could conjure up any material needed, and if he couldn't, he could find a substitute.

"I need to pulverize these materials……."

As soon as she finished speaking, Ang grabbed the materials in his hand. A chill quickly rose on his hand, freezing the materials until they were rock-hard, and then with a casual grind, they were pulverized into powder, and very evenly at that.

"Freeze-dried pulverization, you are so amazing," Sa Wa said, shocked.

Ang tilted his head. Was it amazing? But this wasn't even magic; it was just very simple elemental control.

"I want to make these materials as dry as possible…… Alright, dry enough." Sa Wa didn't know what to say. As soon as she finished speaking, the powder visibly became dry, and it scattered with a casual rub.

It was also simple elemental control, just stripping the water elements from the powder. Many mages could do it, but very few could do it as casually as he did.

"Add gelatin. Is there gelatin?" Sa Wa turned and asked.

Nai Ge Li Si couldn't help it: "You don't even have gelatin? You, an alchemist, don't even have this basic material?"

Sa Wa replied shamefully: "Too hungry, couldn't help but eat it."

"……Just boil some up now." Nai Ge Li Si was speechless. Being so poor that she even ate the materials, she was truly a qualified alchemist.

The gelatin here refers to the translucent, edible, sticky substance made from skin, horns, hair, and scales, used to coat medicinal powder for shaping or to delay the release of medicinal power.

In a moment, where would one find skin, horns, hair, and scales? Nai Ge Li Si's eyes rolled around and landed on the Minotaur girl's waist.

Wan Niya was gnawing on a beetroot, juice flowing everywhere. That pot of rice had been half snatched by Sa Wa, and she wasn't full yet. Seeing Nai Ge Li Si look over, she gave a silly, honest laugh.

Fortunately, there were live horses in the Palace of Rest. The horses snatched from the sand bandits earlier were all raised on the edge of the farm, eating beet leaves and rice, and were sleek and shiny.

A purple-gold hand bone floated behind a horse's butt, cut off a piece of skin with a *swish*, and before the horse could scream, a ball of holy light was pressed onto it.

Repeating this, he cut the rump skin of a dozen horses and healed them with the Cleansing Technique, resulting in a bald patch on the butts of all these live horses.

"Wow, such beautiful horse rump skin. Wouldn't it be a pity to boil it? It would be so much better to tan it and make a money bag," Sa Wa probed regretfully.

Nai Nai Ge Li Si was already speechless. This viscount was so poor that she was even coveting a bit of leather. Without a sudden windfall, she probably wouldn't be able to change this personality of hers.

"If the insecticide is successfully invented... wait a moment, let me ask about the market price first." After saying this, he pulled Ang aside and used a soul connection to contact Bai Yin. After some discussion—mostly Bai Yin doing the analysis—they reached a conclusion: "If this kind of insecticide can really succeed, the patent alone could be worth at least 100,000 magic crystals."

"Alright, just 1,000 magic crystals." Nai Nai Ge Li Si tapped his head, shrinking the price a hundredfold.

When the 1,000 magic crystals were placed in front of Sawa, the eyes of this poverty-stricken viscountess flashed with golden light.

Full of motivation, Sawa lit the magic crystal furnace, added a bit of activating agent, and began boiling the horse rump skin. With the help of the activating agent, the water quickly became viscous. After filtering out the impurities, she obtained a small bowl of brown gelatin.

"I need to decompose this material, but my lord, I've run out of decomposition rods." Sawa scratched her head and said awkwardly.

"Understood. What kind of decomposition rods do you usually use?" Nai Nai Ge Li Si felt a sense of powerlessness similar to when he faced Ang.

"Redwood, jujube wood, and sunken wood; I've used them all. I've also used mithril rods a few times at my mentor's place," Sawa said.

"What about one from the World Tree?" Nai Nai Ge Li Si asked.

"Uh, you're joking, right? I've heard of them, but I've never seen one. How could I have seen a decomposition rod made from the World Tree? Even my mentor hasn't seen one. Legend has it that the World Tree has very powerful decomposition properties; a decomposition rod made from it can even decompose magic crystals..."

As she spoke, Sawa watched Ang pull out a piece of wood the size of an arm. The fresh and surging aura on it left her unable to continue. Could it be that this was the World Tree?

"Here, World Tree wood, fresh, just cut from an old stump. Hurry up and carve your decomposition rod. If we're going to use one, we'll use the best. This thing has top-tier decomposition effects and can indeed decompose magic crystals. A while ago, someone used diseased branches to make structural components and built a Magic Egg Cannon," Nai Nai Ge Li Si muttered.

Sawa was already stunned, staring blankly at the rod, not knowing how much she had actually heard. No matter how slow she was, she realized the uniqueness of these few people before her. Not only did they know everything, but their knowledge was even more profound than her mentor's, and they possessed a spatial artifact with no bottom. Now, they had even produced a World Tree branch.

Heavens, this thigh was unimaginably thick. Sawa felt that she was having a bit of trouble holding onto it. What should she do?

"There's no drying furnace, what should I do?" After a while, Sawa ran into another problem.

"That's easy. This is fire-immune silkworm cloth. Wrap the material in it and just burn it directly over the fire."

"It won't burn? What kind of cloth is so magical?"

Under Ang's feeding and Nai Nai Ge Li Si's pointing and directing, the entire research progress advanced by leaps and bounds, smoother than ever before.

"Alright, now we've reached the most critical step. Seal the Angel's Tear inside. Where is the Angel's Tear?" Sawa looked at Ang expectantly.

She now knew that Ang was the one doing the work, while the Huang Tong Dragon was only responsible for talking. However, being able to talk was already quite amazing; the person Sawa admired most was the kind of existence that could get everything done just by talking.

Nai Nai Ge Li Si smiled calmly, held a bowl, walked up to the little angel, and said in a negotiating tone: "Uh, that, be a good girl, cry a few tears for me."

The little angel was already so bored that she was squatting on the ground drawing circles. She looked up at Nai Nai Ge Li Si and suddenly punched him in the eye socket.

Tear-collection plan one, failed.

Helpless, they had no choice but to find the Holy Spirit Angel that Ang had captured.

However, the Holy Spirit Angel, having been imprisoned for a long time, had only anger in its heart; how could it have even half a drop of tears? After struggling for a long time, they still couldn't get a single drop.

"The Holy Spirit Angel is so difficult to deal with. You say, where do those Angel's Tears from the Light Church come from?" Speaking of this, Nai Nai Ge Li Si had a sudden flash of inspiration and cursed angrily:

"Kubada, it's a fake! Those things from the Light Church aren't Angel's Tears at all. Angels don't have tears."

Well, guessing it was useless. Even if they knew the Light Church was faking it, they didn't know what they were using to fake it. The research work was stuck at the most critical step—the main material.

"What if we switch to bitter apricot salt?" Bitter apricot salt is a type of white crystalline granule or powder with a faint bitter almond scent; it is highly toxic.

Nai Nai Ge Li Si shook his head: "No, the effect is too violent. They die as soon as they eat it, and the bugs won't even make it back to the nest before dying."

They discussed several types of toxins, but none worked. Just as the two guys were at their wit's end, Ang pulled out a bowl: "Use this."

Inside was a small bowl of black liquid, emitting a strongly alluring... aura. It was an aura, not a scent, because the Huang Tong Dragon had no sense of taste or smell, yet upon seeing this liquid, he felt a strong urge to stick out his tongue.

It wasn't just him; the little angel darted over, wanting to stick out her tongue to lick it, but was swatted away by Ang. The little zombie darted over and was swatted away. Sawa darted over and was also swatted on the head by a palm, fainting on the spot.

"This... what is this?" With the powerful perseverance of someone who wouldn't leave the house until they finished gnawing through a thick tome, Nai Nai Ge Li Si suppressed the urge to stick out his tongue.

"Bug ash, holy water quench, evaporate moisture, holy bug ash," Ang explained.

Nai Nai Ge Li Si understood as soon as he heard it. So it was extracted by using the method of quenching holy essence liquid, extracting bug ash, and then evaporating the moisture. Wasn't that still just bug ash? Just concentrated.

"Uh—" Nai Nai Ge Li Si instantly lost his appetite. He pushed the bowl away a little and asked: "Why does it smell so alluring? Everyone wants to lick a bit?"

Ang tilted his head, not knowing how to explain. He turned his head to look around and picked up a stone egg from the corner of the room.

"That's a stone dragon egg I bought. Legend says it's an egg of an ancient dragon, but it was buried in the ground for too long and turned into stone. I bought it for five copper coins to use as a paperweight," Sawa said hurriedly.

Nai Nai Ge Li Si sneered: "I don't know if it's an egg or not, but such a small one is at most a chicken egg. Our ancient dragon eggs are bigger than this room."

"Huh? Is my room that small?" Sawa was greatly discouraged.

Ang dripped a drop of holy bug ash onto it.

They saw the bug ash liquid slowly seep into the stone. The fossil egg, which had already turned yellowish-brown, slowly turned grayish-white where the bug ash liquid had seeped in. That was the original color of the eggshell.

"... Dead wood sprouting is one thing, but even fossils returning to life? This potency is a concentrated version of bug ash," Nai Nai Ge Li Si didn't even know what to say.

He wanted to say that this didn't conform to the laws of the plane, but then he thought about it: these bugs were originally creations of Hemuertos and belonged to a type of holy object. It wasn't strange for them to have such strange effects.

Upon closer inspection, only the surface layer of the fossil egg had recovered. After scraping it off, underneath was still hard stone. It was estimated that the amount wasn't enough. If there were a bit more holy bug ash liquid to soak the stone in, perhaps it could really be restored to a living egg.

However...

"This is just a type of liquid that can reverse the state of life. Is it poisonous?" Nai Nai Ge Li Si asked.

Ang shook his head: "Not reverse, it has, powerful life force, come in."

He beckoned Nai Nai Ge Li Si to return to the Palace of Rest and led him to a remote corner. There, at some unknown time, pits had already been built with breathing soil, and breathable covers also made of breathing soil were used to raise bugs inside.

Breathing soil is filled with the aura of death and can cause organisms to dry out and dehydrate. It is the nemesis of all living things; only fully dead skeletons and zombies would like the environment of breathing soil.

The bugs wouldn't even bite the walls made of breathing soil; they couldn't even touch them. The pits were also lined with a layer of ordinary soil so that the bugs could survive.

In this environment, there was no fear of the bugs running away.

The situation in each pit was different. In some pits, the bugs were sparse and living listlessly; in some pits, all the bugs were dead; in some pits, the bugs were hibernating; and in some, they were laying eggs.

Some pits even had food scraps, and the scraps in each pit were different.

"Is this going to be a control group again?" Nai Nai Ge Li Si asked helplessly.

Ang nodded as a matter of course.

"You can make a control group for everything. Why don't you set up a fertility control group for the dragon race and see how to improve the fertility rate?" Nai Nai Ge Li Si said angrily.

Ang nodded.

"Uh, no, no, no, I'm joking, I'm joking. Don't take it seriously, don't take it seriously." Nai Nai Ge Li Si couldn't help but want to slap his own mouth.

He had forgotten again that this skeleton took everything seriously. Don't joke easily. If he really went to catch a bunch of dragons and set up dozens of control groups, the dragon race would be tortured to death by him.

He hurriedly changed the subject and continued to check those pits, finally seeing a large pit where the bugs had almost filled it up.

In this pit, the bugs were packed full, almost filling the entire pit, but at this moment, they were all dead. Upon closer inspection, they had actually all starved to death.

"That's not right. The pit is full of bug corpses. Why didn't they gnaw on the corpses of their own kind, but instead starved to death? And why is the quantity so large? If it's a control group, the initial number of bugs in each pit should be the same," Nai Nai Ge Li Si saw the problem at a glance and asked suspiciously.

After Ang's explanation, he finally understood the reason. It was simply a version of the Instant Death Aura.

The extracted holy bug ash had powerful life force and could accelerate the growth and development of organisms. If there had been this stuff when Anthony was resurrected, he wouldn't have needed to eat World Tree sprout fried eggs and drink essence liquid. Eating a few bowls of this bug ash liquid would have been enough for him to grow to forty or fifty... or seventy or eighty.

Moreover, this potency wouldn't weaken because the range of spread expanded. Instead, because of constant stacking, bugs eating bugs, the more they ate, the stronger the effect became. In the end, it was so strong that the bugs died of old age and starvation before they could even gnaw on their own kind...

"The control method is really easy to use. This is simply an infectious version of the Instant Death Aura, and it's extracted from the ash of their own corpses. This is truly using their own poison to take their lives," Nai Nai Ge Li Si sighed. "Let's use it as the main material."

With the main material, other operations fell into place. Soon, a large bottle of insecticide was made. The aura faintly emanating from it still gave Nai Nai Ge Li Si an urge to stick out his tongue.

"This is also good. No need to find ways to lure them to eat it. Just throw it where the bug plague is happening, and the bugs will have to pounce on it and gnaw," he muttered. Suddenly, Nai Nai Ge Li Si heard a thud behind him.

Sawa was so excited that her eyes were sparkling, and she asked: "Excuse me, are you the God of Knowledge?"

"Eh, you actually know the God of Knowledge?" Nai Nai Ge Li Si was a bit surprised. It was one thing for elves to know him, but for a low-level pharmacist like Sawa to actually know him?

"You really are, you really are, right? God of Knowledge, my mentor is your loyal believer. From the time I started learning pharmacy from him at age five, for a full ten years, he would piously pray to you every morning," Sawa said excitedly.

Nai Nai Ge Li Si rubbed his nose and said awkwardly: "Is that so? Why can't I feel it?"

"That's right, why can't you feel it? Could it be that my mentor wasn't pious enough? No wonder he stopped praying three years ago. So it turns out he wasn't pious enough," Sawa realized.

Nai Nai Ge Li Si almost spat out a mouthful of old blood. He was still sealed three years ago. Could it be that his last believer had abandoned his faith just before he was about to leave the seal?

"I am also your believer. I am pious, I am the most pious. With my most pious faith, I dedicate it to the God of Knowledge. Please grant me endless knowledge!" Sawa piously bowed her head.

If it were before today, Sawa wouldn't have believed in the God of Knowledge at all. Her mentor had believed for so many years and had never received a response once.

But after this insecticide refining, she deeply realized that this God of Knowledge had real talent and learning. This thigh was a real thigh, and she was just worrying about not being able to hold onto it firmly...

Following Sawa's kowtow, a thick stream of soul flames was cast toward the Huang Tong Book. The Huang Tong Book tucked under Nai Nai Ge Li Si's wings lit up slightly, and the Godhead of the God of Knowledge was ignited once again.

Ignite if it wants to ignite. It originally had nothing to do with him, but the moment Nai Nai Ge Li Si's Godhead ignited, Ang felt that his own Undead Godhead seemed to light up as well.