Chapter 11: Legendary

The world of the extraordinary has clear-cut ranks.

For an ordinary person to become an extraordinary being, they must undergo a Soul Transformation ritual, experiencing their first soul metamorphosis to fully awaken the soul's fusion ability.

After a successful Soul Transformation, they choose to fuse with different "demon souls" to transform into corresponding extraordinary professions.

Demon souls are a collective term for the souls of various magical beasts, aberrations, insects, monsters, and Demons, excluding the souls of intelligent races—the two are distinguished from each other.

The first demon soul fused is called the Main Soul.

The Main Soul can exert the greatest effect, providing the highest boost to an extraordinary being's strength, and determines their professional direction. As their power grows, their soul becomes increasingly strong until a soul ascension occurs, after which they can fuse another new demon soul, generally called a secondary soul.

With each demon soul fused, the extraordinary being's professional rank increases by one level.

Levels one through three belong to entry-stage extraordinary beings, who possess one Main Soul and two secondary souls. Level three is a rank bottleneck; to break through to the Mid-stage, which is levels four through six, one must undergo another Soul Transformation and then fuse a new Main Soul.

As rank increases, the difficulty of Soul Transformation grows ever greater.

From entry-stage level one to high-stage level nine, an extraordinary being must undergo a total of three Soul Transformations and six soul ascensions, as well as fuse nine demon souls.

Above the high stage, undergoing the fourth Soul Transformation ritual, one enters the Legendary!

All extraordinary beings of level ten and above are Legendary; they break through the limits of human lifespan and possess power so formidable it is beyond ordinary imagination.

Many people spend their entire lives hearing only stories of the Legendary without ever encountering one before their eyes.

Now, Lei En was looking at a Demon hunter who appeared to be Legendary!

However, apart from possibly the dwarf Zoltan, no one else in the inn realized there was a Legendary among them; they simply treated Roger as a fairly strong Demon hunter.

"Sometimes, not knowing the truth is a kind of fortune."

Lei En muttered to himself.

He had a very direct sense of this Demon hunter's power; compared to an ordinary person's soul, Roger's soul was as dazzling as the sun, almost impossible to look at directly.

Even just one glance caused him to suffer a backlash—he truly couldn't imagine how terrifying it would be when Roger struck!

Lei En didn't dare look around anymore, afraid of provoking this Legendary figure who seemed to have a very cold personality.

He hastily finished his remaining potato stew, then hurried upstairs back to his own room.

However, Lei En didn't know that after he went upstairs, Roger glanced at his retreating back and said to Zoltan, "What's this young man's background? Are you very familiar with him?"

"Not very familiar. A young fellow who just came to the Lien District—either recently eliminated from the academy or had a falling-out with his family. He's only been staying here for a day, but he's a very skilled mechanical artisan." Zoltan stroked his beard, recalling the pipe he had just seen, and couldn't help asking, "How did you know?"

"He carries the smell of the workshop, trailing all the way from your courtyard. I could smell it from three streets away."

Zoltan exclaimed in admiration, "Your nose is truly sharper than a dog's."

"Quite an interesting young man." Roger withdrew his gaze, a thoughtful glint flashing through his cat-pupil-like eyes.

"Enough about Lei En." Zoltan set down his wineglass, pulled cards from his pocket, and called out, "Come on, come on, let's play a few rounds for fun. Ten years without seeing each other—let me see if your card skills have declined. Hehe, I've collected quite a few rare cards over the years. If you're still at the same level as ten years ago, then prepare to be destroyed!"

Roger's expression shifted slightly; he sat up straight and said seriously, "Even if I've been sleeping these past few years, don't even think about beating me."

Saying that, he pulled out a thick stack of cards from the leather pouch at his waist.

The next morning, a spirited Lei En came downstairs to the inn's lobby, only to see Zoltan and Roger still sitting at the counter playing cards.

The two hadn't even changed positions—

they had clearly been playing cards from last night until now.

Lei En didn't disturb them; he passed by, ate the free breakfast, and then entered the workshop behind to continue machining the shotgun's parts.

For several days straight, Lei En immersed himself in the workshop from morning to night, producing one part after another.

Twice a day, morning and evening, he would go to the inn's lobby for meals and see Zoltan and Roger playing cards.

Zoltan had handed the inn over to his staff and ignored everything else.

Roger was the same—a dignified Legendary extraordinary being sitting there playing cards day and night, like an internet-addicted teenager who had been living in an internet café for months.

The image of a master that Lei En had in his mind instantly collapsed.

Five days later, Lei En held the freshly polished black wooden stock and let out a long breath.

This was the last component of the shotgun!

The other 70 parts had all been manufactured; with this stock added, they could be assembled into a complete Remington M870 shotgun.

He carried the stock to the workbench and laid out all the parts on a piece of coarse cloth, arranged neatly in rows.

Without any pause, Lei En began assembling.

Although this was his first time assembling the real thing, he had assembled it hundreds of times in games and on his phone; the sequence was already burned into his memory—which part to install at which step, he could manage with his eyes closed.

His hands moved without stopping, as smooth and fluid as flowing clouds and water; soon, a pure black shotgun appeared in his hands, displaying the beauty of craftsmanship.

Lei En felt the weight and dimensions of the gun body; they were very close to the parameters in the 3D structural diagram. It felt heavy in his hands—even using it to bludgeon someone would be no problem.

He pressed the stock against his right shoulder, cradled the fore-end of the barrel with his left hand, and assumed an aiming posture.

He pulled the trigger, producing a sharp click.

His left hand worked the fore-end—with a clack, it cleanly re-chambered; pulling the trigger again produced another sharp click. Several consecutive rapid empty-shell loading cycles went off without a hitch, the internal structure operating with great stability.

Now all that was left was to load ammunition.

Lei En looked at a cardboard box on the table; he had already made the bullets yesterday.

Zoltan had a single-stage turret press specifically for manufacturing bullets; by simply swapping in the appropriately sized die, one could hand-press bullets.

The M870 uses 12-gauge ammunition. Lei En handcrafted a batch of brass casings, fitted them with primers and steel shot, and used up all his black powder, producing a total of thirty shotgun shells.

The workshop had a target wall that Zoltan normally used for test-firing; it was pockmarked and cratered—an entire layer of the stone wall surface had been shot away.

Lei En loaded a shell, stood five meters away, and fired at the wall.

Bang!

A muffled report, white smoke spewed from the barrel, and a strong scent of gunpowder entered his nostrils.

Lei En raised a hand to wave away the smoke before him, his face full of irrepressible delight.

The recoil from the gun body was not insignificant, but within a tolerable range. He walked to the target wall and inspected it carefully, finding dozens of tiny holes distributed very randomly, the kill zone covering about half a square meter—the power was quite astonishing.

If this shot hit a person's body, it would definitely turn them into a sieve!

Next, Lei En loaded three bullets at once and fired rapidly in succession—bang, bang, bang—leaving more small holes in the target wall. However, the target wall already had countless pits and craters in a chaotic mess; unless one deliberately looked for them, these inconspicuous little holes were hard to notice.

"That's enough. There's no problem with this gun. It's just that the smoke is too choking. I'll improve it when I get the chance later."

Lei En did not continue testing. He only had thirty bullets in total and couldn't waste the remaining ones.

"Now, it's time for revenge."

He silently disassembled the gun into parts, packed them together with the bullets in a black cloth bag, and walked out of the workshop. When he passed through the inn's lobby, Zoltan and Roger were still playing cards. He went upstairs, placed the cloth bag under the bed in his room, then came back downstairs to the front counter.

"Zoltan, I won't be borrowing your workshop anymore tomorrow."

Zoltan looked up at Lei En and said in surprise, "You're done already this quickly?"

But his mind was entirely on the card game right now. Without waiting for Lei En to answer, he waved his hand. "You borrowed the workshop for five days. I won't calculate the materials you used too carefully. Just give me 300 copper lisos altogether."

Lei En paid the money readily and said sincerely, "Thank you."

He had actually gotten a good deal this time. The coal and metal materials used over the five days were certainly worth more than 50 copper lisos. Without Zoltan's generous help, he didn't know when he would be able to take his revenge.

Zoltan nodded without caring at all and said nothing more.

Roger, sitting across from him, was even more focused on the cards and didn't even glance at Lei En.

Lei En didn't disturb them. He turned and left the inn.

He returned along the same route he had taken a few days ago, taking an extra look when he passed the Church of Justice. Unfortunately, no Fallen Ones had been put on trial these past few days, so there was no opportunity to absorb souls to recharge.

He arrived at the station, boarded a bus, and after one transfer, Lei En reached Wood Street in the Honiton district.

The residents of the Honiton district were mostly merchants, white-collar workers, and chamber of commerce employees. Most held respectable jobs, their financial circumstances were much better than those in the slums, and the streets were not so crowded.

Lei En was fairly familiar with Wood Street and soon arrived at the place he wanted to find.

Sword of Maloney, the fencing hall where he had worked not long ago.

Lei En did not approach the fencing hall, to avoid being seen and recognized by anyone he knew. Instead, he sat down at an open-air café several hundred meters away, ordered a cup of iced tea, sat in a secluded corner, casually picked up a newspaper to browse, and from time to time opened his Soul Eye to observe the activity at the fencing hall's entrance from afar.

He was waiting for Eisberg and Ramsey to come out, to track their movements.

The first step of revenge was to find the two men's addresses, but Lei En did not plan to act inside the city. Because the shotgun was too loud, even if he killed them both, he himself would very likely be caught.

Longshandecheng was the territory of the Silver Star Duke. The Duke had two powerful private armed forces under his command, one of which, the Silver-Clad Knight Order, was responsible for the city's security. Those guards were all members of the Silver-Clad Knight Order.

In addition, there were the extraordinary forces of the three major churches. An ordinary person firing a gun in the city was no different from seeking his own death.

But it wasn't entirely without opportunity.

Judging from the clues in his memory, he had been knocked unconscious in the city, yet after transmigrating and awakening, he was in a river outside the city.

The current of the Phlegreon River was not rapid. It was impossible for a corpse to be washed that far in a short time. There was only one explanation: Ramsey had dumped the body outside the city.

In other words, Eisberg and Ramsey must have a secret hideout outside the city—the very place where he had been beaten for several hours that night.

Furthermore, this secret hideout should not be far from the riverside where he had transmigrated.

If he could find this place, the opportunity to strike would come.