Chapter: Chapter 355
“I didn’t expect you to be dressed like this for this meeting.”
“Likewise, your attire isn’t much better, Miss God, hiding your face and all.”
At an entrance to a sewer in the west district, two small figures clad in thick black robes faced each other. After a moment, they both let out a sigh of resignation.
“It seems this is the only way we can dress when coming to a place like this.”
“I didn’t expect you, Miss God, to be so familiar with this sort of thing.” The shorter of the two figures looked up at their companion, having to admit that their companion had a knack for disguise. A large black robe covered everything recognizable, ensuring no one could tell who it was.
The figures present were, of course, Leticia and Ms. Gin. While Bai Ling was busy, Leticia had also begun her own activities, the most important of which was, naturally, cooperating with Gin.
Gin needed many bodies to maintain her own operations, and Leticia needed Gin’s strength to open spatial portals. Moreover, Gin’s attitude was quite agreeable, so just a few days after establishing contact, Leticia contacted Gin and asked her to come to this place to purchase some necessary alchemy materials.
Before this, Leticia had also asked Gin for information on the bodies she had used previously. Leticia almost laughed herself to death at the number of flawed techniques within the data. In her words, “You can operate with such crudely made bodies; I don’t know whether to praise your mental strength or your luck.”
“I will create a body for you using the most advanced alchemy technology. If you use it sparingly, it should last at least six months. If you are in continuous combat, it should last at least three months. The cost will be slightly higher than your current subpar body, but since you won’t need to replace it frequently, it will be more cost-effective in the long run.” Leticia handed Gin the revised plan and began to explain the difficult parts of the document.
Gin stared at the plan Leticia handed her with her sparkling eyes, nodding continuously. This thing looked very professional. She knew she had found the right person.
If she had any alternatives, she would have long ago stopped using such inferior bodies. They would start spitting blood if she exerted too much force, and their shelf life was ridiculously short. She couldn’t even fight comfortably.
If she was given a better body, Gin was confident she could spin Leticia around with one hand!
“Of course, you’ll have to provide your own materials. I have some of the most important materials, which I can sell to you at market price. However, for the other materials, I don’t have much stock, so we’ll have to buy them here.” Leticia pointed to the sewer entrance in front of them, which exuded a foul odor.
After reaching an agreement with Gin, she had asked Akari to change her objective. Akari’s speed was extremely fast, and in less than a day, she had found the location of the black market in Central City.
Some things were not suitable for trading openly, and this was the place to trade them – a place that claimed you could buy anything in the world as long as you had the money.
“I don’t know if I have enough money,” Gin said with some distress at this point.
Although she and the men in black had been working hard on commissions recently, their accumulated wealth was still not growing quickly. After all, they not only had to solve their basic needs but also had to scrape together money to build new alchemy workshops.
“You robbed a bank a few days ago, don’t tell me you’re broke. Besides, the materials I need you to buy aren’t rare items. Your assets are more than enough to buy them.” Leticia shrugged. “If I weren’t worried about being recognized by someone knowledgeable, I wouldn’t have thought of buying them here.”
“Powdered bones of a sixteen-year-old girl, tissues of high-level wilderness monsters, plants containing magic. I don’t think the things on this list can be bought on the surface.”
Leticia’s alchemy skills couldn’t be considered top-tier, still a bit short of recognized masters, but only a bit. Her own magical quality was enough to compensate for this gap.
In terms of knowledge, the still young Leticia was completely unfazed. She had read an astonishing number of books, her mind containing an entire demon king’s library. No demon alchemist dared to compare their knowledge reserve with Leticia.
Entering the eerie sewer and walking a distance in the darkness, the two with good night vision detected human commotion ahead, indicating they were close to the black market.
Two black-robed figures stood like sculptures nearby. As Leticia and Gin approached, they raised their heads warily and asked in hoarse voices, “Why have you come?”
With a chest full of confidence, Leticia calmly recited the secret phrase from Akari, “For Foam that Melts in the Sunlight.”
“Please enter.”
After exchanging the passwords, the two black-robed figures immediately moved aside, without any further words.
Passing these gatekeepers, Leticia lowered her voice and complained to Gin beside her, “You noticed, didn’t you? These two gatekeepers are also espers, and their strength is actually A-class.”
Two A-class guards, the force behind this black market seemed to be slightly outrageous.
“Unstable aura, gilded exterior.” Gin shook her head, indicating that if those two actually fought, they wouldn’t be much different from ordinary A-class espers. “Do you know where those things are sold?”
“This is my first time in a place like this, how would I know? We’ll just browse slowly. We have plenty of time today, and after looking around, we’re bound to find what we’re looking for.” Leticia shrugged. She had been a law-abiding citizen before and had never come to such a dark and bloody place. If it weren’t for accompanying Gin, she wouldn’t have come.
Lantern’s report had also not specified where Leticia’s needs could be met. This wasn’t because Lantern hadn’t worked diligently, but because the stalls here were mobile, with no fixed locations. Today, a stall might be in the east, and tomorrow it might be in the west. No one could predict it.
“But I have to say, the environment in this damn place is truly terrible. The smell is awful, and my feet always feel sticky.” Leticia looked at the black mud under her feet, which emitted a foul odor, feeling that she would have to cast a couple of cleansing spells outside before going home tonight.
“I feel the same. Fortunately, I got a set of clothes a few days ago.” Gin nodded with a serious expression. She also found this environment a bit unacceptable.
Gods don’t like this kind of environment!
If Gin had to walk barefoot in a place like this, she would genuinely want to die.
She liked walking barefoot, but it depended on the occasion.
“Speaking of which, I still wanted to ask why you were dressed so raggedly before. With your financial means, it’s not unusual that you can’t afford very beautiful clothes, but no matter what, you shouldn’t have appeared on the battlefield wearing just a white bedsheet?” Leticia’s eyes scanned the vendors along the path, but her mind was not on these things.
When that was mentioned, Gin stated that she had been quite covered up before. She was wearing a very thick robe on the outside and a very large white bedsheet wrapped inside. Although theoretically she was in a vacuum state, from the outside, her attire was considered very conservative.
Moreover, because the robe was slightly longer, it completely covered Gin’s feet, so no one knew that she wasn’t wearing shoes or socks.
“That time, I discarded the black robe because extra clothes would affect my movement speed,” Gin explained. As for the holes scorched by flames, there was nothing she could do about it. She had to use her power in critical areas at that time, so where would she have the leisure to worry about how many holes were burned in her bedsheet?
“Then why didn’t you just discard the bedsheet too?”
“I think you might have a slight misunderstanding about me. While I do believe clothes affect my combat ability, I also know how shameful it would be for a naked girl to appear in public.” Gin’s tone became slightly displeased. The body she used bore an eight-tenths resemblance to her true form’s appearance, so how could she allow her body to be completely exposed to the eyes of others?
Although, in the end, her body was still seen completely by others, and seen clearly from the inside out.
“I see. Oh, our luck is quite good. We found a target after walking just a few steps.” Leticia stopped, her eyes fixed on a small stall beside them, which happened to have one of the materials she needed.
Arriving at the stall, Leticia and Gin managed to acquire the material at a reasonable price with little effort.
The exchange was very quick. As soon as Leticia asked, “How much for this thing?” the stall owner, who was also cloaked and hiding their face like them, quoted a price in a deliberately modified voice.
Although the price was slightly inflated, it was within Leticia’s acceptable range, so she signaled Gin to buy the material.
If she had been buying it herself, she would have haggled a bit. However, since she was helping Gin choose items, Leticia didn’t intend to waste breath negotiating with her good sister, with whom she had just fought for her life a few days ago.
Gin was clearly not good at bargaining either. Thinking the price was acceptable, she readily paid.
There was no extra exchange throughout the process. This was the advantage of the black market; no one cared about the origin or purpose of these materials, because if things were being bought and sold here, they certainly wouldn’t be clean. Not digging for details was best for everyone.
“There are still several more materials to find, this is troublesome.” After browsing the black market, Leticia successfully helped Gin find most of the materials she needed. Some materials that couldn’t be found at all also had substitutes.
However, not all materials could be bought at today’s black market. Among them was the most crucial material: the flesh crystal of a wilderness behemoth. Whether it was rare or not, it wasn’t exactly rare. As long as one defeated a wilderness behemoth and processed it with special techniques, it could be obtained.
However, to defeat a wilderness behemoth stably required the cooperation of several S-class heroes. Such high-level goods were indeed unlikely to appear in such a black market.
In plain terms, the tier here was too low to spawn those high-level items.
Leticia’s warehouse also happened to be out of the flesh crystal of a wilderness behemoth. The simplest method now might be for Gin to personally go and take down a wilderness behemoth.
Then, the problem arose: Gin indeed had the strength to kill a wilderness behemoth, but she lacked the technology to process it, and her subordinates also lacked this capability.
Cooperate with others?
Gin didn’t even trust Leticia that much now, so how could she place her trust in anyone else?
Leticia was capable of processing behemoth entities alone, but she was currently restricted by a seal and couldn’t step half a step out of Central City, which was quite awkward.
She couldn’t have Gin move the behemoth’s entity near Central City. Behemoth, as the name suggested, was an extremely massive monster. The surveillance personnel in Central City were not blind. The sudden appearance of such a conspicuous object would immediately raise suspicion, even for a fool.
Processing a behemoth’s entity would take at least several hours, which would be enough time for Central City to summon all its S-class heroes and send them over in one go.
“It seems we can only stop here for today. You can search for the behemoth’s flesh crystal yourself, and I will also help you collect some information. Is that okay?” Leticia asked.
What else could Gin say? She could only nod.
She also knew how precious something like a behemoth’s flesh crystal was, and it was indeed unlikely to appear in a place like this.
“Are there any lower-level substitutes?”
“…Yes.” Leticia nodded, but her expression became somewhat unpleasant because the substitute was actually quite common. “What I need is actually the blood essence of a behemoth. Since it’s blood essence… you know what I’m referring to, right?”
“Humans?”
“Not ordinary people. To manufacture that kind of body, the level of ordinary people’s blood essence is completely insufficient. Otherwise, wouldn’t I just buy low-level wilderness monster flesh crystals?” Leticia shook her head in response. There were many, many low-level flesh crystals here, and every small stall had some. “The substitute that can be on par with a behemoth’s flesh crystal is the blood essence of three high-level espers, yes, the S-class hero level.”
S-class heroes were the darlings of the Heroic Association. The death of even one was a serious matter. To consume three at once, the Heroic Association would absolutely go mad.
In comparison, wilderness behemoths were much more common. No one knew how these things appeared and grew. Anyway, they would emerge in waves like wild grass, and they couldn’t all be killed.
It was precisely because of the existence of these things that the human world was so fragmented (though the main reason was the previous war of the four races).
