Chapter 337: The Factory Owner’s Soul
What I need most now is magical power, enough to defeat that Black Silk Monster, and even the magic of that Outsider who looks like a toad. But in the Witch’s Notes, there’s only one spell I haven’t learned yet, and that’s the Fossil to Mud Technique.
I feel like I won’t be able to use that technique anytime soon, which is why I haven’t learned it. It has no offensive capabilities and is an auxiliary skill, so it wouldn’t be of much help in my future battles.
But even though I’ve learned most of the Black Magic from the Witch’s Notes, I still feel nowhere near as strong as the Witch was back then. She once enveloped the execution ground in a poisonous fog, conjuring huge Fire Skeletons with Hellfire, and with one breath, a large number of onlookers suffered.
I can’t even reach that level. The reason for this is not only that the Witch was fighting for her life then, strengthening her magic’s power at any cost, but also because my proficiency is too low. The problem is, I don’t dare to practice too much. Using magic always carries the risk of lowering my sanity.
Every time I use it, I’m cautious, hesitant, and I don’t even dare to increase its power. How can I master magic like this?
So now there’s only one solution. I need to find a way to increase my proficiency. The only way to gain magic proficiency without misusing magic is to devour the Witch’s memories and obtain her experience and proficiency.
That day, I found a bottle of potion at the Alien Parasite’s home and also got a prescription. The contact information was too advanced for me to understand, but I had already gathered all the medicinal herbs for the prescription with Old Golden Tooth’s help.
Body Swap Potion. Just looking at the materials and effects of this potion makes one feel its immense evil. It requires the soul of a person to brew. After drinking it, one can obtain that person’s memories and turn into that person’s appearance.
I’ve had this prescription for a long time, but I’ve never tried to brew it because I thought it was too evil. I didn’t want to try it before, but I ended up procrastinating so much that I even gathered the materials.
Now the situation is different. If I want to gain the strength to confront the Black Silk Monster, I probably still need to enhance myself by obtaining the Witch’s memories and experience. So, I’ve set my sights back on the Body Swap Potion.
I took out the materials and started the pot. The familiar feeling of my thoughts flowing like a spring during alchemy returned. I began to add the ingredients to the pot according to the recipe.
This time, I can’t use ordinary well water. I need to use Slime’s mucus, specifically a Gray Slime, which is a soul-devouring Undead Slime said to appear near cemeteries, as the solvent.
Next, the skin of a Ditto, the blood of a chameleon, the obsession of an undead, the sand of memories, the face of a Man-o’-war, the body of a Slime monster, a fixing agent, and other materials were added to the pot one by one.
Just looking at these materials feels incredibly sinister. It’s worthy of a potion used by an Alien Parasite.
After these ingredients were added to the pot, it looked, to put it nicely, like a bowl of sesame paste, and to put it bluntly, like a pool of mud boiling, with viscous bubbles constantly rising.
My previous alchemy didn’t look like this at all, and I almost thought I had failed. However, the memories in my mind seemed to tell me that this was correct, and now was the best time to add the main ingredient.
I picked up Jayad’s short sword and placed my hand on the ruby. There were three souls inside. At this moment, I hesitated. I originally wanted to extract the Witch’s soul, but the concoction bubbling in the pot made me feel unsure.
This was my first time brewing this potion, and the brewing process was so strange. What if I messed it up? Although I haven’t failed yet, which is unlike the success rate of a normal witch’s alchemy, who knows if complacency isn’t the precursor to failure?
There was only one Witch’s soul, and if it was ruined, it would be gone. So, by chance, I wanted to try another soul first. I grabbed the Factory owner who was murdered by someone sent by the Alien Parasite.
As I raised my hand, a filthy and dirty soul appeared in my palm. I had an inexplicable feeling that this must be the kind of soul that demons greatly favor, filled with unpardonable sin.
Would throwing this guy into the pot give me indigestion? No, I shouldn’t get indigestion. I mused to myself and tossed the soul into the pot.
“Ahhhhhhh!” I heard a tragic scream, which startled me. Lorna next door tapped on the wall to remind me that I was disturbing the peace, but Older Brother Jayad showed no reaction and continued reading his Bible.
The Factory owner’s soul struggled in the boiling mud, but it soon sank. Countless white smoke rose. I immediately poured in the soul dissolving agent and stirred it with a spoon. Soon, the Factory owner’s soul was completely dissolved and could no longer be found.
The potion should theoretically be ready. Now, human faces kept boiling up from the mud. Upon closer inspection, these anguished faces looked exactly like the Factory owner’s, seemingly letting out silent screams before exploding like bubbles.
Even when I scooped up a ladle of the potion, human faces kept appearing in the ladle. It was truly terrifying, and I really didn’t want to drink it. But if I didn’t drink it, I wouldn’t know its effects.
After much hesitation, I tried a sip. Instantly, a scalding spiciness flowed into my mouth.
“Clang!” The wooden spoon fell to the ground. I clutched my body in discomfort, not because the potion tasted bad. Although the prescription said the potion tasted extremely bad, I could no longer perceive the taste.
The problem was that after drinking the potion, my body would rapidly heat up, even becoming scorching hot, and my skin would feel extremely itchy. Then, countless memories flooded into my mind.
Memories started appearing intermittently from the Factory owner’s childhood. His father was a coal boss, and he received an elite education from a young age, naturally inheriting his father’s factories.
In the memories, the Factory owner bought a large number of slaves to mine coal in the mines. This was a very dangerous job with a terrible environment. Cave-ins, poisonous gas, and even monster appearances were common occurrences, and miners died frequently.
But it didn’t matter; they were all expendables. Whether they were cheap slaves bought from the market or refugees hired at low prices, there was no shortage of people to work in the mines.
His most important business was a coal processing plant, where he processed the mined coal into more easily burnable coal, and also produced various products, such as anthracite, coking coal, and honeycomb briquettes.
In the factory, where there was no danger to life, he tended to prefer hiring skilled workers, but he paid them even less than those working in the mines. Bonuses were only awarded for strenuous work.
There were no holidays, and they worked more than fifteen hours a day. The only benefits were food and lodging. The lodging was in simple sheds, but the food was surprisingly good, with meat provided and bread enough to fill them up, probably so they would have the strength to work.
The Factory district where we were located before had one of his factories, and the workers all lived together in a large shed. He was killed while inspecting the workers.
