The fisherman druid is in another world

Chapter 736

It's hard to say whether there are many talented people among the prisoners, but there are certainly many who have good judgment.

Black Rob, piloting a 3-2, shouted rather rudely in front of Lennarzer Prison, yet he didn't encounter any mockery, insults, or other rude treatment. This was because the guards had noticed his unusual behavior.

Black Rob didn't keep shouting and bothering anyone. After making sure he had made himself clear, he stood quietly in the area covered by the campfire's light and waited.

About fifteen minutes later, the side gate opened, and a man in his thirties with a thick beard and hair came near Black Rob. He did not walk into the light area, but remained in the darkness at the edge of the light, his figure appearing and disappearing, staring at Black Rob with eyes that reflected the campfire light.

Black Robb remained silent, staring back at the other man.

After a moment, the man spoke: "What you want, we do have, but what are you going to exchange it for?"

“I know the Greneau family’s secret vaults; they have enough food and weapons to raise an army,” Black Robb replied generously, despite the fact that it was someone else’s money.

The man chuckled and said, "For a long time, we never lacked food, clothing, or other necessities."

"Then name your price."

"Help us find someone, bring him back, or bring his head back."

Black Rob frowned and asked, "Where is he? In the city?"

"of course."

"The plague is severely contaminated. I'm not confident I can go in and come out safely, let alone bring someone with me."

"Of course we'll offer you some assistance. But you yourself need to be good enough," the man explained simply.
"I gave you this opportunity because I saw that you came from the city and your clothes weren't even dirty. I guessed that you were quite strong and could move freely among those evil creatures."

If you escaped unscathed through other clever methods or simply good luck, it's best to explain now.

"I'm quite confident in my abilities and not afraid to take risks. On the contrary, you're providing me with epidemic prevention assistance; aren't you afraid I'll take the money and not do the job?"

"Of course you're not afraid. The help we provide will only last for 30 hours at most before we can no longer guarantee the effectiveness of the epidemic prevention measures. Moreover, we can guarantee that once you use our epidemic prevention methods, it will be like being branded. If you break your oath, no one in the wasteland who understands epidemic prevention will trust you anymore."

"Okay, I basically agree to the deal."...

I basically agree, but the main point is that many specific details need to be finalized.

For example, if you're looking for someone or bringing back their head, you need at least a general area or enough clues. Otherwise, the city is so big and rife with evil and wickedness, searching for a specific person in it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The man referred to as 'Big Beard' provided some decent clues.

One clue is informational: there's an over 80% chance the target is at the Central Police Station, because that's the only place with cells for detention.

The second clue is totem sensing. The target has a tattoo that can be linked to the 'totem relief' that the bearded man temporarily lent to Black Rob.

The specific sensing distance depends on the strength of Black Robo's sensory abilities. Simply put, the closer the distance, the clearer the sensing.

The epidemic prevention measures provided by the bearded man are divided into three parts: totems, medicines, and equipment.

The totem, which is used to find someone, is the material of a section of coniferous wood heartwood. It is dense, heavy, and has a thick patina. It is jet black and shiny. The relief carving appears to be a combination of a human and a mink.

To be honest, just looking at the relief, it's impossible to tell whether it's a mink or a rat. The craftsmanship is very rough, and the shape is rather exaggerated and abstract, making it extremely difficult to identify.

Black Rob also relied on relevant intelligence from the database to estimate that it was most likely a mink.

Among the various chaotic totems worshipped by the tribes of the Wasteland People, the so-called 'Snow Spirit Totem' is the closest to it.

For a totem to function effectively, it needs to be combined with branding; the totem branding of the wilderness people was integrated into tattoos.

Even if an outsider like Black Rob has the means and time to get a tattoo, he might not be qualified. But the bearded man said there was a workaround: a temporary totem brand. The method was simple: just brand the arm three times with a red-hot iron bar.

The specific symbol is like the character '艾', except that '艹' is connected to '乂' below, and the horizontal line above is not straight, but has a downward curve, so it looks like three curved lines intersecting each other.

For Black Rob, the biggest challenge in creating this mark was actually his soul.

After all, from a certain perspective, 3-2 is already considered to have been possessed by a deity. If another deity is invited, not to mention whether the newly invited deity would dare to possess the body, it's questionable whether it could even possess the body at all.

Black Robo finally made an emergency change to the driving mode, switching it from 'real-time online' to 'offline mode' and lowering the soul level before completing this step.

The medicine was the leaves of a plant called "ice hemp," which the people of the wasteland loved to chew. Ice hemp leaves were also used by the people of the wasteland as an additive to their dry tobacco, similar to adding mint to tobacco.

Black Robb actually has some knowledge of this plant.

This plant contains mild toxins, but it is not addictive and is harmful to humans.

Young people have strong metabolisms, so it's not a big deal. But as people get older, toxins accumulate, and when they reach a certain level, they can trigger intermittent neuralgia.

Black Rob knew that the Wastelanders chewed this bitter and numbing stuff mainly to protect themselves from the extremely ferocious supernatural poisonous insects in the Wasteland.

For example, the desert tick, which transmits an encephalitis virus, can cause hallucinations and madness, making it a veritable murder machine for relatives and friends.

But before this, Black Rob had always believed that there was never just one way to achieve a goal. The fact that the Wastelanders used this primitive and clumsy method of fighting poison with poison, from a certain perspective, precisely demonstrated their barbarity and backwardness.

I only just learned that this ice hemp is actually paired with a totem and has a variety of mysterious effects.

And they failed to collect such important information.

One reason is that the Wastelanders have always played minor roles in history, and at least in Black Robo, they lack a sense of presence.

On the other hand, the habit of chewing ice and numbness among the people of the wilderness is not something that has existed since ancient times.

Black Robb also had to fill in the gaps and summarize the information before he learned that the world was transforming into a low-magic world, and the ecological changes were subtle things that he, as a guardian who mostly slept in the river of time, actually lacked real-world experience of.

To give a simple and blunt example: In the past, when supernatural factors were still abundant and active in the natural environment, when people mentioned the king of the wilderness, they would first think of all kinds of monsters; but now, there is basically no such thing as the king of the wilderness, but if you ask what is the most troublesome thing in the wilderness, anyone with a little relevant experience will say insects.

Various kinds of insects, lacking the supernatural power factor, greatly reduced the number of magical beasts, but the insects had a relatively limited impact.

Or rather, the rapid iteration of insects allows them to better adapt to the current environment.

Furthermore, this world is rich in negative supernatural power, and the Heavenly Dao is distorted to a considerable extent. To use a somewhat inappropriate analogy, it's like a cesspool is more likely to become a breeding ground for flies and bedbugs.

With his formidable strength and the power of nature, Black Robo would hardly be bothered by mosquitoes.
Therefore, he has never had this concept. Or rather, his related knowledge is outdated and hasn't been updated to the latest version.

As for the Wasteland People, it's easy to see from the phenomenon that "any Wasteland People who use guns are basically excellent marksmen" that the Wasteland People's learning ability and attitude are actually quite good.

Wilderness dwellers often understand more profoundly than civilized people what it means to fight for survival! Their upbringing instills maxims like "Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit" deeply ingrained in their souls. When this attitude is displayed in daily life, many civilized people find it extremely crude and violent…

That's getting off-topic. In short, 3-2's experience at Lennarzer Prison forced Black Robb to do some quick remedial research, resulting in some relatively down-to-earth discoveries.

As for the equipment help that the bearded man provided to 3-2, in Black Robb's opinion, it was the least worth mentioning.

The main features are a modified dust mask and a voodoo-infused lime-based design.

The bearded man and his men had dust masks mainly because one of the main jobs of the prisoners at Lennarzer Prison was working at a lime pit owned by the warden.

As a result, these barbarians and savages, who seemed to be assimilated by mainstream human civilization, actually incorporated dust masks and lime into their own voodoo technology system.

Lime was used as a spellcasting material, and the dust mask was stuffed with a voodoo drug filter.

Each of these played a vital role in the fight against the epidemic.

When the bearded man adorned 3-2 with a complete set of epidemic prevention gear, Black Robo figured he had basically figured out the Wastelanders' secret methods of epidemic prevention.

However, he still decided to let 3-2 and even 3-1 continue their missions according to the current circumstances, in order to verify his guesses and analyses, and at the same time see if he could discover more secrets.

For example, the bearded man promised a more powerful and comprehensive epidemic prevention method in 3-2. Is this just empty promises to whet people's appetites and incentivize them to do things, without any real ability to deliver, or is there a more ingenious method? The answer will be revealed once the task is completed.

Meanwhile, on the old Japanese warship, research on the medicinal uses of ice and hemp, as well as experiments on voodoo treatment, were already underway.

Black Rob has always looked down on voodoo, and even now, he still thinks the way of voodoo is no good.

It's not that they dislike the effectiveness, but rather that they find too much dross in the product.

To put it in a way that's easy for modern people to understand: a mountain of shit code.

This is because the most basic work of inheritance has not been done well.

This involves fundamental concepts such as language, writing, and writing methods.

But now he has to admit that in the application of magic in small, everyday situations, like a little life hack, voodoo can be quite outstanding.

There's no other reason than that the more you use it, the more skilled you become; with enough skill comes mastery, and simplicity is often the most common and intuitive manifestation of ingenuity.

Black Robb's research found that the system used by the Wasteland People was so cost-effective that, for a short period of time, it truly deserved the title of "unrivaled".

Even if you are not from the wilderness and do not have the habit of chewing ice, this method of epidemic prevention still has remarkable effects.

Not to mention, Black Robo has its own advantages, and it can be further improved based on it.

The effective medicinal components of ice hemp have been extracted and, with the aid of life-based extraordinary magic, can be used in batches to enhance the body's ability to prevent infection through a group buff-like technique.

After gaining this enhancement, there is a higher probability of resistance to infection from different angles.

The main reason why they are still inferior to the people of the wasteland is indeed because of the so-called 'loan to descendants'.

To be more serious and accurate, the people of the wasteland not only did not bear the 'curse of grand aspirations,' but also had the protection of totem worship. With this disparity, the gap widened immediately.

Totem gods are not actually gods, but are more like the Cup of Life controlled by the Heavenly Grace Mutual Aid Society, or the farming artifact controlled by the Golden Oak Royal Family. In essence, they are wish-power processors.

Its existence is mainly due to two conditions: one is its ability to bear weight, and the other is that everyone believes it is effective or has some kind of ability.

Especially the second one.

The portable deity relief that Big Beard gave to 3-2 was made of nothing more than the core of a cedar tree, which is not a supernatural material. How did it become so effective?

It's because the bearded man and his friends believed it was effective.

Of course, the bas-relief that has been polished to a patina, and the mystical processes such as consecration and nurturing, are all done on the spot. The only thing that can achieve a certain effect is the talisman that looks like the character "艾".

Black Rob quickly figured out the function of the talisman; it was quite simple and could be compared to a wireless router.

In summary, the wasteland people's epidemic prevention measures may seem rudimentary, but they are actually a systematic project. They take care of both the mind and body, ensuring proper nutrition and even basic breathing.

Systems engineering also has a common name: routine!

When it comes to this tactic, Black Robb's first thought is the saying: "True feelings are hard to retain, but tactic wins people's hearts."

My second impression was of the saying: "A folk song is easy to sing, but difficult to sing it well."

With these two sentences in mind, Black Rob felt he had grasped the key points of epidemic prevention.

So he began to copy homework in a way that surpassed his teacher's.

At first glance, ice hemp seems to have low cost, but from a global perspective, with a demand of tens of millions, it is only produced in some cold regions and is purely wild rather than being cultivated on a large scale, so it does not have the advantage of low cost.

Using his extraordinary technology and natural authority, Black Rob directly created a new species, Divine Hemp, based on it.

Then, the extraordinary planting and processing system will carry out quantitative planting and production. Roughly estimated, after ten days, this type of extract at the level of spellcasting materials can be continuously provided, and the output will continue to increase.

He planned to replace the traditional voodoo method that used lime as a casting material with medicinal oil. He believed this would enhance the skin's resistance to infection during the metabolic process of the pores, making it more effective.

While medicinal oil is indeed more expensive than lime, its exceptional production system is powerful enough that there's no need to be overly meticulous about production capacity in this regard.

The key point is that applying voodoo patches to soul-possessed puppets and pseudo-soul puppets is simply too inefficient. Not only do we have to produce a batch of voodoo tools, but we also have to consider the acceptance level of the human population we are serving.

Standing there naked, being surrounded by people jumping rope while lime is being sprinkled on you from time to time, and you can't even wash it off afterwards... If it were you, under what circumstances would you be willing to be pranked like this?

Not to mention, prejudice is a mountain. And savages and barbarians inevitably occupy the lowest rung of the human hierarchy.

Within the Pan-Northern Federation, many mountain dwellers believe they are more civilized and superior than savages. It's not hard to imagine the level of resistance they would feel if they were to believe that the savages' voodoo methods were the best option for disease prevention.

It is precisely because of this that Black Robb is increasingly determined to deceive the world instead of telling the truth.

Take this totem-like deity's wish power system, for example. Is the most important thing to tell people the principles? No, the most important thing is comparison and competition, a competition of how much wish power is output.

The goal is to quantify, scale, visualize, and rank these metrics, then integrate them with a reward and punishment system, incentive programs, and a system of prizes for top performers and elimination for bottom performers…

By employing this approach, the system of voluntary intervention can be rapidly deployed, ensuring that when the hemp extract and medicinal oil arrive, there are sufficient quantities available for the implementation of a complete set of epidemic prevention measures…

(End of this chapter)