Simultaneous Transmigration: We Level Up Alone Across Multiple Worlds

tick tock...

The clock in the archives never stopped ticking for anyone.

Dai Li lowered her head, and after speaking, her shoulders relaxed slightly.

A string that had been taut for so long finally let loose.

She looked up and met Chen Chen's gaze.

"The doctor asked so many questions just to hear this one sentence."

"But when you mentioned his name just now, your voice was very certain."

Daly's eyelids twitched; she now somewhat disliked the psychiatrist sequence of extraordinary individuals.

She turned her head and looked out the window again.

When I was nineteen, something happened in my family.

The voice was a little calmer than before, as if talking about someone else's past.

"In the chaos, I drank the wrong thing. Later, I was recruited by the church."

"For a while after that, things weren't going to be very good. In a place like Port-Enmart, it's easy to go astray."

Dai Li turned her head.

"Captain Dunn is different..."

"I'm not good enough for you."

"Well... Ms. Dai Li, I recently had a patient who was also going through relationship problems. Although she eventually got over it, she's still single. How about I introduce her to Captain Dunn? Anyway... he's still single too..."

"..."

Upon hearing this, Dai Li suddenly looked up and glared at Chen Chen, her gaze gradually turning dangerous.

Seeing Chen Chen's gentle yet slightly mischievous smile, she realized that she had been tricked.

"you……!"

"Why not give it a try? Maybe Captain Dunn likes you too?"

After a moment of silence, Daly seemed to understand something and decided not to continue arguing with this malicious guy, so she raised her head again.

"Is the doctor coming all the way to Tingen just to give me psychological counseling?"

Seeing that the conversation was almost over, Chen Chen bent down and took out a tin box used to store extraordinary materials from the duffel bag at his feet.

"I need Soul Vine Flower."

Dai Li squinted, scanning back and forth between the tin box and Chen Chen.

"Psychics often visit cemeteries, so they don't lack these things."

She stood up, walked to a locked wooden cabinet in the corner of the archives, took out a key from her waist, opened the cabinet door, and inside were several rows of dark glass bottles with labels.

She took one out; the date was written in ink on the bottle.

Through the tinted glass, you can see a dried vine curled up at the bottom of the bottle, with the flower buds at the top tightly closed, their color a dark purple, almost black.

"Is one plant enough?"

That's enough.

Dai Li placed the glass bottle on the table and pushed it toward Chen Chen.

Chen Chen took the bottle, put it into the tin box, and then reached into the inside pocket of his coat, his fingertips touching the cold metal of the coin.

Take the coin out and place it in front of Daly.

The coin has a dull gray surface and fine, almost indistinguishable lines along its edges, resembling weathering over time.

"This is?"

"remuneration."

Chen Chen put the tin box into his luggage bag.

"The method of use is to place the silver coin on your fingertip and flick it with your thumb. It might save your life in a critical moment."

Dai Li reached out and picked up the coin, weighing it in her palm.

"Is this considered your personal collection?"

Chen Chen stood up and picked up his top hat.

"You could say that. I would be honored if Ms. Daisy used it as a token of our love."

"You really have no sense of propriety...!"

Chen Chen put on his hat, picked up his duffel bag, and turned to walk towards the door.

"Ms. Daly, Ms. Ariana and I do not wish for the content of our meeting today to be known to anyone."

"I see."

Sunlight streamed in from the end of the corridor, and Chen Chen's footsteps gradually faded away along the corridor.

Dai Li sat at the table without moving.

She lowered her head, clutching the coin in her right hand, the coolness at her fingertips gradually dissipating with the warmth of her palm.

I flipped the coin over and looked at it against the light.

It's not something ordinary.

At least they have some conscience...

……

……

On the night of the full moon, Chen Chen opened the skylight in the basement ahead of time.

Moonlight streamed down through the skylight, casting a white frost on the stone surface of the alchemy platform.

Remove the glass cover and push the porcelain plate to the center of the light spot.

The flower bud of the Soul Vine trembled slightly in the moonlight.

The first petal splits open from the top and slowly curls outward.

Then came the second piece, and the third piece.

When the flower is fully open, a little deep purple sap seeps out from the stamen, glowing faintly in the moonlight.

Chen Chen took out the auxiliary materials that he had prepared in advance.

The milky-white moonstone essence is packaged in a narrow-necked glass bottle, while the silverleaf chrysanthemum extract is pale silver.

He mentally reviewed the alchemist's potion recipe.

The main ingredient is the sap from the stamens of the Soul Vine Flower, with moonstone essence as a stabilizer and silver chrysanthemum extract to guide the penetration of the medicine. The other auxiliary materials have been ground into powder in proportion and packaged in several small porcelain dishes.

Pour everything into a crucible and heat over a low flame to melt it into a single furnace.

The liquid in the crucible churned for a while, and its color eventually settled into a dark, almost inky black.

Chen Chen poured the potion into a tin cup.

The dark liquid remained motionless in the glass, its surface reflecting the moonlight streaming through the skylight, like a small cup of frozen night sky.

He tilted his head back and drank it down.

The potion felt cool as it slid down my throat, but it started to burn as it reached my stomach.

A warm current spread from the abdominal cavity to the limbs, seeping into every muscle and joint along the pathways of blood vessels and bones.

The Abyss of the Void opened its mouth within its body, swallowing the extraordinary properties remaining in the potion in one gulp, crushing them and feeding back to the source.

Chen Chen opened his eyes.

Sequence Seven - Alchemist

……

About a week after his promotion, Chen Chen walked alone into the East District, carrying a canvas bag.

The road surface of Tieshi Street is paved with crushed stones and cinders, which is very uncomfortable to walk on.

The smells of coal smoke, swill, and animal dung lingered in the air, but no one paid any attention.

The houses along the street were made of red bricks, their walls blackened by coal soot. Most of the windows lacked glass and were covered with oil paper or old newspapers.

A sewage ditch flowed along the roadside, with vegetable leaves and unidentifiable debris floating on the surface.

Chen Chen wore a very simple gray coat.

The canvas bag contained dozens of thumb-sized pills, concocted using the alchemist's abilities, as well as several enormous water vats supported by gravity.

Each pill is a concentrated dose of medicine targeting common ailments in the Eastern District.

Coughing and wheezing caused by silicosis, abdominal pain from lead poisoning, and rashes and ulcers caused by malnutrition.

Whether it was to play the role of an alchemist, or truly for the sake of that sliver of kindness in my heart, I have come to this hellish place today.

Chen Chen manipulated gravity to fill the water tank next to the public well, then walked to the tank and dropped a pill into the water.

The pills sank to the bottom and dissolved slowly.

The amber-colored liquid rose from the bottom of the vat, spreading in the water and gradually turning the entire vat of water a light amber color.

The people queuing up formed a crooked line in front of the water tank.

The old miner, coughing up blood, leaned on a cane; his knuckles were large and deformed, and coal dust that couldn't be washed off was embedded in his fingernails.

The female worker suffering from lead poisoning had blue gums and was holding a baby who had lost all his hair. A barefoot child stood in the line with scabbed rashes on his calves and his toes turned purple from the cold.

Three young people were maintaining order by the water tank. One was a child laborer who had lost two fingers in a textile factory accident; another was a washerwoman whose husband had died in a mining accident, leaving her to raise three children alone; and the third was a seventeen-year-old dockworker whose spine was already beginning to curve.

Chen Chen gave each of them ten pence; giving more would have backfired.

"Use a wooden spoon to scoop it out. Half a spoon for each person."

Chen Chen stood by the water vat without saying a word.

The line moved forward slowly.

The wooden spoon scooped up the medicine and poured it into the broken bowl, old cup, or chipped earthenware jar handed to it by the patient.

The problems in the East District cannot be cured by medicine. Silicosis requires ventilation equipment and a limit on working hours. Lead poisoning requires changing the raw material formula of the factory. Malnutrition requires a table with enough food to fill people's stomachs.

These are the pains of our times that cannot be cured by a single pill.

But now all I have is this one small pill.

An afternoon has passed.

The road surface of Tieshi Street was still muddy, and the smell of coal smoke in the air had not lessened.

The medicine in the water tank was scooped out, leaving only a small amount of amber residue at the bottom.

The queue was still very long, stretching from the water tank all the way to the street corner, with no end in sight.

Chen Chen folded the empty canvas bag neatly and tucked it under his arm.

The child laborer with the severed finger understood something and looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

"Sir, will you come again next time?"

The washerwoman and the dock boy also looked over.

Chen Chen glanced at the endless queue.

"I'll come if I have the chance."

He turned and walked into the fog.

The fog in Backlund thickened at dusk.

Grayish-white steam surged up from both sides of the street, engulfing the red brick walls of Tieshi Street and the coughs and footsteps of the queuing crowd.

It's as if nothing happened...

Chen Chen's gray coat quickly blended into the mist, leaving only a gradually fading outline.