The most shameless alchemist in history

“My name is Dure, and your name is… Winry, right?” Dure also remembered her name.

"Yes, yes, I am Winnie. I haven't had a chance to properly thank you last time!" Winnie nodded, very happy to run into someone she knew.

"Boss, it seems that the man and woman know each other. He must have come to rescue her. What should we do?" Just as Du Lei and Wen Li were talking, one of the men in black surrounding them asked the leader for his opinion.

"Is there any need to say anything? Kill them all!" The leader of the men in black glared hatefully at Dure and Winry before waving his hand to give the order.

"Huh? I didn't come here to save her, and I'm not that familiar with her. Don't get me wrong... You really came?" Du Lei saw the gleaming blade slashing down at him and tried to explain, but the other party's response was just a vicious slash.

Fortunately, he dodged quickly; otherwise, it's uncertain whether he would have survived that blow.

"There's no other way, Wenli, you need to hide behind her!" Du Lei knew that explaining was useless at this point, and he couldn't stand by and watch Wenli, a girl, being chased and attacked by a group of people. He pulled Wenli behind him and pulled out a hunting knife from his boot to parry the attacks.

On one side, Du Lei was struggling against a group of people attacking him, while on the other side of the square, someone was humming a tune and fastening their belt.

"Speaking of which, where did Du Lei go? He's been acting all mysterious these past few days, and I haven't seen him this late. Could he have gone to the library again? Oh well, never mind him. I don't know if he ate something bad today, but he keeps going to the toilet. He's gone six or seven times tonight."

Lance touched his stomach, his face slightly pale and not looking good. The persistent diarrhea had left him feeling weak.

"I'll have to get some medicine from the infirmary tomorrow, hopefully I won't have diarrhea again tonight... Hey? Why is it so noisy up ahead? In the middle of the night, are people still fighting?" Lance had originally planned to turn around the west square and go back to his dormitory to sleep.

But he happened to see a commotion ahead, and upon closer inspection, he saw a group of people fighting together.

Although Maple Leaf Academy strictly prohibits students from fighting privately, fights and brawls happen frequently in private. Even if some conflicts can be resolved on the training ground, with countless eyes watching, no one dares to go too far and attract criticism, which the academy will also intervene in.

However, the conflicts that were not resolved on the training field led to countless private fights. Lance knew of four such fights this month alone. He wasn't particularly interested in these things at first, but after rubbing his eyes, he realized something was amiss.

"Wait a minute, that figure looks familiar. Is it someone I know? But I haven't heard of anyone arranging a fight tonight. Let me see..." Lance looked closely. He couldn't see clearly from a distance, so he moved closer.

"That guy is... Dure? What's going on? Someone's bullying my brother? And they did it when I wasn't here? Is there no reasoning with them? Dure, don't worry, I'm coming to help you. Grab your weapons and kill them!" Lance recognized Dure and shouted, charging forward menacingly.

.

What does 370 smell like?

Lance was never the type to calmly think things through, which was the complete opposite of Dure. He was extremely hot-blooded and easily impulsive. When he saw Dure being ganged up on, he didn't care about anything else, grabbed his weapon, and rushed in to join the battle.

Lance thought that someone was definitely trying to mess with Dure, because Dure had offended quite a few people before. Going back to the past, there was that ill-tempered young lady, and more recently, there was Sido and Simon's group. Fights and brawls were not uncommon at Maple Leaf Academy.

But when Lance rushed over, he quickly realized something was wrong. While other people would grab bricks or stools to make a show of force when fighting, the group beating up Dure was carrying gleaming knives and guns. This caught Lance off guard and didn't react at first.

"Hey guys, what's the meaning of this? Is it really necessary to bring knives to a fight? Isn't this going a bit too far?" Lance glared at the other person. Even at this point, he still thought that the other person was a student of Maple Leaf Academy like them.

"Fighting?" The leader of the group of men in black who were chasing Dure and Winry stopped and looked at Lance, wondering what the kid was talking about.

"Lance? What are you doing here? Don't just stand there, go and call someone!" Dure was also startled by Lance's appearance. He reacted quickly and, in the moment of awkwardness, shouted at Lance to do what he was supposed to do.

"Call for help? Who are you calling?" Lance was still a little confused. In his memory, Dure was not the kind of person who would get into fights or form gangs.

"There's some noise over there, hurry up and see who you are!" Just as Du Lei was anxious and trying not to let Lance understand his meaning, a voice rang out behind them. Someone was shouting loudly in their direction, and Du Lei was familiar with the voice.

"Boss, it's the academy. Our whereabouts have been exposed. What should we do?" A man in black saw a group of students rushing towards them. If this were anywhere else, they wouldn't mind a real fight, but this was different. They were inside Maple Leaf Academy.

They had been operating in the shadows, and now that their activities had been exposed, their influence had halved. As more and more elite students came to reinforce them, they lost the other half of their power. This made the leading cadres grit their teeth in hatred, as success was clearly within reach.

"There's no other way, we have to retreat now. Damn it, how dare you guys ruin my plans! This won't end like this!" The officer glared hatefully at Dure and Lance before waving his hand to order his men to retreat. They couldn't fall into the hands of the academy.

"They're the attackers! Stop right there! Stop right there... Chase them!" Flying Fish, who was in charge of leading the patrol, quickly saw the scene ahead and understood the situation. He frowned, shouted a command, and ordered the students to give chase.

This wasn't the first time he'd encountered attackers at Maple Leaf Academy. In fact, he'd faced them several times before, and each time the attackers had escaped. This infuriated the usually arrogant Flying Fish, who vowed to capture them. Now, the attackers were appearing one after another.

This was clearly a provocation against his authority, which was why Flying Fish had strengthened his nighttime defenses, but he never expected to encounter something like this.

"They...are they all gone? Dure, what exactly happened? And who are they?" Lance only realized that things weren't so simple after the group of men in black had completely disappeared.

“I’m not entirely clear on the details either. I think we should find another place to talk.” Du Lei’s expression was grave. He had experienced similar things several times before. His first reaction was that the other party was still after him, but after thinking about it carefully, he realized that it was not the same group of people.

Filled with many questions, he could only wave his hand, signaling them to leave this dangerous place for the time being.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the academy, a group of people dressed in black night clothes were lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to strike. They hid in the trees, observing every move ahead, like ghosts in the night, or like hunters, striving to find the best hunting position.

"We failed the first two times, and this is the third time. We absolutely cannot fail, otherwise we won't be able to explain ourselves to our employer, and our reputation in the industry will be affected. We fell for that cunning kid's tricks the first two times, but this time... we will definitely not fail!"

The leader was a slender woman dressed in black. Judging from her voice, she seemed to be a woman. She was instructing her subordinates. She was originally very confident that she could close this deal in no time, but she had failed twice in a row.

This dealt a heavy blow to her self-esteem, and she was determined to teach that guy a lesson and salvage her reputation.

"Boss, we'll definitely complete the mission... Huh? Boss, what's going on up ahead? It looks like someone's running towards us." Among the men in black hiding in the big tree, a slightly overweight man whispered. He looked to weigh at least 160 or 170 pounds.

If he were over 1.8 meters tall, he would be considered strong, but he is less than 1.6 meters tall, which makes him look particularly bulky. Yet, despite his bulkiness, he managed to stand on the tree without falling, although the swaying branches were quite worrying.

But it was also clear that he was a typical agile fat guy. Under the moonlight, he saw a group of guys dressed in black rushing towards him not far away, which puzzled him because they didn't look like they were from Maple Leaf Academy. Hence, he asked the question.

"Who's coming at us? They're so fast! They've all disappeared. I didn't even get a good look at them!" The woman, referred to as the "boss," bent down to try and see what was happening in front of her, but the other party vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye, leaving her completely bewildered.

"Where are they? They've disappeared! We can't let them get away this time. We have to catch them. We can't let them go easily. Hmm? What's that smell?" Fei Yu led his men over, but he looked around and couldn't find the group of men in black from before. He had lost track of their target.

At this moment, he made full use of his keen sense of smell and quickly focused his attention on the large tree not far ahead.

"Boss, isn't that dead-fish-eyed guy the one who chased us twice before? I really don't want to see his face... Oh no, what's that expression on his face, Boss? It seems like he's got his eye on us." The nimble fat man next to the boss swallowed hard.

Although he didn't know Flying Fish's name, he had dealt with him twice before. Even though they both managed to escape and weren't caught by Flying Fish, he developed a psychological aversion to the man with the dead fish eyes because those dead fish eyes were just too persistent!

"No way, we're so well hidden, no one will find us..." The leader was surprised; she had great confidence in her hiding skills.

"There's no mistaking this scent, it's... a woman's scent! They're right there! Surround that tree!" Flying Fish made a decisive move, giving the order to the tree. He had successfully pinpointed the target's location!

This website's address is [website address].

371 He was in the backyard

Du Lei had dealt with the men in black twice before. Although he hadn't removed their masks to find out who they were, he could clearly tell that the two previous groups were not the same as the ones he encountered tonight. The two previous groups were definitely after him.

But tonight's people were clearly after Wenli. This was the second time Dure had seen this directionally challenged girl who had gotten into trouble because she was lost. He originally wanted to ask Wenli for clarification, but soon after, the academy's deer teacher arrived and took Wenli away.

With the teacher present, Du Lei didn't dare to ask any more questions. Fei Yu seemed to know some inside information, but he remained tight-lipped about it. Du Lei knew that Fei Yu was also in a difficult position, so he swallowed all his curiosity and stopped asking. After all, he wasn't involved and was just a passerby.

The next day, news of assassins appearing one after another in the academy spread, with all sorts of rumors circulating. Some said that someone in the academy had offended someone and brought about their death, while others said that a rival force of a certain family had sent assassins to kill the heir of that family in order to strike at their enemy.

All of this, but Dure had no interest in these rumors and did not participate in the discussion. In fact, he was no longer curious about who the group that attacked Winry last night was. Now, all he could think about was the matter of the magical weapons.

To be more precise, it concerns the forging of the prototype for the magic-powered weapon. Last night, he handed over the main material, the tendon of the Blackwater Python, to Tie Xin. Although some auxiliary materials are still missing, Tie Xin promised that he would take care of them. Du Lei has reason to believe that Tie Xin is a very capable person.

This can be seen in many ways. For example, the clanging of blacksmiths late at night has been tolerated by the fierce neighbors for so many years. You know, the shops on the streets below the college all have connections, and not just anyone can show off their power.

Du Lei had tried to extract some information from Fei Yu, but Fei Yu was much more cunning than he appeared. He quickly changed the subject and didn't discuss Tie Xin with Du Lei at all, leaving Du Lei with no way to get a starting point and forcing him to give up.

However, given the short timeframe of forging the blank, Du Lei found it hard to imagine that Tie Xin could complete it in just one day, and even if he did, what kind of product would he create? He was not an optimistic person to begin with, so it was completely impossible for him to be optimistic at a time like this.

"I hope I don't die too tragically." Du Lei looked up at the moonlight. He had delivered the raw materials to Tie Xin at this time yesterday. He had already gone there once at dusk, but Shirley had told him on Tie Xin's behalf that it wasn't ready yet and that he should come back later.

At that time, Du Lei had a bad feeling. Sure enough, Tie Xin couldn't handle it in such a short time. He was just overthinking it.

He was climbing over the wall again tonight to retrieve the embryo of the magical weapon, carrying the heavy heart of someone who had come to hear the death knell.

"Du Lei, Du Lei, you're finally here? I've been waiting for you for so long." After Du Lei knocked on the door, Sherry quickly ran over and opened it. When she saw Du Lei, she rushed forward and took his arm, looking very happy.

"Sherry, you don't need to wait for me. It's so late, you should go and rest." Du Lei gently pinched her nose, pointed to the stairs, and gestured for Sherry to go up and sleep. Normally, she would have been asleep long ago, but she hadn't slept well for the past two days, resulting in dark circles under her eyes.

"No, no, I don't want to! Sherry wants to wait for you, Du Lei. I wanted to wait with you yesterday, but I fell asleep, which was so disappointing." Sherry was very annoyed when she recalled last night.

"Where is Uncle Tiexin? Is he still in the workshop?" Du Lei knew that although Shirley was young, she was incredibly stubborn. He knew he couldn't persuade Shirley, so he could only go and find Tiexin. He didn't know why, but from the moment he entered the room, he felt that something was missing.

“You mean Father? He’s not in the workshop, he’s in the backyard. Go find him.” Shirley pointed to the backyard gate.

"The backyard? No wonder I felt something was missing. It turns out it was the sound of blacksmithing. Looks like your neighbors can get a good night's sleep tonight, Sherry." Du Lei finally realized that what was missing was the "clang clang clang" sound, and he joked.

"Hehehe, it's not as exaggerated as you say, Du Lei. Although Father always works late into the night, Sherry sleeps very well every night. If the neighbors can't sleep well, but Sherry can sleep soundly, wouldn't Sherry be a little pig?"

Sherry said with a smile, leading Dure towards the backyard and opening the door.

“Even if it’s a pig, it’s the cutest pig.” Du Lei had a very good impression of Sherry. In fact, Sherry had helped him a lot with the forging of the embryo. He knew very well that if it weren’t for Sherry, Tie Xin would not have paid any attention to him at all.

"Alright, Du Lei, you should take care of your business first." Sherry was very understanding and pushed Du Lei into the backyard while she went to do other things.

After watching Sherry leave, Du Lei turned and went to the backyard. The backyard was much more spacious than the front hall and workshop. Backed by the back mountain, there was a big tree in the middle of the courtyard. Its branches and leaves were as big as a big umbrella, but the most eye-catching thing in the backyard was not this giant tree.

Instead, it is a river that flows from east to west, with babbling brooks and splashing water. The moonlight in the sky is reflected in the river, and a gentle evening breeze blows, making the water sparkle beautifully.

"This is really a nice place. I didn't expect such a small blacksmith shop to have such a backyard. But where is Uncle Tie Xin? Uncle Tie Xin, Uncle Tie Xin..." Du Lei looked around and clicked his tongue in amazement. While he was admiring him, he began to look for Tie Xin. He glanced around but did not see anyone else.

So he began to call out softly, in the quiet of the night, when all was still.

"That's strange. Didn't Sherry say that Uncle Tiexin was in the backyard? But where is he?" Du Lei was puzzled. He took a few steps forward, trying to find Tiexin's whereabouts. Tiexin had clearly asked him to come and find him at this time, but he was playing hide-and-seek and couldn't find him.

“Uncle Tie Xin is such a serious and upright person, he would never joke with me, right? Maybe he went to... the toilet?” Du Lei tried to explain why Tie Xin did not appear, and found the only reason that he thought made sense.

"Then I'll wait a bit longer, hmm? Who is it?" Du Lei was about to sit down on the stone bench to wait when a sharp gust of wind suddenly came from behind him.

He cried out in surprise as something flew towards his side with a "whoosh"!

This website's address is [website address].

372 The final step

The sudden gust of wind startled Dure, who broke out in a cold sweat. Without thinking, he instinctively turned to the side and dodged, a conditioned reflex developed over many years of hunting in the snowy mountains. He could clearly feel something fly past his cheek.

He knew very well that he was being targeted by someone hiding in the shadows. His previous evasion had almost pushed his body to its limit. After less than a second of thought, he immediately moved and sprinted towards a large tree not far away, hiding behind it.

With the trunk of the large tree as cover, Du Lei was able to catch his breath for a moment and carefully observe his surroundings. Based on the angle from which his cheek had just been grazed, he discerned the direction of the attack and found the dagger hidden inside his trouser leg. He then bent over and prepared to counterattack.

"Don't be nervous, it's just testing whether the thing works." Under Du Lei's wary gaze, someone slowly walked over. With the help of the moonlight, Du Lei was able to see the person's true face clearly. That sturdy figure and resolute face, who else could it be but Shirley's father, Tie Xin?

"Uncle Tie Xin? What are you doing? You scared me to death just now. And this is... an arrow?" Du Lei finally breathed a sigh of relief after recognizing Tie Xin, because he knew Tie Xin well, although Du Lei was very clear about the fact that Tie Xin did not like him.

But he knew that Tie Xin had no reason to take his life. He turned back to look at the tree trunk and recognized the object that had just been shot at him as an arrow, or more precisely, a crossbow bolt. He tried to pull the bolt out of the tree trunk, but failed several times.

"That's right, it is indeed an arrow. Your reaction was so-so. Using it wouldn't be a waste of its potential." The blacksmith held a crossbow in his hand. The crossbow was completely black, and under the moonlight, it reflected a faint moonlight, like flowing water.

"So-so? I was almost shot to death just now, okay? Uncle Tie Xin, I know you have a lot of opinions about me, but you don't have to treat me like this. And what exactly is this crossbow..." Du Lei finally figured out that the person who attacked him from the shadows was the blacksmith.

Even though he had tried his best to remain calm, he couldn't help but complain after experiencing the terrifying scene just now.

"This was made using the tendons of the Blackwater Python you sent, as well as the Cold Light Moon Soul as auxiliary materials. It's the prototype for the magic-powered weapon you requested." The blacksmith handed the crossbow, which was about half the length of an average person's arm, to Du Lei. The latter was stunned for a moment, but still accepted it.

"Is this the crossbow that was made? This is quite unexpected." Dure carefully touched the crossbow body; it was icy cold to the touch. Before coming here, he was wondering whether the blacksmith had completed the magic-powered armament for him, and he hadn't yet figured out what kind of magic-powered armament it would be.

"Whether it works well or not, just make do with it. I'm a blacksmith, all I know is how to forge iron in a furnace. I learned a bit about tinkering with mechanisms when I was young, but I've forgotten most of it now. If you want to improve it, go find another craftsman. I'm not responsible for making improvements."

The blacksmith pointed to his work and gave a brief introduction, but at first glance, he didn't seem to have any sense of accomplishment about it.

"As for the crossbow bolts, you can use whatever kind you want. You can replenish them yourself later. I can only give you twelve. Once you use one, you'll have one less. I have to remind you that you'd better use these twelve bolts sparingly. In short, whether they work well or not is up to you."