Alchemy Principles of Type-Moon World

He turned, pulled the small flask he carried from his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and tipped back the remaining half-full of liquor. The pungent alcohol slid down his throat, leaving a burning pain, but he couldn't get the slightest bit of intoxication from the alcohol, and after finishing the drink, he found no solace from reality. Reality remained crystal clear, and his eyes never left the forest of ropes before him, those knots dragging him back to the cold basement.

Xing Qingwu calmed down, his eyes becoming more profound. He secretly calculated in his mind:

Thirty-three main ropes—if each rope represents a year's worth of records—meaning Isidro has been hunting ordinary people for thirty-three years. He left the Clock Tower in 1948, and there has been a gap of less than twenty years since then. Where did Isidro obtain these bodies during these twenty years? What was he doing? What motivated him to embark on this brutal enterprise?

"What on earth is this old man planning..." Xing Qingfeng muttered to himself. Suddenly, as if he had grasped some important clue, he quickly shuttled between the ropes, carefully identifying the number and distribution of knots on each main rope, and soon found the rope he was looking for -

It was a main rope with a single branch tied to it. It looked newer than the surrounding ropes, showing no signs of wear and tear. Xing Qingfeng crouched down, approached the single branch, and stared at the blue knot on it, countless guesses and speculations forming in his mind.

He stood up and slowly arranged the ropes in chronological order, finally coming up with a rough timeline.

"When did you start cooperating with that old man?" Xing Qingfu turned his gaze to the shivering spirit beside him, his voice cold.

The spirit seemed intimidated by his tone, cowering and looking up. Its ethereal form trembled slightly, as if drawn into a distant memory. "I... I don't know the exact year..." The spirit hesitated for a moment, then stammered, "I only remember it was about ten years ago..."

"Sixteen years?" Xing Qingwu asked quickly.

The spirit nodded slowly and whispered, "Yes... It seems to have been around sixteen years ago... It started around that time... The old man came to me and told me to take care of it... The heart was his reward."

Xing Qingfeng stared at the dark ropes before him, his fingertips lightly touching them. The basement was still filled with a heavy, dull atmosphere. The dim light from the magic made the forest of ropes appear particularly eerie in the shadows.

"The knots on the first twenty-seven ropes are almost all red." He spoke slowly, his voice low and filled with a hint of uncontrollable disgust.

Red, the most primitive and direct color, is as bright as blood.

"It wasn't until the twenty-eighth knot..." He frowned slightly and sighed, "Sixteen years ago that the knots on it began to turn green, and then blue."

"The color of the knots..." Xing Qingyu muttered to himself, feeling a strong sense of disgust. He subconsciously closed his eyes, trying to calm down, but soon forced himself to open them again and continued to look directly at the thirty-three ropes in front of him. "But the red knots have the most number - 溜靈弍鸸厁司爸爸⑧丝君羊"

"-People who have gone through your ritual will have more magic power in their bodies, right?" Xing Qingfu asked without turning his head.

The spirit's shadow trembled slightly before slowly answering, "Yes, the Aztec ritual of human sacrifice forcibly infuses the victim's body with magical energy... ultimately, about half of it accumulates in the heart." The spirit lowered its head slightly, a hint of uneasiness in its tone, "while the other half remains in the remaining corpse."

"Then, we can propose the following hypothesis..." Xing Qingqi closed his eyes, suppressing the raging anger within him, and heaved a long sigh. The scene before him made him feel sick, and a nameless indignation turned into a sour breath that rose in his throat. He turned his head and reached out to touch the knots, his fingertips brushing against each red knot. "—Improvements in technology have led to a significant decrease in demand, so the indicator has shifted from red, indicating insufficient expression, to green and blue, indicating sufficient expression."

"Ha, it's precisely because of the improved craftsmanship that the number of knots in the last sixteen years is less than that in the first sixteen years. That's how you understand it, sir."

"Do you remember how many people you killed last time?" He suddenly threw a sentence at the spirit without turning his head.

The spirit's image swayed slightly in the air, as if stunned for a moment, before answering without hesitation, "I don't remember." The spirit seemed to have lost its fear, and its tone was instead eerily calm as it slowly said, "I don't have the habit of keeping work records."

Xing Qingqiu's lips twitched slightly, a hint of a cold smile forming. "Ha, 'Work records,'" he repeated in a low voice, a hint of helpless fatigue and anger. He felt a tightness in his chest, his gaze returning to the ropes. The knots bore no names, not even any specific information. These symbols lay silently, faithfully recording the number of each "cargo" sent here. Those individuals who once possessed life had lost all dignity and value here.

The Inca Empire fell in 1572, and the knotted cord system disappeared with it, existing only in the archives of archaeologists and historians. But now, more than years later, the descendants of the Spanish colonists who caused the fall of the Inca Empire have inherited this system of record keeping to record their crimes over the past years.

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I've been busy these past two days, so I'm sorry for the late update.

The above is a new book by a new author. Please vote and give me feedback. Thank you!

Volume 33: Symbiosis: . The Incompetent

Xing Qing walked up the stairs from the basement, his footsteps making a low thud on the steps. His eyes were dark, and a hint of heaviness remained on his face. When he returned to the ground level, he saw Kenneth coming in from the backyard, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Have you found anything else up there?" Xing Qingqi glanced around the front hall. Everything had been turned upside down. The room was already minimalist, so no matter how hard he searched, there wasn't much left to search. The walls were slightly mottled from the damp air. And after all this rummaging through the cabinets, the room looked even more dilapidated.

"Nothing else," Kenneth shook his head slightly, with a hint of doubt in his eyes, and then added, "But I just walked a distance along the path in the backyard, and I have some guesses, but I'm not sure -"

"--We came here in a hurry and didn't bring a map, so we can't confirm our location for the time being," Kenneth paused and said hesitantly, as if he was not sure whether the direction of this trail was anywhere.

"Do you think that direction is where the legendary ORT is located?" Xing Qingyu quickly understood what Kenneth was worried about, and his tone was filled with speculation.

"Well, if we continue in this direction," Kenneth thought for a moment and nodded, "we'll officially enter the Amazon rainforest. Although ORT is almost a household name in the magic world, its exact location is actually still considered taboo, and public information is very limited."

He turned and looked towards the backyard, as if sketching a map in his mind, vaguely pointing to the depths of the mysterious forest. Sunlight shone into the front hall through the broken window frames, bringing a faint light to the gloomy room, but also making the depressing atmosphere here even more obvious.

"If we really want to explore this direction," Kenneth said softly, his tone somewhat cautious, "with my Lord's authority, I should be able to obtain the relevant permission, but if necessary, I may have to contact the dean."

"I see. It just so happens that I think I should go back." Xing Qingyu sighed slightly tiredly, stroking the edge of his sleeves with his fingers, as if thinking about his next move.

Kenneth stared at Xing Qingjiu, his brows slightly furrowed. His tone was calm but with a hint of doubt, "Is there any progress on those knots you saw in the basement?"

Xing Qingqiu was silent for a moment, a flicker of helplessness and fatigue in his eyes. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, pondering those suffocating clues. "I... can't be sure." He took a deep breath, his voice low. "I need more evidence to support it. Based on the current situation, I've only found a logically coherent theory, but it's just a preliminary guess."

"Really? Then let's set up a barrier here and mark the area. We'll go back and make preparations before continuing," Kenneth said after a moment's thought. "Since this involves the legendary ORT, I think we should be cautious."

"But if I must say, I think that ORT's record is not as good as the teacher's," Xing Qingfeng thought for a moment and suddenly said, "Isn't there only one crown rank and six color rank rank——"

"——The teacher's record back then seemed similar, but he made it to the workshop and also took away a lot of sacrifices and other things. In terms of KDA alone, it's pretty good."

"Do you dare to challenge Sir Isaac's workshop without any preparation?"

"I dare not." Xing Qingyu answered quickly, and he also used the jokes to vent some of the anger in his heart. "So let's go back first, but before that-"

"—is there anything else you know?"

Xing Qingwu suddenly turned around and looked at the Mexican magician who had been silent beside him.

The Mexican magician raised his head from the silence, his eyes revealing an eerie calm. He glanced at Xing Qingjiu with a somewhat calm expression, as if he had already recognized the situation. "I've already told you everything I know," he replied flatly, as if his will to survive had completely vanished. "As for anything else, I truly have no way of knowing."

"We can sign a binding contract," Xing Qingfeng continued. "Tell me everything you know, and I'll let you go."

"Haha, just give me a quick win," the magician chuckled, a look of relief in his eyes. "If it were an ordinary magician, I might believe it, but you're different—"

"—You're different. You have morals and are willing to abide by them." He raised his head slightly, the bitterness on his face gradually turning into self-mockery. "So I absolutely cannot tell you these things, I absolutely cannot reveal the secrets here, because if I do, I will surely die."

"Yes, I've always been Isidro's accomplice. He's responsible for delivering the raw materials to me, and I'm responsible for executing and processing them. That's my division of labor." The magician's will to live had completely vanished. After realizing that he was doomed to die, he instead mustered up an inexplicable courage. "This is all I know. No matter how much hypnosis you use, you won't be able to learn anything more..."

"I don't know what Isidro wants to do, but what he does must be similar to what I do," the magician said. "I've only been doing this for more than ten years, while he has been doing it for more than forty. Ha, the number of hearts he sends every quarter combined is more than I can use up in my next lifetime. But what can I do? The old man has already dragged me into this boat. What he does must be worse and more despicable than mine..."

"Aren't you finished yet?" Xing Qingyu interrupted his chattering calmly, his eyes cold and without any mercy.

"I don't have any last words to say." The magician smiled instead, "As a magician, you should be prepared to die at any time."

"If I really have to say something, I'm the last person in my family to dabble in magic." He paused, a hint of sadness in his expression. "My wife is a local, an ordinary housewife. My child also plans to enter a university in New York and wants to take us away from this hellhole."

"I suppose a kindhearted person like you wouldn't take your anger out on them, would you?" the magician said calmly. "You don't need to bother investigating other members of my family who were involved; it's just me."

A gloomy expression crossed the Mexican magician's face, his eyes filled with struggling anger and unwillingness. He took a deep breath, as if drawing courage from the depths of his heart, and then slowly spoke, "My magic is engraved on my left shoulder. Once you dig it out, you should be able to find my workshop..." He paused, his voice tinged with false pride, like a dying man trying to salvage his dignity at the last moment. "...I also have some independent work that might be useful to you—"

"——It's about how to add modern medicine ingredients to the spiritual medicine formula while making it unaffected by magical transmutation." He looked up at Xing Qingjiu with a smug smile in his eyes, "This kind of research...even if——"

"This kind of research?" Xing Qingqiu interrupted him coldly, with undisguised sarcasm, "I already achieved results when I was researching magic transmutation a few years ago. It only took me a week—"

"—Anything else you want to say?"

"..."

The magician's face turned livid, his words choking in his throat. An awkward silence filled the air. He froze for a moment, then finally closed his eyes, as if all his pride and pretense had been mercilessly stripped away, leaving only the pitiful shell of a loser. He sighed softly, and with a sneer that bordered on despair, he slowly said, "No more."

After a moment's silence, he continued, with a malicious sneer, "Magicians are just that kind of creature. The mysterious pie is limited. If we don't plunder and fight for it, we simply can't survive—"

"——And those of us who make a living by plundering and fighting will one day be plundered by others, and our lives will eventually fall into the hands of others." He sneered, "I accept it."

"Oh? You mean the pie is so small, the law of the jungle is natural, and if you don't try to snatch it from others, sooner or later someone stronger will come snatch it from you?" Xing Qingqiu sneered, his eyes filled with indifference and contempt. "How ridiculous. The shortsightedness of you bourgeois people is sometimes really amusing—"

"--Just like they always think that the financial crisis is inevitable." He snapped his fingers lightly, and a cluster of flames suddenly shot out from the soles of the magician's feet. The flames slowly crawled up his legs like a poisonous snake, devouring his flesh and soul. Every inch of burning flesh dragged out the magician's originally hidden pain and fear.

"You say nice things, but in the end, you're nothing but parasites wielding your sword against the weaker ones." Xing Qingfeng sneered, his eyes filled with an almost cruel delight. "You don't have the ability to exist independently of society, yet you still think of yourselves as superior. People like you are nothing but pure social parasites. Every time I meet people like you, you keep saying that you were forced into this—"

"—But you're just a bunch of incompetent losers. Species like yours deserve extinction. Do you understand?"

Flames licked the magician's body, his face gradually twisting, his expression of agony making him look like a dying prey. He clenched his teeth, as if trying to hold on to his last bit of pride, but under the excruciating pain, the corners of his mouth trembled slightly, and his eyes trembled with despair.

"Can't an incompetent person... just live?" The flames gradually climbed up his chest, the burning of his soul driving him almost insane with agony. His face twisted into a hideous form, his forehead covered in cold sweat, and a faint lingering desire for life still lingered in his eyes.

"Find out your place," Xing Qingqiu looked down at him coldly, his voice full of contempt, "A perpetrator like you has no right to ask such questions—"

"—Besides, do you really have no choice?"

"..."

The blazing firelight made the room flicker, and the shadows on the walls were distorted into various shapes due to the dancing flames, as if groups of ghosts were dancing on the walls, dark and grotesque.

Xing Qingyu stood before the burning magician, his eyes filled with a morbid excitement and mockery. He crossed his arms, looking down at his struggle with indifference. The flames had already climbed up the magician's chest. His body twisted madly, unable to bear the excruciating pain. He waved his hands in vain, trying to bat away the flames, but the flames hungrily clung to him, refusing to let go.

The magician raised his pained face, his eyes hollow and filled with a hint of desperate struggle. He tried to speak, but the intense burning pain prevented him from uttering a single word. Seeing him like this, Xing Qingqi chuckled softly, his words filled with coldness and mockery. "You're about to die, and you're already playing the emotional card? You're pretending to be innocent? What have you been doing?"

"I've seen too many magicians like you. When you do bad things, you're smug, as if you're in control. But when you're caught, you pretend to have changed your ways, hoping to be forgiven. I'm curious, what were you doing before? When did people like you become so repentant?"

Xing Qingfu snorted coldly and continued sarcastically, "You're trying to get me to agree with your pathetic 'ideas' by engaging in ridiculous sophistry with me. Do you think I'll be soft-hearted? Do you think I'm mentally retarded?" He leaned closer to the magician, his eyes filled with contempt, his voice low and cold, "You only have a few pounds of brains. Don't treat everyone else as if they were just as morons as you."

The magician's body twisted violently in agony, his eyes wide with fear and rage, and cold sweat streamed down his forehead. He struggled, finally unable to suppress the rage and jealousy within him, and practically roared out the resentment deep within him.

"I'm so jealous of you!" His voice was choked with sobs and despair, hoarse and painful, his eyes burning with jealousy. "You can freely research in the Clock Tower and pursue your ambitions, while we... can only survive in this damn place by cannibalizing humans... I won't accept this!"

Xing Qingyu stared at him coldly, the mockery in his eyes becoming increasingly apparent. He smiled cruelly, ruthlessly exposing his self-pity. "You know what? That nonchalant look you had just now really disgusted me."

"Ha!" Xing Qingqi laughed loudly, his wild laughter echoing throughout the room. "I will remember you like this. Whenever I feel unhappy in the future, I will think of the filthy looks of you incompetent people—"

"——Whenever I think about you, useless people who can neither get ahead nor get down, being jealous of me, I feel incredibly happy."

The flames grew fiercer, slowly consuming the magician's life. His expression grew pale and powerless, and he struggled to open his mouth, but couldn't utter even a final word. Xing Qingqi's smile gradually faded, and he watched expressionlessly as the last vestiges of his soul burned away. He said coldly, "Trash is trash. Why are you still trying to justify yourself when you're about to die?"

"They are just a bunch of pathetic people bound by gravity, unaware they are dying." Nothing remained in the air. Xing Qingfeng lowered his eyes and muttered to himself, "ridiculous."

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When I was conceiving this plot, my original idea was that the protagonist must not lose in terms of logic or momentum, so I deliberately wrote in this direction.

But why does it feel like he is written in a villainous way?

The above is a new book by a new author. Please vote and give me feedback. Thank you!

Volume 34: Symbiotic Relationships: . Why are you the unlucky one again?

The laboratory was filled with a strong smell of burning, black smoke billowing through the air. The burned reactor was reduced to shattered metal fragments, scattered around. Glass shards and the remains of various laboratory instruments were mixed together on the floor, and bright spots reflected the faint light. The walls were covered with traces of explosions, with black scorch marks extending from the center of the explosion. The air was filled with a pungent chemical smell.

The records of the experiments over the past few days were also slowly turned into ashes in the sea of fire, but the problem was not too big. After all, Xing Qingfu used two thousand degrees to burn monosaccharides, so it would be haunted if there was any result.

Weber collapsed in a corner of the laboratory, his body covered in horrific burns. His clothes were ripped almost to pieces by the flames and explosion, and his skin was covered in burn marks, some even revealing a bloody mess of flesh. A charred stench emanated. His eyes were closed in his coma, and his breathing was so weak that it seemed as if he would soon stop. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest indicated that he was still alive.

It looks like a testing accident—

—assuming you ignore Isidro, who was confronting Patricia in the corridor outside the lab. The old man was hunched and sickly, his limbs twisted at odd angles, clearly broken by force. His arms and legs dangled at his sides like a crippled puppet.

Isidro, whose limbs had been broken and all his magic circuits destroyed, had long since withered under the effects of the constant cognitive modification magic. Xing Qing was even considering increasing the amount of elixir used to barely sustain his life. After all, the old man looked like he was about to die.

—But even this half-dead old man, with his limbs broken, managed to regain his mobility within eight hours of Xing Qingjiu and Kenneth's departure. With his magic circuits completely destroyed, he managed to use magic to blow away Weber, who had woken up early in the morning to prepare for another round of imprisonment, along with the furnace.

The flames within the laboratory blazed, crimson tongues of flame greedily crawling and spreading across the floor, consuming anything they could devour. The flames' terrifying heat practically distorted the surrounding air, and waves of heat, accompanied by a pungent chemical odor, made it difficult to breathe. The flames danced erratically, picking up debris and scattered chemicals on the laboratory table, igniting them into a sea of blazing inferno. A mingled odor of burning, gunpowder smoke, and the acrid odor of chemicals filled the air as the entire laboratory was engulfed in this sudden, raging flame.

Firelight leaked from the laboratory door, illuminating Isidro's face in a flickering manner, making the old man's deformed figure appear cold and eerie. Patricia frowned slightly, a hint of unease and resistance in her eyes.

She hadn't wanted to get involved in this mess, but now she could only curse herself for having brought bad luck to the city. She hadn't happened to be walking through the hallway at that exact moment. If Isidro had been left alone, Weber would most likely have died. And if anything happened to Weber, Patricia knew she would be the target of Xing Qingfeng and Kenneth's wrath.

But what if I were to face Isidro here?

Her gaze returned to Isidro, her mind replaying the moment he'd unleashed the flames. Isidro hadn't chanted a single word, not even a hint of magical prelude. The flames had erupted from his very being, sweeping across the entire laboratory. Such a high-intensity magical outburst would have been nearly impossible for a normal magician without any chanting or ritual preparation. Yet, the Isidro before her, his limbs twisted, his body as weak as a leaf in the wind, casually threw a large object.

She had originally thought that places like South America wouldn't have many decent magicians, but now, every magician she'd met seemed more capable than she was. She'd solemnly assured Guanyue Ringo before entering the city that the magicians here were nothing to be feared.

— and now she felt like a clown.

"You, get out of here," Isidro glanced at Patricia and spoke in a hoarse voice, "You have... the remains of God on you. Now get out of here."

Patricia swallowed subconsciously under Isidro's cold gaze, but still did not retreat.

"I don't really want to confront you. I really don't feel like it...but it's all my bad luck," Patricia forced herself to take a deep breath, raised her head and responded, her tone tinged with self-mockery and helplessness. "In the long run, if I offend you, the worst that can happen is I won't come to South America again, and then there won't be any problems—"

"--But if I offend those two, if I want to live comfortably in this life, I might have to find a way to obtain Chinese citizenship or move to the Arctic and become an Inuit."

"How about this? I won't stop you from leaving." She sighed softly, feeling the symbiote within her becoming increasingly restless. She secretly gathered a little magic power in her hands, narrowed her eyes, and said tentatively, "But the person inside must be alive, so that I can also..."

Before he finished speaking, a deafening explosion suddenly echoed in the corridor, but the target of the flames was not Patricia——

—It was a dark red gem embedded in the corridor wall. With a flash of fire, the gem shattered into countless tiny sparks, and flames instantly swept across the corridor.

At this moment, Kenneth's voice rang out in the corridor, carrying a cold sarcasm, as if coming from all directions, enveloping Isidro:

"I thought it was some clueless magician who had the audacity to cause trouble in my workshop." Kenneth's voice was filled with murderous intent and a hint of playful sneer. "So it's you, you old bastard."

The sound was ethereal and vague, as if coming from some distant place. It carried a faint chill, like a deep winter wind, piercing Isidro's very bones. He was slightly startled, a trace of unease passing through his heart. Even so, he stubbornly turned around, trying to identify the source of the sound.

"Who?" Isidro whispered to himself, forcing himself to turn his head to search for the source of the sound. However, as soon as he moved, a faint buzzing sound rang in his ears, like the tiny echo of metal trembling. Before he could react, an invisible force suddenly struck him like a sharp blade.

In an instant, Isidro's calf crumbled to dust like fragile glass, vanishing into thin air. He collapsed to the ground. Looking down, he saw his leg had been completely destroyed in an instant, with no chance of recovery, completely ending his hope of escape.

"He's nothing but a country bastard," Kenneth's voice rang out again in the workshop, this time filled with suppressed anger. His tone was icy, and every word pierced his bones, carrying a condescending contempt and intense anger. "How dare you attack my students again and again..."

Isidro collapsed to the ground, sweat coating his forehead, his hands trembling uncontrollably. He felt an invisible force gripping his soul, squeezing it like a vise, constantly stripping away his consciousness, yanking at the connection between his soul and body. His eyes began to blur, as if he could feel the outlines of his consciousness gradually blurring, as if something was trying to forcibly tear him from his body.

Flames flared in the workshop, licking the air, crackling the surrounding instruments, tables, and chairs. The air was filled with a suffocating stench of burnt food and smoke. Isidro regained his composure, a flicker of lingering ruthlessness in his eyes. He desperately activated the veins hidden in his spinal cord, manipulating his magic to strike the radiant gem hanging in the workshop.

The gem shattered in the flames, sending a shower of sparks. However, the expected release of the restraints never came. Kayneth's will still loomed over the workshop, permeating every inch of the air. Kayneth clearly had no intention of letting him go. The invisible force tore at Isidro's body bit by bit. He felt his flesh and blood disappear as if being gnawed by ants. The pain intensified, eroding his will and making it impossible for him to escape.

The laboratory was engulfed in flames, the red flames illuminating the surrounding walls in flickering hues, the heat suffocating. The flickering light reflected on the old wall clock, yet strangely, it remained intact amidst the flames. The hour hand ticked rapidly on the dial, making a low, erratic "tick-tick," as if urging something on, intentionally or unintentionally.