Alchemy Principles of Type-Moon World

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OK, now we can start to expand the ORT line, and everything is almost done.

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

Volume 40: Symbiosis: . Departure

The atmosphere in the makeshift workshop at night was solemn and focused. Several electric lights cast a bright glow, illuminating the two maps spread out on the table. One was a modern topographic map sent from the clock tower, densely covered with markings of mountains, rivers, and villages; the other was an old hand-drawn map Patricia had taken from her backpack. The edges had yellowed, and several creases were almost breaking, but a few neat Latin annotations could still be seen.

Xing Qingqiu stood at the table, his hands resting on the edge, his gaze fixed on the map. His right hand occasionally tapped the surface of the map, as if he were organizing his thoughts.

"Did they enter from the other side back then...?" He asked in a low, pensive tone, his gaze still fixed on the map. "Which way did we get to the Isidro stronghold we were on?"

Kenneth stood nearby, tapping the table with a mechanical pencil in response. He leaned over and quickly drew a line on the modern topographic map, his movements clean and precise.

"Northeast of Cusco, down the mountain," he said briefly, marking a few key points on the map. "We took a detour along the way, so it was roughly twenty kilometers."

Xing Qingqiu pulled out a small GPS device, looked down at the numbers, and then quickly calculated in his mind. His finger slid along the coordinates on the screen, finally tapping the corresponding location on the map.

"The straight-line distance should be seventeen kilometers," he replied after a pause, his tone firm, "probably in this direction."

"Where did you take the previous route?" He turned and looked at Patricia, who was sitting across the table. "Can you point it out?"

Before Patricia could speak, Guanyue Ringo took action. She pulled an old map from her backpack and spread it out on the table next to the modern map. The two maps overlapped, and the fine red lines and terrain marked on the old map gradually emerged, creating a strange fusion with the topography on the modern map.

"Actually, the route I took was near Isidro's base." Guanyue Ringo picked up a pencil and lowered her head to carefully compare the two maps. With a slow and steady movement of her wrist, she began marking on the modern map. "We were quite cautious at the time, establishing a simple rest stop every ten kilometers."

She tapped the map lightly with her pen tip a few times, leaving four dots not far from the line Xing Qingyu had just drawn.

"Ah, what about the rest?" Xing Qingyu raised his eyebrows slightly, his tone revealing anticipation.

"No more," Guanyue Ringo shrugged, leaning back in his chair, a look of helplessness on his face. "I went back to the city to restock my supplies, and then for some unknown reason I was chased all the way."

"You smashed the book in my hand without saying a word," Patricia said suddenly, "that's the result of my three months of work! If not you, who else should I chase after?"

"A magician suddenly appears from a deserted alley at night, a book in hand, and asks you what you do." Guanyue Ringo, clearly unwilling to be outdone, curled her lips and retorted disapprovingly, "It's normal to have a stress reaction after being frightened."

"That's because you feel guilty..." Patricia sighed, but didn't pursue the matter further.

Xing Qingyu stood aside, watching the two of them argue quietly, his lips curled up slightly. He felt as if he had heard some bizarre gossip, but he had no interest in getting involved. He simply shook his head.

"Anyway," he lowered his head and returned his attention to the map, sliding his finger along the line marked by Guanyue Ringo, "For now, let's continue along the route from Isidro's backyard and explore the next base of this old man first."

"Then, depending on the situation, my plan is to take a detour," he paused, looking up at the crowd, "first to the expedition camp established by the Grand Magus in the sixteenth century."

"But that place is almost on the other side of the Amazon rainforest," Kenneth said suddenly, "If we want to go there, we may have to take a long detour."

"But that's the camp left behind by the ORT after our previous exploration," Xing Qingfeng added. "Although it's been over four hundred years, it shouldn't be completely abandoned. The workshop should be sturdy enough. Maybe we can find something useful here—"

"—Before the final exploration, I decided to gather as much information as possible. I don't want to be caught off guard by an information gap."

He pulled out an old record map from the pile of maps on the table, quickly checked it, and then distributed the GPS to others.

"That's about it," he said, looking around. His voice was not loud but clear and powerful. "Get ready and leave early tomorrow morning."

"Oh, what is this little thing used for?" Souji Okita asked after taking the GPS.

"It's for positioning, so we don't get completely lost in the rainforest," Xing Qingqi replied. "Although magic can do the same thing, I think it's always better to be a little more cautious."

"So that's how it is..." Okita Souji carefully put it away, then raised his hand excitedly and shouted, "The official rainforest adventure will begin tomorrow, so let's cheer together--"

“A! A! O——!”

No one responded to her. After Xing Qingjiu announced the disbandment, everyone left the table and went to make their own preparations.

"..." Xing Qingyu looked at Okita Souji who was standing stiffly at the table. After a moment of silence, he added another word.

"I quite like your sense of humor."

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Deep in the Amazon jungle, sunlight filtered through intertwined branches and leaves, filtered by layers of greenery, casting specks of light on the ground, gently swaying in the breeze. The humid air was filled with the fragrance of soil and the moisture of plants. The sound of insects chirped constantly, and occasionally a small animal rustled through the bushes. Five people were slowly walking through this vibrant jungle.

—Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the four of them were slowly advancing. The specially designed wheelchair in the center of the group stood out, its wheels making a slight creaking sound as they moved across the path. In the wheelchair, Kanzuki Ringo's head tilted to one side, her eyes tightly closed, a faint, half-smile still lingering on the corners of her mouth, clearly having fallen back into her usual drowsy state.

"Speaking of which, this scene is quite abstract." Xing Qingqiu walked at the front of the group and glanced back at Guanyue Ringo. "Deep in the Amazon jungle, with a wheelchair-bound girl who's awake for less than an hour a day, even a science fiction writer wouldn't dare to use such a two-dimensional setting."

"We didn't originally plan to bring her along," Kenneth replied, "but she understands the ORT's peripheral ecosystem better than we do. Giving her up would be a loss."

"The reason is quite reasonable, but it still looks outrageous." Xing Qingyu shrugged and continued to look down at the path under his feet.

The path between the bushes wasn't wide, but the soil was clearly man-made. Xing Qingfeng squatted down and touched the ground. The soil was more compact than ordinary humus soil.

"How long have we been walking since leaving old man Isidro's base?" Kenneth spoke from the back of the team, his voice coming through the layers of green.

"About a hundred kilometers." Xing Qingyu didn't look up. He used his fingers to push aside the dirt beneath his feet, carefully examining the texture. "But judging by the wear and tear on this path, the old man must have walked this way often."

"Yes, indeed." Okita Souji stood aside, holding the hilt of the sword and nodded. "The fact that the obvious traces can still be seen in this environment for several months shows that the road is used frequently."

"That old man is over seventy and still pulls his cart back and forth on this road every day," Xing Qingfeng curled his lips, "quite dedicated to his work."

"Calculating the distance, the ORT range marked on the map is still over 500 kilometers..." Xing Qingyu stood up and casually patted the dirt on his clothes. "Ha, I hope that old man doesn't really plan to shout ORT--"

"—Otherwise it always feels a bit weird, like some cultist old man trying to awaken Cthulhu and an investigation team made up of a bunch of weird settings," Xing Qingfeng complained, "Did the set make a mistake?"

Patricia seemed lost in thought, pushing the wheelchair at a slightly slower pace. She murmured softly, "Five hundred kilometers... I feel like we'll be at the outskirts of the ORT in less than another hundred kilometers."

"What do you mean?" Xing Qingyu keenly caught her mumbling, stopped and looked back at her.

Patricia frowned slightly, paused for thought, and then replied, "I remember that on the outskirts of ORT, the ecological environment will undergo an extremely obvious change. I don't know the exact distance, but from my impression, those changes should be visible within about a hundred kilometers."

"The documentation does mention this," Xing Qingfeng said, pinching his chin, his eyes penetrating with thought. "There's an extremely special ecological environment outside of ORT..."

"So either the environment has changed in the past four hundred years," Patricia said after a moment of thought, "or the ORT range defined by the Magic Association doesn't include the surrounding environment."

"Let's go first and find the old man's next base."

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You Ruoyu stood in the center of her hotel room, lights cascading from the ceiling, framing her focused face. The whiteboard before her was almost completely covered, its center a detailed map of South America, its edges covered with data tables and lab records. Colorful pins dotted the map, marking the distribution of her recently collected samples and their associated data. Her finger gently tapped a red area on the map, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Sister Ye," You Ruoyu said, her voice full of excitement, "I think I've locked onto the target area."

The woman sitting by the window raised her head slightly. The moonlight from outside cast a silver luster on the puppet in her hands. As she fiddled with the joints of the Asian-style puppet, she asked curiously:

"What did you find?"

You Ruoyu turned slightly, reached out and picked up several organized data reports from the table, and answered while sorting them:

"I've graded the rouge extracted from cochineal samples from different regions based on the experimental results of their magic conduction rate and carrying capacity. The data standard is based on the basic conduction model of magic conductors."

"Each level corresponds to a colored pin," she pointed at the pin on the map and continued:

"This allows us to visually see the geographical distribution and characteristic differences of the samples."

"The results show that the colors of the pins show a very clear geographical pattern." Her voice quickened slightly, clearly eager to share her findings. "Starting from this area of the Amazon rainforest," she pointed to an area in the center of the map marked with red pins. "The closer the samples are to this central area, the higher their magic power transmission rate and carrying capacity."

You Ruoyu paused, reached out and drew a line on the record sheet next to the whiteboard, connecting data of different levels with arrows to form a centripetal trend line.

"This suggests that these characteristics of cochineal insects may be highly correlated with the environmental conditions of their habitats, especially areas with high magical activity."

"Interesting..." The woman known as Sister Ye raised her eyebrows slightly, her fingertips resting on a joint of the puppet in her hand. The puppet's joints made a slight "clicking" sound as she gently twisted them.

"I remember the information also mentioned that," her fingertips slid from the puppet's shoulder joint to its knee, "in South America, cochineal farming is mainly concentrated in Peru—"

"—That's right," You Ruoyu continued, standing at the table, sorting through his notes. He pushed his glasses up with his fingertips, his gaze fixed on a circled area on the map, his tone piercing with concentration. "The nearest city to this area is Cusco, Peru. This geographical distribution pattern may also mean that the habitat of cochineal insects is directly related to regional changes. If we can further explore the microenvironmental characteristics of these areas, perhaps we can discover the mechanism by which certain cochineal insects form high-magic conductors."

Sister Ye, standing in front of the whiteboard, raised her head at the words, her gaze sliding from the map to You Ruoyu. The puppet in her arms was wearing intricate clothing, covered in delicate embroidery, and now reflected a faint glow in the moonlight.

"Cusco," she whispered, her fingers stroking the puppet's crown as if she were lost in thought. "I remember it was once the capital of the Inca Empire, one of the core cultural areas of the South American mystery system."

"Indeed." You Ruoyu nodded, picked up a transparent piece of map markings, and agreed as he observed, "If you consider it from this perspective, perhaps it was the unique nature of the region that gave Cusco its special status and ultimately made it the capital of the Inca Empire."

Sister Ye slowly shook her head and sighed softly. She placed the puppet on her lap, folded her hands, and unconsciously clicked her fingertips on the puppet's cuffs.

"No... that's not what I'm worried about." She said with a hint of worry in her tone, her brows slightly furrowed. "That place is one of the core areas of the South American mystical system, which means that magicians are bound to gather there. Our mission, first and foremost, is to remain concealed..."

"Xiao You, do we really have to leave this place?" She raised her head and said, "Although I am confident that I can handle Western magicians, we are not here to show off our strength and fight."

"No, if we only consider the distance," You Ruoyu said, "we are now in western Brazil, already on the outskirts of the Amazon rainforest. It would be no problem to set off directly from here—"

"—and," she paused, as if weighing her words, "if we start from here, we should be able to avoid any magicians that might be in Cusco. After all, Peru and Brazil are almost at opposite ends of the Amazon rainforest."

"Then get some rest early and set off tomorrow." The voice of the woman called Sister Ye softened. She slowly stood up and gently placed the puppet by the window. Her palm gently fell on You Ruoyu's head and rubbed his hair. With a hint of intimacy, she said, "I'll go make some preparations. Although things have been going quite smoothly so far and we haven't encountered any Western magicians——"

"——But since we're going to such an important place, we might get attacked."

The two dolls by the window stood quietly in the moonlight. If you look closely, you'll find that their clothing is almost identical to the two people in the room, even the depiction of their facial features is incredibly similar.

———————Japanese neighbors; dirty three | dam ⑦ depends on the 鏡—————————————

This way the purpose of all lines is exactly the same. That’s about it. I had three classes today and came back late, so the updates will be slow. Sorry!

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

Volume 41: Symbiotic Relationships: . Growing Vegetables Deep in the Amazon

As Xing Qingfeng and his companions approached their destination along the winding path, the surrounding vegetation grew increasingly dense. The trees lining the road towered, and sunlight filtered through the gaps between the tall treetops, casting dappled shadows. The ground was carpeted with fallen leaves, which rustled underfoot. The scent of damp earth permeated the air, and the occasional chirping of birds and the rustling of vines in the wind created an eerie tranquility.

The group continued along the path until a thick vine appeared before them, forming a natural barrier that obscured their view. Xing Qingqi reached out and parted the vines; they were slightly damp and cool to the touch. As their vision suddenly opened up, the sight before them stunned them. A vast complex of buildings, covering nearly 10,000 square meters, came into view. The low-rise buildings followed the undulating terrain, most constructed of rough stone, their exterior walls covered in moss and vines.

"It's such a huge scale..." Okita Souji exclaimed in a low voice, his tone mixed with confusion and surprise.

"What's going on? A former settlement of the indigenous people? But the architectural style doesn't look like it." He frowned slightly, his eyes wandering over the scene before him.

The buildings before them presented a strange mix of styles. Most were built of rough stone, covered in vines and moss. But upon closer inspection, distinct Western European elements emerged: pointed-arch windows, carved stone cornices, and structures imitating church towers. The spires, stone arches, and intricately carved column bases hinted at colonial influences that stood out in such a remote jungle.

At the center of the complex, a massive yet striking building caught their attention. Its materials and craftsmanship were significantly newer than the surrounding structures, and even showed signs of regular maintenance. The exterior walls were plastered with lime, their whitewashed surfaces striking in the sunlight. The door and window frames were inlaid with dark wood, clearly sourced from the rainforest. While the style was solemn, the color was quite discordant. Xing Qingfeng squatted down and scraped his fingers across the exposed stone slabs, revealing a shiny texture beneath the dust and moss.

"The buildings in this center... are much newer than the surrounding ones." He stood up and clapped his hands.

"Indeed," Kenneth agreed, glancing around. "Judging from the traces, it must have been added later. Also, these houses are divided according to function."

They cautiously walked along the abandoned stone path deeper into the complex. Many of the buildings on either side of the road had collapsed, their interiors filled with dead branches and leaves, evidently abandoned for years. Occasionally, a bird or two flew out from the crumbling rooftops, their wings stirring up a cloud of dust. Near the central area, several houses appeared in a completely different state. Roofs had been repaired, walls had been repainted, and even simple curtains hung on the windows, indicating that people had once lived there.

"Quite a few people used to live here," Patricia said, scanning the abandoned houses. "But judging by the condition, that old man is probably the only one left now."

Xing Qingwu nodded, his eyes falling on the central building.

"And he probably built that thing himself."

They walked around the central building and arrived on the other side. The sight was even more astonishing. Xing Qingjiu walked around the building and saw a meticulously tended vegetable garden. Surrounded by an old wooden fence, the garden was filled with tomatoes, peppers, and some unknown vegetables. Each plant seemed vibrant, forming a stark contrast to the dilapidated surroundings. In the corners of the fence, a few pieces of plastic sheeting formed a makeshift awning, beneath which lay a few buckets and rusty shovels.

"Let me see what he's up to..." Xing Qingfeng squatted down, pulled up a few crops from the vegetable garden and carefully examined them twice. He saw a huge piece of sweet potato pulled up. "Wow, this old man is quite good at planting. He can grow such a big one."

"Wait, that's not right?" Xing Qingfu pulled up several crops in a row, but found that all the crops were just ordinary crops. At most, because of the fertile soil and abundant magical power in the environment, their fruits were particularly large.

"Does this old man have some weird quirk?" Xing Qingfeng threw down the potatoes in his hand and said, "Is he addicted to growing vegetables?"

"The vegetable garden and this central building were built at the same time," Kenneth observed for a while and pointed to the obviously more recent traces of soil plowing.

Instead of rushing into the central building, the group circled the garden to observe it. Footprints were clearly visible on the ground, and the path leading to the fence gate was clear, indicating that the garden was frequently tended. A faint fragrance of earth and plants wafted through the air, almost making one forget the desolation and danger of the place.

"He actually made this kind of place so...livable?" Kenneth commented in a low voice, with a hint of doubt in his tone.

"Perhaps this means more to him than just food." Patricia pondered for a moment, then added, "If he lives here for a long time, these crops may also be one of his few recreational activities."

"He seems to be enjoying this place," Xing Qingfeng complained. "A crazy killer who lives in seclusion, where should I even begin to complain about him..."

"...Ah, forget it. When I think about this being a magician, I don't find it strange anymore," Xing Qingqiu said. He straightened up, shook off the dirt on his hands, and looked around.

The area near the vegetable garden had clearly been carefully selected and planned. The renovated buildings were almost all clustered around the central building, forming a rough "work area." Broken iron and wooden tools lay scattered outside the doorways of several of the houses, and a nearly dismantled cart leaned against the wall, its wheels stained with dirt, clearly from the paths leading to the vegetable garden.

"But he demolished quite a few of the original buildings, didn't he?" Okita Souji suddenly interjected, his gaze sweeping across the distant ruins. The ruins appeared disorganized, but upon closer inspection, one could discern the original structure. Clearly, the entire complex had originally been larger than it was today, and the remains of the demolished buildings were overgrown with weeds, with the foundations even showing in places.

"Well, it's not random demolition. He had a purpose." Xing Qingfeng narrowed his eyes slightly. "He recycled the stones from the ruins and used them to build these new houses, saving materials."

"And it was demolished very cleanly," Kenneth said, standing outside the building complex and examining the exposed foundations. "It looks like there isn't much usable left where the old building was. It must have been clearly planned."

As they spoke, they slowly approached the central building. The whitewashed, dark wood of the house seemed even more dazzling in the sunlight, as if signaling a sense of isolation from its surroundings. Xing Qingqi kicked the pebble in front of the door, his eyes scanning the indentations on the porch with a meaningful glance.

"So he's playing a colony simulation mod. That thing in front of him must be the city hall," Xing Qingqiu curled his lips. "This old man seems to be living a pretty comfortable life."

"It's either nourishment or holding on to something." Kenneth crossed his arms, raised his head, and stared at a stone carving on the top of the building. It was a crude but vaguely recognizable emblem pattern. "Why does it look a little familiar—"

"—It looks like a noble coat of arms." Patricia continued, "South America doesn't have this kind of culture or coat of arms. It must have been brought over from Europe."

"The magician's camp was on the other side of the Amazon rainforest," Kenneth said. "If we hadn't flashed to the other side without knowing when, then this emblem would most likely be the emblem of the old man's family."

"That's quite interesting," Xing Qingwu said. "This old man keeps saying he's cut ties with Europe, but in this damn place he's secretly hanging his family crest on the door. Is he playing with the idea of absolute loyalty?"

"Let's go," Xing Qingfeng patted the dust off his trouser legs, "Let's go in and see what he has done."

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I have something urgent to do in the evening. I guess I won't have time to write tonight. Please take a day off.

Volume 42: Endosymbiotic Relationships: . Farms