Witch Troupe and the Undead

Of course they do!

After completing the transplant, Roach returned to the underground potion workshop. On the reading table sat a large book with a silver border and a black cover. Such a reading table was a necessity for every alchemist.

It's not just because books, especially magic and alchemy books, are expensive, but also because if you don't protect the books when you're researching in a laboratory, you'll regret it when the laboratory catches fire or the books get corroded. This is especially true for rare books.

Of course, you can also go to the library to look up or copy a new book. The former is not only tiring to run back and forth, but also requires someone to be present for some experiments. The latter is fine, but, brother, if you spend three months, staying up all night every day to copy a book, and then it gets corroded beyond recognition by various potions or magic in less than two weeks, wouldn't that still be just as heartbreaking?

The book has no name on it; the name is written on the title page: "Moonlit Garden." Below it is written: "Forbidden book. No one below the rank of priest shall read it. Violators will be punished by the gods." Then there is a completely blackened moonlight seal emblem.

At the bottom of the page, in handwriting that was almost identical to, yet slightly different from, the words read: "Where is the divine punishment? I've been staying up all night for two months reading it, I've almost memorized it, where is the divine punishment!?"

You don't even need to look to know who got this book.

Of course, unlike other magic books, such as a certain elven national treasure, this book was not obtained by deception, but by theft. Before becoming the Witch of Youth, Niel Riley was a legitimate arcane mage who had participated in adventures, including the war against the Orc Alliance.

Although the worship of the Moon Goddess is not as widespread as in the Kingdom of Lada, there are still many Moon Goddess rituals performed there. In other words, this book can be considered to have been obtained from a dilapidated temple.

Roach turned to the page about the moonflower, where there were cultivation tips and precautions for this plant. It even mentioned that it needed not just one type of fertilizer, but three types, namely liquid fertilizer, root fertilizer, and leaf fertilizer.

The former is used after harvesting dew, while the latter two are used to make the moonflower grow stronger and increase the probability of it transforming into the silvery-white moonflower variant. Root fertilizer is a solid granule that you simply bury in a small hole next to the plant. Foliar fertilizer is applied once a month on the morning of the full moon and new moon by spraying it onto the leaf surface and waiting for it to be absorbed.

As for liquid fertilizer, it should more accurately be called a special magic solution. It simply replenishes magic and does not provide nutrients to the plant itself. According to the book, if cultivated well, these moonflowers, which generally have a lifespan of only 5-7 years, can even live up to 10 years. Of course, if they really live to 10 years, their yield will be almost gone.

"In other words, these guys from the Moon Mother Holy Land earn a year more money than others just by doing this, not to mention the profits from monopolizing artificial planting and breeding. Tsk, no wonder they have the divine duty of harvesting and reproduction. Their way of making money is quite honest."

However, Roach did not intend to steal the other party's voice. He read the recipe and found that there were many operational details. Even if he followed the recipe and process, the yield rate would not be very high. In other words, the other party may have been doing this for hundreds of years and had already explored the limits of various processes. He also had a lot of skilled workers under his command.

Just like Coca-Cola, its real advantage is not the so-called formula listed in Yilin, but its global supply chain of cheap syrup raw materials and its bottling plants that have long since recouped their costs.

You can crush most of your competitors by extracting the absolute minimum profit margin – if you two sell at the same price, and you factor in the costs of building your bottling plant and supply chain, you'll lose money no matter how much you invest, while they still make a profit.

Now Luo Qi is facing this situation. If he sells the fertilizer at a lower price than the Moon Mother Holy Land, he will lose money. If he sells it at a higher price than the Moon Mother Holy Land, only a fool would buy it from him, and he will easily be hated by the other party, which will bring a lot of trouble.

Moreover, who knows how old the information Roach has is? What if they've updated their technology? Right? This world, like most worlds, is constantly evolving. Most of the technologies or magical knowledge that require archaeology have been lost or had their transmission interrupted for other reasons, such as the Mystic Sorcerers, or the serious Sin Magic that the Little Witch is currently researching.

Clearly, the Moon Mother Church has not lost its lineage, and this is a legitimate research project, as well as a major source of revenue for the organization. It's obvious that they have invested in research and development. Besides, they are not fools.

Having been involved in various conflicts, it's hard to say that the recipe wasn't leaked or the entire book was lost. If we hadn't taken advantage of this first-mover advantage to continue researching and updating, and to dig deeper into our competitive moat, we probably would have been out of business by now.

"No wonder, Livia's teacher didn't make money from this, but instead went to develop youth potions to scam money." Roach stroked his chin, seemingly understanding something. It was hard to say whether it was these Moon Mother priests who had introduced her to this way of making money.

They'll sell you an elixir of immortality first, then when you discover the side effects, they'll sell you a elixir of youth. By the time you realize the side effects of the elixir of youth and the elixir of immortality overlap and amplify each other, the person has already absconded with your money.

This is exactly the same as when they used moonflowers to offset the cost of gems, and then when Roach discovered that the moonflowers were becoming less and less productive with each harvest, and were even about to wither before they could recoup their costs, they would sell fertilizer or even care services at a high price. The difference is that the Moon Mother Sanctuary business can be done for a long time, while Neel Riley's business cannot be done for long due to technical problems.

"You all deserve to die! Moon Mother Holy Land!" After realizing this, Roach exclaimed sincerely.

Chapter 152 Meeting an Old Friend in a Foreign Land

The cost of preparing special fertilizer for moonflowers is not high; it consists of common herbs and ingredients. The only slightly troublesome part is that you need to prepare an open space and a bowl made of holy silver. Fill the bowl with dew and let it sit on a full moon night before using it as a solvent for preparing the fertilizer.

On Earth, no one can explain the significance of this operation, but in this world, it really is the only way. If you use pure water or distilled water, the effect will be much worse.

For Roach and his group, the biggest problem in this operation was the lack of holy silver. Holy silver products were not hard to buy; various churches would sell amulets made of holy silver, and in this world, almost everyone, whether a believer or not, would buy some to carry with them.

The real problem is that because of Old Horse's presence, the holy silver items will burn very quickly under such close contact. Unless Old Horse maintains his horse-like state and does not reveal any demonic aura, all the holy silver will be burned black.

Of course, for this reason, adventurers, including priests, do not bring holy silver items when entering secret realms such as the Lost Capital or the Black Forest.

To put it simply, it's like taking silver items into an environment filled with sulfurous gas; you can't really judge whether they're toxic by how they turn black from oxidation.

However, it doesn't matter if we don't have holy silver. The real key is to dissolve the moonlight magic into the water. So, with Livia's help, the two of them used a lens engraved with the emblem of the moon to solve the problem. Although it's not as good as the holy silver container, it's at least 70-80% effective.

After several days of watering, the three moonflowers are growing quite healthily, and some fine silver-white lines have appeared on their petals. The difference between the silver moonflower and the ordinary moonflower is that its lines will eventually cover almost the entire petal. After that, the center of the flower is still black, while all the other petals will turn silver-white, just like pure silver.

When the new moon arrives, the flower's center is pure silver, while the petals turn completely black. A drop of moonlight dew condenses at the center of the flower and drips down the calyx into the soil.

A thin, pure silver thread connects to the flower's stamen and guides it to a small bottle tied to the stem below the plant. This is a simple harvesting device. While other unsuspecting growers and alchemists are still diligently observing the stars and moonlight every day, calculating the maturity cycle of the moonflower, and staying up all night to collect it, the Moon Mother's Holy Land simply cultivates and harvests in batches automatically.

This way, there's no need to stay up all night. Just wipe off the dew every morning to avoid contamination, and then change the bottle every 3-4 months. Pour out the diluted dew drops, and then concentrate it using a secret method. It will be of the same quality as, or even better than, the dew painstakingly harvested by hand by alchemists.

Since there hasn't been a full moon recently, and the moonflowers haven't accumulated enough dew, the little bottles Roach made are all empty, with nothing inside.

"I wonder if there are any sunflowers..."

"No, we have Sunset Flowers," Livia tilted her head and glanced at Roach, immediately answering his question, "Sunset Flowers are an ingredient for making nutrient solutions."

This carnivorous plant blooms only at dusk, when mosquitoes are particularly numerous. The sunset flower emits a soft, warm yellow light to attract mosquitoes, then secretes sticky nectar to trap them. Once there are enough insects, it closes its petals again, forming a hemispherical bud, and spends the day secreting digestive juices to eat them all.

The little witch sat on the chair, her two small, white feet swinging rhythmically back and forth, sandals hanging from her toes as if they might fall off at any moment.

Everyone else has work to do, but she's the only one with nothing to do. She doesn't want to go out for a walk, mainly because there are too many adventurers in the camp. Every time they see her, they surround her, which is a bit scary for Livia, even if these adventurers have no ill intentions and are just simply bringing their spoils to see if this witch will offer a high price to buy them.

"Speaking of which, weren't you making magical trinkets lately? Why have you stopped?"

"Tired~" Her big, bright green eyes slowly slanted to one side, clearly showing that she could also slack off and be lazy. Compared to her completely otherworldly appearance, she was even more adorable.

The sun gradually slanted westward. Although Roach didn't understand why the sun in this other world also rose from the east, well... that wasn't the point. As dusk fell, the adventurers began to set up camp or return to safe camps.

Running around in the Black Forest after nightfall is simply playing with your life.

In the Black Forest at night, there are three or four kinds of dangerous monsters, and it is not impossible for calamity-level monsters to appear. Lord-level monsters will not appear here. Although there is indeed a lord-level monster in this Black Forest, well... the aura of the great demon that Old Ma has leaked several times before, as well as the commotion caused by the little witch, there is no brute force that can live to be that big.

In a sense, the danger level of a monster is not simply a matter of its combat strength or direct combat ability. Many dangerous monsters are just more cunning and live longer than ordinary monsters, making them more dangerous. On the other hand, calamity-level monsters are the type that will even actively train minions.

However, all kinds of monsters kept their distance from the witch's hut. Perhaps there were some fools at first, but now that the little witch has been living there for a while, her magical influence has spread unnoticed. As a result, these most sensitive monsters have avoided the area that makes them feel uneasy.

As night fell, in the underground vault of the Church of Light in Tallinn, the priests who were working overtime to seal the holy covenant did not breathe a sigh of relief; instead, they became even more tense. For six whole days, there had been no demonic attacks, but no one dared to relax until the very last moment.

The closer it got, the more nervous I became. Fortunately, everything will be over after today.

The holy light slowly closed the shrine, everything proceeded in an orderly manner. After the moonlight was reflected, it shone on the sealing mirrors at the four corners of the sanctuary, and then converged on the naturally formed sword tip carved from white stone in the center. The seal was then complete.

The first beam of light landed on the tip of the sword, shimmering with holy radiance. The second beam of light arrived a few seconds later, followed by the third. Seeing this, Bishop Megavin finally felt relieved. When the fourth beam of light fell, the Holy Covenant was completely sealed.

"Phew~ It seems it was a false alarm." Even after using a lot of nourishing magic potions and taking a nap, Bishop Megaven still looked very haggard. His hair was dry, his face was withered, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken, revealing a pair of bloodshot eyes.

“Bishop, I’ve always had a suspicion… Is it really possible that a sorcerer from hell would try to steal the holy book from the sanctuary?”

"What do you want to say?" Bishop Megavin just wanted to go back and get a good night's sleep, so his tone was very harsh.

"I mean..." The knight commander, whose influence within the church had recently diminished due to the humiliation of his subordinates being bound by demons, struggled to find the right words, "From a military perspective, repeatedly pulling the enemy back and forth, thus making the enemy..."

"What exactly do you want to say? Get to the point." The bishop felt he was about to collapse. He had relied on his sense of mission and willpower to get through the ceremony, and now that he was finally relaxed, the fact that he hadn't collapsed was a result of years of practice.

"What I'm trying to say is that now is actually the best time for the Hell Warlocks to make their move. You see, we've been on high alert these past few days, using almost all our manpower and even some divine artifacts, but... nothing has happened."

"Isn't that a good thing?" The bishop, his mind already fogged up, said irritably. He reached out to push the paladin away, but froze instantly. "What did you just say?"

"Um, if the Hell Warlocks launch an attack now, do we still have enough manpower to defend them?"

“…” Suddenly, Bishop Megavin felt dizzy and collapsed, his vision went black.

Just as Count Clayber, whose seal had been completed and whose vigilance had been lifted, opened a bottle of fine red wine to ease his anxiety of the past week, the moonlight turned a vivid red. Then, to the Count's astonishment, the entire moon transformed into a blood-red hue.

"Huh!?" The black horse suddenly raised its head, its body disappearing into a patch of black flames, and then reappearing in a space filled with viscous blood, which wriggled and crawled like some kind of mud.

The black horse walked through this world composed of various shades of red, each step of its hooves scorching and evaporating a large amount of writhing blood.

"Oh dear, don't ruin someone's carpet~ you rascal~" A charming and soft female voice came from behind the "blood curtain" formed by dripping blood. The blood droplets moved without wind, as if an invisible hand had lifted the curtain to reveal the scenery behind it.

A framework of white bones supports a curtain woven from countless blood vessels and nerves. Behind the curtain, a figure that can almost be described as perfect, like a goddess, is reflected on the curtain. Slender jade fingers gently brush across the smooth, rounded shoulders, slide down the delicate collarbone, and disappear between two mounds of white jade, while emitting an alluring soft moan.

However, most of the delicate body was submerged in a pool of crimson, with wisps of seaweed floating in the bone-made bathtub. A pair of jade-like arms were gently raised, supporting a head. The tender face, no more than 14 years old, was covered in blood, and long golden hair was stuck together with blood, hanging down. Thick blood kept flowing from the empty eyes.

"Such a beautiful and pure virgin is a rare gem, won't you like to enjoy her?" the woman's voice continued. "Of course, if you wish to enjoy her, that's also possible."

"..." The horse-headed demon snapped the lampstand made of human bones in half with a snap, and approached expressionlessly. Facing the club that swung down suddenly, the woman let out a shriek of shame and anger, "Here we go again, you unromantic slut, do you really think I'm easy to bully!" Blood splattered everywhere, the human bone bathtub exploded instantly, and various limbs and severed bodies were scattered all over the floor, then devoured by the writhing flesh on the floor.

"Oops, my hand slipped, I accidentally broke your bathtub," Old Ma said feigning concern, then his gaze fell on the large bed next to him. "This bed looks quite comfortable, can I sit on it too?"

"Ah ...

"You..." In the end, he didn't utter any harsh words.

"I don't recall these slaves offering enough sacrifices to summon you, or are you people in the Dream Realm truly shameless?"

"No, I was not summoned by them." The old horse lifted its hoof, and the human skin on the ground stood up and walked behind the curtain. It was then grasped by a white bone hand with a jade-like luster, and its muscles, nerves, and skin were draped over it like clothes.

Then, the internal organs placed on the small table were filled into the abdominal cavity one by one. With a pull of the fingers along the cut wound, a stunningly beautiful woman with bright red hair appeared in front of him, her body covered only by a faint red veil.

But this veil... it looked more like it was made from the flesh and blood of a living creature, and blood was still dripping down. "I really can't appreciate the taste of your Bone Realm." Old Ma's eye twitched. To be precise, this place, which looked like the headquarters of some kind of evil god, was in a sense consistent with its status. However, even in the Bone Realm, this "thing" was an "abstract" demon.

The aesthetics of ordinary demons in the Corpse Realm are not this... abstract.

To the demons of the bone world, this act of bathing in the blood of corpses is roughly similar to the expression you might have when you see an Indian taking a bath in cow dung.

"So you came here just to smash my bathtub?" Old Ma thought this was an abstract concept, and the other party also thought Old Ma was abstract. You're a big devil with nothing better to do than come here to smash other people's bathtubs?

"Hmm, I wanted to see who summoned you, but then I thought it didn't matter. I'll just beat you up and throw you back." Old Ma cracked his knuckles.

"Wait, according to the contract, you can't interfere..."

"I didn't interfere with your contract. You can accept the offerings as you see fit, and do whatever you want. It's just that you can't beat me." It's like hiring a thug to fight. No one interferes with this behavior. As for whether the thug you hired can beat the bodyguard on the other side, that's another matter.

"And it seems you've gained quite a bit from this trip. What did they promise you?"

"Well, I didn't promise anything?" The red-haired beauty chuckled dryly. "I'm just going through the motions; I don't plan to get involved myself. Besides, in a small city like this, I won't have any real opponents, will I?"

As a sub-lord of the Bone Realm, the Great Demon known as the "Blood Queen" would naturally not intervene for petty gains. The reason she answered the summons was that the other party used something tainted with the aura of a familiar Great Demon as a sacrifice, which piqued her curiosity.

Now, well, her curiosity has been satisfied, and she really is a wild horse. But here's the problem: she just came to see what could attract this brute, but she bumped into the real target, so naturally she lost interest in continuing.

"So, what powers did you give them?"

"A blood curse plus a bit of the magic of the Bone Realm..." The other party gestured a universe at their fingertips.

"A little bit of magic? You mean the kind of magic that dyes the moon red?" Black Horse tapped the white bone club in his palm. Although they were both sub-lords, were the sixth level and the third level the same thing?

It's like you're all generals, but what about those from Southeast Asia and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council? Are you even the same person? Besides, this disgusting thing in front of you is from the Bone Realm. The biggest problem with demons from the Bone Realm is that they have countless puppets and servants, but their individual combat strength is just so-so. If you cornered him in the bedroom... then you can practically declare the game over.

"It was just curiosity; I didn't control my strength properly." "Take it back."

"But this..."

"I told you to take back your magic." Faced with Old Ma's fist, which was as big as a sandbag, the Blood Queen finally obediently withdrew a portion of her magic. Why only a portion? Because the rest had already become part of the ritual effect during their entanglement, which would have been unacceptable.

"Keep your little brat in check. If you dare come near the forest, I'll tear your 'clothes' off. Also, be quiet at night."

"Huh?" The demon, who had been nodding vigorously, was stunned. What did he mean by "be quiet at night"? Demons don't need to sleep. You've become a great demon, and you still care about noise pollution?

"If you wake the young lady up, I'll take you with me before I die," Black Horse said viciously.

"Young Miss? The Dream Master has arrived too!?" Damn it, what's going on with this country in the mortal realm? How come even the Dream Master from the Dream Realm is here? Does that mean I'm not appropriate to be here? It shouldn't be here; it should be underground.

"Even more difficult to deal with than the Dream Master. Anyway, be quiet, keep your voice down. Before dawn, tidy yourself up. If you scare the young lady... I'll scare you the same way she threatened me!"

"Understood, mission accomplished!" The great demon on the other side immediately stood at attention, like a soldier who had been given a critical mission. To have forced the terrifying Black Horse, which had fought its way through the first five levels of Hell with its bare fists, to this extent, it had no doubt that before summoning enough minions, it could at most hurt the opponent's hand with its hardened bones.

The reality is... if it actually went up for melee combat without Old Horse's protection, Livia's weak constitution wouldn't even be enough to damage its outermost "clothes," provided, of course, that it wasn't banished back to hell by the little witch in front of it with a banishment spell.

Chapter 153 Look at my face...

Under the blood moon, the makeshift altar was surrounded by a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood. The flowing blood plasma seeped into the circular stone ditch, gradually filling the central sacrificial pond.

Blood-red moonlight shone through the deliberately opened skylight onto the statue of the goddess of the spring, which was tainted by blood, reflecting a magnificent yet eerie glow. The clear spring water pouring from the bottle was stained with a terrifying scarlet color, and then overflowed along the edge of the pond, seeping into the soil.

A layer of scarlet mist seeped out from the ditches and wells, and the chirping of insects at night fell silent almost instantly.

"My lord, has there been a problem with the ritual?" Looking at the altar of the Goddess of the Spring, which resembled a boiling cauldron emitting steam and mist of blood, a man dressed in the robes of a deacon of the Goddess of the Spring asked, "We summoned the Corpse Lord of the third level, but this..."

It's more like the Blood Queen's ritual. You should know that for a Hell Warlock, if the summoning ritual is done wrong, it's the end of their career (physically). It means that the container you prepared in advance to hold the demonic power and the contract to restrain the demon will be invalid. Of course, if the ritual is really done wrong, there's a high probability that nothing will be summoned at all.

"Don't stay here!" Unlike these local noobs, the high-ranking members of the Hell Order who were presiding over the ceremony immediately lifted their skirts and ran away as soon as they saw the scene.

Their original plan was to summon the power of the Corpse Lords, use these corpses to contaminate the groundwater, and create a massive plague of corpse poison in Tallinn, further depleting the church's resources, which were already exhausted by the sealing ritual.

If the church doesn't intervene, it can incite the desperate citizens and various forces to put pressure on the church. In this chaotic process, they can sneak into the sanctuary and steal the Holy Covenant. As for the agreement with Count Talos, laughable. For a hell sorcerer, exploiting loopholes in contracts is instinctive, and it's practical experience honed from fighting various demons!

Once you obtain that holy book, you can look up the true names of various demons. If you summon them by their true names, you can create a very powerful and strong bond with them, just like how Livia bound the black horse.

By then, Count Talos, a mere cricket, would no longer be qualified to be their ally. His strong soldiers would be infected by the zombie plague and transformed into powerful units like plague zombie warriors, becoming the Order's weapons and strength.

However, it's more like the Blood Queen has been summoned. Of course, summoning the Blood Queen isn't a bad thing. She's much more powerful than the Corpse Lord, and her Blood Moon Curse will drive all the non-superhumans in the city into a state of rage, causing them to start killing each other. Superhumans will also experience a significant drop in rationality as a result, which is more in line with their requirements.

That was how it was supposed to be, but now that the Blood Moon has successfully appeared, and the ritual it actually performed is not the power spell of any of the great demons I know, what am I waiting for if I don't run away now?

As for these local hell sorcerer organizations... well, they're just unlucky. They'll take the blame, and the outsiders can continue to infiltrate Count Talos's territory.

The crimson fog had enveloped the entire city in a red glow, and even the torchlight turned blood red in the despairing gazes of the crowd. Everything was covered in various shades of red. Those "professionals" who knew a lot about demons could already tell that the great demon was serious this time, and not just casually throwing out a little bit of power.

Amidst the blood mist, a shadowy figure emerged, its semi-transparent outline like a ghost. Upon seeing its target, it opened its arms and lunged forward. In the blink of an eye, the living person was transformed into a corpse with bulging blood vessels, brandishing its weapon at the nearest friendly force.

Immediately, the city was filled with shrill screams, the clash of weapons, and the sound of debris falling to the ground. However, all these noises were absorbed by the thick blood mist and could not be heard. Moreover, the blood mist only covered the area within the city walls and did not leak out at all.