The energy in both the inner and outer cities is immense.

Even though Su’en caused quite a commotion in Old Lingdun, she managed to find a good doctor within an hour to help her solve the backlash from the Black Scythe Curse.

Because Su’en controlled the strength of her attacks precisely, the wounds from the curse were not severe. With the help of the “Life Conversion Alchemy Array” and the X Serum, she was able to survive without any major issues.

Next was the plan to leave the city.

Originally, Su’en planned to go alone and find an opportunity to join a wild team to Dawn City. However, Qiantiao’s arrangement seemed more appropriate.

She arranged a legal identity for Su’en.

In order to avoid exposing his identity, Qiantiao did not arrange for him to join a hunting team related to the Cross Society. Instead, she had him join a transportation team in the inner city. Su’en became a casual sniper hired for a hunting guild mission, with a registered medal and a series of certification documents issued by the hunting guild. His identity was well-founded. He replaced the original hunter named “Johnny”.

…….

On this day, a large transportation team was slowly moving through the dark underground passage.

This was Su’en’s seventh day following the “Thornbird Merchant Guild Transport Team”.

The sound of steam-powered mechanical dogs filled the air in the team. These simple mechanical animals did not have combat capabilities, but they could carry heavy goods and adapt to the rugged mines in the underground. They were the mainstream transportation tools used by hunters to transport heavy objects.

Currently, a large hunting camp was being built in Dawn City, requiring a large amount of construction materials. This was a good opportunity for merchants to make money, so there were many transportation teams heading underground during this time.

Since the hunters were going to explore ruins anyway, they also accepted the guild’s employment and earned some money for escorting along the way.

This transportation team hired five small hunting teams and some reputable solo hunters from the hunting guild. Su’en, who took on the identity of “Johnny”, was among them.

There were a total of one to two hundred people in the team, and Su’en blended in without attracting attention.

In the past few days, they had encountered two small-scale attacks from aberrant monster groups, resulting in a few deaths, but fortunately, there were no major losses.

And because he was a hired freelance hunter, he didn’t have many acquaintances and hung at the back of the team, appearing quite aloof.

Of course, this was a deliberate image created by Su’en to conceal the abnormalities in his body.

Due to injecting the “X Potion”, his entire skin had turned blue due to the side effects.

To prevent anyone from noticing, he wore a gas mask throughout the journey, and his hands were covered with expensive synthetic skin gloves, leaving no skin exposed.

Fortunately, most hunters who explored the underground were fully armed, so this attire didn’t seem out of place.

……

The transportation team continued to move steadily towards the underground.

Su’en carried a black box, which was used to disguise the presence of the scythe by making it look like a sniper rifle case since they hadn’t found a new corpse in the past few days.

As they walked, a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy happily ran towards the back of the team.

He waved his gas mask in his hand and greeted Su’en excitedly, “Mr. Johnny, can you help me check what’s wrong with my mask?”

This boy was named “Tommy” and was the son of the leader of the “Drunkard Hunting Team”. Because he loved adventure, his big-hearted father brought him along.

Two days ago, the transportation team encountered an attack from an aberrant monster. Su’en happened to kill one of the monsters and saved this little guy from almost having his neck bitten off. As a result, he gained the friendship of the Drunkard Team.

This unreserved little guy would occasionally seek advice on marksmanship and mechanical matters besides expressing his gratitude.

“Mr. Johnny, your parrot mask is so beautiful.”

Tommy looked at Su’en’s mask with envy and pouted, “Compared to yours, mine looks like an ‘Ugly Duckling Mask’.”

“Hehe, let me take a look…”

Su’en took the ugly duckling mask from him without any trouble and carefully examined it.

Of course, it couldn’t compare.

The mask Su’en wore on his face was not an ordinary gas mask but a modified “Plague Doctor’s Crow Mask”.

Initially, he thought he wouldn’t need it after killing Sergei, but after injecting the X Serum, Su’en found that his cell activity had become extremely strong, and his body could automatically metabolize minor toxins without any effect. He had also tested the curse properties of the mask in the past two days and concluded from observing the attribute panel that his cell activity could withstand the side effects of this mask. With the detoxification potion, he was at least less likely to be poisoned.

Since he had to wear a gas mask to cover his face anyway, he decided to modify the appearance of the crow mask.

After all, there was no better gas mask than one with a 99% probability of protection against toxins and the ability to enhance toxin resistance when worn for a long time.But because it was spoils of war, in order to avoid being recognized, Su’en also transformed the originally cool and mysterious crow-mouth mask into a flashy “parrot mask”.

Not only did he change the black main color to the parrot’s yellow-green color, he also added a chicken-rib mechanical device that cleans the goggles like a windshield wiper, and also casually covered the crow’s mouth with a piece of mysterious black cloth. This is the mainstream punk style on the market. It was a simple mechanical modification, but it completely changed the appearance and made it look instantly “common”.

However, this chicken-rib modification attracted Tommy’s strong interest.

Watching Su’en inspecting his own work, Tommy muttered on the side, “Mr. Johnny, I want to make a mechanical goggles that can automatically flip open, so that when I need a wide field of vision, it can stay on my hat. But it always creaks and is stiff even after I oiled it…”

“Oh?”

Su’en found that Tommy had a talent for mechanics and had come up with something interesting in just one day.

He took a quick look and found the root of the problem, saying, “Actually, you’re already doing pretty well. You can slightly move the gears here, and the power transmission of the steel wire will be smoother. The reason it gets stuck is because you designed the device to be too complicated. The more complicated the machinery, the more likely it is to malfunction…”

Tommy followed Su’en closely, listening carefully.

Before long, Su’en handed the mask back to him.

The boy had a good understanding, and he seemed to completely understand. He smiled and said, “Oh, thank you, Mr. Johnny. I know how to modify my ‘ugly duckling mask’ now!”

With that, he happily ran off.

Su’en smiled as he watched him.

The boring escort mission had some small pleasures after all.

…….

After walking for a few more hours, the team stopped.

“Alright, we can stop here. We’ll set up camp here today!”

The one shouting was Abagon, a tall and thin old man. His appearance matched his personality, always making people feel harsh. He was the most respected person in this transport team and also a steward of the “Thornbird Trading Company” in the inner city.

With this command, excited cheers came from the team.

Finally, they could rest again.

The mechanical dogs surrounded the perimeter, protecting the members of the trading company inside. Those people from the inner city always looked down on the people from the outer city.

As for the hunters, they had to set up their own camps.

Su’en also took out the marching tent from his backpack and set up a sleeping place for himself in an inconspicuous corner, then crawled inside.

Finally, it was time to rest, and Su’en felt that this was the most comfortable time of the day.

He brought the “Invisible Corpse” into the tent and then unwrapped the shroud, revealing the runic corpse and the large black scythe inside.

Su’en also took off his gas mask, exposing his eerie blue-skinned face to the air.

If there were outsiders here, seeing the two blue-skinned monsters in the tent would surely scare them.

But Su’en was used to it.

He took out a rune pen and began to redraw the alchemical materials on the dimming runes.

This was a hunter who died in an attack two days ago. The body was intact, so Su’en collected it to use as materials.

While he repaired the runes on the living corpse, he also examined the changes in the muscles of the body and muttered to himself, “The amplification effect of the X Serum on the body varies greatly among individuals. Melee professionals should be more suitable for making living corpses. It’s a pity that I didn’t have the chance to bring out the body of the second-tier professional from before. If I had used the body of that kind of professional, it should have been able to withstand more strikes…”

Although the backlash was the same, the recovery ability was much worse.

Even though the living corpse had also been injected with three doses of the “Second Generation X Serum”, Su’en found that this female corpse was much worse than the previous male corpse under the same circumstances. In the same situation, there would be a significant difference in the number of backlashes it could withstand.

But it didn’t matter… they were all consumables anyway.

……

Speaking of the “X Serum”, Su’en lowered his head and looked at the bulging and knotted muscles under his blue skin on his arm, his expression complex.

They had been on the road for several days, and even though he didn’t have intense training, his muscles were constantly filled with a sense of expansion.

That was a sign of muscle growth.

It was even more evident on his data panel. Except for mental power, almost all the physical-related data had increased by more than double.

And this growth process was still continuing in a decreasing pattern, and it would probably be completely digested in the next few months.

After fully absorbing the serum, Su’en could predict that his physical fitness would be much stronger than that of an ordinary melee professional!

In addition to the increase in physical data, there was another very obvious enhancement.

That was the efficiency of his meditation in absorbing “Dark Spiritual Power”, which was significantly different from before he injected the serum.

Before, Su’en could increase his dark spiritual power by one unit after meditating for a night.

But now, after meditating for a night, he could increase it by three units!Although the dark spiritual power in the cave was indeed denser than that in Old Lingdun, it did not reach three times the density.

Moreover, it was not just about the density, but also the absorption efficiency and the feeling.

Su’en felt that his previous meditation was like forcibly infusing his body with dark spiritual power. Now, even if he didn’t actively use the breathing method, the dark spiritual power would automatically penetrate his pores. His body not only showed no signs of distortion, but also had a pleasant feeling like drawing silk.

It felt like… a significant increase in the “elemental affinity” mentioned by the spellcasters.

Su’en also estimated that he should soon be able to meet the minimum attribute requirements for advancing to the second-tier profession.

Even because of the strengthening of his body and the surge of dark spiritual power, his capacity would also become very high, estimating that he could at least withstand the advancement materials and alchemical implants of second-tier gold quality and above.

This also made Su’en look forward to his trip to Dawn City even more.

If he could find a powerful space cursed object, he wouldn’t have to worry about his body not being able to withstand it and miss the opportunity to fuse with such high-level professional materials.

……

Su’en had almost finished drawing the runes on the zombie, and then wrapped it up again with the shroud.

At this time, he thought of something and took out a pitch-black doll from his storage ring.

This was an experimental product, a solidified “Cursed Doll” of the spellcaster.

Su’en named it “Voodoo Doll”.

But because this was a new work, there were still too many functions and data that needed to be tested before it could be used in actual combat.

Su’en thought that this boring escort still had half a month to go, so he collected some blood samples for testing. It just so happened that Mr. Abagon, the steward, fell off the mechanical dog during the previous downhill journey and bled a little.

Su’en didn’t know what he thought of, and a slight smile of apology appeared on his face, “With a distance of more than a hundred meters, the effect should not be bad… Mr. Abagon, I’m sorry, I can only use you for the test.”

Muttering to himself, he took the collected blood sample and smeared it on the alchemical array on the back of the doll. The gloss flashed and disappeared, and the doll seemed to have a spirit in an instant. A layer of gray mist appeared on the face of the doll, which had no facial features. It was somewhat similar to Mr. Abagon, and it looked a bit terrifying.

Su’en was very familiar with the “Straw Man” spell in his memory, so there was no reason for him to fail.

He picked up a rune steel needle and then poked it into the doll’s leg.

This spell was not the kind of method that could easily kill with one blow. The distance was far, there were not enough blood samples, and if you didn’t stab the heart and head, you could only torture people.

As soon as this needle was inserted, Su’en’s keen hearing allowed him to hear a scream instantly.

“Ouch…”

He didn’t know what Mr. Abagon was doing, but it seemed quite painful to hear him yell.

“Subtracting the time consumed by the sound propagating in the air, from the moment of stabbing to the target’s scream, there was a delay of about 1.3 seconds. I don’t know if his reaction was slow, or the spell was delayed due to distance…”

Su’en muttered to himself, and then recorded his experimental data: “September 1st, test target #001, ordinary middle-aged man… blood sample quality e, one hundred and thirty meters, needle stabbing the calf, delay 1.3 seconds scream…”

After recording the data.

Su’en thought for a while, picked up the rune steel needle again, and stabbed the same leg of the doll, then listened carefully.

“Huh… The reaction to this scream is obviously slower, maybe he was prepared for the leg that was stabbed? Try another one?”

Su’en thought for a while, then changed his leg and stabbed it again.

In an instant, he heard Mr. Abagon’s scream and cursing, Su’en finally confirmed something, and added a sentence in his notes: “It is basically confirmed that the casting distance and reaction speed are inversely proportional, and the precise values of distance and delay can be tested in the future…”

Then he stabbed a few more needles, almost no screams were heard, and the blood samples became very light.

Su’en recorded again: “Casting will consume the target’s biological samples, greatly reducing the curse effect, and the casting distance will be greatly reduced…”

……

Su’en tested the properties of the first version of the “Voodoo Doll” and got some new inspirations.

He took out a new piece of wood, planning to carve a doll that had improved some of the spellcaster’s attributes.

But as he was carving, footsteps approached from outside the tent.

Tommy came to inform him that Mr. Abagon had called all the mercenaries to hold an emergency meeting.