Chapter 347: Chapter 346: The Mysterious Little Box Chapter 347: Chapter 346: The Mysterious Little Box Several days later.
Under the sunny day, the weather was clear, and the sunshine was bright with not a cloud in the endless blue sky.
Richard, at the main laboratory’s table in the experimental center, was flipping through the Wizard Book, “Monroe Chapter.” After skimming for a while, he frowned and walked to one side.
With a “squeak,” he opened a wooden box and took out several rings engraved with magic runes–all purchased from the Underground Market; his eyes narrowed slightly, pondering how to modify them.
Since temporarily retreating from the graveyard a few days ago, Richard had developed some ideas about how to conduct a second exploration of the graveyard.
The failure of the first graveyard exploration, in a sense, had exposed some problems in his current combat style: for the sake of efficiency, he heavily relied on close-quarters combat, thus lacking sufficient long-range spell attacks.
This approach had an advantage when dealing with ordinary Wizard Apprentices, and he could even overpower them. Even facing a genuine Wizard, as long as he paid a certain price and got close enough, he could temporarily hold his ground, or even kill them. Suo Men from the Mysterious Organization was killed by him using an unexpected method to twist his head off.
But every advantage has its disadvantage.
This method was challenging when facing a large number of enemies, such as the beetles in the graveyard.
Relying solely on close combat, it would take days and nights to kill all the beetles. There was almost no margin for error–if he made any mistake, he would be overwhelmed by the beetles.
It’s not to say that the path he had chosen before was wrong; it’s just that as the enemies he faced changed, he also had to make some corresponding changes. The No.1 Ring and No.2 Ring were no longer able to meet all his needs, and he had to add new Magic Rune Rings to become more well-rounded.
So, how many new Magic Rune Rings should he add? What spells should he engrave on the new Magic Rune Rings? How should these spells be analyzed?
Could he use Low-level Magic in combination to harness the power of High-Circle Magic?
Could he try to modify magic runes so that they harnessed free Energy Elements for release instead of Mana, thereby adapting to the casting style of an Apocalypse Wizard?
Richard kept pondering.
In the corner of the laboratory, Pandora glanced at Richard and happily scrubbed the Glass Test Tubes.
“Crash,” a Glass Test Tube broke, no problem, she just grabbed a new one and continued scrubbing.
“Crash,” another Glass Test Tube broke, no problem, she replaced it and kept on scrubbing.
“Crash,” yet another Glass Test Tube broke, still no problem, she just switched to another and resumed scrubbing.
Another Glass Test Tube broke…
After washing for a while, Pandora furrowed her brows and cocked her head to the side, looking toward Richard and asked, “Richard, do we have any more Glass Test Tubes? I’ve finished washing (breaking) all of these.”
Before long, it was several days later.
“Swish, swish, swish…”
Pandora had started scrubbing beakers now because there were hardly any Glass Test Tubes left that hadn’t been cleaned by her.
Beside her, Richard looked at the content in the “Monroe Chapter,” his brow furrowed in thought, occasionally using a Quill to write and draw on the table. From time to time, when he heard the crisp “crash” sound from Pandora’s direction, he would turn his head to look, covering half his face, his expression slightly twitching, as if he had a bit of a toothache.
At that moment, a knocking sounded from outside the courtyard gate.
“Bang, bang, bang! My dearest friend, I… I’ve brought you a delivery…”
The voice drifted in from outside the courtyard, and upon hearing it, Richard instantly knew it was Alex.
Glancing at Pandora, Richard instructed, “You continue washing the beakers here, um, wash them slowly, I’ll go out and have a look.”
“Okay,” Pandora nodded in agreement, and Richard stepped outside.
Reaching the courtyard and opening the gate, Richard saw a rickety carriage parked on the street. Alex, his body quivering with fat, was being helped by an old coachman, carrying two stacked boxes unsteadily down from it.
Richard stepped aside to let Alex enter the courtyard and carefully set the boxes on the ground.
After putting down the boxes and letting out a long breath, Alex wiped his sweat and addressed Richard, “My most beloved friend–Lord Richard, the glass tubes you entrusted me to make, I’ve done it. Take a look, these are the finest glass tubes, you can’t find better ones in the whole of White Stone City. If you don’t believe me, I swear–on the name of my great ancestors!”
Richard glanced at Alex, not believing a word from this unscrupulous fat man. He stepped forward, opened the box, and began a careful inspection.
Inside the box were glass test tubes arranged in rows of sixteen by sixteen, a total of 256 tubes per box.
Alex, fearing Richard couldn’t count, said, “My dearest friend–Lord Richard, I’ve really bled for this, for the sake of our friendship, I’ve added six extra glass test tubes to every box, that’s twelve extra tubes for two boxes! Twelve tubes, I tell you!”
“Is that so,” Richard responded, casually pulling out a glass tube from the box and holding it up to the sunlight, squinting for a closer look.
Alex, prancing about, loudly said, “Lord Richard, look at the clarity of this glass tube, look at the fine craftsmanship, absolutely top quality–top of the top quality! Rest assured, I would never dream of deceiving you with fakes.”
Richard chuckled softly without saying a word, for he saw that the quality of the glass test tubes was merely average. While not poor, they were not excellent either. However, he wasn’t very demanding when it came to the glass tubes. As long as they met the expected standards and could be used, that was fine since most of them would eventually become victims of Pandora’s experiments; the difference between good and bad was not so great.
Thinking this, Richard put the glass tube back into the box and looked at Alex, asking, “How much for a box of these glass tubes?”
“Well, that is…” Alex stretched out two fingers, while Richard maintained a composed expression.
Alex’s shifty eyes quickly changed from two fingers to five.
Richard’s eyebrows involuntarily raised: Isn’t this shamelessness a bit excessive?
Alex, noticing Richard’s mood, quickly said, “Uh, it’s not five silver coins, certainly not two either. Actually, it’s… two and a half silver coins, yes, two and a half silver coins.”
To prove that this was his original intent, he repeated the gesture from before.
“Two!” first extending two fingers.
“Half!” then extending five fingers.
“You see, it’s really two and a half silver coins; I’m not lying to you, Lord Richard,” Alex said with a remarkable display of “honesty.”
“Two and a half silver coins,” Richard’s eyes blinked, then he slowly spoke, “I think that price is a bit high, Alex.”
“According to the quality of these glass tubes, the price should be around one silver coin, one and a half at most.”
“That, that…” Alex began to sweat at the tip of his nose, “Maybe… the glass factory raised its prices…”
“Ah, yes!” Alex suddenly recalled something, quickly ran out of the yard to the rickety carriage, took a small box from it and, clutching it, ran back inside.