“Alright, Bishop, help me draft a list. Write down everyone who tried to use my disappearance to benefit themselves. I’ll settle accounts with them slowly later.”
“Then, William, I’ll take you to meet someone.”
“Yes…”
The Bishop and William responded in unison. The Bishop sat down at Loren’s doorstep to start writing the list, while William followed behind Loren.
Loren was taking William to find Noah. Loren couldn’t be bothered to handle these matters himself and planned to let Noah take over directly.
Noah’s residence wasn’t far from Loren’s house, just a short walk away.
William had always prided himself on being well-traveled and having seen all the highs and lows of life, but even he couldn’t help feeling shocked when he saw Noah’s living conditions.
Especially after spotting the half-gnawed rat carcasses on the floor.
William wanted to ask if Loren’s people really lived in a place like this, but he kept his mouth shut.
Several airplanes stood out prominently here. Over this period, Noah had experimented with various airplane designs.
Next to the airplanes was the assembly line Noah had designed. Every step of accessory production was handled by machinery.
Molten metal was poured into molds, cooled, and demolded, landing precisely in the next spot to be fixed in place. Engraving tools carved patterns onto the accessories along predetermined paths before a conveyor belt sent them to the infusion platform.
The theory was simple, but designing something like this required genuine skill from Noah.
The finished products dropped directly into burlap sacks like items off an assembly line. By now, several sacks of rings had already been produced.
“These are the accessories I’ve made. Give them a try.”
Loren casually grabbed a handful of rings from a sack, tossed a few to William, and stuffed the rest into his own pocket.
William caught the rings carefully. The moment he slipped one on, he froze.
His strength wasn’t particularly impressive, so the two-point Intelligence boost was very noticeable to him. It immediately made his mind feel clearer.
Realizing this, William put on a few more rings. The effect remained just as good. Now William was genuinely stunned.
The ring’s effect wasn’t actually that impressive. The accessories William usually wore were far more powerful, but the key here was that these things could be mass-produced!
“This…”
He looked at the sacks full of rings, his hands trembling.
As a shrewd merchant, he fully understood what this meant. This allowed him to completely crush all other accessory merchants in the mid-to-low-end market.
“Master Mentor… how much does one of these rings cost to produce?”
William’s voice was already trembling as he asked. Once again, he felt grateful for his decision to firmly side with Loren from the start.
Bringing him here was clearly Loren’s way of letting him take over the accessory business.
As long as the production cost of these rings matched or was even slightly higher than market prices, William was confident he could make a fortune. After all, the production speed was on a completely different level.
“When I made them by hand initially, the cost was about five silver per ring. Now that it’s mass-produced on an assembly line, the cost should be even lower.”
A standard low-grade Intelligence ring would normally cost at least a few gold pieces to produce. Loren’s ring cost a tenth or even a twentieth of other rings.
When William heard this number, his entire body trembled. He fully understood just how terrifying this figure was.
It was practically equivalent to operating at no cost. Even if Loren took ninety percent of the profits, William would still rake in a massive fortune.
“As for the finer details, you’ll have to ask Noah. He should still be in the basement.”
Loren searched the basement and eventually found a door. Sounds were coming from inside, leading him to guess that Noah was in there.
Loren hadn’t found the zombie heads he’d sent over earlier in the basement. Both Noah and the zombie heads were likely inside.
Loren knocked a few times before pushing the door open. As soon as it swung open, he saw Noah wearing a white lab coat, along with a table covered in human heads. Many of the skulls had already been sliced open.
These heads had decayed to some degree. The preservation magic Loren had casually applied earlier wasn’t permanent, but fortunately, the decay wasn’t severe enough to obscure their original appearance.
“…”
William was completely unprepared for this sight. His expression shifted slightly, but fortunately, he was well-traveled and didn’t react too strongly.
“Master Mentor?”
Seeing Loren arrive, Noah set down his blood-stained tweezers and glass slides, removed his mask, and greeted Loren.
He was probably busy with research. Noah looked very clean now, his white lab coat spotless, but his face remained utterly pale, and the dark circles under his eyes were darker than the last time Loren saw him.
At least being cleaned up made him look a bit more human, enough that he wouldn’t get caught by the Scarecrows if he walked down the street.
“Noah, how’s the research coming along?”
Before speaking, Noah glanced at William. He knew who William was, but since Loren had brought him here, it meant this information could be shared with him.
“Master Mentor, take a look.”
William placed a glass slide under the microscope. On the slide were some brain cells.
Loren leaned in to look through the microscope, and Noah began explaining:
“Zombies’ ability to move seems to rely mainly on necromancy. There aren’t many major changes in their body cells, except for this one thing.
“The brain cells contain many tiny ice crystals. It’s not just the brain cells either—other parts have them too, but the brain cells have a relatively higher concentration.
“These ice crystals are very fine, almost invisible to the naked eye.”
Sure enough, Loren really did see some ice crystals within the cells on the slide.
The temperature in the Nofica Theocracy wasn’t low right now. Preservation magic only preserved, not kept things cold. Clearly, these ice crystals were off.
“Master Mentor… what are these?”
William couldn’t help asking about the zombie situation.
“These are the Plague Church’s secret weapon. It’s one of the things I investigated during my disappearance.”
“…”
Loren emphasized “one of,” and William caught that nuance.
“Lighter.”
Loren reached out his hand toward William. William dutifully handed over a lighter, a specialty product of the Uridia Kingdom.
This type of lighter was different from traditional kerosene lighters. It was a very common modern lighter, using a piezoelectric igniter and lighter gas.
William didn’t smoke himself, but he carried a lighter for social occasions when needed. His version of “social graces” was quite different from Loren’s.
Taking the lighter, Loren immediately began burning the glass slide.
He only stopped when the slide had blackened and become scorching hot.
Then he examined the brain cells with his naked eye. The cells were now cooked, emitting an unpleasant smell.
But the ice crystals on them remained completely unchanged.
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