In the middle of the dense greenery of the Esitral Forest located to the far east of Ironmountain..
A man walked carefully inside a deep and dark cave. The man was wearing a black coat but the sleeves were torn off, revealing white bandages wrapping his lean and muscular arms tightly from his shoulders to his hands. He wore long pants made of the skin of different beasts that eventually turned gray because of the preservation process used on them. His shoes were made of bronze metal with streaks of red metallic colors called Enditrium. His knees, forearms and waist are all equipped in belts with Enditrium tied together. He wore a rough gray mask with a glowing eerie crimson diamond symbol cut horizontally and vertically.
His name is Sehash'Elum.
The Enditrium gear around his body scraped against each other, occasionally creating sparks to fly out once he made large movements that caused them to be forcefully hit against the other Enditrium metals.
Enditrium is a very tough yet heavy Mystical tier metal. A single ingot being as heavy as two adult elephants. Sehash'Elum wore Enditrium gear worth 18 ingots of Enditrium, yet he moved as if he wasn't at all bothered.
He carried an axe on his shoulder. It has heavy chains on the bottom of it so that it could be used to retract the axe when thrown. The axe had a sharp lower formation that resembled a hook so that when it lodged into something, pulling the chains would grab that object or person towards Sehash'Elum.
In his left hand was a large sack filled with unknown items. But whatever it is, it was leaking out blood.
As Sehash'Elum walked, the corrupted ones around him got out of the way, afraid of getting into trouble with him.
They whispered about Sehash'Elum as he walked past them.
"Hey newbie, see that? That's Sehash.. one of the most powerful, if not, the strongest corrupted ones under Lord Asimi."
"Damn, just feeling his Divinium sends goosebumps down my body."
"Wherever Sehash just went, he probably murdered a lot of people.. just saying."
Sehash'Elum ignored the whispers about him and continued down the cave.
The cave had so many protruding stalactites and stalagmites making the atmosphere inside the cave unsettling. There were torches everywhere that illuminated the darkness. And inside this cave, Sehash found Asimi in an empty and spacious part of the cave with all of his alchemy tools and equipment.
That's right, Asimi is an Alchemist.
Asimi noticed Sehash'Elum's arrival and without turning around, he said, "Drop them nearby, you completed your task as an Elite of the Legion."
Sehash dropped the sack near the pot and walked away without speaking a single word.
Asimi opened the sack, revealing severed heads of children around the age of 8-10. He examined it before nodding. "Great quality…"
Plop.
He tossed one into the pot and started working on creating a strange flesh-like creature.
Asimi refined the liquid inside the pot and used the alchemist class exclusive ability "Separation" to separate the mixture within the pot.
The slimy heterogeneous liquid suddenly separated and from under the mucus-like mixture, a bleeding child with torn skin, missing teeth and impaired eyes looked at Asimi before shortly running out of breath.
It died.. the resurrection failed.
Asimi clenched his fists.
"Shalra! Where's the Minotaur heart I told you to get?" Asimi growled and turned around to look at an empty space behind him.
Shalra appeared out of nowhere and said, "My men are still trying to get it…" Shalra was actually confused and a little uncertain that it still wasn't here.
"I gave you two weeks to complete the task and this is how you show your incompetence? You barely contributed to the Legion.. maybe it would be nice for you to work harder instead of slacking around here?" Asimi glared at Shalra as his mask glowed a deep purple.
Facing Asimi's oppressive glare, Shalra replied fearlessly, "Fine, I'll work on it.. just give me a bit more time."
Seeing how Shalra barely spared him a glance, Asimi was displeased.
He placed his hand on her shoulder. Pulling away her hair, his hand made its way into her collarbone. "If you don't take this seriously…"
Asimi's thumb started digging in her flesh, causing Shalra to bleed. Yet despite this pain, Shalra didn't show any reaction.
"... You know the consequences of being useless to me. Have I made myself clear?" Asimi's thumb was lodged in so deep that Shalra could feel her collarbone touching his finger.
"Yes, my lord.. you have." Shalra knew that she had to lower her head or else this would end up in a very ugly situation.
"It's good that you understand.." Asimi removed his thumb from Shalra's body.
Shalra cloaked herself without warning before leaving the cave.
As Asimi felt her body signature leave the cave, he continued with his work and experimented more on his project.
Head Cleaver walked up to Asimi and asked, "Is it really necessary to do that? Shalra is responsible for training most of the Legion's assassins. My lord, I mean no offense, but can you at least be a bit more lenient with her? She's trying her-"
"She's not trying hard enough.. Head Cleaver, I know about your attraction to Shalra, but that wouldn't change my attitude when it comes to her. Now, instead of dipping your hands in mud and staining your achievements that you worked so hard to build, why don't you focus on other important issues within the Legion?" Asimi glanced at Head Cleaver for a moment.
Head Cleaver nodded. "The spies within Ironmountain city are enough for us to monitor many things within the city. And apparently, Lirgius Alcanar's death has been made public and has caused unrest within the city. However, they have appointed someone as the new warden and increased the security and budget for the prison and the Hall of Defense."
"And as for the neighboring cities?"
Head Cleaver smiled. "All of them are successfully infiltrated by the Legion. There are only a few things that we cannot get information from, but other than that, it's all going well. An example of places we cannot infiltrate is the nobles and the adventurer's guild."
"What about the threats to the Legion?" Asimi turned back to his work.
"Other than a few vigilantes, the person who has killed the most members of the legion is the unknown killer we nicknamed Legion's Thorn." Head Cleaver recalled the information about the person named Legion's Thorn.
"Legion's Thorn is responsible for defeating Afuara's team, leaving no survivors, Montgela's team, leaving no survivors, he is also responsible for the full destruction of Terniz' assassin team… in the end, we found them dead after being mauled by beasts. We found Terniz dead and Nayrin who died trying to defend his body…" Head Cleaver sighed after seeing this many members dying.
"Do you have any records regarding Legion's Thorn?" Asimi frowned after hearing the damage that person caused. Awakening people into corrupted ones directly to the Iretoir rank costs quite a lot. For someone to kill this many awakened ones made Asimi see Legion's Thorn as a great threat.
"Nope, every team that he or she went against all ended up missing or dead. We don't know who Legion's Thorn is, or what he or she looks like.. Legion's Thorn is strong enough to defeat Provectis ranked members of the Legion, so he isn't a minor figure at all…" Head Cleaver felt a headache coming along. "And what's worse is that Legion's Thorn seemingly knows where members of the Legion are going on a mission.. me and my group of swordsmen and hunters all tried to get as much information, but all we could conclude is that Legion's Thorn has a possibility of 75% of being a member of the Legion.. and not only that, a high ranking one as well for him or her to have that much access to that information."
Asimi laughed. The sinister aura that he emitted couldn't be hidden and it expressed his wrath. "Whoever decides to betray the Legion will pay… Tell me, Head Cleaver… you're part of the Elites who have high access to information regarding missions.. what can you say to prove that you aren't Legion's Thorn?"
Blinking twice, Head Cleaver replied. "My Lord, I was literally right beside you when Terniz was reported dead. I was assisting you with a potion.."
Asimi nodded. "Fair enough. Investigate this with high priority."
"Yes, my lord." Head Cleaver bowed before leaving.
…
…
Ironmountain city…
Shalra looked at Rasoh, Cran and Alloseth who had the left half of his entire body to be partially paralyzed. After all, he was stabbed by the chemical that Chrysos coated Angelfeather with.
It was just that Alloseth was the one who was affected by it the most since the dose he received was the greatest.
Seeing how miserable they looked, Shalra massaged the area between her eyebrows before asking, "What in the Divine One's name happened to you three?"
Alloseth gritted his teeth before saying in an indignant tone, "Boss, you must avenge us, a random alchemist just beat us up for grabbing the Minotaur's heart."
Shalra crossed her arms. "The truth.."
Rasoh sighed and said, "We were about to buy the Minotaur's heart, but it was bought by an alchemist, we wanted to buy it for double the price from the alchemist, he agreed, but Cran paid him in bronze coins instead of gold."
Cran nudged Rasoh's arm. "Hey!"
Rasoh ignored him and continued. "The alchemist got mad, he beat us up and grabbed the Minotaur's heart. We didn't bother trying to steal it from him, because being an alchemist, the heart is definitely turned into a potion right now. And of course, we also didn't plan to steal it back after seeing how easy he disposed of us." Rasoh told the entire story as brief as he could.
Shalra didn't let her frustration out and said, "How long will it take for another Minotaur's heart to appear?"
The three looked at each other before saying, "Three weeks…"
Slapping her forehead, Shalra couldn't believe how terrible she messed up. "As spies of the Legion, fine.. I'll let you go back and rest for a while. I'll try to figure something out."
"Yes boss.." The three of them lowered their heads before leaving towards Esitral Forest.
Meanwhile, In Chrysos' house….
Three steel cubes with two arms were spinning a steel wheel that Chrysos bought from a local blacksmith.
Not only that, with the flesh replication technique he learned, he successfully made Rare tier inferior Minotaur's hearts and used them to power the bio-engines.
He let them run for an hour to test them out. And because of how they were designed, spinning these wheels with their small arms cost the same energy as blinking.
The wheels couldn't be called wheels since they have grooves in them. It was more appropriate to call them gears.
Chrysos, with his limited engineering knowledge, connected these gears from the engines and tested them out. He made a grinder that worked properly and it even has a working switch that can turn the engine on and off. He did this by creating a button in the engine that when pressed, disables the movement in the arms which stops the engine.
He also made a drill and a small model that uses a belt system to deliver stuff. Actually, it can be called a conveyor belt because of how it moved.. This can be applied to many things that could make work so much easier.
Chrysos tested out the grinder by tossing in some rocks into the grinder's funnel. The engine of the grinder is quite different from the rest. It spins slower, but the force it exerts exceeds the other engines by a lot. It is strong enough to crush a 2x2 inch steel cube without any trouble.
The rocks were slowly getting crushed and the result was very satisfactory. Chrysos looked at the bottom of the grinder and saw that the rocks were turned into sand, but it wasn't as fine as you expect. There were some small pebbles here and there, but for an experimental machine, this turned out quite well.
Next, Chrysos tested out the drill. He bought a medium sized boulder and took it out of his spatial bag.
The engine inside the drill had two handles attached so that handling the drill was much easier. The drill was designed in such a way that when the gear spins quickly inside the metal casing, the 6 inch drill head would be pushed out 7 inches forward and will be retracted 7 inches backwards in such a quick speed that it creates a powerful pushing force.
What's best about this drill is that the engine is silent and lightweight. Chrysos tested it out on the boulder and…
Trrrrrrrr…!
The boulder was destroyed into small pieces in under a minute.
Nodding in approval, Chrysos knew that he made great progress on bio-engines. "I wonder how much mining companies would buy this thing from me.." Chrysos smiled.
Even though people could just use Divinium to do tasks faster, not everyone can use Divinium.
In fact, people who can't use Divinium far outnumber awakened ones. So with this invention of his, Chrysos knew that he could change the world.
But… he didn't have any intentions of doing so at the moment.
What he is intending to do is use it for himself first and improve them. And only after Chrysos moves to Iqualius city will be the day where Chrysos starts selling the bio-engines.