After the commotion here, Horlerytus' fully armed dozen or so subordinates arrived late.
"What's going on?"
"Boss! Are you okay?"
"Ugh... What the hell is this smell?"
"What, what kind of monster is this?!"
...
Horlerytus impatiently waved off his incompetent and money-hungry subordinates.
These idiots didn't bother to come when Anseil was screaming earlier, but now that they heard gunshots, they showed up. What a bunch of useless fools!
"Get lost, don't bother me."
"Uh..."
The dozen or so subordinates looked at each other, unable to understand why their boss was so angry.
Was it because of the people in front of them?
Except for the young guard Seben, who was familiar with Kassadin, the others looked fiercely at Li Lin and the other two.
Horlerytus saw the color change in the faces of these brainless guys and guessed what they were thinking. He aimed his gun at them directly.
"Damn it, can't you understand human language? Get the hell out of here!"
Seeing that the boss was furious, the guards didn't want to provoke him further and quickly returned to their posts.
Only Seben, a sturdy man with dark skin and a small braid, stayed behind.
Horlerytus glanced at his most trusted personal guard and beckoned him over.
"Boss, what's going on?" He approached the three who were studying the strange creature's corpse on the ground and asked Horlerytus in a low voice.
Seben frowned, looking at the creature oozing dark green corrosive slime... or "blood," emitting a very pungent smell, and couldn't help but pinch his nose.
"What the heck is this? I've been alive for thirty years, traveled all over Shurima, and have never seen anything like this..."
As he spoke, he seemed to suddenly realize something, a glint of light flashing in his eyes. "This thing, it looks like those Xer'Sai from Sai Kahleek!"
"Creatures infected by the Void usually share common characteristics."
Li Lin, who had collected samples from the Voidlings on the ground, stood up and looked at the typical Shuriman man in front of him.
"Xer'Sai, along with the Queen of the Sai Kahleek, Rek'sai, were originally creatures native to Runeterra, but they turned into their current forms after being infected by the Void."
Listening to Li Lin's explanation, Seben, who didn't quite understand, smiled awkwardly and scratched his face.
He didn't really know much about Shuriman history and had never paid attention to these things.
God warriors, Void... Seben only knew about the Xer'Sai, which he had heard from others. He had only seen the bodies of these creatures brought in by mercenaries to the Marrowmark market. He had never been to Sai Kahleek himself.
Horlerytus sighed. "I told you to read more books, but you never listen... Now look, you don't even know what the Void is."
Seben scratched his head. "Hehe..."
"Hehe, my foot! Hurry up and find someone to deal with this monster, and also the body of Anseil in my room. Don't bury it underground, just burn it."
Li Lin quickly added, "Don't directly touch the body or the slime. If you don't want to lose a hand or turn into one of these monsters..."
He pointed to the Voidling on the ground and chuckled lightly.
Seben shuddered and finally glanced at the creature on the ground before turning and jogging away.
"This kid..." Horlerytus shook his head, then looked back at Kassadin. "So, what are your plans next?"
...
...
In the following days, at Kassadin's request, Horlerytus arranged the best tavern and inn in the Marrowmark market for the three of them.
Although the inn's own bathroom was very simple, resembling a sauna Li Lin had seen, at least they could finally take a bath.
Since leaving the Zuretta, they had endured nearly two months of fatigue without a proper rest.
After a brief adjustment in the Marrowmark market, they were about to face the Void directly. Li Lin couldn't wait until they leveled up to allocate their skill points.
Anyways, the first time killing a Voidling can grant skill points, not including the "elite monsters."
When they arrived at the Valley of Song , the village devoured by the Void, the number of Void creatures would only increase, so there would be as many skill points as needed.
With Li Lin's level now at 23, he had accumulated a total of 26 skill points.
He didn't hesitate to max out all of his current "Mechanic" exclusive skills.
Four skill points raised the original level 3 "Mechanic Novice" to level 7, increasing the speed of learning mechanical knowledge to 110%, and the probability of learning rare blueprints or skills to 7%.
One skill point raised the level 6 "Mechanical Affinity" to level 7, slightly increasing mechanical affinity, and increasing the speed of making machinery to 55%.
Four skill points raised the level 3 "Mechanical Enhancement" to level 7, upgrading equipment quality from "inferior" to "excellent" and the probability of upgrading from "excellent" to "rare" to 88% and 47%, respectively, but the probability of upgrading to "artifact" remained only 1%.
Twelve skill points were used to raise both level 1 "Auxiliary Chip" and "Steel Barrier" to level 7.
Now, the Steel Barrier had 14,000 points of life, on par with the Project Genesis: Infinite Power Armor.
However, the originally made Steel Barrier needed to be upgraded to reach the highest level. There were no precise instruments capable of emitting high energy in the Marrowmark market, which disappointed Li Lin.
But the level 7 "Auxiliary Chip" compensated well for Li Lin's regrets.
After upgrading this skill, he found that with each level increase, the intelligence of the chip would increase and energy consumption would decrease.
Moreover, the production of such chips did not require high-powered precision equipment; the mechanical devices carried by Li Lin were completely sufficient.
The only problem was the materials needed for the upgrade.
However...
This was the Marrowmark market, where many caravans from Piltover sold Hextech technology.
Li Lin bought almost all the Hextech technology available in the market, removed the parts he needed, and upgraded and replaced all the semi-intelligent mechanical chips for his power armor and four floating mechanical devices.
As for the remaining mechanical parts, he pieced them together to assemble a new Storm Robot.
However, its appearance was not as beautiful and uniform as the previous three, and it did not have an auxiliary chip, so it could only be manually operated...
But if used as an exploration robot, it was still pretty good, so Li Lin didn't add bullets to it.
After the previous battle, the bullets in the three Storm Robots had consumed more than six hundred rounds.
After reloading, there were only about two thousand rounds left, including the two hundred or so purchased from the Piltover merchants in the Marrowmark market.
Moreover, they still had to deal with the Void later, and Li Lin was afraid of running out of bullets, which led to his serious fear of insufficient firepower.
Although the money Li Lin carried was not enough to support such extravagance, most of the Piltover caravans here had heard of the name "Li Lin."
Coupled with the more typical power armor he carried, which could confirm his identity.
Li Lin only gave each caravan a personally signed IOU and let them go back to Piltover to ask the Kiramman family for gold coins, without spending a penny himself.
After a short three-day break, Li Lin was ready.
Now, with the power armor on, his system panel showed his personal combat power soaring to 78, basically reaching the peak that a human could achieve!
However, the displayed combat power was just reference data after all, and real evenly matched battles were always unpredictable, where any flaw could lead to failure.
Afterward, Li Lin approached Kassadin and Sivir to discuss the next plan.
The Valley of Song —Kassadin's hometown, and also the corrupted land devoured by the Void.
Kassadin originally didn't want Li Lin to participate in this matter, but Li Lin refused with the reason of collecting Void samples and exploring the metal ores that could be used for fusion.
Moreover, without his intervention, Kassadin could only return from the Void rift by relying on his own abilities, which would take at least a few years...
As for Sivir, Li Lin and Kassadin surprisingly agreed that she should wait in the Marrowmark market for the arrival of the Archmage Nasus.
However, as the leader of a mercenary group, she also had her own subjective thoughts and didn't like their exclusionary approach.
Under Sivir's insistence, Li Lin reluctantly allowed her to join the journey to the Valley of Song .
After all, with her joining, there was a high probability that Nasus would come to the Valley of Song directly to find them.
By then, even if there were stronger beings in the Void, it wouldn't be a problem.
With everything prepared, the three of them set off from the southern valley of the Marrowmark market early in the morning.
(End of this chapter)
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