Chapter 40
The linen bag that the boy was carrying was small. Obviously he was not as strong as Dudian because it didn’t take long before he began to breathe heavily.
Dudian’s vision was three times better than the ordinary person’s because of “God’s blessing”. He was trailing the boy from far behind.
“Because of his age, at best he is an apprentice alchemist. It’s just who he had bought the materials for. Is it for his own use or to help out his teacher? ” Dudian was pondering while walking after the boy. The boy stopped at the junction on got onto a carriage.
Dudian face slightly changed and run after to catch up after them.
The area was bustling with the people so the carriage’s speed was not fast. Fortunately, Dudian’s body was strengthened because of three years of hellish training and ‘God’s blessing’ so that his stamina was enough to follow after them for seven or eight streets. Dudian was having problems with his breath when the carriage suddenly stopped.
The kid jumped from the carriage after he paid for the ride and entered a roadside alley.
Dudian immediately went over, pretending to be passing by the road. He looked at the alley but was startled. It was a dead end sealed by walls in all three sides. The boy had disappeared.
“Damn it!”
Dudian frowned. He didn’t believe in fairy tales such as existence of magic. So he accept the fact that the boy disappeared just like that. He entered the valley and carefully checked the ground for footsteps.
As it was a sealed alley few people used it. It was dusty everywhere. Garbage was piled up in some parts. Dudian focused his sharp vision and saw stampede footprints on the ground. The trail spread towards the middle of the alley to the front of a wall.
He came closer to the part of the wall where footprints had disappeared. Dudian carefully touched the wall. It was coated and colored to look like the wall. Actually if he hadn’t touched it, he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
“Hidden entrance.” Dudian touched everywhere to feel the hard structure behind the entrance. It was made so that the hidden entrance wouldn’t be exposed by wind or rats.
Dudian noted down the address and went out. If he informed the address of the alchemist’s base to the Holy Church, then as a scavenger, he would receive a lot of financial gains. However he was not interested on such a thing, on the contrary he was ready to join the underworld of the alchemists.
After all, except the Rosyard’s notes he didn’t have any kind of knowledge regarding the alchemists. Although he had recorded a lot of things in the notes, but many high-level alchemists mastered and learned the information about basic nature of things by heart instead of recording.
To join the alchemist circle, he had to be an alchemist. The first step towards that was to ink a black tattoo.
Dudian took another look at the alley and went back to the intersection. He stopped a carriage and went to the slums. From young age he had learned that he had to be as efficient as possible.
Soon, the carriage came to the slums. The air blowing thick stinky smell hit him as soon as they approached the slums. There was a hint of frustration in his heart. Enduring the smell he went towards a remote place to find a dilapidated small hotel to rent.
In the hotel room, Dudian took out some of the raw materials from the linen bag. The first step was to extract the sulfur from the ore. He was prepared to use the most primitive refining method to heat the sulfur ore and dissolve it. Afterwards he would have to cool the upper layer and grind it using stone wheel to produce sulfur powder.
It was rainy season at the moment. Dudian paid a few copper coins to the hotel’s owner so that he could get few pieces of coal from the dusty brazier.
Dudian returned to his room and locked the door. He began to heat the sulfur ore by burning the coals. After a while he understood that he would need more coal so he went back to hotel owner to buy a big bag of coal.
The melting point of sulfur was not high so it soon melted. Dudian had prepared all the purchased equipment in advance so there was not much of a delay in the production of sulfur powder.
The room was incensed in sulfur’s smell. Dudian had long prepared and worn a mask. Due to the nuclear radiation masks seemed not to disappear but still widely used even though the technology hadn’t progressed at all.
It was true that different environments promote different developments.
According to Rosyard’s notes all the alchemists were using masks as they were dealing with all kinds of experiments and inevitable could intake toxic substances. The role of the masks were minimal but still widely available.
By the evening, Dudian finally had enough amount of sulfure powder and charcoal powder. He was ready to produce the gunpowder which was a simple thing given he had all the basic necessities.
“I wouldn’t have expect to produce gunpowder in a condition such as this.” Dudian looked at his clothes smoldered dirty by coal. He yearned for the future where he would have his own dedicated alchemy room for the experiments.
“I hope I can make a fortune with this trip to the outside of the giant wall!” Dudian wiped off the dirt on his face.
In the blink of an eye, seven days passed.
The night before the task, Dudian left his house to commercial district. The Mellon Consortium had sent a carriage to take him and the other scavengers to the headquarters. Mason, Dudian, Sham, Zach and others stayed in a small castle provided for free of charge.
“I heard that tomorrow morning we will start.” Mason said in excitement: “At last tomorrow I will be able to go outside the giant wall. Since small age when I heard those horrible stories told about the outside world, I have yearned to see what is it really out there! ”
“I don’t think it is as bad as the stories tell but it is definitely dangerous.” Zach said.
Sham smiled, looking at things that Dudian had brought with him: “Dean, what are those?”
“Toys,” Dudian casually said as he glancing at the small tubes that were filled with powder and ready to explode at any given time.
WRITERS NOTES: I’ve read the comments about people who asked me why all those western names. Let me explain, first of all it is about the background layout and secondly it was not suitable to use Chinese names in a world like that. Such as Lin the alchemist or Yang Xuan the Knight of Light or “Eastern Chinese Wall”. It was not feeling right with the style of the story. The world’s background is very large, be patient as there will be surprises.