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We’ve Moved! If you notice any missing, empty, or incorrect chapters, please leave a comment below, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. Regular updates will resume on June 10th. Thank you for your patience!
We’ve Moved! If you notice any missing, empty, or incorrect chapters, please leave a comment below, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. Regular updates will resume on June 10th. Thank you for your patience!

Chapter 8: Statue, Altar, Offering

Farewell to a friend whom he had only known for a few hours, but whom he probably would never see again in the future. Suren felt a bit down.

The surroundings suddenly changed from that luxurious mansion to a…ruin.

“Is this…the remains of the previous mansion?” Although all the furnishings inside the house had decayed, from the structure of the house that had not collapsed, it was the mansion where he had stayed before.

The banquet hall, the corridor, the study…the layout was all very familiar.

“At least it would take several hundred years for it to decay like this…” Suren felt somewhat incredulous.

He thought he was prepared, but when he saw the scene of desolation in front of him, he still felt a bit disoriented.

Was the previous mansion an illusion? Were the encounters with Pestoya and the others also illusions?

But when he looked down, he found himself holding a wooden box, containing the “rune puppet”. And on his chest, he wore a butterfly brooch adorned with a black gem.

“The things are real…” Suren stroked the box in his hand, with a feeling as if he had awakened from a dream and brought back something from the dream to reality.

“Could it be that the brightly lit mansion just now was like a special space, like a game instance?” Suren looked around, unable to understand.

His knowledge of this world was too limited, and many questions could not be understood simply by thinking.

However, he was now faced with another question: where should he go now?

At that moment, he thought of the information on his retina.

“The original host came here to find something called ‘Sir Isaac’s relic’…” Now that he had some idle time, Suren took a closer look at the cryptic and difficult to understand information on his retina. He also realized that the “treasure” that the original host came to find seemed to be very complicated.

Coincidentally, he was also very interested in that kind of “superhuman ability”.

After some thought, Suren decided to go see for himself. He also speculated that there should be no other danger in the mansion. If there were any, Pestoya should be the biggest boss.

Relying on his memory, Suren found the banquet hall of the mansion.

Then, following the left-hand side, he found the seventh room.

The door of the room had completely decayed, and cobwebs were everywhere, giving it a very eerie look. But the structure of the house was still relatively stable, except for the peeling paint on the walls. It was still recognizable as a storage room.

Suren cautiously walked in. Other than occasionally hearing a few squeaks from mice, there were no terrifying monsters like in a horror movie.

He saw the hexagonal lamp stand on the wall as soon as he entered the room.

Finding the correct lamp, he turned it clockwise, and heard the sound of gears “clicking” and a secret door appeared.

“Even after several hundred years, this mechanism can still operate normally…” Suren was slightly amazed at the deep passage that appeared before him.

Without much hesitation, he walked in.

The passage seemed to be isolated from the outside air and was very well-preserved. He tested it and found that it was not stuffy and he could breathe normally.

The tunnel was lined with blue bricks, and wall lamps hung at intervals on the wall. The faint yellow light from the gemstone, the material of which was unknown, was dim but sufficient to illuminate the entire secret passage.

Suren didn’t dare touch anything. Since the secret door could open normally, the mechanisms in the secret passage were probably still operational.

The information on his retina issued a special warning: do not touch anything outside of the safe circuits.

In this way, after walking for a while, Suren found that the secret passage had become somewhat strange, as if everything was the same everywhere.

He knew that he had entered a maze.

There were visual interference mechanisms here.

He made some necessary directional markings on the ground and continued forward.

“After the first intersection, left, left, right, up, down…” Fortunately, the correct route of the labyrinth was still imprinted in his retina, so Suren encountered no trouble along the way.

After about a quarter of an hour, he reached his destination, a spacious closed stone chamber.

Inside, there was a large glowing gemstone, illuminating the entire room brightly.

“Is this the ‘Hermit’s Altar’ marked on the treasure map?” Suren didn’t rush into the stone chamber, but carefully observed it.

In the center of the circular stone chamber, there were five tall stone statues. They were cloaked, covering their entire bodies and most of their faces, looking very mysterious. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that three of the statues had cracks, while only two were intact.

And behind the cloaks of each statue, there was a special symbol carved: ?, §, ?, ?…

It seemed to be some kind of special code.

What surprised Suren was that simply gazing at these statues gave him a sense of sacred majesty, making him feel as if he wanted to worship them from the bottom of his heart.

That feeling, as if being watched by a deity, made one feel as small as dust.

“These statues are indeed unique…” Suren sighed as he observed the scene.

The uncovered world was gradually revealing its mystery to him, and Suren’s curiosity grew stronger.

There was nothing redundant in the secret chamber.

The five statues stood in different directions, and in the center of the room was a circular altar with a diameter of about five meters.

The altar was carved with an eight-pointed star magic array, with some unreadable special characters and runes on the sides, and in the center, an engraved pattern of a “coiled serpent” and “scales”.

“Is the secret to obtaining the ‘talent’ for withstanding bullets like the man called the Bald Eagle hidden on this altar?” Suren looked deeply at the carvings on the altar.

There was still a message left on his retina: “My dear Feik, I am sorry, you have lost everything; through decrypting the mysterious ‘Isaac Alchemy Ma**script’ that I obtained from the family, I discovered an amazing secret: in addition to natural awakening and bloodline inheritance, there’s actually a third way for superhuman talents, which is through a specific targeted awakening…Although it’s just an unconfirmed ‘treasure map’, this is the best way I can think of to compensate you…”

Suren didn’t dwell on the intricacies of this message, as the cause and effect didn’t matter anymore.

He captured a few important keywords: sacrifice medium, targeted awakening, talent.

It said that after “sacrificing his own eyeball,” he “may” be able to obtain an extremely powerful S-level talent. A highly rare ability that everyone in the alchemy world longed for.

If it were on Earth, Suren would have taken this as a joke.

To sacrifice one’s own eyeball and gain superpowers?

To hell with superpowers!

But after witnessing so many extraordinary powers just now, Suren cautiously pondered this question.

As for the word “may,” it carried a sense of gambling.

Because no one had tried it before.

“I remember the Bald Eagle said that his ability to withstand bullets was called ‘C079-Steel-reinforced Skeleton’? ‘S-level’…seems even more powerful…” Suren weighed the options in his mind, not knowing how the talents were classified in this world.

But if he could gain a “superhuman power” like the Bald Eagle, it seemed worth paying a price.

Certain thoughts were already stirring in his mind.

And what made Suren determined was another reason.

He also sensed that the background of the original host was not simple. Being acknowledged in respectful language by the person who left the information on his retina, it might be that the awakened talent here was even more powerful than the “steel-reinforced skeleton” of the Bald Eagle.

Opportunity, in any world, always had an element of gambling.

The worst result would be blindness, but not obtaining anything.

Suren, who had just experienced a life-and-death battle, felt that this was not an unacceptable price.

To obtain something, one must pay. This was a basic rule followed in any world.

We’ve Moved! If you notice any missing, empty, or incorrect chapters, please leave a comment below, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. Regular updates will resume on June 10th. Thank you for your patience!
Mechanical Alchemist

Mechanical Alchemist

The dark dungeons lay hidden beneath the earth, a labyrinth filled with countless ancient relics and treasures. Within these shadowy depths, there existed oddities and aberrations, cursed objects lurking in the gloom… Abysses and caverns were home to eldritch gods and mythical races… Artificers, cursed sigil prosthetics, and the towering black citadels stretched upward like fingers to the unknown… A mad alchemist’s brew of steam punk essence, a dash of the arcane, and a generous helping of the supernatural, all swirled together to forge a vibrant and colorful fantasy world. I am the Puppeteer Alchemist. All that I behold are but puppets to me. I alone am legion!

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