Dark King

“Come with me.” Mouse was very familiar with the place so he was in front leading the way.

Dudian followed him.

A brass lamp was lit on the wall at the end of the passage. Two guard were stationed there and their shadows were reflected on the wall.

Dudian and mouse reached the end of the passage and came towards another door. One of the guard’s opened the door and a large mysterious underground market was presented in front of them.

It was a huge underground place designed as a square. It was dimly light by the lamps that were on the walls. There were wide variety of booths as well as large-scale shops. All kinds of things related to alchemy could be found.

Dudian was surprised as he didn’t think the scale of the underground market would be so big. Including the guests, buyers and sellers there had to be at least three hundred people gathered in here all over the square.

It was also the first time for Dudian to see so many ‘evil people’ from the dark church. He was feeling somewhat strange. The mouse pointed in a direction: “There. Come with me.”

Dudian followed him while looking around the dimly light surroundings. Actually, he was able to see clearly as his vision was much more improved in comparison to an ordinary human. There were small shops, large ones, boothes and even carpet down on the ground where people sold materials. There were variety of bottles and jars, as well as peculiar things which he met for the first time. Actually, he even saw dark claws. He wondered which monster they had took it from.

“Boss!” Shopkeeper shouted: “Check the alchemy stations! ”

A tall man wearing a dark red mask seemed to be the owner of the shop. He looked at mouse and Dudian. From their height and voices, he knew that their were children and at most were apprentice to an alchemist or potioner. He was lazy to attend to them so he said: “Check, pick and pay!”

Mouse was accustomed to such treatement so he didn’t care much. He pointed to a platform made of stone and birch: “Dog, what do you think of this?”

Dudian looked, said: “The prices are different?

“Of course.” The mouse was very experienced: “This is the cheapest and costs two silver coins. It enough for my junior apprentice brother. Of course, if you are rich then you can also buy high-end products. Such as this one which costs four silver coins. Its more convenient, but also optimizes the usage of fire. And this one costs seven silver… … ”

He showed the platforms one by one and his finger came to stop on top of a gold platform: “This is the best. It costs two gold coins. It has automatic fire bolt and can clean the ash in the pot. There are two refining pools. For doing complicated experiments, it is an essential platform.”

Dudian glanced at it. It seemed to be casted on brass. The platform’s material and appearance was better and stable than the rest. However it costed two gold coins, and he had only single gold coin on himself. He didn’t plan to spend all of it.

“That’s it,” said Dudian, pointing to two silver coin platform.

Shop owner glanced at him. He seemed to be long expecting the same answer: “Payment now and report the address. If it is within the residential district, the latest would be tomorrow night when it will be delivered to you.”

“You will also help us to transport?” Dudian asked in surprise.

Mouse laughed: “Of course. We can’t move such big things as we will be easily exposed. They have hidden transport channels. They can deliver it to anyone. Even if you are a noble. ”

Dudian was confused, did the dark church penetrate so deep into the society?

At this time, the mouse suddenly grabbed Dudian, pulled him aside, said: “Come here.”

Dudian was confused at first but when he saw the two figures in front he understood why mouse acted so. There was a man and woman. They were wearing crow masks and were infront of the shop. There was a dark gold hexagon badge on their shoulders. They were real alchemists!

“Official alchemist!” Dudian whispered. Both of them were official alchemists but the tall figure was wearing an alchemist insignia which had 3 small suns engraved on it.

From Rosyard’s notes, Dudian had learned that from the apprentice to the five-star alchemist, required a lot of hard work. Each one-star required a large number of alchemy points and would often need a lot of experimental results to be submit for review.

A three star alchemist was basically equivalent to Knight of Light from the Holy Church. It has to be noted that even a big noble family such as Mel had to treat them with hospitality.

“Boss, what good alchemy station do you have?” Three star alchemist asked the shop owner. His voice was low, apparently he was deliberately trying to change his tone.

Shop owner quickly stepped forward as he saw the badges on their shoulder: “We have few which would satisfy someone of your position. This one for example.” He pointed towards the platform which was the most expensive.

Male alchemist looked at the female one and asked: “What do you think?”

There were two suns on female alchemist’s bade but she was also regarded as a number one figure. She looked at his eyes and shook her head: “Bad. There is no insulation pool… Not good for decomposition.”

“That is.” Tall figure slightly pondered before saying: “Then you should look for one.”

“This.” This woman sighed, said: “This market should be monopolized. We won’t find anything. Moreover my experimental report has been submitted and soon Iw ill receive a call from above… What about this one?”

Tall figure hesitated for a moment, but said: “Well.”

They made the payment and left.

Dudian and the mouse looked at them leave in a grand manner.

Mouse said with emotion: “We can not afford stuff like that… Too poor. But it was good to be in little contact with them. Alchemy is so esoteric, ah! Unfortunately, they didn’t talk much or perhaps we could be inspired form their conversation.”

“Did she just submit the experiment report to the dark church?,” he said, “and why didn’t she submit after doing the experiment? ”

Mouse shrugged: “There are many alchemists who are worried that there will be other who would submit the same experiment before them. So the first thing is they submit the experiment and wait for the rating. Of course, you can submit for review after doing the experiment but if someone else has the same inspiration as you and submits a step fast than you? You know that you can lose points which is detrimental while moving up the ranks.”