Ge Zheng prepared for a few days to complete the goods. The refining of these weapons did not require the use of the Dragon's Ice Room to create the sensational effect of using antiaircraft guns to shoot mosquitoes. Ge Zheng's previous laboratory was sufficient to handle it.
Ge Zheng left Comings to watch the shop and went out with Dunk to make purchases. They first went to the Alchemy Materials Store inside the North City Gate of Hohnes, purchased a large amount of alchemical materials, and then rushed to the Dwarven Weapon Shop in the Dwarven Kingdom. After a bit of haggling with Fei Orell, they bought 120 excellent weapons.
Ge Zheng and Dunk returned with a full load, but found the empty shop with Comings buried in something behind the counter. "Comings, what are you doing?" Ge Zheng asked.
Comings lifted his head from a pile of parchment, "Sir, this cook is not a follower at all. He remembers the accounts all in a mess, it's really subpar." Honest Dunk blushed, he wasn't that smart, and accounting was indeed difficult for him.
Ge Zheng frowned, Comings always teased honest Dunk, and he was a little upset. He took Comings' new account book and looked at it, and to his surprise, Comings' accounts were clear and neatly kept, much more organized than Dunk's.
On Earth, three-legged toads might be hard to find, but accountants who can keep books are everywhere. However, in this world, mathematics hasn't even formed a discipline yet, and finding a steward who knows how to manage accounts isn't an easy task.
Dunk quickly said, "You can take over the bookkeeping from now on." Ge Zheng didn't object, so the Ge's Alchemy Shop now had a division of labor, with Ge Zheng responsible for making products, Dunk for entertaining customers, and Comings for bookkeeping and collecting payments.
"Sir, someone came looking for you," Comings said. Ge Zheng was surprised. He had only just returned after a year, so he was surprised to have someone looking for him. Comings brought out two bamboo tubes from under the counter, they were made of old bamboo and were as thick as a man's arm. One was filled with rolled parchment, and the other with a pile of gold coins.
Upon seeing this, Ge Zheng couldn't help but smile wryly. Besides the mysterious person who wanted him to answer alchemy questions, who else could it be?
Just as he returned to Wangshan City, he knew this, showing how sharp his senses were.
...
Fortunately, the refining of these magic weapons didn't require the use of the Dragon's Ice Room. Otherwise, with such a great divine dragon, Ge Zheng could only refine them in the Flocks Mountain outside the city.
After working for two consecutive nights, the shelves in the shop were filled. Finally, Ge Zheng had time to answer those questions. He had been away for half a year and had accumulated over a hundred questions.
He spread the parchment and looked at the questions before pondering and starting to answer with a quill.
"Thud," another drop of ink landed on the paper, splattering into a pretty little chrysanthemum, immediately blurring the text he had just written. He looked at the quill in his hand in annoyance and threw it into the trash can.
This problem had been bothering Ge Zheng for a long time, and his manuscript was often dotted with ink spots, although they had faded after some processing, such writing tools were indeed obsolete.
"A fountain pen, I need a fountain pen," Ge Zheng thought, stroking his chin. But he wasn't a god. He couldn't just say 'let there be light' and then there was light. He said "I need a fountain pen," and it wouldn't just appear without any cost.
Fortunately, Ge Zheng was an alchemist, and anything he needed, he could make with his own hands.
Fountain pens weren't unfamiliar to Ge Zheng from his time at Shanggan. When he first got one, his fellow disciples found it very magical and started disassembling it. After taking it apart, they realized that the thing wasn't really that amazing, and any disciple from the Ge family could easily make one.
In simple terms, a fountain pen is composed of a pen case, nib, feed, nib structure, ink cartridge, and ink sac, plus a cap if needed, which is a spring piece used to absorb the ink and the silver-white iron tube outside it.
The processing was not difficult, but the nib required the use of an alloy and needed to be polished smoothly. The feed structure was very important as it allowed the ink to flow smoothly to the nib using the principle of siphon action, so this part had to be carefully handled.
The ink sac was a problem. This world lacked rubber, but that didn't stump Ge Zheng.
The nib was divided into three kinds: steel nib, iridium nib, and gold nib. An 18K gold nib was the best, and on Earth, this kind of fountain pen was the most expensive. It not only wrote smoothly but also had a moderate flexibility and the best feel.
With the materials at hand, 18K gold with a gold content of 75%, Ge Zheng chose the mix and melted the alloy in the fusion furnace. After the gold water was poured out, mist from the clouds fell from the sky, and ice sealed the dainty nibs. Each nib didn't require much gold water, so Ge Zheng made several in one go, producing ten rough nibs from one crucible of gold water.
These nibs couldn't be directly used and needed further polishing. If he wanted to make them more exquisite, he would need to carve patterns on the nib, and even decorate it with materials like platinum wire.
Ge Zheng had his own unique way of polishing, using the 'Blow Sand' technique. Firstly, he used a special method to produce ceramic grains even finer than sand. Then, he put the nibs and a large quantity of ceramic grains into an iron cylinder. With the help of the Wind Magic, the ceramic grains inside the iron cylinder would continuously rotate, polishing the nibs to an incredibly smooth finish.
When it came to the nib, Ge Zheng couldn't avoid getting his hands dirty. He got a piece of magic crystal and used it to grind the nib. When he was at the Ge family, everyone used inferior jade stones to polish the nibs, but there were no jade stones in this world, so he had to make do with magic crystals.
Writing while dipping the nib in ink, he could feel the touch. It was a slow and delicate process, and it took him half a day to finish polishing a nib.
The remaining nibs were left for later, as Ge Zheng was eager to manufacture a fountain pen to meet his own writing needs.
The pen holder and cap naturally had to be cast with an alloy, and the spring in the cap needed to be highly elastic and unyielding. Ge Zheng wasn't quite clear on the ratio of materials for this, so he could only add some carbon to the iron to experiment and finally managed to make some barely passable high-elasticity metal pieces.
The feed needed a soft material and on Earth, ordinary fountain pens were made of synthetic plastic, but the Star Refinement World had a better material: iron-sinking wood. It was harder than ordinary wood but softer than metal. Ge Zheng used this material to make the feed and nib structure, and most of a fountain pen was now complete.
The remaining issue was what material to use instead of rubber for the ink sac.
The ink was stored in the ink sac, and without it — the fountain pen would still be a dip pen, unable to achieve the effect Ge Zheng desired.
...
Old Hans chuckled, "Your master invited me to dinner? Is there something so good?" Honest Dunk replied, "Yes, the master asked me to invite you personally." Old Hans was the type to freeload meals, so being suddenly invited made him feel a little out of place.
He rubbed his oily head, "Well, since little Ge has given such a warm invitation, I will graciously accept."
After feasting next door, Ge Zheng began to plan his next move. "Hans, the bag of lacquer tree gum you received last time in Wangshan City, do you still have it?" Hans turned his eyes, "I still have it. Do you want to buy it? We are close like brothers, I'll ask for twenty gold coins from you."
He took two gold coins from Hans and bought twenty from him. Although he got it cheaper than the market price, Ge Zheng couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable. He sighed, "Since we are like brothers, let's settle the bill clearly. How much are the lavish meals you enjoyed at my place worth?"
Hans reluctantly handed over the lacquer tree gum, and Ge Zheng couldn't be too excessive, so he gave him ten gold coins.
Ge Zheng locked himself in the laboratory and picked out a small lump from the lacquer tree gum, blew through a straw, and made it into a capsule. Then he added some calcium to it, and it immediately hardened, becoming similar to rubber.
He then extracted a blood vessel from a large fish and replaced the biological cells inside with metal using an exchange equation - creating the feed, Pixie Canal for the pen.
With everything ready, Ge Zheng assembled all the parts, and the first fountain pen in the Star Refinement World was born that night!
He dipped it in the ink bottle, wrote a few words, adjusted the nib according to the ink, and finally succeeded.
That night, with the fountain pen's assistance, Ge Zheng completed thirty difficult questions in one go, writing at twice the speed of a dip pen and producing neat and delicate handwriting without a single ink blot.
...
While Ge Zheng was making the fountain pen overnight, there was still someone in Wangshan City who hadn't fallen asleep.
Gulfar was hiding in his own blanket, playing with his new toy. Dosey dolls are the latest toys, and it is rare for an alchemist to lower his status to make a toy, so alchemic toys are particularly expensive. This toy is very delicately made, every joint can move, and it is wearing armor.
Playing until late at night, Gulfar finally fell asleep with the toy in his arms. Under the quilt, the cute doll from the day suddenly emitted a strange red light from its eyes, and then mechanically twisted its neck and bit Gulfar's wrist...
Lord Stakka, whose figure was somewhat bloated, was panting heavily as he lay on his mistress. He loved doing this. Bang! The bedroom door was pushed open, and Ilmeda, dressed in a tight warrior suit, burst in. "Father, a plague has appeared in the city!"
"What!" The father and daughter forgot about their embarrassment, and Stakka directly shrunk back from his mistress's body. "Please give the order to close the city of Mounthope immediately!" Ilmeda said. Although this is a move tantamount to suicide, if the city is not closed, the plague will spread throughout the entire continent, causing a catastrophic disaster.
Stakka hesitated a bit and reluctantly put on his boots, but Ilmeda was already impatient and grabbed his wrist, "Father, make a decisive decision!" Stakka sighed, "Is the ancestor's legacy going to be ruined by me?" He waved his hand abruptly, "Guards, issue the order to close the city!"
At this time, ordinary people in the city still did not know what had happened, which was sad for them. When the heavy city gates closed, the iron gates outside the city also fell down - a sight that only occurs in times of war. But at this time, it was not to deal with foreign invasion, but to block the condemned citizens.
The ignorant people were anxious, asking each other, "What's happened? Have enemies attacked us? Why haven't we heard any news?"
The soldiers also did not know what had happened, they were just faithfully carrying out orders - orders that were equivalent to suicide.
Ilmeda's actions demonstrated her astute political acumen. Even if she had not actively closed the city, once the news got out, the Three Grand Duchies would have dispatched armies to block Mounthope. By that time, even if Mounthope could escape the plague, it would not escape the Three Grand Duchies' armies.
If she proactively closes the city, she would win the favor of the entire continent. If Mounthope can survive this disaster, it will receive praise and support from the entire continent. What seems like a suicidal move actually hides deep political considerations.
Mounthope is a typical autocratic city-state, with almost no other government buildings except for Count Stakka's ruler stronghold. Therefore, the layout of the entire city revolves around the central ruler's palace.
To the north is the concentrated commercial area, where Gezheng's alchemy store, the dwarf master Feiore's weapon store, and the shabby fairy Hoens's alchemical materials store are all located in this area. To the south is the rich district of the city, with luxurious mansions. To the east is the city militia's barracks, and to the west is the area where the poor live, the so-called slums.
In one block of the slums, the well-equipped City Lord's mansion guards had already surrounded the entire block, forbidding anyone from entering or leaving. Riding on a tall horse, Count Stakka, followed by his daughter and the city defense general Bamos, arrived in front of a low building in the block.
All the priests of the temples in the city were urgently requisitioned. Seeing the city defense forces hurry the priests away from their homes, everyone had a foreboding feeling. By noon, the news had spread like dandelion seeds in the wind.
It was outside the butcher's shop that Dunk heard the news. He didn't even bother to buy the vegetables, and quickly ran back to report.
Gezheng was left with the final question. After answering this question, the large sum of money would be his. "Master, master…" Dunk banged frantically on the door, but Gezheng frowned. Dunk never disturbed him in his laboratory.
One by one, the priests lowered their heads as they entered the dark and damp little house, and one by one they shook their heads as they left. The shaman high priest of the Shaman Supreme God Religion was the last to go in. When he came out, the elderly serpent Orc shook his head and said, "My Lord, this is not a plague, it is a curse of dark alchemy, but its danger is no less than that of a plague…"
Count Stakka was not a fool after all and immediately ordered, "Immediately summon all the alchemists in the city." Then he instructed a guard behind him, "Go to the mansion and bring Mr. Angell and the others."
Angell is the seven-level alchemist who is kept in the Count's mansion. With his level, he is not considered particularly outstanding on the continent, but in a border town like Mounthope, he receives the same treatment as the Count. The climate here is humid and warm all year round, and with the Count's attentive care, Angell chose to stay and never leave.
After years of comfortable living, his originally robust body had also become plump, resembling a fat white bun. With the support of two soldiers, Angell hurried over, panting, "My Lord's summons, what is your command?" Angell was very aware of the Count's generous treatment of him, and was doing exactly the right thing for a situation like today.
Without the need for many words, someone familiar with the situation explained everything to him. After hearing the explanation, Angell's chubby face took on a hint of gloom. The curse of dark alchemy! Anyone can practice dark alchemy, but to reach the level of releasing alchemical curses, it requires a standard of a ninth-level master or above.
Angell knew himself very well, and entering now would be walking right into the lion's den...
Seeing his hesitation, Count Stakka couldn't help but glare at him fiercely. Angell sighed and braced himself, closing his eyes and walking into the room.
Just as he entered, all the alchemists in the city were driven by the guards to the slums. Not even poor Hans escaped.
Gezheng showed a cold expression. Many of the city guards had suffered because of him, so no one dared to offend him.
When Ilmeda saw Gezheng, her eyes lit up. She quietly drove her horse and came to his side, leaning down and whispering, "It's Gulfar…" Gezheng raised his head suddenly, seeing that Ilmeda's eyes were also red. The noble girl nodded sadly, and Gezheng looked up at the sky, letting out a deep sigh. The lively child from a few days ago was now a lifeless body in bed. He clenched his fists in his sleeves!
Even though many people had already been in the room, nobody dared to touch anything in there. The room was furnished very simply, with rough wooden tables and chairs, and two beds in the corners. The child was in the southwest corner, and the adult was in the northeast corner. The room was very quiet, as if the family had not yet woken up.
Angell walked up to the bed, and the bed was very cold. It was obvious that the person lying on it had been dead for a long time.
The chubby alchemist covered his nose, lifted the covers, and carefully examined the body before letting out a long sigh.
"My Lord, I have found the source of the curse," Angell said, walking out of the room with the toy in his hand triumphantly, "It's this thing. As long as we destroy this, the curse will disappear."
The high-strung lord finally breathed a sigh of relief, "Great, Master Angell, please take action at once and destroy this ominous thing!" "Okay!"
Among the crowd watching, a person in a robe quietly pulled down his hood to cover his face. At that moment, a hint of triumphant light flashed in his eyes.
At that moment, someone suddenly shouted, "Wait!" A person walked out of the group of alchemists who had been forcibly driven there.
Gezheng felt that this matter seemed not so simple. A doll, a curse of dark alchemy, the combination of both, and a word gradually surfaced in his mind. In the archives, there was a very obscure book that recorded an item of dark alchemy - the Catastrophe Doll!
Stakka muttered, "It's you again." In Mounthope, there were not many people who dared to disturb the lord's rest, and Gezheng had had one great feat. Angell, wide-eyed, pointed at himself in disbelief and said, "Who are you?" Gezheng had the certification badge of a six-level alchemist, and Angell felt that he could show his senior's prestige in front of this kid.
"The doll cannot be destroyed," Gezheng said. As soon as he said this, the mysterious person who had been about to leave stopped and walked back.
"Kid, don't think that just because you're a six-level alchemist, you're something special. Challenging the conclusion of a senior can indeed be a shortcut to fame, but you must have the strength to back it up." Angell deliberately wiped his certification badge. Unfortunately, Gezheng didn't even look at him, as if the chubby fat man didn't exist at all.
He said to the lord, "This toy is called the Catastrophe Doll, it's a very esoteric curse of dark alchemy. It spreads the curse, but it's not just an ordinary cursed item. Because it is not only the source of the curse, but also the antidote to the curse."
"Nonsense!" Angell jumped out and interrupted him, "My Lord, this kid is talking nonsense. I've never heard of a cursed item being an antidote to a curse. Count, don't believe him for a moment. I see him as sinister, and this curse might even have been caused by him!" Between a six-level alchemist and a seven-level alchemist, everyone would naturally believe the latter. For a moment, all eyes were on Gezheng, full of vigilance. The guards of the count's house secretly surrounded Gezheng.
Stakka snorted and waved his hand, "Grab him, lock him up first, and when we have dispelled the curse, we'll put him on trial." The guards were about to pounce, when suddenly a voice cried out, "Hold on!" A man walked out from the group of alchemists who had been forcibly driven there.
Gezheng felt that this matter didn't seem so simple. A doll, a curse of dark alchemy, both combined, a word, Catastrophe Doll, emerged in his mind from an obscure book in the archives.
Stakka muttered, "It's you again." In Mounthope, there were not many people who dared to disturb the lord's rest, and Gezheng had had one great feat. Angell, wide-eyed, pointed at himself in disbelief and said, "Who are you?" Gezheng had the certification badge of a six-level alchemist, and Angell felt that he could show his senior's prestige in front of this kid.
"The doll cannot be destroyed," Gezheng said. As soon as he said this, the mysterious person who had been about to leave stopped and walked back.
"Kid, don't think that just because you're a six-level alchemist, you're something special. Challenging the conclusion of a senior can indeed be a shortcut to fame, but you must have the strength to back it up." Angell deliberately wiped his certification badge. Unfortunately, Gezheng didn't even look at him, as if the chubby fat man didn't exist at all.
He said to the lord, "This toy is called the Catastrophe Doll, it's a very esoteric curse of dark alchemy. It spreads the curse, but it's not just an ordinary cursed item. Because it is not only the source of the curse, but also the antidote to the curse."
"Nonsense!" Angell jumped out and interrupted him, "My Lord, this kid is talking nonsense. I've never heard of a cursed item being an antidote to a curse. Count, don't believe him for a moment. I see him as sinister, and this curse might even have been caused by him!" Between a six-level alchemist and a seven-level alchemist, everyone would naturally believe the latter. For a moment, all eyes were on Gezheng, full of vigilance. The guards of the count's house secretly surrounded Gezheng.
Stakka snorted and waved his hand, "Grab him, lock him up first, and when we have dispelled the curse, we'll put him on trial." The guards were about to pounce, when suddenly a voice cried out, "Hold on!" A man walked out from the group of alchemists who had been forcibly driven there.