Mechanical Alchemist-Chapter 606 - 641: The 5th Notebook

Su Lun and Mr. Jing arrived at the Dawn Relic and looked at the lights in the Storm Manor, thinking they were some high-level Scavengers.

They didn't plan to disturb them.

After all, this relic was the wealth of all in the Alchemy plane, and anyone could come to scavenge and search for treasures.

However, as the two approached, they realized something was amiss.

Su Lun let out a soft exclamation, "Huh... is there such a strong spatial fluctuation?"

His perception of space had become extremely sensitive.

At a glance, he could see that the spatial fluctuations near Storm Manor were far different from other places.

Mr. Jing, upon hearing this, carefully sensed his surroundings and also frowned deeply, "It seems someone has linked the spatial power of the planar portal here... It appears they are setting up some kind of formation."

A dangerous gleam appeared in Su Lun's eyes as he instantly guessed what was happening and sneered, "Heh heh... Such a vast amount of energy is needed, it seems someone is setting up an ultra-long-distance teleportation array."

If it were the people from Old Lington coming to scavenge, they would certainly not waste an astronomical amount of resources to construct any teleportation arrays.

Even the main base at Luying had no need, as the carrying capacity of their ships was sufficient.

Therefore, seeing someone constructing a large teleportation array here, he immediately thought of some ill-intentioned people causing trouble.

He had once seen the ultra-long-distance teleportation arrays of the Divine plane in the waters of Dragon Country, which required a massive supply of energy, and those people used the "Rainbow Spring," a magical power source. But once constructed, it could transport tens of thousands in a mage troop.

Other places did not have conditions like the Rainbow Spring, but here they did.

Because the Dawn Relic had a "planar portal" that led to the Abyssal plane!

The planar portal itself had a self-circulating, majestic spatial energy, enough to support cross-planar teleportation. It was a perfect source for a teleportation array. Extracting just one billionth was enough to construct a large teleportation array within the same plane.

Upon hearing Su Lun say this, Mr. Jing recalled the multiple sentry posts they had encountered on their way here and commented indifferently, "So the checkpoints earlier were not to prevent low-level professionals from rashly approaching the Dawn Relic but to prevent the secret from being exposed. These guys really did think of everything."

Su Lun also connected all the clues in his head.

Nowadays, there are many high-level monsters in the Dawn Relic, and the death rate is very high for professionals below rank six. They had encountered several checkpoints before and thought they were meant to prevent low-level Scavengers from coming to their deaths.

But now it seemed that they actually served as early warning checkpoints.

If the two of them hadn't teleported here without alerting the sentries, the people here would have been forewarned.

Su Lun said with a grim expression, "Are the people from the Governor's Mansion colluding with those from the Divine plane in secret?"

A fierce light appeared in Mr. Jing's eyes as well, "Even if they aren't directly colluding, there must be some special channels that have allowed people from the Divine plane to come here."

It was also a stroke of luck that they happened upon this; otherwise, if there were a large teleportation array that led directly to the back of Luying, it would be a never-ending hidden danger.

This trend had to be nipped in the bud.

Su Lun said indifferently, "Kill a few, and we'll know."

At this critical juncture, setting up an ultra-long-distance teleportation array, no matter who it was, killing them wouldn't be a mistake.

...

Storm Manor had been refurbished once during a collective scavenging operation a few years ago, and it still looked lavish after several years.

Su Lun and Mr. Jing quietly approached and also discovered many clever magic traps around the manor.

But with the All-knowing Eye, even the hidden traps were plainly visible.

In Su Lun's eyes, he saw layer upon layer of magical runes, and his heart was already certain of something, "The magical restrictions of the Divine plane..."

These prohibitions were not part of the alchemy system but the magic system, so the identities of these people were clear; there was no need to ask. It would be better to just kill them and search their souls.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.

In his soul perception, there were about two to three hundred people in the manor.

Su Lun also guessed where these people had come from.

When the planar portal was first connected, there was no blockade at sea, and a group of an unknown number of mages slipped into the heart of Luying.

Although most of them went to the waters of Dragon Country and were finished off by the Dawn Group,

a small portion still dispersed throughout Luying.

Fortunately, the strongest among them back then were only seventh rank mage conductors, not too great a threat.

Su Lun and Mr. Jing observed silently from the shadows outside the manor for a moment when suddenly they exchanged glances, and an unspoken understanding passed between them.

Almost simultaneously, their figures vanished from the spot.

One used a spatial technique, while the other used mirror teleportation.

Su Lun made a beeline for the underground space with the most soul fluctuations, instantly moving there just in time to see dozens of mages constructing a space magic array, drawing magical runes, and drawing spatial energy from a dimensional gateway into a nine-pointed star magic circle.

Seeing a stranger suddenly appear in the basement, the expressions of the group of mages all turned to astonishment.

Before they could react, a shadow of the Reaper appeared behind Su Lun, and he released his domain in a wide range.

The black domain that signified Death quickly spread, instantly engulfing the basement's magical light sources. Wherever it passed, the mages fell down in droves.

Su Lun did not give these people a chance to activate the magical alarm; with a swing of his black scythe, the only seventh-tier magic guide on the scene was instantly decapitated.

But in the blink of an eye, not one of the dozens of mages showed any signs of life.

Looking at the dozens of "grey mists," Su Lun harvested them in one sweep.

After sorting through the information he had gathered, all the conspiracies became clear.

"Unicorn Whale Chamber of Commerce, Marquis Soldo..."

Su Lun mentally separated several key figures.

As he had suspected, the dozens of men who died were the first batch of mages to enter the dimensional gateway.

Their mission was to assist the "Heavenly God Sect" in infiltrating Luying and control the big shots of the Alchemy plane. Then, using those people's resources, they would search for various resources and ancient treasures.

Subsequently, Lucien Pepys Grandmaster decisively abandoned the Mafa political power and established a joint empire with Luying. Then he blocked the strait, which halted the invasion efforts of the fellows from the Heavenly God plane.

Without a large fleet of warships, those fellows from the Heavenly God plane simply could not breach Luying Main Island in a short time, prompting them to consider establishing a raid via a teleportation circle to the Luying rear.

Hence the secret mission involving the use of Old Lington's dimensional gateway to establish a teleportation circle came to be.

Fortunately, this group of mages did not have too many high-tier individuals and materials were scarce, so the progress of establishing the magic circle was not fast, and it would still take at least half a month to be successful.

...

"Those big shots at the Governor's Mansion have a bit of a peculiar relationship with those people from the Heavenly God plane..."

Su Lun also felt they were lucky to have stumbled upon this conspiracy that could have brought grave danger to the Alchemy plane.

Moreover, the Reaper's soul-separation ability allowed him to directly obtain a wealth of intelligence.

Although there was no direct evidence to prove that the Old Lington Governor's Mansion, controlled by the family of Master Merlin, was colluding with the "All-seeing Eye Sect," so many mages entering the Black Tower through the Chamber of Commerce must be condoned by some higher-ups.

This was also in line with Mr. Jing's previous speculation that some of the imperial elites were preparing their own way out.

They didn't cozy up to the people of the Heavenly God plane, but they also didn't refuse or offend them. By utilizing this ambiguous attitude to hedge their bets, they maximized their own interests.

"Looks like when I head to Lington, I'll need to eradicate the All-seeing Eye Sect... this malignant tumor as soon as possible," Su Lun said, a flash of severity crossing his face.

The man had already vanished from the spot.

Mr. Jing and Pestoya upstairs had also already killed most of the people, and Su Lun came up to finish off a few more.

He also rooted out a few assassins, concealing themselves with no trace, and got rid of them.

A portion of the people upstairs were members of the sect, and after the harvest, more intelligence was pieced together.

Soon after, the three met in the manor.

Mr. Jing asked, "How is it?"

Su Lun replied, "Pretty much as expected."

He recounted all the intelligence he had harvested before.

After listening, Mr. Jing said, "After we finish up here, when we go back to Old Lington, we will take care of the secret bases of both the Governor's Mansion and the All-seeing Eye Sect."

"Mm."

Su Lun nodded his head, that was indeed his intention.

Old Lington's geographical position was peculiar, and if it turned out that Luying Mainland really couldn't be held, the Alchemy civilization would inevitably move westward.

Old Lington and the four countries of the Northern Continent would all be important rear areas, and they absolutely could not let those fellows infiltrate beforehand.

Having resolved such a significant hidden danger, both Su Lun and Mr. Jing inexplicably let out a sigh of relief.

That's when Su Lun then asked, "Sister, where is the thing you were looking for?"

Mr. Jing gestured towards the ruins in the distance, saying, "It's in the city center, that dimensional gateway."

Su Lun: "Do you need my help?"

"Not for the moment."

Mr. Jing gave a slight smile and added, "If I do, I'll call you."

With that, her figure turned into mirror light and vanished on the spot.

With nothing else to do, Su Lun collected the spoils from the corpses and then teleported back to the teleportation circle in the basement he had used before.

The materials required to construct such a long-distance teleportation circle were worth a fortune, with various spatial gemstones and Demon Cores piled on the ground and a huge Crystal Core at the center of the Formation.

It was quite a small fortune.

After doing all this, he seemed to have nothing to do.

Su Lun and Pestoia began to wander around the estate.

He remembered that on his first day in this world, it was right here, in the study of the third room to the left of the entrance, where he had narrowly escaped being killed by Bald Ivan.

Pestoia transformed into a ghostly child and floated all around the estate, which had been her home for more than a thousand years.

Su Lun had an idea and headed underground.

After the first intersection, left, left, right, up, down...

Even to his now eighth-level vision, these were very clever mechanisms.

It didn't take long for him to find the altar where he had once acquired two S-rank talents.

It looked exactly as it had at first.

Around the original altar stood five cloaked stone sculptures, and behind the cloak of each, a special symbol was inscribed: ⍥, §, ☽, ✹, ꧧ.

The five statues were now covered in web-like cracks and had lost their supernatural power, becoming ordinary stone sculptures.

He had obtained the ꧧ representing wisdom and the ☽ representing death.

Su Lun looked at the statue with the § on its back, the symbol representing destiny.

After all these years, he too marveled at the wonders of fate.

The more he understood this world, the more he marveled and murmured, "Sir Isaac was indeed no ordinary Demigod..."

Now it seemed that everything the Demigod left for future generations was deeply schemed.

Whether it was Mr. Jing, Pestoia, Pandora... or those five notes.

It was as though he had foreseen some major catastrophe a thousand years ago and made all the preparations within his power, linked together by a chain called cause and effect.

Su Lun now had four of the notes in his possession.

But there was absolutely no information on the fifth, not even Mr. Jing knew.

He had come here to see if there was any clue to the fifth note.

Like the information that had been identified, each note had the hint, "This is a note tinged with destiny."

He was now more convinced than ever that Sir Isaac would not have allowed the fifth note to be lost.

After obtaining the four notes, his intuition told him that the fifth should be somewhere in the Dawn Relic.

Looking at the few statues, a special luster flickered in Su Lun's eyes, revealing an indifference as if he had seen through the vicissitudes of the world, now possessing the two-resolved All-knowing Eye.

At that moment, he saw every secret within the room laid bare before him.

Indeed!

As Su Lun began to search the altar inch by inch for any hidden mechanisms, suddenly, he saw some abnormal threads of laws in his eyes.

"Eh..."

A light exclamation in his heart was accompanied by great surprise.

Discovering abnormalities meant that there really was something hidden here.

"What a clever method..."

Looking at those threads of laws, Su Lun sighed inwardly.

Had he not possessed the All-knowing Eye with two resolutions, he believed that even a ninth-level professional would probably not notice anything unusual.

Whatever was hidden using such a method must be tied to some earth-shattering secret!

Su Lun had not felt such anticipation for a long time, and he began to slowly try to decipher those threads of cosmic rules.

Extremely complex, they were the top encryption methods in the field of alchemy.

This seemed like a sort of test.

If one was not well-versed in alchemy, even upon discovery, it would be difficult to decode.

Su Lun also guessed that this was probably Sir Isaac's way of preventing his notes from being taken by those who were not magicians.

The encryption was extremely challenging, but for Su Lun now, it wasn't a big problem.

It could be said that if he couldn't decode it, probably no one else on this plane could.

Before long, those threads of rules were completely decoded, and Su Lun saw a black-covered notebook floating before his eyes and joyfully said to himself, "It's really here!"

He already had four of them in his hands and recognized this as the fifth notebook, the identification showing its name as "Isaac's Alchemy Manuscript V"!

...

Su Lun reached out to take the notebook, barely able to contain his excitement anymore.

He opened the notebook, and lines of powerful, vigorous text caught his eyes.

"Congratulations, if you have obtained this, my last manuscript, then you must be a person favored by destiny. This notebook records my understanding of the ultimate reality of this world, at the time I wrote these words. It may not point to the truth, but if my superficial knowledge can help you open some paths to understanding this world, then all the better..."

"The meaning of alchemy is to seek the truth of the universe. When you carefully observe the world, you will find that all matter has opposites, such as light and dark, life and death, war and peace, decay and growth, heat and cold, chaos and stability, and so on. It is as if the universe has a special rule that ensures everything has its opposing side, without exception."

"This topic is too profound, to the extent that we humans may spend our lifetimes and still not fully glimpse its entirety. Of course, I mention this not to explain the lengthy results of my research but to give you a more accurate concept of the contents of this manuscript I left behind. Like the previous four, this notebook is still a type of alchemic transmutation equipment that uses the special cosmic rules I discovered."

"After delving into this discovery, I had a bold speculation. If everything has its opposing and restraining side, then... what about that so-called divine power? Yes, even divine power can be restrained."

"..."

Su Lun read every word in the manuscript seriously.

Simple descriptions of phenomena were stirring tumultuous waves in his heart.

When he read this passage, Su Lun immediately thought of one person: Pandora!

He had carefully studied the alchemic body before and had understood most of it. But he still didn't understand why Pandora could steal faith and restrain divine power.

However, upon seeing this sentence in the notebook, he instantly realized that he was about to discover a shocking secret that would unravel his confusion.

Su Lun couldn't wait to continue reading.

The more he read, the more the shock in his eyes lingered.

As these segments of text entered into his sight, a whole new world unfolded before him.

"Oh, before that, I should explain the concept of 'rule'. It is a description of a kind of cosmic force that is higher than the appearances, elements, and laws that we humans can see—something above all that. Because it is impossible to describe accurately, many ancient texts confuse them all. You can understand the 'rule' I speak of as the power that only the gods can wield; like mortals who cannot see the gods, it is a mystery hidden in the depths of the universe."

A rule? At this moment, Su Lun felt that there probably wasn't another person who could understand what Sir Isaac was trying to convey more clearly than himself!

After awakening the second solution of the All-knowing Eye, he had in fact already discovered there was an arcane and hard-to-grasp existence beyond the level of rules.

But before, without any reference books to describe this concept, no lower being could understand such a thing.

So even he didn't know what he had seen, vaguely feeling that some powers above the ninth order appeared, to control some cosmic rules.

So this is what "rules" are!

Amidst his shock, Su Lun turned the page again to continue with the text.

"Ultimately returning to the essence, this phenomenon of everything having a restraining opposites is still a clash of opposing energies. I tentatively call this energy 'dark energy'. And of course, everything has its opposite, dark matter, dark universe, and so on... If you are willing to observe, it must exist; it's just that some rules are hidden, unseen. Of course, the notebook doesn't record this. The point is the alchemic transmutation equipment!"

"I once captured a deity and closely studied the essence of divine power, further confirming some of my ideas. I found that the source of a god's divine power is their divinity. And in my understanding, divinity should be the crystallization of the world rules they comprehend. So in theory, as long as one can find the type of 'dark divine power' that restrains divine power, mortals could possess the ability to confront the gods."

"I incorporated my rudimentary understanding of 'dark divine power' into alchemy, designing a special type of transmutation equipment that restrains divine power, which I named—[God Slayer]."

After reading this far, Su Lun already knew what the fifth type of transmutation equipment left by Sir Isaac was.

"[Isaac's God Slayer], a superior type of transmutation equipment that grants mortals the power to slay gods."

The Alchemical Demigod recorded a discovery that could be described as an alchemical miracle using the simplest of words!

Now, upon reviewing Sir Isaac's notebook, a variety of thoughts became instantly clear.

That was the power above the ninth order, the power of rules!

Moreover, Sir Isaac had blazed a new trail, finding the special direction of "dark rules" which Su Lun had never seen recorded in any tome he had read before!