Exploring Technology in a Wizard World

Chapter 166: Chapter 165 Nancy’s Strange Behavior

“Hmm?” Upon hearing the noise, Richard slightly startled and turned to look behind him, only to see Nancy’s figure.

Under the illumination of the light spots that enveloped the entire giant wheel, Nancy’s body seemed to be emitting a faint glow. Her skin appeared orange-red, and her sky-blue eyes flickered with a strange brilliance. A light fragrance wafted through the air, filled with a scent like that of artificial hormones. She seemed somewhat embarrassed, a rather bold type of embarrassment.

“Do you want to borrow my sword?” Nancy looked up and repeated.

Only then did Richard notice Nancy holding two longswords in her hands, as if prepared in advance, now offering one of them to him.

Richard’s eyes flickered without refusal, reached out his hands to receive the sword, and said, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Nancy replied.

...

With a “whoosh,” Richard drew the sword and without further words, directly slashed at a “Griffin Seven-colored Bird” flying past, cutting its wing with a “plop.”

The “Griffin Seven-colored Bird’s” flight halted, losing balance and crashing onto the deck, Richard stepped forward, sword in hand, precisely pinning the bird’s body to the deck. He grabbed its wildly pecking beak, elongated the neck, took out a scalpel, and made a cut along its neck. Accompanying the bird’s violent struggle, the blood flowed out rapidly.

Richard took out a glass bottle from his chest and without wasting any, collected all the blood.

After a while, the “Griffin Seven-colored Bird’s” blood dried, it ceased struggling, Richard sealed the glass bottle, put it away, discarded the “Griffin Seven-colored Bird’s” carcass, and started looking for his next target.

Nancy, who was nearby, asked, “Do you not want the feathers? Lord Dempsey did say that the feathers are of the highest value. It seems like everyone else is plucking feathers, yet you only want their blood?”

Around them, the first thing everyone did after killing a “Griffin Seven-colored Bird” was indeed to start plucking the feathers, leaving not a single one. Only a very few people tried to collect the “Griffin Seven-colored Bird’s” flesh and bones, as these were low in value and hard to preserve.

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Naturally, Richard did not reveal his intent and said, “I think the blood is more useful to me. Plucking feathers is just a waste of time.”

“Is that so,” Nancy raised her eyebrows slightly and said, “how about we work together to hunt these ‘Griffin Seven-colored Birds’? After we kill them, you can have everything but the feathers.”

Richard looked at Nancy, feeling that she was unusually warm tonight.

Was it an illusion, or…

Seeing that Richard did not respond, Nancy asked again, “What do you think, is it a deal?”

“Alright,” Richard replied.

“That’s settled then,” Nancy said, swinging her sword and moving closer to Richard.

The two started cooperating to kill the “Griffin Seven-colored Birds.” Under the illumination of numerous light spots, their sword blades shimmered coldly, cutting through the air continuously as one “Griffin Seven-colored Bird” after another screeched and fell.

Richard’s swordsmanship needed no further praise, and compared to others, Nancy’s swordsmanship was extremely formidable. Additionally, with her occasional use of spells to assist, her efficiency was not much less than Richard’s.

In just a moment, the two had killed more than twenty “Griffin Seven-colored Birds,” a stark contrast to the mere two or three birds caught by others nearby.

As the hunt gradually neared its end, the population of “Griffin Seven-colored Birds” rapidly decreased from the killings. Once the last “Griffin Seven-colored Bird” chasing and devouring light spots was killed, all the fighting on the deck ceased, leaving only the sound of “scritch, scritch, scritch” from feather plucking.

Richard collected the blood, from over twenty killed “Griffin Seven-colored Birds,” filling three full glass bottles. After sealing the bottles, Richard was about to leave when Nancy, who was putting “Griffin Seven-colored Bird” feathers into a sack, suddenly stood up and said, “Wait.”

“Hmm?”

“Whoosh,” Nancy tossed a sack towards Richard.

“Thump,” Richard caught it, looking at Nancy puzzledly, “What’s this?”

“After killing so many ‘Griffin Seven-colored Birds,’ you deserve a share. If you only want the blood, that’s too unfair. Take some feathers as compensation,” Nancy said, “Besides, I can’t carry all these feathers. Consider this sack a gift to you.”

“Uh…”

“Feathers aren’t iron ingots, can’t they be held?”

Thinking this way, Richard didn’t voice his thoughts; he simply nodded and said, “Alright then, thank you. By the way, here is your sword back.”

Richard handed over the longsword he was holding.

Nancy, however, didn’t take it, waving her hand she said, “Keep the sword as well. It seems you didn’t bring any weapons aboard, and that can be inconvenient. Why don’t you keep it?”

“Is that okay?”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m not used to accepting gifts without reason.”

“Isn’t there a reason?”

“What reason?”

“You forgot? A few days ago, you let me have that maid; consider it a way I owe you a favor.”

“So, this sword is to repay the favor?”

“How could it be? My favor wouldn’t be that cheap, just…”

“So, it is still a gift without reason.”

“Uh…” Nancy was momentarily at a loss for words.

“Then you better take it back.” Richard offered the sword again.

Nancy looked helplessly at Richard and then accepted it.

Richard turned and walked toward the ship’s cabin.

Nancy called from behind, “Goodbye!”

Richard didn’t make a sound, merely waving his hand as a form of farewell. However, as he walked down to the lower deck, he paused slightly, squinted his eyes, and muttered to himself: Deception, or deception, or maybe deception?

…

Stepping down to the third layer of the deck, Richard stopped pondering any further matters and began to perform tentative experiments with the “Griffin Seven-colored Bird” blood he had obtained.

All the experimental equipment like beakers, alcohol lamps, glass tubes, etc., were stored in the Space Iron Ring, to avoid raising suspicion by being seen, he had never taken them out before. Now, he carefully took them out and set them up on the table in the cabin.

After setting everything up, Richard poured the blood into the beaker and went through a series of procedures such as filtering and purifying.

He followed the process of the “One-eyed Frenzy Potion”, but employed more efficient, scientific methods. Ultimately, through distillation, he obtained two distinctly different products—two liquids—one light yellow and the other deep blue.

The two liquids were placed in glass tubes, shimmering under the cabin lights.

Richard took out the Parchment describing the “One-eyed Frenzy Potion” and studied it, learning from it that the light yellow liquid was the core ingredient—Rainbow Bird Pure Blood.

As for the deep blue liquid, it was an impurity in the core ingredients. What its exact role was, even One-eyed didn’t know. He only found that in several tests, the more the deep blue liquid was mixed in, the worse the effect of the “One-eyed Frenzy Potion.”

What the principle was, One-eyed did not understand, as after all, he purely relied on trial and error, blindly fumbling through methods, and spending a lot of time to figure out how to make the “One-eyed Frenzy Potion”. Achieving this much was already quite remarkable, to delve into the scientific knowledge behind it would be asking too much of him.