Mechanical Alchemist

"General Fred, look, there are two ships over there."

"It's really Captain Barrett! Thank goodness, they're still alive!"

"Huh, that ship seems to be a pirate ship? How come the captain is on someone else's boat..."

"Those are the people from the 'Dawn Squad'! My God, it really is them!"

"The Dawn Squad is...?"

"They are our Judgment Squad's most sincere friends, our saviors!"

"..."

Half a day later, Su Lun and his group found the drifting people of the "Sacred Judgment Squad" at sea.

When the two groups met, the Dawn Squad instantly became lively.

This time Barrett and his group adventured to the Moros city-state to save people, rescuing over three hundred from slave traders, plus the previous team members, totaling five to six hundred people.

This was also the last remnant of the once illustrious "Sacred Judgment Corps" of the Luying Empire that had been prominent for hundreds of years.

These were truly elite Luying Royal knights, extraordinary in combat.@@novelbin@@

However, now there was no Judgment Squad, only the "Dawn Pirate Squad".

Even though they were rescued without equipment, it did not matter as the Dawn Squad's warehouse had a large amount of equipment and supplies, all spoils of war from annihilating several fleets of the North Sea. There was more than enough to equip these hundreds of people.

Now, the "Dawn Squad" instantly transformed into a large group of almost a thousand people.

Three warships, just about complete for three separate fleets.

Tamu's first fleet, Dr. Banks's second fleet, and now Barrett's third fleet.

This combat power, among all the pirate groups in the North Sea, was also among the very top.

Su Lun and the crew held a grand welcome feast for the newly joined members. They brought out their finest meat and wine, their most sincere passion...

This moved the former Royal Knights of the Judgment Squad to tears.

They had once lost their families, their honor, their rankings, their everything.

The whole world had abandoned them once, now, the Dawn Squad gave them new hope.

...

Su Lun and his team wanted to catch up with the "White Eagle".

Earlier, they had received information that the ship carried a "national gift" from the King of the North Sea to the Mafa Empire.

Now knowing the "Devil's Island Treasure" incident was very likely a plot, that ship became even more special.

Dr. Banks pin-pointed the ship's position and found that instead of heading back to the Mafa Empire, it was also heading toward Devil's Island.

Experience tales with My Virtual Library Empire

This was clearly unusual.

The Dawn Squad's three ships also swiftly pursued, hoping to intercept them before reaching Devil's Island.

On the three warships, everyone was making combat preparations: repairing the ships, maintaining the cannons, familiarizing with equipment, integrating new members...

Barrett, truly a highly experienced professional senior officer, had extensive experience in commanding large-scale wars and training troops. The staff on the three warships were rapidly reorganized under unified deployment , quickly finalizing secret signals, command authority, emergency plans, and reward and punishment systems…

Su Lun also felt it was very impressive; the inclusion of these professional military men like Barrett indeed completed one of Dawn Squad's weaknesses.

While they didn't necessarily adopt the whole set from the Luying Royal Knights, it still spared the Dawn Squad from the trial-and-error of future development.

But in large teams, scientific management can strengthen team cohesion, possessing a razor-sharp combat force!

The Dawn Squad, although a group that upheld freedom like pirates, would get bigger in the future, and these steps were necessary.

...

The three warships sliced through the waves at high speed.

"Mr. Hunk, do you need any help from me?"

"Oh, no, Miss Kama, handling the ropes and such heavy labor, leave it to us giants."

"Mr. Tamu, can I do something? I know how to..."

"No, Miss Kama. Scrubbing the deck is dirty work, let us rough men handle it."

"..."

It was Kama's first day on the ship.

She felt it wasn't very polite to just stay in her cabin on her first day.

On the deck, she also helped out everywhere, wanting to integrate and familiarize herself with the new team as quickly as possible.

After some interaction, she found that although everyone on the ship looked fierce, they were all easy to get along with.

Kama tried hard to participate in some of the ship's work, but it seemed that everyone else had their tasks, and there wasn't much she could help with.

But she had nearly gotten to know everyone: the domineering Sister Tamu, the mysterious Miss Pandora, the elusive Dr. Banks, the giant Hunk brothers, Captain Yuhaku, Captain Ran Saki...

After making a round of greetings, she found that everyone on the ship was very enthusiastic and kind to her, treating her tenderly like family.

Kama naturally knew this was because she was Su Lun's disciple.

Her teacher held a very special position within the Dawn Squad.

At that moment, she saw Lalota practicing swordsmanship at the bow of the ship.

Kama remembered, this was Sister Tamu's disciple.

Perhaps because they were of similar age, Kama felt she might be easier to get along with.

They were all orphans, but they had once been young nobles with many shared experiences.

After chatting for a bit, they quickly became familiar with each other.

Sitting on the edge of the ship, they swung their legs, their faces bright with the charming smiles characteristic of young girls.

As they chatted, the conversation turned to Su Lun.

Miss Kama felt that meeting Su Lun was the luckiest thing in her life.

But since last night, her shock had not stopped. She had also witnessed the fearsome strength of her teacher in the great battle today.

This was the Puppeteer she envisioned in her mind.

However, after boarding the ship, Su Lun was nowhere to be seen, which Miss Kama found a bit hard to adapt to.

She asked Lorota, "Miss Lorota, is the teacher always like this?"

Lorota smiled and said, "Yes. Mr. Su Lun works very hard. As long as he's on the ship, you can hardly see him. But if you go to the laboratory, you'll definitely find him."

As she spoke, she pouted and added, "Mr. Su Lun is one of those people who are already super talented and still work hard. I always get scolded by the teacher for being dumb and not working hard enough... "

Hearing this, Kama couldn't help but snicker, and suddenly, she asked another question, "Is the teacher and Sister Qian Tiao lovers?"

Lorota rolled her eyes and said, "Hmm... it's hard to say."

Kama was surprised, "Hard to say?"

Lorota didn't know how to explain and her face spread into a peculiar smile, "The relationship between the teacher and Mr. Su Lun is quite special; it can't be explained in a few words. Uh... you'll know eventually."

Kama: "Oh..."

At that moment, Tanni suddenly slid down from the ropes dangling from the mast at the watchtower, "Hey, Miss Kama, I'm Tanni, pleased to meet you!"

Kama was startled, "Ah... I'm Kama. The teacher mentioned you earlier; I remember your name."

Lorota, who was clearly familiar with him, rolled her eyes and jokingly said, "This is Mr. Navigator, the crybaby!"

Hearing this, a blush appeared on Tanni's face, "Lorota, can you not bring up the past..."

Lorota covered her mouth and giggled, "I won't stop."

Kama smiled and remained silent.

The three young people of similar ages mingled and laughed on the deck.

The crew members looked at them, their faces also breaking into kind smiles.

Their "Dawn" group would grow rapidly and shine brightly.

...

After the welcome party, Su Lun stayed in the captain's cabin, which had been transformed into a laboratory.

Previously, after ambushing the Seventh Team, he had stripped the soul of Vasili Tyermidó, the "Puppeteer with a Thousand Machines," and had acquired a vast amount of puppetry knowledge.

Although that guy was sinister and malicious, having harmed his own family master, it had to be said that his talent in puppetry was indeed not ordinary.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have secretly learned the secret techniques of the Boer family as a named disciple and developed many of his own remarkable puppetry skills, earning the title "Puppet Master."

Su Lun had to admit that reaping this wave of experience had saved him decades of grueling skill refinement.

It also compensated for his many shortcomings in puppet making, control, and techniques, even opening up some completely new ideas.

Although the Mechanism Puppeteer lineage also stems from the Puppeteer lineage, it surpasses in the precision and functionality of the puppets.

For example, the stripped technique "Mystery of a Thousand Hands" allowed one to control puppets to an extremely intricate and precise degree!

Su Lun directly stripped this skill, which had decades of proficiency, instantly elevating his puppet control to a whole new level.

Together with "Puppet Theater," these two secret techniques complemented each other, making the puppet army extremely formidable.

And it wasn't just these gains.

In Vasili's storage ring, Su Lun found a large number of inheritances from the "Mechanism Puppeteer" lineage, including works on mechanism studies, puppetry, secret techniques...

Besides the books, there were also some hereditary treasures from the Boer family and even two precious "Life Substitute Dolls."

Su Lun would need many years to assimilate those books himself.

But since Vasili had already intensely studied these books, the knowledge was rich in his memory, which also made it convenient for Su Lun. The "Reaper" talent directly stripped and assimilated that knowledge into his mind.

This also greatly advanced the progress of another important task.

That was to repair the "Mechanism Puppet Heart" and release his other disciple, Abec.

Originally, Su Lun had limited knowledge about mechanisms and was uncertain about repairing that top-level alchemic object.

Now, however, it seemed highly possible.

Su Lun had reaped too much; he needed ample time to digest, integrating the knowledge into his own "knowledge tree."

So, he stayed inside the cabin most of the time and did not go out.

...

The speed of the "Old Man's" ship was strangely fast, and it was only by using alchemic formations to sail at full speed that the Dawn group's three ships managed to close the distance to several dozen nautical miles.

But that was two days later.

While Su Lun was studying his puppets in the captain's room, suddenly an observer's warning came from the deck, "Everyone, be alert, there's a suspicious ship ahead!"

Immediately following this, the duty commander's voice came through the communicator, "All hands, prepare for battle!"

Su Lun glanced at the thick fog outside the window, then did not continue to stay in the cabin; he quickly went up to the deck.

At that moment, the deck was already crowded with people.

Su Lun walked to the bow and asked Qian Tiao, "What's the situation?"

Qi pointed ahead and said, "At eleven o'clock, there's a drifting ship. We've signaled them, but there's been no response. It seems... there are no living people on board."

Upon hearing this, Su Lun's face also showed a hint of confusion as he pulled out a monocular and looked in that direction.

At this moment, a thick fog was drifting on the sea.

This was already a dangerous area.

His eyesight was better than others, so he could clearly see that the ship on the opposite side was drifting like a ghost.

On the ship's flag hung a "skull with three muskets", and Su Lun's mind instantly reflected the related information.

This seemed to be a large pirate group called the "Silver Spear Pirates," not weak in strength. The leader was a fifth-order professional, the "Sniper Shark Handler" Friedrich, with a bounty of one hundred and ten million and a crew of several hundred men.

Su Lun seemed to have discovered something, leaped onto the mast, and upon closer inspection, he immediately saw that there was no one on the ship's deck. However, on closer inspection, he could see bloodstains and bits of biological limbs on the side of the ship, along with traces that looked like a body being dragged.

But strangely, there were no signs of a fierce battle on the ship.

Su Lun's pupils slightly constricted as he immediately said, "Tanni, pay attention to the movements in the sea!"

"Yes, Mr. Su Lun!"

Tanni also dared not be careless, listening to the movements in the sea.

"Mr. Su Lun, what should we do now?"

"Let the 'Steamship' and 'Judgment Ship' stay in place, we'll go closer!"

"Okay!"

Since they had encountered it, it was clear that they couldn't avoid it now.

So, Su Lun and his crew cautiously moved closer.

With Tanni's abilities and the mechanical octopuses swimming rapidly under the ship, even if some sea monsters approached, they would be able to detect them immediately.

...

Su Lun and his crew approached the ship named "Musket."

After a ten-yard distance, the Assault Team jumped over first.

"Captain, no living people found! Nor any monsters..."

"There are no signs of fighting inside the ship cabin."

"..."

The Sensory professionals soon confirmed that there were no signs of life on the ship, just as they had seen, it was an empty ship.

Su Lun and Qi also jumped over.

They took another look on deck, then went into the ship cabin.

The cabin's supplies were still there, and there were no ammunition loaded in the cannons... all these signs showed no battle had taken place.

But the crew's sleeping quarters were a mess, with blankets thrown everywhere and scattered personal belongings. It looked like those sound asleep crew members had been dragged out of their beds without any resistance.

There was silence in the ship cabin, and the air was filled with a weird atmosphere.

Seeing this scene, everyone felt a chill running down their spine as if they were being targeted by some devil in the dark.

Just then, someone suddenly shouted from the bottom of the ship, "Boss, a body was found in the hold!"

Su Lun and Qi exchanged glances and immediately went downstairs.

The hold was a storage room, storing lots of tobacco, cured meat, and smoked fish, the air mixed with a strong, weird smell.

It was probably because of these strong smells that the monster overlooked this body.

Su Lun took a glance at the pirate "sleeping" among the cargo, clearly a sentinel.

The deceased was about twenty years old, dressed as a pirate, with no wounds on his body...

Su Lun looked and then pressed his hand on the corpse's abdomen, there were no apparent internal injuries either.

Being proficient in forensic autopsy himself, this bizarre death made him frown in confusion.

Seeing this, Qi placed one hand on his sword hilt and asked, "What do you think?"

Su Lun thought for a moment and said, "The deceased has no external injuries. He must have been killed by some sort of psychic attack, then the body was moved. Clearly, the perpetrator was not human but a monster. They were only interested in the body, not touching any money or materials. This is the 'Musket Pirates,' not weak in strength. To annihilate them silently, the monster involved must be very powerful."

Saying this, he added, "Tell everyone to be careful."

Qi nodded upon hearing this.

The few captains behind them passed down the orders.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps thudded on the ship deck, "I heard a body was found?"

Turning his head, it was indeed Dr. Banks who approached.

Su Lun said, "Doctor, your timing is perfect. Can you ascertain the specific cause of death for this person?"

Professional matters should be left to the professionals.

Dr. Banks nodded, saying little.

He walked straight to the body, observed for a bit, then placed his hand on it.

At that moment, everyone watched as his pitch-black arm seemed to melt, turning into streams of tar-like liquid that crawled into the corpse's nose and mouth.

Though Su Lun knew Dr. Banks's methods were a bit unusual, he still twitched at the sight.

However, the effect was extremely good. After sensing for a while, as if he had discovered something, Dr. Banks spoke, "The time of death was approximately ten hours ago, roughly last night. There are ruptures in the internal organs and blood vessels, especially the cranial tissues have suffered damage. This is the cause of death."

Upon hearing this, Su Lun, puzzled, said, "It wasn't a psychic attack that caused death?"

"No."

Dr. Banks said with definite certainty, "Some special frequencies of sound waves can cause this kind of widespread internal organ resonance damage."

Hearing this, Su Lun immediately realized something, "Are you saying the murderer is a 'Siren'?!"

This was a sea creature usually only mentioned in legends, very rarely seen by anyone.

Because those who saw it, all died.

Legend described it as a creature with a human face and a bird's body, possessing a heavenly voice, fond of eating humans, usually appearing at night.

The so-called "Song of the Siren" that people passed down was usually referring to this.

Humans would die to its beautiful song.

In fact, as magical as the legends were, essentially, the song was actually a kind of "Sub-Sonic Waves" that humans couldn't hear.

This type of subsonic wave had an extremely strong penetrating power; it could pass through the atmosphere, seawater, soil, and even obstacles.

Wooden ships, even steel ships, could not completely block the propagation of the sound waves. These waves did not easily decay and were not readily absorbed by water and air.

And some frequencies of subsonic waves, due to their similarity or even identical nature to the vibration frequencies of human organs, easily resonated with the human brain and organs causing mild symptoms such as fear and agitation to severe cases of ruptured blood vessels and immediate death.

Just like how this corpse died!

Most importantly... these subsonic waves, the ordinary human auditory system simply couldn't hear them!

Dr. Banks nodded, "Mmm."

Su Lun listened, his brows tightly furrowed, yet he breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.

At least knowing the cause of death made things much easier to handle.

Ordinary humans couldn't hear these subsonic waves, so they were silently killed.

However, some people who possessed awakened auditory talents could hear them.

Conveniently, there were people with the awakened talent of [D-032-Enhanced Hearing] on their ship.

And even if the awakened individuals were not fully capable of hearing some higher-grade sea creature songs, animals could!

Tanni could communicate with sea animals, and common creatures like whales and jellyfish could hear various subsonic waves!

Which means, that "Siren" posed no significant threat to the Dawn Group!

Since there was no threat, an idea popped into Su Lun's mind: Puppet materials!

The "Siren's" song was terrifying, but the creature's actual combat strength was very weak.

Yet, its vocal organs were extremely valuable,

Regardless of how skilled the Puppetry Technique was, artificially made items could never match the perfection of natural ones.

This [Siren's Larynx] was recorded in the Puppeteer's text as one of the ideal materials for creating the [Wailing Puppet]!

...

Dr. Banks had analyzed the cause of death of the corpse, which suddenly changed the incident from a horrifying event to a normal sea creature attack.

Everyone in the Dawn Group took a deep breath.

They all prepared for a sea creature attack.

The person with [Enhanced Hearing] was constantly on guard, and Tanni also focused intently on listening to the sounds in the sea.

To be cautious, all watch posts were doubled, one with ears sealed with red wax, the other standing guard normally.

This was the only method known in the legends to prevent the "Song of the Siren" from entering one's ears.

Su Lun returned to their own ship, his expression still contemplative.

Seeing his expression, Miss Kama asked, "What's wrong, is there still a problem?"

Su Lun pondered for a moment, then shared his thoughts, "We were pursuing 'Bald Eagle.' But in fact, this place is not the closest route to 'Devil's Island.' Why would the 'Silver Spear Pirate Group' be annihilated here?"

Miss Kama wasn't fond of cerebral guesswork, but upon hearing this, she sharply sensed something, "Are you suggesting that the 'Silver Spear Group' was also targeting 'Bald Eagle'?"

"Mmm. That's where the problem lies."

Su Lun nodded.

His information likely came from Van Gogh and was probably leaked by the Luying royal family or another major power.

Now, on 'Bald Eagle,' those who were well-informed knew about Oleg's return of treasures to the Mafa Empire.

There were definitely people targeting this batch of goods.

He expressed his concerns, "If we're right and the 'Silver Spear Group' really came for the Mafa goods, then why did they encounter death while 'Bald Eagle' continues to sail?"

Miss Kama continued the line of thought, "If it isn't a coincidence, then perhaps the people of Mafa have a method to avoid sea creatures or prevent them from attacking? Or even... are they connected to them?"

The people of the Mafa Empire were not fools.

They wouldn't have overlooked the potential leak of such information.

Moreover, their intelligence systems were by no means inferior to the Luying Empire, especially in the territory of the King of the North Sea.

Su Lun's gaze deepened, and he had roughly connected all the logic in his mind.

He murmured, "Thinking about it now, it's possible that those guys intentionally leaked the information, then used the sea creatures in this area to eliminate everyone in one fell swoop."

Miss Kama marvelled at the scheme, "What a cunning strategy."

At that moment, Su Lun added, "However, for us, it's not entirely bad news."

Miss Kama looked over, her expression curious, "Oh?"

Su Lun stared at the distant sea, his words laden with meaning: "After all, even for fishing, one must use real bait."

He paused, his pupils suddenly sharpening, "That 'Bald Eagle,' there must be a treasure aboard!"