At dawn, Li Wei woke from a brief sleep. He shut down the steam generators, then secured the fully charged power cells in the truck bed and built a thick wooden casing from three-star timber to protect them — if they caught fire from an attack, that would be a problem.
Once he finished, he found the red-robed witch had arrived. Unlike yesterday, her expression held curiosity.
"Do you really think you can convince Hathaway? Honestly, I don't think you can. The odds aren't any better than convincing Ron. If it were , I'd never agree — even if I'd slept with you a few tis, that would absolutely not be my reason for agreeing. You n always have this mysterious overconfidence, don't you?"
"I don't have much confidence either, honestly. But I have to try."
Li Wei said it plainly. In a person's life, there were only so many chances to seize your own fate. If you couldn't keep up at the critical mont, you might never catch up again.
Of course, there was no need to say any of that to soone unrelated to him.
"Do you have more magical materials like those? This ti without Ron settling the paynt." The red-robed witch suddenly asked.
"Oh? Tell more."
Li Wei's interest was piqued. The magical materials were useful for Second Aunt too, but honestly Second Aunt wasn't short on them right now — the Resource Card that had dropped from the Neanderthal Dawn Knight's purple card was packed full of all kinds of magical materials, more than enough for her to research and build a basic mage tower.
"I think your trip will involve a lot of fighting. Maybe you'll find these useful." As she spoke, the red-robed witch handed over a Resource Card. Li Wei looked — of the 100 slots, eighty were already used. The remaining twenty held ten doses of two-star Life Elixir and ten doses of two-star Stamina Elixir.
Not bad.
But selling things like this during the mission period had a slightly desperate air to it.
"Is the mage tower construction going smoothly?" Li Wei asked casually.
"Not really. I need more magical materials, but Ron can't provide more. Right now, because of Frost Duke's roaming Ability User squads, mutant creatures in the wild are being wiped out rapidly. To hunt, you'd have to travel hundreds or even thousands of kiloters out — and you'd still risk running into an Ability User squad. It's just very difficult."
"To be honest, I'm a novice at this — first ti building a mage tower. I thought Ron had so substantial resources. Turns out he has less than half of what you do. If I didn't think you seed like a man of principle, I would have crept over to your room last night."
Li Wei was speechless. Was it really that bad? Well — yes, apparently it was.
"So if you ultimately can't build the mage tower, is there any chance Ron would back down and choose to ally with ?"
"What are you thinking? Even without a mage tower, a single mana well is still worth half a mage tower. You get an inch and you want a mile. Hurry up — if you want to trade, let's get on with it." The red-robed witch rolled her eyes at him.
"Alright!"
Li Wei nodded, of course he wouldn't refuse. But all he had left were the magical materials from the Level 5 mutant rat. When he produced them, the red-robed witch's eyes imdiately lit up.
"A five-star beast? Damn — you're impressive. No, no — I don't an the five-star beast itself. I an your breakdown work. This is genuinely not easy. It's as if there was no battle at all. I have to say, you've made look at you in a whole new light."
"Just this one set is worth ten sets from yesterday. For the first ti, I feel like I can actually see a path to finishing the mage tower."
"So the price — does it match yesterday's rate?" Li Wei asked quickly. Yesterday he'd sold those materials to buy the electric truck and power cells for future Freeman relocation, so he hadn't cared about the price. Today was different.
"Match? No, no — it's worth far more than that. Don't worry — I'm a witch with a black heart, but I'm not a crooked rchant. To be honest, this is probably a Level 5 mutant rat with three cores. In terms of the individual creature, the total value wouldn't exceed 10,000 gold coins — nothing special. But — you managed to extract all three cores intact, with the mana structure inside them undamaged. That craftsmanship alone requires Perception 6 at minimum. Damn — so you're a Second-Order Dark Ranger?"
"Oh no, I'm suddenly regretting last night. I should have co over. I really want to be a casualty under your wheels too."
The red-robed witch was being dramatic, her large dewy eyes looking at him with an expression that said: give one look and I'll throw myself at you. But Li Wei was completely unmoved. "Why are intact life cores particularly useful for a mage tower?"
"Because these cores are essentially mana engines. Do you understand what a mage tower actually represents? It's not just a caster's laboratory or a potion preparation room — it's an entire precision mana operation platform. Like this electric truck of yours. Mana is the electrical power; the cores are the motors. Though in reality it's far more complex. A basic mage tower needs at least five cores, and you've just given three intact ones —"
At that point, the red-robed witch suddenly slapped her forehead in frustration, then activated a five-star Concealing the Sky with One Hand Card.
"I'll offer 30,000 gold coins!"
"That much!"
Li Wei was stunned.
"It's not that much. I said — the real value isn't the Level 5 mutant creature. It's your craftsmanship. This requires eting multiple near-impossible conditions simultaneously. In the Royal Capital, hiring a five-star Hunter to hunt a Level 5 beast and perfectly process and break it down would cost roughly the sa — and that one might not even be this good."
"First, this Level 5 mutant creature must have absorbed and fused at least three profession cards, which is why its life cores are so complete."
"Second, it must be subdued in the instant before it launches an attack — not killed — and the best thod is flash-freezing. That requires exceptional ice magic."
"Third, you need a butcher, hunter, or chef profession with outstanding dissection and breakdown ability, and a Destiny Grid of at least 60."
"Fourth — and most importantly — Perception of at least 6. Only then can you clearly perceive the flow and trajectory of mana and perform a perfect breakdown."
"Li Wei, I'm suddenly a little envious of Hathaway. How about you don't go looking for her — co find instead. I'll elope with you."
"Ha! Just kidding. But I don't have 30,000 gold coins on hand. Fortunately, I can bend the rules a little. After you leave today, wait for a hundred kiloters west of here. After nightfall, I'll co find you. I can't do much — but I can use the ten units of mana I've scraped together to enchant your truck. Do you agree?"
"Sure — sounds like I'm getting the better end of the deal. But why not have Ron provide the mana?" Li Wei laughed.
"No way — Ron is a terrible employer. I'd never use his mana. He'd fight to the death over it. Honestly, if it weren't for gaining experience building a mage tower, I wouldn't bother with him at all."
Grumbling all the while, the red-robed witch handed the magical materials back.
"Paynt on delivery, General. We'll et as agreed — don't stand up."
She threw him a coy glance and quickly left.
She had principles when it ca to transactions.
Li Wei had no reason to refuse. An enchanted chariot versus an unarmored electric truck — there was no comparison.
He quickly packed up, started the truck, and drove off. Once he was fifty kiloters out, the mutual detection between Pioneering Cards faded. He continued west and found a ravine on the western side of Ron's territory to tuck into, waiting for the red-robed witch to co for the exchange.
Of course, he didn't just sit there.
Li Wei spent the ti setting up a hundred traps around the periter — just in case.
Then he called out Adai to keep watch, climbed into the truck bed, and fell asleep to rest up.
This location should be reasonably safe. The Ability User patrol squads wouldn't co close, and Ron's people wouldn't cross this boundary.
Sure enough, the day passed without incident. When night fell, the red-robed witch arrived as promised. This ti there was no flirting — she was crisp and efficient: "Give half the magical materials first. I'll settle the rest once the enchantnt is done."
Li Wei had no objection. The red-robed witch imdiately produced a large collection of tools and called Li Wei over to help. In no ti at all, she had the electric truck completely disassembled.
Her hands were more skilled than a professional chanic's.
Of course, Li Wei was also impressive — neither of them needed any lifting equipnt, moving multi-ton components by hand without difficulty.
"The most important protection for an enchanted chariot is the power cell bank and the motor. This normally requires structural modifications, but we don't have the ti or opportunity for that. So my recomndation: move the power cell bank from the bottom of the chassis to the top of the cab. You can also connect additional cell banks in parallel — enough for a range of 1,500 kiloters in one go. This also makes enchantnt isolation much easier."
"Agreed."
Li Wei nodded, doing his best to look like he understood.
"Good. Now the second problem — normally the best enchantnt isolation uses enchanted steel plates, but we obviously don't have those. However, I noticed you have three-star quality timber logs?"
"Yes — plenty of them."
"Perfect. We'll use three-star timber for enchantnt isolation. The effect will be about thirty percent weaker, unless you can cut those logs into square beams as quickly as possible, minimizing the gaps at the joints. But I'm saying — there's no ti to cut them now..."
The red-robed witch's words trailed off, because she saw that Li Wei had already pulled out a three-star log and started cutting.
At a speed that was — hard to describe. Faster than a chainsaw.
This was three-star quality timber, with hardness comparable to ironwood. And yet, in just a few minutes, the log had been transford into a perfectly dinsioned square beam with minimal variance.
"What the — you're a Woodcutter too? Destiny Grid must be at least 60. I see it now — Hunter, Woodcutter, Scout. You must have a fourth profession, either Farr or Fisher, maybe Chef. But you've genuinely impressed . No wonder the General of the Wheels has triggered territory-wide announcents multiple tis. I can say it with certainty now — Ron really is no match for you."
The red-robed witch let out a sound of admiration, stopped talking, and got to work.
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