Chapter 977: The Hunting Grounds of the Lone Rangers
The size of the battle team had expanded to a hundred people. It was impossible for Meng Chao to guide every single servant like he had done in the previous round.
Fortunately, the thirty servant soldiers that he personally created had all recovered after careful treatment. They were all in high spirits as they prepared for the next round of battle.
The next hundred-man battle would start in ten days.
They had enough time to spread the skills that Meng Chao had taught to more servant soldiers.
Moreover, their totem armors had been upgraded, and they had mastered a large amount of Dragon City’s martial arts. Their combat strength was also increasing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Ice Storm’s popularity, which had risen from the bottom, also made the Blood Skull Arena’s controller too afraid to do anything to affect her battles.
Meng Chao did not think that an ordinary hundred-man battle team could resist the female snow leopard warrior and Mithril Ripper that had been upgraded. Both were enough to freeze all their killing intent.
Therefore, Meng Chao was relieved to entrust most of the training tasks to Leaf, who had grown up quickly.
He took more time and expanded the scope of his exploration.
Another benefit of dealing with the rat laborers was that he used the dagger skills of the Ghost Tribe and other small favors to get all kinds of props and herbs from the laborers.
The biggest difference in the distribution of resources between Picturesque Orchid Lake and Monster Mountain Range was that the crystal veins there were deeper underground.
With the advanced orcs’ poor mining ability, it was difficult for them to dig the mines thousands of meters or even tens of kilometers underground.
Therefore, crystals were rarely seen on the market at Picturesque Orchid Lake.
However, with the mandrake tree and its accompanying plants as the main source, the plants in Picturesque Orchid Lake had extremely developed roots.
The roots of the mandrake tree could easily extend to more than twenty kilometers underground and entangle the crystal vein, continuously absorbing spirit energy and transmitting it to the surface.
Some spirit energy formed mandrake fruits and golden fruits.
Some spirit energy was transmitted to its accompanying plants through the entwined roots, turning into exotic flowers and gra.s.ses with a fragrant smell.
The spiritual energy, rare metals, and trace elements contained in these exotic flowers and gra.s.ses were more than ten times that of the same type of plants on Monster Mountain Range.
With the exotic flowers and gra.s.ses, as well as the bone powder of totem beasts as raw materials, the herbs brewed had a miraculous effects comparable to that of gene medicines.
As a result, the Turan civilization was quite advanced in herbalism.
Not only were there witch doctors and priests in the temple, they were also refining powerful secret medicines according to ancient recipes that had been pa.s.sed down for thousands of years.
Ordinary Turan people would also brew all kinds of herbs that could increase their strength, strengthen their periosteum, and expel diseases and evil spirits.
Many herbs could also be used to dye cloth, tan leather, and smelt.
They were essential helpers in the Turan people’s daily lives.
Meng Chao highly suspected that both the mandrake tree and its accompanying plants were the result of black technology created by gene modulation.
Only then could they achieve the effect of “randomly picking some flowers and plants, and mixing them with the bones and dregs of totem beasts in a big pot. It would be comparable to genetic medicine.”
Of course, for him alone, without any handy tools, it was not a bad thing.
He obtained over a hundred kinds of herbs from the handymen.
Using his sharp senses as a Spirit Sensor and the rich experience of a reaper, through sniffing, tasting, grinding, using the vitality magnetic field to sense and so on, he identified the specific composition and content of these herbs one by one.
He very patiently identified hundreds of raw materials on Monster Mountain Range.
Using these raw materials, he carefully refined and fused several brand new medicines.
One of the medicines was equivalent to a hair dye, which could change the color of his hair from pure black to withered yellow.
Another medicine, when dropped into the eye, could temporarily change the color of the pupil to light gold or light green.
Although it would cause a slight burning sensation to the retina…
It was not a big problem for Meng Chao, whose cells had amazing self-healing abilities.
Another kind of medicine could hide the color of a person’s skin and turn it into a grayish-brown color that normal Earthlings would not be able to see.
Through the paralysis and relaxation of the muscles, it would greatly distort a person’s facial features and turn him into a completely different person.
There was even a drug, like the rapid hair growth drug, that could quickly grow a layer of real, thick, and strong hair after being applied to the body.
Of course, there was also a drug that could wash away the effects of the transformation drug.
How to prepare the transformation drug was a compulsory course in the Black Skull Training Camp.
As for the formulas of the anesthetics, corrosive agents, and nerve poisons, they were deeply imprinted on the cerebral cortex of every Ghost a.s.sa.s.sin. They were even clearer than Walking Corpse and Bizarre Stab.
Using the transfiguration agent and his exquisite control over his muscles and joints, Meng Chao could completely turn into another person within three minutes.
Then, he used the badge of a rat servant to walk out of the Blood Skull Arena openly.
In fact, the Blood Skull Arena did not strictly guard the rat people.
Even though the rat people were all tied up when they were sent there, as long as they could fight their way out of the dungeon, find their master, and win one or two fights, the rat people servant soldiers would be able to obtain a certain degree of freedom.
The arena was not afraid of the rat people servant soldiers escaping.
The reason was very simple.
Where could they run to?
Outside the arena was the huge Black-corner City, where hundreds of thousands of clan warriors gathered.
Although the arena was a place where blood and flesh flew everywhere, there was still hope of winning and becoming stronger.
The clan’s barracks, the forging workshop, and the primitive mines that were about to collapse every now and then were all abyssal caves that ate people without spitting out their bones.
No servant soldier was willing to become a slave soldier, from serving a gladiator master to serving hundreds of stinking clan soldiers.
Plus, no slave soldier was willing to become a complete slave and be squeezed into a black skeleton in the forging workshop.
So what if they could escape Black-corner City in one breath?
The mandrake fruits in the rat villages had been confiscated by the clan army.
The conscription team was still searching day and night in the most remote and desolate countryside.
They would not let even a single mandrake fruit go. All of them had to be used as military rations.
If they escaped Black-corner City, they might encounter the conscription team. They would go from being slave soldiers who had some freedom to being the most miserable slave soldiers.
If they were lucky, they could escape the recruitment team and return to their hometown. Most likely, they would only see burning ruins and mandrake trees that quickly withered and went into hibernation when the flowers were at their most brilliant.
Escaping was a dead end.
They could only perform well in the Blood Skull Arena. When the army set off, they could mingle with the Blood Hoof Clan’s army. They hoped that the Blood Hoof Clan’s army would win every battle and rise with their master. That was the only way to survive.
As for the hatred of destroying their home and slaughtering their family members.
The clan warriors did not hide this.
They were not afraid and even encouraged the rat people, who were filled with anger, to exact revenge on them at any time.
“Revenge” had a supreme meaning in the Turan culture.
It was the most direct way to win glory for their ancestral spirits.
Of course, if one wanted to exact revenge on the clan warriors, one had to be mentally prepared to have his or her brains punched out.
Perhaps there were simply too many brains that had been punched out.
Very few rat militia soldiers would directly seek revenge against the clan warriors who had destroyed their homes and captured them to Black-corner City.
They would often hide their claws and teeth, thinking of becoming stronger first.
Then, in order to become stronger, they would continue to kill. In the midst of the continuous killing, they would obtain incomparable pleasure. Amid the cheers of thousands of spectators, they would feel the so-called glory. They would even receive a blood gift from a certain clan, after completing the transformation from a rodent to a samurai, they would gradually become addicted to killing and forget the hatred of the past.
At this rate, it was very likely that their enemies would have died on the battlefield long ago.
They would be able to feel more at ease. They would be able to cut off everything from the past and become a standard, powerful, and honorable samurai of the clan.
Basically, that was often the case.
Perhaps it was because the system where the weak became the rat people, and the strong became the warriors had been operating too smoothly and efficiently over the past thousands of years. No major problems had ever occurred.
As a result, the management of the Blood Skull Arena and the entire Black-corner City did not expect Meng Chao, an extremely dangerous Ghost a.s.sa.s.sin, to sneak into the rat community.
In three days, Meng Chao had figured out the street distribution and functional zoning outside the Blood Skull Arena.
It was not far from the Blood Hoof Clan’s temple.
It was also the most lively place in the entire Black-corner City.
Recently, the Blood Hoof Clan had been recruiting warriors and reorganizing their army, preparing to fight for the throne of War Chief with the other four clans. They would be able to command the advanced orc horde in Picturesque Orchid Lake and sweep through the land of eternal Holy Light.
Apart from the servants, slaves, and slave laborers who were forced to show signs, there were also all kinds of strange-looking heroes who gathered into a mighty torrent of iron hoofs and poured into Black-corner City.
The population of Black-corner City had instantly increased by ten times.
All the streets, markets, and temporary barracks were filled to the brim.
Those who came from the local areas, who did not have a great reputation but were ambitious, were eager to make a grand appearance on the Blood Skull Arena. It was a stage that everyone had their eyes on.
There were also a large number of gambling games, transactions, alliances, and even conspiracies that formed around the Blood Skull Arena.
Therefore, around the Blood Skull Arena, there were layers upon layers of wild growth methods, there were countless casinos, taverns, temporary camps, and markets that traded weapons, leather armors, secret medicines, and even fragments of ancient totem battle armors.
No matter when or where, casinos and taverns were inseparable from another ancient industry.
Advanced orcs were mostly existences with extremely strong primitive desires.
It was impossible for them to lack a place that allowed them to unleash their full potential after engaging in life-and-death battles and binge drinking as well as gambling. It was around a well-equipped arena.
One way to put it was Black-corner City was like a strengthened version of the Lair.
It was a place where fish and dragons were mixed together, where blood and flesh were flying everywhere, and where people were indulging in luxury.
It was a swamp that eroded flesh and blood, a demon den that ate people without spitting out their bones. People were sent to heaven at the peak of glory with loud cheers.
It was also the best hunting ground for solo hunters like Meng Chao.