Chapter 83: Setup

Zheng Yichen thought about developing connections. Going directly to the Black Market to find people was definitely not a good idea. After all, anyone active there was extremely shrewd. The Alchemical Body could do many things, but currently, limited by technology, its real combat power was not high. Bullying weaker individuals was possible, but facing a Ranked Practitioner would be troublesome.

With combat power like this, he certainly couldn’t intimidate those people. As for going with his original body—no way. That would be asking for trouble. The best way was to find capable people with high credibility, like certain Nobles. However, these people were hard to approach. Status was different. As someone with an unclear background, why would they agree to see you?

As for luckily rescuing some baron or viscount… the defensive power around a titled Noble was never that poor.

He shook his head. After dividing the Soul Crystal in his hand into fifteen equal pieces, Zheng Yichen began processing them. With the newly arrived materials, he didn’t need to go collect any missing ones. All the materials he bought were put to use. He currently had seven cover points. Placing one Alchemical Puppet at each cover point was enough.

He planned to send the remaining ones to mine… He could make the tools right here. About Ore Veins—when he chose this place, he had specifically surveyed the area. Even if it wasn’t a mineral-rich place, digging down would still yield ore. Maintaining twenty Alchemical Puppets: seven distributed at the cover points, five sent to mine, three performing maintenance on the monitors and patrolling and scouting nearby, and the remaining five continuing to assist his work in the Workshop, handling detailed processing of materials and such.

For now, this number of Alchemical Puppets was sufficient. After assigning the Quests to them, Zheng Yichen turned his attention to the Castle. He had already made some of the monitors there. His goal wasn’t to cover the entire Forest of Illusions, but to cover most of its area, gaining complete control over the environment around the Castle.

Several Ghost Maids tilted their heads, looking like curious children at the “monitor screen” that Zheng Yichen had divided into sixteen sections in front of them. Four of these screens were further divided into many smaller areas. Though not large, it was enough for the Ghost Maids’ vision to observe.

Twelve screens handled high-definition monitoring, while four handled wide-area, fuzzy monitoring. For the vast Forest of Illusions, this might seem insufficient, but in reality, the number was enough. Those monitors would link the images from nearby surveillance together, forming a complete picture to transmit over. So, the image displayed on each screen actually covered a very large area.

As for the principle, Zheng Yichen used a Magic called Magic Eye. As the name suggested, this Magic summoned an eye for surveillance. It was hard to detect with the naked eye, but could be discovered through scouting. You could summon one Magic Eye or several. As long as the images they observed were connected, they could be linked together.

If you arranged dozens of Magic Eyes in a circle to observe the environment, the image fed back to the Spellcaster’s mind would be close to a bird’s-eye view. Because the edges of the images seen by each Magic Eye could connect, the mind wouldn’t simultaneously receive several different surveillance pictures. Unless you placed several Magic Eyes in different locations for monitoring…

Zheng Yichen didn’t need to do that. What he wanted was the linked monitoring image effect.

“Hmm, you don’t need to worry about those monitors unless they are damaged. They can recover Mana on their own,” Zheng Yichen instructed the Ghost Maids beside him. The antennas on the monitors, besides being responsible for connecting to the Magic Network related to the monitor screen, also acted as a medium to gather Mana.

Although because the medium was too “thin,” the efficiency of Mana Gathering would be very low, the monitors’ consumption wasn’t high either. There wouldn’t be a situation where expenses exceeded income. “For this monitor screen, you just need to pour some Mana into it periodically to keep it operating normally.”

After explaining the precautions for using the monitors, Zheng Yichen let out a long sigh of relief. After finishing this task, there was nothing particularly important he needed to do for the moment. “I’ll go read for a while.”

Zheng Yichen, in his Projection state, waved his wings and flew alone toward the Library, leaving the rather curious Ghost Maids where they were, watching the images on the monitor screen. One of them put on the gloves Zheng Yichen left behind and tapped on a small section of the subdivided monitor screen. The image from that small screen immediately expanded into a large screen, while the image from the previous large screen shifted to the small screen.

This was also a combination of Magic… This Ghost Maid herself was magic-oriented, so she could understand some of the related principles. But understanding was one thing; actually doing it… Besides Zheng Yichen relying on his own Innate Ability to combine different Magic without rejection, who else could achieve this step?

Even relying on powerful force to temporarily maintain a balance between different Magic was only temporary. Over time, rejection and conflict would still occur. Zheng Yichen’s was different. This Magic had been imbued with his characteristics, like being dyed with indelible paint. As long as this Magic wasn’t dispelled or the Mana maintaining the effect didn’t run out, the overall effect would persist.

Moreover, this operational method felt novel to them. Through these screens, they could see the movements of some sisters active outside the Castle, while those sisters remained completely unaware. Several of those sisters possessed extraordinary perception, yet they couldn’t directly detect the monitors’ observation. If it were other people, it would probably be even harder to notice anything!

In any case, with this thing, they could basically skip the external patrol and investigation part of their daily Castle maintenance. Besides the Castle vicinity, these monitors extended beyond the nearby area. Although the distribution density dropped greatly beyond that, those monitors covered places in the Forest of Illusions where people were most likely to pass. By controlling such areas, anyone entering the Forest of Illusions would be discovered quickly…

In the Library, Zheng Yichen looked at a book related to Engineering and muttered to himself. Well, apart from the daily Magic Arms he had to make, Zheng Yichen planned to research the creation of things like machine tools. In Otherworld Engineering, there was also the concept of assembly line work. Things similar to machine tools existed. Zheng Yichen could find similar Blueprints here, but the conditions couldn’t meet his needs. If he wanted to modify them, his current accumulation wasn’t enough. He could only learn slowly and take things step by step.