Anbaixiu looked at the trembling Isabel. He had originally intended to offer a few words of praise, but figured that opening his mouth might just scare her unconscious.
She certainly hadn't had that attitude earlier.
*Heh, shallow humans and their obsession with looks.*
With a wave of his hand, he allowed Isabel to flee the laboratory as if granted a pardon. Then, with great solemnity, Anbaixiu placed the two bottles of Living Mercury Solution on the workbench.
A soundproofing barrier, an anti-detection ward, divination countermeasures... After casting a rapid sequence of spells, the laboratory was completely sealed off, preventing even the air from circulating.
Only a lich could endure such conditions; any living creature would have suffocated.
Once satisfied that all preparations were complete, Anbaixiu opened one of the bottles.
The five-hundred-gold one.
It was a bottle the size of a human head, packed full to the brim, except that the contents were cut with common mercury.
Mercury wasn't entirely worthless, but compared to genuine living mercury, it was cheap as dirt.
Bringing out an assortment of tools, Anbaixiu separated the ordinary mercury and ended up with a blob of living mercury scarcely larger than a fist—and a completely inert batch, at that.
"Utter scoundrels. For five hundred gold coins, there isn't a shred of genuine usable material."
Still, right now, a corpse was precisely what Anbaixiu needed.
He pointed a finger. Mana coalesced at his fingertip, transforming into a faint glow that descended upon the lifeless pool of mercurial solution.
*Necromancy: Control Corpse.*
A textbook casting gesture, a flawless mana structure. As a legend-tier lich, even a dragon's corpse would have blinked under the influence of his spell.
Yet the mercurial puddle showed no reaction whatsoever.
The corpse-controlling magic struck the mass, burst into a burst of light, and dissipated into thin air without leaving a trace.
"Damn it! Magic resistance?! Are you kidding me?!"
Anbaixiu had anticipated many modes of failure. He could have accepted the mercury solution not qualifying as a corpse, but magic resistance was the last thing he expected.
"Are they insane? What on earth were those lunatics in the City of Alchemy trying to make?!"
Creating new life was already an absurd premise, though the City of Alchemy had tirelessly flirted with disaster over it for centuries, so Anbaixiu could tolerate that much.
But engineering a mercury slime with powerful magic resistance? Had their brains been kissed by the god of goblins?
Magic resistance was an exceedingly rare trait. Aside from a few naturally exalted races—such as the high elves Anbaixiu despised most, who possessed inherent, formidable magic resistance that rendered ordinary spells useless against them and granted outright immunity to charms—very few had it.
Dragons were another example. Without legend-tier spells, piercing dragon scales was nearly impossible. The most widespread dragon-slaying trick involved setting a delayed fireball upon oneself so that when the dragon swallowed you whole, it would blast the beast's entrails to pieces. After that trick had been played too many times, the dragons' ancestral memory gained an addendum: *"Humans must never be eaten raw!"* Ever since, dragons would only swallow humans after thoroughly roasting them with dragon breath.
Back to the matter at hand, magic resistance was exceptionally rare, and slimes possessed none of it by nature. Those madmen in the City of Alchemy had definitely forced it onto them through some unknown method.
"They certainly didn't set out to make a low-level creature like a slime. They must have failed, and then put out false advertising to cover up their real objective. Psychos. Don't tell me they're trying to blaspheme the gods again? Did they think seven towers shaped like shit weren't enough and wanted to add more?"
Anbaixiu felt as though he had stumbled into the sordid, bitter history between the City of Alchemy and the God of Alchemy. If a deity wanted to strike them down, they should just zap them to ashes. Why spare them only to humiliate them for centuries, practically begging to breed god-slaying vengeance?
Evidently, the minds of gods were beyond mortal comprehension. Despite his grumbling, Anbaixiu had no intention of letting the matter drop. He had spent several thousand gold coins; he couldn't let them go to waste.
He unleashed several more spells. Without exception, all were neutralized by the mercury solution's magic resistance. However, his testing revealed that this thing's resistance was far from the terrifying scale of a dragon's. Once bolstered by his legendary aura, he could successfully manipulate the mercury slime's corpse.
He was a legend, after all. Even if Anbaixiu was a bit mediocre for his tier, the enhancement to his magic remained substantial. By drawing upon legendary power, he could breach the mercury slime's magic resistance.
Yet executing the corpse-controlling magic felt exceedingly clunky. This thing was just a puddle of mercury, and whatever the Alchemists' Council had done to it, it was completely devoid of an ordinary slime's organs. To Anbaixiu, it was an alien entity. He struggled even to make the mercury slime crawl.
Upon closer inspection, Anbaixiu reached a conclusion.
This mercury slime was an unmitigated disaster. They had manufactured a grotesque, entirely soulless husk—less a living organism than a corpse that hadn't fully died after having its soul extracted.
No, even that description fell short.
It was like a machine missing half its parts, shipped from the factory without an operating system, and when cracked open, it contained only screw holes for a motherboard without a trace of the board itself.
Consequently, these manufactured mercury slimes exhibited zero responsiveness, acting solely on the biological instinct to devour metal. Furthermore, owing to the absence of internal organs, they could not survive long even with regular feeding, locked in a state of slow, inevitable decay.
It was a shame this thing lacked a soul. Otherwise, it would have been a mass-produced "tortured soul," something liches absolutely adored. In the underworld of the undead, such tortured souls were hard currency, far more valuable than gold coins.
"Too bad my artificial souls are also soulless fakes, devoid of the vengeful properties born of torment. Otherwise, this would've been quite a lucrative trade."
Anbaixiu's mind remained fixed on how to turn a profit. Failing that, he at least needed to restore the living mercury's metal-devouring property. Otherwise, how would he face Headless Bro? The deposit had already been collected, and a refund was completely out of the question.
After half a day of tinkering, Anbaixiu concluded that his understanding of slimes was far too rudimentary. Several modification concepts swirled in his mind, but he couldn't carry any of them forward.
With limited materials on hand, he couldn't afford to waste them recklessly.
"I'll need to look up some reference material after all."
Anbaixiu opened the Necrotic Codex, navigated to their lich chat group, and typed out a message:
[Tiga Ultraman: Esteemed seniors, does anyone here have a solid understanding of slimes? I have a few questions I'd like to ask.]
[Crown of the Headless Horseman: You little rascal, are you trying to whip up a fake to swindle me?]
Anbaixiu: ...
How had he spotted something amiss from just one sentence? A dignified Headless Horseman—an undead lacking an actual head—being this sharp was downright disgraceful to his race!
Having underestimated this headless brother's sensitivity regarding his secret stash, Anbaixiu had no choice but to answer honestly.
[Tiga Ultraman: Not faking anything, just trying to figure out how to fulfill the order. The City of Alchemy's finances are in shambles, and prices are skyrocketing across the board.]
Anbaixiu recounted what he had seen and heard, though he omitted the part about testing counterfeit goods. He merely claimed that stock was temporarily unavailable, forcing him to research how to brew a mercury slime himself.
To his surprise, after reading Anbaixiu's little story, Headless Bro responded with overbearing swagger:
[Crown of the Headless Horseman: Isn't it just a matter of paying more? I'll add to it! What matters most is speed!]
Anbaixiu was stunned by this display of extravagant wealth.
*Headless Bro, just how much private money have you stashed away, you live-in son-in-law?!*
Anbaixiu even began contemplating whether he ought to find a bone dragon to keep him in luxury.
Chapter 12