Dan lit the candle, and the scene in the secret room shocked the two of them deeply: gold bars were piled up in the secret room, almost filling the entire room from bottom to top, leaving only a narrow passage in the middle. The huge amount of gold even makes people feel the insignificance of the measurement unit of "ton". Although both Dan and Ella were silent, a well-reasoned guess emerged in their minds at the same time: Could this Mamelkus have mastered the ultimate secret of metal transmutation and made a device that can transform base metals into metals? A golden philosopher's stone?
This conjecture made Dan ecstatic, but made Ella worried. Once Dan gained the means to refine the Philosopher's Stone, Ella would no longer have any use to him. With an uneasy mentality, she followed Dan into the passage. After a few turns, an alchemy workbench appeared in front of them, with a thick notebook on it.
Dan almost threw himself in front of the alchemy table and took the notes into his hands. When Ella approached her, he kicked Ella to the ground:
"This is mine!" he yelled at Ella. "You can't take it away from me!"
Then, he opened the notes with trembling hands and read the words above:
"Lime, one-sixteenth of an ounce. Sulfur, powdered, in equal quantities. Let the two be together in the same room, stimulate their passions with the urine of the young man, and unite them with fire. After this, filter From the blood of the Virgin, this holy blood, which can turn silver into gold.”
Dan looked around and found lime and sulfur on the workbench. He ground the sulfur into powder and put it into a container with lime. Then there was the young man's urine. Dan looked at Ella intentionally or unintentionally. Ella blushed and covered her skirt and shook her head vigorously. Dan also found it troublesome and said to himself: "I should be still young, right? "Just mixed the urine in in front of Ella. Then, like a normal person, he lit a fire and heated the bottom of the container. After a while, the liquid in the container took on the color of blood. Dan filtered out the sediment, leaving only the liquid, and then he put the silver pieces in with slightly trembling hands.
In Ella's surprised eyes, the silver quickly turned into yellowish brown, and then gradually began to show the color and luster of gold. Dan took the silver piece out of the solution and exposed it to the air. After a long time, it still maintained its gold color stably.
"Silver... turned into gold?"
"Not necessarily, let me test it with saltpeter. The hands of philosophers have told us that saltpeter is a crown and a mill. It grinds everything, and only real gold can withstand its test."
Dan rummaged around on the workbench for a while and found a bottle of liquid. He put the discolored metal into the liquid. After a while, the entire metal dissolved in the liquid.
"As expected, transmutation did not really happen, it just gave the surface of silver a layer of hypocrisy. This is probably how the gold bars in this room were produced. This is not the skill of Hermes, but the devil's. Seduction.”
Dan threw the note to the ground in disgust.
"I don't need these things. If you want them, I'll get them for you."
Ella was so shocked that she couldn't speak for a moment.
Five hundred years ago, the Qiqiu Empire's monetary system collapsed under the impact of a large number of counterfeit currencies. During the most severe period, the silver content of silver coins circulating in the Qiqiu Empire market dropped from 52% to less than 5%. In order to stabilize the currency, a certain generation of Basileus named Diocletian ordered the abolition of alchemy while issuing new coins.
If these counterfeit golds continue to flow into the market, the monetary system of the Seven Hills Empire will definitely be in a more serious crisis than five hundred years ago - no, they must have flowed into the market in large quantities, otherwise Mamerkus would not be so wealthy.
Is this the secret of the sudden revival of the Aemilius family?
After realizing the vulnerability of the Qiqiu Empire's army, not even half a day passed before Ella felt her hands and feet go cold again because of the empire's economic situation.
At this time, Dan picked up another stack of paper from the alchemy table. He glanced at it, said "hum", and then casually dropped his finger to the ground. Ella picked up the paper scattered on the ground and asked, "What is this?"
"A list of customers. It is impossible for him to digest so much fake gold alone. And once discovered, it is easy to trace the source. So he has a group of customers who know the actual condition of the gold. He He did not use the gold directly, but sold it wholesale to those customers at a lower price, allowing it to flow into the market in small pieces. Judging from the list, he has quite a lot of customers."
Ella flipped through the list page by page with solemn fingers. This document, which Dan dismissed with disdain, made Ella feel as if she was stuck in an ice hole - the list was full of names that Ella was familiar with, including royal family, nobles, governors, generals, cabinet ministers... Her rough estimate , more than one-fifth of the nobles of the Seven Hills Empire appear on this list.
"It's really unlucky. Boss Hestein thought the Seven Hills Empire was rich... This kind of shabby place full of fake gold, if you ask me, it's better to rob those small tribes that don't even have city walls..."
——Even the pirates are beginning to dislike the Qiqiu Empire?
An unprecedented anger filled Ella's heart. She suddenly picked up her sword, dropped Dan and ran outside.
The prisoners were being gathered in the hall on the first floor. Amy, who was only wearing a piece of cloth, looked at the frightened eyes of the captives and the shocked gazes of the pirates. She held a knife and screamed, smiling "hey hey" while peeling off the clothes of the prisoners one by one. Ella didn't have the mind to pay attention to this. She searched for the location of Mamelkus with all her strength. After finally finding Mamelkus's location, she jumped directly from the second floor and used the force of her fall to pierce the sword deeply into Mamelkus's body.
"What are you doing? These prisoners can be exchanged for ransom!" The pirate on the side wanted to pull Ella away, but Ella broke free from his hand, pulled out the sword hard, and then stabbed Mamei with the sword again. Erkus's body!
Mamelchus's company twisted in agony. "Baselisa, you..." Before she could finish her sentence, Ella suddenly snatched the dagger from Amy's hand and stuffed it into Mamelkus' mouth. Along with a spurt of blood, Mamelkus's entire tongue was cut out by Aila.
"It was the shield girl who took the lead in conquering the city gate..."
The pirates nearby were whispering so, so no pirates stopped Ella anymore.
Ella did not kill Mamelkus immediately. Her sword avoided the vital points, stabbing into various insignificant parts of Mamelkus's body again and again, and then stirring and cutting inside. From the instep of the feet to the calf muscles, from the abdomen to the chest, from the palms of the hands to the eyes. The bloody scene made many pirates unable to bear to look directly at it, and Mamelkus' silent and shrill wail made everyone's hair stand on end.
After a while, Mamelkus lost his voice. So, Ella began to cut off the flesh of Mamelkus's body piece by piece. One knife, another knife, another knife. A mere Mamelkus cannot allow Ella to carry such a huge hatred. What she vents is her resentment towards the entire decadent empire!
