CHAPTER 298: CHAPTER 298 REGAINING DOMINANCE

Inside the Shelter prison.

Lin Yi looked at the old man, and the old man glared at Lin Yi.

"...Alright, agreed, we’ll sign the contract!"

"No rush, old man."

Lin Yi grinned mischievously, sending the parchment and the skill book back to the warehouse.

"What can you offer me?"

"I..."

The old man’s face turned pale, and he began to think maybe it would have been better to join the vampires...

He couldn’t use offensive magic, or maybe he could, but only at a first level.

He only had two advanced skills: alchemy and chimera studies, both at the third level.

And the old man himself was actually level twenty-one!

Throughout his long life, he had only killed a few hundred zombies. All other experience came from making potions and chimeras.

Over a hundred and fifty-five years, he had leveled up slowly, bit by bit.

Lin Yi had previously realized that in the crafting domain, a person’s actual ability and knowledge played a decisive role.

Even if someone acquired so-called "crafting" skills, if they knew nothing about their field, they couldn’t produce anything valuable.

For example, how could a blacksmith create without knowledge of medieval weapons and armor?

Weapon smiths should make more advanced equipment, but... the weapon smiths at the Shelter struggled even with swords and shields, let alone assault rifles.

The only reason they could make power armor was because they had Louis’s blueprints.

The same went for the doctors.

They weren’t alchemists, so even with formulas, they encountered many difficulties when making drugs.

On the other hand, Azarus knew many recipes, many not from the system but developed by the alchemists of Argonia.

These potions worked better than the system’s ones,

after all, they were perfected over centuries.

This old man also knew a lot about enchantment, an extremely complex field.

According to Azarus’s descriptions, Lin Yi thought it sounded a lot like computer programming.

Enchanted items would generate a rune-based program module, able to perform certain actions.

The finest enchanters could even create autonomous puppets! At least, that’s what the old man said.

But what really intrigued Lin Yi was that this meant he could stockpile enchanter skills and then hand them over to programmers! They could do rune programming!

The other good news was that although Azarus wasn’t a master enchanter, he remembered all the runes by heart and had even taught young vampires.

On the Argonia Planet, only vampires used runes, but Azarus was an exception.

In most cities, the highest achievement most humans could reach was becoming a Knight.

They started discussing the contract.

Lin Yi promised Azarus the "Eternal Youth" skill book. In exchange, Azarus would serve him and his descendants.

Until Lin Yi set him free or Earth was saved.

If Azarus betrayed him, he and his companions would immediately turn to dust.

"Can I have it, please?!"

The old man signed the parchment, waiting for it to disappear, while looking pleadingly at his new master.

The skill book appeared in Lin Yi’s hand, and he tossed it to Azarus.

"Alright, alright, here you go."

"Great! Great!!"

The old man jumped to catch it.

He pressed the book to his chest, turned around, and looked at his beautiful companions with tearful eyes.

They had been with him for over forty years!

After becoming an advanced mage, Azarus gained some actual power.

He used this power, and his goal was only one.

To rescue human children from the vampires.

But the vampires were unwilling to give up their food, and it took compelling reasons for them to do so.

The old man was no fool; he wouldn’t pursue hopeless causes. On the surface, he claimed he needed the children for research to create better chimeras.

As a result, occasionally, he could persuade the vampires to release a child, but it was impossible to return the child to their family.

There were only two things he could do for them.

End their suffering painlessly, or turn them into chimeras and let them live as monsters, though this wasn’t a guaranteed success.

Not all subjects survived, especially when Azarus was first studying chimera studies.

But over time, he gradually mastered the skills of chimera studies, allowing him to save more children and earn some respect among chimera scholars.

Decades passed, many things happened.

But in the end, only these six women remained by his side.

Years of companionship made their bond intimate, and this intimacy gradually turned into true love.

The old man hadn’t been able to do that for a century, so these women were still girls.

But now things were different; he was rising!

And thanks to Azarus’s magic, they also enjoyed eternal youth!

Azarus activated the skill, and then...

A creaking sound came from his body, followed by another creak and a groan.

The old man began to change in front of Lin Yi’s eyes, and it was clearly very painful.

The girls were terrified, trying to crawl to his side, and one of them even ran over despite her injuries, causing her wounds to reopen.

"Don’t touch him!" Lin Yi shouted angrily, glaring at the girls, "Just wait, he’s fine, it’s all because of his new skill."

Lin Yi’s words took effect, and then...

The girls began to notice changes in the bodies of their beloved ones.

Azarus’ spine straightened.

His frail limbs started to fill out, wrinkles disappeared, and soon he spat out his dentures.

Throughout his entire transformation process, he endured unbearable pain and itching, yet the old man constantly wore a smile.

He could feel the changes in his body, and he could also see the expressions in the eyes of the beloved girls, transforming from worry to joy.

This convinced him he had made the right decision.

The pain finally ceased.

Relieved, the old man fell down but was caught by the gentle arms of the girls.

"Give this to him," Lin Yi said, handing them a bottle of spring water.

The dark-skinned girl nodded and tried to pour the water into Azarus’ mouth.

But she was unsuccessful.

So she poured the water into her own mouth, then kissed her beloved, feeding him some of the water.

"Let me do it!"

"Me too!"

Lin Yi did not stay to see what happened next.

He conjured up a heap of leftover lunch and then teleported to his military headquarters.

After issuing some orders and listening to reports on the soldiers’ conditions, he went to Tilian.

"Boss, you’re here!" The head of the Rusted Castle branch was delighted, "How’s the fight back home?"

"Unfortunately, we lost sixteen people, but we defeated the enemy."

"But we won again! I’ve prepared a financial report for you, do you want to look at it now?"

Lin Yi sat at the table and began reviewing the documents.

Currently, 8,770 energy weapons are listed as "charged," each charging a fee of ten Coins.

Ten thousand Second Level cores have been fully charged and returned to their robots,

Each core charging a fee of ten Coins; five hundred Third Level cores have been charged, each charging a fee of one hundred Coins.

Soon after, another batch of Third Level cores of the same quantity arrived.

The branch also secured a major transaction involving transporting resources from Jelat Castle to Rusted Castle.

As the intermediary, the Shelter earned a ten percent profit, totaling over 110,000 Coins.

Fuel sales increased,

selling another batch of twenty tons of fuel, with several other deals in negotiation.

The total revenue of the Shelter reached an astonishing 932,791 Coins.

After handling matters at the branch, Lin Yi went to meet the Archbishop at the military headquarters.

The Archbishop and the generals all seemed very satisfied.

The city’s defense is in good condition, and their enemies are nearly wiped out.

This was not good news for Lin Yi.

The Half-Mechanical People are an extremely valuable resource source!

After talking with the Archbishop, the boss went to the wall area of the Shelter.

Everything here seemed under control.

If anything went wrong, the soldiers would contact him, and he would return to the walls immediately.

He had many things to do, feeling like he had to be everywhere at once.

Lin Yi returned to the Shelter.

He spoke with the families of the soldiers who fell in battle and then talked with the Knight Commanders.

These commanders were undergoing interrogation by Professionals who could read minds.

The Shelter had to weed out anyone loyal to the vampires and the Argonia Kingdom.

About one-fifth of the people did not pass the test.

They were all fanatics, planning to pretend to hate vampires and then sabotage the Shelter.

The commanders who agreed to pledge allegiance to Lin Yi were taken to Tilian.

They were shown the "freak show" currently happening there, which is the battle with Half-Mechanical People.

Currently, only four Knight Commanders were fully loyal to him, and these four were smart men.

They faced a choice: either serve Lin Yi or be converted into biomass.

They hated vampires, and Lin Yi would not devour their families, so this was actually an easy choice.

Most importantly, Lin Yi had proved that his Ark had a powerful self-defense system.

The Half-Mechanical People, Mecha, and everything else completely dazzled the medieval knights.

And they hadn’t even seen the movie he painstakingly made...

Before sunset, Lin Yi spent the day handling various affairs of the Shelter and meeting with Sharan’s trading company and Jelat’s Archbishop.

They discussed many things.

Technical exchanges, trade, the potential for future development, and so on, finding that there were many opportunities for cooperation between both sides.

The Half-Mechanical People are very interested in ancient technology, especially explosives and firearms.

Due to them being in the middle of a devastating energy crisis, ancient technology seemed much better than using swords to defend their walls...

Moreover, their primary enemy was the Half-Mechanical Zombie, so a regular large-caliber bullet was enough to destroy them.

Meanwhile, Lin Yi’s people were setting up a stage and building an area like the small settlement of the Children of the Sun in the underground bunker.

The new recruits were permitted to return home to retrieve personal belongings.

Some fools attempted to hide there, intending to emerge when the turmoil subsided.

But Lin Yi swiftly ignored these people.

This half-ruined town was completely defenseless; if zombies appeared there, these "waiters" would meet an extremely bloody and painful death...