The next day, Dudian came to the hidden alchemist chamber again. When he arrived, Viper and the "Rat" whom he had tracked before were also there. The boy with the code name "Rat" should have heard Viper talk about Dudian. As soon as he saw Dudian, he asked nervously, "You're Hound, right? You tracked me here. So, you... have seen what I look like?"
Dudian thought that there was no way to deceive him, so he nodded and said, "Yes, I have. I will keep it a secret."
Rat looked depressed and said, "I've been exposed again."
Viper said irritably, "Who told you to get the tattoo on your wrist in the first place? I think you'll be purified by the Light sooner or later. Just don't betray us when that happens."
"I won't betray you." Rat said with a worried look, "My family has arranged a marriage for me. I'm thinking of quitting alchemy now. Anyway, with my level, it's hard for me to achieve much. At most, I can get a Meteorite Badge."
Viper shrugged and said, "If you want to quit, remember to remove the tattoo."
"I'm just afraid of the pain, that's why I've been hesitating." Rat said helplessly.
Dudian was a bit speechless. He looked at Nightingale's alchemist chamber and asked, "Isn't she coming today?"
"She hasn't come at this time. She probably won't come." Viper said casually.
Dudian said, "Can I borrow her book of alchemist symbols to take a look?"
"Help yourself. But it's better not to touch her other alchemist materials."
Dudian nodded. After they went to work on their experiments, he picked up Nightingale's book of alchemist symbols and continued to memorize it silently. Although he had a super chip, and the modern chemical system stored in it was much more advanced and complete than the alchemist system of this era, being ancient didn't mean being backward. There were still many advantages in this alchemist system that were worth learning. After all, this was the embryonic form of chemistry.
Dudian first reviewed what he had memorized yesterday, and then continued to silently memorize the subsequent alchemist symbols.
Another day passed.
Dudian had memorized about two-thirds of it. At dusk, he left the alchemist chamber one after another with Viper, Rat, and the others. This time, Viper left first again, and Rat was the last to "cover the rear", responsible for filling the passage. They didn't trust a newcomer to do this.
After Dudian came out, he saw that Viper was hiding nearby again, trying to peek at him. He ignored him and took a few detours in the same direction as yesterday and went home.
On the third day, Dudian continued to come to the alchemist chamber. Nightingale was also there today. He borrowed the alchemist book and continued to memorize it silently. Before leaving at night, he finally memorized the whole book and could already understand the experiments that Nightingale and the others were doing.
Just from the symbols engraved on the alchemist table, Dudian could roughly guess what experiment they were going to do. When returning the book, he quickly glanced at Nightingale's alchemist table and immediately saw a sun symbol, two water drop symbols, and a spoon symbol. He couldn't help but be surprised. Nightingale had quite big ambitions. She was actually directly researching gold. Did she want to directly create the Philosopher's Stone?
On the fourth day.
Dudian came to the alchemist hideout as usual. Viper wasn't there today. Nightingale and Rat were each busy with their own things. Occasionally, Rat would come out to ask Nightingale some questions. Here, her alchemist level was obviously the highest among them.
"Aren't you going to read the book today?" Nightingale saw that Dudian didn't borrow the book from her and asked in surprise.
Dudian shook his head and said, "No need."
"No need?" Nightingale was stunned and said, "What do you mean? Have you already memorized it?"
"Yeah." Dudian nodded slightly and said, "I want to start learning to do experiments."
Nightingale understood and smiled, saying, "It seems that you've memorized a lot before. I was wondering how it was possible to do experiments without even memorizing the alchemist symbols. If you want to do experiments, you have to buy the materials yourself. I can lend you some today, on the condition that I have some to spare. But you have to return them to me tomorrow."
"Thank you!" Dudian was grateful in his heart. He looked up and scanned the various raw materials on her shelf. Immediately, he saw several raw materials for making black powder. These raw materials were also commonly used in other alchemist experiments. Black powder was first invented by his motherland in the old days and had a huge impact on the whole world. It originated from alchemy of immortality, which was actually equivalent to alchemy in the East, earlier and more advanced than that in the West.
"I want some of this yellow phosphorus." Dudian pointed to one of the bottles and jars. Naturally, he didn't plan to make black powder here. Although in modern times, this couldn't be considered high technology and was a very ancient technique, in this era, it was definitely explosive alchemy, and it could really "explode"....
Nightingale took a look and nodded, saying, "Okay. I happen to have some extra of this."
Dudian also asked for some raw materials such as gum and red scales. Then he cleaned out the small warehouse. At this moment, he suddenly found a problem... There was no alchemist table!
He was a bit dumbfounded. This wasn't making black powder, for which there was already a complete formula, and all he needed to do was to mix the raw materials. What he wanted to research was matches, but he hadn't mastered the specific production method yet. When he watched the black powder formula in the chip's materials last time, he incidentally saw the uses of some materials with similar properties, such as yellow phosphorus, red scales, and other materials, so he wanted to do some research on his own.
Matches couldn't be considered high technology either, but in this era, they could greatly optimize the fire-starting tools, just like the difference between an electric light and a candle. The reason for researching this was that, first, he still didn't have access to electrical energy and couldn't read other high-tech modern products in the chip. Second, the industrial level of this world was still too backward. Having the concept alone but no tools was just in vain.
The second reason was that when he detonated the black powder last time, he felt that igniting it was a problem. The flint was really inconvenient to use. It needed to be struck repeatedly with the steel striker to create a spark and light the tinder, which was extremely fatal in the critical moments of a battle.
Dudian found Nightingale again and asked curiously, "Where did you get your alchemist tables?" No one dared to sell this kind of thing on the market.
Nightingale was preparing the raw materials. When she saw Dudian come over, she was taken aback for a moment before she realized and said, "I forgot to tell you about this. Well, you can go and find Rat and see if he's free tonight. If he is, he can take you to the underground market to buy one. But the price is a bit high. You'd better prepare more money, at least more than two silver coins."
"The underground market?" Dudian was slightly stunned. He suddenly remembered that Rossyard's notes seemed to mention this place. It was a market for underground transactions of the Dark Church, with strongholds in various places.
Immediately, Dudian found Rat and told him the whole thing.
Rat didn't think much about it and agreed immediately to take him there at night.
Dudian had nothing to do for a while, so he greeted Nightingale and left the alchemist hideout. He thought that three days had passed, and he didn't know how Barton and the others were doing with their tasks. So he hired a carriage and went to the slum area.
When he arrived at the dilapidated square as agreed in advance, Dudian quickly found the code left by Barton and the others. A smile appeared on his face. He followed the code all the way and soon found a small, remote shack. This place was close to the refugee gathering place in the slum area.
Just as Dudian came to the front of the shack, from a shack opposite, he heard Barton's excited voice.
Dudian looked over in surprise. He saw the low shack lifted, and Barton and the others came over. After not seeing them for three days, they all looked more energetic than before.
"We were afraid that the code would be exposed, so we rented another shack opposite." Barton saw Dudian's expression and immediately explained.
Dudian was taken aback for a moment and then smiled, saying, "You've really thought this through." Although he knew that the possibility of the code being exposed was extremely low, he was still very happy to see their caution.