Chapter 1 The Drift

In the days that followed, Suren simply drifted in the seawater, encountering several patrols.

Some came by ship, others flew in the sky, and still others swam in the water...

Suren could spot them, but they couldn't detect him.

Although the North Sea Fleet had a large presence in this secret realm, high-level professionals were limited. Had they sent fourth or fifth-tier professionals, they might have sensed him, but it was mostly first and second-tier pirates.

Finding him in this secret realm spanning over ten thousand square kilometers was like picking out a special grain of sand in the desert—almost impossible.

Since they couldn't find him, Suren wasn't interested in paying attention to how frustrated Princess Frostmoon was. Instead, he projected his will into the miniature void realm, tinkering with the advanced mechanical equipment on the *Royal Seven*.

...

The Dawn Mercenary Group was also quite happy in the miniature void realm. They had food and drink, cultivating or conducting research as they pleased.

Because Suren planned to build a "Mechanical Workshop," he intended to modify the miniature void realm.

When everyone heard about his idea, they were very excited and offered suggestions.

Since most people had nothing to do anyway, they helped make the miniature void realm look better.

Coincidentally, there was a crew member in the group who held a "Luying Royal Architectural Designer Certificate." After that person drew up a blueprint, everyone got busy.

Elemental professionals directly used earth-type spells to condense a large piece of land, and then placed a localized "gravity barrier" on the land. As long as the energy consumption wasn't too high, it could be maintained indefinitely.

Suren's original plan was just to find a piece of land and build a simple factory.

But Barrett and the other crew members who had studied architecture at the Luying Royal Academy were meticulous, and with the concerted efforts of hundreds of alchemists, they quickly created a beautiful castle with a Gothic flair.

Everyone then tried to fix the castle in place to prevent it from floating around.

Now, it could not only serve as a workshop but also as a small castle for vacations and leisure.

Then, Suren moved all the machinery from the submarine into the castle. The space immediately became much more spacious, and the various instruments were no longer so crowded. The idea of a mechanical assembly line finally took its first step.

Seeing Suren's plan to build a war workshop here, Dr. Banks couldn't contain himself.

When he first came in, he immediately liked the closed space environment.

It was definitely the best place for experiments—quiet, closed, undisturbed by the outside world, and without the need to move at any time.

Setting up a laboratory on a ship was really inconvenient. Not only did it involve several relocations, but space was also limited. The rocking of the waves and naval battles would also affect many experimental processes.

Dr. Banks simply moved his biological laboratory into the castle as well.

He even said that he would stay here from now on and wouldn't go out unless necessary.

Suren was dumbfounded.

However, since he often did experiments with Dr. Banks, he was familiar with him, and having a neighbor was a good thing. He could also manage the "captives."

On the other hand, in just a few days, Pandora successfully converted the eighty-odd Mafa mechanics captives into her followers.

The group easily accepted the fact of their capture and subconsciously lost all hostility towards the Dawn Mercenary Group.

They began to help Suren build the "mechanical octopus production line," starting to produce the first batch of mechanical octopuses according to the design drawings.

These Mafa mechanical engineers brought the most advanced mechanical technology from the Mafa Empire. While debugging the instruments, they could also improve the original design deficiencies of the mechanical octopus. New drawings and inspirations came out every day.

Suren also participated in it.

The more he understood, the more he was amazed by the technological level of the Mafa Empire. It was indeed decades ahead of Luying, and it was also Suren's blind spot in knowledge. There were even many special technologies of the ancient goblins and ancient dwarves, which were "treasure troves of knowledge" waiting to be developed.

He learned while participating in the manufacturing process, gaining a lot.

With eighty people and a bunch of the most advanced mechanical instruments, the work efficiency was far beyond what Suren could achieve alone.

The dozens of mechanical octopuses lost in the previous battle were quickly replenished.

Now that he had large machine tools, he could even manufacture and design new mechanical warriors according to his own needs, making up for the land warfare shortcomings of his "mechanical puppet legion."

Suren also watched his mechanical workshop take shape step by step.

But new problems arose, namely, material shortages.

The mechanical engineers had knowledge and instruments, but not enough materials.

Whether for research or production, a large amount of raw materials was needed.

Suren had accumulated a large pile of "material purchase lists," which made his head ache.

He thought he could only resupply at the black market when he made landfall in the future.

However, many materials for manufacturing mechanical armor were controlled by the Luying government, and they were not circulated by merchants. Naturally, the black market channels in pirate cities didn't have much supply. The possibility of bulk purchases was not high.

Fortunately, Suren asked Mr. Mirror and received good news.

She said that her blood descendant, Earl Antonio, had been operating in Luying for hundreds of years and had founded a large noble business that had channels to obtain controlled materials.

In the future, when he went to Luying, he would have a place to get bulk materials.

Now, from material supply to the mechanical workshop, the entire "war workshop assembly line" was truly complete.

...

Suren tinkered with his miniature void realm every day, and the days passed quickly.

After the North Sea Fleet's searchers failed to find anyone in the high-density searches of the past few days, the subsequent activity became smaller and smaller.

Those guys probably knew that the possibility of catching the attacker was slim. Even if someone came again, they were just taking a stroll to deal with the search mission.

Suren knew that the heat had passed, so he slowly approached the core of the secret realm.

This void secret realm was the site of an alchemical academy from the Dawn Era, containing thousands of islands of various sizes.

There were almost all ancient building ruins on these islands, but because the North Sea Fleet had been developing here for several years, the treasures had been mostly excavated.

The main building of the academy was on the largest island in the center of the secret realm, where there was a space channel leading to the void plane, which was also the source of the North Sea Fleet's continuous production of void materials.

Suren's main purpose in coming to this void secret realm was to try his luck and find suitable fifth-tier space professional materials for himself. He also wanted to find some resources for the Dawn Mercenary Group.

If he couldn't get lucky, he could only go to the North Sea Void Fleet to fleece some wool again.

He had previously stripped the memory of the vice-fleet commander and found that the materials fused by the fleet commander and several squad leaders in the Void Fleet were not bad...

Since robbing the Mafa submarine and reaping a great harvest, Suren now felt that being a pirate was really good.

His own efficiency in adventuring and treasure hunting was not as high.

Because he was very familiar with the map of this secret realm, and with the Black Crow circling in the sky, Suren could also sense the movements of the nearby patrolling guards in advance, so he didn't encounter any accidents.

He swam all the way from the sea.

Finally, he saw the main building complex of the Toxter Void Alchemy Academy from a distance.

It was a large expanse of ruins built on the mountain, and from the scale, it could be seen that it was once a bustling metropolis many thousands of years ago.

Although most of the buildings in the city were destroyed, one could still see the very distinctive architectural style. Various exquisite towers with white bases, spherical roofs dotted with gold-lacquered rings, large-span corridor bridges, exquisite reliefs...

It was a bit like Dawn City under Old Lindon, a scene of prosperity followed by decline.

But at this moment, the city was full of camping tents and bustling with people.

This was the secret base of the North Sea Fleet, with hundreds of thousands of people here.

Even after several years of development, there were still quite a few twisted vortexes near the building complex.

Upon identification, almost all were A-level and S-level high-risk cursed spaces.

Suren was no stranger to them. In the memory fragments he had previously stripped, he knew that these cursed spaces had brought massive casualties to the North Sea Fleet and had also produced many ancient relics.

The most striking cursed space was the terrifying void rift with a diameter of several hundred meters at the top of the mountain.

It looked like a huge and strange vertical pupil, staring at the entire academy.

[Unstable Plane Channel]

Description: To human understanding, the endless void is an indescribable monster.

Detailed explanation: This is a super-large cursed space where strength and luck coexist, with a difficulty level of B to T; During the most glorious era of alchemy in the Dawn Era, the alchemists of the Talcrol Empire intended to merge with the void, but due to a laboratory accident, they suffered a void backlash; This cursed space preserves the scene of the last seventy-two hours of the Void Academy's tragic battle. The teachers and students of the academy blocked the void invasion with their flesh and blood, preventing a plane disaster; You need to survive the ubiquitous attacks of void monsters. Hiding is the best choice, which will allow you to survive easily; The deeper you go into the channel, the more complex spatial rifts there are, but they also contain void treasures with the greatest energy fluctuations. However, that place is also connected to the void plane and has very powerful monsters;

...

Suren looked at the information identified and his eyes showed a slight solemnity.

This was similar to the intelligence he had known in advance.

This largest cursed space was located on a space channel leading to the "void plane" and was currently the only cursed space that the North Sea Fleet had not explored more than 20%.

However, even if only a small portion had been explored, it had produced top-level void materials.

For example, the legendary-quality void ghost hand that Suren and the others had intercepted before, as well as some very advanced ancient alchemy instruments.

It was because the pirates of the North Sea Fleet couldn't understand those ancient instruments that they invited the Mafa people to excavate them together.

The difficulty of this space lay in the fact that it had too many unstable spatial rifts.

The deeper you went, the weaker the space became, and the more unfriendly it was to high-level professionals.

It was like increasingly thin ice. The fighting of high-level professionals would easily tear the space and then be drawn into it.

For example, there were sixth-tier void monsters in the depths of this cursed space, and they could be safe and sound there. But if a sixth-tier professional went there, not to mention whether they could defeat the monster, they could hardly avoid the ubiquitous spatial rifts.

Because of this, the North Sea Fleet lost too many high-level professionals, including a sixth-tier executive and several sixth-tier war slaves bought from Luying.

As a result, this cursed space had not been explored to this day.

...

Sixth-tier professionals couldn't go there, but there were sixth-tier void monsters there.

This was almost a dead end.

Even if the North Sea Fleet had many top experts, they were completely helpless.

But Suren looked at the intelligence identified from the cursed space, and his eyes showed contemplation. A flash of inspiration struck his mind.

The current situation was that the Dawn Mercenary Group had robbed Princess Frostmoon's submarine and had already exposed their whereabouts. The possibility of being targeted would be very high if they wanted to rob the "cursed material warehouse" as originally planned. Those guys were probably already prepared for them to come to their door.

The plan naturally had to be changed.

At least if they were going to take action, they had to postpone it for a while.

"Why not go to that cursed space and take a look?"

Suren pondered the feasibility in his mind.

Judging from the identified intelligence, as long as he didn't go too deep to court death, the difficulty of the cursed space was not high.

Moreover, others couldn't go to the depths, but that didn't mean he couldn't.

After all, he was only fourth-tier now, and theoretically, the probability of triggering a spatial rift would be smaller than that of a normal fifth-tier professional.

Moreover, he had a spatial law comprehension degree close to that of a sixth-tier professional and the All-Knowing Eye. When encountering weak areas of space, the possibility of avoiding them was very high.

When encountering this kind of cursed space, Suren felt for the first time that being a low level was a good thing.

As for those high-level void monsters that had already been explored, they could pose a great threat to fifth and sixth-tier pirates, but they might not be able to kill him.

He was also a puppeteer and had countless puppets that could be used as landmines...

If he was careful, he might be able to explore further and find undiscovered opportunities.

From the current intelligence, this cursed space must have treasures, and it was definitely worth a try.

Besides, he was not alone, he had the entire Dawn Mercenary Group behind him.

Thinking of this, Suren asked Qian Tiao and the others in the miniature void realm.

Naturally, everyone had no objections and were very much looking forward to it.

They all knew that in terms of life-saving ability, no one in the entire Dawn Mercenary Group was stronger than Suren. Having him lead them in was obviously safer.

This secret realm had been confirmed to produce various void materials in large quantities, so they had to get a share of the loot.

...

Suren obtained the support of the Dawn Mercenary Group and began to wait patiently.

Now, the ruins of the academy were full of people from the North Sea Fleet, mostly space ability users.

Even if he teleported over, there would almost be a 100% chance of being discovered.

So he needed to wait for an opportunity.

Suren knew that almost every time the secret realm was opened, the North Sea Fleet would transport a large number of living supplies and slaves from the outside.

At that time, there would be a large number of outsiders, and mixing in would be the best opportunity.

Suren knew that the North Sea Fleet's transport of supplies was almost always on a fixed route, and even if they had been attacked before, it probably wouldn't change.

Sure enough, after waiting another three days, eight pirate ships full of supplies sailed into the secret realm.

Also at midnight, Suren watched as the Milky Way fell from the sky, and eight sailing ships fell into the sea from the sky.

Suren quietly approached with a black umbrella, sensed it, and found that the cabins on three of the ships were densely packed with people. They were stuffed into the one-meter-high cabin mezzanine like wine barrels.

These were slave ships.

Taking advantage of the violent shock of the sea ships falling into the water, Suren teleported into the cabin. Without alarming anyone, he absorbed a slave into the miniature void realm with one palm and then replaced that person's position.

All the slaves wore slave collars and foul-smelling burlap hoods to prevent them from remembering the route of the secret realm.

This was perfect for disguising Suren's actions. He used a trick to change clothes, putting on the same attire. The skin color and whip mark camouflage that he had prepared long ago made it impossible for anyone to tell that he was any different from the slaves around him.

Probably sensing the subtle spatial fluctuations, a pirate came down from the deck to check the cabin. After finding nothing unusual, he went back up.

After all, some weak void creatures would occasionally run around in this secret realm, so some spatial fluctuations were not surprising.

Suren curled up in the corner, silently.

The pirate fleet also sailed straight into the stronghold on the ruins island.