Chapter 135 D33荒区

Suren emptied his savings to bid for the [Eight-Armed Spider God Spear Implant Blueprint].

Yet, amidst his joy, he felt a strange sense of unease.

This alchemical implant blueprint seemed almost custom-made for his "Puppet Master" class. Whether it was the demanding usage requirements or the effects, they were a near-perfect match.

The concept of "class-specific implant blueprints" existed in this world. They were the result of countless generations of alchemists' improvements, aiming to maximize the synergy between implants and classes.

Generally, the combination of a professional and a customized implant was something only the wealthy families in the inner city would pursue.

For those in the outer city, merely transitioning to a profession was already a one-in-a-million feat. Finding a roughly compatible alchemical implant was good enough; no one dared to dream of a custom blueprint.

Moreover, it was rare to see even a single gold-grade blueprint in the black market for months. For him to encounter one felt like too much of a coincidence.

However, it wasn't long before he realized it wasn't luck, but rather that a massive quantity of incredible treasures had genuinely arrived at this black market auction.

The gold-grade blueprint he had acquired, which others might consider impractical, was merely an appetizer.

...

Suren was still agonizing over the 800,000 he'd spent when the next auction item was projected onto the rock wall.

It was a pitch-black hand bone.

The item description indicated it was a silver-grade cursed object called [Fiend Hand Bone], a job-change material for the rare magic class "Darkfire Warlock." It was also a newly unearthed relic.

The item immediately sparked a frenzy among the black market crowd, eventually selling for over four million to a mysterious buyer.

But the climax didn't stop there.

The next item was another gold-grade blueprint, the [Diamond Skeleton Implant Blueprint] for melee fighters, selling for 1.9 million...

The item after that was an ancient "Alchemy Codex" excavated from an ancient ruin. The content hadn't been deciphered, but it was suspected to contain elemental conversion formulas and mudras above Tier 2. Selling price: 2.1 million...

Next up was a beast-hide antique alchemy scroll. Also undeciphered, but speculated to contain advanced rune knowledge, fetching a final price of 1.3 million...

One after another, rare and exquisite items appeared, with prices soaring higher and higher.

The atmosphere in the dim underground black market auction reached a fever pitch.

It seemed some wealthy figures had received advance notice and prepared large sums of cash for these valuable goods. They spent generously, bidding without hesitation for anything that caught their eye.

While Suren marveled at the number of hidden millionaires in the outer city, he also realized that most of these treasures came from the same ruin.

He immediately understood that a new, large-scale ruin had been discovered.

Obviously, the truth was as he suspected. Suren wasn't the only one with this thought.

The appearance of so many ancient relics at this black market auction led everyone to guess that a major ruin had been discovered. Whispers rippled through the black market streets.

"A large ancient ruin?"

For some reason, Suren suddenly remembered the ruined city he had seen deep underground when he first transmigrated.

He wondered, could that city have been discovered?

Although the auction didn't specify the origin of these items, and Suren couldn't confirm his suspicions, the outer city was not without influential figures. Since they were ancient relics, they must have been brought back by scavenging parties. There were no airtight walls in this world. After this auction, a large number of people would become rich, and information would likely spread quickly.

...

This was a rare auction, and even the shop owners in the black market were amazed.

Going outside at this hour would almost certainly result in being tailed by the vagrants lurking outside the black market, who would see him as a fat sheep.

So Suren, having bought the blueprint, wasn't in a hurry to leave.

Black market shop owners usually had better access to information than the average person.

Perhaps because he had made a small profit from selling materials earlier, the owner of Gerson's Alchemy Shop also offered Suren a piece of information for free.

The old man said, "Rumor has it that this batch of goods was brought out of an ancient ruin discovered in the 'd33 Wasteland' by the Crimson Gorge Scavenging Party from the inner city. However, that scavenging party was ambushed by a group of mysterious plunderers before they could enter the city, and they were wiped out. The goods... are naturally stolen. That's why they didn't end up being auctioned off at the inner city auction house..."

"Plunderers" were essentially professional robbers who ambushed scavenging parties on their way back to the city.

But usually, these people were mercenaries, gangsters, or even other scavenging parties.

Hearing the old man's words, a look of realization appeared on Suren's face.

As expected, these items could have fetched a better price in the inner city, yet they appeared in the outer city black market. Only stolen goods could explain this.

However, Suren frowned slightly upon hearing this and thought, "d33 Wasteland? If it's near there, it's very likely that these items came from that ruined city..."

Hearing this news, he even felt that the [Eight-Armed Spider God Spear Implant Blueprint] might truly be a class-specific alchemy implant blueprint for his "Puppet Master" class.

If his guess was correct, then the place where the blueprint was found was likely the "Stormwind Manor."

Could it be that after he left, a scavenging party cleaned up the "cursed space" of Stormwind Manor?

But that didn't seem right, Pestoia was clearly very strong.

In Suren's view, she had at least the combat power of a cadre-level, and she was a very troublesome "ghost type." An ordinary scavenging team wouldn't be able to do anything to her.

He heard the boss mention that the "Crimson Gorge Scavenging Party" only had a few seasoned Tier 1 professionals and not even a single Tier 2. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been so easily ambushed and completely wiped out.

Perhaps they found it somewhere else?

Did those guys go into the city?

Suren's thoughts drifted further, and he felt it was even more impossible.

He still clearly remembered that there were even more terrifying mutated monsters wandering in that dilapidated ruined city.

At this time, the shop owner spoke again, "Although the specific location of the ruins hasn't been released yet, it probably won't be long before Old Lindon sees a wave of scavenging fever. Business is going to be good for a while."

After saying this, the old man added another seemingly sentimental remark: "Tsk, tsk, it's a pity, though. A lot of people are going to die..."

"..."

Suren's mind raced as he listened.

The more he learned about this world, the less he felt he understood it. Instead, it seemed even more mysterious.

The ruins left behind so many treasures, which meant that the underground city once had a glorious civilization and very powerful alchemists.

Since it possessed such a powerful civilization... how did that city come to be destroyed?

The changing of civilizations must involve great disasters.

Intuition told Suren that the ancient city ruins were definitely not simple.

...

"Something doesn't seem right. It feels like someone is deliberately spreading the news about the ruins through the auction to attract people to search for them..."

A conspiracy theory instinctively popped into Suren's head.

But he didn't dwell on it too much.

Even if someone was using such deadly "bait," scavengers would still flock to it despite the high mortality rate.

In Old Lindon, human lives weren't worth much.