Chapter 713 There is a Genius in the Spiritual Tower

In another room almost separated from the first-class cabin by the entire ship.

A middle-aged man with greasy and messy hair wiped the sweat from his forehead anxiously.

He grabbed the blond boy who was passing by and asked quickly when he saw him frown in pain, "Haven't you found Paul yet?"

"Have you said anything—"

The boy yelled impatiently.

"What?"

At this moment, a cold, hoarse and slow voice was heard.

A chill suddenly permeated the room, and everyone subconsciously looked in the direction of the sound.

He was a man who looked as thin as a ghost.

He looked to be in his forties or fifties, his eyes as deep as a lone wolf waiting for prey. His back was slightly hunched, and he leaned against the wall as he appeared at the door. Although he wore a neat suit, it was slightly too large, and his shoulders didn't support it, making it look a bit slumped. His eyes were stained with a dim yellow light, giving him a sickly look.

He walked in slowly, and the others stopped talking and moving, greeted him and saluted:

"Professor Laxmi!"

"Good afternoon, Professor."

The middle-aged man called Professor Laxmi just nodded slightly without responding.

He stared at the man with messy hair and walked straight towards him.

The man was also startled, standing still like a student. The blond boy next to him also showed fear, but he didn't dare to run away. He could only glare angrily at the middle-aged man beside him, then lowered his head.

"What?"

Professor Laxmi walked closer and repeated his words in a low voice.

The blond boy spoke quickly, "Paul is missing. Assistant Coach Medel asked us to go look for him..."

"Well, Professor..."

The middle-aged man scratched his hair vigorously, brushing away the dandruff, and whispered, "Someone saw him when he boarded the ship before..."

But before he could continue, Assistant Coach Medel was interrupted by Professor Rahimi: "Paul is missing?"

"……yes."

Assistant coach Medel was speechless and could only nod.

"I asked you to keep an eye on him." Professor Laxmi frowned and said slowly.

"……yes."

"So how did you do it?"

Professor Rahimi said softly, like a whisper between lovers, "You let him go?"

Medel shuddered and immediately began to explain: "No, no, no, I said, when he was sailing, he clearly..."

"—you know, he's very important."

Professor Rahimi continued to interrupt Medel: "More important than all of you combined."

"Yes, yes, I know..."

Medel wiped the sweat off his face and kept bowing and nodding.

At this moment, Professor Rahimi placed a finger quietly on Medel's forehead.

In an instant, the entire room fell silent. Medel dared not move, and Professor Rashimi, like a withered corpse, was filled with lifeless energy.

Everyone watched this scene in silence, and the sound of the waves, which was originally drowned out by the words, became particularly clear.

Crash——

Crash——

Perhaps only a dozen seconds had passed, but to Medel it felt like several minutes had passed.

Finally, Professor Laxmi's fingers slowly curled and retracted.

Seeing that Medel didn't die immediately, everyone sighed in relief, almost forming a continuous, audible sigh in the narrow room. But everyone soon realized how rude this would be, and immediately returned to silence.

Medel still maintained his previous posture, not moving at all.

——He was petrified.

Besides becoming a stone statue, complete immobility and inability to move can also be considered a form of petrification. This is also an application of preservation—living preservation.

"This is the third time, Medel. I'll give your father some leniency... but there won't be a next time."

Professor Rahimi's hoarse, unpleasant voice slowly rang out: "You'd better hope that I can find Paul back."

He put his hands behind his back, his face as cold as a corpse as he glanced around the room, and ordered, "Do what you have to do."

In an instant, the crowd that seemed to have been frozen suddenly regained its liveliness and vitality.

They maneuvered the tall and heavy wooden barrels that shared the room with them to the window and poured out all the biological specimens purchased from the Theocracy and the preservation fluid inside.

Everyone seemed to be trying hard to show how hardworking and conscientious they were at work—even the sound of moving the barrels was clear enough.

"——Be quiet, this is a secret operation."

Professor Laxmi's sarcastic voice rang out again: "Are you building a building? Or does anyone want to lay the foundation? I'll be the first to satisfy him when I get back."

In an instant, work became quiet again.

The students worked quietly—silently but with incredible speed.

Professor Laxmi frowned and looked around the room, but he didn't seem to find the other person he was looking for. He raised his eyebrows and left quietly without saying a word.

After he left, the students in the cabin finally breathed a sigh of relief, and their work speed immediately slowed down significantly.

It took a long time before Medel was able to resume his movements.

First, his fingers twitched. Then his eyelids began to flutter, tears streaming down his face. This continued for a long time before he collapsed to his knees, gasping for air and repeatedly hitting his shoulders and waist with his hands. But no other student in the room paid him any attention.

Students coming and going passed by him, but almost no one looked at him.

"I'll help too!"

Assistant coach Medel took a breath, then stood up and squeezed over on his own.

The other side.

Aleister drummed his fingers on the armrest of the sofa, lost in thought.

"More details."

She suddenly spoke up and asked Paul, "How exactly do you plan to proceed?"

Dimitri, who was standing by, quickly answered, "It means dumping the 'noose' we brought into the sea..."

“That’s the complete story.”

Paul interrupted Dimitri and started from the beginning: "Generally speaking, we use normal concentrations when used as preservatives. And we always have a job -

"Because Xingti and Parthia don't share a border, and the port is controlled by goblin merchants, the Parthian snakemen and lizardmen ships can't enter. So when we need to trade with the Parthians, we choose to do it through the Theocracy."

"What deal?" Aleister asked.

"Human specimens. We need a large number of specimens of species other than humans... The study of necromancy consumes a large number of corpses, and Xingbi is very reluctant to provide even human corpses."

Paul replied, "But the Theocracy doesn't allow the buying and selling of human tissue, nor does it allow the slave trade. Therefore, the Parthians have adopted a different trading model—they bring some slaves directly to the Theocracy and have us transform them into zombie-level specimens. In other words, we provide the service, not them... However, the Theocracy allows for rituals, alchemy, or necromancy processing."

"Then how can the Parthians make a profit?"

Aleister asked in detail: "They can't be paying you to give you the body, right?"

"—Because custom specimens require a great deal of time and effort, and can easily damage the body or fail to maintain the highest quality...The highest quality specimens can be used directly for necromancy research or for the creation of high-level undead, which requires extremely advanced technology.

"So after the deceased gave us a 20% 'deposit,' we would in turn pay a large 'security deposit' to ensure their integrity. Because the process was complicated and difficult to produce, the amount of this security deposit was much higher than the deposit... So in the end, we paid the money and returned with the body."

Paul said calmly, "After that... there was no after. The deposit was just a deposit, and they 'withheld' it. After that, we just need to write another letter to inform them with regret that 'all the bodies have been destroyed and the transaction is cancelled', and then it will be over. The bodies have indeed been destroyed - they have all been used to improve the students' skills in preservation and necromancy."

...So smart.

Aleister sighed: "There is a genius in the Ziggurat..."

(End of this chapter)