Chapter 3: Escape caused by the tax crisis

Every magician will set up many magic traps in his territory, some deadly and some non-lethal, generally to prevent thieves.

After all, every magician stores a large amount of valuable magic materials, as well as precious magic notes and books. These things are often small in size and extremely valuable, and are most likely to be targeted by thieves.

Setting traps and breaking traps is a game that has lasted for thousands of years, and every magician and thief cannot escape. But the invaders this time did not seem to be those thieves who came to try their luck, because they could not even break the most basic warning traps outside the castle.

When Amber Xiu put on the robe that covered his whole body and appeared outside the castle, he only saw a young man and woman, both of whom were in tattered clothes. The man was lying in a pool of blood, and his thigh was pierced by several sharp thorns, almost useless. The girl tried very hard to take the man away, but she couldn't drag his body at all.

Seeing Amber appear, the girl screamed in fear.

Amber waved his fingers and a sleeping spell was cast, causing the girl to close her mouth and fall asleep.

Then Amber slowly walked up to the man and asked, "Why did you break into my manor? Didn't you see the sign at the door that said 'Do not trespass, there are magic traps inside'?"

The man was also trembling with fear, few ordinary people would not be afraid when seeing a lich, the legendary lich has a fear aura, although it is not as effective as the nightmare knight, it is not something that mortals can withstand.

When pressed by Amber, the man said, while holding back the severe pain: "I... can't read."

Amber: ...

"Even if you can't read, didn't your lord tell you that this is the territory of the lich?" Amber Xiu asked again.

The man was very weak from losing too much blood, but he still squeezed out his last bit of strength and said, "Lord Lich, I can dedicate my life and soul to you, but please spare my sister. We were running for our lives and were forced to break into your manor. We really didn't mean to offend you."

"Are you runaway slaves?"

Only escaped slaves would be so panicked that they would even dare to enter the lich's territory. They probably thought that the lich legend was just something the lord used to scare people, so they prepared to hide in the castle.

Who would have thought that the man excitedly explained: "No, we are free people. The lord suddenly wanted to increase taxes, and my family had already paid the full amount, but he suddenly wanted to double it. We couldn't pay, so he wanted to sell my sister to a brothel!"

"Suddenly increase taxes? Have you offended the lord?" asked Amber Xiu.

The man continued, "It's not just us. The entire county, and even several nearby counties, are raising taxes significantly. Many free people have been sold into slavery."

Amber was surprised. The Alchemist Council should not allow such a thing to happen. Could it be that they were almost bankrupt?

It is very likely that the plan to create a new race failed, and they estimated that they had lost most of the wealth accumulated by the Alchemy City. The elves of Silver Moon High Court took advantage of the situation and massively increased the price of potion raw materials. The Alchemy City estimated that many daily orders could not be completed, and this compensation would further increase the losses of the Alchemy City.

The alchemists who dealt with bottles and jars all day long suddenly decided to raise taxes across the board, hoping to rely on taxes to get through the difficult times. The small lords below naturally followed the actions of the Alchemist Council and pushed taxes onto the lower classes.

"Have many free people fled?" asked Amber Xiu.

"A lot. I know more than a dozen of them..." Before he could finish his words, the man fainted. The massive blood loss put him on the verge of death. If he was left alone, Amber would have an extra experimental material.

However, when he thought about the large number of free people fleeing, Amber suddenly had a new idea.

Magical energy burst out from his fingers, and a healing spell fell on the man.

The pierced thigh began to heal rapidly, the spikes were squeezed out by the regrown flesh and blood, and the lost blood was replenished under the effect of the spell.

After a moment, the man woke up.

Seeing the healed wound, the man quickly knelt in front of Amber and said, "Thank you, merciful Lich Master."

Amber Xiu laughed strangely, and then said: "Saying thank you to a lich, it seems that your mind is not completely clear. Do you think I will let you go just like that? If you dare to invade the lich's territory, you must be prepared to leave both your soul and corpse behind."

"No, sir, please..." The man knelt on the ground and begged.

Amberxiu impatiently cast a silencing spell on the man, making him shut his mouth completely.

"Don't worry, I will give you a chance to survive, but the prerequisite is that you complete the task I give you."

Amber snapped his fingers, and two strange-looking skeletons appeared. They were called skeletons because they were made entirely of bones, and they were called strange because they were not human skeletons at all. They looked like skeleton dogs, but where the skull should have been, there was an arm with only three fingers.

What kind of strange creature was it in life to leave behind such a skeleton? Two strange skeleton dogs grabbed the sleeping woman, put her on their backs, and followed Amberxiu's footsteps.

There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!

The man looked at Amber's back and his sister being taken away, and could only follow. He didn't have the courage to resist, fearing that he would become a corpse in the next second. At least the lich helped him heal his wounds and seemed to be reasonable. Maybe he really had a chance to survive.

With this fluke mentality, the man followed Amberxiu into the castle.

Amber Xiu took the two of them directly to his laboratory, and then ordered them, "Stand aside, don't speak unless I ask you."

After saying that, he ignored the man and went back to his laboratory table.

Amber took out a memory crystal and hung it high above the laboratory. This thing can be used to record images and sounds, and is a common magic prop. Amber used magic to activate the crystal, and then said, "Undead creature appearance transformation experiment, 176th."

"For a long time, we have been accustomed to making skeletons in an upright walking form. Two hundred and six bones form a complete human skeleton, but without the connection between muscles and fascia, each bone needs to rely on the power of the soul to be tightly connected.

"Each toe alone has two joints. If you want the skeleton to be able to stand on two feet, the soul needs to consume a lot of energy to perform real-time calculations and keep balancing the front, back, left, and right. I think these are actually unnecessary burdens..."

Starting from the assembly of the skeleton, the memory crystal clearly recorded every step of Amberxiu.

(End of this chapter)