In this world, there are no concrete roads, and asphalt roads are unimaginable, and the common ones are overgrown dirt roads, and the width of the road is basically not more than 4 meters.

When it rains, the uneven road is full of puddles, and if a horse-drawn carriage passes by, the road becomes very muddy, and after walking for a while, the shoes and trouser legs will be covered with mud.

Unfortunately, it's such a dirt road that leads to the small town of Sunderland.

On the side of such a muddy path, if there is one more rotting corpse, even the best mood will be darkened.

After discovering the body, Anne trampled on the mud and walked over to the body, broke a branch from the tree, and began to carefully examine the wounds on the body. Lawson followed, but stopped two meters away from the body.

It's not that he's afraid of being infected by germs, after having the power of alchemy, he has full control over his body, enough to resist any germs, what really discourages him is the strong smell of corpses, and there are a large number of green-headed flies flying around the corpse, these flies will fly towards Rosen from time to time, landing on his clothes and even on his face, which makes Rosen's heart very uncomfortable.

After about five or six minutes, Anne finished the examination, she stood up and took a few steps back.

"How?" Rosen asked.

Anne was a little confused: "It's a little weird. ”

"How?" Lawson asked busily.

Anne snapped a branch from the tree and played with the skin on the corpse: "Look here...... And here, the ulcers of these skins don't look like natural decay, but rather like abscesses. ”

Rosen squinted and looked at it carefully for a while, then nodded: "Indeed, the abscess has grown so big, and there are so many of them, it is enough to be fatal, right?" ”

Anne nodded, she pointed to the marks on the ground next to the big tree, and said, "Look here, and here, from these traces, it can be seen that this person's left leg was broken, and he was seriously injured, and he crawled all the way." When he reached the bottom of the tree, he was exhausted, so he lay down on the trunk to rest. As a result, he never moved again. It should have been an onset of illness that took his life. ”

Rosen followed Anne's observation clues and speculated: "After this person died, the corpse decomposed and emitted a corpse smell, which attracted the ghouls hiding nearby to eat the corpse." Originally, the ghoul was supposed to eat the corpse, but now it's daytime, the sun is very strong, and the ghoul is afraid of light, so he hides for the time being...... Huh~ What's that? ”

A meter to the right of the corpse, there was a black object.

Lawson walked over and squatted down to look at it carefully for a while: "It's a piece of wild kudzu, this thing can satisfy hunger, but there is no trace of gnawing on the surface." ”

Kudzu contains a lot of starch, which can satisfy hunger and is a pretty good food.

He turned his head to look at the carrion again, and found that the corpse was very, very thin, and completely skinny.

"He was severely malnourished and seriously ill, and he should have been very short of food, but when he got it, he didn't eat a bite...... Why? ”

Anne let out a long sigh, "I can probably guess why. You look at his face, at the age of twenty-five or sixteen, it is very likely that he is a father. And this kudzu root should be prepared to be brought to the child to eat. ”

Rosen's heart shook, and a deep sympathy rose up.

Anne continued: "Judging by his clothes, he was supposed to be a farmer when he was alive, and he must not have been able to continue working on the farm because he had a child to raise, so he had to go out to the fields to forage for food. Judging by the decay, he had been dead for at least five days, and his children were ...... Fear...... Fear..... Hey~~~"

"Hey~" Lawson also sighed.

He knew that what Anne said was right, there were no good seeds in this world, let alone advanced planting technology, food productivity was very low, ordinary people had to work very hard in the fields to barely fill their stomachs, and famine was a common thing. In an ordinary peasant family, the father is the pillar, if the father dies, the mother alone will not be able to support the child, and even if the child does not die, it will be very, very miserable.

After a long silence, Rosen said: "The corpse was seriously ill before his death, and staying on the side of the road to attract ghouls may also spread the disease to innocent people passing by." Let's burn him. That's the only thing we can do. ”

Anne nodded, "Okay." ”

The two of them searched around the woods by the side of the road, picked up a pile of hay and dead branches, piled them on top of the rotting corpses, lit them, and Lawson condensed some oxygen to help burn them.

In the raging flames, the rotting corpses turned into ashes.

Lawson looked at the flames and whispered, "Dust to dust, dust to earth, may your soul rest in peace." ”

When the flames were extinguished, he turned and said, "Anne, let's continue on our way." ”

"yes, okay."

Both of them were in a heavy mood, and they had no interest in continuing to chat, so they hurried silently.

As he walked, Rosen's mind was naturally immersed in the alchemy talent tree.

In the game, killing a normal monster can only provide 0.1 to 0.3 talent points. Only by killing very powerful monsters can you get 1 full talent point. Needless to say, the vampire Viken is in the very powerful category.

'Elemental Friends can activate 5 stacks, and only when all of them are activated can the next tier of talents be unlocked. I don't have a choice right now, this talent can only be used to strengthen the 'Elemental Friend', but how do I activate it? ’

Lawson tried to focus his mind on the corresponding talent in his horizon, and after about 2 seconds, an option popped up, 'Activate?' ’

'Activate! Rosen tried to meditate in his head.

As soon as the thought fell, he felt a slight shock in his brain, and a slight pain appeared, which lasted for about 5 seconds, and the pain disappeared completely, and he only felt that he was refreshed, as if some shackles had been untied in his mind.

Look at the alchemy talent tree, the talent of the elemental friend, every time you add 1 point, the elemental sensing ability is +100 points, and the elemental control is +100 points, and now that you add a little more, Lawson's ability is directly doubled compared to before!

The ability has been greatly improved in one fell swoop.

Lawson tries to focus on the air around him, then uses elemental manipulation to push oxygen. As a result, he actually generated a very noticeable air flow around his body.

He tried to compress the range of the air flow, and as the range continued to decrease, the alchemy power became condensed, and the speed of the air flow suddenly increased greatly, and it actually made a 'hiss~hiss' wind whistle, blowing on the skin, and it was slightly painful.

"Awesome!"

Then, he tested the distance of the force, which did not change, it was still about 2 meters, and beyond that, he was powerless.

'Hmm~ The strength has increased a lot, but the range of power is almost the same, and it is really an authentic alchemy talent. Rosen was full of emotion.

In the game, metal refining is a unique branch of magic, and unlike the usual remote sensing control of magicians who can easily reach hundreds or even thousands of meters, the alchemist's magical power can only extend up to 2 meters, and can only focus on the surrounding environment of the body.

Rosen was very interested in his alchemy talent, sighed for a while, and then began to test the limits of his strength again.

After some testing, Rosen had an intuitive understanding of his own strength.

'My current strength, if focused, can easily counteract intermolecular forces without the help of external forces, but it still can't break the chemical bonds. Even if you try your best, you can only tear off the weakest hydrogen bonds, and as for the stronger metallic bonds, ionic bonds, and covalent bonds, don't even think about it. If you really want to control chemical changes, you can still only use tricks and use the collision method to solve them. ’

However, although the collision method is good, it is quite complex to operate, and a lot of calculations must be performed before the operation, which is really inefficient. Before preparing 15 ml of nitroglycerin, it almost killed me. ’

'Hmm~ The strength has increased a lot, but the fineness has hardly changed, and it is still at the atomic level. The larger the molecule, the clearer it is perceived, and the smaller it is, the more blurred it is. I barely felt a single atom, and I had to be very focused to be able to detect it. Further down the subatomic ...... There is nothing that can be done about it. ’

After careful testing, Lawson had a clearer idea of his new strength.

Lawson tried to sense the blood mark magic in his body again, and after trying it for a few minutes, he shook his head helplessly: "The blood mark magic obviously exists, and the low-level exorcism has proven it. But I don't feel it at all, is this thing a subatomic power? ’

He had no way of verifying this guess, so he could only wait for the strength to go further before exploring.

"Rosen, why don't you speak, what do you think?" Anne's voice came suddenly.

"I suddenly thought of an alchemy question, and I was a little distracted." Lawson smiled and scratched his head subconsciously.

With his smile, the gloomy atmosphere brought about by the nameless rotting corpse before also dissipated by most of it.

Seeing him, Anne couldn't help but reach out and pat Rosen's head: "You will definitely become a great alchemist in the future." ”

"Hmm~ I ...... the same too" Lawson stopped in the middle of speaking, and his eyes looked fixedly ahead, as if he was enchanted.

It turned out that Anne was tall, and Rosen was only up to her shoulders, and as soon as she raised her hand, she revealed a hole in the armpit of her leather armor, through which Rosen happened to see a white dazzling roundness. This scenery is like a powerful magnet of Ru iron boron, firmly absorbing Rosen's sight, and he can't turn away, and after a few glances, Rosen's nosebleed almost spurted out.

'Oh~ It's not big, but it's definitely not small, the shape completely defends the gravitational pull of the earth, and it should feel superb. ’

Seeing things and thinking about people, Rosen immediately recalled the beautiful time he and his two ex-girlfriends experienced in a small hotel.

Anne was so keen, she noticed his abnormality at once, looked down at herself, and immediately knew what was happening, she hurriedly withdrew her arm, and her cheeks were already flushed: "Hmm~ My leather armor should be repaired well." ”

Rosen came back to his senses from his reverie, he nodded again and again, and said with a dry smile: "Yes, it's indeed time to cultivate." ”

The atmosphere was quite awkward, it seemed that even the air had become a lot hotter, Anne stopped talking, and walked forward with her head buried in front, and Lawson was too embarrassed to speak, so he could only trot all the way, trying his best to keep up with Anne's footsteps.

After trotting like this for about 20 minutes, Rosen finally couldn't bear it anymore and shouted out of breath: "Annie, I've been walking for a long time, I'm tired and hungry, let's eat something, okay?" ”

The roads are very muddy. The sun was scorching again, and Lawson's body had not fully recovered from the massive blood loss, and he was really tired at this time.

Anne saw that Rosen was out of breath, a trace of apology flashed on her face, she looked left and right, and pointed to a plane tree not far from the roadside: "Go under that tree, where you can get shade." ”

After speaking, seeing that Rosen was struggling to walk, she simply stretched out her arm and grabbed Rosen's arm, and took him to the shade at the bottom of the tree.

Lawson sat down on a bulging root, and when he was out of breath, he took out flour, mixed it with some grains of salt, poured some water on it, and kneaded the dough, and on the other side, Anne quickly lit a fire.

After kneading the dough, Lawson wears the dough with fresh twigs and roasts it over the fire. This baked dough is not very tasty, but it is hungry.

Anne sat for a while, at first stirring up the bonfire, and as she flicked it, she suddenly picked up a stone by the side of the road and threw it at the grass behind her.

With a 'chirp~', a hare rolled out of the grass.

Anne walked over, quickly peeled and gutted, and soon put the rabbit meat on the fire, and after a while, it gave off a rich aroma of barbecue, and Lawson on the side swallowed saliva when he smelled it.

Compared to grilled meat, grilled dough is not easy to swallow.

Anne saw it in her eyes, couldn't help but smile, pulled off a rabbit hind leg and handed it to Rosen: "Eat." ”

Rosen's eyes lit up: "Thank you." Here you go, salty dough, very chewy. ”

When Anne took over the baked dough, Lawson immediately started to eat, one bite of baked dough, one bite of rabbit meat, and drank saliva when his mouth was dry, not to mention, it was quite delicious.

Anne saw that he was eating sweetly, and she also had an appetite, and began to eat in large quantities.

While she was eating, Anne suddenly paused, she tilted her head sideways, and listened with her ears pricked up, and after a few seconds, she whispered, "There are footsteps, and the sound is very chaotic....... There were eight people coming towards us. Strange, it seems that 1 is chasing and 7 are on the run. ”