Above the mage!

Chapter 365 Upgrade and change clothes to fight BOSS
"That's it. I've confessed everything, let me go."

Because of the pain, the man's muscles were twitching violently and uncontrollably, and his facial features were twisted together.

The voice was trembling and full of tears.

"Are you sure you've confessed everything? If I wake up your companion later and he tells you something you didn't tell me, you won't be able to get your left leg back." Gao De said expressionlessly.

"Let me think about it again. Let me think about it again." The man suddenly panicked, his eyes widened, and he shouted incoherently.

His body trembled even more violently. He thought anxiously for a moment, and then added some miscellaneous information in bits and pieces.

"Shut your mouth now." Seeing that the other party had nothing more to say, Gao De shouted.

Then he raised his foot again, randomly selected one of the unconscious men on the ground, and stomped hard on his chest.

With a slight sound of bone cracking, the man bent his whole body like a shrimp, and immediately began to retch heavily, and foul-smelling green water was gurgling out.

The body was still twitching slightly. The man in front, who was pale due to massive blood loss, turned even paler when he saw this scene.

After he vomited out all the dirty water in his stomach and regained consciousness, Gao De pointed at his companion's right leg, which was devoid of flesh and blood:

"You answer whatever I ask, unless you want to be like him."

Hearing this, the former's facial muscles twitched unconsciously again.

In fact, he would rather be a monkey than a chicken.

With his companion's tragic plight in mind, Gaode's interrogation of the second person went unusually smoothly.

He repeatedly asked about some details, and after confirming that there was no logical contradiction in the two people's testimonies, he took out the parchment he had prepared long ago and wrote down the general outline of the whole incident based on the two people's testimonies.

Afterwards, Gao De repeated the same method and "awoke" all the remaining people, asking the seven of them to press their bloody fingerprints on the confession together. Only then did he roll up the parchment with satisfaction and put it back in his arms.

Keeping records of everything you do is a good work habit.

The whole thing is actually not complicated.

The seven people were originally members of the Xiuding Gang.

The so-called Rusty Nail Gang is actually a profit-seeking gang in the city of Lagos that uses rusty nails as its gang logo.

Such gangs can be found in almost any city, and their natures vary greatly.

There are survival gangs made up of the poor, vagrants and even the unemployed. These people are struggling to survive at the bottom of society and have to stick together for warmth.

In addition, there are rebellious gangs composed of the oppressed and idealists, faith-based gangs centered on certain beliefs or mysterious powers, and profit-based gangs whose goal is to gain wealth and power.

The reasons for the emergence of these gangs basically revolve around "economic inequality, aristocratic oppression, racial and cultural discrimination, power vacuum, and faith."

And their main activities are usually illegal trade, violent crime, intelligence trading, resistance activities, beliefs and rituals, protection and service.

The relationship between gangs and cities is particularly complex.

On the surface, the mages and nobles, as the ruling class of the city, should do their best to eliminate gangs that will lead to instability in public security.

They seem to be doing the same.

But the fact is that the nobles, as the ruling class, are not only indifferent to these gangs, but even tacitly support them.

This is because these gangs often have close cooperative relationships with nobles and businessmen.

They would provide the nobles with some illegal services such as assassination and smuggling in exchange for the nobles' protection and funds.

Or they could pay tribute on a fixed basis every year and establish a stable relationship of interest transfer with the nobles.

This is the case with the Embroidery Gang.

It has cooperative and interest relations with many nobles and even chambers of commerce in the city.

To put it bluntly, the Xiuding Gang is actually the equivalent of the black gloves of the big shots, handling some of the dirty work for them that they themselves are reluctant to do due to their status.

The reason why the seven of them came to the Makoko area and released the young of foul water salamanders into the waters here was because the gang had received a long-term deal. They were only responsible for the execution and were not clear about the specific details.

But many things can be speculated.

The purpose of releasing the young fetid water salamanders is to create panic in the Makoko area and force these poor people to move away.

The vested interests that drove out the poor from Makoko district were only the nobles and rulers of Lagos city.

The existence of Makoko District has always been a cancer that is difficult to eliminate and is growing bigger and bigger for Lagos.

From the perspective of the overall development of Lagos City, the existence of the Makoko District seriously hinders it from attracting business investment and developing industries.

Because the image of Makoko District is a huge negative label for the overall environment and development potential of Lagos City.

The nobles owned a large number of industries in the city, and the city of Lagos could not develop, which meant that their wealth could not grow and even shrunk.

In addition, due to poverty and lack of opportunities, the poor in Makoko District often have higher crime rates and frequent criminal activities.

This seriously affects the public security and social stability in Lagos. Not only does it require the nobles to invest more manpower, financial resources and material resources to maintain public order, it will also lower the evaluation of them by higher-level nobles and even the royal family.

Coupled with the poor sanitary conditions in Makoko, this not only affects the environment, worsens the water resources environment around Lagos, and poses a potential threat to the safety of the city's drinking water sources, but also easily causes large-scale spread of diseases.

All these will lead to a significant decline in the attractiveness of Lagos to foreign population and talents.

For the nobles of Lagos, the prosperity of the city of Lagos is closely related to their wealth and status.

Therefore, they have always wanted to eliminate the cancer of Makoko in order to improve the image of Lagos city and increase the value of urban land and investment value.

But how easy is it?
It’s not like Lagos officials haven’t tried.

For example, carrying out large-scale renovation projects, or implementing forced demolition.

However, large-scale transformation involves multiple parties, and their demands are difficult to coordinate, especially since it involves the interests of many nobles, so progress has been hindered.

And the funds required for large-scale transformation are astronomical and difficult to allocate.

It was expected that it would end in failure.

Forced demolition will trigger violent conflicts and resistance.

If the conflict was smaller in scale, the nobles could indeed suppress it.

However, the number of poor people in the Makoko District is over 200,000. Even if these nobles are very powerful, they cannot cover the sky with one hand.

Therefore, the Makoko District has continued to exist amid the dissatisfaction of the nobles and has become increasingly powerful.

If the open methods don't work, then use some covert tactics.

This is normal for the nobles.

Of course, these are all guesses.

Therefore, Gao De simply made a note of it in his confession and did not elaborate on it.

There are two big bosses in the entire Embroidery Gang.

There are eight remaining small leaders, dozens of core members, and more than 300 ordinary members. It is considered a medium-sized gang in Lagos city.

The most powerful person in the Embroidered Nail Gang is their gang leader, Ansel Biden, a senior second-ring mage. The second in command is Aldridge Shaw, also a second-ring mage, but according to their account, they only succeeded in upgrading their rings in the middle of this year.

In order to demonstrate its strength, the Xiuding Gang even held a grand banquet to celebrate the success of the Shenghuan project.

Then the remaining eight small bosses are all first-ring mages.

The one who gave them the task of releasing the water beasts was Aldrich Shaw, the second in command of the Embroidery Gang.

Aldrich Shaw Gold recalled the contents of the confession and thought about it for a long time.

There is no doubt that Aldridge was not the initiator, but just a person who handled the transfer task.

The real mastermind behind this should be the nobles in the city, just as these seven people guessed.

Although the impact and harm caused by the water beast chaos in the Makoko District were not particularly large, the affected population was as high as more than 200,000 people. Even if they were only poor people, it was still a major event.

If Gao De can solve this problem in one fell swoop, he will certainly be awarded first-class merit.

However, this already involves the ruling class in the city of Lagos, and it is obviously not something that a Sea Sentinel trainee wizard like him can handle.

Gao De did not attempt to get to the bottom of the matter on his own.

His target was only Aldridge.

Take down Aldridge and then go back to report.

Aldrich's mage level is second ring.

In fact, among the sea sentinels, the reward for the mission of clearing out the second-order water beasts is only the third-class merit level.

But don't forget that Gaode is still just a first-level trainee wizard.

When evaluating merit, the strength of the person who completed the achievement is also a very important indicator.

If a first-ring sea sentinel mage is performing an ordinary mission and a first-level water beast becomes a second-level due to incorrect intelligence, let alone clearing it out, even if he just drives away the second-level water beast, considering the level of the first-ring mage, there is a high probability that he will be awarded a second-class merit.

This was especially true when Gaode accidentally discovered the inside story of the mission while carrying out the water beast expulsion mission and captured Aldrich, a second-ring wizard.

There is a high probability that you will get more than one second-class merit.

But it is too risky for a first-ring mage to fight a second-ring mage.

Even though Sunaifah can beat a fifth-ring master with a fourth-ring master, she is still Sunaifah, a tough person with a series of titles including "Master of Blizzard, Awakener of True Ice Spell, Daughter of Boreas, the last pure-blooded Iceborn of the modern era, and Born of Ice and Snow."

In the vast northern territory, there is only one Sunaifa.

And Gaode is just an apprentice mage of the Sea Sentinel.

Although he has the title of "King of the North", which is quite famous, this title has nothing to do with his strength.

Gao De knows his own weight.

With his current strength, under normal circumstances, there is definitely no hope for him to defeat the second-ring mage.

Therefore, if the opponent was Ansel, the boss of the Embroidered Nail Gang, Gode would definitely not think about anything else and would go directly back to Dorne to report the signed confession.

No matter how great your contribution is, you still have to be alive to receive it.

Under normal circumstances, these gangs would definitely not dare to offend the Sea Sentinel Mage easily and would not cause trouble for him.

But if he went to their house, the other party would definitely not be a pushover and would really want to kill him.

But this Aldrich is not a normal second-ring mage.

He was only promoted to the second ring in the middle of this year.

It is now the middle of the Frozen Moon (November), and less than half a year has passed since the Aldridge Ring Ascension.

The strength of a mage is determined by many factors. In addition to the mage level and expertise, the most important aspects are spells, experience and equipment.

Among them, spells account for the largest proportion.

It is not as easy for other mages to learn spells as it is for Gaode.

If you are not a gifted person, it will take at least half a year to build a spell model.

How talented can Aldridge be to be the leader of a gang with no future?

In other words, Aldrich, who had only been promoted for half a year, had at most mastered a second-ring spell, which might not even be a combat spell. He might not even have mastered any second-ring spells at all.

It is equivalent to a second-level mage who has not yet changed his job and learned new skills.

Compared to a first-ring mage, Aldrich has three more abilities that come with a higher level: "expertise", "upgraded spellcasting", and "elemental body", as well as more magical power and more powerful mental strength.

To be honest, with these, it is enough to absolutely crush the first-ring mage.

However, although Gaode now cannot compare with Sunaifa's unique combat power at the same level, he is by no means an ordinary first-ring mage.

Not to mention his bottomless spell library.

First of all, the power of [Frozen Blade+] is already infinitely close to that of a second-ring spell. With the further strengthening of [Intermediate Ice Body], it is enough to threaten a second-ring mage.

Secondly, his [North Wind] was once a seventh-level Zhenbing magic weapon. Even though its power has greatly decreased with the passage of time, its power is still there.

Second, after taking the wolf-blood ginseng, Gaode's magic power surged to 39 drops of liquid, allowing him to barely use [North Wind].

In addition, the third-level Mandor Demon Eye also has a strong auxiliary effect in combat.

More importantly, Gaode can upgrade his level and buy himself a set of "new equipment" before going to "fight the boss".

His current magical power is 39 drops of liquid.

Although the progress of the 40th drop of liquid mana has not been completely condensed under the medicinal power of the wolf blood ginseng, the progress has been advanced by more than half.

According to the current progress, with the assistance of appropriate potions, it should only take three or four days to completely condense.

Once the 40th drop of liquid mana is condensed, he will be able to break through to the middle stage of the first ring.

The first-level wizard is divided into three small levels: primary, intermediate and late stages.

Every small level breakthrough can bring a significant improvement to the mage's strength.

Then, the design drawings of the first-level rune structure that Gaode prepared for himself had already been drawn.

Now that he has money, he only needs to purchase the corresponding materials to turn the design into a real object.

Once he puts on the first-level rune construct tailored for him, his combat power will soar to a new level.

If we can move the battlefield to the water, we will be more confident.

However, this requires long-term planning and may not be achieved.

After taking stock, Gao De gritted his teeth and made up his mind.

There are risks, but you can go for it!

(End of this chapter)