Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 192 Knight's Night Raid: The Factory Manager Gets a Crushing Blow
The reduction workshop of Hanhai No. 1 Steel Plant was completely silent and empty at this moment.

During this period, Aurelio Zela Lee, formerly known as Factory Director Li Zelin, was not in a very good mood.

The reasons are, of course, multifaceted.

On the one hand, since the lord left, the night shifts in the restoration workshop have completely stopped. The reason is simple: the territory's manpower is too tight.

The lord took too many people with him!
At the same time, because the lords took away more people, the speed of replenishing personnel was much slower than before.

After all, without sufficient personnel, it is not appropriate to absorb a large number of people.

In this situation, limited manpower must ensure food supply, guarantee freshwater transportation, maintain power security, and stabilize the northward transport of goods at port terminals...

In this situation, not only are the staff in the reduction workshop stretched thin, but the number of people in the mine and the transportation team is also decreasing.

The ore delivered each day is not even enough to sustain the reduction workshop for eight hours of work.

It should be noted that before this, Comrade Li Zelin worked around the clock without stopping. As long as Director Li was still active, the title of Hanhai's monthly production pacesetter had never been passed on.

Li Zelin was like a collector, collecting the certificates of merit for outstanding production workers one by one. He would even carefully cut out the award information published in the newspaper and neatly paste it on the wall of the factory director's office.

The fact that his honor mission line for this month has been cut off is making him quite upset!

Also, where did the lord go? That was the White Deer Plain.

It is the place that Li Zelin dreams of day and night, the hometown where he has traveled through mountains and rivers and fought for half his life!

With so many elite troops being deployed, even a fool wouldn't believe the lord went on vacation.

In this first battle to counterattack the White Deer Plain, Li Zelin, as the lord's top combat force and a top-tier expert in the vast sea, could not only not participate in it personally, but could not even watch it from the sidelines. One can imagine how he felt.

Finally, Li Zelin's genius in martial arts does not mean that he is a genius in other aspects as well.

Currently, Director Li's learning of Xia Wen has entered a more challenging phase, and he has begun to encounter various learning obstacles.

For example, those damned quantifiers, and those "formed phrases" that are as high as mountains and as deep as the sea.

In conclusion, even in the dead of night, Comrade Li Zelin was still studying diligently and assiduously.

Then, as if sensing something, he slowly raised his head.

As Grand Knight Eri silently bypassed the two trembling sentries and entered the restoration workshop, he immediately spotted a glimmer of light shining in the night.

When the lord is in power, the security here is at its strongest, because everyone is required to show their loyalty to the lord and protect the areas that the lord is focused on. We do our utmost to protect them.

When the lord went on his northern tour, he took almost all of the military commanders with him. So when the chief councilor of Helan was making personnel arrangements, he naturally placed only symbolic security at the restoration factory.

Stop kidding me, that earthbound spirit inside doesn't need security at all, okay?

Therefore, Grand Knight Eri entered with exceptional ease.

The structure of the front half of the entire restoration workshop is very simple: a huge workshop shed and a row of square restoration pits. At first glance, it looks a bit like the Terracotta Army pits of the first emperor of Earth.

The ground between the pits has been cleared to allow forklifts and loaders to pass each other. Each pit has been fitted with a long mechanical crane. Only the last two restoration pits have not yet had their equipment updated and are still being used by locally made pulley cranes.

Opposite the restoration pit is a simple courtyard, which is Li Zelin's office and living area. He is a factory director who has made the factory his home.

Or, to put it another way, Hanhailing built its factory in the home of the earthbound spirits.

Grand Knight Eri had excellent eyesight and spotted Li Zelin sitting under the lamplight outside the courtyard gate, engrossed in his studies.

The earthbound spirit is well-suited to its current job. Inside the factory, it doesn't need to wear armor, so it wears a set of factory uniform.

He wore a white shirt underneath, with the tie he seemed to still have on from the last awards ceremony, only a small section of black and white stripes showing. Over it was a dark blue work uniform with a red lapel, the central zipper zipped up neatly from top to bottom, and the top and bottom buttons fastened securely.

The work clothes had no fancy decorations, only simple lines on the shoulders and cuffs, a pocket with a single button on each side of the chest, and a pen pocket on the upper left arm, with a pen in hand, writing and drawing.

With this outfit, he could easily find a factory in Dongxia, Blue Star, and work there without looking out of place at all.

At this moment, Li Zelin was slightly raising his head, a pair of black-rimmed glasses pressing down on the tip of his nose, his eyes seemingly staring at the doorway through the gap above the glasses.

It's just like those security guards at the gate who don't have good eyesight, hold newspapers in their hands, and casually check who comes in.

Whether it was just her imagination or not, even from a distance of over seventy meters, Eri felt that the look in those eyes seemed somewhat vacant.

He tried his best to control his breathing and carefully avoided making any noise. Then, with a few quick steps, he swiftly turned to the passage between the two restoration pits.

Then, he noticed that the "gatekeeper" across the street seemed to be following him again, still glancing at his position from above the glasses.

Grand Knight Eri changed to another passage.

Li Zelin's head turned slightly.

Okay, that's confirmed, this guy has found me.

Eri's heart skipped a beat.

As a high-level professional who is "about to enter the sixth tier", Eri is quite confident in his stealth skills. Moreover, he has been going in and out of the factories in the vast sea these days. He has gathered intelligence and calculated the defense strength before taking any action. The situation in this restoration workshop is no exception.

I found out everything clearly.

According to absolutely reliable intelligence, the only person on night watch in this factory should be someone connected to the lord.

As for why it's a case of connections...

Eri overheard the drunken dwarf from the Hanhai Steel Plant complaining, "That guy... he's just a workshop foreman at most... why... why is he the factory manager, with a higher rank than me!"

"Isn't it because he followed the lord... the great lord early on!"

"He doesn't even attend factory office meetings, how can he be qualified to be a factory director?"

For this reason, Knight Eri even went to study the positions and ranks in Hanhai and found that the complaint was not wrong. According to the rules, this place is called the "Hanhai First Steel Plant Reduction Workshop". Theoretically, the person in charge is at most the workshop director level, and the rank is at most the third level.

But for some inexplicable reason, Hanhailing gave this workshop manager the title of factory director.

Even the position of director of the steel plant is currently vacant; there is only the executive deputy director in charge of the work, who, according to the current position and rank, is subordinate to Li Zelin.

It is widely speculated that the position of director of the steel plant was reserved for Li, who worked in the reduction workshop, but he was not capable enough and was not qualified, so he was left in this ambiguous position for the time being.

What infuriates many industrial park managers is that while Li is consistently recognized as an outstanding individual and collective every month, other advanced groups and individuals participate in various activities such as exchanging experiences, arranging visits and learning opportunities, and working together to improve. Li, however, is the only one who receives awards but never actually works there, and his workshop is refused access to the public.

Some unconvinced individuals wanted to learn from advanced production experience, but to their dismay, their requests were simply rejected.

What else could this be but a favored individual?
Therefore, Eri never took this junior leader with connections seriously. But now, he instinctively felt that the rumors were somewhat untrue.

This guy is so dedicated; he's still working as a security guard and studying late at night. It seems like he deserves this advanced award.

More importantly, how did he find me?

Although the Great Knight cannot achieve absolute invisibility and does not understand the principles of physics, this is a method of concealment passed down orthodoxly in the Green Pine Kingdom. In fact, it uses the fluctuation of battle aura to disrupt the light rays that hit the body surface, scattering them instead of reflecting them.

Even with the best eyesight, all you can see is a dark, blurry mass.

After moving back and forth several times and confirming his suspicions, Eli simply and openly dispelled his concealment and walked through the central passage.

"I advise you not to get any funny ideas. Before you press any alarms, I'm 100% sure I can crush your head."

"Yes, don't move, stay calm. I only want to ask one thing: how did you find me?"

Li Zelin looked Eri up and down, then casually pointed to the screen next to him.

In the shot, a large ball of red light was so bright it made people dizzy.

Eri suddenly realized, "There's that... thermal detector installed here, no wonder!"
Something seemed off. Eri racked his brains, but couldn't come up with a solution in time. So, the Grand Knight cautiously refrained from taking direct action and instead began questioning him.

"Very good, I like obedient people. If you cooperate obediently, I won't kill you!"

What Eri said wasn't a lie; he was there to gather intelligence. In the Vast Ocean, killing should be avoided unless absolutely necessary—this was a consensus among spies.

The rules of this territory are rather bizarre. Last time, a spy was exposed, but he killed a slave worker in the territory while fleeing. As a result, he was wanted with a huge bounty. Later, more than a dozen people came back to claim the reward.

Well, the spy came back in more than ten pieces.

What's behind this place? What's there?

"That junior lord of the Vast Ocean Territory comes here every now and then, always sneaking in at night. What does he come for?"

"By the way, what exactly is your relationship with the lord?"

Eri asked a series of questions, but didn't hear a reply. So he clenched his fist, his knuckles making a soft cracking sound: "Looks like I still need to teach you a lesson first!"

Li Zelin finally made a move.

He carefully put the expensive-looking metal-cased pen back into the pen pocket on the upper left arm of his work uniform. Then, he slowly took off his black-rimmed glasses and carefully placed them into the hard-sided glasses case on the armrest of the chair, snapping it shut with a "snap".

Finally, he slowly stood up.

As he stood up, Eri noticed that this seemingly ordinary "factory manager's security guard" was quite tall. He had been sitting there reading a book with a slight hunch, and was not very noticeable.

Li Zelin walked towards Eri step by step. He tilted his head slightly, and a trace of... extremely faint, elusive excitement seemed to flash in his empty eyes.

Then, Eri heard Li Zelin's slightly stiff but still clear Xia language: "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Eri also knows a little basic Xia language. There's no other way; in the Vast Ocean, many high-level quests are written in Xia. If you want to take on better quests, you either need to hire a translator or learn it yourself.

So, Eri can probably understand this simple sentence.

You actually asked me? Ha, that's just being ungrateful!
Grand Knight Eri snorted coldly, his fist whistling through the air as it struck the "factory manager's security guard" on the right shoulder like a bullet.

He planned to cripple this ungrateful fellow first, and then question him.

The punch was extremely fast, and the resulting wind pressure even stirred up the sand and gravel on the ground.

Because the restoration workshop uses the law of refining, it has no requirements for the environment and equipment, so even the ground was not paved. The surface was simply compacted. At this moment, the dust and gravel seemed to be blown up by a hurricane, forming a miniature tornado following the movements of the Great Knight Eri.

Faced with this fierce attack, Li Zelin made a simple movement—raising his left hand, fingers slightly spread, seemingly slowly, but inexplicably, he precisely blocked the attack of Grand Knight Eri before the fist arrived.

With a muffled "bang!", it sounded like a heavy sandbag hitting a solid steel plate.

The upturned corners of Grand Knight Eri's mouth instantly froze.

He felt as if his fist had slammed into a steel fortress built deep within the earth! The recoil caused a sharp pain in his wrist, as if it were about to break. In the instant of the exchange, the pale golden battle aura emanating from the Great Knight's fist made contact with his opponent's palm, like a wave crashing against a reef, a nose hitting a stone slab, an egg smashing against a rock, or a front tooth biting into an iron bolt!

On the other hand, Li Zelin's body didn't even sway.

Eli's internal alarm bells went off immediately. At this moment, how could he not know that the gatekeeper in front of him, the production model worker, the advanced individual, and the factory director with connections, was a professional warrior who was absolutely no less capable than himself?

Eri couldn't help but cry out, "Who...who are you?!"

He kept shouting, but his hands never stopped. As the second-ranking knight, Eri had earned his position through real battles, and advancing and retreating in combat had become an instinct.

He used the force of the impact to break free, and at the same time, he kicked hard, creating a deep crater in the ground, and retreated rapidly without turning around.

Run! Run now!

Then, he felt as if he had fallen into a sticky, damp atmosphere, and even his breathing seemed to be suppressed.

This is the oppressive aura released by the other party, as if it were a tangible force.

The opponent followed closely, delivering a powerful blow that pierced through his protective aura, leaving a clearly visible handprint on his armor.

Faced with a life-or-death crisis, Eri roared, his body radiating golden light. His honed spiritual energy and defensive skills, honed day and night, poured out at this moment, barely managing to block his opponent's second palm strike.

At the same time, the long sword at his waist was drawn, its light as clear as water, and it pointed directly at his opponent with a sharp whistling sound, unleashing his signature move - "Wind-Splitting Thrust"!
This was originally a knight's spear technique, but now it was being used with a sword, which wasn't very harmonious. However, in the hands of the desperate Grand Knight Eri, it still exuded a powerful aura like a raging storm.

The next second, the other person caught his sword with their bare hands.

Eri was overjoyed and turned from retreat to advance. He and his sword almost became a golden streak of light. With a counterattack, the tip of his sword pierced straight into Li Zelin's chest.

The moment his foot landed, the floor of the entire restoration workshop seemed to tremble slightly, centered on him.

The golden sword light pierced fiercely into the dark barrier.

The expected penetration did not occur. All Eri felt was that the tip of the sword was stuck in a piece of iron sand that was constantly spinning and eroding. The sharp fighting spirit that was once invincible was being worn away and swallowed up by the gray-black iron sand at an alarming speed!
A few seconds, or even just a second? Half a second?

In short, during what felt like an extremely long but actually lightning-fast exchange, Grand Knight Eri had a strange illusion.

The longsword in his hand seemed to suddenly turn into a limp noodle, which was easily grasped by the opponent.

Although the other person's eyes remained calm and expressionless, Eri still felt a great sense of humiliation.

It's like when you're at home, and the woman next to you glances at you sideways, fidgets with your limp body, and gives you a "that's it" look.

(End of this chapter)