Lords of the Heavens

Chapter 365 An Unexpected Joy
In the early morning, Li Wei woke up from a short sleep, first turning off the steam generator set, and then securing the fully charged power batteries in the carriage. He then used thick wooden lattice made of Samsung wood as the outer shell to prevent it from being ignited by an attack, which would be no fun.

After finishing all that, the red-clad witch arrived, and unlike yesterday, she had a look of curiosity on her face.

"Are you really confident you can persuade Hathaway? To be honest, I don't think you can succeed. The chances of persuading Hathaway are no higher than persuading Ron. If it were me, I would absolutely not agree. Even if I slept with you a few times, that would never be a reason for me to agree. Do men like you always have this strange kind of confidence?"

"I'm not really sure, but I have to give it a try."

Li Wei also spoke frankly, saying that in one's life, there are only a few opportunities to seize one's destiny, and if one cannot keep up with the pace at crucial moments, one may never catch up.

Of course, there's no need to say this to unrelated people.

"Do you have any similar magical materials? Ron doesn't need to settle the payment this time," the red-clad witch suddenly asked again.

"Oh? Tell me about it."

Li Wei became interested. Although it would be nice to give these magical materials to her second aunt, her second aunt didn't actually need them. She had opened a whole resource card from the purple card dropped by the Neanderthal Dawn Knight, which was full of various magical materials, enough for her to research and build a beginner mage tower.

"I think you'll be involved in many battles on this trip, and you might find these useful." As she spoke, the red-clad witch handed over a resource card. Li Wei glanced at it; eighty of the 100 slots had already been used, and the remaining twenty slots contained ten two-star life potions and ten two-star stamina potions.

That's not bad.

But to put these things out for sale, especially during a mission, seems a bit like selling everything they own.

"How smoothly is your construction of the mage tower going?" Li Wei asked casually.

"It's not going well. I need more magical materials, but Ron can't provide me with more. Now, because of the Ice Duke's roaming squad of ability users, the number of mutated creatures in the wild is decreasing significantly. If you want to hunt, you might have to travel thousands of miles away, but you might still be attacked by the ability user squad. In short, it's quite difficult."

"To be honest, I'm a newbie too. This is my first time building a mage tower. I thought Ron had some kind of rich family background, but it turns out he's not even half as rich as you. If you didn't seem like the kind of person who would do something so casual, I would have come over last night."

Li Wei was speechless. Was it really that difficult? Well, it certainly was.

"So if you ultimately fail to build the mage tower, is it possible that Ron would back down and choose to ally with me?"

"What are you thinking? Even without the mage tower, a single magic mine is still worth half a mage tower. You're really pushing your luck, aren't you? Hurry up, if you want to trade, then do it quickly." The red-clad witch rolled her eyes at him.

"it is good!"

Li Wei nodded, of course he wouldn't refuse, but all he had left were the magical materials produced by that level-five mutated rat. When he took them out, the red-clothed witch's eyes lit up.

"A five-star beast? Holy crap, you're amazing. No, no, I'm not talking about a five-star beast, but your disassembly process. Seriously, that's not easy. It's like there was no battle at all. I have to say, you've made me look at you in a new light."

"This one set is comparable to the ten sets yesterday. For the first time, I feel like I'm making progress in building the mage tower."

"So the price should be the same as yesterday's?" Li Wei asked quickly. He sold those magical materials yesterday to buy electric trucks and power batteries for civilian use in the future, so he didn't care about the price. But today is different.

"Comparison? No, no, that's more than that. Don't worry, I'm a ruthless witch, but not a ruthless merchant. To be honest, this should be a five-star mutated rat with three cores. Individually, its total price shouldn't exceed 10000 gold coins, nothing special. But you managed to successfully extract these three cores without even damaging the magic structure inside. That skill alone requires a +6 Perception. Holy crap, so you're a second-tier Dark Ranger?"

"Oh, what should I do? I'm suddenly having second thoughts. I should have come last night. I really wanted to be a victim under the wheels of a car!"

The red-clad witch spoke exaggeratedly, her large, watery eyes looking at him as if to say, "If you dare give me a look, I'll throw myself into your arms." But Li Wei remained unmoved. "Why is a complete life core so helpful to the mage tower?"

"Because this kind of core is like a magic engine, understand? Do you know what a mage tower really represents? It's not just a spellcaster's laboratory or a potion-making workshop; it's a sophisticated magic operating platform, just like your electric truck. Magic is electrical energy, and the core is the motor. Of course, it's actually more complex than that. A basic mage tower needs at least five cores, and you've just provided me with three complete cores—"

At this point, the red-clad witch suddenly slapped her forehead in frustration, and then activated a five-star card that could cover the sky with one hand!

"I offer 30,000 gold coins!"

"so much!"

Li Wei was stunned.

"Not much. As I said, the real value isn't the level-five mutated creature, but your craftsmanship. This requires meeting a number of almost demanding conditions. If you hire a five-star hunter in the capital to hunt down a level-five beast and perfectly dissect it, it would cost about the same price, not to mention that it might not even be as good as this one."

"First, this level 5 mutated creature must have devoured and fused with at least three class cards, which is why its life core is becoming more and more complete." "Second, it needs to be subdued the moment before it launches an attack, but not killed, and the best way is to freeze it, which requires quite excellent ice magic."

"Third, you need a butcher, hunter, or chef profession with extremely strong dissection and decomposition abilities, and your fate score cannot be lower than 60."

"Fourth, and most importantly, your perception must be at least +6. Only then can you clearly discern the trajectory of magic and perform perfect decomposition."

"Li Wei, I'm suddenly a little envious of Hathaway. Why don't you stop looking for her and come find me instead? I'll elope with you!"

"Haha! Just kidding, but I don't have 30,000 gold coins on hand. Fortunately, I can use this as an excuse. After you leave today, wait for me a hundred miles to the west. I will come to find you after nightfall. There's not much I can do, except use the ten units of magic power I've painstakingly accumulated to enchant your truck! Do you agree?"

“Great, it sounds like I’m actually making a profit, but why don’t you let Ron give you magic?” Li Wei laughed.

"There's nothing I can do, Ron is such a terrible boss! How could I possibly take his magic? He'd fight me to the death! To be honest, if it weren't for needing to accumulate experience in building mage towers, I wouldn't bother with him at all!"

Despite her complaints, the red-clad witch returned the magical materials.

"Cash on delivery, General, see you there!"

After giving her a flirtatious wink, the witch in red quickly left.

They actually adhere to trading principles quite well.

Li Wei would certainly not refuse this. How could an enchanted war machine be the same as an electric truck with little protection?

He quickly packed up and started the truck. After traveling fifty miles, he stopped communicating with Ron's pioneer card and continued on his way. He found a ravine in the west of Ron's territory and hid there, waiting for the red witch to come and make the deal.

Of course, we can't just wait idly.

Li Wei took the time to set up a hundred traps around the area, just in case.

Then, he called Ah-Dai to keep watch for him, while he lay down in the carriage and fell fast asleep, conserving his energy.

This location should be relatively safe; the roaming squads of superhumans won't approach, and Ron's men won't cross this boundary.

Sure enough, nothing happened that day. As night fell, the red-clad witch arrived as promised. This time, instead of using alluring charms, she spoke swiftly and efficiently:
"Give me half of the magic materials first, and I'll settle the balance after I finish enchanting it."

Li Wei readily agreed, but the red-clad witch casually took out a large pile of tools and called Li Wei over to help. In no time, she disassembled the electric truck into pieces.

That's incredibly skilled, even better than a repairman.

Of course, Li Wei and his colleague are also very capable. They can move several-ton behemoths by hand without any other tools.

"The most important protection for an enchanted vehicle is the power battery pack and electric motor. This process usually requires structural modifications, but we don't have the opportunity or time for that now. So I suggest moving the power battery pack from the bottom of the vehicle to the top, and we can connect more battery packs in parallel, such as those that can provide a range of 1500 kilometers on a single charge. In addition, this will also provide better protection against enchantment."

"I agree."

Li Wei nodded, pretending to know a lot.

“Very well, now for the second question. Usually, the best enchantment for isolation is enchanted steel plates, but we obviously don’t have that. However, I noticed you have some three-star quality logs?”

Yes! There are many.

"That's good. We'll use three-star quality logs for enchantment and isolation, but the effect will be about 30% worse. Unless you can cut these logs into square pieces as quickly as possible to minimize the gaps at the joints, I'm telling you, you don't have time to cut them now..."

The red-clad witch's words were interrupted because she saw Li Wei take out a three-star log and start cutting it, but the speed was indescribable, faster than a chainsaw!
This is a three-star quality log, with a hardness comparable to ironwood. And wow, in just a few minutes, a log was transformed into a standard timber, with minimal error.

"Damn, you're a woodcutter too? That's at least level 60! I know, hunter, woodcutter, scout, you probably also have a farmer or fisherman profession, or maybe a cook. But you've certainly impressed me. No wonder you're the Wheel General who's won the entire territory's notices multiple times. I'm certain now, Ron is no match for you."

The red-clad witch gave a thumbs-up, stopped rambling, and began to get busy.

(End of this chapter)