In the Marvel Universe: I can summon items from all dimensions.

Chapter 97 The Legendary Alchemist

After a while, Okita Souji, who was still bragging to Mason in a comedic manner, suddenly sharpened his gaze.

"Master, what are you carrying with you?"

She swiftly drew the knife, her gaze fixed cautiously on Mason's chest: "Ms. Okita, I suggest you take it out—it has a strange, dangerous smell."

"what?"

Mason was startled by this sudden turn of events, but he immediately realized what Okita Souji was referring to.

He figured it was always right to listen to the professionals, so he didn't hesitate to pull out the cursed videotape from his inner breast pocket and throw it on the bed.

By the way, although this thing looks like it's just fragile plastic, it's actually really good quality. When Mason's chest was ripped open, it was completely undamaged. And for some reason, his blood only stained the surface of the videotape and didn't soak in at all. He just wiped it with a tissue and it was back to normal.

From this perspective, the method widely circulated on the internet in the previous life, which involves "breaking the cursed videotape immediately after obtaining it," is probably not feasible. Moreover, Mason seriously suspects that doing so would summon Sadako, allowing him to enjoy the deadly package without even watching the video.

Back to the topic.

Visually, it looked no different from before, but the moment Mason touched it, he realized something was wrong.

it's too cold.

This thing is placed close to the body, so even if it's not warmed up, it shouldn't be as cold as an ice cube, right?

"Ugh, it really does smell like a vengeful spirit."

Okita Souji immediately pinched his nose and took two steps back: "Master, carrying such a cursed item around can shorten your lifespan. It could be because the yin energy damages your body, or it could be because the vengeful spirit inside has choked your neck and physically reduced your lifespan."

"This thing—it wasn't like this before."

Mason frowned. "How did it come to this? Do you have any clue?"

"Hmm—Miss Okita, I'm really not very good at this—" Okita Souji shrugged. "I'm fine with chopping people up, but if you're testing my knowledge—ahahaha—"

"? Aren't you a Heroic Spirit?"

"A Heroic Spirit doesn't mean they know everything!" Okita Souji said, half annoyed. "In short, if you really have this problem, Master, you should find someone else. After all, the selection criteria for the Wolf of the Wild doesn't include whether you can slay demons."

"Hmm—that makes sense."

Mason scratched his head and cautiously reached out to poke at the cursed videotape.

Nothing strange happened; it just lay there quietly, motionless.

However, just to be on the safe side, it's best to consult a professional. After all, this isn't the Marvel Universe. If something happens to Sadako, there'll be no one to help her.

Mason then raised his hand and focused his attention on the magically created spatial storage ring, where he found the spirit origin diagram inside.

There are three hexagonal crystal pieces that make up this spirit origin map. This means that Mason hired three Heroic Spirit fragments from Fujimaru Chaos Evil. The first one is Okita Souji, whom Mason hired to find a bodyguard. The third one is the "professional" that is urgently needed now.

As for the second person? For some special reasons, Mason will not call him out until he encounters a truly unsolvable problem—because that would be tantamount to asking for trouble.

He had just checked carefully, and there were no cameras or listening devices in the room—after all, discovering such things would offend people, and Shuichi Akai must have understood this, which is why he didn't make such an arrangement.

This is good, as it means that Mason will not be discovered no matter what he does inside.

With a thought, a glimmer of light suddenly floated out of the ring, landed on the ground, and transformed into a thin man with long gray hair and wearing a white robe.

"Oh—this is another world—not only is there no major source, but even minor sources are extremely scarce. It's truly a novel environment."

This man possessed a refined and scholarly air. Upon his arrival, he uttered a similar exclamation to Okita Souji. After surveying the room, he turned back and bowed to Mason.

"You must be the Master of this journey. I am Caster, Alchemist von Hohenheim Paracelsus."

Then he looked at Okita Souji, smiled kindly, and nodded, saying, "Good evening, Ms. Okita. If there's anything more exciting than coming to another world, it must be adventuring in a brand new world with your companions."

"oh oh----"

Okita Souji nodded somewhat reservedly; she wasn't good at dealing with this type of person.

Paracelsus von Hohenheim, one of the greatest alchemists in the history of occultism and a renowned physician, spearheaded the rediscovery of the four elements and the three primary substances, was one of the founders of early chemistry, and was the originator of many unique medical concepts.

In the Type-Moon universe, Paracelsus is a magician who has forged the Philosopher's Stone and possesses extremely broad knowledge. Although he has some minor flaws in his character, these are common problems among Type-Moon magicians and are nothing to be surprised about. In fact, compared to his peers, Paracelsus is a very principled gentleman. As long as you don't offend him, there are absolutely no problems in cooperating with him.

Mason hired him for two reasons: first, he valued his knowledge, and second, his thoughts were similar to those of hiring Okita Souji. As a big guy who could create the Philosopher's Stone by hand, Paracelsus was not only very energy-efficient, but could even provide him with supplies by creating bases—provided that bases could be created or Philosopher's Stones could be refined in the Conan world.

"Oh, nice to meet you."

Mason and Paracelsus shook hands, then quickly got down to business.

"I asked you to come out so I could use your eyesight."

Mason carefully took out the cursed videotape and handed it to Paracelsus, asking, "This is a very important item of mine, but some disturbing changes have occurred recently. Could you help diagnose it?"

"I see."

Paracelsus nodded: "Although necromancy isn't my specialty, I do know a little about it, and perhaps I can be of some help."

I'm sure everyone knows the value of the phrase "knowing a little bit".

After taking a quick look, Paracelsus nodded solemnly and asked, "Master, it's probably difficult to discern with the naked eye, but there doesn't seem to be a convenient source of magic in this world. Currently, it seems the only option is to use energy sources like life force for secondary conversion. If you don't mind—"

The implication was that he was going to severely deplete Mason's mana, but he had also considered how to handle similar situations, so he immediately replied, "A mana source? Try using that."

After saying that, he took the Thor's Orb from the stack storage.

"This is----?"

Paracelsus glanced at the Thunder God Orb with some surprise, then reached out and gently touched it.

In an instant, a crackling sound of electricity filled the air as golden current struck Paracelsus's fingertips, scorching a patch of skin.

But he didn't seem to care at all. He just stroked his chin and thought for a moment, then turned his palm around.

With a faint light, a thin, flowing membrane, seemingly composed of sand, gradually condensed in Paracelsus's hand. He then conveyed a question to Mason with his eyes.

"Please go ahead."

Mason readily handed over the Thor's Orb.

After covering his hands with a thin film of sand, Paracelsus could easily touch the Thor's Orb without provoking a retaliation—this is the benefit of being knowledgeable, while Mason, who is practically illiterate in this respect, still doesn't know why he can use this thing so easily.

"Hmm—interesting."

After examining the Thunder God Orb closely for a while, Paracelsus nodded and slowly said, "This thing looks like the energy core of some powerful mythical beast—or, in Eastern terms, perhaps it should be called a Dragon Ball."

Wrong, you know what, you really can't believe it, this thing actually has something to do with Dragon Ball.

"I see."

Mason nodded, then suddenly had a thought: "Speaking of which—I don't know much about this, and can only use it in a very rudimentary way. If you were an alchemy master like yourself, could you—do it more efficiently?"

"Hmm—that's not a problem."

Paracelsus nodded without hesitation, then pondered for a while before continuing, "But after all, it's a different world. Energy conversion is a difficult problem. I need a suitable workshop, some corresponding raw materials, and time for experiments."

"I can figure something out."

Mason was overjoyed: "Just tell me your detailed requirements, such as the materials—what specific types are needed?"

"For example—sapphire," Paracelsus replied. "In Kabbalah, sapphire corresponds to Zadkiel, the guardian angel of Jupiter. After some magical transformations, the concept of Jupiter can be linked to the Eastern Five Elements and Eight Trigrams theory, corresponding to the element of wood, the Zhen trigram—which represents thunder. Using sapphire as material, I can extract a large amount of energy from this Dragon Ball. The simplest use would be as a bomb, or further refinement into magic power."

—Look at this, look at this! This is the true value of a scholar! What does it mean to be a real logistics master? Hiring this alchemist was a huge win!

But just then, Okita Souji quietly approached Mason from behind and whispered, "Although he wasn't lying, take my advice, Miss Okita: don't overfeed the Casters, or they might become more dangerous than your opponents."

That is indeed the case, and this matter is recorded in many of Type-Moon's works.

"That's a really disheartening statement."

Paracelsus wasn't annoyed; instead, he smiled and said, "Aren't we companions?"

"Haha, if you weren't my comrade, you'd be taking my Three-Stage Thrust the moment you appeared!"

Seeing that the two heroic spirits were about to start arguing about their past grievances, Mason quickly smoothed things over: "Ahem, let's get back to the point, let's get back to the point, let's take a look at this cursed videotape."

Okita Souji snorted, while Paracelsus lowered his eyes indifferently and drew a few circles above the Thunder God Orb with his other hand. The next moment, several interlocking transmutation circles appeared, enveloping the Thunder God Orb and causing it to flash and release several bolts of lightning, which were immediately absorbed by the transmutation circles and then transformed into magic power that flowed into Paracelsus's body.

After this continued for a while, he returned the Thor's Orb to Mason.

At that moment, he looked up at the cursed videotape once again.

"Hmm—this is a type of vengeful spirit I've never seen before." Paracelsus nodded as he spoke. "No, this thing isn't even a pure vengeful spirit—I see, I understand now."

"What do you understand?" Mason pressed.

"In today's parlance, it's a hybrid," it was originally likely created by a psychic or superpowered individual who, after death, used their resentment to coalesce a portion of their soul, and then began killing through curses—perhaps similar to a virus.

Paracelsus pondered as he spoke, "Its modus operandi is probably rather rigid, but its intensity is extraordinary. Once it encounters resistance during the casting of the curse, it will likely immediately eliminate the obstructor. Yes, that should be it. If I'm not mistaken, someone tried to interfere with its curse but was killed. I can see some fresh soul energy in it; this probably happened recently."

Mason understood his meaning, and after a moment's thought, asked, "So—it's because it ate too much?"

"You could say that."

Paracelsus stroked his chin and said, "In my opinion, Master, this videotape you have is probably a copy—but don't misunderstand, because the vengeful spirit residing in it can probably unleash power equivalent to the 'original,' but curses need to accumulate, and it's still a newborn, so it needs some time to grow."

Then he suddenly changed the subject: "Or could I give you a more visual demonstration, Master?"

Mason's curiosity was piqued, so he nodded.

"Then please lend me some blood; I need it to draw the array." Paracelsus moved the videotape onto the coffee table and said to Mason, "I've learned a few magic tricks from Lord Merlin; they should come in handy in this situation."

Mason casually pulled out a knife, found a paper cup, cut his wrist, drained some blood into the cup, and then handed it to Paracelsus.

The latter glanced at his astonishing healing speed with some surprise, then took the paper cup, dipped his finger in the blood, and drew a small magic circle on the table with nested squares and circles, and some petal-like patterns in the middle. Then he poured some magic into it—

Then, a scarlet light was released from the array, piercing directly through the bottom of the black videotape, and distorted as it passed through from the top, turning into a semi-transparent humanoid figure the size of a small figurine.

Dressed in white, with black hair, she lay curled up on the videotape, her eyes closed, as if some kind of hazy mist was constantly merging into her body.

Isn't that Sadako?

And yes, the word "she" was used here.

Because last time I only saw her buttocks and part of her profile from behind, this time I can see her whole body. Her appearance seems to be quite similar to that of the actress in "The True Story of Zhen Xiang". However, her facial features are a bit colder than those of the actress who played her, Yukie Nakama. Moreover, her figure is curvaceous and attractive. No matter what, a crossdresser could not possibly have such big breasts, right?

—What strange place are you thinking about?

In short, Sadako slept quite soundly. Apart from the fact that her body was not breathing and her pale, bluish skin was a bit scary, she was actually quite cute.

"Look, this is a scene where a vengeful spirit is absorbing the soul energy of the person it killed," Paracelsus said calmly. "Although their mode of existence is unique, these kinds of creatures still have some commonalities, such as devouring the souls of those they kill and turning them into their own power."

After the words were spoken, the blood-red light emitted by the array gradually dimmed, and the blood dried into some kind of dark brown ash, making it completely unrecognizable.

"I see, I've learned something new."

Mason nodded thoughtfully, while Paracelsus continued his rambling: "But to be honest, even in my opinion, this vengeful spirit is far too unique and powerful. What I just said was only a superficial overview; its true nature is much more formidable. I wonder what kind of life and talent could create such a wondrous vengeful spirit. If the necromancers I know saw it, they would definitely want to possess it at all costs."

"Now I understand why Lord Morgan said that necromancers have a very low survival rate —"

Okita Souji, who had been watching from the sidelines, couldn't help but remark, "So that's why they dare to touch anything."

“That’s how magicians are,” Paracelsus said, not only without any reservations but also with a sense of pride, “Such special vengeful spirits must be able to help necromancers get closer to the essence of souls and curses.”

"Speaking of this curse—"

Mason stroked his chin and voiced an idea he'd had in his past life while watching The Ring: "As far as I know, her curse is somewhat contagious. So, is it possible to control this contagiousness and make it more likely to affect certain specific groups of people?"

Paracelsus thought about it carefully for a moment, then nodded.