The Alchemist's Guide to Flesh and Blood Ascension

Yunevo noticed the frogman leader's hesitation. He lowered his head slightly, looking directly into Wave's eyes, which were hidden by semi-transparent pupils. "Take me to your place. Since we said we'd start with 'water'..."

Wave hesitated for a moment, its cheeks bulging violently, before finally managing to utter a sentence: "Coo, come with me... but the smell there, you guys who are used to clean air probably won't be able to stand it, quack."

It leaped off the refrigeration unit and walked with a "pattering" sound, leaving webbed-like slime on the relatively dry "maintenance passage" with each step.

Initially, the drainage system of Hart City, designed by the alchemists, did indeed follow the guidance of gravity.

The frogmen mostly live at the bottom of this vast labyrinth of pipes—where water resources are plentiful, despite the accumulation of filth, toxins, and waste.

Indeed, the deeper they went, the thicker the air became in the "roots," and a pungent smell of sulfur swept through the nostrils of Yonivo and Iselia.

But their expressions didn't change at all; instead, they became even more focused and serious.

"Coo, the 'Great Swamp' is just ahead," the frogman leader Wave stopped in front of a huge valve that had been corroded through, and slowly pushed it open with his webbed hands.

Chi-

Something like a pressure relief valve was opened, and a wave of cold, damp air rushed out.

Here, countless pipes, like rivers converging, mix colorful waste liquids into the central hemispherical space, which is a full hundred meters long, where they condense into a black, foul-smelling liquid.

Colorful grease floated on the lake's surface, while in the purple silt on the shore, many frogmen carefully tended to the "embryos" within, their expressions somber.

"Gugua, we frogmen need water, but the result of soaking in too much poisonous water..." Wave raised his hand and pointed to a group of frogmen whose original appearance had been distorted beyond recognition.

Their lower bodies were covered with abnormally protruding sarcomas, their skin had a sickly color, and even their spinal cords had grown translucent, fin-like bone spurs...

These frogmen are watching over and teaching their next generation how to hunt carrion fish... young frogmen who are soaking in poisonous water, moving slowly, and coughing up large chunks of dark red foam from time to time.

"We're just... unlucky bastards forgotten by the sun," a huge old frogman sat on a discarded fan blade, wearing a tattered monster leather cloak, and kneaded the purple sludge in his hands into urns.

"Elder Wave," the leader Wave's expression turned solemn. It grabbed a clump of mud from the ground and slammed it back down with a strange motion, as if it were giving some kind of greeting gift.

"Little Wave...you go back first, let Old Frog talk to them," the old frogman said, his cloudy gray-white eyes looking at Yunevo. "Alchemist, why do you still smell like Starmoke's 'adult'?"

It strained its eyes to focus, barely managing to make out the outlines of the two people in front of it. It smiled sheepishly, "Old Frog's eyesight isn't good, please forgive me... What brings you here? Our origins?"

Before Yunevo and Iseria could speak, the old frogman began to speak on his own: "Back in the day, there was a wonderful place called 'Azure Bay' in Hart. Our frogman ancestors were skilled seafarers... guarding the sea and protecting those children."

"While the alchemists back then were a bit excessive, they were still hundreds of times better than those white-robed ones!" Langligelang stared at the clay urn in his hand, which he had accidentally deformed, then paused. "Those white-robed ones said our existence was a flaw in divinity, a mark of an evil god!"

"That's utter nonsense! We've been born of ocean currents for generations, and we die from them, and what's the result? We've been 'washed' into this pile of waste by the water valves!"

Yunefu remained silent. In his [Spiritual Vision], the old frogman's once azure magical veins were now filled with purplish-black toxins—the magic could still be used, but only at the cost of a "small" amount of life.

The black-robed alchemist then asked, "Did you know about Wave's decision?"

"We've gambled many times..." Langligelang let out a hoarse laugh, pointing at his compatriots soaking in the poisonous water, "before you came."

"Later we discovered that resistance requires energy, it requires life... We have to fight with all our might even to slow down the extinction of this race."

"Go back to the surface and fight again? Before we can even climb out of the manhole, the golden light from those scalding frogs will burn us to death!" It lifted its cloak, revealing its sun-cracked skin and the protective mucus that could never be restored.

Langli Lang looked at Yunefu again, puffed out his cheeks and made two "snap" sounds, and made a decision: "Resistance... not now, alchemist."

Yune nodded and walked to the edge of the lake. Ignoring the pungent smell that was trying to get into his nose, he quietly stared at the oily surface.

And within the distorted reflections of this 'Great Swamp'... the entire architectural complex of the 'Root' is being peeled away layer by layer, revealed to the eyes of the black-robed alchemist.

The area closest to the ground of Hart City is the domain of the rat people—they make full use of the intricate network of pipes, creating a veritable "thousand dens of cunning rats."

This distribution, however, relieved a lot of pressure on the remnants of the alchemists below, who were as oppressive and meticulous as ivy climbing the wall—the huge, non-operating water purification "boiler" contained layers upon layers of workbenches…

Those pipes were also modified and connected to the "exhaust pipes" dug by the ratmen... allowing the faint, warm steam to circulate through the two layers and finally condense back into the collection device, achieving the initial filtration of the water.

At the center is a workshop building resembling an alchemist's guild, where Mok guards the incomplete theories passed down through generations and fights desperately against those deadly alchemical artifacts.

At the very bottom lies this devastated territory of the frogmen.

The three-story layout, not even including the additional residences of those smaller races, is enough to perfectly illustrate the word "absurd."

Yoniv fell silent. It was actually quite simple to impress this frogman elder—either a complete process of purifying sewage, or proof of his ability to overthrow the church.

We can't manufacture those modern industrial water purification devices, but we can't manufacture those chemical water purification materials such as alum...

Under the unique alchemy of this world, the possibility of it being created does indeed exist.

"Elder, what if... I could replicate the water of 'Azure Water Bay' on a large scale underground?"