Chapter 323 Mummy The driven herds of cattle, sheep and horses, the dark-skinned men wearing felt hats and thick blue or red robes, the local women wearing multi-layered robes and skirts in many bright colors, the various corn-based foods, the large number of white buildings and shops selling leather fabrics were so overwhelming that Franca and Janna were completely overwhelmed. Everything was new and interesting. In the biting cold wind, Franca made way for a four-wheeled wooden cart pulled by long-haired oxen, and turned her head to Lumian and Janna and said: "Why aren't you talking? Why don't you exchange some thoughts on local customs and practices?" What's the point of walking around dryly? Lumian was silent for a second and said: "I do not understand." Jenna then felt ashamed: "I don't understand either." She had heard the love legend of the Pharaoh and the story of adventurers discovering treasure in the rainforest. "Uh..." Franka waved her right hand and said, "I don't know much either." How much is not much? Lumian did not ask any more questions and led his two companions into the store called "Highland Secret Medicine".
Intis boss Salient Empaia, who was wearing a blue jacket with gold edges, recognized Lumian at a glance. After all, both his hair color and appearance were impressive, and it had only been a few days since they last met. Saliente looked at Franca and Janna for a few seconds, then smiled warmly at Lumian: "What do you want this time?" Lumian, who had a headache from the excessive consumption of spiritual energy, said bluntly: "Real mummy ashes. I want to see the mummy!" Salient's eyes moved slightly, but he didn't ask why: "Okay, I'll take you to see it." As a long-term seller of mummy ashes, he was well aware that this stuff did not have the effect of improving any ability and that it was sold mixed with some truly effective secret medicines. But since the other party did not ask whether real mummy ashes were useful, he was happy not to mention it. Besides, he suspected that the man and two women wanted to buy a mummy outright and resell it for a profit, which was a big business. Salient temporarily closed the door of the shop and led Lumian, Franka and Janna into the rear warehouse where common herbs were stored. They walked down the narrow stairs and arrived at the door of the basement. He turned around, looked at Lumian and the others, and asked as if to confirm: "Do you really want to see it?" This doesn't sound like a guilty conscience, but more like a reminder. “Of course.” Lumian answered without hesitation. As he spoke, his eyes fell on the dark wooden door of the basement. There, several twisted and mysterious symbols were outlined with a mixture of dark green and pale white. Some of them look like simplified skull heads, some seem to be entangled arms and vines, and some are composed of inverted triangles. Surrounding these symbols, there are thin lines of the same color, extending in all directions and penetrating into the walls, the ground and the ceiling. When Saliente took out a key that looked like it was made of gold and took a few steps forward to open the door, Franca lowered her voice and said to Lumian and Janna: "Those occult symbols are from the realm of death." "What do they mean?" Janna asked, not understanding. Franka shook her head. “I don’t know. Normally, this should be a part of some ritual magic, but ritual magic without a source of power cannot always work.
"As far as I know, large churches of the Orthodox Church have more or less similar arrangements, and what keeps the ritual magic running is the believers who pray every day. The spirit and spirituality that each of them devotes individually is not much, but when accumulated, it is enough." “Perhaps there is a magical power here that can maintain the ritual.” Lumian smiled and said to Franca, “You should be happy. From this perspective, there may really be a mummy here.” Franka breathed a sigh of relief and said: "I don't think there are as many fakes here as in Trier." She asked with some doubt: "Why do you have to drag us to see a real mummy? I can just divine whether the mummy's ashes are real." “Let me see it for myself.” Lumian answered confidently. Before Franca could swear, he added: "If I ask for mummy ashes directly, he will probably give me fake ones. When the time comes, after you tell me the result on the spot, do you think I should just kick down his cabinet or beat him up? Fighting and killing is not a good idea." Lumian used a phrase that Aurore often said. Of course, he didn't mention that this was also due to the negative effects of the three contracts: the "abscessed hand" made him always want to break the target's neck, the "human-faced mantis" made him hate those humans who slandered the innocent more than ever before, and the armored shadow made him feel imprisoned by life from time to time, and he had the urge to rush around trying to break free from the shackles. Perhaps it was due to the testimony of Mr. Fool, or perhaps it was due to the benefits of bribery. All three were quite mild, and were negative effects that Lumian could control with just a little concentration, but when combined, they still made him occasionally want to act on impulse. Franca and Janna made disdainful noises at the same time. Only “hunters” love fighting and killing! At this time, after fiddling with the door lock for a while, sometimes turning it left and sometimes turning it right, Saliente finally opened the dark wooden door with mysterious symbols painted on it. Lumian then saw that there were oil lamps in the basement corridor. They were embedded in the wall and seemed to have never been extinguished. The flames, tinged with a hint of dark green, swayed gently, and Franka and the others followed the owner of the secret medicine store, Saliente, into the aisle behind the door. There was light here, but it gave them the illusion that they were sinking deeper into darkness. The already cold temperature seemed to drop by several degrees Celsius. Salient walked forward seven or eight meters, passed a series of tightly closed gray-white stone doors, and stopped in front of a room in the middle of the corridor. These stone doors and the surrounding walls have symbols similar to those on the entrance to the basement. Saliente pushed open the stone door in front of him, revealing a small tomb chamber to Lumian and the others: The exotic, colorful, human-shaped sarcophagus with a gold base is quietly placed in the middle of the tomb. "This is a mummy from five centuries ago." Salient introduced as he moved closer to the sarcophagus and pushed the lid down. "He doesn't seem afraid that we will just snatch the mummies here..." Lumian muttered softly. Franka laughed softly: "Maybe he just looks down on us." Janna did not join their conversation, but looked towards the interior of the gold-bottomed sarcophagus with curiosity and fear. There lay a corpse wrapped in yellow-brown cloth, its mouth slightly open, its eyes only dark holes, and there seemed to be traces of residual grease that had once spilled on its body. Being in a foreign country, Franca didn't have many scruples. She took out a mirror and started fortune-telling in front of Saliente.
Salient's eyes changed slightly, then quickly returned to normal, as if he had seen similar things too many times. Not long after, an old voice with the sound of water came from Franka's mirror: "It's a real mummy, but it's not an ancient mummy." Franka suddenly raised her head and looked at Saliente, the owner of the secret medicine shop. Salient smiled awkwardly: "I just lied. This is not a mummy from five centuries ago. In fact, it was made and sent here two weeks ago. But no matter what, it has gone through a complete and long mummification process. The only difference from those ancient mummies is that it has not been in the tomb long enough." An “ancient” mummy that was just unearthed two weeks ago? Lumian looked at Saliente and asked casually: "You hunt living people to make mummies?" Salient shook his head slightly: "That's not necessary. So many people die in the southern continent every day. You can buy a lot of fresh corpses with a little money. It's much more expensive to hire someone to hunt them. If you do it yourself, the time cost is too high." He unconsciously analyzed the pros and cons of several options. After listening to the explanation of the owner of the secret medicine store, Janna looked at the mummy again and had a completely different feeling: That was a person who had not been dead for many years. And his body was placed here and sold as merchandise. Although a mummy that is only two weeks old can be used and is also a qualified auxiliary material, Franka definitely hopes to get something better. She sighed and turned her gaze away from the fresh mummy, then asked Saliente: "Are there any older mummies?" Saliente said "uh" for a few seconds before asking cautiously: "Is last year's okay?" This is the "oldest" mummy in the basement. Franka sighed helplessly: "also." With a bit of disappointment, Salient led the three people into another tomb chamber. He originally thought that Lumian and his friends wanted to buy a whole mummy, so he took them to see the most intact one. But now it seems that the other party only wants part of it. Last year's brown mummy was very incomplete. Not only was the body below the torso missing, but there were also hideous holes in the chest and abdomen. After Franca confirmed the truth of the divination, Salente asked without as much enthusiasm as before: "How much do you need?" "50 grams." Franka planned to stock up a little more. Salient calculated: "500 Felkin." Franca paid the money immediately and watched as Salient took out a hammer and a dagger from somewhere, and knocked off half of the mummy's arm with a bang, as if he was mining ore. Janna was stunned. To her, this was indeed a bit bloody and brutal. She had witnessed gang fights and killed people with her own hands, but she had never seen anyone treat the human body like cheap goods.
Franka sighed secretly and forced herself to suppress all emotions in her heart. This is the cruelty of the supernatural world and the potion system, but compared to the "gift", it seems extremely beautiful. After taking the small half of the mummy's arm, Franka took Janna and walked out of the tomb in silence, with Lumian and Salient following side by side. They went back less than three meters when the kerosene lamps in the corridor shrank at the same time, and the light became extremely dim. Saliente tilted his head in surprise, his expression uncertain. (End of this chapter)