Chapter 207. Irish Town Ⅱ (5) The Mermaid Lady’s Map

     The manor’s guards seemed quite accustomed to this situation.  

     Upon closer observation, some of the magical beasts appeared unusually obedient to their commands. A few guards were giving them instructions as if playing with pets, though these weren’t simple commands like “sit,” “stay,” or “fetch,” but rather “fireball,” “wind blade,” and “frost.”  

     Among them, two guards were directing two different low-level magical beasts in a fierce battle. The language they used to control them wasn’t beast speech, but magical incantations.  

     The other survivors’ eyes lit up. “Beast taming?”  

     But the guards didn’t see it that way. Having grown up on this land, they knew well that the savage nature of magical beasts made them nearly impossible to domesticate. Even those born within the manor would bare their claws at their caretakers once they reached adulthood.  

     Meanwhile, Wang Xue stared thoughtfully at the beasts’ behavior. She had a feeling this had something to do with Sister Jing.  

     She was right.

     After turning two corners ahead, as long as the survivors didn’t lower their heads, they could see a large cleared area in front of the distant alchemy lab where the expensive flowers and plants had been moved aside.  

     Hovering above the space was an enormous skeleton, roughly three stories tall, one that many survivors present found eerily familiar. It was the dinosaur skeleton from the Jurassic dungeon.  

     Looking closer at the skeleton’s thick hind limbs, tiny forelimbs, skull, vertebrae, ribs, and tailbones, there was no mistaking it, this was a Tyrannosaurus rex!  

     Had they crossed dungeons?  

     Of course not.  

     Surrounding the T-rex skeleton were alchemists and craftsmen no taller than its toes, all buzzing with excitement as if celebrating a festival, enthusiastically discussing the massive bones.  

     A careful count would reveal far more goblins among them than the ones the mayor had hired. In their excitement, some even joined hands and danced in circles.  

     They were none other than Master Ian, Aunt Miranda, Lina, and the others, personally invited by Maria herself.

     Although Ye Mo didn’t break the goblin rules or return to the underground goblin world, she still reunited with her former relatives, friends, and mentor at the mayor’s estate.  

     She showed even more patience toward Master Ian. Not only that, she even gifted him a craftsman’s notebook containing techniques for forging precision instruments.  

     This notebook had been a work in progress since her time in the Irish dungeon. At first, she had just casually jotted down notes in a computer folder, but she only began compiling them into a proper volume during the last dungeon.  

     At that moment, Ye Mo had just stepped out of the alchemy lab and was in the middle of a discussion with a group of alchemists led by Ebert.  

     “Sister Jing! You actually made it?!” Wang Xue waved excitedly. To the others, it was just a blur, she had already squeezed her way into the center of the crowd.  

     Wang Xue knew that Ye Mo had never been satisfied with just forging swords, blades, and formations. In secret, she had also been studying mechanical technology airplanes, tanks, spacecraft, rocket launchers, even various types of thermal weapons that would have been dangerous to humans back on Earth.  

     And then there was the matter of control systems.

     But the problem was that while these things might be massive and formidable to ordinary humans, they weren’t necessarily indestructible to powerful Survivors. Ye Mo often said that if something couldn’t pass the most fundamental tests, it was essentially useless, nothing more than a pile of junk.  

     Aside from selling the scrap to the Supernatural Investigation Bureau, there was hardly any other use for them.  

     But now, things seemed different. Ye Mo had finally begun crafting the puppets and beast armor she had planned ever since leaving the Jurassic dungeon. A perfect fusion of technology and spiritual energy.  

     The puppets were those artificial magical beasts that the guards could control using spell incantations. Their drawbacks lay in their limited spell capabilities, high energy consumption, and potential wear and tear.  

     The advantage, however, was that puppet beasts were easy to control. They felt no pain, feared no death, and even ordinary people could operate them, significantly boosting their self-defense capabilities. But in the hands of someone with compatible spellcasting talent, they could control even stronger and more numerous puppet beasts, potentially assembling an entire puppet beast army.  

     The trade-offs, in the end, were always a matter of personal judgment.

     While these creations weren’t particularly suited for Ye Mo and her two companions, they were perfect for team-based dungeons and Mayor Feitan’s guard squads. With further research, even future beast tides might not seem so menacing.  

     “These are still just scrap or semi-scrap—pretty much junk, but there’s been a breakthrough on the foundational issues.”  

     Especially in the intentional modification of spiritual energy-infused materials, enhancing their density, toughness, and resistance. It was a groundbreaking fusion of Mohist mechanical engineering and modern scientific technology.  

     Ye Mo tilted her head and handed Wang Xue a section of a dinosaur claw, complete with three sharp, curved talons. The second being the longest and the first the shortest, identical to the claws Wang Xue once had as a velociraptor.  

     Wang Xue took it in hand. Though her senses were far sharper now than before, she could still tell this wasn’t a real dinosaur claw, just an incredibly lifelike replica.  

     Slipping it onto her hand, she casually slashed through the air a couple of times. The speed was so great that it almost seemed to produce the sound of friction against the air, instantly giving her an entirely different presence.

     Wang Xue: “Feels pretty good!”  

     What Wang Xue held could be called a beast claw an offensive weapon modeled after wild beasts, designed purely for attack rather than defense. It could also serve as a kind of loadout weapon, granting beast armor various functions like flight, burrowing, or deep-sea diving.  

     This was suitable for any team.  

     For example, in the Jurassic dungeon, if they’d had a high-temperature-resistant loadout device, Ye Mo and Watson wouldn’t have been in such a sorry state. Especially Watson, with his water-based talents.  

     Bella and Arthur seemed to grasp about half the meaning, at the very least, they understood that Ye Mo had created something new again. Exchanging a glance, they stepped forward one after another to offer their congratulations.  

     Then, Bella subtly hinted that Arthur had real-world dungeon knowledge that could provide a contextual advantage for the Irish town setting, and she invited Ye Mo’s trio to join their team.  

     After a moment’s consideration, Ye Mo and Wang Xue politely declined. For one, Arthur and Bella’s group seemed to have national backing, and secondly, Watson and Ye Mo were still in the middle of their research. Joining a team would mean committing to the pursuit of divine artifacts, which would limit their freedom.  

     Bella had anticipated this outcome and maintained her usual polite demeanor, while Arthur, no longer as brash and straightforward as he once was, kept his thoughts to himself.  

     Once they were out of sight of Ye Mo’s group, Bella shot an inquiring glance at a survivor who had stayed behind at Feitan’s estate. The survivor shook their head in response.  

     Every single component of Ye Mo’s experiments even a claw was meticulously crafted by high-ranking artisans. Goblins were notoriously insular, and the alchemists were eccentric; outsiders couldn’t even get close to their workshops, let alone steal their techniques.  

     And under Ye Mo’s watchful eye, they didn’t dare offend these craftsmen, lest they provoke her wrath and end up on the receiving end of a lethal claw strike.  

     “Never mind,” Bella sighed. “We’ll focus on finding the Demigod artifact instead. This time, we absolutely can’t let Lani Shannon seize the advantage again.”  

     Bella had gathered intelligence: unlike China, India wasn’t an impenetrable fortress. It wasn’t that Lani Shannon was weak rather, Bella knew all too well how much the Demigod artifact, the Brionac, had empowered her. Its value far surpassed that of any ordinary weapon.

     Arthur sighed, “Those three don’t seem the least bit anxious. Maria—no, Jingmust have a divine artifact on her as well.”  

     Bella shot him a “no kidding” look. Forget divine artifacts, even their intelligence agency still hadn’t figured out just how many abilities Ye Mo possessed.  

     Muttering to herself, she said, “Too strong.”  

     At the same time, Arthur’s mind flashed back to the image of that goblin in the magical beast forest. Covered in blood, missing an arm, yet never yielding even against a high-tier beast.  

     He added,  

     “But the strongest thing of all is that her unbreakable willpower.”

     …

     That evening, Mayor Fetan hosted a grand celebration banquet, inviting many of the town’s mercenary warriors, as well as mages, alchemists, and craftsmen.  

      While the others were enjoying themselves, the alchemists and craftsmen seemed distracted those with burning questions simply couldn’t focus.  

     Early the next morning, Bella and Arthur’s group bid farewell to the Fetans and left the Irish town.  

     Ye Mo, Watson, and Wang Xue stayed behind, and Wang Xue once again found herself living a somewhat solitary team life.  

     Well, not entirely solitary.  

     Occasionally, Ye Mo needed Wang Xue to act as a test subject, or to venture into the magical beast forest to capture a test beast. Watson usually only required the latter.  

     Wang Xue: “…”  

     About twenty days later, Ye Mo finally completed her Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Flying Tiger constructs. clCapable of operating on land, in water, and in the air. Though, admittedly, the Flying Tiger looked a bit… out of place.

     Meanwhile, the master alchemists and craftsmen of Feitan Manor had also learned to independently create magical beast puppets. Even partial weapons like beast claws, along with some improved potion formulas.  

     Of course, in exchange, Mayor Feitan shared a long, detailed story with Ye Mo and her companions about the history of the Irish town.  

     The Irish town was one of the oldest settlements on the continent. Like the clover that grew abundantly across its lands, legend said the town had faced near-destruction three times in ancient wars.  

     The first was against a dragon, the very one depicted on their gold coins. A hero had wielded his sword to defeat the dragon and its beasts, driving them away. It was said that the beast tides in the magical forest were tied to that dragon, and that hero was none other than the ancestor of Mayor Feitan, the first Feitan to rule the town.  

     The second war came from invaders hailing from the towns of Meath, Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, and Munster. Their leader carried a divine spear known as Brionac, and they brought with them knowledge of potions and ancient spellbooks.  

     Back then, the town’s mayor allied with the deep-sea merfolk and the goblins to expel the invaders.  

     The third conflict arose from an internal war among the merfolk of the Irish town, sparked by a prophecy. In the end, it was also a prophecy that brokered peace between them. The marriage between Mayor Feitan and the mermaid lady was far from the first union between their peoples.  

     The mermaid lady personally handed Ye Mo a parchment map marked with three locations: the Merfolk’s Crystal Tower, a vast stretch of primordial forest, and the city of Meath. The other towns Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, and Munster had long since vanished into history.  

     As she passed the map, the mermaid lady said, “This is fate’s guidance.”  

     “If so, then I’m glad to have come to the Irish town to live and learn,” Ye Mo replied.  

     Accepting the map, she bid farewell to the mermaid and the mayor. Feeling too lazy to walk, they climbed into the belly of the Flying Tiger construct and soared out of the Irish town.  

     Wang Xue flipped the map back and forth in her hands. “So, which of these three do we head to first?”