Edrick felt like he had been cheated. He was still sitting on the broken altar, and the already dilapidated Sanctum of the Village Deity was even more run-down, with broken beams and walls barely supporting half the roof, which was in danger of collapsing at any moment.
"What the hell is this?" The real world was fine, but he had been killed by his own golden finger. The Transmigrator wanted to curse.
"That is something you will have to face every month from now on—Alienspawn." The blue Flower Maiden appeared, but instead of gloating, she said solemnly, "Who do you think the original owner of this Sanctum of the Village Deity was?"
Edrick suddenly calmed down. Having undergone cruel trials in reality, the transmigrator knew very well that everything that was given had already been marked with a price tag in secret. How could a golden finger appear out of nowhere without a price?
"What happened?"
"The owner of this place was killed by the things you saw a long, long time ago ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥ )." The Wealth-Scattering Lad's dialog box turned blood red, as if it would start oozing blood at any moment.
Edrick subconsciously swallowed and grasped the key point: "Those things? There's more than one of them?"
"They were once hostile forces. The Village Deity's duty was to protect the people of the village, on the one hand giving them fertility, and on the other hand protecting them from these things.
But there were too many of them, and in the end, the Village Deity died, and this temple was abandoned. Until now, when you became a deity and reawakened the Sanctum of the Village Deity, you also reawakened the enemies of the Sanctum of the Village Deity (.•́︿•̀.)."
Edrick closed his eyes, wondering if things would be easier if he had simply traveled through time without any special abilities.
"Don't worry, these creatures are just spiritual projections of your former enemies. They don't physically exist, so even if they kill you once, it's not really fatal," the red figure reassured him.
"You said once a month?" Edrick asked impatiently. "Why once a month?"
"Why are you talking so much? Even this Mama doesn't know. Anyway, this cycle is related to the rotation of the heavens," said the Flower Maiden, who had a very bad temper. After saying that, she didn't want to continue.
The Wealth-Scattering Lad picked up the conversation and continued, "This world is in motion. You can think of the mountain peak we are on as a star moving along a predetermined path.
We are currently moving away from the source of pollution. Listen, the whispers are getting weaker. Basically, one month is one cycle. When the next one approaches, they will come again (๑•́ ₃ •̀๑)."
Edrick realized that this was again some kind of mystical knowledge that was completely different from the education he had received before. Now was not the time to delve deeper, so he asked, "How many more times can I die? How should I deal with that thing?"
"Once, maybe twice if you're lucky, but you're an unlucky kid and have always had bad luck," Flower Maiden replied.
The Wealth-Scattering Lad added, "You'd better do more of the 'Third Set of Low-Level Civil Servant Broadcast Exercises from the Celestial Theodome'. It can improve your physical and mental strength and help you ward off danger, but only by obtaining more incense value and truly controlling the Village Deity's Divine Authority will you be able to eliminate them ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)."
Well, the situation wasn't too bad. At least he still had one more chance to try.
Edrick quickly adjusted his mindset and continued with the question he hadn't gotten a response to earlier: "Oh, right, can you give me a discount on the Cat Control Spell? I'm only 200 points short, so give me a discount, okay?"
The Wealth-Scattering Lad didn't disappoint him: "We don't have much authority, but we can sell it to you for 700 Faith Essence Points. It's a bargain (¬‿¬)."
The other party's quick agreement made Edrick a bit uneasy. Could it be that this thing could actually be cheaper?
However, Edrick didn't worry too much since the deal had already been made.
He could always earn more Faith Essence Points, and according to the description, the Cat Control Spell would be very useful in his current situation.
After purchasing the book, Edrick was a little nervous at first, afraid that he would have to read and learn it by himself.
It was like spending all his money to learn how to fly a plane, only to be handed a beginner's pilot's manual and told to teach himself. Who knew how long it would take to learn?
Fortunately, these two little guys weren't too difficult, and Edrick naturally mastered the Cat Control Spell. This magical experience finally gave him the feeling of having supernatural powers. This was what you call a cheat code.
The Cat Control Spell allowed him to establish a subtle connection with the three cats. It wasn't a contract or a master-servant relationship, but rather a connection.
However, when he gave the cats commands, there was a certain probability that they would accept them, and there was also a high probability that they would completely ignore them...
Of course, this spell was not useless, because the Cat Control Spell could make cats smarter, so cats would usually be inclined to accept orders. It was more like a mutually beneficial transaction.
Edrick immediately reached an agreement with the three cats.
Edrick would use the Cat Control Spell to increase the cats' intelligence, and the cats would help him gather information about Griff and the gang behind him.
The short-legged black cat was named Pawpatte, the balding orange cat with a temper was Cromeoll, and the aloof calico cat was Boss, as she was the leader of the neighborhood and had many loyal followers.
The amount of wisdom the cats could gain in a short time was limited, and Edrick wasn't sure if they could truly understand human society, so he could only gather as much information as possible through them.
After releasing the cats, Edrick returned to the toilet with a tragic look on his face to continue his shit-shoveling work, which, of course, had to be done in the middle of the night.
He didn't know if this world didn't have a sewage system yet or if it didn't exist at all, but in any case, the public toilets in the Iron Rust District needed special Nightmen to clean them three times a week and transport the shit outside the city in wheelbarrows.
This shit was an important source of fertilizer, and as far as Edrick could remember, it was Griff's Soot Street Scamps that had a monopoly on this business.
What kind of transmigrator would spend their first day digging shit out of a latrine?
"Isn't that right, Griff?" Edrick smiled slightly and looked at Griff, who was tied up and lying in an abandoned warehouse.
The latter couldn't move a finger, his mouth was stuffed with shit and wrapped in cloth, and his eyes were helpless and desperate.
"Don't look at me like that, isn't shoveling shit your old profession?" Edrick dumped a wheelbarrow full of shit into a hole he had dug, intentionally or unintentionally, right below Griff.
This unlucky guy was the one Edrick had encountered in the middle of the night when he went to clean a public toilet.
One of the core businesses of the Soot Street Scamps was the Nightmen, who were responsible for collecting shit from public toilets.
For his long-term plan, Edrick needed to secure his own niter field. Yesterday, while defecating, he suddenly had an idea.
In Edrick's memory, he had never heard of gunpowder, which left him both shocked and delighted.
Given the level of civilization in this world, gunpowder should exist. Currently, he could think of three possibilities: either this world lacks a crucial element, or the advanced magical civilization makes them too arrogant to develop gunpowder.
The third possibility was that Edrick's knowledge was simply too limited, and he had never heard of it before.
Regardless of the reason, gunpowder would be a tremendous asset in dealing with the Soot Street Scamps. The three key ingredients for making gunpowder are charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate.
Charcoal and sulfur are relatively easy to obtain, but the most challenging ingredient is potassium nitrate. Currently, the only method Edrick knows to produce it is through human waste.
This warehouse is a secret buried deep in Edrick's memory—an abandoned dockhouse that was abandoned years ago due to river siltation.Now, it serves as Edrick's secret base. He plans to fill this place with manure, turning it into a niter field.
The Transmigrator had gradually adapted to Edrick's secret memories. When he captured Griff, he was unusually calm, and with the rationality of a modern man, he devised a strategy that was even more cautious than that of the Ripper.
To cut the grass, you have to remove the roots. Since he was going to kill them, he might as well uproot the Soot Street Scamps.
"You want to attack Blackbeard's dock?" Edrick asked with a look of disgust as he untied the cloth covered in manure from Griff's mouth.
"It was all the boss's idea! The boss wants to trade people! Blackbeard's dock is closest to Soot Street! The boss needs a dock! It was Fox's idea, and Brick reported us. Mudlark killed your father, and I was only responsible for stealing women!"
Edrick felt a headache coming on; every time he revisited these memories, he experienced this symptom. Fortunately, he quickly found the relevant information: Gideon "Mudlark" Fletcher, Eli "Fox" Moss, and Jem "Brick" Rookwood—the three thugs of the Soot Street Scamps—and their boss was Mordy "Soot" Ashdown.
This thug had once been a chimney sweep. Initially, he was a chimney cleaner, but he eventually recruited all the chimney sweeps into a gang and sent child laborers into the chimneys of noble mansions to steal jewels.
Now they controlled the chimney sweeps, dung collectors, river mudlarkers, and coal porters in the Rust District.
"Mudlark, Fox, and Brick," said Edrick as he walked to the side and pulled back a piece of ragged cloth. Underneath lay three people who were barely alive. Griff's eyes widened. "Are you talking about these three?"
The three poor wretches lay on the ground, tied up tightly, but it was completely unnecessary because they were covered in wounds and could hardly breathe. They were on the verge of death.
The Transmigrators easily found these thugs with the help of three cats.
They happened to be scavenging for excrement, so Edrick mercilessly took their excrement cart and kidnapped them.
After all, in Grayrat Alley, these thugs bullied men and women all day long and never hid their tracks.
According to Edrick's memory, these people were all destined for hell, and trafficking women and forcing them into prostitution was commonplace.
If Edrick hadn't returned early that day, Hannah's fate would have been predictable.
Therefore, the Transmigrator was much calmer than he had imagined when dealing with these scumbags. Even though he had never been in a fight before, under the influence of Edrick's memories, he was even a little excited.
Griff couldn't believe his eyes. Why was Edrick so powerful? No, why was Edrick so brave? Wasn't he afraid of the Soot Street Scamps? Wasn't he afraid of the police?
Suddenly, Griff thought of a possibility. He remembered the malicious report he had filed earlier, and he couldn't help but cry out, "You... you really are... the Ripper of Rust District..."
Hearing Griff's words, Edrick was clearly taken aback, not because his identity had been guessed, but because this idiot had only just realized it.
Edrick felt somewhat helpless that his opponent was such a low-level thug.
"Tell me, why are you attacking the Blackbeard Gang at this time?" Edrick controlled his facial expression and didn't reveal any emotions.
This was Edrick's ability as a serial killer.
"If you really coveted the dockworkers' business, you could have done it three years ago when the Blackbeard Gang was at its weakest. Now they have a very mature business system with Representative Hollis, so it's really not a good time to make a move."
Griff couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. He hadn't trembled this badly even when he was eating shit: "It... it was the boss... the boss's idea. He... he... he said we must control the port before the 10th of next month. He didn't tell us the specific reason, he didn't tell anyone, but he recently got in touch with a Lineage Scribe from the Pureblood Order."
"Lineage Scribe?" Edrick was taken aback. It was a very strange term. He understood the surface meaning of the words, but Griff clearly meant something else.
"No... That's right, a Lineage Scribe of the Pureblood Order!" Griff screamed as if he had grabbed a lifeline. "That's right, the Pureblood Order!"
"I don't know anything about the Pureblood Order," Edrick shook his head.
This was not something a dock worker who had almost never left the Rust Belt would know. In fact, Griff had only recently learned about it from Fox showing off his knowledge:
"Yes, you know, it's... the Pureblood Order. They've always wanted to get their hands on Stellaxis, but we don't know exactly what's going on. However, they've set their sights on a batch of important cargo in Stellaxis..."
Edrick then remembered that there seemed to be some open and covert struggles between various orders within the church in his fragmented memories.
Although most countries believed in the Luminous Pontificate, in reality, each country had its own agenda, and the various chaotic orders and sects were actually forces supported by these countries.
Edric didn't want to get involved in high-level struggles, but after thinking about it, he realized that this was only one aspect of the many struggles.
The Pureblood Order's infiltration of Stellaxis must have started long ago, and this chaotic situation could be exploited.
"Mordy "Soot" Ashdown, enjoy the rest of your life."