Close Combat Mage

Chapter 301 - Alchemy Techniques Part 2

As Suo Jia was thinking it over, the Diamond Dragon’s body shook, and the thick layers of Glacial Armor covering its body began to crumble and fall to the ground. The next moment…the milky-white little creature jumped out from the mess of ice cubes, right into Suo Jia’s arms like a spoiled brat.

As the little creature played around in Suo Jia’s arms, he blankly stared at the cast off Glacial Armor on the ground. Then…Suo Jia suddenly cried out happily, and tossed the pet in the air excitedly. As a result of this sudden unforeseen event, the little pet hurriedly opened its wings, struggling to stay in midair. It looked at Suo Jia in shock, it just couldn’t understand why its owner had suddenly thrown him up!

After seeing that the little creature hadn’t fallen, Suo Jia retracted his hands which he had originally stretched out to catch it. He then confidently turned around and said to the other three, “Alright, let’s all hurry up and find a place to set up our tents. Give me a week’s time, and I’ll come up with a way to pass through these plains!”

After hearing that Suo Jia had actually come up with an idea, the others excitedly flocked around him, questioning him what this method of his was. But from the beginning to the end, Suo Jia refused to reply to their questions. With lack of better option, Xiang Yun, Roger, and Nicole could only go off and put up the tents.

Suo Jia’s group put up their tents on the northern side of the mountain face. The ones they used were peak-grade Earth Tents created by Earth Masters. Coming to adventure around the Greater Trade Routes was not an easy task in the first place. If one didn’t treat themselves slightly better, they’d probably end up collapsing soon afterwards.

From the outside, the four Earth Tents seemed to be round and two meters in diameter. But with the Earth Master’s Spatial Compression and Collapsible Techniques, the inside of the tents could be described as luxurious and extravagant. There weren’t decorations, but the tents were hundreds of ping in surface area!

After eating Roger’s cooking, Suo Jia immediately re-entered the tent. Having been inspired by Roger, Suo Jia had already come up with a way to get past these Thorn Mice. Actually, it was pretty simple; they could build an armored chariot!

The Thorn Mice were only the size of house cats. Their physical attack power was basically zero, and they didn’t have any magic attack abilities. Their only method of attack was shooting out those needles with paralyzing toxins, and their overall numbers.

Now, Suo Jia just needed to create an armored chariot to block those poisonous arrows. With its protection, nothing would be a problem. They could easily pass through these plains of Thorn Mice.

Suo Jia dumped a large amount of materials out of his interspatial ring. When he looked at the various types of ores and materials strewn over the ground, he couldn’t help but furrow his brows. Although these things were precious and rare, he was currently unable to refine and forge them, so there was no way he could use them!

The third generation interspatial ring had 100 cubic meters of space filled with random things. Suo Jia couldn’t even remember when he’d gotten many of them. Thus…Suo Jia poured everything out, looking for something he could use.

As people say, those that put in effort aren’t disappointed. After searching through the objects, Suo Jia finally found a metal chariot frame. Of course…at the moment, the chariot frame was completely disassembled. How else would such a large chariot be stored into the interspatial ring?

When he looked at the chariot frame parts on the ground, Suo Jia suddenly remembered; he’d found this chariot in the Atomic Alchemy Labs. It wasn’t really anything special, probably what the staff at Atomic Alchemy Labs had used as a means of transportation.

The chariot was actually a pair of metal wheels with an axle, and an open seat on top. It was extremely simple, not anything like an item created with alchemy. It could be obtained anywhere. But to Suo Jia, this was extremely hard to come by, a priceless object.

However…the chariot alone wouldn’t do! If one just sat on this chariot, they’d definitely get turned into a porcupine. While thinking this, Suo Jia assembled the chariot.

First was the window-shaped frame, then the axle was locked into place on it. Then, the wheels were installed, the shaft, and finally, the seat. Everything was OK. But this kind of thing didn’t seem to be very appropriate to use!

Suo Jia looked at the simple and crude chariot and sighed. He then removed the simple seat. That way, only the shaft, frame, and wheels remained. After looking at the extremely simple chariot, he once again flipped through his interspatial ring in search of something.

His efforts did not fail him. Finally…Suo Jia found a giant chandelier part from his ring. That’s right…this had been excavated from the Atomic Alchemy Labs ground level. Suo Jia knew that this chandelier had been suspended in the air in that ground-level lounge, but…he really couldn’t remember when he’d placed such a thing into his interspatial ring.

The chandelier was actually like an upside-down umbrella. The ribs of the umbrella were separate from each other, and they had 2-3 meter long, arc-shaped metal supports. Suo Jia couldn’t help but smile in excitement at this.

Suo Jia first used covered the entire chariot with an Earth Rhinoceros’s skin. Then…he firmly fastened the 18 metal arms from the chandelier around the chariot, forming a cuboid space with the frame as a chassis. All the metal arms were curved towards the top of the chariot, and gathered together on the roof. At first glance, the 18 metal arms wrapped around the space made it seem like a vehicle that trapped prisoners!

Although the inside of the chariot wasn’t small, roughly about six square ping in size and enough to fit four people, this still seemed a bit imperfect.

Suo Jia flipped through his interspatial ring for a while and pulled out a small Earth Tent. He then fastened it onto the chariot and the surrounding metal arms. With the way he set it up, the small Earth Tent was fitted to the inside of the metal chandelier arms, flawlessly forming the carriage’s inner walls!

Of course, this alone wasn’t enough to pass through the Thorn Mice plains. Although the Earth Tent was pretty good, it didn’t have any defensive capabilities. A single needle would rip it apart, so it couldn’t be relied on to resist any kind of attack.

However, Suo Jia wasn’t concerned. The sandworm skin that he had collected a few days ago could prove its use now. After retrieving it, Suo Jia wrapped and fastened the sandworm skins around the 18 metal arms as protection. At the very least, the Thorn Mice didn’t have the ability to damage it.

As an alchemist, Suo Jia’s tools were quite complete. Of course…he hadn’t collected them all by himself. They had all been shipped over from the Atomic Alchemy Labs. There was currently no person in the world that had a more complete set of alchemy tools than Suo Jia did.

An entire week passed. Finally…a glorious chariot appeared within Suo Jia’s tent. The golden wheels had earth elemental spell arrays carved on them so that they could smoothly fly over even swamps without sinking. A pair of perfectly straight, gilded shafts stretched out from the chariot… The shafts’ ends had been carved into the shape of a giant dragon’s head by Suo Jia. which probably had some fear-inducing effect on the lowest-level magical beasts.

Of course, Suo Jia spent the most effort on the carriage. The entire carriage was two meters tall, two meters wide, and three meters long. A small Earth Tent was embedded into the carriage. When one opened the door, two-thirds of the carriage would be occupied by the tent. The only other space was the meter where the door was.

Suo Jia looked at the chariot that had taken him a week’s time to make, and nodded in satisfaction. This chariot wasn’t to be underestimated. Although it didn’t look very large on the outside, and its carriage’s space was too small, one couldn’t forget that the inside of it had a small Earth Tent inlaid. Once one entered the carriage, they’d be met with a 40 ping room. Even if there were fourteen people present, it wouldn’t seem crowded, let alone four people.

Since he’d been extremely successful, Suo Jia naturally didn’t hide it from his three companions any longer. He pulled open the tent door and brought Nicole, Xiang Yun, and Roger in. When they looked at the exquisite chariot, they all cried out in admiration, just as Suo Jia had anticipated.

As Suo Jia proudly narrowed his eyes and enjoying everyone’s praise, Nicole said in a low voice, “That…Young Master Suo Jia, what do you plan on using to pull the chariot? Don’t tell me you’re going to make the Diamond Dragon do it!”

“Ack!” Suo Jia’s jaw dropped open in shock. That’s right…how had he forgotten this? He didn’t have horses at the moment, and even if he did, they’d be useless. Aside from the Great Frost Wyrm, what other creature could completely ignore the attacks from these Thorn Mice?