Chapter 61 - 43 Grand Cemetery Labyrinth
Time flew by.
Leonard Churchill spent two peaceful days.
In these two days, aside from going to the streets of Eastern District 5 for corpse collection duties, he spent most of his remaining time in the morgue practicing the breathing method from the Golden Fragment.
Practicing the breathing method could be incredibly monotonous, especially for beginners.
The breathing method involves mobilizing the Curse Power by inhaling various elemental particles floating in the air and circulating them throughout the body using the secrets of the incantation.
The entire process requires intense concentration; any tiny error could disrupt the cycle.
It was akin to counting silently from 1 to 10,000 in one’s mind without any interruption or falling asleep.
The effects of the Golden Fragment outperformed expectations.
However, correspondingly, the difficulty of its practice was several times higher than the Great Dark Breathing Method.
Each cycle was as demanding as counting from 1 to 100,000 silently.
No wonder the bookstore owner found the idea of learning a breathing method that absorbed multiple elements peculiar.
After all, it wasn’t digestible difficulty for ordinary people.
Maintaining a delicate balance of various elemental Curse Powers within one’s body while controlling multiple elemental breaths simultaneously wasn’t a level of difficulty the average person could comprehend.
Merely the initiation was tough.
Even Leonard himself wouldn’t have been confident about mastering the breathing method in a short period of time without the premise of the trickster’s +10 Enlightenment.
Fortunately, his Enlightenment was sufficient.
Moreover, he could endure loneliness.
As long as he wasn’t on a mission, he could sit still for most of the day.
His high Enlightenment enabled him to quickly comprehend some tricks of the breathing method. After familiarization, it became as natural as breathing, like an instinct.
At least the first incantation has been practiced to proficiency.
Representatives of the Miller Family from the Governor’s Mansion didn’t show up, the problem with the basement on Tailor Street was no more, and no one with odd intentions interrupted his peace again during that period.
His Curse Power Value was soaring every day.
Everything was developing towards the good.
Although Leonard encountered no troubles himself during these two days, Sinless City was bustling.
As a Corpse Collector, he had access to many crime scenes and hence first-hand intelligence.
The frequency of field work increased during these two days.
Upon investigating, Leonard discovered that apart from the commotion he had recently caused in the black market on Dark Rain Street, resulting in citywide factional fights, a rumor had spread around Sinless City.
There were claims by information merchants that the Miller Family in the Governor’s Mansion had obtained an ancient artifact of a high grade!
Some claimed it to be the mysterious artifact that Barion “Lone Wolf” had extracted from Demon’s Cross. Others spread a rumor that it was a Disaster Object related to the Great Catastrophe brought back by a mercenary group. While the rest said the treasure from Space 4.07 was seized by the Miller Family, there were multiple versions of the story.
In any case, it was a supreme treasure.
There were hefty rewards posted in the black market of Sinless City by a mysterious individual, in exchange for this artifact.
This caused frequent infiltrations into the Governor’s Mansion by unidentified personnel, and there were even numerous assassination attempts on the Governor.
Upon hearing the news, Leonard’s first reaction wasn’t curiosity about the artifact.
Instead, he sensed that someone was attempting to muddy the waters and destabilize Sinless City’s situation.
He even suspected that the rumors about the artifact were intentionally circulated.
It was as if someone threw a stone into a pond creating waves, revealing all the soft-shelled turtles, tortoises, and bigheads that were originally hidden in the mud.
Indeed, as he anticipated, there was an increase in the number of faction battles across Sinless City in the last two days.
Due to the Dark Rain Street incident revealing too many dark stakes of Miller Family, the conflict between the Governor’s Mansion and several major Lower City gangs intensified. A large number of unidentified outsiders and local gangs kept stirring up trouble, and even the Gold-digging Dock, the only way to the Old Continent, was attacked.
As retaliation, the bounty on assassinating elements of the Governor’s Mansion increased in the black market. The reward for killing a Law Enforcement Officer was 200,000, a bodyguard from the Governor’s Mansion was 500,000, and even the Governor himself had a bounty.
This inflamed Sinless City’s unrest.
A storm was brewing.
The unrest even increased the operation intensity of all the local Corpse Collector branches’ cremation furnaces.
Leonard was quite fond of the commotion.
The busier the Miller Family was, the less they had to deal with him.
Other individuals might think that the treasure had already fallen into the Miller Family’s hands.
Moreover, the quality of the corpses he obtained on his missions had improved significantly.
Although Corpse Collector was considered the lowest profession, they could participate in many aftermath events of high-profile incidents.
Looking at the current situation, Leonard felt that he might come across another big opportunity like that in the “Tailor Street Basement.”
With the Misfortune Gambler’s Aura, it wasn’t a small possibility.
Although the risk was coexistent.
Leonard was looking forward to it.
The unexpected part was about his profession’s occupational disease.
His initial intention to work as a Corpse Collector was for the absorption of Extraordinary Traits.
However, he overlooked the occupational disease of Corpse Collectors.
Ordinary Corpse Collectors grow increasingly weak due to their consistent exposure to pollution over the years.
However, because of the Feast, Leonard’s physique was becoming stronger day by day.
His physique was now around 3.6, more than triple than before.
The attribute growth was reflected in his body type as well; his muscles increased significantly.
Though beefy bodies were common on the streets of Sinless City, Corpse Collectors weren’t supposed to be like that.
This forced Leonard to wear loose clothing and stoop to feign weakness.
Occasionally, to combat his vitality’s vibrancy, he applied minimal makeup to disguise himself as contaminated.
Thanks to his solid acting skills from his previous life, he hadn’t yet given himself away..