Chapter 27

The butler service of Orlando Manor was very considerate, preparing everything in less than half an hour.

Another half an hour passed, and the Thorn Rose team had all finished bathing. Each of them changed into a set of convenient jackets and trousers, looking completely refreshed.

The group sat at the dining table, ready to eat, making their final preparations for the battle ahead.

"Go down and have your meal. There's no need to stay in the dining room; I have matters to discuss with my guests."

Before the meal, Sun Ran waved his hand at the butler standing by, dismissing him and all the servants.

After the servants left, Sun Ran glanced at Bai Tingxuan and said, "Set up a silence restriction."

A restriction is a term used in Eastern Daoist magic, while in Western magic, it is generally called a barrier. The effects are similar.

The silence restriction was simple, just a zero-level basic auxiliary Daoist spell. Bai Tingxuan nodded, raised her hand, and made a few gestures. The formal term for these gestures is "hand seals," and Bai Tingxuan's actions were to form the seals.

After completing the seals, Bai Tingxuan extended her fingers and flicked them around the dining room several times.

Each flick sent out a nearly invisible ripple from her fingertips. The ripples hit the walls and spread out like water waves.

Several water waves quickly merged into a faint, almost invisible shield, enveloping the entire dining room.

With the restriction in place, the team members could speak freely in the dining room without worrying about being overheard.

Sun Ran began, "At least three people were following us. Two were ordinary humans, and one, I sensed a Vampire Heart within him, so he should be a vampire, but not a strong one. According to the vampire family's classification, he doesn't even qualify as a baron, with physical strength only twice that of an ordinary human."

He was puzzled. If the disruptors were only this strong, they should be easy to deal with.

Lan Xin explained, "From our previous battles, the true disruptors are few, and the strongest is at least a vampire count, with a physical strength of level three, ten times that of a normal human, and extremely terrifying. He created the bat army, responsible for assassination and intelligence gathering. The army has at least a thousand members and is the Duke Dracula's greatest reliance."

Vampires can reproduce offspring and control them through blood, ensuring their loyalty. The armies they create are ten times stronger than ordinary armies.

However, these armies have a weakness: if the leader is killed, the army will automatically disintegrate.

"I see," Sun Ran said, enlightened. He then smiled, "But I also noticed something unusual. Don't you think the enemy came a bit too quickly?"

Ke'er agreed, "I'm an assassin and skilled in tracking. Even if Dracula's forces are vast, it's impossible for them to determine our identities within half an hour of our possession, unless..."

Sun Ran felt Ke'er's gaze and said, "Unless there's a game administrator leaking information!"

The Dark Middle Ages is a mature virtual world, and monitoring data links like in the Dragon Age is extremely difficult. The most likely scenario is that there's an insider.

This is just a possibility, but it's easy to resolve.

As the captain of Thorn Rose, Lan Xin had the authority to contact the game administrators. She immediately said, "I'll contact the game administrators now."

By directly reporting their suspicions to the administrators, the internal vigilance of the game administration would be heightened, rendering the insider's role ineffective. This tactic is called "shaking the tiger by the mountain."

The game administration of the Dark Middle Ages is not located on Earth but on a large space station floating in the sky.

The game management director responsible for the Dracula mission was a young man named He Qiang, thirty years old, in the prime of his life and full of energy.

He received the message from Lan Xin, frowned, and turned to the AI brain, saying, "Check all data links between the space station and the outside world in the past hour."

"Hao Qiang, permission confirmed, starting the check."

The AI ran the check and, within a minute, locked onto a data link record. The message on the record detailed the Thorn Rose team's information and the possession location. However, the link was highly concealed, using a Möbius one-dimensional loop, making it impossible to trace the sender.

Hao Qiang's brow twitched, and he issued the next command, "From now on, monitor every administrator's actions, including mine, until the order maintenance mission is completed."

This move completely neutralized the insider.

Then, Hao Qiang turned to the mission analyst and said, "Our mistake increased the difficulty of the Thorn Rose mission. Raise their commission to 5,000 credit points per person."

"Yes, Director."

This news was quickly relayed to Lan Xin, who smiled, "There is indeed an insider, but the administrators have given us compensation, increasing the base credit points by 2,000."

This was great news, and everyone was pleased.

Lan Xin then began to explain the information leaked by the insider. The data on the three women wasn't important because the disruptors already knew it. The key was that Sun Ran was also exposed.

Sun Ran remained calm, countering the situation, "Since they know my information, they should know I'm an alchemist and am preparing to refine weapons. If I'm right, they will attack when we are weakest, which is when I'm busy with alchemy."

"But how will they know you're doing alchemy?" Bai Tingxuan asked. As soon as she finished, she realized, "You had me set up the restriction because someone in this manor is leaking information?"

Sun Ran smiled, "Exactly. Since they know our identities, they must be prepared. So, I plan to use their strategy against them."

He pretended to refine weapons to lure out the assassins and then launch a surprise attack to capture them all!

The three women agreed, and they began to discuss the details of the plan.

Five minutes later, Bai Tingxuan lifted the silence restriction in the dining room, and the four of them began to enjoy their meal, chatting and laughing.

After the meal, Sun Ran called the butler and said, "I'll be staying in the collection room tonight. Set up a bed for me in there."

The collection room housed Orlando's treasured items, including many rare alchemical materials, which would serve as Sun Ran's temporary alchemy lab. His voice was clear, and there was no need to eavesdrop.

His intention was clear: he planned to work through the night to refine weapons.

The butler was very diligent and had no suspicions. He called the servants to set up a temporary bed in the collection room.

While he was busy, Sun Ran distributed weapons to the three women.

The weapons in the manor were only daggers and one-handed swords. Crossbows were prohibited, even for Orlando, because they were too easy to use and too powerful, and the Church did not allow the lowest and most cowardly hands to take the lives of the noblest, even the Ottoman Empire, which was predominantly Muslim, was influenced by this.

Lan Xin was skilled in the Gongsun Sword Dance, a dance created by a performer named Gongsun Dama in ancient Tang Dynasty, which contained deadly threats within its graceful movements. Du Gongbu once wrote in "The Sword Dance," describing it as "coming like thunder and lightning, and ending like the calm of the sea," indicating its immense power.

Therefore, her weapon was a pair of steel one-handed thin-bladed swords.

Sun Ran, skilled in alchemy, took the one-handed sword, gathered a small flame at his fingertips, and used his finger as a pen to draw runes on the blade.

He moved quickly, from the hilt to the tip, completing the task in one fluid motion.

A fiery red rune glowed on the sword, then dimmed, leaving only a faint red pattern perfectly integrated into the blade.

Sun Ran repeated the process on the other sword, explaining, "This is a Burning Rune, which will add fire damage to your attacks, making you more effective against the cold and dark vampires."

Lan Xin was delighted, "This is weapon enchantment, right?"

Thorn Rose had no alchemists, and she and Ke'er used mostly ordinary weapons, relying on their martial skills and the quality of the weapons for their effectiveness. The idea of additional attribute damage was unheard of.

Sun Ran smiled, "This is the lowest level of enchantment. The rune's effect is weak and will disappear after a hundred uses."

Even so, it was much better than nothing.

Ke'er eagerly handed over her dagger, "I want an enchantment too."

Sun Ran took the dagger, thought for a moment, and began to draw a Sharpness Rune on it.

"You are an assassin, and stealth is your top priority. The Burning Rune emits a faint light, which could expose you. The Sharpness Rune will greatly enhance the dagger's sharpness, making it truly able to cut through metal like butter."

As he spoke, Sun Ran finished the rune, picked up the dagger, and lightly sliced the corner of a silver-plated iron candlestick.

A harsh metallic scraping sound was heard, and a thin iron slice fell, the cut edge smooth as a mirror, demonstrating the dagger's sharpness.

Ke'er was overjoyed, snatching the dagger from Sun Ran and holding it lovingly. With this dagger, she could easily kill an opponent even if they were hiding in heavy armor.

After preparing the weapons for the two women, Sun Ran turned to Bai Tingxuan, "Let's start preparing the defensive runes."

Bai Tingxuan nodded. The manor had cinnabar and a high-quality wolf-hair brush, both carefully collected by Orlando, perfect for drawing runes.

She prepared Ghost-Repelling Runes, Invisibility Runes, and Puppet Runes, using up all the cinnabar and then cutting paper figures.

In Daoist magic, there is a technique to turn beans into soldiers, which she couldn't do, but she could cut paper into soldiers.

Sun Ran, meanwhile, wandered around the manor with Ke'er, placing Frost Runes everywhere.

Ke'er carefully memorized the locations of these runes. With the runes, she could use them to her advantage against vampire assassins, making her attacks more effective and providing a defensive advantage.

With the four of them working together, in less than an hour, the once harmless Orlando Manor became a dragon's lair, filled with hidden dangers.

The butler had already set up the collection room and given orders to the servants not to wander around the manor that night, regardless of any disturbances, to just sleep.

The sky was dark, and Sun Ran walked to the collection room door. Before entering, he instructed Lan Xin, who was responsible for guarding the room, "Be careful."

Lan Xin smiled, "I will."

Sun Ran closed the collection room door, immediately took out a paper figure cut by Bai Tingxuan, attached a Puppet Rune, and blew on it, throwing it forward. The paper figure quickly expanded, and a puppet identical to him appeared.

Sun Ran then attached an Invisibility Rune to himself, quietly left the collection room, and hid in a corner, waiting for the fish to bite.