After the experiment ended, Dark One decided to stock up on those fire-arms and ammo, fortunately he already understood the basic principles of using those things, now it was only a matter of time before he find the one who would teach him about the manufacturing process, but now he had to have a talk with emperor. Using the spell [Detect Person] however was problematic, as most of the times such spell would search for mana signature of a person, and then check said person's DNA, but with emperor not having a spec of mana, this process took quite a long time. Fortunately the emperor wasn't far away, he was still near the place where Dark One met him. Deciding on using his two legs, Dark One slowly strolled towards the destination, while musing about the strange smell coming from one building.
Once he arrived to his destination, emperor as well as ex-emperor, were sitting and drinking, not caring about anything. “*Hick* and leemme tell ya... *hick* that bitch never-” Dark One found it least amusing when humans got drunk, as well as beastkin and elves, but not dwarfs. Dwarfs were not dwarfs, unless they drank at least one mug on what one hero called 'na pos-o-shock' whatever that meant.
“Mortals... drinking so much won't give you immortality, nor it will make your death painless, contrary to that you will die in agony, in some alleyway.” Dark One let out a prolonged sigh. “Do that only after you uphold our deal.”
“I-ish dnt care... zzzzzzz” Looking at those two drunkards, Dark One decided to use the old detox spell, which most wizards discarded due to it's limited influence on anything besides alcohol, and low-end poisons. Only a handful of wizards knew it and mostly those that were in the adventuring parties, as most warriors had alcoholic disposition either hyping themselves before battle, or relaxing after it, most of the times it was both however. Most housewives that knew magic also knew this spell, as well as some other for cleaning and healing purposes.
“WAKE. UP. I don't think that becoming a slave would be beneficial to you, or you want to try?” Dark One was rather impatient, despite being a ten thousand years old lich, he still had the attitude of his former mortal self. “I upheld my part of the deal, now it's your turn.” unfortunately for him, two emperors were asleep. “Right. Those with weak will have troubles staying awake after using [Detox].” in reality the [Detox] spell removed intoxication through mana, causing increased fatigue for those with small mana reserves, but to Dark One it was new, as he never experimented on those who completely lacked mana core, and so were without any mana in their system, except some residual mana from surroundings, that somehow managed to enter their system. Unknowingly to Dark One, he actually started the formation of mana cores in the brain of those two humans, due to expelling the inner mana and gathering more from the surroundings.
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Thinking on his next steps, Dark One noticed the same smell coming from across the still frozen river. “That smell... It is so familiar... can't remember though.” casting flight, as he had nothing better to do, Dark one drifted in the general direction. “I think it was from the times I was mortal... and when I cooked for... yes, I think it's bread. Strange smell though, it's different. It never had the sweet aroma, usually it was... was... can't remember. Too bad it was my mortal memories.” After the 'ascension' to lich, memories of mortal life could become lost, truly lost, as the process tampers with the soul of the subject. This process was never fully understood, as all the subjects that were transformed unwillingly died in the process and lost almost all their soul essence, resulting in... what happened to souls with or without soul essence Dark One didn't know, just that sometimes souls, with high enough soul essence, could be found again in the same world, in which they died, like the soul of one hero, who had it's soul in the body of a human knight, however he didn't know of his previous life, nor what happened after previous death, except that amount of his soul essence changed, lowered actually, however the soul of some other hero gained some essence after changing the body, so it had something to do with something that happened after the soul was released from body.
Following the sweet scent, Dark One stumbled, or flew, upon a building with quite a few chimneys. “That's the place, huh?” he looked at the, what he presumed, bakery. “I need to stop being surprised by the lack of mana in the buildings as well as humans. Also it seems my mana regeneration is a bit low, so better stop using magic, or at least limit it for now, until I can properly recover it.” Descending a few blocks away from the bakery, and applying temporary disguise, he walked upon this strange building. And he was met with some sort of guard.
“No pass by this point.” and immediately after those words “Oh it's you sir! Of course, you can pass. Sorry for not recognising!” Dark One was let in the building.
“Follow me. You will show me around.”
“Yes! IVAN! I will show our esteemed-”
“Yes, Boris, I got it, you lazy ass.”
After short bickering back and forth, Dark One could finally look around this place, however. “So much mana used on all those workers. Annoying.” He had to use domination on several more occasions “But it was probably worth it. At least I know the difference between mana and manaless production methods. With mana it would be much more simple.” At least it would be for him.
After finishing the stroll around factory, he contemplated on what to do next. The few things he wanted to know is how to make those firearms and regular items, though quality of closes, at least those he saw, was rather low, it was made just like other items in this world, and everything that was made without magic intrigued him.