Qin Li was stunned, the explosion was on par with the power of an attack by someone in the 4th layer of the xiantian realm.

"Was that some sort of trick?"

Hartley couldn't contain his disbelief and had to speak aloud what he was thinking, the concept of spell-weaving had left him stunned but what just happened had equally blown his mind.

Cackling came from the hunched back figure drenched in dirt and pebbles,

"The formula, this is the formula, I'm definitely on the right path now, with a few tweaks I can readjust the polarities. Six months! I need six months." Alrick muttered to himself.

"Can you make more of that?" Hartley asked as he pointed towards the pit in the ground.

Alrick's head snapped back to Hartley, annoyed that the young lord had disrupted his calculations.

"Pffff, that's only the waste product. nothing special, my formula will change the world."

Alrick said this with a proud smile and euphoria in his eyes.

Hartley took a deep breath and calmed himself. He didn't care what the mad scientist was trying to make but if he could supply that stuff that he called waste product in good quant.i.ty then he would have no qualms about investing some more gold coins in this deranged man.

"if you can make more of that then we will build you an independent lab and supply all the raw materials you need for your experiments.' Hartley said to the Alrick hoping the man would be lucid enough to understand.

Alrick's eyes brightened in excitement, he executed another one of his extravagant bows.

"Of course, of course young lord," he said as he cackled again like a hyena.

Alrick had been bounced from pillow to post, he was a young genius who had served many n.o.ble houses providing them with all types of dans but ever since he had latched on to this new concept of his, he had become obsessed with it to the point of it driving him half mad.

He had spent his days hunched over his table conducting experiment after experiment until his back was permanently bent in search of his ultimate formula. Obviously n.o.ble houses would not tolerate spending gold coins on a man that was creeping towards the edge of insanity, let alone having him squander infinite resources to find a phantom formula that he couldn't even explain.

Over the years he had gained a reputation of being a crazy apothecary who sponged up gold coins, leaving his n.o.ble backers with nothing to show in return. After being shunned by the people who could provide resources for his experiments he had resorted to making the odd medicinal dan to earn a few gold coins which would disappear promptly into one of his experiments.

That's how he had met viscount Sanzu, selling him some dans every month, Viscount Sanzu would be kicking himself right now if he knew that this expendable p.a.w.n given to the western hills had just created a weapon of ma.s.s destruction.

Hartley could not believe his luck, he would have been happy if the man could produce a few rank 1 medicinal dans but what the man had inadvertently created was way more valuable. This was a weapon that could change the battlefield. He had to keep the man in the Western Hills and guard this precious secret.

In the following days Hartley had the stone layers rush to construct a s.p.a.cious two story building away from the manor.