End of the Magic Era

Faleau was completely confused. Nevertheless, the result was in favor of the Gilded Rose. The other organizations were deterred, and the negotiations were easier. He had to pretend that the Gilded Rose punished the two robbers, even though he knew it didn't.

Nobody asked him anything directly. They all kept silent on the matter, believing in the truth that they thought to be.

The negotiations went well. He signed barter contracts with multiple mage organizations. The Blue Demon Potions could be exchanged for many special materials they gained from other planes. Only the forces that controlled such planes had access to the materials.

But not everything was successful. Some organizations proposed harsh terms for the barter, so Faleau gave up.

He knew that the Blue Demon Potion was not costly at all. Its greatest cost was the materials from the monster plane. Except that, the cost for one bottle of the Blue Demon Potion was less than 1,000 purple gold, and most of it was the alchemists' wages…

However, he couldn't lower the price of the potion. Many of the materials he needed were in planes that the other organizations controlled. They were just like the plants in the monster plane. They were very cheap in the planes they originally belonged to, but very expensive in Noscent because of their rarity. So, their prices could vary significantly, just like the Gilded Rose could peg the Blue Demon Potion's price freely.

Faleau looked at the inventory in his hand, which was five meters long and two meters wide, and was full of materials that were needed. When mana was filled into the inventory, there would even be holograms that displayed the materials and their features.

There were thousands of materials in the inventory, but the Blue Demon Potions could only be exchanged for 100 of them. The organizations that came for negotiations didn't have most of the materials in the inventory. All of them were precious, and the amount behind them gave Faleau a strong headache.

30 tons of refined metals, which were usually sold by kilograms at auctions, were needed in the inventory.

10 kilograms of Floating Red Golden Ore would suffice as raw materials for a good True Spirit Magic Tool, but 200,000 kilograms of it were needed in the inventory.

Faleau's eyes almost popped out when he saw the inventory for the first time. He wouldn't even have dared to think about it if he hadn't seen the check signs on the inventory. The most difficult item was the 3,000 tons of refined Eternal Dark Gold.

There wasn't so much Eternal Dark Gold in the entire Noscent, but the check sign indicated that it had been completed.

Holding the inventory, Faleau calculated the materials that were being exchanged. In a couple of years, some of the materials needed in the inventory would be gathered enough. However, most of the materials on the list hadn't been collected yet.

Some of the specially marked materials in the inventory gave Faleau a headache.

That greedy and cunning vampire. Those Super Heavy Crystals are the cheapest materials in the plane his family controls, even though they are not very easy to exploit. Yet, that idiot offered me one ton of Super Heavy Crystals for one Blue Demon Potion.

Damn it, a ton of Super Heavy Crystals isn't even as big as a human head. One cubic meter of Super Heavy Crystals weighs hundreds of tons, and 8,000,000 cubic meters are needed. I cannot get enough of them in a millennium. Did the idiot think that the Gilded Rose would offer them Blue Demon Potion for 1,000 years in exchange for things that are as worthless as stones for him?

Damn it. But the lack of Super Heavy Crystals is truly a problem. Sir Merlin said that the Super Heavy Crystals are among the materials that must be collected in the first batch. The vampire family is the only one that controls a plane which has Super Heavy Crystals.

Do I have to collect them in the Earth Plane? But it won't be possible to bring them back. Also, nobody could possibly do mining there except Xiuban, who is sturdy enough. No kidding…

The Blue Demon Potion was seriously in demand, but Faleau was still upset. Since the Blue Demon Potion would significantly enhance the mage organizations' power and increase the speed of their conquests, they shouldn't refuse to exchange some materials for it. However, Faleau underestimated their greediness.

They were so greedy that they proposed to exchange one stone, which they usually used to build floors, for one bottle of Blue Demon Potion.

The progress on the deals was slow. Faleau was quite anxious, but he knew he couldn't break his boundaries. If he did, it would be very difficult to make deals with other organizations.

While Faleau was feeling frustrated, a mage organization from the south of the Odin Kingdom arrived, hoping to purchase the Gilded Rose's Blue Demon Potion and other special potions.

"Sir Faleau, I heard that you're exchanging the Blue Demon Potion for some materials. I'm just going to save your time. These are the materials we can offer. Do you need any of them?

"By the way, the Blue Demon Potion is a powerful, paradigm-shifting potion that will boost the development of magic in ways people cannot imagine. Only those who are as greedy as devils are too tempted by short-term returns to realize it.

"The northern folks always think that we southern mages are greedy. However, it seems that they're too stupid."

This level-1 Heaven Rank expert wore a glamorous robe, and seemed reliable and trustworthy. He was definitely stronger than most mages on his level, and he was from the south of the Odin Kingdom.

Faleau was slightly puzzled. Why would an organization that was based in the south of the Odin Kingdom come to the Gilded Rose?

Didn't the southern mages of the Odin Kingdom always consider themselves the strongest? They despised all the northern forces, except for a few. They regarded most people from the north as bumpkins…

The people of the Sten Kingdom and the Andlusa Kingdom were no better than barbarians in the eyes of the southern mages. Why would they come for negotiation?

Did they not know that the Gilded Rose came from the Andlusa Kingdom?

The questions flashed in Faleau's head, but he didn't have time to consider, as he saw multiple materials he needed on the list, including the Super Heavy Crystals that he was in dire need of.

Calming himself down, Faleau pointed at two other materials first, and asked the man his terms. Finally, he pointed at the Super Heavy Crystal.

"Sir Dick, how would you like to exchange the Super Heavy Crystals?"

With a smile, Dick shook his head.

"Sir Faleau, the Super Heavy Crystals are only rare in Noscent. It will be a waste to exchange them. If their price is too low, then I won't be satisfied; if their price is too high, you won't be. So, let's not exchange them directly.

"I propose another way for the Super Heavy Crystals. 10,000 Blue Demon Potions for the right of mining a Super Heavy Crystal mother lode for a year. You can exploit however many Super Heavy Crystals you can mine during the year. Whatever else you find by the way will be yours too."

What Dick said made Faleau's hands tremble. He was so shocked that he almost exclaimed.

The Super Heavy Crystal mother lode that couldn't be mined was certainly not in the Earth Plane, which didn't have a suitable environment for mining. Also, the man's generosity indicated that the mother lode had such a great reserve that he didn't care about the loss. Besides, time was the only limit…

Remembering the huge number of mining alchemy puppets in the Demiplane, Faleau was stunned. If they were deployed, he wouldn't need a year to collect enough Super Heavy Crystals.

The cost was only 10,000 Blue Demon Potions. It was so cheap that he was almost getting the Super Heavy Crystals for free.

A lot of Super Heavy Crystals could be found in every Earth Plane, especially in places in a plane that had a huge gravity. In those places, the Super Heavy Crystals were actually just normal crystals that contained earth elements.

However, mining was barely possible in those places. The miners would have to be at least Heaven Rank Sword Saints, and they had to be very sturdy. So, it was impossible to mine on a large scale.

Besides the Earth Planes, only some special planes might yield the Super Heavy Crystals. Such planes were usually desolate and lifeless. However, mining wouldn't be easy, either, because the Super Heavy Crystals had a high density, and were extremely sturdy.

Under normal circumstances, to exploit a mother lode of Super Heavy Crystals was costly, and required a huge number of workers. Also, the Super Heavy Crystals were rarely used in Noscent, and the current yield of the crystals almost met the demand.

Because the Super Heavy Crystals didn't have a huge market, and weren't easy to collect, the organizations who had Super Heavy Crystal mother lodes in planes they conquered never explored them. They would rather spend the time collecting more profitable materials.

But that was not a problem for the Gilded Rose. In the enormous alchemy puppet factory in Lin Yun's base, all sorts of mining puppets were created and manufactured after the battle alchemy puppets were invented. Technically speaking, the mining puppets were even more sophisticated than the battle puppets.

Half of the mining puppets were asleep in the Natural Demiplane, and some were working in the Gilded Rose's mother lodes. They had been designed to be strong enough to mine the Super Heavy Crystals.

For other people, it would take decades to collect 8,000,000 cubic meters of Super Heavy Crystals, but for the Gilded Rose which had an advanced legion of mining puppets, one year was more than enough…

"Sir Faleau, is the number too high? How about 9,000 bottles? You should know that although the mother lode of the Super Heavy Crystals has a huge reserve, only powerful alchemists or powerful organizations might buy them. It's very costly to exploit them."

"The Super Heavy Crystals are very valuable. It's just that they cannot be applied on a large scale just yet, except for the purpose of being used as floors…"

"Oh my God, Sir Faleau, you're not trying to pave floors with the Super Heavy Crystals, right? Then how about 8,000 bottles of Blue Demon Potion? The plane will be yours for an entire year. After all, there's not really anything valuable in that plane except the Super Heavy Crystals."

Dick looked at Faleau in amazement. The expression on Faleau's face made him realize that the Super Heavy Crystals were indeed going to be used as floors. Immediately, Dick put on a weird expression. It was truly unbelievable that anyone would spend such a fortune on Super Heavy Crystals just to build floors.

While the Super Heavy Crystals were truly great materials for gravity labs, and some special alchemy labs required them to build floors, not a lot of them were needed. It was possible to buy them on the market. The Super Heavy Crystals to be exchanged with the powerful potion that was the Blue Demon Potion, which was sold for 180,000 purple gold apiece, would be enough to pave the entire Neverwinter City…

But Dick couldn't ask more about the matter. He simply confirmed the deal as he normally did.

After they struck the deal, Faleau was even more confused. This negotiation was smoother than any of the previous negotiations, and the Gilded Rose got more from the deal.

The other end of the exchange was an organization from the south of the Odin Kingdom, which ranked among the top 20, if not top 10. It was rather strange that it would come to the Gilded Rose for negotiation and offer generous terms.

In the following days, everything became smooth. The Gilded Rose intended to acquire special lands from the Odin Kingdom that would be used to grow magic plants. Such lands were very expensive and always in demand. They would be bought by their owners' friends the moment they became available on the market.

Such lands weren't like the farms where crops or low-level potion herbs were grown. There were always farms more than 10 kilometers long and wide on the market. However, such lands were very popular, and couldn't be acquired by the forces outside of the Odin Kingdom.

Faleau didn't really think he could succeed. He only tried because the Gilded Rose had earned so much purple gold that it couldn't be used up even if it was exchanged for resources. The unspent purple gold was useless for the Gilded Rose, so Faleau planned to buy something else.

That was just an idea. He pulled some strings, and found several potential sellers. He negotiated with them, but to no avail. They would rather sell the lands to friends for a lower price than sell them to the Gilded Rose which had more money.

But in only three days, a family who wanted to sell the special lands came to the Gilded Rose. It offered a high price, but the Gilded Rose was still lucky to get the lands.

The purchase was much easier than expected. Faleau was not dumb. He knew that someone had to be giving him a hand. Everything had been going too smooth for the Gilded Rose. The troublemakers were all taken care of. A couple of days earlier, one of the Gilded Rose's most remote branches was robbed, but only half a day later, the robbers' heads were hung outside of the city's gate. The stolen goods were sent back too.

The Gilded Rose seemed terribly lucky. But as more and more lucky incidents happened, Faleau became uneasy. Whoever had been helping the Gilded Rose for no good reason could be planning something malicious.

He hadn't met Lin Yun in two months. He couldn't wait any longer, and came to the Starry Sky College and found Lin Yun.

"Sir Merlin, this is what happened. We don't know who did it or who has been helping the Gilded Rose. We don't know what they want, either…"

Faleau reported everything worriedly, and Lin Yun immediately frowned after hearing him out.

The special silence curse, the constant bleeding, and the ability of doing so many things in secret without leaving any leads. Whoever did everything seemed to be shadows that always hid themselves in the dark.

Hearing about the style, Lin Yun immediately realized who did it. It couldn't have been done by anyone except the people of the Thorny Crown, which was the only organization that had so many experts of special abilities.

Also, the Thorny Crown had been hidden in the dark for so many years, and it definitely had a huge network of connections. Lin Yun simply didn't expect that the Thorny Crown's network to be so powerful that it seemed able to influence everything.

It had obtained so much intelligence without communicating with the Gilded Rose. That was remarkable too.

Thinking about that, Lin Yun suddenly realized that it was another lapse in his judgment. Although the Thorny Crown didn't have a good reputation, it was certainly not a public enemy, either. To have enough resources to study bloodline transplantation, they definitely had a lot of properties and businesses to generate sufficient revenue and resources for them…