Chapter 538: New Meaning of Divine Grace, Negotiations

The Temple District of Seventon, or more accurately the Temple District of the New City District, is called a district, but in reality, it only contains one Great Temple of the Lord of Radiance, with everything else being auxiliary buildings related to the temple.

Such as residences for clergy, training grounds, relief stations, courts, and the like.

There is another area in the Old City District that can also be called a temple district, but the Lord of Death is worshipped there, and generally speaking, people are more accustomed to calling that place the "Mausoleum District."

Upon deducing that the exchange meeting was beneath the Great Temple, Xia Duo felt it was incredible and immediately contacted Niya, and since Niya was not asleep at this time, she gave a reply immediately.

"I didn't calculate the specific location, but if it really is beneath the Great Temple, then it is indeed a bit strange; I will go ask Beilaila."

It wasn't exactly a conspiracy, but if this issue wasn't cleared up, Xia Duo would always feel uneasy; Beilaila was from Giles Tower, and Niya was a student of the Princess, so naturally, she could easily contact the other party, and while waiting for Niya's reply, he cast spells to create Arcane Crystals.

They were still less than the size of a grain of rice, meat on a mosquito's leg, but better than nothing.

After throwing the Arcane Crystal into his Personal Space, Niya still hadn't replied, so Xia Duo began to check the state of his Arcane Fire; having completed his advancement four or five days ago, his Arcane Fire was still stable, and the only shortcoming was probably the complexity of the Magic Net Strings.

This determined whether Xia Duo could unfold extra Magic Net Strings to perform spellcasting similar to Magic Net spellcasting; casting purely with Arcane Energy was still a bit too cumbersome.

However, he had asked Niya about the issue of Magic Net Strings, and Niya's answer was that there was currently no way to actively change the Magic Net Strings; one could only wait for them to increase, lengthen, and become complex on their own.

The Magic Net Strings are both energy conductors and energy storage devices, and can almost be considered an Arcanist's most precious asset.

Compared to it, Arcane Crystals were somewhat not worth mentioning.

After a few days of exploration, Xia Duo had a rough understanding of the state of his Arcane Fire, and also had a general concept regarding Magic Net Strings, his Arcane Energy limit, and spellcasting consumption.

It was just that the number of experiments was currently small, and he hadn't been able to calculate specific quantified attributes, but Xia Duo believed that it wouldn't be long before he could come up with a system for Arcane Fire upgrades.

Of course, this upgrade system could only be used for information display and could not actually make him level up.

Just as he was considering whether to pause "feeding" his Personal Space and use all his Arcane Energy for experiments, Niya's reply came—

"Beilaila told me that there is a small temple of the Magic Goddess beneath the Great Temple, and the exchange meeting is held there; it is said that conducting magic exchanges there may result in receiving the Goddess's Divine Grace."

"Really?" Xia Duo couldn't help but feel moved.

In the past, he felt Divine Grace was useless, simply because he felt he would definitely be able to level up and didn't need to rely on Divine Grace, but after truly understanding the situation of his Arcane Fire, he felt that having Divine Grace would also be nice; at the very least, glimpsing the next layer of the Magic Net could instantly increase the complexity of his Arcane Fire.

This was equivalent to increasing the complexity of his Magic Net Strings and the amount of Arcane Energy he could contain.

Of course, for an Arcanist like Xia Duo who had the potential to continue leveling up, deliberately pursuing Divine Grace was somewhat not worth it, but this way of trying one's luck at an exchange meeting was still quite good.

Perhaps one day, after accumulating enough, he really could level up directly.

"I just asked others, and they all knew this information." Niya's voice suddenly became a bit low here, "It's just us from small places who didn't know, and who knows how much information like this we don't know about!"

"..."

Indeed, information like this, which is akin to common knowledge, is usually not specifically recorded by anyone; unless one happens to run into it, one wouldn't even know if they missed it. Hearing Niya's somewhat low mood, Xia Duo also felt a sense of urgency; perhaps he should also stay in Seventon.

But then he dismissed this thought; what was his status to gain a foothold here? The husband of a Great Arcanist's student? Xia Duo was unwilling to stay in Seventon with such an identity.

Besides, there was also the responsibility of a Pioneer; he had not yet been invited to join the Seven Cities Council, which also indicated that his pioneering cause had not been recognized by the Princess and still required continued effort.

Rashly giving up might directly anger the Princess, and that was something the status of a student's husband could not compensate for.

"Don't look down on yourself. How many Arcanists in their early 20s are there in Netheril, and how many have become students of a Great Arcanist? If you think like this, how are others supposed to live?"

"I didn't look down on myself! I just feel that mages from small places are so pitiful."

After finishing, Niya left behind a short, tsundere "Hmph."

Xia Duo tentatively sent another "Get some rest early," but there was no response. Xia Duo shook his head and began to wash up, and it wasn't until he lay down on the bed that Niya's reply came.

It was also a "Get some rest early."

In the dead of night, when most people had long since rested, the Nether Palace was still brightly lit.

Inside the reception hall, Princess Xiya, Archmage Greta, as well as many documents, staff, representatives of the Seven Towers, and even representatives of the Arcane Union, sat at one side of the negotiation table, looking straight ahead.

The other side of the negotiation table did not exist in reality; it was just a group of projections of Elves, among whom the representative of Cormanthyr who had appeared in the Arena during the day, the High Mage Suweilisi, was prominently listed.

Only now, the state of the Elves seemed to be worse than that of Netheril; the leading Elf kept frowning, as he didn't know why Netheril had suddenly become so aggressive this time.

It happened to be the expiration of the ten-year trade agreement, and this time the demands from the Netheril side mainly had two aspects: one was to increase the trade volume of High-Grade Mithril, and the other was to increase the tax on art trade.

The former didn't matter; anyway, no one knew how much High-Grade Mithril was imported into Netheril in the form of art every year, and increasing the official trade volume just clarified this form.

But the latter directly hit Cormanthyr's income across the board. Art was not just Mithril products; on the contrary, the trade volume of wood, stone, or other metal art was larger and more profitable, because the vast majority of Elven output was classified as art, with extremely high premiums.

And more importantly, this tax, which was deliberately aimed at Cormanthyr art, would inevitably damage Cormanthyr's influence. Those humans couldn't distinguish what was Cormanthyr art and what was Yierlan art; as long as it was Elven, substitution would be easy in the long run.

Influence, this invisible and intangible thing, is sometimes the most fatal thing.

The Cormanthyr negotiation representative couldn't accept the increase in trade tax no matter how he thought about it. Additionally, he knew that his country would certainly not be willing to classify goods in detail and divide them into non-art items that did not require increased trade tax; it would be best if even finished Mithril Ingots were counted as art.

But the Netheril side was adamant about increasing the tax, and even when he threatened to reduce the Mithril trade volume, Netheril did not back down at all, which made it very difficult for him.

Even as a High Mage, when encountering such negotiations, it was impossible to do things that would harm all Elves, unless he was willing to take responsibility himself.

Referring to the past ten years, taking responsibility for the trade losses of the next ten years—thinking about it, that was also impossible.

The situation could not remain deadlocked forever, and the Cormanthyr representative, who was temporarily at a disadvantage, had to take the initiative to speak:

"Your Highness, I suggest postponing the negotiations. The conditions proposed by your side are not within my Permission Level, and I must discuss this with my country."

In fact, what he wanted to do more was to find the reason why Netheril was so aggressive and break it; then the negotiations would naturally go according to his wishes.

On the other side of the negotiation table, Princess Xiya smiled, "Since your side requests this, in the spirit of friendship, our side will naturally not refuse. I hope the next negotiation can proceed smoothly."

The Cormanthyr side requesting to delay the negotiations was already within her expectations; which trade agreement had ever been completed smoothly? There were even quite a few instances of shadow wars.

It was just that this time, the Cormanthyr side was going to miscalculate; she already knew that Cormanthyr was at war with the Drow and simply couldn't spare the energy to deal with this side.

In addition, the Ilphark side had already agreed to conduct Mithril trade, and the quantity was not small; even the Mithril Refining method could be discussed.

The only thing she regretted now was not contacting Ilphark a few years earlier; of course, the situation a few years earlier might have been different from now.

The world is just that complex.