Chapter 1612: No Time to Die (Part 11)

For a long time, the magic world of DC seemed very orderly. The contracts mages signed with demon gods were also decent, the power levels were clear, and various institutions were operating in an orderly manner. From the surface, this was a fairly civilized society.

And Constantine was the scum excluded from this civilized society, a notorious rotten person and liar in the magic circle. For a time, he could almost be called a disgrace to humanity.

But this wasn't actually because he was truly very bad. Although Constantine was a rotten person, you couldn't hear a single word of truth from his mouth, and his private life was chaotic, but standing from the perspective of humanity, he was still considered a good person. So why did his reputation become so bad?

In general, the order of the DC magic world is fake, because the order isn't formulated by humans themselves, but by demons and angels. They need this kind of order to exploit humans, so they naturally maintain the stability of this society.

Constantine doesn't act according to the order in this society, but scams demons and then scams angels. Naturally, demons and angels will try every means to let their believers smear Constantine.

Constantine hasn't undergone particularly formal psychological and sociological education, especially lacking certain sociological knowledge. Over time, he also felt that he was a bad person in the magic world, and felt that the things he did were unspeakable and couldn't be brought to the table.

But the difference between him and Strange is that Strange had a good teacher. Just as he said, the Ancient One is the most powerful Sorcerer Supreme in history. She can be said to be the heaven-sent star of the Marvel magic world, who beat most demon gods who had designs on Earth into submission with her fists.

So, the situation was reversed. These defeated demon gods, in order not to appear weak, could only hype up the Ancient One. The title of Sorcerer Supreme thus spread throughout the universe.

Not to mention Schiller's influence on Strange, even in terms of magic, Strange knew from the moment he started learning that his teacher was the greatest orthodox leader in the entire universe's magic world, and he was the only direct disciple of the strongest first sect. Whatever he did was justified.

So, he had no burden at all when scamming those demon gods, and even had a compassionate, salvation-oriented psychology—if he didn't scam these demon gods, they would have to be beaten by the Ancient One. Although he squeezed a certain amount of energy from them, he was actually helping them preserve their most precious lives. Shouldn't they be kowtowing to him?

This difference in mentality led to Constantine, even though he had become a positive figure, still feeling that those tricks he used to scam demons and angels were unspeakable. He had been worried for several days about how to teach these low-level means to students. Is teaching people how to bluff really not corrupting children?

Although he hadn't scammed few children, privately engaging in some pranks and organizing a large-scale class to teach these scamming knowledge were different. Constantine was really worried that he wouldn't be able to speak in class, and even more worried that if he really spoke eloquently about these scams, he would be beaten to death by parents who learned the truth.

Just then, he met Strange, whom Schiller had invited over. To let Strange understand the general situation of magic in this universe, Schiller threw Strange directly to Constantine, and at the same time called Zatanna, and the two of them popularized magic knowledge of this universe for Strange.

"So, the magic of your universe is also essentially lending?" Strange looked at the introduction in a book Constantine handed him and asked.

Constantine nodded and said: "Is yours the same? I really thought there was a place that didn't need to borrow debt. It seems everyone is about the same."

"But you are different from us here." Strange frowned and said: "Don't you have a universal energy? That is, a power that can be converted into any energy?"

Constantine and Zatanna looked at each other, and the two shook their heads and said: "There is no such thing. The power of every demon and angel is different, and the things they can do are also different. To do something, you have to summon the corresponding demon."

"Then what about the contract? Isn't it contracting a fixed demon? If you contract a fixed demon, how do you use the power of other demons?"

"Equivalent exchange." Constantine took a piece of paper, wrote and drew on it, and said: "For example, I am the agent of the hell demon king Beelzebub. I obtained Beelzebub's power of gluttony from him, but now I want to use the flame power that can ignite everything, so I have to summon the lava demon king in charge of flame power."

"After summoning him, he will discover through the mark in my soul that I am a believer of Beelzebub, so he will trade with me. In hell, Beelzebub's status is significantly stronger than the lava demon king, so the power of gluttony is also stronger than the power of flame. 1 unit of gluttony power can probably exchange for 3.3 units of flame power."

"But if you want to use flame power, the lava demon king also needs to take a cut, so the 1 unit of gluttony power you finally obtain can only exchange for 2.7 units of flame power."

"Then who is the cost paid to?"

"Both sides have to be paid. When you obtain 1 unit of gluttony power, you have to pay 1 unit of cost to Beelzebub, and after summoning the lava demon king and exchanging for flame power, you still have to pay the cost of 3.3 units of flame power to the lava demon king."

"What kind of bullshit rule is this!" Strange said incredulously.

He stood there thinking for a while, stretched out a hand to stop Constantine and Zatanna from continuing, took a piece of white paper from the side and a pen from the table, and wrote while saying.

"After summoning Beelzebub and signing a contract with him, you have to pay the cost at a 1:1 ratio, right?"

The two opposite nodded together.

"If you want to use the power of other demon kings, after summoning other demon kings, you have to exchange power with them at a dynamic ratio, but they take a tax, right? That is to say, the strength of the power itself is 1:3, but when exchanging, 1 unit of power can only exchange for 2.5 units of power."

The two nodded together again.

"When exchanging power, you have to pay the cost to the object of exchange again, and it's paid at the pre-tax price, right?"

Constantine nodded and said: "You summarized it very well, it's about like that."

"Then if I want to use flame power, why don't I just contract the lava demon king? Anyway, I have to pay the same cost."

"But Beelzebub won't let you break the contract." Zatanna looked at Strange with round eyes and said: "If you want to break the contract, you have to pay all the costs you paid before again, and your soul won't be free. After death, you still belong to Beelzebub. If you offend him, you will suffer torture after death."

Strange was simply speechless. He looked at the two people opposite, and then looked down at the paper in his hand, not knowing who was crazy.

"And there is a more important point: if you haven't contracted Beelzebub, that is, a demon of a higher level than the lava demon king, then low-level demons won't respond to your summons and exchange power with you."

"Why?"

"Because no one provides credit endorsement for you." Constantine shook his head and said: "If you don't have a big demon contracted, how do other demons know if you will default on your debt? Only when your destination after death is clear, and the demon is sure that they can definitely recover that part of the cost, will they lend power to you."

"Bullshit thing!" Strange cursed again. He put his hands in his pockets and said with confusion: "Who set these rules initially? Was his brain kicked by a donkey?"

Constantine sighed deeply and said: "Actually, these are just the surface rules..."

Strange immediately widened his eyes, the expression on his face clearly writing "There are even higher experts???"

This time it was Zatanna who introduced. The magician lady also looked helpless. She rested her hands on the edge of the table, turned her head to the side, and said as if exposing her own family's ugliness: "In fact, in modern times, mages have been competing with each other, or perhaps some young people have been bewitched by demons. They feel that the higher the level of the contract, the more face the demon has, completely ignoring the fact that higher-level demons demand higher costs."

"The vast majority of young mages actually don't need such high-level power at all. They don't have such powerful enemies to deal with, nor do they need very precise energy for research. Most of the powerful power they borrowed at a huge cost is squandered."

"And the result is that new young mages see their predecessors being powerful and dashing, so they follow suit and borrow powerful power they don't need at all. And once these powerful demons have many followers, they have room to choose."

"Developing to the later stage, many famous demons, like the lava demon king John mentioned before, their contracts go to the highest bidder. Only humans willing to pay more costs can obtain their precious contractor quota."

"Quite a few people, in order to obtain the favor of powerful demons, sacrifice their own family members, or even the souls of strangers, just to prove that they can pay more costs and become better dogs."

Strange cursed a dirty word, almost unable to suppress the murderous intent in his heart, but he still took a deep breath to adjust his emotions. But just then, Constantine added another knife.

"And in order to force mages to consume more power, and then go borrow more power to pay more costs, demons control these mages who have lost their minds to fight with other mages."

"The magic world actually has basically no external enemies. Almost all dangers come from mages who are addicted to power and out of control. But if you can't borrow stronger power to kill these out-of-control people, you will die. At the critical moment of life and death, you can only let the demon king set the price."

Strange pulled over a chair from the side and sat down tremblingly. He was afraid that if he continued to stand, he might faint. He stretched out a trembling hand and pressed it on the paper and said: "……How long?"

"What?"

"How long has this situation been going on?!"

"It hasn't been that long, it's just gradually evolved to the current level over the past thousand years..."

"Professor Strange? Professor Strange?!... Schiller! Schiller! Come quickly, this professor seems to have water-and-soil incompatibility, he seems to be having an epileptic seizure!" ===== CHAPTER 1613 =====