Chapter 207: The Cosmic Demon Totem Common Prosperity Project (Part II)

The next day, in the palace of Asgard, the Ancient One handed a small object to Odin. Odin placed the tiny black device before his eyes to examine it, then held it further away to look again, appearing somewhat curious.

Then, a projection suddenly popped up from it, and Odin nearly threw the thing away. Mephisto, waiting below, had long since lost his patience. He said, "Can you hurry up? I've been waiting for a long time!"

Odin rolled his eyes and used magic to fix the device in the center of the room, ensuring everyone in the room could see the projection.

No longer needing to face this group of demons directly, Strange appeared much more relaxed in the projection. He said, "Let's begin. Ask questions from left to right, one question per person. No follow-up questions are allowed after an answer is given. Once the round is complete, we will start over from the beginning."

Mephisto immediately said, "I'll go first. That stable lending system you mentioned last time—what exactly is it about? And the interest rate benchmark you didn't explain clearly, plus contract fraud..."

Strange, standing in the room, turned his head and asked the table full of financial professionals behind him, "Did you hear that clearly?"

One of the bespectacled men in a suit and tie didn't even look up as he said, "This is my specialty. The so-called interest rate benchmark..."

After a full dozen hours or so, Strange's mouth was already dry. He said to the Ancient One, "Master, let's stop here for today..."

He turned back to look, and most of the people behind him had collapsed. After all, a dozen consecutive hours of brainstorming without food or drink—the demons were fine, but the humans couldn't take it.

Upon hearing that they were going to take a break, the demons weren't having it, especially Mephisto. This Lord of Hell hadn't realized before that humans were so skilled at swindling... oh no, that was called finance.

Mephisto decided: could a devil's deal be called entrapment? It was called finance! Do you understand finance?

Whatever costs or conditions there were, change the wording immediately—call them deposits and loans. So what if I collect more debt? That's called interest!

High interest? Didn't I write it in the contract? What? I wrote it too complexly? Then you shouldn't have signed it back then!

Devils had an infinite interest in fraud. Mephisto asked countless questions surrounding the lending system, wishing he could learn the essence of human economics overnight.

In the demons' concept of time, not even 0.001 seconds had passed, yet humans were already complaining of fatigue? How could this race be so weak?

But the demons couldn't do anything about it even if they were unhappy. Such was the human constitution; they needed to eat, sleep, and rest.

The main contradiction now was the contradiction between the demons' vigorous thirst for knowledge and the humans' limited energy.

There was no other way; Nick could only find another batch of people, having them work in two shifts, which eventually turned into three shifts.

Later, it still wasn't enough. Strange was truly at his wit's end. At this moment, the Ancient One suggested that the demons leave behind a magic array for communication, so they could contact Earth's financial professionals at any time.

But the result still didn't work, because ordinary humans weren't mages. You couldn't expect a group of ordinary people who had received decades of scientific education to learn meditation, focus, and cosmic communication overnight. This required talent; ordinary people simply couldn't use magic arrays.

In the end, Kamar-Taj's mages had to step in and fix the magic arrays onto human mobile phones, so the demons could call the humans.

At first, the demons were just dialing randomly, chatting with whoever they caught.

Because many demons didn't understand human life forms and didn't know that their memories weren't shared between individuals and their personalities differed, the conversations were completely nonsensical. They would be halfway through a question with one person, and when they called again, it would be someone else, forcing them to start asking from the beginning.

Strange had to be responsible for teaching the demons how to dial the same person's number, while Nick was responsible for selecting exclusive customer service representatives for different demons.

After half a day of adjustment, the professionals were finally able to communicate smoothly with the demons and answer their questions.

Nick found a building in Greenwich Village and stuffed all these people inside. The Ancient One transferred a batch of mages from Kamar-Taj to move in and help the professionals connect with the demons, while S. H. I. E. L. D. agents were responsible for taking care of their daily needs.

Finally, Strange named this building the "Sanctum Sanctorum."

But just this wasn't enough. The initial investors were found, but the subsequent business expansion and promotion still required people to handle it.

You couldn't expect ordinary humans to run all over the universe to conduct business and pull in clients; they couldn't do that either.

The Ancient One and Odin looked around, and finally, old man Odin looked at his side: my youngest son is idle anyway, let him go!

Thus, Loki gloriously became a salesperson.

To get more people to join, you had to make a name for yourself. Even if others didn't participate immediately, you had to let them know this was happening. To put it bluntly, it was about handing out business cards all over the universe.

That very day, Loki was thrown out of Asgard by Odin, clutching a stack of business cards with a bewildered expression.

Originally, Loki was gloating that his brother had caused trouble and been thrown to Earth, only to turn around and find himself thrown out as well.

When Thor was thrown out, although he lost his divine power and weapon, he at least had no mission, and no one cared if he wandered around Earth. But Loki couldn't do that; he had performance targets.

If you said Loki was the unmotivated type like Thor, that would be one thing, but he happened to be someone with designs on the throne. Although he hadn't participated in the Demon Lecture Hall earlier, he knew this must be a major task from his father, and if done well, it would surely be a chance to shine.

Thus, Loki embarked on his path of cosmic pyramid schemes.

Loki was much smarter than his brother; he naturally knew who it was useful to find.

He cordially invited the future Sorcerer Supreme, Strange, to eat, drink, and make merry across the Nine Realms for several days, and then learned the principles of pyramid schemes from him.

Having figured out the principles, Loki, as the God of Deception, felt that this matter had potential; if handled well, he might gain both fame and fortune.

The hardest part had already been handled by the Ancient One and Odin; the Great Demon Gods had already made their first round of investments, leaving Loki with nothing to do but cast a wide net to catch more fish.

Why else would they say heaven provides for those who are gifted? And what could be a better match for the God of Lies than a pyramid scheme?

Loki could stumble into trouble whenever he was bored, causing others to trip over themselves one after another. Once his subjective initiative kicked in, within a few days, the demon gods of the universe had all heard of a resounding name—the "Cosmic Demon God Totem Common Prosperity Project."

As the God of Lies and Deceit, Loki grasped the essence of pyramid schemes without a teacher: slogans like "Miss this and wait another twenty thousand years," "Grow big and strong, create new brilliance," and "Congratulations to the Lord of the Crimson Dimension, Master Sai, for gaining one billion years of cultivation..."

During this time, Loki's figure was seen frantically darting all over the universe, from the Split Realm to the Realm of Lingering, from the Pegasus Nebula where the aftermath of war had yet to fade, to the long-silent Andromeda Nebula, from the Central Star Port to the edge of the Dark Realm. Whether it was interstellar wars, galactic gatherings, weddings, funerals, or celebrations, if there were ten places beating drums, he was in nine of them.

Thor? Don't really know him!

"Hello, Nine Realms Sanctum... Sorry, it really can't go any higher. We have regulations here; only super-dimensional demons can get over 6%... It's like this, actually, you can also choose joint investment; this is our new business..."

Strange walked quickly while holding the phone, saying rapidly to the other end, "Your Highness Loki, the business on Sakaar can be paused for now. The people there are truly too poor and extremely stingy. Besides harassing customer service with phone calls every day, you can't squeeze much profit out of them. That Grandmaster is also..."

He passed through an office area, but the people sitting here were dressed strangely—some in suits and ties, some in mage robes, and some even in prison uniforms. At a glance, it was clear they were just pulled in because of a shortage of manpower...

"Hello, Nine Realms Sanctum, what?... Can you repeat that? Translation! I need a translation! Another one I can't understand!" a female white-collar worker in professional attire shouted.

A young mage in yellow robes hurried to the female white-collar worker's side. He took the phone, spat out a string of strange words, and then hung up, saying, "Which poor backwater demon is this? Could it be from the edge of Hell? This accent is too heavy!"

Strange continued walking forward. Where he passed, the sounds of conversations over the phone were endless.

"Hello, Nine Realms Sanctum, uh... Sorry, we don't provide that service here. Ah... yes, I know you are in a hurry, but we aren't responsible for finding dogs. Fine... I'll ask for you." ===== CHAPTER 208 =====