Chapter 3507

People who still had spare money to buy houses in this day and age were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. So after Schiller called the real estate agent, the other party immediately indicated they could take him to see the house right now.

Schiller agreed to meet at the entrance of the house. He wanted to drive there himself to see the environment of the surrounding blocks and judge whether the roads were easy to navigate or prone to traffic jams.

But it turned out that traffic jams were unavoidable downtown, especially since the location was very central—only a two-minute drive from the most congested Rotary. Schiller was stuck on the adjacent street for 20 minutes.

And when he arrived in front of the house, the agent had just arrived too, apparently having been stuck on another street for half an hour.

This made Schiller want to back out. The house was good, but no one could stand being stuck in traffic like this.

The traffic jams caused by chaotic traffic rules had eased, but after Gothamites' lives improved, car ownership had also risen. Although traffic management was decent, it was still just as congested.

Cat Getan couldn't build a subway before, and although it was under construction now, it would be at least another year before Line 1 was completed. Before that, the traffic situation wouldn't improve.

Schiller sighed, feeling that he shouldn't get involved downtown. Unless he could buy an entire street like Harley, it wasn't worth the trouble just to get to work.

The agent felt embarrassed by the situation but still tried hard to introduce the house.

The house was indeed quite good. The wood was entirely dark oak, contrasting with the pristine white walls, showing a simplicity and brightness different from the Victorian style, while still retaining a touch of English elegance.

The actual stained-glass windows looked even more stunning. The entire front wall of the first floor was a large floor-to-ceiling window, but the counter was in a protruding corner on the other side, allowing the shop owner to appreciate the play of light and shadow from the shadows.

The four load-bearing columns in the shop were also decorated like spires. The shelves for displaying items were ready-made, and they were arranged in an orderly fashion at different heights, clearly designed with care.

It was estimated that this magazine office had also made a heavy bet when Cat Getan's economic situation had just improved, preparing to make this their flagship store. Unfortunately, they were unlucky and couldn't stay in business long after the renovation.

The second floor had two offices and a bathroom, all bright and clean, with a harmonious and unified decoration style. In the future, one could be converted into a bedroom and the other into a study.

Schiller was extremely satisfied with the house. But besides the traffic problem, the price was also a big issue.

Even in today's crashing real estate market, this house was selling for more than what Schiller had paid for the Viscount Manor, and it was significantly more expensive.

If it weren't for the high price Harley paid for the manor, Schiller would never have been able to afford this building.

But this was normal. After all, the house had no flaws in any aspect, and its location was the center of the center. If this weren't expensive, the global real estate market would have collapsed.

Many people thought that large villas and manors in America would be very expensive, but in reality, it depended on the location. The prime locations in those big cities were certainly expensive, but the vast majority of those in remote and older areas were not as high-priced as imagined.

Especially those old houses with stone structures, which required paying a lot of taxes during transactions and were hard to sell. And since owners had to pay high property taxes every year, they might drive the price very low if they were desperate to sell.

To put it plainly, in countries where land could be traded, the land itself was what was truly valuable. Such a piece of prime land in the center of a mega-city could basically be called a family heirloom.

The more Schiller thought about it, the more tempted he became. Although he had thought about trying to create some incidents to pick up a bargain, such methods could only be used for non-prime land. For prime land like this, it wouldn't drop in price no matter how many people died.

Schiller didn't rush the transaction. After seeing the house, he returned to Cat Getan University, preparing his lessons while thinking about the house.

Schiller could afford this house, so as long as he made up his mind, he could get it directly; the rest was just solving the traffic problem.

Schiller thought about it, and it wasn't entirely impossible. Although Cat Getan's surface world had traffic jams, the inner world didn't. He could go through the inner world.

He could drive from the downtown house to the Cat Getan Academy of Magic in the inner world, and then return to the surface world, which would bring him back to Cat Getan University.

Thinking of the Cat Getan Academy of Magic, Schiller couldn't help but think of Sivana, who also managed the academy, saying that there were more and more graduates from the magic academy now, and many of them planned to stay in Cat Getan, having built their own activity area in the inner world, which seemed to be in that downtown area.

Thinking of this, Schiller stood up from his desk. He decided to drive over and take a look.

He entered the inner world first and took a tour of the magic academy. It was still the same, just with many more students. Those children with magical talent who should have become magic apprentices were all studying here.

Schiller also saw Victor leading Billy toward Lady Up-Town's office. Now, many of these magic-side entities were stationed at the magic academy, responsible for managing and maintaining the magical defense network.

Driving in the inner world, Schiller headed all the way downtown. There were absolutely no traffic jams here, because the number of magic academy students, even adding up several graduating classes, didn't reach a fraction of Cat Getan's surface population.

Because of this, most of the inner world was empty like a ghost town, with only the area near Cat Getan University being a bit lively.

The inner world had basically achieved communism, because houses and land didn't cost money, and resources were basically infinite. Except for the fact that the population was indeed too small, it could be considered an ideal form of human society.

Schiller also saw some non-human things on the road, such as sprites, centaurs, and fairies. And the closer to the downtown area, the more of these non-human existences there were.

The center of the downtown disk in the inner world was the World Tree, and the portals to Maia and other magical planes were opened there. Many different species would come here to play.

Logically speaking, this newly opened magical space should have been developed by various groups immediately, but alas, the major magical planes were also sparsely populated. They weren't as desperate for living space as humans, and since they lived well in their own homes, there was no need to move.

Although human cities looked novel, they weren't very suitable for them to live in. So most were just here for sightseeing.

Approaching the downtown area, there was finally some human presence. The houses around the Rotary were clearly inhabited, but they were different from the high-rise buildings in the real world. Here, they were small buildings one after another, looking just like a medieval town.

Finding a place to park, Schiller entered the nearest alley, suddenly feeling like he was strolling through Diagon Alley.

To be fair, it was really a bit like Diagon Alley. They sold all sorts of messy magical items, just not as orderly. Most shops sold everything, selling both human specialties—like some books, clothes, metal products, and even handguns; and specialties brought by magical creatures, such as various leathers, biological scales and horns, and some magical materials.

Schiller strolled around and found it quite novel. The currency used here was Mithril, which seemed to be an alchemical product of gold and silver, but in essence, it was still gold.

When he reached the street corner, Schiller found a currency exchange shop that accepted US dollars.

This wasn't surprising; mages also had to live in the real world. For example, Constantine and Zatanna should come here to sell some things for money so they wouldn't starve to death.

After checking the price of Mithril, Schiller felt it was okay. It was almost exactly half of today's gold price, and the purchasing power was quite strong, at least stronger than the US dollar.

After a tour, Schiller had some inspiration.

Many of the magical materials sold here were not just magical materials, or rather, if you didn't use magic to process them, they weren't magical materials. They looked like shiny stones or parts of unknown creatures.

Without any magical function, they were quite novel just to look at. For example, unicorn horns—there were basically no horns of this shape in the real world; and fish-dragon scales, half a meter in diameter, sparkling and looking very cool.

Even without mentioning their role in the magical world, many people would be willing to buy them just as ornaments.

And there were some roughly processed handicrafts brought by magical creatures, such as daggers carved from bones, paintings woven from certain plants, etc. When they came to travel, they would bring some such things to exchange for money.

Because such things weren't as useful as raw materials in the magical world, the acquisition price was very low. Converted, you could buy them for a few dozen dollars, or even a few dollars.

After all, many magical creatures had infinite lifespans, and their time wasn't worth money; the raw materials used were everywhere and weren't worth money either. They didn't think they could sell for a high price, so the acquisition price was naturally very low.

Schiller felt he could acquire such trinkets and sell them in the shop as Cat Getan tourist souvenirs, which should sell quite well.

That's right, Schiller decided to open a tourist souvenir shop, only selling strange things from the magical world. If he decorated the shop well, it should attract quite a few people.

Schiller didn't expect to make a fortune; he would be satisfied if he could earn enough to pay the annual property taxes.

But of course, he couldn't watch the shop himself. Schiller looked at his phone; his new home didn't need a butler, and his butler was about to return, so it was time to find him a new job.

But before that, he had to find Pamela and add a layer of protection to all the decorative plants in the shop and any plant products that might need to be stocked, to prevent Merkel from wiping them all out.

?? Diablo 3 activated!

? (End of Chapter)