Chapter 176

This morning.

In Weilan's new capital Montania, a conspicuous reward notice was posted on the bulletin board in front of the government building.

"Weilan Citizen Bank" is about to launch a new bank deposit certificate, but the duke worries that forged deposit certificates may appear again in the market, so he hereby issues a heavy reward.

"If anyone can successfully forge the deposit certificate in the sample and pass the inspection of a test team of 100 merchants, they will receive a reward of 10,000 Ogres."

"This reward will be announced throughout the Natural Alliance; if no one can successfully forge it within three months, the Weilan Citizen Bank will trial a new anonymous small-denomination deposit certificate."

Along with the announcement, five exquisite new deposit certificate samples were also released.

As soon as the reward was announced, it immediately attracted huge social attention.

This is a reward of 10,000 Ogres!

Put on Earth, that would be a super-high reward of 15 million yuan; in the Natural Alliance, where competition is almost absurd, this sum is enough to drive countless people crazy.

Within a few hours, everyone in Montania City knew the content of the reward.

Moreover, the reward-related notice was not only posted in Monte County, but also throughout Weilan, and even in front of the Weilan embassies in Aaron, Kao, and Levinde.

The power of gold coins is immense.

Within less than five days, almost the entire Natural Alliance knew of Weilan's high-value reward.

The great nobles of the Natural Alliance naturally looked down on 10,000 Ogres, but commoners and minor nobles were greedy for it.

Thus, countless printing shops and mages who thought themselves capable began trying to imitate it.

This matter naturally also reached the royal courts of various countries.

Aaron.

King Dange and Luosen had been pulling a saw back and forth over the air for half a month, talking until their mouths were dry several times, and finally set the compensation amount at 18 million Ogres.

Dange simply directly shipped 180 tons of lion gold coins by ship to Weilan, exchanging them for forty thousand naval officers and forty sailing warships.

Naturally, Aaron and Weilan also reconciled and resumed normal trade.

At this time, he took a break from his busy schedule, took the new deposit certificate sample given by the Weilan embassy, and examined it repeatedly.

"It looks pretty nice; can we forge it?"

He was asking the chief of the Lion Mint Bureau, Knight Liaopu, who is also an Arcane Master of commoner origin.

Previously he was the deputy chief; after the chief was killed, he naturally took over the position.

Liaopu had already done thorough preparation.

He shook his head: "Your Majesty, printing paper isn't difficult; if you're truly willing to spend money, we could even do better than this."

The difficulty lies in the three-color seal, which contains extremely precise arcane knowledge; all the mages in the bureau have tried every means but cannot crack it.

Storm's Eye Sanqest was also there; he took the sample handed over by Dange, carefully examined the arcane seal, and then drew a conclusion.

It looks like a mixture of natural divine power, steel divine power, and a very peculiar pure water force; it must have been personally designed by Duke Weilan.

The implication of this statement is that to crack it, one must first have sufficient perception ability.

In other words, one's magical strength must reach the same seven rings as the duke.

The Aaron Kingdom has no seven-ring experts; the highest is only five rings.

Dange shrugged: "Looks like there's no need to go to the trouble."

Knight Liaopu, however, had a concern: "Your Majesty, we cannot forge Weilan's deposit certificate, but Weilan might be able to forge ours."

"If I say 'if', if Duke Weilan is like Levinde, then the Lion Bank could suffer heavy losses."

Upon hearing this, everyone present furrowed their brows.

The incident of Weilan Dawn Bank's explosion is still fresh in memory; it directly drove Duke Laide to a deserted island to plant potatoes. If the same happened in Aaron, Dange could hardly imagine the consequences.

He lightly tapped the desk, remained silent for a while, then said: "Can we not use deposit certificates, but only full-value gold and silver currency?"

Knight Liaopu immediately shook his head: "Your Majesty, that won't do; it would greatly hinder market transactions. Duke Weilan saw this point, which is why he rushed to launch the new deposit certificate."

Sanqest whispered: "Perhaps we could negotiate with Duke Weilan through political means, getting him to promise not to do this."

Dange shook his head: "It might work in normal times, but if the two countries fall out again, or if he needs money, he will definitely use this trick against us in secret."

Thus, the three people in the study once again fell into worry.

Finally, Knight Liaopu still gave a barely usable step.

Your Majesty, there's no need to worry too much.

After all, the bank deposit slips are mother-child slips; the bank holds the mother slip, while the child slip is outside.

As long as we strictly control the mother slips in the bank, even if the Duke forges them perfectly, it's useless, right?

That's also the case.

The reason Morningstar Bank was exploited is that there was an insider.

This insider is especially cunning; it's said they took advantage of the chaos to flee, and to this day they haven't been caught.

Now that there's a way to deal with the biggest worry, Dange relaxed a bit, but new doubts arose.

The denomination of this deposit slip seems small; it wouldn't be for ordinary people, would it?

Knight Liaopu immediately nodded: "It should be for ordinary people."

Dange didn't quite understand: "Ordinary people transacting with ordinary money is fine; why go to all this trouble to make such a good deposit slip?"

The other two people present also didn't quite understand, not knowing what scheme Duke Weilan was plotting again.

Finally, Sangqiesi said: "Let's wait and see; the answer will soon surface."

The news also naturally reached Kao's palace.

The queen and the three sages likewise gathered to discuss; their conclusion was not much different from Aaron's side—both were hard to imitate, and they also couldn't quite figure out the Duke's tactics.

Thus they also adopted the idea of proceeding steadily and waiting to see.

Finally, the news reached Levinde.

Levinde's little king of Seila's eyes lit up instantly upon seeing the new deposit slip.

"Ahaha, Duke Weilan suffered such a big loss and still dares to do this. Someone, summon the Sage!"

Soon, the frost envoy Laifeng arrived.

He bowed slightly to the little king with a cold expression, addressing him as "Your Majesty."

Seila had long grown accustomed to Laifeng's icy demeanor and simply pushed the deposit slip sample across the table.

"Sage, Duke Weilan is utterly hateful; let's keep forging his deposit slips to ruin him!"

Laifeng shook his head: "Your Majesty, we succeeded last time only because no one had tried it before. Now every country's banks are on guard against this trick, so it probably won't have any effect."

Seila, however, kept shaking his head: "Precisely because everyone thinks that, there is an opportunity."

Seeing Laifeng's expression unchanged, he immediately pleaded: "Sage, just give it a try—if we fail, it's no big deal; what if we succeed?"

Besides, Levinde is far from Duke Weilan; even if he seeks trouble, he can't reach us—he'd just take it out on lowly merchants.

"Sage, our main trading partners are the Radiant Nations; there's no need to worry about what that stupid alliance thinks."

"If they come looking for trouble, we can simply defect to the Radiant Empire. Then that alliance of stupid pigs might even beg us not to leave."

Laifeng listened silently, lowering his head to examine the new deposit slip sample on the table closely.

He glanced at the printing technique, then focused all his attention on the three-color magic seal.

The seal was beautiful and precise—clearly not an ordinary trinket.

"It must be Duke Weilan's doing; he claims to be a Seven-Rings peak mage, but his true level is likely Eight Rings, about on par with me."

"I'd like to see what tricks this youngster has up his sleeve, daring to put a huge bounty on the entire Natural Alliance." Thinking that, he gave a slight nod: "I will try to crack this three-color seal; as for what to do afterward, Your Majesty, you decide."

"Good, good, good, Sage, you're truly kind to me—almost fatherly."

Laifeng thought to himself: "Little thing, you're practically my son!"

Of course, having suffered from speaking too much before, he was now much more cautious: "Your Majesty, please watch your words."

Having said that, he picked up a few deposit slip samples and returned to his Magic Method Laboratory.

Over the following days, he secluded himself in the laboratory, trying every possible method.

He struggled like this for about half a month, yet still couldn't solve it, not even finding a clue.

"This seal is really quite interesting."

Laifeng felt a bit discouraged, but being tenacious, he gritted his teeth and struggled for nearly two months—yet still made no progress.

He had no choice but to give up on doing it himself.

After all, it's just a three-color seal; the other side might have simply made it an utterly unsolvable magic lock, meaning his time was purely wasted.

But after spending nearly two and a half months, he still felt quite unwilling.

After thinking, he went again to the underground secret Magic Method Laboratory.

As before, he summoned that pair of mysterious silver eyes.

"Great Omniscient One, I've encountered a very difficult magical problem."

"This is a proper problem; go ahead and explain."

Laifeng handed over the deposit slip sample, pointing at the three-color seal and said: "There's a permanent magic lock on it that I can't crack; do you have any good solutions?"

As soon as the deposit slip appeared, an impatient voice came from the other side.

"Mage, why do you keep getting tangled up in these meaningless math games? Haven't you had enough of the last one?"

That last one had taken him a long time to solve.

Having communicated many times with this mysterious entity and roughly knowing its temperament, Laifeng immediately exclaimed: "Omniscient One, could you possibly not know the answer?"

"Hmph~ last time!"

With those words, the mysterious Omniscient One fell silent.

Time ticked by; after about half an hour, Laifeng's mana was waning: "Omniscient One, shall we try again next time?"

"Okay, next time I'll give you the answer."

"How long exactly?"

"Five or ten days from now."

"Okay."

After ending the communication, Laifeng inwardly smirked: "Looks like the Omniscient One also has limits—I thought he knew everything."

That said, the other party's knowledge on breaking through the ring barrier was truly effective, helping him easily reach a power level he previously dared not even imagine.

The only downside is that this method has some side effects.

Probably due to an influx of foreign souls, his mind constantly involuntarily spouts all sorts of chaotic thoughts, sometimes even beyond his control.

For a Sage devoted to magic, ten days is nothing more than a blink.

Ten days later, Laifeng stood again in the underground Magic Method Laboratory and opened the communication array with the mysterious Omniscient One.

When the black mist cleared to reveal the silver eyes, the other party spoke first.

"The magic lock on this three-color seal should be unsolvable; no normal mathematical method can crack it."

"But I can use some magical tricks to forge a three-color seal that looks almost identical. Unless one is a Six Rings or higher high-circle mage, it's hard to tell the difference."

"Finally, this forging method is rather cumbersome; do you want to know it?"

"Of course, Great Omniscient One."

The mysterious Omniscient One then told Laifeng the method he had devised.

Laifeng listened carefully, and after hearing it all, he evaluated: "Indeed, it's quite cumbersome, and just memorizing the seal's magic will be costly."

He estimated it would cost at least fifty gold Seila or more.

The mysterious Omniscient One also frankly admitted: "It is indeed expensive, but if applied on a large scale, the cost could be somewhat spread out."

"Don't look at me like that—I certainly know your intention; this sort of thing happens often in my world as well."

But I think you should focus on increasing your magical power instead of engaging in these meaningless forgery games.

La Feng Ge thought his words were correct: 'This is the last time, Great All-Knowing.'

After cutting off contact, he took the deposit slip sample and found his own son, the king: 'I have found the perfect forgery method.'

Oh~ Sage, I knew you could do it.

But forging is troublesome; one forgery might cost 50 gold seals, so only by forging these 100-denomination deposit slips can we make a profit.

While speaking, he noticed his son's complexion looked odd, and he was instantly puzzled: 'What's wrong, Your Majesty?'

The young king blushed: 'Sage, according to the latest news, this 100 is not a gold coin unit but a copper coin unit.'

Such a slip is worth only 100 copper clays.

At a cost of 50 gold seals per forgery, counterfeiting a 100-copper-clay deposit slip would lose 500,000 for 1,000 slips and 5,000,000 for 10,000 slips.

Even a mountain of gold couldn't withstand doing this.

La Feng Ge's heart shuddered, and he felt that the past nearly three months had been a complete waste of time.

Suddenly he heard a voice laughing: 'Ahaha~ this fool~~'

He instinctively thought it was the king laughing, frowned, and asked: 'What did you just say?'

The young king looked strange: 'Sage, I didn't say anything.'

La Feng Ge startled, immediately realizing he was experiencing phantom voices.

You should have told me this crucial information sooner.

After a pause, he said: 'Then forging is pointless, Your Majesty, don't do this.'

Having said that, without waiting for the king's reply, La Feng Ge immediately turned and hurried away.

When emotions fluctuate violently, thoughts in the mind become extremely chaotic, making it easy to experience phantom voices that are hard to distinguish as real or fake.

He must hurry back to the laboratory and stay alone, lest others discover his abnormality.

For this situation, La Feng Ge was mentally prepared.

He kept repeating the words of the mysterious All-Knowing in his heart.

'Seeking swift power demands a price, but this price is only temporary; as time passes, your soul will regain its stability.'

'So, endure for a while, and everything will get better.'

I hope this guy didn't deceive me.

La Feng Ge wasn't sure whether the other party was lying, but he had no choice.

Because of what he is currently doing, he must obtain as much power as possible.

Eight Rings are still not enough; we need Nine Rings, even Ten Rings!

Amidst the bustle of the nations, the headquarters of the Weilan Citizens Bank in Weilan New Capital City, and the first branch of the sub-capital Dawn City, almost simultaneously issued a notice.

The announcement declared that the two banks were about to launch a brand-new anonymous small-denomination deposit certificate service.

(End of chapter)