Chapter 90: Hidden Details Beneath the Big Business (23)

Two hours later, the refreshed Knight Maxim appeared again in the government study, the gloom accumulated between his brows completely dissipated.

Luosen poured him a cup of frostfire wine: "Try this local specialty wine?"

Thank you.

Knight Maxim took a big sip, sighed satisfiedly, then said: "The ladies love it, even admiring me because of it."

This feeling is truly wonderful, simply more wonderful than becoming a king! And the exhilaration of the eagle soaring through the sky afterward made him deeply enamored.

Toward Luosen, who brought all this to him, Knight Maxim felt deep gratitude, even feeling that Luosen was more affectionate than his parents.

After all, the body given by his parents had caused him years of pain, while this Baron gave him a wonderful new life!

Sipping the frostfire liquor mouthful by mouthful, he unconsciously recalled the fierce passion just then, and Knight Maxim unknowingly drank it all.

He looked at Luosen with eager anticipation.

"Baron, eighty percent of the cargo I brought this time is actually mine; I originally planned to profit from the new route's opening, but now I decide to give it all to you as my lifetime transformation fee."

Luosen felt a slight tremor in his heart: "Truly worthy of being a scion of the Levinde noble house—what audacity!"

According to his estimate, the total value of this shipment exceeds 200,000 Ogres; eighty percent is 160,000. Even if transformed once a year until age fifty, each transformation would cost over 5,000 Ogres.

Moreover, paying for thirty years of service in one lump sum shows great sincerity.

Should he accept?

Of course he cannot accept.

Because Knight Maxim is currently excited, he spoke too extravagantly and will surely regret it later.

To conduct long-term trade, both parties must feel they stand to profit, not just seek petty gains.

Thus, he put on a righteous expression and said: "Knight, you are truly generous, but I cannot abandon the principle of honest trade just because of your generosity."

"Ah?" Knight Maxim blinked, somewhat not understanding.

Luosen earnestly explained: "I am granting you the 'Fine Transformation Technique'. According to my usual pricing, one session costs 2,000 Ogres."

"Considering a man's desire typically lasts until age sixty before fading completely, once a year, a Count would need 35 sessions."

"So calculated, even if the Knight purchases lifetime transformation service, the total would be only 70,000 Ogres. Therefore, the Knight is giving too much."

Knight Maxim's earlier impulse was just a momentary rush from the liquor; now he already regrets it a bit, because this sum is truly substantial—not something he alone can decide.

Hearing Luosen say that, he secretly felt lucky and quickly went along with the suggestion: "Oh, I see; then let's go with the Baron's suggestion of 70,000 Ogres."

After saying that, he felt deeply ashamed, admiring the other's noble character while also feeling somewhat sorry, secretly thinking: "I must compensate in other ways."

Thus, he composed himself and began to discuss business seriously.

"Baron, I originally intended to unload the cargo on your island and then go to Shire County to purchase more goods."

"But here I discovered a fine thing: a black box shaped like a square, which people call the Lightning Messenger."

"I also looked into it and found it excellent, far better than the commonly used psychic transmission."

"I wonder, is it for sale?"

Luosen had been waiting for those words, because since Knight Maxim arrived on the island, he had been monitoring his every move via the Detect Guard, and could pretty much guess his thoughts.

At the same time, he had made the corresponding preparations.

He put on a troubled expression: "This is my latest research department's Lightning Communication artifact, one of the few good things on my island—I really don't want to sell it."

After saying that, seeing Knight Maxim's disappointed face, he put on a reluctant expression, gritted his teeth, as if making a difficult decision.

"If the Knight truly wants it, I can certainly sell it, but developing this artifact cost me considerable effort and money."

"So, I only sell the finished product, not the forging manual; one Lightning Messenger costs 1,000 Ogres, and you should at least buy—well, not two, but 100 units."

The Lightning Communication artifact he currently has on hand is one whose performance he has carefully trimmed.

Its reliable transmission range is only fifty kilometers; it contains no battery, instead using the most ordinary lightning lattice, lacks solar charging capability, and must be charged by a mage when used.

Its performance is somewhat better than psychic transmission, but not by much, and there is no major leap forward.

It can be anticipated that the buyer will surely try to crack it, but Luosen is not at all afraid of being cracked.

Because he installed a very simple and crude spell lock on the artifact's core component; aside from brute-force calculation with transistor-era supercomputing power, there is no other way to crack it.

Such an artifact costs about 80 Ogres to make and sells for 1,000 Ogres—he makes a killing.

Knight Maxim naturally does not know the inside story.

Seeing Luosen's pained expression, he thought a bit and assumed he understood Luosen's intention.

"He probably thinks that after I return I'll find someone to crack it, and lacking confidence in preventing cracking, he only intends a one-time purchase with me."

Of course, if it were someone else, he would surely try every means to get the other's forging manual, but this Baron cannot—his happiness for the rest of his life still depends on the other's help.

Thinking that, he readily nodded and agreed: "A hundred sets is too few; I'll order two hundred sets."

It's not that he's being recklessly generous; he has carefully observed that the Lightning Messenger is indeed a rare fine thing, absolutely easy to sell.

He buys two hundred sets and brings them back to Levinde, then resells them to various arcane academies and mage towers for lightning mage research; not only will he not lose money, he might even recoup the cost of the transformation technique.

Two hundred units equal 200,000 Ogres; adding the previous 70,000 Ogres for transformation gives 270,000 Ogres; subtracting the 170,000 Ogres worth of materials leaves him still owing the Baron 100,000 Ogres.

Knight Maxim naturally brought cash and had no intention of using any tricks on Luosen; after reaching an agreement, he told his attendant Ade: "Pay up."

Ade readily produced a stack of anonymous banknotes from Dawn Bank, fifty notes total, each with a face value of 2,000 Ogres. He was about to hand them to Luosen when Luosen raised a hand to stop him: "Wait~"

Knight Maxim blinked: "How come? You won't accept the banknotes?"

Luosen said nothing, took the banknote from Ade's hand, and carefully felt the special spell seal on it.

This spell seal is essentially a high-level constant spell lock with Four-ring; its encryption uses numeric password encryption, with a length of 28 digits.

Nowadays, this password encryption is already sufficiently secure; no one can break it.

And the Four-ring's constant strength guarantees the spell lock remains effective for at least thirty years, enough for the banknotes' use.

But for some reason, these banknotes before him made Luosen feel something was off, as if they were somewhat different from the Dawn Bank notes he had seen before.

He asked: "Knight, where did these banknotes come from?"

At present, only he, Knight Maxim, and Ade are in the study, so he asked directly.

Marksim hesitated a moment, but still answered truthfully: "For this transaction, I urgently exchanged it at a private bank in Levinde; after all, this item is easy to carry."

While he spoke, Luosen kept his head down, looking at the deposit slip in his hand, without making eye contact with Marksim.

This was to relax his vigilance.

Actually, he was using the Detect Guard perspective to carefully observe the microexpressions on Marksim's and Ade's faces.

The observation showed that Marksim was not lying.

Moreover, he indeed had no need to lie to himself; 100,000 Ogres was not a particularly large amount for him, and he still had a request of himself.

But a faint doubt flashed in the eyes of the attendant Ade, as if he recalled something unusual.

He also didn't hide it, and just said it directly.

"Young master, this batch of deposit slips was exchanged at the Aure family bank. When I exchanged them, he casually asked me about the purpose of the deposit slips."

"I certainly didn't tell him, but during the exchange, a bank manager suddenly appeared and took over a batch of new Morning Dawn deposit slips."

"That teller then handed this batch of new deposit slips to me."

"Young master, you know this is a normal operation at the bank; I also checked and confirmed the deposit slips were fine, so I took them back."

While Ade was explaining, Marksim also picked up a deposit slip and examined it closely.

But he didn't notice any problem, and he didn't think there was one: "This is exactly the same as the Morning Dawn deposit slips I've used before, and bank deposit slips simply cannot be forged."

"Setting aside the magical seal on the magical lock, this is also a parent-child voucher. Even if someone really had the ability to forge the circulating child voucher, they couldn't match it with the parent voucher held by the bank."

Luosen smiled and nodded: "Knight makes sense; I also have no doubt about the authenticity of these deposit slips. I simply want to know the details of the currency trade between our two countries."

"Because I originally thought Knight would pay with Levinde's Gold Seat coins."

He said it naturally, and Marksim had no suspicion.

He smiled, took out a few exquisitely styled gold coins from his pocket: "I happen to have brought some Gold Seat coins; Knight, would you like to take them as a keepsake?"

Luosen nodded, interested: "Thank you very much; your country's coin minting technique is superb, the coins are extremely beautiful, I have always liked them, but unfortunately our two countries are too far apart, so we rarely see them."

He received the gold coin, placed it in his hand, and admired it carefully.

Gold Seat, with 99.9% gold content, each weighing 8.9 grams of gold, slightly lighter than the 10-gram Gold Ogre, but indeed much more exquisite than the Gold Ogre.

Next, Luosen promptly put away the 50 Morning Dawn bank deposit slips of 2000 denomination that Ade had handed over.

The transaction completed, but Marksim did not rush to leave.

He smiled and said: "Baron, I see your island is short of manpower; do you need me to bring over a batch?"

Luosen's heart stirred: "How so, Knight, do you have a way?"

Nowadays, every lord regards his subjects as sheep in his own pen, watching them closely and not allowing population outflow easily.

But he indeed is in great need of people, because the current population of his subjects is truly too few, far insufficient to undertake major undertakings.

To realize his plan, he needs at least an additional 150,000 people, and moreover, many mages are required.

Marksim nodded: "Next to Levinde, the Duchy of Westilia has experienced a rare massive flood; after the disaster, countless refugees emerged, and order in the disaster zone has almost completely collapsed. Baron, if you want them, I will try to arrange their transport."

"Of course, the price will be somewhat higher, since the new route's dividend is gone, but a young, healthy man or woman under thirty will not exceed 50 Ogres."

"Of course, those with special talents are calculated separately."

"Although trafficking people is actually quite troublesome, Marksim feels indebted and also sees Luosen's ambition, so he intends to lend a hand."

"This can be considered an investment for the future."

Luosen nodded without hesitation: "Yes, send them over however many you can."

Thus, the two began to discuss the details carefully.

After confirming the complete details of the next transaction, the two also carried out the handover of the 'Lightning Messenger'.

After confirming the goods were fine, Marksim lingered not a moment, and quickly left White Sturgeon Island.

After he left, Luosen took out again the 50 bank deposit slips he had received earlier, examining them one by one.

His expression grew increasingly solemn; then he stood up, sent this batch of deposit slips to the Magic Method Laboratory, and handed them to his true self for a more thorough inspection.

Today some things were delayed, so the third update will be a bit late.

(End of chapter)