chsdbacks Page 322
Page 322
But now it seems that it might only be the demand of a portion of the Black Hat squad. Those Black Hat members with different motives might not even know each other and have no vested interests.
There is now a very good way to verify your hypothesis.
You turned your attention back to the woman who was seated across the long table. You smiled and nodded at her, then gently squeezed Silver Shul's hand beside you, gesturing for her to draw the curtains. Then, under the woman's puzzled gaze, you asked:
"Madam, please allow me to extend my greetings to the Black Hat Cult. I wonder how 'Your Excellency' has been lately?"
[Bang! The broker was startled and her body jerked backward, causing her and the chair behind her to crash to the ground.]
"You... Your Excellency, City Lord..." Ignoring her throbbing head, she quickly stood up and asked, "Do you know this 'Your Excellency'?"
[Successful bluff! You couldn't help but secretly cheer yourself on. Although you'd only heard of these terms and didn't actually understand them, the combination actually made it seem quite convincing.]
"I wouldn't say we know each other, we just met once before I became the city lord." You gestured for her to help you sit down, then carefully continued, "Back then, 'Your Excellency' and I had a long talk about things like the magic network and personal ideals, but unfortunately, I'm just a warrior and not very interested in those topics, so we parted ways."
"Oh, I see..." Upon hearing this, the broker's doubt vanished instantly. The city lord's description and "Your Excellency's" actual appearance matched perfectly. The fact that they had only met once meant there was no need to be too nervous. She breathed a sigh of relief, leaned back in her chair, and said with a smile:
"Why didn't you say earlier, Lord City Lord, that you have a connection with my Black Hat Holy Cult? I was forced to treat you like a stranger. How rude of me... I really should apologize to you properly!"
[She then took out a glass lamp from the dimensional rift and introduced it, "This is a 'Star-Fixing Lamp' from the overseas highlands. Keeping it burning continuously in your city will increase the starlight. Although it won't benefit you personally, it can increase the growth rate of the magical herbs you cultivate… Therefore, I'm giving it to you as a welcoming gift."]
[You raised an eyebrow. This middleman lady, as expected of a shrewd businesswoman navigating the complexities of power, really knows how to handle things.]
After a moment's hesitation, instead of giving a direct reply, you smiled slightly, pulled out several alchemical tools from thin air, and said:
"You're too kind, madam. In that case, I'm happy to place my trust in you. These are just a few ordinary alchemical tools. If you find them suitable, I'd like to consign them to your name, as a way of establishing a good relationship."
"Alchemy..." The broker's smile gradually turned serious. She leaned forward slightly, her fists clenching involuntarily. She was acutely aware of the significance of alchemy. Looking at your nonchalant expression, she suddenly recalled the description she found when researching information about Titania after their initial meeting: "An ancient race, once dominating the world."
She took a deep breath and nodded slightly.
[Your partnership is now established. After the broker gave you a preliminary valuation of your alchemy tools, she paid you a deposit using her own funds. Once she sells the tools elsewhere, she will pay the remaining balance based on the final price.]
You breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Titania's credibility had been initially established. After that, when others saw the newly added alchemical items on the list, although they wouldn't get answers from the broker, a quick check of their intelligence would reveal that your mysterious Titania was among the newly emerging powers.
Before she left, you frankly asked her about the new mission from the capital. Although the targets of the missions were also members of the Black Hat organization, the broker told you nonchalantly that you could go ahead and eliminate these targets without the Black Hat organization becoming hostile towards you.
This confirms your hypothesis that the Black Hat organization actually uses different management models for different levels. The damage suffered by these lower and middle-class individuals is completely insignificant to the Black Hat organization, and their true purpose remains to be further investigated.
[From this perspective, the imperial capital's order to eliminate the Black Hat organization doesn't necessarily mean anything; it might just be a smokescreen, or perhaps a way to appease the noble class who have been harmed by the Black Hats.]
[However, thinking about it this way, the capital city has indeed given you a stepping stone to settling in. At least after dealing with the remaining Black Hat members of the Bernard family, the nobles of the capital city will be slightly more friendly to you, a mysterious outsider family.]
After figuring all this out, you breathed a long sigh of relief. It seems your progress is still on track.
[You and Teacher Yin spent the entire night decorating the city lord's mansion with the puppets. As dawn approached, after a passionate encounter with a drowsy Teacher Yin, you transformed into a giant dragon and flew towards your destination.]
[Gintoki's Holy Grail energy gave you a very strange change: a disguised dragon, plus the ability to multitask.]
[You tried out your new ability. Disguise can be used not only on a dragon's body but also on your human form. While in disguise, you can slightly customize your appearance, but it won't actually change your true nature.]
Simply put, you can sculpt a tall, beautiful woman to fool others, but they can still touch your Bull Demon King.
[However, multitasking is not so easy to use. It's not the kind of ability that allows you to create separate personalities for self-cultivation, but rather something like triple chanting. You can cast three spells simultaneously, but others can only observe one. It's truly an essential ability for a cunning and ruthless person.]
Of course, you can activate three combat skills simultaneously, but since warrior combat skills involve large movements, it's not very convenient to multitask. You can't exactly use "Liquid Surge" while simultaneously using other combat skills like "Griffin-style Aerial Stake Strike," can you? ...Wait, it actually seems possible?
[But that image is just too terrifying... Even you, when imagining that scene, can't help but gasp and show the expression of an old man staring at his phone on the subway.]
After thinking for a moment, you disguised yourself as an ordinary dragon-shaped monster and flew straight to the now-ruined territory of the Bernard family.
Following Viscount Bernard's death, the remaining wealth of his family was quickly seized, and the Bernard family's fiefdoms were revoked after Miss Geeta, now a Dark Knight, declared her renunciation of the family's past honors.
Now, only ordinary people remain here, gathering their remaining belongings in preparation for a difficult autumn and winter.
Distinguishing the Black Hat members from the civilians isn't easy. If you had the telepathic abilities you suspect the bird might have given you, it should be easy to solve, but it's not without its challenges.
[Soon, you infiltrated the villagers undercover. After two days, you successfully overheard a conversation between two members of the Black Hat organization and, following the clues, uncovered the rest of the Black Hat members.]
However, you discover a very serious problem: according to them, the Black Hat captain who once commanded Viscount Bernard is no longer here. These ordinary Black Hat members were simply commoners who joined the organization out of necessity after the Viscount's downfall.
After a moment of contemplation, you made your decision.
[Shortly afterward, a review report on your mission was sent to the capital. The report detailed how the civilians encountered a ferocious dragon, some of whom were killed, while the remaining civilians were transported to Silverpath Town by a passing Titania family carriage.]
Your investiture as viscount is in the preparation stage and will be sent to Titania after verification by the Noble Council in the capital.
Meanwhile, in the city lord's mansion of Titania, you watch from outside the city as the "attacked" civilians build new homes.
Yes, after some consideration, you gathered all the ordinary Black Hat members and brought them back to Titania City. Since they hadn't done anything wrong, you didn't need to eliminate them because of their status. Coincidentally, the construction of the Viscount's territory was about to begin, so you simply made them your first residents, living on the mainland outside the floating island.
[At this point, your outer city of Titania is taking shape. Once the Mage Tower within Titania is completed, you will become a newly registered mage of the Mage Guild, collaborating and communicating with them in a completely new capacity, and witnessing them gradually extend the network of Lundia to you.]
Meanwhile, the Floating Island families have finally discovered the birth of the new floating island. After initial negotiations, you will be invited to the receiving island to establish a base, build relations with other families, form alliances, or engage in business cooperation.
You let out a long breath. After these weeks of intense, back-to-back work, you're finally able to become the bridgehead for the girls in your family to access a wide range of influences.
From this moment forward, you will officially step into the realm of Atlantis, where you will uncover all its conspiracies and schemes.
Chapter 323 Do They Mine Bitcoin in Another World Too?
Time flies, and a year later, when you receive another mission from the capital, you are now a sixth-ring mage and legendary warrior.
[During this year, your influence has flourished. The Viscountry of Titania has attracted nearly a hundred residents to settle here. Including the traveling caravans and temporary travelers, the total population of the Viscountry has reached approximately three hundred.]
Among your subjects are many civilians who were lured into the Black Hat organization. You secretly worked tirelessly, taking advantage of the Black Hat's lower and middle ranks being off guard, to rescue these civilians who were about to be used as dogs. Although this had no impact on the Black Hat organization, at least you saved these unfortunate souls' lives.
[After you brought them back, they belatedly realized what kind of organization they had joined, so putting everything else aside, their loyalty to you is off the charts.]
The prosperity of the viscountry has brought you substantial tax revenue. Although it's only just beginning, the incremental growth during this development phase is even more significant. Furthermore, after the capital verified your achievements, nobles have begun visiting you frequently.
[Your mage tower, just as you had envisioned, is now filled with generators and stabilizers for the magic network nodes that the robin secretly created for you. After completing a mission for the Mage Guild, you changed the entire modification plan to amplify the magic network signal, leaving your mage tower covered in magic runes like tally marks, all to the bewildered look of the receptionist.]
[By the way, your mage tower was ultimately made in the shape of the Titan, but it wasn't intentional. You were away on business at the time, and when you came back, the puppets had already built the mage tower like this. The serious-natured Silver Teacher always wanted to adjust the shape to be more normal, but unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't overcome the Titan servants' mental imprint.]
In short, you had no choice but to reluctantly (or gleefully) accept the shape of your mage tower. After some research and experimentation, you were pleasantly surprised to find that when you used "Orianna's Mobile Turret" to summon a mage tower projection in the wild, your mage domain, or personal magic network, could be expanded to a diameter of five kilometers.
In other words, when you summon a mage tower projection in the wild, the magic network within a five-kilometer radius is under your control.
At this moment, you feel like a low-budget version of the Magic Goddess, or maybe even less busty than her. Having tried on the Queen's Bra before, you're incredibly confident in your bra size.
Aside from that, you maintained normal contact with the Mage Association, upholding a good cooperative relationship through continuous trade in materials unique to the floating islands.
The Mage Guild has also laid out infrastructure all the way to your viscountty's gate. Ironically, you inadvertently encountered a bug: when choosing the location for the Mage Tower, they didn't seem to care that you chose a location further east. After all, there are many commoner buildings in the east, and laying out infrastructure eastward is beneficial for the commoners.
[But they didn't expect the location you chose to be so far away. When the mage in charge of the inspection came to find your mage tower, he almost thought he had accidentally wandered into some ancient ruin.]
In short, the wealthy association didn't express any dissatisfaction, and once the road infrastructure along the route was completed, various shops from the surrounding area of Lundia opened along the road.
Even now, although theoretically your mage tower should belong to Lundia, in the eyes of others, Lundia has extended a road specifically for your territory. Thus, in popular lore, this road is known as the "Titanian Passage."
[The interactions with the floating island families have not yet deepened. Firstly, your position of fifty-first place is too low for the upper-level families. Secondly, the reshuffling among the lower-level families is intensifying, and seeing that you have no intention of forming an alliance, they have isolated you from the outside world and are no longer including you in their activities.]
[And the reception point you set up on the reception island was simply a small stall, with two puppets there to receive each issue of the "Floating Island Bulletin" for you. Watching from afar every day is quite a unique experience.]
[However, you weren't completely idle. Exactly one year after you completed the construction of Titania, Hines City faced two probing attacks. With your covert assistance, you repelled the invaders without revealing any of Hines City's strength.]
Lord Hines tells you that he didn't inform Jennifer of this matter. As a member of a floating island family, these kinds of things are bound to happen to some extent. However, he is still very grateful for your help. For this reason, he specially made an incognito visit to your city of Titania and custom-built a super private bathhouse for you.
You silently noted down this time, intending to help your father-in-law in real life as well.
[However, Jennifer has also been quite busy lately. Over the past year, you've visited the Holy City of Promia several times to meet with the Pope and discuss the strange occurrences in the Holy City of Promia. After learning that the light of will had begun to leak from underground, the Pope became very serious and convened several meetings. As a relative of a knight of the Church of Light, you were also invited to attend these meetings.]
At the meeting, the Pope did not express any attitude towards the Will of Light; he merely stated that one should try to avoid contact with the Will of Light in private, and also avoid contact with the demons from the underworld.
[In addition, he summoned the Dark Knight Holnet for a private meeting with you and Jennifer. It was during this meeting that he told you that he did not believe the so-called "Will of Light" was a true God of Light. On the contrary, he had accidentally come into contact with the Will of Light when he was young, and since then he believed that the Will of Light was insane, perhaps a remnant of some kind of being that once possessed divinity.]
[Hollnit was tasked with investigating the leak of the Will of Light, while Jennifer remained in the Holy City of Promea, using her pure light abilities to assist the Pope in researching how to resist the Will of Light's mental invasion. Yes, she believed that Pope Toyla of Romnia had already been controlled by the Will of Light.]
[Actually, you did manage to sneak back to the original location of Tree Peak Village for a look, but it seems the canyon has been sealed off by human intervention.]
[Upon leaving the holy city of Promea, you discover Jennifer's apprentice, Leafa, confronting a helmeted young Dark Knight. After some investigation, you learn that the girl is none other than Leafa's former best friend, Geeta, the daughter of Viscount Bernard. The two girls lost contact after she silently became a Dark Knight.]
[You were a bit troubled by the broken friendship between the little girls, so you bought them a box of latte tarts from a dessert shop in the holy city. Surprisingly, this childish gesture seemed to actually work; in any case, they finally started talking before you left.]
[Speaking of girls, in the end you still couldn't bear to lock your own girls up in the Herod Mage Territory. Over the past year, while you've been observing, the name of the Herod Mage Territory has gradually disappeared from public view.]
After some investigation, you concluded that the Herod Mage's territory should no longer be in the intelligence networks of those forces. Therefore, you allowed them to visit you in Titania from time to time, like ordinary civilians. In return, you obtained the abilities of the Mind Dragon and the Undead Dragon from the little bird and Yashutia.
[By the way, after Little Bird disappeared from Bogu Academy, Bald Mugo very timely attracted public attention. And coincidentally, he came out to work as an apprentice civil mage in Titania City. A year later, he has also temporarily settled there and become the captain of your territory's civil engineering team.]
Every time you watch his civil engineering team building houses on your land, you really want to give him a white hard hat. He's so dedicated, Bald Mugo! No wonder he's the man who inherited your civil engineering bible.
That concludes our recap of your power building efforts. There's one more crucial matter: your negotiations with the Black Hat organization.
Thanks to the efforts of the shrewd merchant, Ms. Broker, your alchemical tools have gained fame. Driven by profit, Ms. Broker, accompanied by a high-ranking member of the Black Hat organization, came to visit you and formally established diplomatic relations on behalf of the Black Hat organization.
This Black Hat executive is the broker's direct superior, codenamed "Dark Money," and is a key figure in the Black Hat organization responsible for managing the inter-factional financial dealings.
[You silently criticized the code name in your mind, then discussed the cooperation details with them.]
From them, you learn that there are currently three major economic groups outside the Kingdom of Norard: the first is the "Headless Instant Food Union," which brings together warriors of Andora blood and warrior traveling groups; the second is the "Illegal Merchants' Guild," an underground trading company of the Yanium United Nations; and the third is the "Witch God Society" in the southeastern region of the Atlantic continent.
[You seem somewhat surprised that the Black Hat organization's reach extends so far. As you know from your experience as a diplomat in the previous simulation, even the Kingdom of Norard itself hasn't established genuine trade relations with these regions.]
After finalizing the cooperation details, you agreed on a regular supply schedule for alchemy tools and received payment from them.
However, before they left, they asked if you wanted to join the "Black Hat Coin" system. Hearing this somewhat unfamiliar term, you decided to be cautious and didn't join for the time being.
The black money and the middleman weren't bothered; they cheerfully left you two "black hat coins" and then departed.
[And this will surprise you, because "Black Hat Coin" is actually a type of cryptocurrency!]
Seeing the special message "Black Hat Coins: 2" appear on your magic network panel, you suddenly felt a chill run down your spine. Although you clearly felt that their magic network fluctuations were still under your control when they transferred Black Hat Coins to you, so you didn't stop them, this already proved one fact: the magic network had already, at least a small part of its permissions had been cracked by the Black Hat organization!
[You suddenly recall the magic network key that Atelier stole from the Black Hats in Dragonhorn Territory. Could it be that the Black Hats discovered a way to crack the magic network by hunting down cyber police?]
This incident has had a significant impact on you, but fortunately, you are absolutely certain that your personal magic network and the original magic network are completely different entities. Therefore, even if the Black Hat has the ability to grasp the foundation of the original magic network, it cannot shake you in the slightest.
But what is the purpose of this "Black Hat Coin" system created by the black hat organization?
You paused for a moment, then frowned.
Considering their collaborations with economic groups around the world, do they intend to replace the ever-fluctuating physical currency and build a stable digital currency system? However, the essence of currency is national credit. As an organization operating in secrecy, where does the Black Hat organization get the credit to persuade others to use their currency?
Although I don't know exactly how the Black Hat organization intends to achieve its goals, my past experiences tell me that cryptocurrencies are highly unreliable, especially when their production volume is unverifiable. They can easily become tools for exploiting unsuspecting investors... Could it be that the Black Hat organization is planning to use this to amass wealth across the entire continent?
You took a deep breath, your vigilance towards the Black Hats rising even higher; this organization simply had a terrifying number of cards to play.
At this moment, the mission notice from the capital city draws your attention back to the internal structure of the Kingdom of Norard. As you unfold the notice, a sense of curiosity arises within you. You've only been a viscount for a year; is the capital city planning to elevate your rank again? You haven't even responded to the nobles' invitations to reside in the capital yet.
Upon seeing the mission reward, you couldn't help but touch your chin in surprise. The capital really was planning to promote you to earl in just one year.
However, upon seeing the mission objective, your brow immediately furrowed.
[Mission Objective: Eliminate the small group of Black Hat spies led by their chief, Torso, within the Twin Gorges Territory.]