Quadruple split.

Chapter 2617 Martin Sloan
“What a generous gesture.”

In the bright and spacious room, a human man who was clearly not even fifty years old, yet whose demeanor was far more mature than his age, stood with his hands behind his back in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, admiring the bright lights and bustling traffic outside, a peaceful smile playing on his lips.

This is the guild master's office on the top floor of the Adventurers' Guild, and the person standing by the window 'looking at the scenery' is the guild master of the Anka Market Adventurers' Guild, who holds the title of [Starry Sage]. Ten years ago, he refused the call of the City of Miracles, and three years ago, he even refused Martin Sloan's nomination for a seat in the Council of Truth.

As one of the three leading figures in the Adventurers' Guild, Martin's life trajectory is not as dramatic as that of the Steel Sword Saint and the Unending One, whose life trajectories were like shooting stars flying backwards from the beginning. Instead, Martin is a late bloomer, so much so that no one thought he would amount to anything.

Like many chosen ones in bard stories, Martin was born into an ordinary farming family. Apart from a distant cousin who was an adventurer for seven or eight years, he was just an ordinary background character in the eyes of many players. He was so plain that he would not even have a character portrait or name in most games, and would only have a generic model and the title of "Villager".

Martin was born into such a family, and even when the great sage was fifteen years old, he had not yet become a magic apprentice because he devoted most of his energy to farm work in addition to his studies.

It must be emphasized again that although the world of "The Realm of Innocence" contains swords and magic, divine arts and battle aura, and even has a considerable scale of development in engineering and biology, the mainstream of this world is still the 'ordinary people' in the conventional sense.

This refers to the ordinary person mentioned earlier, who in most games wouldn't even have a character portrait or name, just a generic model with a background character labeled "Villager".

Admittedly, in the eyes of most players, the ordinary people who can barely be accommodated are either nobles who can issue quests and give rewards, or blacksmiths who can make weapons and sell equipment. However, in various fields including but not limited to food, construction, and raw material gathering, ordinary people are the mainstream of the mainstream.

In the words of the regent of the Violet Empire, those ordinary people who are almost non-existent in the eyes of the otherworldly beings and have almost never entered their sight or conversations are the true foundation of this world, and an important group that a ruler must devote a lot of time and energy to paying attention to, listening to, and even interacting with.

Every world needs underlying logic, but unfortunately, in the Realm of Innocence, not many players pay attention to this underlying logic. In fact, even in the bard stories compiled by its natives, there are almost no works that focus on ordinary people.

Nobody wants to hear how many acres of land a high-quality farmer can cultivate each year and how much grain they can produce. Everyone prefers to hear stories of heroes, princesses, dragons, and demon kings.

But the truth is, heroes, princesses, dragons, and demon kings all need to eat. Bards need to eat, and so do the regent of the Violet Empire, the elven queen of the Elf Forest, the sin of the Southwestern Chauvin... well, the Blood Lion Emperor of the Southwestern Griffin.

So the question is, where does the food come from?
To be honest, nobody cares where the food comes from.

Even those cooks who not only produce food but also enjoy transporting it don't like listening to their peers' stories; they prefer to study the affairs of heroes, princesses, dragons, and demon kings.

That's true, but that doesn't mean ordinary people don't exist. Think about the ratio of the combined forces to mutants during the Misha County plague; that's roughly a microcosm of the ratio of professionals to ordinary people in this "Innocent Realm," and the gap will only be smaller, not larger.

Incidentally, although some players on the forums argue that professionals can do better than ordinary people, such as having priests and clergy from the Fertility Cult farm the land and expecting them to be just as effective as ordinary people, this is actually somewhat wishful thinking.

It's important to understand that the potential of low- and mid-level professionals isn't high. Take mid-level priests as an example: while they can indeed improve crop yields, their effect is roughly equivalent to high-grade fertilizer outside the game. Once agricultural practitioners purchase fertilizers produced by the Alchemist Guild or the Apothecary Association in bulk, the gap between them will further narrow.

Furthermore, the priests of abundance might not know how to farm, and skilled farmers might not be much worse than the former, but the number of the two is vastly different.

Of course, an existence of Philip the Abundant Holy Son would have an effect even more exaggerated than Golden Fertilizer, but the only place on the entire continent that His Highness could personally transform into Golden Fertilizer to accelerate ripening is the vegetable garden of Skolke Village.

In conclusion, although the vast majority of ordinary people do not exist in the player's view or in the bard's story, they are still a major part of this world, and Martin Sloan comes from such an ordinary family.

His path to becoming a mage was quite ordinary. Simply put, when he was sixteen, he went to the wholesale market in the city with his family to sell vegetables. He happened to see that the Adventurers' Guild was looking for a temporary clerk. The requirements were that the person must be able to read and write and speak standard Common Tongue. Since most people who met the requirements looked down on the daily wage of 20 gold coins, and Martin's monthly allowance was only 50 gold coins, he applied for the job after getting his family's consent.

Then comes the script of onboarding → working → the boss seeing the young man's reliability → asking if he wants to be a long-term contract worker → after agreeing, moving to the city to live in a dormitory → sending money home every month.

Six months later, Martin was promoted from a long-term contract worker to a full-time employee because of his excellent performance in clerical work. Although he was just an ordinary clerk and teller, given the booming business of adventurers, Martin achieved a comfortable life at a young age and to some extent achieved financial freedom.

Six months later, seventeen-year-old Martin was found to have a talent for the occult during an employee physical examination. Although he was not outstanding, his elemental affinity and magic control were up to average. Considering factors such as the ease of promotion with a professional status, Martin enrolled in a training course at the Mage Guild and spent his weekends studying magic.

In the same year, Martin received his certification as a novice mage.

The following year, eighteen-year-old Martin became a novice mage.

In his third year, nineteen-year-old Martin was transferred to the Adventurers' Guild, a small second-tier city in the Northwest Continent's Freya Duchy, far from his hometown, where his salary and benefits doubled.

In the fifth year, at the age of twenty-one, Martin barely became a mid-level mage.

In the sixth year, at the age of twenty-two, Martin was promoted to deputy manager of the local adventurers' hall.

In the eighth year, at the age of twenty-four, Martin was promoted to full-time manager of the Adventurers' Hall.

In the fifteenth year, Martin, at the age of thirty-one, was transferred to the capital branch of the Prince of Freya.

In the eighteenth year, at the age of thirty-four, Martin finally broke through the bottleneck and became a high-level spellcaster.

In his twentieth year, at the age of thirty-six, Martin was transferred to the Adventurers' Guild's headquarters in the southern part of the Land of Light and Shadow, adjacent to the still-existing headquarters in the Valley of Golden Radiance, to serve as a coordinator.

In the twenty-first year, at the age of thirty-seven, Martin declined the invitation from the City of Miracles and began traveling throughout the continent as the coordinator of the Adventurers' Guild.

In the twenty-fifth year, at the age of forty-one, Martin displayed the epic-level skills of the Ice Element School, Wind Element School, and Earth Element School during the Neinvari Tragedy. Afterwards, as the main figure in quelling the incident, Martin was promoted to one of the personnel management heads of the Adventurers' Guild headquarters.

In the twenty-seventh year, after the "Mystery of the Sound" nearly destroyed the Adventurers' Guild branch in Anka Market, the forty-three-year-old Martin voluntarily applied for a transfer to Anka to oversee the reconstruction efforts, becoming the president of the Adventurers' Guild's Anka Market branch. In the twenty-eighth year, the Chief of the Council of Truth, the "Sage of the Crimson Moon," unusually left Miracle City and discreetly visited Anka Market to find Martin, personally inviting him to join the Council of Truth. After being rejected, Martin returned to Miracle City and directly revealed his legendary strength with the comment, "Clearly a star who could rival the Crimson Moon, yet he has such a useless personality." This established Martin Sloan's title of "Great Sage of Starlight," leading many to mistakenly believe that he was a powerful figure with profound attainments in astrology and other fields.

On this day in the year 9571 of the Holy Calendar—

I can't see through it, I can't understand it.

Looking at Martin Sloan, who had just celebrated his forty-seventh birthday, by the window, Wenger Pep, the deputy director of the regulatory bureau who held considerable power in Anka, shook his head slightly and said modestly, "You flatter me, Your Excellency. If it were just a special contingency plan adopted in an emergency under the prompting of [Puppet], it would be difficult to achieve the desired effect. The fact that it has been so foolproof is mainly thanks to Ms. Chris."

"This is not an ideal topic, Mr. Wenger."

As Martin walked slowly to the aquarium by the window and took out fish food to feed the fish, he said in a light tone, "I understand the difficulties of the regulatory bureau, but even for the sake of Anka's stability, paying too much attention to people like [Ragdoll] or Chris is not a wise move. Look at your elusive director, he is the real smart one."

Wenger smiled somewhat awkwardly, his expression subtle, and said, "Well... I'm truly sorry. Although decisions and collaborations of this caliber should ideally be overseen by the Director himself, as you know, that person's whereabouts are unpredictable. Despite my best efforts to contact him through emergency channels, I still couldn't make it tonight's operation."

Martin shook his head slightly: "We made it."

"what?"

Wenger was immediately stunned and asked in bewilderment, "What? You caught up with it?"

"Of course, it's that bureau chief."

Martin smiled faintly and said in a light tone, "Although unlike Chris and Mr. Wenger, that former bandit leader, now the maintainer of order in Anka, did not do anything, he did accompany them throughout the process, and if anything unexpected happens, he most likely will not stand idly by."

"Him? He accompanied him the whole time?"

Having received absolutely no word or contact whatsoever, Wenger's pupils suddenly contracted: "Wait, could it be that..."

"The security personnel from the Regulatory Bureau who should have accompanied them on their tour of the black market as 'bodyguards' is sound asleep at home. Of course, I don't think this is a dereliction of duty. After all, even the elites carefully selected by the Regulatory Bureau would find it difficult to put up any effective resistance against a legendary thief."

Martin calmly gazed at the beautiful sea fish in the aquarium and said softly, "On the bright side, he did indeed shoulder the responsibilities of the head of the regulatory agency... well, only a little bit."

"..."

Wenger did not answer. In fact, the old man's eyes and face were now completely red with anger.

"Please rest assured, Mr. Wenger. At least we can know from this incident that your chief has indeed fulfilled his duties and never let Anka out of his sight."

Martin shrugged, his tone somewhat subtle, and said, "Although he himself has long been out of our sight."

"President Martin, I..."

Wenger took a deep breath, his face ashen, and said in a dry voice, "I'm very sorry."

“I am the one who should apologize, Mr. Wenger. In fact, I think the main reason your director is unwilling to appear in public is because of my existence.”

Martin turned to look at Wenger, who was gritting his teeth, and said calmly, "For some reason, I have always been observing Anka's every change, without stopping for even a moment over the years. So when he realized that unpleasant gaze, his reaction was not surprising. Although I personally regret it, there is nothing I can do... This world is never perfect."

Wenger shook his head: "I don't understand, Your Excellency."

"You should understand some of this, but I don't want to offend you."

Martin smiled and said with a wry smile, "But it's fine. After all, although I don't mind offending you, I'd be happy to play dumb if it would save me some trouble."

After that, there was a silence that wasn't exactly oppressive.

“I’m a little curious, Chairman.”

After a long pause, Wenger carefully chose his words before speaking: "What exactly is it that would make you admit that you are the one who has been hiding behind Anka for a long time, balancing everything? You know, if you hadn't had Ms. Chris warn me beforehand, even if [The Puppet] came knocking, the regulatory authorities might not have taken the most decisive action to cooperate."

“First of all, I think it’s worth it because even if I acknowledge my identity, as long as we always share the common goal of ‘ensuring the stability of Anka,’ there won’t be too much of a barrier between us.”

Martin smiled, then turned his gaze back to the window, watching the small live performance that had fallen far short of expectations, listening to the melody that seemed to possess a demonic power to erode the mind—

"Secondly, if I don't issue a warning... Anka, which is in complete chaos, won't need any so-called front-line or behind-the-scenes operations."

Chapter 2608: The End
(End of this chapter)