The Wizard's Secret Journey

Chapter 237 Trade and Variations (4k)

"What? A normal amount of food that costs one magic stone now costs one high-grade magic stone? Why don't you just rob someone?!"

At the Pablo School watchtower, the leading wizard apprentice growled, suppressing his anger, his pale red eyes fixed on Dorothy before him.

“Alternatively, you may choose not to purchase.” The blonde witch apprentice remained unmoved, her friendly smile still on her face.

"Aren't you afraid we'll tell the outpost about this?!"

"What is it?" Dorothy spread her hands innocently, puzzled. "The outpost only asked us to bring supplies to provide support, but never said that this support would be free."

"You can always contact the outpost again and see what they have to say."

Dorothy sat there calmly, without a trace of worry.

When the Pablo school sought help from the other watchtowers, they also sought help from the McKinley school watchtowers, so Dorothy knew exactly why the Pablo school had ended up in this predicament.

Therefore, she was quite confident that even if the Pablo school's students found another outpost, the latter would at most make them both back down, or more likely, make the Pablo school back down.

After all, the Pablo School is not like their McKinley School, which is an allied school of the Silver Ring.

In fact, it is probably precisely for this reason that these wizard apprentices suffered this calamity.

Dorothy's words fueled the anger in Pablo's chief apprentice, his red hair trembling like leaping flames. His eyes turned cold, and he said viciously:
"This is Pablo's Watchtower. We may not be able to deal with formal wizards, but surely we can handle you?!"

The atmosphere in the reception room instantly became tense.

Dorothy, however, remained gentle and said softly, "Have you considered the consequences, Mills?"

"You should know that the watchtower next to you is the Horsens School watchtower, which is on good terms with the McKinley School and is also an ally of the Silver Ring School. But did you know that they have two first-level wizards accompanying the apprentices to guard the watchtower?"

"The reason your school didn't stand up for you regarding the outpost is because the Pablo School is weak, and because the official wizards of the Pablo School felt it wasn't worth clashing with the official wizards of the Silver Ring Academy and the Gilt School over such a trivial matter."

"But we are not like you."

Dorothy stood up, moved closer to Mills, and said condescendingly, "As fellow apprentices guarding the Graywood Ruins, you can't kill us or imprison us. At most, you can steal these supplies, but in the end, you'll have to let us leave."

"Have you considered the consequences, Mills?"

Every word Dorothy uttered was like a small hammer, striking Mills' heart again and again, shattering his anger and hatred. He gradually deflated.

"The Horsens School watchtower next door is guarded by two first-tier wizards?" Mills murmured softly, his tone tinged with astonishment, fear, and envy.

“It’s the real deal. If you think I’m bluffing, go ahead and verify it,” Dorothy said without changing her expression.

From beginning to end, she was telling the truth. Even the claim that the McKinley School Watchtower and the Horsens School Watchtower were on good terms was just an exaggeration, but not a lie, since they had just exchanged gifts.

As for how Mills interprets what she says, that's none of her business.

Fortunately, the Horsens School is a newly emerging allied school of the Silver Ring, and most other schools are not very familiar with it.

If Dorothy had said that the McKinley School and the Geerte School, which was stationed at the outpost, were on good terms, Mills would not have believed it. After all, everyone knew that the relationship between these two Silver Ring allies was not good, and there were even some subtle conflicts between them.

Dorothy collected her thoughts, smiled brightly at Mills, and added, "But by then, this batch of supplies won't be worth this much."

After a long silence in the meeting room, Mills finally said dejectedly, "Let's trade at the price you mentioned. I still need to discuss the specific amount with everyone."

The Pablo School is far away, and although they have sent back a message requesting help, it will take at least half a month for the school's support to arrive.

By this time, their supplies were almost gone, and the location of the 16-9 watchtower was barren with no hunting grounds nearby. In two more days, all the apprentices would face a food shortage.

While it's not a big problem for a first-class wizard apprentice to go without food for a day or two, or even three to five days, going for more than half a month is definitely not an option, as it exceeds the limit that most wizard apprentices can endure.

Even if it doesn't necessarily lead to death, weakness is inevitable, and supplies include not only food but also other utensils.

Considering they also had to carry out patrol missions assigned by Silver Ring Academy, they had no choice but to buy these supplies; otherwise, they wouldn't even be able to establish a camp.

"No problem, please feel free to discuss it." Dorothy knew when to stop and didn't try to raise the price further.

She has basically achieved her goal. If she applies more pressure, it is very likely that Pablo's apprentice will backfire, and then she will lose more than she gains.

The McKinley School adheres to the law of the jungle, and Dorothy is already adept at grasping the bottom line of human nature.

……

……

"In two days, will a caravan with permission from the Silver Ring Academy arrive at the edge of the Graywood Ruins?"

At the Horsens School watchtower, Lynn raised an eyebrow as he looked at the latest news from Silver Ring Academy.

“That’s a good thing, it saves us from worrying about supplies.” Samuel, standing nearby, was somewhat excited, but then teased, “It’s just tough on the McKinley School next door. They only provided supplies to the Pablo School yesterday. If they had waited another day, they might not have had to give up those supplies.”

"The McKinley School has nothing to do with us."

"Whether it's a good thing or not depends on how the caravan prices the goods," Lynn shook his head.
"Things are valued for their rarity. Because of the unique radiation from the Gray Forest Ruins, all life in the surrounding area is dying out at an accelerated rate. Before long, this place will become a dead zone, and everything will have to be brought in from the outside."

“Even now, supplies are quite precious, otherwise Outpost 16-5 wouldn’t have needed to keep the supplies from Pablo Outpost.”

Samuel nodded, a look of worry on his face: "Then it seems we still have to rely on ourselves, or apply for assistance from the school."

He looked down and opened the notification details again, read it carefully, and suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "Wait, there are actually more than a thousand caravans that have obtained permission from Silver Ring Academy this time?"

"More than a thousand?" Lynn was also surprised and moved closer to Samuel to read it carefully.

The notice details clearly state that 1306 caravans and chambers of commerce, both large and small, have been granted trade licenses. The appendix list is filled with densely packed small print, making it impossible to read at a glance.

Keep in mind that a watchtower can only be guarded by about 200 wizard apprentices, and an outpost can only be twice that number. Add ten more full-fledged wizards, and even a camp can only be guarded by a thousand wizards.

In summary, if it comes to supplying materials, at most fifty caravans of a decent size, or a dozen or so small merchant guilds, would be enough to meet the daily needs of all the wizards stationed at the Graywood Ruins.

However, it is clearly abnormal that thousands of chambers of commerce and caravans have now obtained trade licenses.

“It seems we don’t need to worry about the price of supplies anymore,” Samuel said with a broad smile, seemingly unconcerned. Lynn nodded in agreement.

With over 1,300 caravans, each watchtower could be assigned at least one caravan. However, in reality, a caravan could not possibly do business with only one outpost.

Therefore, supply will far exceed demand. Under such circumstances, unless all caravans unite, the price of goods will definitely not be high.

"I don't know why Silver Ring Academy would issue so many trade licenses," Lynn thought, still puzzled.

“Who knows? Maybe the academy issued more trade permits to prevent caravans from selling us goods at too high prices.” Samuel closed the message and said with a smile, “I need to tell the apprentices this good news so they don’t have to go out to collect food anymore.”

"Let's continue gathering food; it's always good to be prepared." Lynn realized Samuel was just joking.

Neither he nor Samuel believed that Silver Ring Academy would be so kind.

“...That’s true.” Samuel nodded. “Let’s determine the price of the goods when the caravans arrive.”

Lynn nodded, finished the remaining tasks with Samuel, and then returned to the Black Falcon.

It must be said that being stationed at the Graywood Ruins did slow down Lynn's daily training progress to some extent, forcing him to frequently come out and handle some matters with Samuel.

……

……

In the Black Falcon's meditation room, Lynn gazed at the disassembled, dark pendant before him and let out a long sigh.

Just now, he successfully extracted the core rune "Shadow Assassin" from the last Black Moon relic he had, named Shadow Assassin.

Although it takes two words to fully express its meaning in Wizarding Common, in terms of the actual number of rune structures, the "Shadowstab" rune is on the same level as the previous "Heal" rune in the Black Moon runes.

In fact, both the Shadow Assassin and the Healing Wrist, these two Black Moon relics, are also high-tier level 0 witchcraft tools, consistent with the core runes.

In contrast, the number and complexity of the runes contained in the superior-grade Unmarked Second Generation Leggings are clearly a step up.

Based on these findings, it can be preliminarily concluded that the power of the Black Moon rune is proportional to the complexity of its structure.

This is somewhat similar to witchcraft, but not entirely the same. While witchcraft, in most cases, also benefits from greater complexity, there are many models that defy this logic, where simplicity often equates to power.

Lynn thought to himself silently, but a sigh escaped his lips.

He has now developed three different Black Moon runes, but he still can't figure out the pattern of how Black Moon text transforms into Black Moon runes.

They could only awkwardly imitate and apply these Black Moon runes.

It can be applied... that is, the second-generation rune of the Traceless that can be installed on the Black Falcon, which has a certain effect on Lynn at present.

The rest, such as the "Heal" rune which is only equivalent to a 0-ring superior healing spell, and the "Shadow Strike" rune which is also a 0-ring superior spell and can shoot out a dark energy spike, are completely useless against Lynn, who is already a first-tier advanced spell.

Pressing his temples, Lynn placed the three copies of the Black Moon Rune he had found on the table one by one and examined them silently.

From left to right, they are the "Heal" rune, the "Shadow Strike" rune, and the "Traceless" rune.

The size of the Unmarked Rune is several times larger than the previous two runes.

'That's normal, after all, the Healing Rune and Shadow Assassin Rune are only composed of a single variant of the Black Moon script, while the Traceless Rune is composed of three variants of the Black Moon script...'

'Three black moon characters?'

As Lynn thought about this, a sudden inspiration flashed through his mind.

He reached out and picked up the second-generation rune of Wuji, his fingers flying across the page as his spiritual energy spread out.

Before long, he successfully disassembled the complete second-generation rune of the Traceless into three variants of the Black Moon script—

"Floating," "Light," and "Fast"!
Since the Healing Rune and Shadow Assassin Rune are both single Black Moon text variants, then logically, the three Black Moon text variants contained in the Traceless Rune should also be equivalent to a complete Black Moon Rune!

'But I've already tried it, and when these three black moon script variants are separated, no matter how much magic I inject, there is no reaction.'

In other words, there must be some difference between these three variants of the Black Moon rune that make up the second-generation Black Moon rune and the Healing rune and the Shadow Assassin rune.

This difference means that the former, when used alone, has no effect and can only be used to form the second-generation Unmarked Rune, while the latter can become a standalone Black Moon Rune!

Lynn was immediately thrilled and began to continue his research along this line of thought.

However, half a day later, Lynn raised his head wearily, a hint of dejection flashing in his eyes.

The sheer difficulty of studying the Black Moon Rune dealt him a heavy blow. An entire afternoon passed, and Lynn had gained nothing, not even the slightest progress.

'The Black Moon Rune... at least in terms of research difficulty, it is not to be underestimated.'

'Not only is it completely unclear how the Black Moon script became a variant of the Black Moon script, but it's also impossible to understand the difference between the three 'sub-runes' of the second generation of the Unseen runes and the ordinary Healing Runes and Shadow Assassin Runes.'

After standing up, Lynn paced back and forth for a long time before finally regaining his composure.

He calmed down and thought about it carefully, and gradually came to a key point:
The Black Moon text corresponding to the sub-runes of the 'Traceless Rune' is Float, Light, and Swift, while the Healing Rune is Heal and the Shadow Assassin Rune is Shadow Assassin.

The two are not the same, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of figuring out the difference between the sub-rune and the regular single-word Black Moon rune.

"But if I could find the single-word Black Moon runes corresponding to the three sub-runes 'Float, Light, and Swift,' or the sub-runes corresponding to 'Heal' and 'Shadow Strike,' I could probably easily figure out the differences!"

Lynn regained his spirits; he saw hope again.

'The only problem is, where can I find more Black Moon relics?'

hum-

At that moment, the badge that Lynn had placed on the corner of the table began to glow faintly, and a message from Samuel popped up:
"The caravan is here, Lynn."

(End of this chapter)