Chapter 503: A Gold-Gathering Genius

Angus Watson once again made his way, alone, to the desolate palace of Lyon.

He didn't know whether it was his imagination, but he could never quite shake the feeling that the palace grew a little colder every single time he visited.

It should have been a place bathed in holy light, and yet he could feel no warmth of dawn there at all.

"Probably just because too many members of the royal family have died here..."

Angus Watson consoled himself with that thought. Even with every body long since disposed of, rumors about the palace's impurity never quite went away. So many people had died within these walls that even holy light couldn't scrub away all that lingering resentment in one pass.

Still, Angus Watson considered this a good thing, on balance.

Every emperor of Lyon in recent memory had been little more than a puppet, a breeding machine in royal clothes. Not so the newest emperor. Under his rule, Lyon was slowly clawing its way back from the brink of collapse.

Angus Watson had every confidence that, given a little more time, His Majesty would restore Lyon to its former glory.

He stepped into the cavernous, empty hall to find the young emperor seated alone on his throne, looking somewhat solitary. At the sight of Angus Watson's arrival, the emperor set down the thick, ancient tome he'd been reading.

Angus Watson couldn't help but glance at it, catching the title stamped on the cover: Introduction to Divination Magic.

Since when had His Majesty taken an interest in this kind of magical text?

The young emperor made no attempt to hide it. He casually set the book aside before greeting Angus warmly. "Angus, you're finally back. How are things on the island?"

Angus Watson launched immediately into his report.

"Your Majesty, construction on the island's various facilities is already underway. It should be finished within the month at the latest. This lich deliberately chose to hold the conference two months out, and I believe there's a scheme behind that timing.

"I detected traces of a large-scale magic circle somewhere on the island, though I couldn't determine exactly what it was. When I asked the lich about it directly, he claimed it was for venue security, to prevent conflicts from breaking out. But I can say with confidence it's not nearly that simple."

The young emperor chuckled.

"Of course that lich wouldn't keep it simple. A move like that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. What I'm more curious about is something else. Angus, I heard this lich has been running an auction on that island of his lately. What's the actual situation there?"

Angus Watson grew even more animated.

"Your Majesty, this auction is genuinely outrageous. Hundreds of millions of gold have already flowed into his pockets. I never imagined he'd actually managed to round up every overseas dragon in existence. The high-tier magical equipment he managed to produce... Everyone wants it. This lich did it deliberately, Your Majesty. He wants to pile pressure onto all of us."

Angus Watson was no fool when it came to matters like this. If that high-tier magical equipment made its way to the orcs, it would give their legendary warriors a substantial boost in combat power. And that axe forged specifically for orcs, Blood Wedding... If that two-handed axe ever fell into the Orc King's hands, Angus Watson wasn't sure if he would be able to defend Lyon.

Back in his day, the Silvermoon Knight alone had been enough to single-handedly tip the balance of an entire war. The orc king was no Silvermoon Knight, granted, but wielding that axe, he could come close enough to that level of destructive power to make a difference.

The young emperor didn't seem particularly concerned by any of that. He simply smiled. "Let's be honest with each other. How much did you end up spending? I recall authorizing you a budget of fifty million gold before you left."

Angus Watson lowered his head, embarrassed. "Your Majesty... About that fifty million gold..."

"You spent it all?"

Angus Watson nodded, though he seemed to be holding something back.

The young emperor's eyes widened in genuine surprise. "You spent more?"

Angus Watson dropped straight to his knees, deeply apologetic. "Rest assured, Your Majesty. I signed a loan for forty million gold under the Watson name, borrowed directly from the lich. I didn't touch a single coin from Lyon's treasury. It was the only way to keep the orcs from getting their hands on that shipment of equipment."

The young emperor's hand trembled slightly. To an empire the size of Lyon, that sum of money wasn't enormous in the grand scheme of things. But between years of constant warfare and no shortage of unnecessary losses, Lyon's economy had taken a real hit. It wasn't as though people would go hungry over it, but burning through this much gold in just a few short days was, frankly, painful to hear about.

And as for "borrowing under the Watson name," James Watson could sell his own body into servitude and never raise anywhere near that much gold. In the end, Lyon's treasury would have to cover it regardless, or else the lich would have no qualms about simply pocketing the deposit and handing the equipment over to the orcs anyway.

The young emperor rubbed his temples. If this was purely a problem that could be solved with gold, that was manageable enough. What worried him was the possibility there was more to it.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than Angus Watson spoke up again. "Your Majesty, there's one more small matter to report, one that concerns Lyon directly."

The emperor's fingers were practically shaking now. What more could there be?

"Angus, whatever else there is, just say it all at once."

Angus Watson hesitated a moment before continuing. "There's a damned dwarven vampire on the island holding a book signing. The contents are... unspeakable."

"A book signing?"

The emperor blinked, puzzled. A vampire selling books was strange enough on its own, but what did that have to do with Lyon?

Wait. A dwarven vampire? That did sound oddly specific.

"Your Majesty, what that cursed vampire is selling is... a scandalous novel fantasizing about the Lyon royal family. And he's been hawking it loudly, right out in the open, in front of everyone. I had no choice but to buy up his entire stock myself."

The young emperor closed his eyes in despair. What a waste of gold. What did the state of chaos within the Lyon royal family have to do with him personally? Not that he could actually say that out loud—and Angus Watson genuinely hadn't had much choice in the matter either.

"Forget it. Don't dwell on slander like that." The emperor shifted to a new question. "At the auction, did every kingdom bleed that much gold, or was it just us?"

Angus Watson relaxed, relieved the emperor wasn't holding his reckless spending against him.

"It wasn't just us, Your Majesty. Even the druids of the Emerald Dreamwood came out bleeding gold, and they were forced into it, no less."

The young emperor blinked. Hadn't the lich invited the other kingdoms there specifically to back him up? Why would he go and swindle his own guests too?

"What happened there? What exactly did this lich do?"

Angus Watson explained. "The lich brought in a number of unusual species from overseas—deep-sea piranhas, corrupted vultures, highly toxic plants, that sort of thing—claiming he wanted to introduce them to the continent and sell them to the dwarven kingdom's Alchemists' Guild for research purposes. The moment the Alchemists' Guild representatives announced they intended to domesticate and breed these species, the druids panicked.

"The Emerald Dreamwood absolutely refuses to allow that kind of ecological disruption. They had no choice but to pay an enormous sum to buy up every last one of these invasive species themselves, just to release them back into the wild."

The young emperor could easily picture the expressions on those archdruids' faces. The lich had simply rounded up a handful of ordinary overseas animals and plants, and the dwarves' Alchemists' Guild had almost certainly been playing along with the whole act. With essentially zero cost of his own, he'd managed to shake down the druids for an enormous sum of gold. The emperor couldn't help but marvel, "He's a genuine genius at raking in gold... I almost want to crack open his skull and study his soul myself!"

Ever since receiving that mysterious stranger's warning, the young emperor had come to believe there was no fundamental conflict of interest between himself and the lich. All the man wanted, in the end, was to rake in gold. With Lyon's cooperation, he'd only end up making even more of it.

It was time to have a proper conversation with this lich. Perhaps inviting him to Lyon ahead of schedule for a private discussion, wasn't such a bad idea. Lyon could certainly offer a price generous enough to tempt him.

Just as the emperor was mulling over how many days in advance he ought to arrange that meeting, Angus Watson spoke up once more. "Your Majesty, please take a look at this. Our own magic mirrors have finally been developed successfully."

Angus Watson presented two palm-sized metal mirrors for the emperor's inspection.

The young emperor eagerly took one of them, quickly located the familiar operating controls he was used to, and activated it. The two mirrors immediately began transmitting images between them.

Sound and image both arrived perfectly synchronized, with no delay or blurring whatsoever.

The young emperor exclaimed, delighted, "It's identical in every way!"

Angus Watson matched his excitement. "Exactly, Your Majesty. There's no functional difference whatsoever."

The young emperor ran his fingers over the two mirrors and asked, "And as for their security and confidentiality?"

"According to our tests, neither the lich's mirrors nor the ones manufactured by the Alchemists' Guild are able to connect to ours in any way. They're also completely immune to remote interference. In theory, they can never be detected, nor remotely controlled by outside parties."

This was the culmination of an enormous investment of time and effort by Lyon's finest craftsmen: a brand-new type of magic mirror. They'd spared no expense, paying dearly to dismantle three separate magic mirrors just to reverse-engineer the underlying principles, and had even quietly dispatched spies to infiltrate the Alchemists' Guild and steal their manufacturing techniques.

War had forced Lyon to draw on every ounce of strength it possessed, and its once-overlooked alchemists had finally achieved a genuine breakthrough under the blessing of the Holy Light. They had fully mastered the art of crafting magic mirrors on their own.

The device was as elegant as it was simple.

From this point forward, Lyon would never again have to worry about the lich simply cutting off their access to his mirror network. This was a magic mirror that belonged entirely, and exclusively, to Lyon.

"Your Majesty, I've already stationed several members of our delegation on the island under the pretext of security. We can reach out to them through this device whenever we need to."

"Well done. Let's give it a try, then."

The young emperor activated a remote connection. Within moments, a Lyon operative appeared in the mirror's surface. The man was about to drop to his knees in a formal bow when the emperor cut him off. "Don't move. Don't draw attention. Take the mirror and walk a circuit of the island. I want to get a look at the traces of the magic circle you've identified."

Angus Watson would not have entrusted ordinary operatives to this task. The man grasped the emperor's meaning at once.

A thin, semi-transparent veil settled over the mirror's surface, softening the image somewhat, but it remained clear enough to make out details with careful attention.

As the operative moved through the island, the young emperor watched everything unfold along the route.

Bustling construction sites full of shouting workers, one grand exhibition platform after another, and magical inscriptions, woven throughout every corner of the island...

The young emperor's brows furrowed more with each passing moment.

Why did this magic circle's inscription pattern look so strange? It didn't resemble any modern spell structure he recognized. It looked far more like something out of some ancient, bygone era.

As a general rule, spell structures were continuously refined and optimized over time. For any given magical effect, a modern spell would always be more efficient and more powerful in comparison. Only spells banned from further research for one reason or another, true forbidden magic, ever stopped evolving simply because no one was permitted to optimize them anymore.

What exactly was this magic circle? The young emperor had a nagging, half-formed sense that he'd seen something like it somewhere before.

Perhaps a search through the Lyon royal archives was in order?

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