Chapter 448 - The Man Who Changed the Rules is Back
Mages Are Too OP
Chapter 448 The Man Who Changed the Rules is Back
Little John had thought that Roland had invited him here for no other reason than to humiliate him.
He didn’t care. He could endure it.
Unexpectedly, Roland received him normally, without being overbearing or saying anything shady.
This made John Junior uncomfortable, so he stayed alone in a shadowed corner, watching his mother and sister talk with Queen Andonara and other noblewomen.
He snorted, thinking that his mother and sister were traitors and that the two of them were so close to the enemy when their father had been dead only a little over a year.
They had no conscience.
However, he forgot that his mother and sister had watched them, father and son, give up, even to the point of sacrificing their lives.
It was just that Roland and the others didn’t have the habit of scourging women and children.
This was what allowed the mayor’s wife and daughter to live, and they were now living well and comfortably.
John Junior felt like a hero suffering in silence who would lurk until he found Roland’s weakness and a chance to counterattack.
At that time, he would return all the humiliation that Roland had brought upon him with a proud attitude.
He had come to the banquet tonight because he had heard that many Golden Sons would be attending as well.
He came to see if he could rope in one or two, and even if he couldn’t, it would be good to get on decent terms.
Perhaps one day he could borrow their strength. Only Golden Sons could deal with Golden Sons.
But watching events unfold, John Junior despaired.
It took capital to rope in people, and his capital was that he was the rightful heir to Delpon and that he could promise a lot of things.
But with Roland’s enchantment techniques… any advantage of his own was gone.
Capital was something that needed to be compared.
Who would the average person prefer to work with, a super talent who could enchant and improve equipment to the epic level, or a so-called heir who lost his influence?
This didn’t require any thought.
John Junior felt that the whole world was dark, without even a bit of starlight.
The banquet was held successfully, and in Roland’s parties, there would be a secret “after-party.”
When the time was up, everyone was ushered out.
Generally, after the banquet, the guests wouldn’t be happy without this kind of reserved event.
After all, a party was a social occasion in itself.
But now, they felt that it was worth it.
The fact that Roland was a brilliant enchanter was great news.
And Roland not only advertised himself with the nobles, he also acted on the lower rung.
He went to the capital the next day, found the chairman of the Guild of Bards again, gave him a hundred gold coins, and asked the Guild of Bards to help him spread the news that he knew the auto-repair enchantment to any country or city the bards could reach.
And every month after that, another 50 gold coins would be given to the Guild of Bards to fund this operation for six months.
The chairman of the Guild of Bards beat his chest and said excitedly that he would take care of all this properly.
Roland then left the guild and went to the Hibiscus family.
He had wanted to see Betta, but Dinah had received Roland herself and said that Betta had left three days ago.
Dinah was now a little more beautiful, and at a glance at her level, she was already level five. It seemed that the effect of the Water of Light on the improvement of the Saint Samurai’s talent was very obvious.
Looking at Dinah’s rather bitter and disappointed eyes, Roland felt a little surprised.
Wasn’t it only a while ago that Betta was thinking of breaking his “body of magic” in the game? How come such a nice little beauty was right in front of him, but he didn’t touch her?
Though it was strange, Roland wasn’t going to get into Betta’s personal affairs, especially emotional ones.
After a casual conversation, Roland returned from the capital to Delpon and then talked to Charles.
Charles was significantly more arrogant than Douglas, but not so annoying to the point where he didn’t want to do business with him.
Fourteen pieces of equipment along with the materials. The crafting fee was also paid upfront, which was rather impressive.
Since Douglas didn’t care about Charles cutting the queue, Roland naturally didn’t either.
All he had to do was the processing; he had gotten the money anyway.
And this time, not only was there more equipment to process, but Roland was also more familiar with the feel of the circulation of auto-repair. Then he discovered that there was actually a pattern to auto-repair, and the reason why he couldn’t catch the pattern earlier was that there were other “energies,” or action mediums, mixed in with divination magic.
Time!
Time is a concept to us—invisible and untouchable.
Because of it being high-dimensional, defining it by thinking in three dimensions was in itself confusing.
It was like an ant crawling on an elephant’s body and seeing what was indeed an elephant’s hair, but only hair. The elephant’s form, weight, internal flesh and blood, bones, were not visible.
Then the ants recognized the elephant as a layer of skin and hair.
As three-dimensional beings, our definition of time is like an ant’s definition of an elephant.
The exterior definition is right, but the essence is wrong.
Using the little that was seen before to define and apply to low-level divination magic could occasionally work, which could also be called a light-bulb moment.
The so-called enigmatic feeling.
The reason why Mages could come in contact with time was mental power, which was actually a kind of evolution.
It was the key to mankind’s evolution to higher dimensions.
Roland’s mental power was almost the strongest among the professionals of his level, and as he kept practicing the auto-repair technique, it was as if he was constantly ramming his shoulder against the door of time magic.
And the more he rammed it, the more the door cracked open, thought it was still opening at a very slow pace.
The time and knowledge behind the door was slowly flowing out of the cracks.
Roland’s spirit could see it and attempted to touch and fuse it.
Roland’s current biological level was much like a mutant ant that had grown many slender tentacles, which could replace the ant’s original poor vision and poor range of perception.
Roland the mutant ant had been able to see a large chunk of the elephant’s fur, and also penetrate a bit beneath the fur, seeing some fat, some platelets.
Roland had a piece of new knowledge about elephants, but it was still a very shallow kind of understanding.
Another month passed, and Roland finished helping Charles with his equipment, then announced that he was going to spend ten days in the lab thinking and organizing the insights in his head.
During this time, if there wasn’t anything too important, he wasn’t to be bothered.
In reality, Roland not only thought inside the game but also thought about the problem of time and magic in reality.
He didn’t even go to the saber arts club, and just stayed in his room every day, sitting cross-legged on his bed and thinking about the connection between the two.
But in reality, his body was too weak, and his mental power fell short, and even a full day of thinking was not as good as what he got from an hour of thinking in the game.
Roland had sensed that in terms of mental power, himself in the game and in reality represented the intellectual difference between a sentient man and a modern man.
After ten days of thinking, he emerged from the lab.
He seemed to have benefited but didn’t feel a significant improvement.
There was this depressing feeling of “the brain says I can do it, but the hands say I can’t” kind of substantial separation.
Then seeing that he was upset, Andonara dragged Vivian with her to relieve him of his stress.
This was why women were said to be a hero’s harbor.
After a day of being lovey-dovey with the two women, Roland was in a significantly better mood.
Then he also had the mood to go on the forum.
As a result, once he went on the forum, he found that something seemed wrong.
Many people were scolding him.
Puzzled, Roland clicked through a few posts and understood why, and then looked on, speechless.
This was a realistic world, so… the economic system was also very real.
Magic materials were scarce items in themselves, and Roland’s enchantments consumed a lot of magic materials, especially auto-repair, which involved fourteen common materials, and also a very large amount of them.
Everyone wanted to get the best equipment, and a large number of magnates were sweeping up materials in Hollevin, directly flipping up the prices of magic-related supplies throughout Hollevin.
This affected the interests of many Mages.
Then these Mages also began to stock up, fearing that they would be out of stock in a short time.
Then it caused a market panic and everyone started stockpiling all magic supplies.
As a result… the price of magical goods throughout Hollevin skyrocketed at an exaggerated rate.
All spellcasters were affected.
In fact, in this world, most spells required casting materials, even Inferior Fireball required a little bit of flint as a medium. Roland didn’t need it because he had Magic Material Exemption.
Not everyone had the Magic Material Exemption specialty, especially Priests and Warlocks, who rarely chose Magic Material Exemption specialty.
Because very few of the divine spells and bloodline magic required magic materials.
However, few didn’t mean there were none, and there were still a few practical spells that required casting materials.
For example, the Church of Life’s Life Enhancement required a special grass that was pretty common, a grass that was usually cheap, but now, even this grass was being stockpiled and the price had more than tripled.
There are many similar cases.
In short, the price of magic materials had gone up like crazy throughout Hollevin.
Moreover, this situation was spreading to countries around Hollevin.
It would have been fine if only the spellcasting community had been affected.
The actual situation was that even physical professions were feeling the pain.
Magic scrolls were useful and were sold in the Association of Mages and Guild of Mercenaries.
For example, magic scrolls of Illumination and Lesser Healing were the favorites of physical professions.
But the magic materials appreciated in value, and now there weren’t even magic scrolls for sale, and when they were occasionally available, they were at ten times the price.
Now the entire player community, the entire forum, was cursing Roland except for the magnates.
“F*ck, I knew this guy was a scourge. After more than two months of peace, he’s still out to cause trouble.”
“Can you believe it? No one in our entire guild can actually afford to use the Illumination scrolls now. They’re all exploring the dungeons with torches.”
“Can Roland get the hell out of the game, he’s so damn harmful.”
“Gee, that’s a real man. I’d love to be this kind of big shot who can change the game.”
Roland slapped himself on the head.
Damn! What’s this about?
I crashed the entire magic materials market in Hollevin all by myself?
Is this world’s economic system so fragile?
Roland found it hard to believe.
And in the game’s guild system, a few of the F6 members were even beside themselves with laughter.
They were all laughing about Roland being a market destroying machine.
Guess I’ll have to stop doing the enchantment business for now?
Roland was slightly bummed.