The Guild of Mercenaries was very effective. In only half a day, information on the Cornucopia had been delivered to Roland.The core of this guild was exclusively players, but there were many NPCs in it who were responsible for simple but laborious work, such as loading, unloading, and watching over the warehouses of cheap goods.

As for the expensive goods, they were all stored in the players’ system Backpacks.

The guild had about 230 players, but the number wasn’t fixed. Occasionally, new players might join the guild, and old players might quit.

They hired more than five thousand NPCs. They had set up warehouses and logistics points in all the commercial cities in Hollevin.

They even had one warehouse in Delpon.

It was safe to say that the business tentacles of the Cornucopia had been unfurled in Hollevin.

They were more or less capable of manipulating the economy of Hollevin.

The soar of the magic material prices was actually their work.

But interestingly enough, the players of this guild were only level two on average, although the average level of all the players was reaching level two. They were below average.

Roland read the report for a while and threw it aside. He completely lost interest in them.

Economy and business were indeed important, but not as important as strength.

Those players who were only level two cared too much about money.

But strength was what mattered most in this world.

However powerful the Cornucopia was, could it be more powerful than the Coalition of Progress?

The thousand passionate players of the Coalition of Progress were level five on average. They had at least 100,000 NPCs who were armored, well-trained soldiers.

If they were a guild, F6 and the Phoenix Guild would’ve been dwarfed.

But even an organization as powerful as that had been destroyed in two days.

The Cornucopia was nothing worth mentioning compared to them!

One-tenth of the Phoenix Guild would be more than enough to annihilate them.

“They’re on the wrong path,” Roland remarked casually.

In a peaceful world, it wasn’t wrong to focus on business, because capitalism was devastatingly powerful in a peaceful world. But in this world, one should not focus on business until they were strong enough, or someone else would attack them and claim their earnings in the end.

If the Cornucopia could not hire a powerful mercenary army quickly, something would happen to it within half a year.

Roland reached this conclusion after reading the intelligence.

Then, he dropped this matter and focused on magic.

Though he couldn’t work on casual spells anymore due to the lack of new files, he could practice other spells, such as Grease.

Roland had barely used this spell because it was pointless for him.

Grease was a spell that the low-level Mages loved. Plus Spider Web and Inferior Fireball, they were the three most useful tricks for beginner Mages.

Those Mages would make the enemy slip with Grease, tie them up with Spider Web, and set fire on them with Inferior Fireball.

The oil and the spider web could both make the fire burn harder, which indirectly increased the damage.

This was the favorite combo of new Mages.

Roland had already skipped that phase. An Inferior Fireball from him was enough to ruin half a football field.

However, it didn’t mean that Grease was useless.

Roland had found that the “oil” summoned by Grease was from the void, and that it was not only flammable but also edible. Besides, it tasted quite good.

Then, Roland had an idea… Since the oil was edible, he could improve the magic model and increase the amount of the oil that was summoned, unlike other people who focused on making enemies fall with the oil.

If he succeeded, he could disseminate the magic model, and the Mages who were short of money and who were from poor families would be able to sell the oil they made every day with this spell, so that their lives wouldn’t be as hard.

Oil was rather expensive in this world. Besides, the oil from the void was transparent and tasted good. It would definitely sell well for its quality.

Roland even wondered if other Mages would be inspired by him and create other spells that could feed people. If so, the Mages could probably be also known as “producers” in the future.

He instantly got to work.

Roland secluded himself and began to modify the magic model of Grease.

Under normal circumstances, the amount of oil summoned by Grease was half a kilogram each time. It could cover an area of around ten square meters, reducing the friction within to almost zero.

The quantity of the oil was too small. He had to make improvements.

Roland’s modification plan went well in the beginning.

The amount of oil he summoned rose steadily, but it hit a bottleneck when the yield reached three kilograms.

He couldn’t increase the yield at all.

Roland was rather confused.

He changed the model a million times, only to no avail.

He didn’t know what the reason was.

This time, Roland read the data that he recorded with the math model.

After a dozen days and many repeated experiments, he finally realized that a piece of data wasn’t marked in the math model.

That was the key point that he had neglected.

It was the size of the oil discharge channel.

Grease was essentially a summoning spell, and a spatial tube was needed to summon the oil.

The size of this tube decided the amount of oil to be discharged over a certain amount of time.

Now that he realized that, things became a lot easier.

He had to either increase the time of the discharge, or broaden the tube.

It was unlikely for him to increase the time of the discharge. He had reached the limits of a level-one spell. To increase the time, he had to infer it into a level-two spell.

But if so, this spell wouldn’t be suitable for beginners.

As for increasing the size of the tube, it would involve the application of spatial magic.

It meant that, if he worked on it, this spell would become a complex one with summoning and spatial qualities. It would be very tricky to cast.

That was against Roland’s goal too.

Therefore, it was already the best he could do to summon three kilograms of oil each time.

Not the best, but acceptable… Also, he could reduce the cost of the spell, so that the spell could be cast more often.

Roland drew the model on a parchment. Next, he intended to dedicate the spell to the Goddess of Magic.

He didn’t want to upload it to the forum anymore. After all, the spells that he modified before were mostly submitted to other countries by immoral players for their own interests. Even more annoyingly, they even claimed that the modifications were their work.

They had no boundaries.

Roland put the parchment in his system Backpack. At this moment, the door of the lab was opened, and Andonara came in with a big jar.

“We’re running out of oil. Get me some.”

Roland snapped his fingers, and fluids that were as clear as drinkable water sprinkled from a tiny dark space in midair into the jar.

Very soon, the jar was filled.

The air was filled with a pleasant aroma.

Andonara took a deep breath and left with the jar.

Ever since she tried the food made with this kind of oil, Andonara had lost interest in other animal or plant oils.

Roland had already tested it with mice. The oil wasn’t addictive. It simply smelled great.

Vivian came in after Andonara just left. She sniffed and was delighted to smell the remaining aroma in the air. Then she said, “Roland, Mr. Douglas is waiting for you downstairs. He says that he has something important to talk with you about.”

Roland nodded. “Bring him here.”

Two minutes later, they sat down in front of each other, and Vivian left the room after pouring a cup of fruit wine for each of them.

Roland had a mouthful of the wine and asked, “What’s this important thing? You’re clearly smiling. It doesn’t look like you have anything important.”

Douglas smiled even more brilliantly. “Important things can be good things too. Hehe. Something happened to Charles’ Cornucopia.”

“What happened?”

Roland was slightly surprised.

“A bunch of NPCs together with many masked players raided the Cornucopia’s headquarters and looted countless low-level materials that are in demand,” Douglas said with a smile. “It’s not on the forum yet, but it will probably be out soon.”

Roland was surprised at Douglas’s reaction. “Isn’t Charles your friend? How can you be gloating when something has happened to him?”

“He’s not my friend but only an acquaintance.” Douglas waved his hand. “There’s no real friendship for people like us. Even if we look close on the surface, it’s only because we want each other’s wealth or power. It’s just an approach to socialization.”

Roland shrugged, not knowing how to respond to such candor.

Douglas continued, “It’s easy if they’re merely robbed, but the real problem is that the royal family of Hollevin and the Association of Mages made a joint statement, claiming that they disrupted the market by maliciously monopolizing the magic materials and demanding that the Cornucopia sell a batch of high-level material materials at a low price in twenty days, or they will be wanted in the whole country.”

“That’s not surprising…” Roland nodded. He had already seen it coming. But he suddenly realized something wrong. “Wait, the royal family actually said that ‘they disrupted the market by maliciously monopolizing the magic materials’? Those are modern terms.”

Douglas raised his thumb. “You’re truly smart. That’s right. Based on my investigation, the royal family recently hired a batch of elite players. Some of them might be financial talents. Anyways, the Cornucopia is now in serious trouble. If they want to stabilize the market by selling the magic materials, they will suffer a lot of losses. After all, they paid three to four times the original price when they hoarded the magic materials.”

Roland tapped the desk subconsciously and said, “The royal family’s strategy of divide and conquer is working. The players who robbed the Cornucopia probably did it because they received a quest from the royal family.”

“Are they not afraid of getting red names?”

“Their viciousness wouldn’t increase if they killed players in a quest.” Roland smiled and somehow remembered Antis. “They probably had something like privateering licenses.”

Douglas chuckled. “Impressive. This is a nice move. It must’ve been a trick proposed by the players that the royal family hired.”

Roland smiled bitterly… Actually, it was his idea. He talked to Antis when he offered money to the Guild of Bards two weeks ago and told him about privateering. At that time, he was only looking for a random topic of conversation.

He didn’t expect Antis to actually put it into practice.