Chapter 1253: Sending Money
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
When Connoris first signed the contract with Lin Li to become his servant, he was actually more or less compelled into it, and didn’t actually do it willingly. However, after seeing the achievements that Lin Li had made so far, he no longer felt indignant. In his current opinion, becoming Lin Li’s servant was no longer a choice that he was forced to make because of the circumstances he was in, but a great opportunity.
Soon after Lin Li returned to the embassy, one of his men came to report that Saint Edmund and Elder Zumar of the Illuminati had come to visit. Lin Li naturally knew the purpose of their visit, so he immediately asked someone to invite them to the living room, while he subsequently made his way there.
“President Felic, I’m really sorry, I’d like to apologize to you on Cantory’s behalf for everything that he has said to you. I’ll also tell the lord to be stricter with Cantory and discipline him.” As soon as they met, Saint Edmund first expressed his apologies to Lin Li. After all, Cantory had indeed gone overboard.
However, Lin Li was not bothered by it. After asking the two of them to take a seat, he said, “You don’t have to apologize. As long as those flies don’t fly in front of me, I won’t be bothered to care about it. Apart from the apology, what else are you here for this time, Saint Edmund?”
Lin Li was not an extremely magnanimous person, but he would sometimes feel that those nobodies weren’t worth his time at all. If Cantory had done something that was really significant enough to catch his attention, Lin Li would have probably crushed him to death with a simple lift of his finger. He wouldn’t even care who Cantory’s master was.
Hearing Lin Li’s words, Saint Edmund sighed helplessly in his heart, even though he knew that Lin Li didn’t care about this matter. In fact, given Lin Li’s and Cantory’s young age, Saint Edmund would rather they become friends so that he wouldn’t have to swallow his pride all the time to beg others for help.
In fact, Lin Li wasn’t very picky when it came to making friends, and anyone, even an ordinary powerless person, could become his friend as long as they hit it off well. Otherwise, even if they were the lord of the Illuminati, Lin Li wouldn’t take another glance at him.
“President Felic, judging from that magic scroll, you should have made another major breakthrough in your attainment in the field of inscription, right? I wonder if you’re now somewhat certain and confident about the matter I spoke to you about previously,” Saint Edmund said as he put aside the regret in his heart, and broached the topic regarding the purpose of his visit.
The matter that Saint Edmund was referring to was naturally the resurrection of Lord Aquilo, which they had talked about under Cursed Island back then. Since Lin Li had promised to help them, he certainly wouldn’t back out now. Hence, he indifferently said, “Oh, so you’re referring to that. Let me make things clear, I might have made some breakthroughs in the field of inscription, but I’m still far from the Divine-Smith-level, and I can only vaguely grasp the mysteries within.”
Lin Li was not being modest. Although Mount Tai could suppress Wild Whale Rabu, it was still far from the Immortal King’s Divine-Smith-level mageweath. In fact, Lin Li had only studied a small portion of it, which was probably less than 1%. Hence, even if Lin Li created a mageweath that could speed up the resurrection of Aquilo according to Edmund’s request, it would still be impossible to really bring Aquilo back to life immediately.
However, instead of looking disappointed, Saint Edmund was excited, and said, “No problem, I believe that with your level of attainments in inscription, you’d definitely be able to resurrect Saint Aquilo at least a few decades earlier than planned. That would be of great help to us.”
According to his initial estimation, it would take at least nearly a century to resurrect Saint Aquilo with the power of that holy relic. Although 100 years was nothing for the Illuminati that had already existed for thousands of years, it would naturally be best if they could halve that duration.
Moreover, the senior members of the Illuminati had all sensed the recent changes that had occurred in Anril. Although they were not sure what would happen to this world in the end, they could vaguely guess that it would definitely be something disastrous. Hence, it was unknown if they still had another 100 years to wait for Saint Aquilo to be resurrected.
Edmund was once the follower of Saint Aquilo, and thus had a deep understanding of the latter’s strength. He was well aware that it would undoubtedly be of great help to the Illuminati if Saint Aquilo could be resurrected once there were any changes in this world.
Hearing Saint Edmund’s words, Lin Li nodded, and said, “Since you’ve said so, I don’t mind making a trip there. Saint Edmund, do you still remember the terms that we have agreed on?”
When Lin Li had promised Edmund, he had once mentioned that he would help on the condition that he could read the Illuminati’s canonical texts. Besides, he didn’t want to read the canon that was used to fool others, but the original canon that only the higher-ups of the Illuminati could read, which involved all the secrets of the Illuminati since the beginning of its establishment.
Although the original canon of the Illuminati involved much of the dark past of the Illuminati, it wouldn’t matter even if Lin Li, an outsider, found out.
After all, after being in operation for thousands of years, the faith of the Illuminati believers was strong enough not to be shaken easily. Even if Lin Li was aware of all the sordid things that they had done in the past, and began spreading it around, not many believers would be convinced by his words, because he was an outsider.
Hence, compared to the resurrection of Holy Lord Aquilo, the risk of giving Lin Li their top canon was nothing. Hence, after hearing Lin Li mention that condition again, Saint Edmund grabbed a very ancient-looking book, and handed it to Lin Li without hesitation.
The ancient-looking book was very thick, and there were probably more than 1,000 pages, making it suitable for being a pillow. The cover was made of white beast hide which had slightly yellowed over the years. There were two large words written in gold at the top. Although the book was well-preserved, it had been thousands of years, after all, and some traces of wear and tear could be seen clearly on the pages.
Besides, Lin Li could also sense that the book contained an extremely strong power of magic. Although it could not be compared to Geresco’s Book of Eternity, it was still quite a powerful magic prop that was probably considered a holy artifact in the Illuminati. The Illuminati was willing to take out the original canon because they wanted to prove the authenticity of it, and also to express their sincerity.
After Lin Li received the canon of the Illuminati, he naturally couldn’t look through it seriously in front of Edmund. Hence, he merely flipped through two pages casually before placing it on the bedside table, and saying to Edmund, “Good, I’ll borrow this canon for a few days, go prepare the materials needed for the creation of the mageweath. We’ll go to Cursed Island in three days.”
Although Lin Li had left his mental strength seal on Cursed Island that would allow him to travel through space and reach it regardless of how it shifted, there were lots of peculiarities on that island. Even though they had already explored it once, Lin Li felt that what he had explored was hardly beyond 1% of what it contained.
Hence, in order to be safe, Lin Li decided to travel there through a conventional method. Otherwise, God knew what kind of consequences opening the spatial rift would lead to.
After hearing Lin Li’s agreement, Edmund and Zumar could not help but be pleasantly surprised. After exchanging some pleasantries with Lin Li and settling on the time to leave, they left with a list of materials that Lin Li had casually given them.
Soon after Edmund and Zumar left, Lin Li returned to his room. Less than 15 minutes later, someone came in to report that another person had come to visit. The visitor this time was Grand Duke Vidi, who had presided over the auction that had just ended.
“President Felic, I’m really sorry, the magic scroll you created was completely beyond our appraisal abilities. That’s why I said it was a Master-level piece during the auction. I hope to seek your forgiveness. Fortunately, your magic scroll has also fetched a record-breaking price in the history of our auction. Otherwise, I really wouldn’t have the cheek to face you,” Grand Duke Vidi said, apologizing to Lin Li as soon as he saw him.
It wasn’t that Grand Duke Vidi was making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, inscribers often gave others the impression of being arrogant and aloof. Lin Li also showed that he wouldn’t let himself suffer any losses after he arrived in the Gilded Kingdom. During the auction, Grand Duke Vidi actually called his magic scroll, which could suppress even Wild Whale Rabu, a Master-level piece. No inscriber would be able to tolerate that.
Besides, the price of 400,000,000 gold coins was not really considered a staggering price for such an incredible magic scroll. If the people had been aware from the start that this magic scroll had the power to suppress such a high-level enemy like Wild Whale Rabu, many people would definitely have vied for it even if the price had been four billion gold coins.
Hence, after Grand Duke Vidi heard about the suppression of Rabu, the joy he derived from the fact that the magic scroll had fetched a record-breaking price at the auction immediately vanished. Instead, he broke out in a cold sweat. Besides, he was very certain that he would become a laughingstock because of the price of the magic scroll, which he was initially very proud of, after the incident that happened today was spread to the public. Well, it was an item that was worth billions of gold coins, and yet it was sold for only 400,000,000 gold coins. That was obviously an absolute joke.
If others wanted to make a joke out of this, they could do so all they wanted as far as the grand duke was concerned. However, Grand Duke Vidi did not dare to pretend that nothing had happened in front of Lin Li. Besides, Bradlor had given Grand Duke Vidi a harsh scolding when he’d summoned him previously, with no regards to the fact that he was the cash cow of the royals. Vidi could also sense that Bradlor was truly infuriated.
Hence, while wiping the spit that Bradlor had rained on his face, Grand Duke Vidi urged the staff of the auction to rush to the embassy of the Tower of Dusk to apologize.
Although the price of the magic scroll was considered low, Lin Li didn’t take the scroll to the auction for the sake of getting some gold coins. In fact, he was even ready to see the magic scroll being auctioned off at a price of tens of thousands of gold coins. Besides, Grand Duke Vidi was right. Given the current standards of ordinary inscribers, it was basically impossible to identify the level of the magic scroll. Hence, Lin Li didn’t blame Grand Duke Vidi.
After hearing Grand Duke Vidi’s apology, Lin Li merely smiled calmly and pointed at the chair beside him. He said, “Grand Duke Vidi, please have a seat. I put that magic scroll up for auction only because King Bradlor had asked me to. If I’d really intended to exchange it for money, I could have found someone to bid for it with a higher price. So, you don’t have to hold it against yourself.”
Seeing that Lin Li was speaking calmly, and didn’t seem to have blamed him, Grand Duke Vidi secretly sighed with relief. He then took out a crystal card, and handed it to Lin Li with both hands with some guilt on his face while saying, “President Felic, no matter what, we’ve indeed made a mistake during the auction. This crystal card contains 400,000,000 gold coins, which is the proceeds from the auction, and an additional 100,000,000 gold coins, which is a form of compensation from us. Although this is far from being enough for compensating for your losses, this is as much as we can withdraw now. If you’d like, you may take a look at the treasures that we have in our treasure vault. We’re willing to compensate you with those collection items.”
Logically speaking, when an item was successfully auctioned at the auction, a portion of gold coins would have to be deducted from the sales proceeds as commission to be paid to the auctioneer. According to the commission percentage, the auction house would supposedly have raked in tens of millions of gold coins from the auction of the magic scroll.
However, no matter how thick-skinned Grand Duke Vidi was, he couldn’t bring himself to charge Lin Li any commission fees after having made such a grave mistake. After all, that magic scroll would have definitely fetched a staggering price of billions of gold coins if it had been sold during a public auction. This time, it had really been sold at a price that was way below its value.
However, the auction house would not be able to afford to take out billions of gold coins to compensate for Lin Li’s loss even if the Gilded Kingdom emptied their treasury. Grand Duke Vidi could only afford to fork out 100,000,000 gold coins as a token of apology to Lin Li. He hoped that he could seek Lin Li’s understanding, and even offered to further compensate him with the items of the auction house.
The auction items that could be used as finale items would not appear at the auction of every single Sea Market. Hence, the auction house would usually put away some precious treasures and keep them in their collection in order to prepare for the situation where there were no items worthy of being a finale item.. Over the past several thousand years, they had definitely accumulated quite a considerable collection of treasures which were about as valuable as items that could be used for the finale pieces of their auctions.