Chapter 504: Chapter 137: Spy Within a Spy? _2
Throughout Ravensmouth College, the native and headquarters areas alone, there were more than two hundred sage-level legions among the college’s structure.
At the same time, there were more than a hundred heavenly battlefields open for combat.
Almost every month, a message or two of defeat would be delivered.
If the college were to rush to the rescue every time any old sage army suffered a minor setback, what good would those sage armies do them?
Sage armies were initially formed for territory expansion and protecting their important resource worlds in the worst-case scenario.
It wouldn’t make sense for the college to protect the Sage Army instead.
Deploying emergency assistance would only be considered if a given sage army truly faced the danger of being wiped out, or if the benefits from the situation were extremely significant.
The Palo Sage army had just been besieged by demons from the abyss, and the teleportation portal linking them to the rear camp had been destroyed. But that did not necessarily mean they had been cut off entirely from the college.
The fact that messages were being transmitted via special channels suggested that the situation had not yet become desperate, and they could attempt to break through on their own, or even launch a counterattack.
Serene Wizard understood all these logically.
But all of them were just logical arguments, Serene Wizard wasn’t so cold-hearted and rational to ignore his concerns just because it makes logical sense.
“Go about your tasks then,” said Serene Wizard, who was visibly in low spirits. He made no attempt to keep Link around.
“Call me if anything happens. I’ll come by every day to see if I can contribute in any way,” Link responded, rising and leaving the villa in the North District that belonged to the Serene Wizard.
He drove straight to the Grande Potion shop, checking over the account books and potion reserves before heading up to the potion laboratory on the second floor.
But instead of carrying out potion research or refining processes, he ordered a batch of intelligent reconnaissance puppets with inter-dimensional communication capabilities through his intelligence.
There were a variety of models, capable of operations in the sea, on land, and in the air, with features for every type of reconnaissance mission. The purchase cost him a large amount of magic stones.
Subsequently, Link started going through various references, trying to find precedents of two portal-like objects appearing as offshoots from the origin of a “small world”.
Regrettably, there was very little data on this topic, and even scattered pieces of information found held little insight.
Disappointed but not discouraged, he found no progress. He decided to put that aside for now and called over Buck and Linn.
In no time, the two of them arrived from the Senior Division.
“What’s up, Boss?” asked Linn, who had gradually assumed the position of the spokesperson and de facto leader in the brotherhood, his character becoming more and more steady over time, while Buck had become more impulsive.
“How’s the collection of depleted magic stones going?”
Ever since Link found out about the Energy Storage Device and its purpose, he asked the “Everything is Free” Brotherhood to collect magic stones that had been drained of their power.
Originally, these were only for powering the “Celestial Shuttle”, but now with the two black portals, there is a need to step up the collection effort.
“We’ve gathered over 5000 standard level one stones, and over 900 of level two,” reported Linn, with somewhat disappointing numbers. He explained, “The college, various prominent families, black market, and some organizations, are all collecting depleted magic stones. We can’t compete on price, so collection is relatively difficult.”
Price wars usually involve selling at low prices for profit.
Purchasing depleted magic stones at a high price, even with a legitimate use, would simply be foolish behavior.
“You can take the depleted magic stones you’ve collected to the lakeside villa this afternoon. Try to mobilize more manpower when you go back, especially in the West District.”
“Understood,” Linn agreed, aware that there must be a reason for his hasty request and did not object.
After some thought, Linn suggested, “Should we give some quotas to those five?”
By quota, he was referring to the “Fairy” potion.
A single tree does not make a forest. A handful of five low-level thugs at most could only “rule” one or two barely occupied alleys in the West District.
If they dared enter populated areas where resources were somewhat plentiful, they wouldn’t know how they died.
Their only improvement was in their wizard qualifications, their power hadn’t improved instantly.
“That’s possible,” Link replied, wanting to test out the newly optimized “Fairy” potion. Considering this, he decided to bring out the “Empowerment” potion to make some real progress and collect some data.
He said, “Tell them that I have another kind of potion. It can rapidly enhance their power in a short time, but the cost is a drastic depletion of their potential, severely lowering their future potential.”
“They’re getting a deal,” Buck suddenly spoke up from the side. “They practically have no future to speak of. They would jump at the chance to enhance their power.”
He was telling the truth.
Link didn’t respond, signaling Buck and Linn to handle these two tasks.
After pacing around the potion laboratory for a while, Link began considering the premonition Jasmine had mentioned the previous day.
It was indeed a peculiar situation.
Up until now, Link himself hadn’t felt any intuition or premonitions regarding it.
“Could it be that the portal is relocating?” he wondered, just as his pocket brain began to vibrate.
The inter-dimensional intelligent reconnaissance puppet he ordered had been delivered to his villa in the North District, accepted on his behalf by the butler, Hamid.
Link left the Grande Potion shop and drove back to his villa. He instructed Butler Hamid to deliver the inter-dimensional intelligent reconnaissance puppet to the magic laboratory on the third basement level of his villa and activated the villa’s highest level of security.
“Franda, time to get to work.”
With all twenty of the different-sized inter-dimensional intelligent reconnaissance puppets moved into the “small world”, Link sat upright, ready for what might come.
“Right away, Master.”