Chapter 76 - Casa City
These things seemed like a lot, but there was little money in most of it. The highest yield crops were corn and oil fruits, but nobody wanted to buy corn, and oil fruits weren’t worth a lot.
The eggplants and cabbages were planted by Zhao so that he could make a lot of different dishes, but he feared that no one on the Continent would buy them, meaning no money.
The only thing he had that was worth a good price were the radishes. Right now his space only had six hundred gold coins, but that wasn’t enough for the future development of the Buda clan, so he could only rely on these radishes.
As for the corn, Zhao was ready to harvest all of his corn tomorrow, then maybe he could plant some broccoli, though the amount of broccoli seeds he had was only enough for two acres. Maybe he could just use the other two acres to grow wheat, since he had wheat seeds in his barn.
Right now the kinds of seeds he had on hand was too little. When he was on the road, Zhao didn’t collect any seeds of other plants, because people had been staring at him. If he collected any seeds, it would make the people look at him strangely, so Zhao didn’t fool around.
Also, Zhao had thought, even if he collected seeds, he alone wouldn’t be able to get enough. Even if he was more powerful, how many seeds could he actually collect? It was too uneconomical. Instead, after he makes money and some preparations, he could just put out a task for mercenaries and adventurers to do it.
In this world, as long as you had money, you could make mercenaries and adventurers do any task that you requested. Even if you asked for the king of the Aksu Empire to be assassinated, there would be people who would take care of it, if you could afford it.
Zhao, while sitting in the spa pool, was brooding over these things. But right now he had too little money available, and his enemies were too strong, so Zhao decided to maintain his customary low key style.
Suddenly, Zhao was hit by a feeling of tiredness. He shook his head. After soaking in the spa, he actually felt faint. Standing up, he picked up a towel and dried his body, then he went into his bedroom where there was a pot of tea. Pouring himself a cup, he sat on the bed and quietly drank it.
Zhao’s body felt weak. He knew that he had been in the hot spa too long. He had been living with too much pressure lately, so he wanted to be lazy for awhile. Lying there quietly in the spa had felt nice.
But now it was time for bed. Calming his emotions, Zhao decided to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, they will be going to Casa city. He really wanted to see why it was known as the pearl of the northern parts of Aksu Empire.
This was going to be Zhao’s first time going into one of the big cities. He really did have some expectations. Although Adam had lived in the capital, which was the largest and most prosperous city in the Aksu Empire, for Zhao, those memories were like watching a movie in his head. It didn’t feel real. That was why he was looking forward to going to Casa city.
The night passed without words. The slaves were sleeping peacefully outside the space, in the open air.
The next morning, everyone woke up in high spirits. Most of the rooms had a spa, so the slaves were able to take a nice bath.
After breakfast, the slaves went into the space again to learn to read and write words, then Zhao got into his undead and moved straight towards Casa city.
From here to there, if they were riding by carriage, it would be two days away, but Zhao was riding inside an undead. Compared to horses, its speed wasn’t that bad, and since it leveled up, it was even faster. Also, horses would eventually become tired, while his undead just kept on going.
Now it only took a little over half a day before Zhao made it to Casa city.
Because of the few mountains around the city, its walls weren’t traditionally square shaped, but circular. The walls were nearly thirty meters high with six meters of thickness, and it had eighteen gates. Stuck to the wall was the flag of the Purcell clan, looking majestic. From time to time, teams of soldiers would patrol the walls, heroic looking in their silver armors while holding shining weapons. Everything showed that this was an extraordinary place.
Zhao was standing beneath the walls, looking straight up. He had never seen walls like these before, because in his past life he had only lived in a modern city. Looking at these imposing walls, he couldn’t help but think of those ancient Chinese cities. You could definitely count on these walls to stop the momentum of any army.
Zhao could only marvel at them.
By now, Zhao had already returned his undead into the space. The general rule of big cities, like Casa city, was that there was a warning area about five hundred meters away from the walls. If you weren’t someone malicious, then it was best to put your summons away, otherwise the defenders of the city would be likely to count you as malicious and then attack you.
Zhao didn’t know this, but Green did. About five meters away from Casa city, he made Zhao put away his undead. Although they wanted people’s attention on them, that didn’t mean that they wanted to stir up trouble. As long as they maintained a high profile, there was no need to cause trouble. And if they fight, it might expose their secrets.
Green didn’t understand why Zhao had stopped and stared up at the city walls. Such an action could easily lead to suspicion. If it weren’t for those defenders seeing that he was a mage, Green feared that they would have already been questioned.
Fortunately, Zhao only looked for a moment, then recovered. He walked towards the city, followed by Green and Meg. Meirin didn’t go with them because Zhao didn’t want the people to know the full extent of their power.
Zhao waved and walked towards the gate. In front of the gate were two big boxes, which had one word written on it: tax. It appeared to be boxes designed to collect taxes. If the people wanted to go through the gates, they had to put money into the box, or they will be stopped.
However, Zhao didn’t have to pay the tax. He remembered what Green had told him, that mages could live tax-free.
Of course, it didn’t mean that wearing a mage’s robe would make you exempt. If you wanted to live tax-free, you had to go register at the Mage Association and get a badge. No badge, no exceptions.
But Zhao was an exception. Although he didn’t have a mage’s badge, the defenders had already seen him put away his undead. This indicated his identity as a mage, so those defenders didn’t dare block him.
There were a lot of black mages on the Continent that didn’t register with the Mage Association. Except for places like Montenegro Fortress, no one would dare pretend to be a black mage.
Once they got closer to the gate, Green again reminded Zhao of what to do, because he feared that if Zhao’s performance as a black mage was too moderate, then it might arouse suspicions.
Translator Notes: This chapter was MTLed by Trung and edited by theno1fan. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.