Surviving The Fourth Calamity-Chapter 78 - 71 The King’s Highlight Moment_2

78: Chapter 71: The King’s Highlight Moment_2

78 -71: The King’s Highlight Moment_2

Apart from the Noble Temple who humored him with a few words, the other Temples all believed he was insane.

These were the exact words of the vice chairman in the briefing.

The Noble Temple is now about to withdraw completely, only humoring him a few words because they fear he might cause trouble.

The Temple of Art and Love had left a year ago.

As for the Justice Temple, it had been silent throughout the year.

Fran had a reasonable relationship with the Justice Temple and once told Hill that over the past year, the Church of Justice had been busy soothing the shaken faith of its followers.

When Hill heard this, he even celebrated a bit.

After all, he had heard for many years the stories of magicians with Devil’s Bloodline betraying the God of Justice!

The outcome turned out to be the Justice Temple concocting stories to cover their own deities’ shame.

From the day he realized the truth, he began to despise the God of Justice.

His selfishness was understandable, but there was no need to set such a grand image!

The Justice Temple had the most paladins, who always took pride in their deities.

Now that their faith was shaken, causing turmoil in the Divine Kingdom of Justice, they deserved it.

The Goddess of the Spring had no particular reaction.

Probably because she felt that although she had good relations with the Noble Temple, she hadn’t offended the God of Time and Space, so William wouldn’t do anything to them, right?

The Temples of the God of Knowledge, God of Smithing, and such were even less bothered by this; after all, there aren’t any deities that take pride in evil in this world.

Factions at most stand neutral, and the worst, like the God of Nobility and the Goddess of Love, are just slightly inclined towards evil.

That’s all on their followers.

As long as they haven’t offended the God of Time and Space, as long as it’s not in Kexlote, William, the Pope of this Neutral Good deity, will absolutely not lay a hand on them.

The several Temples in Obastian are still openly welcoming followers!

The King of Haifasardo, wanting to drag the Temples and the Mage Association into a cornered beast struggle, only managed to get a comment of “gone crazy” from the vice chairman of the Mage Association.

Even the Saral branch held on; could Haifasardo be worse off than them?

It’s no wonder the vice chairman directly cursed him in the briefing.

The next page is also a big scoop.

Cortez imposed heavy taxes on the Haifasardo nobles who had fled there.

Mages and Grand Knights get a fifty percent reduction, Archmages are tax-exempt.

It must be that Cortez didn’t want that many nobles flooding in.

Both Haifasardo and Saral are countries that only need to defend two sides.

The first King of Saral didn’t stray far from Haifa when he founded the nation and even expanded a lot towards Haifa’s direction after establishing it.

He was a rough and simplistic man, with little to no concerns, and once he acquired the Goldstone Mine, he generously built the national Great Wall right up to the Western Mountains on the plains.

Saral really is an unusually long rectangular country.

Haifa, dominated by Saral to the North, faced almost no pressure.

After all, with Magical Beasts separated by high mountains to the West, they take more time to traverse.

The Magical Beast tides aren’t as large as those on the plains.

Cortez is quite far from Haifa.

The southern border of Haifa isn’t long; it’s a westward extending mouth of the Western Mountains, consisting of upright cliffs that are easy to defend but hard to attack.

Hence, most of the Magical Beasts coming out of the grand plains between Haifa and Cortez attack Cortez.

The people of Cortez get annoyed thinking about Haifasardo.

It was after all their own nobles who failed in internal strife, went out, and established a country that ended up more comfortable than Cortez itself.

Now, they finally fell into their hands!

Bound by noble tradition, they can’t strip these people of their noble titles, but they can prevent them from entering their country!

Don’t come in if you’re broke.

Want a fief?

Cortez’s own nobles already have too many to manage; don’t think about a barony without a duke’s wealth.

Hill, looking at this report reeking of monetary interest, felt sympathy for the nobles of Haifasardo.

However, Cortez’s standard wasn’t very high; Grand Knight was a level that could be reached through hard work.

And since they are nobles, they are surely knights!

Since they could awaken, it wouldn’t be impossible to reach Grand Knight.

Laziness results in a lack of power.

No power means no status or money; this has always been the stark rule among the nobles.

Cortez’s actions were completely within noble tradition’s baseline, greedy, but not without justification.

As for the Sky Knights, having been there was Cortez’s honor.

Which Sky Knight would not possess a High-level Territory Decree!

Once the territory was established, a few more Grand Knights in the next generation could sustain it.

Those who went to Cortez were the ones with truly poor descendants, and they were also warmly welcomed.

After all, the new bloodlines of Sky Knights were the prime choices for matrimonial alliances.

Hill flipped to the back, where was the chaos that followed Haifasardo’s retreat from the Noble Temple.

The nobles schemed against each other, shirking responsibility, hoping to find a few scapegoats other than the King to deliver to William.

After much hassle, the King himself overturned the table and walked out with them.

It was quite alright; as long as the commoners could endure this turmoil, better days lay ahead.

The faster the nobles fled, the better.

The commoners were so thoroughly exploited that little was left to gain, and a great deal of time was wasted.

The fleeing nobles currently had no time to bother, and no major incidents were likely to arise soon.

At most, it was like the Mage Apprentices in the hall, at a loss and living austerely.

As it was still spring, diligence would prevent starvation.

Survival was all that mattered.

Hill decided to leave directly after putting away the briefing; he would visit Haifasardo upon its return.

Hill picked up the bell from the reception room’s table and gently shook it a few times.

The two apprentices entered quickly, standing respectfully with heads bowed, awaiting instructions.

“Does the Mages Association have any books for sale?” Hill asked indifferently.

“Many, but not all are Magic Books.” the male apprentice answered, “We don’t have a Temple of Knowledge here; the nobles sold their books to the Association before they left.”

Hill was genuinely surprised; not all meant there were still some.

Could it be some mages sold their Magic Books before fleeing?

“Why are there Magic Books for sale?”

“You must be a High-level Mage with a master, right?” said the female apprentice.

“There are many Junior Mages who make their apprentices copy Magic Books to sell.”

Copying Magic Books relied on magic power; a normal apprentice could manage to copy one a month if they did nothing else but that, at most three or four!

“How much money can that make?

Copying Magic Scrolls would be better!” Hill asked incredulously.

The male apprentice said somewhat awkwardly, “That also requires them to know and be able to teach it, and copying Magic Scrolls can fail!”

Hill felt they were looking at him as if he were the Emperor who asked why the starving didn’t eat meat porridge.

He calmly asked, “Are they much cheaper than the books from the Temple of Knowledge?”

“Yes, sir,” the male apprentice answered.

“Many mages only possess a few Magic Books.

In Haifasardo, there are many people who have studied magic, and each city has a few popular spells.”

It could be like this?

Hill blinked; why were they still suffering so and not moving to Saral?

The nobles there welcomed Junior Mages who knew a few spells and pharmaceutical techniques.

“Saral Mages are rare.”

“Saral’s reputation in Haifasardo isn’t very good,” the male apprentice said hesitantly.

“That founding Emperor from Haifa was famously disdainful of mages.

Even now, there are rumors in Saral that the Royal Family ostracizes mages and that mages in Saral are in a poor position.”

Hill had nothing to say.

“And now?

Do they still think that way?

Is that why all who could leave have left?”

“That’s not it,” the youngster said briskly.

“It’s because there are too many from the Undead Tribe, and they are all high-level; ordinary mages don’t stand a chance, better to head to Cortez.”

Hill shook his head and smiled bitterly, “Alright.

That’s a reason.

Bring me all the books; I want everything I don’t already have!”

The two hesitated and glanced at each other, “May we ask other apprentices for help?”

It looked quite a lot.

Knowing he was not a local, Hill thought it best not to visit their warehouse and nodded in agreement.

He placed a row of Primary Mana Potions on the table, telling the two apprentices, “One delivery, one potion.”

Indeed, rather than involving more people, the two opted to make several trips themselves, only calling in four or five others.

Hill busied himself selecting the books, satisfied; they were familiar faces, thus avoiding causing them trouble by getting too close to a High-level Mage.