As long as there was money to be made, there would be gnomes … The Goddess of Wealth's merchant guild. Fine, there wasn't much of a difference between the two. Either way, as long as there was money to be made, they would be almost everywhere.
The Goddess of Wealth, Beyana, was a Goddess who focused on wealth and business. However, the biggest difference between her and other churches was that all her priests would be merchants as well. In fact, many of them were even merchants who changed careers.
The Goddess of Wealth loved successful merchants who could make money. She especially appreciated new business models and markets, and viewed them as important criteria for obtaining her divine favor. Any successful business would be an extension and explanation of her teachings. Not only would selling holy water, healing potions, and other such common services be ignored, but every Goddess of Wealth's priest's bag would be a department store. Everything could be found there. In fact, even the Goddess of Wealth had created spatial divine arts specifically for storing and trading items.
However, unlike the gnomes who always caused trouble, the Goddess of Wealth's priests were incredibly popular everywhere. After all, they weren't here purely to earn wealth for themselves. Instead, they were here to create more wealth. There was nothing more worthy of the Goddess of Wealth's favor than a new business route or source of wealth. The best Goddess of Wealth's priests didn't care about how much money they had.
Was it a little difficult to understand? There was once a classic example of this. The Icewind Valley was so poor that it was frozen for at least three hundred days a year. There were only incredibly powerful ice magic beasts there, and it was impossible for any crops to survive. However, there was an incredibly delicious ice lake fish there. However, nobody would travel for half a year in the middle of the ice and snow just to eat a fish.
However, one Goddess of Wealth's priest actually discovered that the bones of these long-tailed fish were translucent, just like crystals. Not only that, the locals had the custom of processing fish bones into handicrafts. These handicrafts were made from bone combs, which had a unique style. It was said that using these combs to comb one's hair for a long time would even be beneficial to one's hair and neck. As a result, through a series of marketing campaigns, such as inviting famous city lords to wear these handicrafts from the border of Eich to attend important banquets, and increasing the price at auctions, the locals forcefully turned these bone combs, which weren't even worth a single coin in the local area, into a rare and priceless item in the center of Eich.
Every year, merchant caravans would travel thousands of miles to obtain bone products from the Goddess of Wealth. The local area also gained a new source of income, and a new trade route was born. The originally ordinary priest was also favored by the Goddess of Wealth. He was now Archbishop Finn of the Olis Parish, the largest parish of the Goddess of Wealth.
Perhaps the priests of the Goddess of Wealth didn't have much money to begin with, but they never lacked for it. On the other hand, the more business and money were used, the more perfect the Goddess of Wealth's Divine Concept would be, and the more powerful she would become.
To be honest, Beyana was also famous for her hatred of war. To her, a stable business and trade was the best. All of Beyana's priests would do their best to extinguish the fuse of war. And once war broke out, the Divine Concepts of Pestilence, Violence, Slaughter, and so on would rise. The Gods' priests would then go around causing trouble everywhere.
If war broke out, literature, music, and other "civil" Divine Concepts would definitely be affected as well. In fact, divine power might even become a hindrance. However, no matter if it was the Gods themselves or their believers, they would all lack the ability to take action. From a certain standpoint, Beyana could be counted as one of the core members of the anti-war faction.
During that God's declaration, the Goddess of Wealth, who was a staunch supporter of the Death God Faction and had always been an anti-war faction, actually declared war first, causing many to be astonished.
But now that things had developed to this point, the Goddess of Wealth was actually the one who benefited the most.
Business Divine Concepts included the concept of "money," which was a currency that was guaranteed by the government's reputation. Only with money that could be exchanged for anywhere would there be concepts like "finance," "futures," "stock market," and so on. Only then would the Goddess of Wealth be able to further strengthen the Concept of Wealth. In other words, if there was a True God in the "Earth" dimension where money worship was rampant and all sorts of economic forms were developed, the Goddess of Wealth would probably already be at the level of a High God. But here, business and trade remained at the most basic level, and she was still only a second-rate God with Medium Divine Power.
A "common currency" was quite important to the Goddess of Wealth. This was something that would only be possible when business reached a certain level of development. It would be quite difficult to develop in this world, since there was no such thing as an undying dynasty. In the Aichy continent, which was filled with independent kingdoms, precious metals were the most reliable hard currency. However, carrying money wasn't a necessity. Some people had thought about using paper money and tried before, but nobody really dared to use it. Even if some kingdoms tried to forcefully use paper money, it would either be used in an extremely small area, or the kingdom's credit would go bankrupt, leading to a pitiful end.
But ever since that declaration, a new "common currency that was purely based on credit" appeared in this world — Justice Points. Although it didn't seem like much had changed, it was actually the beginning of "credit currency." That was because without a True God's guarantee, this currency would definitely be worthless. This was a classic example of "virtual currency."
The natural laws of the world changed because of this. Beyana, who had mastered the art of Justice Point exchange, even created several unique Divine Arts that allowed her high-level priests to act as war-time shops that provided all sorts of items for exchange. This miracle helped her obtain even more faith, gratitude, and fame. What followed was a steady increase in her divine power.
In fact, just creating the concept of "Justice Point exchange" gave the concept of "Wealth" a new meaning, allowing it to successfully improve.
Of course, providing such a service would be the equivalent of a priest directly communicating with the Gods. This would be impossible without sufficient divine favor and holy power. Basically, only high-level priests would be able to do this.
The moment I returned to our campsite, I discovered that there was already a long line outside our tent. At the very front of the line, Betty was carrying out her Divine Concept's requirements by providing adventurers with a Justice Point exchange service.
Silver light gathered in her eyes. Her usual smile had transformed into an emotionless, cold, and dull expression. Beside her was a pitch-black dimensional space that constantly distorted light like a black hole.
"He" simply listened to Betty's request and erased the Justice Point record in her armband. Then, he took out the completed item from the black hole and handed it to Betty. His speed was quite fast, and he made no mistakes whatsoever.
Seeing this, I knew that my worries had been unnecessary. Just Betty alone was an essential strategic factor for this operation. As long as she was here, we wouldn't need to worry about our adventurers being ostracized at all.
And so, I directly turned around and left our temporary campsite by myself.
From a certain standpoint, this was a bad habit of mine. Even if there were professional scouts around, I would still investigate the situation myself. While it was true that I didn't trust others, it was precisely this bad habit of mine that would cause others to criticize me. However, this bad habit of mine had saved my life several times in the past.
But before I even left the campsite, I met someone who seemed rather familiar. His name seemed … what was his name again?
"K … Kate?"
"I'm Kaise, Kaise Elorn."
It would seem that Kaise was quite well-mannered. His smile didn't change even after I called him the wrong name.
"Do you need something from me?"
"If you have the time, I'd like to have a chat with you."
It was quite obvious that Kaise wanted to find out more about me, but I was too lazy to feign civility with him.
"I don't have the time. I'm just about to go out and investigate."
"Perfect, I was planning to do the same. Why don't we go together? Black Hurricane, come out. "
As he said this, he activated the enchantment on his gloves. Black smoke suddenly rose up, and a completely black steed walked out. This steed was at least a head taller than ordinary warhorses, and its red eyes had a bloodthirsty glint to them. When the light shone on its body, it seemed to distort in a strange manner.
"A Nightmare warhorse?"
This was a rare item. This type of warhorse had the bloodline of a Nightmare Beast. Its endurance and speed far surpassed ordinary warhorses, and it even had some supernatural abilities. When it galloped at high speed, its distorted light could create illusions that would cause arrows to miss. Its bloodthirsty nature made it unafraid of any opponent, and the most convenient part was its Nightmare Beast bloodline. It could also be summoned at any time as a contracted beast, which was quite convenient.
"Yes, during our previous adventure in Terrasil, our team coincidentally obtained it. It's really beautiful, isn't it?"
Kaise smiled at me as he gently stroked the horse's head and intimately touched its neck. For some reason, this scene reminded me of a certain Beast Tamer that had been intentionally forgotten but would probably jump out on his own soon. At the very least, if he was here, I wouldn't have to personally investigate.
But when I saw Kaise summon his mount, I had to reevaluate his power level.
For a Knight job class, more than half of a person's strength depended on their mount. This was a good horse. Although it didn't have any powerful special abilities, it was still an extremely useful ability to distort arrows. It could increase the user's combat strength by at least 30%, and the fact that it was able to obtain such a priceless mount in the market proved how powerful this Magic Knight was.
I found it rather amusing. Kaise was actually showing off his abilities in front of me, as if he intended to use his power to suppress me, but at the same time, he didn't make me feel too disgusted.
"Alright, if you can keep up, then keep up. Irene Béla. "
But the strange thing was that my waving hand landed on empty air. There was no response to my summon.
"Pfft."
Not far away, the Magic Knight couldn't help but snicker, which made me feel rather awkward. However, I was also rather confused. Although Irene Béla had been sleeping in my Frigidwinter Earth recently, accumulating power in preparation for her evolution, it shouldn't have been impossible for her to not hear my summons.
"Hmph, you haven't let me go out to play recently. Did you forget about me?"
Alright then, I had been wandering around the city recently, so there hadn't been many opportunities for her to go out. No wonder she was complaining.
"I'm sorry, I'll remember to take you out for regular walks in the future …"
For some reason, I recalled that Ah Bao had been acting like this when she was throwing a tantrum when I hadn't gone on walks for a while.
"How insincere."
Weren't you forcing me to use my trump card? Did you think that I didn't know what you wanted?
"Strawberry ice, banana ice, ten people's worth …"
"One month, and I'll make sure you eat your fill."
From a certain standpoint, ever since the Frigid Maw "invented" fruit-flavored shaved ice, they had developed new hobbies. Apart from the taste of fruit-flavored shaved ice, what they truly liked was the dyeing effect of fruit juice after it entered their bodies. Their poop yellow ice dragons and green tortoises were truly a test of one's endurance. The most unacceptable part was that they would even change their appearance in order to match their color. For example, they would have a yellow X that was even taller than a house … Fine then, just thinking about it made me feel uncomfortable, so I shouldn't think too deeply about it.
"Alright, deal. Hurry up and come out. Look at that brat who's secretly laughing over there. I've almost lost all my face."
Right after I said that, I floated into the sky. However, I wasn't on my saddle, but rather being held in a gigantic claw.
Above my head was a gigantic creature that covered the clouds. It was a crystalline ice dragon. Although it had a similar appearance to a bone dragon, it was purer and more powerful.
"Ice dragon transformation? Irene Béla, you've broken through? "
"No, I've just recovered. Your world is basically the Ice Elemental Plane. I can feel the comfort of home there."
"Home? Ice Elemental Plane? "
I faintly understood something, but now wasn't the time to think too deeply about it. That was because I would have to think about how to deal with the magic Knight who was gaping at me in astonishment.
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