The snow had just stopped and the sky cleared up. The whole city of Rhein was blanketed with a layer of silver. The sunlight refracted through the icicles on the treetops, creating a riot of colors. It seemed that all the filth and ugliness in the city had been washed away. This winter in Rhein came a bit earlier than usual, which precisely suited the nobles and the rich. The noble ladies and misses had come to the time to show off their new winter gowns.
The Sorun District in the southwest was the slum area of the city, a forgotten corner where people engaged in various low-level occupations congregated, and it was also a paradise for criminals. Winter was not a good thing for the people here. The run-down houses needed to be repaired, and winter clothes and fuel needed to be prepared.
At the edge of the Sorun District, Rogue was standing in front of an old two-story small building, looking at his new nest with satisfaction. The location of the small building was excellent, of course, this was only for a few people like Rogue. Not far from the small building was a small cemetery, and several tall oak trees were planted around the building. Even on a sunny day, it still seemed a bit gloomy here.
Rogue happily opened the door and walked in. The small building seemed to have been idle for some days, and the few pieces of furniture were covered with dust and cobwebs. Half of the shutters didn't work properly, and there was a wooden staircase beside the living room leading to the second floor. There were three rooms on the second floor, one large and two small. The large one, Rogue planned to use as his study, and as for the two small ones, one was a storage room and the other was a laboratory. God knows what Rogue could experiment with, at least for now.
Because of its unique geographical location, this small building cost Rogue only 50 gold coins. Just a week ago, this was still Rogue's living expenses and tuition for a whole year. But now Rogue still had 350 gold coins in his pocket. The staff snatched from the mercenary mage a week ago was of good quality, and the aquamarine on it was of a good grade, which was of great help to mages who loved the water element. Due to Rogue's glorious record, he single-handedly dealt with two warriors and one mage on the other side. Rence and others all undoubtedly thought that the staff should belong to Rogue. And after Rogue spent a few days summarizing the battle that day, he thought this thing was not of much significance to him at present, so he sold the magic staff for 400 gold coins.
Rogue had never held such a large amount of money before. The annual various rental and tax incomes of the old Viscount Rivers were merely 300 gold coins, so naturally there wouldn't be much left for his son. Moreover, a declining noble was still a noble, and the necessary social pomp still had to be maintained. Due to the heavy economic pressure, the old Viscount Rivers' temper became increasingly irritable.
It was a week later after the interior of the building was furnished. The new furniture cost Rogue 20 gold coins. Now Rogue was lying contentedly on his bed in his study (in his perception, he didn't think it was at all wrong to have a bed in the study), with piles of gold coins beside him. God knew how much a son of a declining noble yearned for gold coins. After repeatedly counting countless times, Rogue finally fell asleep wearily and slept until the sun was setting the next day. "Ahhhh````````````!" Rogue, who had yawned widely, jumped up from the bed, and several gold coins jingled and fell to the ground. This sound was truly pleasant.
Sleeping until waking up naturally and counting money until the hands cramped. That was Rogue's happy life.
In the following month, Rogue would return to his small nest from time to time and added many traps and mechanisms to it. Rence and others had come to Rogue's new nest one after another, and several people had also provided a lot of ideas, most of which were mischievous, but there were also occasional unexpected ones that emerged. Of course, the things arranged by these several novices had limited power, but only had some merit in terms of insidiousness.
During this period, Rogue also learned a new spell, the Flame Finger. It relied on a small jet of flame ejected from the fingers to injure the enemy, but this second-level spell naturally also had very limited power.
After discovering that spiritual power could also be used as a trip wire, Rogue once again began to practice hard with great enthusiasm. But except for the cat that was thrown out getting a little fatter, there was no achievement at all in the past month. Rogue finally understood the principle that a fat man is not made in one bite. The enthusiasm waned, and he began to go around with Eter and the others again.
Rogue almost forgot that he still had a skeleton.
One must sharpen his tools if he desires to do a fine job. Rogue still comprehended this principle. The numerous scars left from the battle at "The Old Oak" also made Eter and others understand this truth with profound pain. Several people simultaneously purchased high-quality equipment, naturally including some things that were not quite in line with the identity of a knight and noble demeanor. Rogue purchased an exquisite elven crossbow that could hold three crossbow bolts at a time and had simple runes attached to it to slightly enhance the magic penetrating power. "This is much better than a plate." Rogue said shamelessly to Eter, who deeply agreed and suggested adding anesthetic to the arrows, which was promptly adopted by Rogue.
The several mischievous friends were well-behaved for a month and didn't go out to misbehave. Apart from spending a large amount of their monthly money on purchasing equipment, the main reason was that they were afraid of encountering those mercenaries again. Any one of those guys, if they got serious, would be sufficient to drive away all of them. Although the other party wouldn't blatantly kill a noble, a beating was inevitable. Moreover, most of the mercenaries were good at torture. Whenever Rence thought of the female warrior Qiwei's crotch-kicking move, he always shuddered and subconsciously clamped his legs.
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In the city lord's mansion of Lille City, the capital of the Duchy of Bavaria two hundred miles west of Rhine City, Ophirok was passionately studying the reports of Rogue and others, especially the description of Rogue poisoning the crossbow and the traps in Rogue's small nest. Elisis, the combination of an iceberg and a black flame, delicately held the report handed over by Ophirok with her slender fingers, just like holding a dirty thing. The blue-glowing nails sparkled from time to time in the sunlight. She increasingly loathed these few people and didn't understand why Ophirok was so interested in such a few losers.
A black flame rose up and quickly turned these reports into nothingness, not even leaving a trace of ashes. But that ice-clear finger, the finger in the flame, was not damaged at all.
The Golden Lion didn't care and stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. The window faced the east, and the setting sun coated everything in front of the window with a layer of blood red. Ophirok's gaze seemed to penetrate hundreds of miles of time and space and fall on Rhine City.
The setting sun became even redder, and the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains were like blood. Ophirok's blood was slowly heating up, and his heart was already overlooking the earth. Elisis was like hidden in the black purgatory fire, watching the blood-stained mountains and rivers and the imposing Ophirok who was rising in momentum. The ice-like eyes slowly melted, and a silvery-white light flashed by, like the cold light on the scythe of the god of death.
The snow was melted by the spring sunlight for the very first time. Rogue walked out from Faith's laboratory and quietly watched the melted snowdrops dripping from the roof one by one. Rogue had a long chat with Faith throughout the night. After asking some questions about magic arrays, the master and apprentice, who had many common bad vices, began chatting about various matters. After chatting about countless legends of powerful mages in the tales, Faith suddenly sighed, "To become a powerful mage, having no money is absolutely out of the question." Rogue's eyes also glowed, "Yes, every piece of equipment of those great mages is extremely valuable. Even that staff that I snatched from that mage last time is actually worth several hundred gold coins." So the topic naturally shifted to how mages should make money.
"Rogue, you now have a bit of money. Of course, this is far from enough, and you can't even afford decent magic materials. You've been with me for such a long time, and the teacher hasn't given you anything. This magic ring can still be useful to you. And this black crystal is of good quality. But it's up to you to make it into a magic equipment by yourself. If you don't understand anything about magic arrays, come and ask me again. The rest depends on your own efforts. The improvement of magic power is not a matter of one or two days. If you want to become powerful quickly, you have to make money. Only with money can you have good magic equipment, and only when you are powerful can you have more money. Which of the influential figures in the history of the mainland is not extremely wealthy. As for those several great mages, each of them has one or two artifacts. And the founders, emperors, generals, and ministers, it is even more impossible without money. And which war is not a war that burns money?"
Faith was still not satisfied. "When it comes to making money, this knowledge is also not small. The way to make money is first to recognize the trend, and second to get the right people. Recognize the general trend of the world, know where the trend is going, and act along with it, then naturally everything will go smoothly everywhere. When it comes to recognizing people, it should be known that human power sometimes has its limits. No matter how extremely intelligent you are, you won't be omnipotent. Being able to gather the outstanding talents of the world for my use, then the wealth will naturally roll in without saying. The last point lies in being able to abandon. One should have self-knowledge, be able to advance and retreat. When seeing that something can't be done, one should have the courage to cut off the wrist and admit defeat. Losing once or twice, as long as it doesn't cause serious damage, why worry about not being able to make a comeback. Rogue, you are all good, but you just lack a bit of perseverance and patience. This can't be rushed, and have time to go and read the General History of the Continent. The paths that predecessors have walked, there will always be some reference to some extent. It should be known that what is important is not that you run faster than others on a path, but that the path you choose is a correct one."
Rogue was only left stunned and his heart was filled with excitement. How could he have thought that this usually dull and sullen Faith could have such insights. Rogue only felt that the world in front of him suddenly opened up and his heart was filled with the soft glow emitted by gold coins.
The magic ring that Faith gave to Rogue was an ordinary magic amplification ring. Said to be magic amplification, in fact, it is to help the caster control the spell more precisely, so as to cast the spell with less magic power. Judging from the result, it generally enables the mage to cast one more low-level magic.
Rogue walked towards his small building with powerful steps. He only felt that in his life, he had never been so full of fighting spirit as today. Everything in the night seemed to emit a golden glow. Gold coins, jewels, and beautiful women were flying around Rogue. Hehe, look at this tall chest, look at these long legs, it's really pleasing to the eye, as if it's real. "Why does this face seem a little familiar? Pretty good-looking, quite charming. Where have I seen it before?... This isn't an illusion!" Rogue suddenly woke up from his own illusion and stared dumbfounded at the other end of the alley. The female warrior, Qiwei, walked over with a solemn air.
"I've been looking for you two for two months!" The voice squeezed out from between the teeth rang out like a death knell.