Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 28 The World Economic System
"what do you mean……"

Badr looked puzzled.

"clatter!"

Loki snapped his fingers crisply and chuckled easily.

"dwarf."

"dwarf?"

Badr repeated the sentence in confusion at first, then seemed to understand Loki's meaning, and then a look of astonishment appeared on his face, and he couldn't help but shake his head.

“Those dark elves are indeed excellent craftsmen, but they are not servants of the gods. To force them to build palaces for the gods is simply… simply…”

The Dark Elves, also known as Dwarves, originated from Ymir, the progenitor of the Frost Giants, who was killed at the beginning of creation. His blood became rivers, his muscles became mountains, and his bones became minerals. At the same time, maggots rotting on his body also existed.

Those that turned towards the light became beautiful and kind light spirits, deeply loved by the gods. The gods then assigned these tiny spirits, no bigger than half a person, to tend the gardens. Those that turned towards the darkness became clever and cunning dark spirits. The gods disliked them and sent them to Vatheim in the west. The small dark spirits could not stand the sunlight, so they lived underground year-round.

Despite their ugly appearance and cunning nature, these dwarves are all master craftsmen. Whether it is Mjolnir, the invincible warhammer of Thor, or Brishigaman, the necklace worn by Freya, the goddess of love and beauty, which has an irresistible charm, they are all masterpieces of the dwarves. In addition, many of the artifacts in the hands of the gods were made by the dwarves.

Without a doubt, it would be an easy task to have the dwarves help the gods rebuild their palaces.

However, Baldr, the god of light, was an absolute good-natured man, tolerant of everyone, unable to be ruthless, and indecisive. He often struggled to make decisions on any judgments given to him. For a benevolent god, this was an excellent quality, but for a successor to the god-king, it was clearly a lack of the decisiveness a god-king should possess.

In fact, a large part of the reason why his son, Forseti, the god of truth and justice, was able to be ranked as one of the twelve leaders was to assist him in judging those disputes.

Otherwise, since Thor is constantly fighting against the frost giants, theoretically the throne of the god-king should be inherited by Baldr, who is more supported and favored by the gods and is also Odin's eldest son besides Thor. However, if the god-king lacks courage, it is obviously not a good thing. A god who can assist the future god-king in making decisions is naturally qualified to be one of the twelve leaders.

As for Baldr, the idea of ​​forcing the dwarves to build a palace was obviously abhorrent to him, but clearly not everyone shared his sentiment.

"However, if we could get those dwarves to build the palace... that would seem like a good idea."

Beside Baldr, the goddess of winter, Skadi, had a sudden flash of inspiration and seemed to be deep in thought.

For this goddess who has spent years driving away winter wolves and the cold, and who has witnessed death and cruelty, any act of violence is insignificant, a trivial matter.

But Loki looked at them in astonishment at the gods' speculations, then chuckled and shook his finger.

"Forced? No, no, no, you're mistaken. It's not forced; it's bought with gold coins."

"Buy with gold coins?"

The goddess Freya asked, somewhat puzzled.

It must be said that even in the mythological world, there are still objective laws to follow in some places. For example, this world, which is essentially no more than 100,000 years old, although long before the creation of the world, in the chaos, the gods and frost giants waged a long war for countless years, there were not many gods and frost giants at that time. Therefore, in the less than 100,000 years since the creation of the world, humans have gradually emerged and gradually moved from barbarism to civilization.

Even with divine assistance, humanity in this world clearly exhibits a severe imbalance in many areas. For a long time, they lived in a nomadic state of tribal clans, following birds and beasts. Their history of truly settling down and cultivating agriculture is less than two thousand years old, and the concept of currency only gradually emerged in these few thousand years. For a long time, humans still relied on bartering, and even now, many human villages still adhere to the concept of bartering, remaining ignorant of currency. The concept of measuring wealth is often based on how many cows or sheep a family owns, rather than how much money they have.

The gods, who are often busy with their own responsibilities, managing mountains, rivers, stars, plants, birds, beasts, and even the four elements of wind, fire, water, and earth, as well as all living and dead beings, clearly lack sufficient understanding of these little things that gradually emerged from human civilization. Even if they have some superficial knowledge, they don't pay much attention to them. Only Loki, who often mingles among humans, keenly perceives the true value of this still unpopular concept.

"Of course, I bought it with gold coins."

Loki said matter-of-factly.

He looked around and gazed at the gods before him.

"Did you know that in the mortal world today, some valuable things are traded using something called currency, and the most important materials for making currency are gold and silver?"

As he spoke, he stood up from his throne and held up two coins that he had pulled out from somewhere: a gold coin and a regular coin. They were crudely made, but they already had some patterns and designs on them.

As he walked among the gods, displaying the two coins before them, he spoke with a hint of pride.

"This is a very interesting thing. With it, you can buy anything and everything. Currently, both humans and dwarves are starting to see this novel gadget popular..." "I still don't quite understand what you mean."

Tyr, the God of War who knew nothing about these things, scratched his head and stared blankly at Loki, who had suddenly become radiant.

Loki looked at the gods before him. Some gods seemed thoughtful, but most looked blank and confused. He shook his head.

"Do you know exactly how much gold and silver Asgard has?"

Before the gods could answer, he raised his voice several octaves and shouted.

Nine out of ten!

"More than nine-tenths of the gold and silver in this universe are in Asgard! What does this mean? It means that we can use these nine-tenths of gold and silver to directly control all the gold and silver currencies in the world!"

"The value, circulation, and use of all currencies in the world will be under our control!"

"As long as we strictly control the output of gold and silver and stabilize their prices, we can use this little thing called 'currency' to manipulate the value of all goods in the world. Whether it's those sophisticated weapons, hiring ordinary warriors to fight for us, or buying those exquisite and novel gadgets, it will all become incredibly easy and effortless. And all we need to pay is a little bit of gold and silver that is completely unimportant."

"Furthermore, if we extend the concept of currency to the frost giants, allowing them to enter the world market, purchase goods, and use currency, we might not even need to wage war against them anymore. We could simply use this currency to tempt the greedy among them, causing them to split and fight amongst themselves, or even use this small amount of currency to hire them to fight for us..."

"And if the concept of gold and silver equaling currency takes root in people's minds, we can even use leaves to replace physical gold and silver, making them a conceptual currency. At that time, we won't even need to mine gold and silver; we can use those worthless leaves to control all living beings in the nine worlds..."

"Without war or plunder, all we need to do is establish a complete global economic system, and we can easily manipulate the nine worlds and bring them under our de facto rule!"

As he finished speaking, Loki's expression became noticeably excited. He spoke faster and faster, his eyes seemingly shining, as if he were proud and pleased with his sudden inspiration.

"Leaves can control the world? How is that possible?"

Upon hearing this, Thor instinctively retorted.

Although he was completely bewildered by Loki's long explanation, there was one thing he understood without a doubt: Loki, who was always full of strange and whimsical ideas, seemed to have come up with some "absurd" and bizarre ideas again.

But then Odin spoke.

“Loki’s words are not entirely without merit…”

The king of the gods gently rubbed his forehead with his thumb, deep in thought. Having drunk from the Fountain of Wisdom, he vaguely realized that what Loki was saying seemed to be possible. However, his reason told him that these words were too absurd. Although he could barely understand Loki's concept of gold and silver currency, he found it hard to imagine things like "circulating currency" and "leaf currency."

Finally, he shook his head and said.

“Loki, your idea is interesting, but leaf currency is just too absurd… However, if we can get those dwarves to work for us with gold and silver, that would be good. You could try negotiating with them once.”

Looking at the confusion on Odin's face, and the undisguised astonishment and sneers on the faces of the other gods, Loki knew that it was impossible to convince these gods to believe in and support him in establishing a "world economic system."

But that didn't really matter. It was just a flash of inspiration, and he himself wasn't entirely sure if it would succeed. Although he felt a little regretful, he didn't care too much.

With that thought in mind, he casually tossed the two coins in his hand aside, no longer taking the "world economic system" he had just thought of seriously.

Then, he spoke confidently to Odin.

“I had anticipated this long ago. I had already negotiated with the dwarves, and they have agreed to pay gold as a reward for repairing the palace for the gods.”

As he spoke, he turned around to look at the gods behind him and said.

"Before I came to Asgard, I thought there might be other places that needed repair, and I even negotiated various other tasks with the dwarves, but now it seems... that's no longer necessary."

"So, the only problem now... is to talk about the sun that was swallowed up by my child."

Upon hearing this, the gods' expressions hardened; they all knew that a truly thorny problem had arisen.

(End of this chapter)