Above the mage!

Chapter 339 Choice
The huge magic training ground was silent for a moment.

After a while, the quiet atmosphere was broken by the sound of increasingly rapid breathing.

"How could you be so harsh on your colleagues?" A sea sentinel mage who was watching the battle and whom Gaode did not know stood up and said sternly.

"The battle was fierce and I couldn't stop. I apologized to him." God looked at the strange Sea Sentinel Mage and responded calmly.

When the other party heard this, his face turned unhappy and he continued, "Is an apology useful?"

"If it was useless, why would he apologize to me in advance?" Gao De was surprised.

"Training and assessment are simulated actual combat, and injuries are common. When is it your turn to make irresponsible remarks?" The man wanted to say something, but at this moment, a powerful voice came.

Captain Roll, wearing the uniform of a sea sentinel captain, appeared in the spell training ground at some point. Beside him was the wizard Nasi, who was nodding slightly at God.

Captain Roll's words made the sea sentinel mage dare not say anything anymore. He retreated in shame with his head shrunk.

"Announce the results." He looked at the three examiners present and continued.

The three examiners looked at each other, and finally the examiner sitting in the middle seat stood up and announced: "Second-class apprentice wizard Gao De defeated the examinee Metis during the training assessment. No scoring is required, and he can be directly judged as having passed the assessment."

There is no need to defeat the assessment object in the training assessment, as long as the score reaches the standard, you can pass it. However, if you defeat the assessment object, you will pass it directly without any dispute.

This is the default unspoken rule.

The assessment was over and the results were announced, so the watching Sea Sentinel Mages had no reason to stay any longer and left one by one.

Zuo Wen Burns looked at Goder calmly, but the gloom in his eyes could not be concealed.

Because he was very angry.

It's not that I'm annoyed that Metis was beaten like this by God.

After all, Metis was just his tool, not even his person, so he didn't care whether she got hurt or not.

What annoyed Zuo Wen Burns was that he had lost twice in a row to Gode.

The first attempt to recruit Gaode failed, and this time the attempt to deal a blow to Gaode also failed.

This was something unacceptable for Zuo Wen Burns, who had had smooth sailing since birth and had everything he wanted.

Although he was annoyed, Zuo Wen Burns didn't say much.

However, this does not mean that he no longer has any thoughts about Gao De.

But for him, verbal threats are the lowest and most useless means.

There is no point in doing this other than making the other party alert and showing your own incompetence.

Besides, it’s just passing the assessment. The subsequent execution tasks and annual evaluation are the highlights.

By then, Gao De will understand that no matter how talented and capable a person is, he is nothing in front of the powerful background of the nobility.

"Congratulations." Master Naxi stepped forward and said.

"Thank you Master Naxi for your careful guidance during this period of time." Gao De turned towards Master Naxi and leaned slightly.

Captain Rawl watched the scene in silence and nodded slightly.

He and Master Nasi entered the scene in the middle of the battle between God and Metis.

Captain Rawl highly approved of Gode's performance in the battle, his use of spells, and his on-the-spot reaction.

However, Goder's final "brutal attack" on Metis after he had already won made Captain Rolle think of something else:
Could this be a violent wizard? Could this be the next Jaden?
Gode's respect for Master Nasi did not make Captain Rawl completely trust Gode's character, but at least it made him see some positive qualities in Gode.

"Carry the man down and send him to the holy healing center." Captain Roll waved his hand and ordered.

The staff present suddenly came to their senses and rushed forward to carry the still wailing Metis away from the magic training ground.

"The training assessment is over. You can go back first. Later, you and Naxi can come to see me. When Naxi first joined the Sea Sentinel, I was his guiding wizard, so I can be considered your elder." Captain Roll said again.

"Okay." Gao De agreed, then nodded slightly to the three examiners to express his gratitude, and walked out.

"God!"

He had just walked out of Collingwood Art Gallery when he heard someone calling his name.

Looking in the direction where the voice came from, it was Melia.

"You are amazing," Melia waved her fists excitedly, as if she was the one who defeated Metis. She exclaimed in an extremely rising voice, "That was Metis, the bully among the first-ring mages of our Sea Sentinel. You defeated him so easily!"

"Thank you for your reminder today." Gao De said with a smile.

After entering the Sea Sentinel, he received inexplicable malice, but also gained a lot of goodwill.

For example, Master Naxi and Melia.

Melia wanted to say something when another person came over.

It's Zuo Wen Burns's follower, Ursula.

"God." Ur looked at God with a complicated look.

"What's the matter?" Gao De looked at the other person calmly.

"I understand what you're thinking now. You may be very confident that you can defeat the slightly prestigious Metis on your own. If I were you, I would definitely think the same."

He sighed and continued, "But you have to understand that you only defeated Metis, not the Burns family."

Wuer's tone became very serious. "You are a talented mage, but you are born as a commoner, and you come from another country. I tell you, it is impossible for you to safely perform tasks and practice in the Sea Sentinel."

"There are many eyes watching you, forcing you to make some choices. No matter how good your talent is, it is just talent. If you don't make a choice, you will be targeted. This is not something you can stop with your talent."

"No one has ever been an exception, not even Jaden, whom Master Nasi had previously coached. He was the most talented wizard we Sea Sentinel had ever recruited in the past 30 years, but in the end he couldn't withstand the suppression of the nobles, which was also the fuse for his final rebellion against the Plantagenet." It seemed that this matter was taboo. Ur stopped talking halfway when he suddenly realized something and quickly stopped.

"Did Zuo Wen Burns ask you to say these things to me?" Goder asked.

"No." Wuer was stunned for a moment. He never expected that after he said so much, this was what Gaode cared about.

"Are you done, then?"

"I'm done."

Gode ​​looked at Ur, "Just because it has never happened doesn't mean it will never happen."

"It's simple. I'll be the exception." He turned around, no longer looking at Wuer, and walked forward, speaking as he went. Wuer watched in silence as Goder's back gradually moved away.

After a while, Melia's voice suddenly came.

"If he succeeds, at least it will give mages like you a visible way out. Isn't this a good thing?"

Wu Er gritted his teeth and said unconvincedly: "How is it possible? Mage Melia, you are also from a noble family. You should know that the situation of the dynasty is no longer something that can be changed by one or two people."

Melia waved her hands and said, "I don't deserve it. My father is just a knight. How can I dare to claim to be of noble birth?"

"At least to me, it's aristocracy."

"I don't want to talk to you about this." Melia shook her head, feeling quite bored, and left on her own.

In a restaurant in Whitechapel.

Eleven teenagers wearing gray and brown short jackets sat on the patinated wooden benches in front of a long table.

These are the errand boys hired by Gaode to keep an eye on the shops for him.

The burlap cuffs of the errand boys were stained with coal dust and brown stains, evidence of their time squatting in chimneys and searching sewers.

Every other day, these errand boys would report to Gaode their surveillance results from the previous day.

Gaode will list the reports from the errand boys on parchment, forming a visual and intuitive table for easy analysis.

"The information provided by the seller of Tea Shop No. 1 is that the location is excellent and the business is doing well, but the seller is planning to return to his hometown to develop, so he reluctantly transferred the shop."

"But in fact, according to observations, this shop only lit cigarettes four times in three days, an average of less than twice a day. Either the business is poor and the actual business hours are short, or it is on the verge of bankruptcy."

"Shop No. 3 is a bakery. It smoked 19 times in three days, an average of six times a day. Bakeries need to bake bread continuously, so smoking frequently indicates a prosperous business. The customer flow is also not small according to the errand boy's observation."

"But there is one detail. The errand boy found that this bakery has very little sewage discharge, and there is no wheat aroma in the chimney ashes."

"It is likely that the shop owner, who is on the verge of bankruptcy, deliberately lights the shop frequently and hires others to pretend to be customers to create the appearance of a large customer flow, so that he can sell the shop with poor business at a high price that only a prosperous shop can get."

"The number of times that Shop No. 5 burns smoke is perfectly consistent, once in the morning, noon and evening. However, after the errand boy who was responsible for monitoring this shop poured lime powder into the chimney, he found traces of lime sprayed in the chimney of the crematorium a block away."

"It is most likely a shared chimney. It is said to be a prosperous shop, but in reality it is either an illegal workshop or a fraud tool."

Gao De looked at the data he had listed in the table, eliminating the shops one by one, and soon crossed out three suspicious shops based on the existing information.

Of the remaining eight shops, he focused on three.

A herbal medicine shop located in the North District was on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management, and the owner decided to sell the shop.

The North District is the area where magic plant shops are gathered as mentioned by the young guide hired by Goder when he first came to Dorne City.

Most of the magic gardens in Dorne are gathered here.

This herbal medicine shop is on the verge of bankruptcy because of its bad location. Being located near the Swamp Garden and the Mushroom Farm, it is severely crowded out and its customer flow is squeezed.

Taking this into consideration, this herbal medicine shop has been on the market for a month, but there has been no sales, and the price has dropped from 550 Plantagenet coins at the beginning to 500 Plantagenet coins today.

The advantage of purchasing a shop here is that it will help Gaode acquire tree species.

The disadvantage is that the location is not good. Faced with the competition from two large magic plant stores, it is not easy to run a shop.

Although Gaode is not planning to continue running a herbal medicine shop, he is inclined to open a magic material shop.

But the North District is a gathering place for magic plant shops. Opening a magic material store in such a place is like opening a hardware store in a snack street. It is inherently incompatible with the demand for fixed customer flow and is somewhat suicidal.

The second shop is located on Dezuo Street in the East District and is a street-side grocery store.

The shop is a two-story structure. The first floor is a street-facing store used for business, and the second floor is a residential area, connected by an internal staircase.

The reason why the owner resold the store was that it was originally a traditional family retail store. The owner's son refused to take over the traditional industry and turned to work in a factory, resulting in no successor to the store. The owner was also old, so he began to consider selling the store.

In addition, in recent years, many large chain grocery stores have emerged in Dorne, grabbing the market through the daily low price strategy, and traditional family-owned retailers find it difficult to compete with this kind of competition.

Gaode was planning to transform it into a magic material store and did not need to consider competition from large chain grocery stores, so there was no need to worry about this defect.

What mattered to him most was that the Troll Skull Alley, which served as a "black market", was right on Dezo Street, near the grocery store.

In other words, there are many mages on Dezo Street who need to buy or sell extraordinary materials and do not want to leave any traces.

These mages only care about the quality of the materials, not where they come from.

This is exactly the case with Gaode.

——If he was doing magic material business, most of the magic materials were brought directly from the North, so their origins were unknown.

The grocer's asking price was 650 Plantagenet coins.

Since the business situation has not yet reached the point where it is unsustainable, there is relatively little room for bargaining.

Thinking of this, Gao De drew a circle behind the grocery store and marked it as a key observation area.

The third store, also located in the East District, is also a family-owned grocery store that was forced to resell its store after being squeezed out of the market by large chain grocery stores, but it is on another street, three blocks away from Dezo Street.

Compared to the second shop, its advantage is that the price is cheaper, only 450 Plantagenet coins, and there is even a chance to bargain.

The disadvantage is that if you open a magic material store, the potential market potential is far less than the former one adjacent to Troll Skull Alley.

Gaode calculated the amount of money he had on hand:

271 Plantagenet coins plus 7 Silver Dragon coins.

This amount of money is not enough to buy any shop.

If you want to buy a shop, you must go back to the North and bring some extraordinary materials to sell in order to save up enough money.

He has now joined the Sea Sentinel, so there are rules for selling extraordinary materials, and he can no longer be as casual as before.

After entering the "system", one very important point is to ensure that your resume is clean.

If he suddenly had a large amount of extraordinary materials of unknown origin, and he was from the Sean Province, he would easily be suspected of being a "spy".

As for Gao De, he had no doubt about the Sea Sentinel's ability to obtain intelligence on the mages within the organization.

The reason why he opened a "magic material shop" was to legitimately whitewash the extraordinary materials he obtained from the North.

(End of this chapter)