I was an apprentice in Ferren

Chapter 207 Dividing the spoils
Stepping onto the cool ice and listening to the faint echoes that hadn't returned for a long time, everyone couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.

As a renowned underground race in Faerûn, the drow elves mostly reside in the underground world, five to six thousand meters below the surface. The terrain there is complex and the environment is harsh, with no light all day and terrifying ground pressure. Some sections of the path also involve large areas of dead magic. If a mage were to venture deep into such a place, the danger would be no less than using interdimensional teleportation to travel to an unfamiliar world.

After Veronica finished explaining, she looked at the others and asked, "I don't think there are many gold coins left. Do you think it's necessary to go down and look for more?"

DuPont and the others exchanged glances, and after a private message, he shook his head: "Forget it. This blue dragon can turn its own lair into such a treacherous trap. Who knows what we'll encounter if we go down there? Those silver coins are probably only worth a few thousand gold. Let's just pretend they're nothing."

The Baron nodded and said, "I think this trap is probably a way for the blue dragon to escape. After all, it can fly and is familiar with the situation. We don't know what we might encounter if we go down. Should we patch up this big hole to prevent some evil spirits from climbing up?"

“That’s not necessarily true. This doesn’t connect to the Hell of Bathor. As for any drow coming up, the scorching sun in this desert will be enough to keep them warm.” Veronica pointed to the cave entrance: “Let’s go. We shouldn’t stay here any longer. Let’s wait until we’re safe outside.”

With the aid of flight magic, the group returned much faster, and when they saw the blazing sun outside, they couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

DuPont had a question he was curious about: "Mentor, didn't you notice that trap at all? Is it because the spell wasn't working properly?"

“Spells aren’t omnipotent. Detecting traps only indicates where there’s a change or a magical trap. When the caster is more skilled, they might not be able to detect it.” Veronica said, leading the group to the carriage.

"This blue dragon's skills are naturally inferior to mine, but dragon treasures are marked with unique magical symbols to prevent thieves. If you use a detection trap, you'll see that the entire dragon bed is covered in magical traps, making it impossible to identify."

"Of course, no dragon would be this extreme under normal circumstances. Setting up such a large trap is quite costly in terms of both money and brainpower. It seems that this dragon had already guessed its fate and therefore laid the trap in advance."

As she spoke, she took out a small model of an ivory archway, a polished marble slab, and a miniature silver spoon from a nearby hiding place.

The female mage placed the three items at her waist and cast a spell with both hands. A few seconds later, an otherworldly vortex appeared in front of them: "Let's go inside and talk. Staying here too long might make you get a tan."

DuPont scratched his head after looking at it; this didn't seem to be teleportation magic. "Mentor, what is this?"

"The seventh-ring spell, the Magic Duncan Mansion, is quite a useful spell." The female sorceress said, opening the door. DuPont followed her inside and found the furnishings to be similar to those of a luxury hotel, with even hot water in the bathroom. He was quite amazed: "Master, does this cost money?"

"It's free, just a seventh-ring spell slot. If you were to sell it, it would cost around two thousand gold coins." The female mage snapped her fingers again, and two transparent servants brought juice and tea to the group. "I see you haven't rested well. Sit down and rest for a while, and also exchange information from earlier."

DuPont omitted the matter of the Son of Slaughter and recounted everything else in detail. Even the female mage listened with amazement: "No wonder Lavoisier said you were a troublemaker. You even encountered a blue dragon while suppressing bandits. Luckily, there were enough people who went, otherwise you would probably be the blue dragon's meal. Your mentor doesn't have the kind of favor to ask a ninth-ring priest to cast a perfect resurrection spell on you. Can't you just shut up for a bit?"

"No one gets rich without windfall gains," DuPont said, scratching his head and pretending to be clueless, as he and a few others took out the coins they had just received.

Using magical tricks, the gold coins quickly floated in the air and jumped into the money bags one by one. They stopped precisely at the number of 500, and in the end, there were a total of 69 bags.

There were some silver coins, but they were all accidentally thrown in; there were a total of eight and a half bags.

The magical equipment is a mixed bag, but most of it is only around +1 quality. Occasionally, there are some +2 magical equipment items, but they all have varying degrees of damage. In total, they are only worth a little over six thousand gold coins. They can only be sold for more money after being repaired.

As for precious metal artworks, it's a different story. Among those present, Moonflower is the most knowledgeable about this field, but the Moon Elf would never look at human artworks. The way she glanced at them and then looked away is enough to show that these things are trash in her eyes.

Not to mention that many things were damaged and chipped, so the total value is probably around 1000 gold.

"Looks like there are a total of 42,000 gold coins?" Veronica said casually, just playing with the sphere imbued with the power of the storm. "I'm not interested in these things, but this is a pretty good magical material. You all heard what the Wind Giant said earlier and know its value. If you have no objections, then I'll take this one. You can divide the rest among yourselves."

The group exchanged glances and had no objections. Without the help of this archmage, they would have had a hard time breaking through the magic traps and clearing out the monsters inside, and the final trap might even have led them into the abyss.

Not to mention asking a grand mage for help, even 10,000 gold would be considered a friendly price. "Since the master has withdrawn, let's divide the money according to the way we fought last night."

Moonflower spoke first: "Yesterday, we were actually just responsible for providing support. We didn't really have much to help with. We'll split the four of us into one share, and DuPont, you, and the Baron will each get one share. So, the 42,000 will be divided into three parts, and we can each take 14,000. There's no point in calculating the remaining amount, so let's just give it all to DuPont."

The baron frowned upon hearing this: "This isn't quite right. According to the rules for distributing rewards among adventurers, the money should be distributed per head."

“That won’t do. We haven’t been of much help at all; this is already doing this because of DuPont’s influence.” The Moon Elf smiled and looked at her guards: “Don’t you agree?”

The elves all nodded.

That's the truth, there's nothing more to say.

Before the baron could speak further, the sun elf shook his head: "We elves will not take spoils that do not belong to us. If we are given too little, we will raise the issue. This is indeed reasonable. Giving us more would be disrespectful."

"And there's the magic equipment and gems from before." DuPont took out the blue dragon's space bag: "The materials from this blue dragon are worth about 15,000, and the magic equipment, including the space bag, is worth 28,000. There's an extremely rare sword in there that was my mother's heirloom, so I shamelessly took it."

"The gems are worth 46,000 gold, bringing the total to around 79,000 gold. We'll distribute it the same way we did before. That's a little over 120,000 gold in total. The change will be given to the soldiers as a reward, since they helped us cover and mislead the bandits. The last family will receive 40,000 gold coins."

"So much?" The elves were surprised. This meant each of them could receive 10,000 gold. Even the sun elf lowered his head, too embarrassed to speak.

Although she was badly injured, she didn't actually exert much effort, only casting a few spells. If you were to buy scrolls, her value would definitely not exceed 2000 gold coins.

The result was that it actually created a value of 10,000 gold coins, and I immediately felt my face burning.

The two maids' eyes lit up.

As long-term cooperating workers, although they are quite capable, their wages are very average. As a level 10 magic warrior, their annual salary is only 8000 gold coins. If they receive some rewards or similar items each year while on Yongju Island, they can accumulate more than 10,000 gold coins.

It's not that their workload is small, after all, their job is relatively easy. They only need to protect His Highness's safety and can also enjoy the scenery. When they return to Yongju Island, they still have a fairly high status.

Of course, in terms of salary alone, it is far less than that of the tutors in the academy, even on Everlasting Island.

But for a magic warrior to compete with a mage in terms of salary is simply a pipe dream, isn't it?

The elves were too lazy to take the magical items, so they chose half of the 40,000 gold coins for gems and half for gold coins. The baron thought for a moment, then put away his spatial bag and took the damaged equipment and blue dragon materials: "I'll use these materials to make some magical items. I can also repair those magical items and sell them later. You can keep the rest."

“Oh, right, and this gem.” The sun elf took out the enormous sapphire that had almost dragged her into the abyss: “Master Veronica, can you decipher the cipher on it?”

The female mage glanced at it and shook her head: "I do recognize this ancient Elvish language. This should be a secret treasure of your glorious era's mages. But I've only heard of this cipher, never seen it before. This is the first time I've encountered it. I heard it's quite difficult to decipher, and you need the correct method of solving the puzzle to get the accurate information from it."

The Sun Elf agreed, saying, "Legend has it that in ancient times, some elven archmages would travel between the stars in magic ships, exploring the universe. Before setting off, if they felt uncertain about the possibility of encountering an accident, they would leave behind these keys for their disciples to discover and decipher, so as to ensure that their wealth and knowledge would not be lost."

"I didn't realize you elves were such a braggart." DuPont thought to himself, if you were that strong, how come you were wrecked by a bunch of demons? Magic ships are now mainly produced in Harua. "Let me see them."

(End of this chapter)