Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 11 Fairy Locke

Diagon Alley.

Murphy once again entered Gringotts with gold worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The first batch of orders, following Patrick's advice, has been delivered.

Patrick expects a second batch of orders soon, and may even see a surge in orders soon.

Although the previous stock solution could be sustained for a while due to dilution, it's not a long-term solution to run out of resources, and Murphy still needs to solve the raw material problem.

"Mr. Darkholm," the fairy manager greeted Murphy, "Still exchanging for gold?"

This was his third time coming to Gringotts to exchange for gold; he had come once before to replenish his potion ingredients.

Murphy placed the bag on the counter. "Yes."

"Your family has buried quite a bit of gold in the past," the fairy master said.

"What, you want to interfere with my ancestor's hobbies?"

"Hehe, of course it's none of our business. But whether this gold is actually buried by your ancestors, I doubt it."

"Guess what? I struck gold in Zutian the other day," Murphy said.

"You're joking!"

"You know that too? Stop wasting my time with your nonsense, are you going to honor your promise or not?"

The fairy manager's face turned cold, and after a long while, she said, "Exchange. But this time we will add a 5% handling fee."

"Merlin, you heartless bastard! 5%, why don't you just rob me?" Murphy roared.

Exchanging gold for Galleons was already a huge loss, and then they charged so many fees! The greed of these fairies is more disgusting than maggots in a cesspool!

"As long as you tell us the truth about the origin of the gold, I can waive this fee."

"Bullshit!" Murphy roared. "How about I give you the treasure map of my ancestors' buried gold?!"

"That is indeed conclusive evidence."

"Fuck your mother! You bastard born of a pig and a goblin!"

Murphy uttered another sentence in Chinese.

"What did you say?"

"I said Gringotts is so civilized and elegant, and you are so beautiful and lovely."

"Thank you for the compliment."

"The troll's rotten yellow teeth! Take them, and may you ascend to heaven soon."

Murphy pushed the gold over.

There was no way around it; Gringotts, as the only bank and currency issuing institution in the wizarding world, could be so shameless that an ordinary little wizard like him simply couldn't withstand it.

Moreover, the source of his gold cannot be ignored.

Murphy walked out of Gringotts with a solemn expression.

He can't come here again. The goblins have become wary of his large-scale gold exchange. Next time he comes, he might not be met with extra fees, but with a group of Aurors.

But besides Gringotts, where else can you exchange large amounts of pounds for gallons?

As these thoughts raced through his mind, Murphy suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

Not right.

Someone is watching me!

The feeling grew stronger and stronger, to the point that it felt as if someone was holding a magic wand to the back of his head, and waves of fear made his scalp tingle.

omen!

Wizards' sixth sense is not entirely unfounded; Murphy, who had taken a prophecy class, knew that it was his own magic alerting him to dangers beyond his perception.

However, given his consistently poor performance in prediction classes, this was the first time he had experienced such a strong premonition.

who is it?

Auror?

Or is it the dark wizard who has his eye on my gold coins?

Many people saw him exchanging gold coins in Gringotts; that many Galleons were indeed enough to tempt some guys to take the risk.

After thinking for a moment, he changed his mind. He had originally planned to go straight to Slag and Giggs' pharmacy. After walking a few steps, he suddenly turned into a small alley and then, "Disler Falcon."

The illusion spell immediately made him invisible.

He stood motionless in the alley, determined to give whoever came a good beating.

A short while later, a short figure rushed into the alley and looked around in confusion.

Upon seeing the figure, Murphy's anger flared up instantly. "Tongue-lock! Throat-lock! Heart-ripping!"

After casting the Unforgivable Curse, Murphy looked at the goblin lying on the ground, convulsing silently, and a satisfied smile involuntarily rose on his face.

Damn it, I was thinking of doing that back in Gringotts.

After a while, the torture ended, and Murphy cast a freezing spell on the goblin, rendering him unable to move his limbs, before releasing his silencing spell.

"Please, please, no! I'm not the enemy! I'm not the enemy!"

The moment the fairy was allowed to speak, she immediately begged for mercy.

But Murphy wasn't going to just listen to him; wizards had an even easier way of gathering information: "Legacy of Mind!"

After a moment, Murphy breathed a sigh of relief. "Locke? Your resume is quite interesting."

He saw this guy's past in the fairy's memories. He was actually a half-flesh fairy whose maternal clan had incorporated wizard blood. Because of this bloodline, he looked slightly different from ordinary fairies—he was taller than them and his ears weren't as pointed.

This led to him suffering discrimination within his own clan. He was not allowed to access the goblins' traditional forging techniques, nor could he work at Gringotts, even though he believed he was smarter than his kind.

As an adult, Locke became a broker, specializing in shady deals for wizards or other residents of the magical world who couldn't make a public appearance.

He made a fortune from this, and then bribed a high-ranking member of the clan to get a job in Gringotts.

This is no ordinary Gringotts goblin.

In the other person's memory, Murphy also discerned his purpose: "You want to exchange the gold for me?"

"Yes, yes!" Locke replied, forcing back the waves of weakness from the Cruciatus Curse. "Bogorod already suspects you. He thinks your gold was obtained illegally. You can't go to Gringotts anymore; they'll have the Aurors arrest and interrogate you!"

"They can't just interrogate a wizard; I haven't committed any crime."

"Indeed, but Bogorod has made up a lot of reasons. He will report to the Aurors that Gringotts' gold mines have lost some stockpiles, and your gold is very likely the one that was lost from the mines."

"They have no evidence."

"But you can't reveal the source of your gold, can you?" Locke said. "I know that the gold actually comes from the Muggle world! Their gold refining technology is far more advanced than Gringotts'; only Muggles can produce gold with a purity of 99.99%!"

Murphy frowned. Although he had deformed the gold, the gold shop did sell so-called 999 gold and 999 gold. He could not change its purity when deforming it, so there would indeed be some gold with extremely high purity in those gold nuggets.

He was completely unaware of this vulnerability beforehand.

"You know this gold comes from Muggles, and you still dare to help me?" Murphy asked.

"Gold is gold. Whether it comes from goblins or Muggles, that doesn't erase the fact that it's gold. As long as Gringotts uses the gold standard, they will face this risk. We've simply exploited a loophole they already had."

Murphy was somewhat surprised. "Gold standard, that's a Muggle term."

"That's right, Muggles are four centuries ahead of goblins in their knowledge of currency and economics! And what's laughable is that my own kind dare to mock Muggles for their ignorance!"

"Interesting, you're very interesting."

A fairy with Muggle economic thinking?

This is so interesting.

Murphy lifted Locke's immobilization spell. "How do you plan to help me?"

"I can open an anonymous account for you. My fellow fools don't even know how many vaults they have in total, or how much money is in them. With a few simple tricks, you can have a completely anonymous vault."

"Gringotts already has a business of recycling old coins and buying gold for reminting. By exploiting some loopholes, I can exchange your gold for Galleons and store it in your vault, which you can then legally withdraw and use at any time."

"Of course, I will take a commission in the process. But believe me, I am far less greedy than those of my own kind."

Murphy hesitated for a moment, then said, "But I don't trust you."

Locke laughed, a surprisingly human smile appearing on his ugly face. "You don't need to trust me. I've already experienced your power. You're not the kind of weak wizard who could possibly resist you, could you?"

After saying that, he handed Murphy a gold coin that was slightly larger than a regular Galleon. "You can consider it. You can use this to summon me anytime if needed."

Please be sure to read it during the new book release period!

(End of this chapter)