An Unorthodox Guide to Conquering Another World

"..."

Ilsa carefully examined the ordinary little house, still finding it hard to believe that this was the residence of a great magician.

"So why do you live here? Is there a reason?" she asked, puzzled.

Ya Feng smiled faintly.

"After all, this is a good place to do some 'business'."

"Business?"

Ilsa's heart jumped.

Yes, she hadn't considered that this remote and poorly managed area was indeed ideal for trading contraband.

Could it be that this man in front of me is also a drug addict...?

No wonder he chose this address; was it to cover up his criminal acts?

"Do you want to know?" Ya Feng beckoned to her with his finger.

"Should I... know?"

Ilsa swallowed nervously.

Are you telling her now that you're planning to get her to join the group as soon as she arrives?

Ya Feng lowered his voice and said to her, "Each hen in the chicken coop can lay five eggs a week, so seven chickens can lay 35 eggs a week. If you take them all to the market, you can earn a full six gold langs!"

"Uh..."

"And those vegetables, you can buy several large bags of seeds for just a few coins, plant them all, water them, and in a month or two you can harvest several large baskets of vegetables! There are people at the market who specialize in buying the good quality ones, and you can make a lot of money selling them to them!"

“Is that so… Oh, I see…” Ilsa’s lips twitched.

[Ghostly Value +1]

Ya Feng chuckled and patted her on the shoulder: "Work hard, and I'll teach you the tricks of the trade in the future."

“Well, thank you very much…” Ilsa said.

Does this mean I'll have to sell vegetables from now on...?

"Your room is on the second floor. Let me show you up. You can tidy up yourself up," Ya Feng continued.

"Oh, okay..."

...

"This is the bathroom, this is my room, this is the toilet, and this is the study," Ya Feng introduced to her.

"The study?" Ilsa became interested, and her voice became more respectful.

"Excuse me, could you please take me inside to have a look?"

A great mage's study must contain high-level spellbooks, right? If one could read them, one could improve their strength.

I just don't know his attitude, or whether he's willing to let me learn about magic.

"Sure." To everyone's surprise, Ya Feng readily agreed and pushed open the door to let her in.

The place was a bit messy, with books piled haphazardly on the floor and the tabletop a chaotic mess of clutter.

But Ilsa noticed that there were still many manuscript papers scattered around, some of which had already been bound into volumes.

“These are…” She picked up a stack.

“These are the original manuscripts of my works,” Ya Feng said. “Those have already been published, so I just left them here.”

"It's already published? You're an author?" Ilsa asked in surprise.

Ya Feng remained silent, a mysterious smile on his face, and pointed to a display case on the side.

Ilsa looked over and saw that the display case was filled with various certificates and trophies. At a glance, they were all the highest honors in the kingdom's literary circles, and his name was on them all.

#1 on the annual bestseller list

Most Influential Author of the Year

Most Popular Author of the Year

The Norman Academy of Fine Arts' 100 Hall of Fame

...

"So much?"

She was so shocked that she realized she had underestimated him. The Noven Academy of Arts' Hall of Fame was a name she had heard of, the highest honor in the arts and culture of the Kingdom of Fein.

Surprisingly, he was also a great writer.

Ilsa has always respected literary workers, believing them to be the builders of the people's spiritual world and great people. As a great magician, to have such high attainments in the literary world, he is truly extraordinary.

His attitude towards Ya Feng immediately changed.

"May I see your work?" she asked.

“Look, this whole row is full of them, all of which were the kingdom’s best-selling books before.” Ya Feng pointed to a bookshelf on the side.

Ilsa stepped forward and took out a book, but couldn't hold back after just one glance at the title.

I was reincarnated as a dragon egg and hatched by a little princess.

She took down another book:

After being kicked out of the hero's party as the weakest appraiser, I awakened the Demon Eye skill.

She looked at the books on the bookshelf:

The Supreme Hero King I've always admired is actually my childhood friend from the Elf race?!

I became the Holy Maiden's private physiology tutor right after passing the teacher qualification exam.

"Graduating from butler academy, all I wanted was a good job, but I ended up being forcibly kept by a rich heiress."

Despite being a useless adventurer, he gets relentlessly pursued by a dragon girl because of his amazing cooking skills.

How come... it's not quite what I expected?

Chapter Four: This guy is hopeless.

"Hehe, how about it? These are all the most popular and best-selling novels in the past, all written by me," Ya Feng said proudly.

“You mean, the people of the kingdom are all reading these books now…” Ilsa asked.

"uh-huh."

"The kingdom is finished..."

Ilsa felt a sudden wave of sadness for no apparent reason.

"Sigh, it's a pity I'm blacklisted by the industry now and can't write books anymore," Ya Feng sighed.

Ilsa, however, didn't find this surprising...

After leaving the palace, how to survive in the other world was a problem for Ya Feng. Although he could become a top scholar at Hoinlair Magic Academy by simply imparting some magical knowledge based on his experience from his previous life, he had decided that this time he would no longer have any contact with any official organizations of the kingdom. If his true level was exposed, they might come and use moral blackmail to force him to go back and become a hero again.

After much deliberation, he suddenly came up with a line of work.

Besides some reputable literary publishing houses, the kingdom also has a magazine called Full Star, which publishes clichéd novels that are more in line with the tastes of the general public in a weekly format.

This gave Ya Feng a direction. In the past, he always liked to read novels. Although his writing skills weren't great, as long as the plot was good enough, they would still sell like hotcakes.

He immediately submitted his manuscript to Full Star Publishing House, and his first article was published in the latest issue of the magazine.

Douluo Continent!

Sean, a former genius at the magic academy, suddenly fell from grace and became a complete waste, only at the third level of magic power! He was even publicly jilted by a noble lady! After enduring humiliation, he discovered that his mother had hidden a white-haired witch of unknown age in the ring she gave him, who was absorbing his magic power every day. To make amends, the witch taught him how to concoct potions and practice magic, eventually making him a top-level grand magician and living a shameless life with the white-haired witch.

This novelty from the 21st century was a game-changer for these people from another world. It became an instant hit upon release, appearing on magazine covers and subsequently being published, signed, adapted into stage plays, comics, TV series, and movies. It even surpassed classic literature bestseller lists and became a classic topic of conversation.

He then published several more novels, bringing over all sorts of things like grave robbing, dragon slaying, Gu cultivation, and various otherworldly themes, as well as stories about leaving the party, betrayal, and rebirth. Some of these were even directly copied without needing any localization. He wrote more than ten books in two years!

He was doing incredibly well, making tons of money, but he lost his composure. After becoming a hot favorite, he naturally faced a lot of criticism, mostly from proponents of classic literature. They accused him of writing vulgar, depressing, and unsuitable for highbrow tastes, calling him a sex fetishist who only wrote about little girls as female characters, and claiming that his induction into the Norman Hall of Fame this year was a complete sham.

Forget everything else, how can it be considered a conspiracy when the Nobel Hall of Fame award was earned through merit?

So he directly engaged in a heated exchange of words with these people, launching a fierce counterattack.

Moreover, he discovered that whether he wrote outrageous plots in his novels or made sharp remarks in public, the "ghostly" value (a measure of his ability to generate absurdity or eccentricity) kept flowing in.

So he began his operation, simultaneously amplifying the impact of his novel's plot and launching various sharp critiques on different platforms, initially offering only criticisms within literary circles, but later extending to all aspects of the kingdom.

It's said that the literary circle in the Kingdom writes something so pretentious and awful, yet they dream of becoming literary giants. They huddle in their rented rooms, racking their brains to write a book, piecing together money to publish it. In the end, apart from a couple of copies bought by their peers as a token gesture, the rest are so bad they'd rather use them as toilet paper.

Starting in literary circles, the attacks extended to other fields, including claims that people in Northern County eat pies laid out on the table, that people in Nobukyu County steal lampshades every day, that men in Kasai County are all henpecked and even more henpecked than their husbands, and that even drinking cat poop coffee in the capital requires sneaking around...

Although his "devilishness" stat increased significantly, allowing his strength to rise rapidly, it also offended everyone in the kingdom. No one, from top to bottom, liked him and hated him to the core.

Although he made too many enemies, he was ultimately just a controversial figure, not enough to warrant a ban, so the kingdom's higher-ups could only turn a blind eye to him.

But then things took a turn for the worse. Ya Feng wrote a new book in which he summoned historical figures from all the major kingdoms in the world and fought a Holy Grail War that could grant wishes. To make matters worse, he turned all these historical figures into female versions of themselves.

For example, the famous ancient hero Orlando has been transformed into a 1.3-meter-tall white-haired female imp wearing a bikini armor.

What he hadn't considered was that although the kingdom had changed dynasties many times, many of the descendants of these historical figures were still alive, some even from prominent families. How could they tolerate such humiliation? They immediately filed a complaint with the king.

Soon, Ya Feng was completely blacklisted by the literary world.

Thus, the literary world of the kingdom lost a great talent, and Ya Feng successfully got himself photoshopped onto a beverage bottle, earning him the title of "Lao" generation.

After the ban, although he had collected a considerable amount of "ghostly points," he still hadn't reached the level of being the strongest in the world. Currently, not wanting to reveal his strength, he couldn't earn money from the Sorcerer's Guild, and suddenly losing his source of income left him in dire straits.

Fortunately, the magazine was kind enough to give him a monthly allowance of one thousand gold ronin. The average salary in the kingdom is currently around five hundred a month. Although this amount of money is not enough to make him rich, it is enough to eat and dress warmly.

"Sigh, I can only survive on subsidies now, which is why I live in a place like this," Ya Feng sighed.

"That's not right. You're selling so many books. You should be financially independent by now, right? Why are you still so poor?" Ilsa asked, puzzled.

If what he said is true, apart from subsidies, the money earned from selling books alone would be enough to support several generations, so why are they in such dire straits?

“Because I’ve used all the money I’ve earned before for a great cause,” Ya Feng said in a deep voice.

"All of them?" Ilsa's eyes widened in disbelief.

"So, what kind of business is it that deserves such a huge investment?"

Ya Feng chuckled and shook his head, then said to her:

You'll find out later.

Ilsa blinked.

Could it be that he is not, not, not what he thinks, but actually a great philanthropist in secret, or that he is actually contributing to the progress of the world?

"So be it if I'm blacklisted. It doesn't mean I'll never find a job again. It's just a pity that my last book, into which I poured so much effort, couldn't be published." Ya Feng picked up a stack of manuscript papers and sighed.

His eyes were indeed filled with deep affection, the kind of look that only appears when someone truly cares about something.

Ilsa thought to herself: Perhaps, that really was a work that expressed his deep feelings?

"Can I take a look?" Ilsa's tone had softened considerably as she asked softly.

"Forget it, you'd definitely find it disgusting," Ya Feng said.

"No, as long as it's a work that's truly imbued with emotion, everyone who reads it will resonate with it," Ilsa said with a smile.

"Here, take it." Ya Feng handed it to her.

Ilsa took it and began to read it carefully.

The first page is the outline of the work:

"After adopting and raising a fallen demon princess, she transformed from an arrogant and rude girl into a shy and adorable one, but developed unusual feelings for me. She finally mustered the courage to confess her love, but I told her I only saw her as a child and that I was going to marry a female colleague. As a result, the princess immediately turned evil, imprisoned me in the basement, and was then subjected to [sexual abuse] every day."

The manuscript slipped from Ilsa's hand; her eyes twitched, and her face was covered in dark lines.

"Ugh, so disgusting..."

[Ghostly Value +5]

Chapter Five: Phantom Network

At night, Ilsa lay on her bed in her room, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling.