Chapter 103: A trap
Naturally, Ethan didn’t let Ron see more than he was supposed to.
The herbs he planned to sell had already been removed from the spiritual greenhouse and stored in sealed boxes inside the mansion’s warehouse. Over a hundred thousand herbs in total.
Most were common, worth only a few silver or even bronze coins.
But a hundred had been carefully selected as the rarest of the lot, useful even to third-stage warriors and worth dozens of gold coins each.
Among them, a single herb stood out, so valuable that even his mother, at the fourth stage, would find it useful.
Ethan estimated its price at a few thousand gold coins.
Wouldn’t that make him the richest Golden Lord of them all?
Even if the other thousand Golden Lords had their own systems and fortunes, he doubted any of them could compare to him.
In silence, Lord and Merchant walked side by side through the mansion’s corridors until they reached the storeroom.
The boxes were sealed, and Elena had inscribed small arrays on each one to prevent the herbs’ auras from leaking out.
Because of this, Ron didn’t notice anything special at first.
Just a warehouse full of boxes. Unimpressive compared to the green fairy wine.
Seeing the merchant’s flat expression, Ethan smiled. He picked up one of the boxes and cracked it open, revealing the contents.
Over a hundred magical herbs, the rarest and most expensive ones he had extracted alongside Alice and Evelyn.
Ron’s eyes went wide and his gaze darted to the other boxes stacked around him.
"Are they all-"
"Just these. The others are of lesser rarity."
The merchant swallowed hard and immediately began inspecting the rest, his heart beat quickening with every lid he lifted.
It was... too much.
"I don’t have the money to buy all of this..." He took a step back, his voice faltering.
The value of these herbs alone exceeded the annual budget of a small town. How could he possibly pay for something like this?
"You don’t have to. I just want everything."
"E-everything?"
"Yes, every penny you have on you, every gold coin. I want it all." Ethan smiled.
Ron would leave Goldenveil without a penny to his name. Nothing but the clothes on his body and the merchandise.
The merchant closed his eyes at those words.
"I need to set aside some gold coins to leave as a deposit in my shop. And I need to hire employees."
"I know." Ethan nodded. "Take the gold you need for that and to pay your men. The rest is mine. Next month, I’ll have another batch of green fairy wine for you, right? Use that to raise the money."
Ron hesitated for several long seconds.
He had been planning a long journey.
He wanted to get everything organized at his shop in Goldenveil, then travel through the many city-states of the western plains, deep into the eternal forest, doing business and filling his cargo ship before returning.
He had even taken out a loan from a bank willing to invest in the journey in exchange for a share of the profits.
Unfortunately, it seemed his journey would end here. He’d have to go back, sell the herbs, and start preparing for the next trip.
With a sigh, he looked up.
Ethan was losing out on this sale. What did he want with that?
After a moment’s thought, Ron understood.
Ethan wanted to create dependency.
He wanted the merchant to only make money in Goldenveil and buy goods exclusively from there. He wanted the city to be able to switch merchants at any time, while Ron remained trapped, all his success tied to a single source.
It was a trap. He should refuse the purchase and continue his journey.
But he couldn’t. He was a merchant.
He had a keen eye for money, and when he looked at Ethan, he saw a gold mine.
With a grunt, he forced himself to grasp Ethan’s hand.
He would leave poor, but with enough spiritual herbs to earn a fortune incomparable to the original.
"Now, I asked you to find someone with legal and administrative expertise for me, didn’t I? Why don’t you introduce me to that person?"
***
While Ethan and Ron were doing business, drinking, and enjoying Goldenveil’s mild climate, many miles away, inside the Blue Tower, one of the most powerful magical towers on the entire continent, the atmosphere was stormy.
The tower had a hundred floors in total, with space for over five thousand disciples.
The first ninety were for general use, while the last ten were reserved for the highest-ranking members.
Being there meant you were at the fifth stage, or very close to reaching it.
Generally, even fourth-stage mages could only enter that area with permission.
Still, recently, a new residence had been prepared for a fourth-stage mage already in the process of advancing to the fifth.
At this level, they would be just one step away from the realm of demigods. They could live for over a thousand years and possessed enough power to reduce entire mountains to dust.
The advancement process could take years and could not be interrupted in any way.
But this was a special situation.
Nervously, one of the disciples made his way through the upper floors. His legs trembled as the mana pressure thickened.
He arrived in front of a large platinum door and felt the energy radiating from it, powerful enough to shatter him if he so much as tried to touch the surface.
"What is it?" A sweet, tender voice echoed from the other side, quickly filling with murderous intent. "You’d better have a good reason for disturbing me. If you hinder my progress..."
The young mage bowed his head, pulling a letter from his robes and hastily extending it toward the door.
"I-it’s about your son, m-madam!"
The moment those words left his mouth, the murderous intent vanished. The letter disappeared from his hands, swallowed by a spatial fissure that opened and closed in an instant.
A few seconds passed, then, a thunderous voice rose up.
"WHAT DID HE DO TO MY BABY???"
The entire tower shook.
The disciple’s knees buckled and his vision blurred, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he couldn’t breathe.
The pressure only subsided when she checked a small talisman linked to her son’s soul, one that would warn her if he were in danger.
The talisman glowed green, so her son was safe and sound.
Her murderous intent subsided, but her rage did not.
As soon as the advance was over, her husband had better start begging the gods for mercy, the mercy she would not have.