Chapter 339 Choice
The huge spell training ground was quiet for a moment.
After a while, the quiet atmosphere was broken by the sound of gradually rapid breathing.
"How could you attack your colleagues so harshly?" A Sea Sentinel Mage who was watching the battle and whom Gothe didn't know stood up and said sternly.
"The battle was fierce and I couldn't hold back. I apologized to him." Gothe looked at the unfamiliar Sea Sentinel Mage and responded calmly.
Hence the other party's face, he didn't look good, and then said: "Apologizing will be useful?"
"If it's useless, why did he apologize to me in advance?" Gao De was surprised.
“Training and assessment are simulations of actual combat, and injuries are common. When will it be your turn to make irresponsible remarks?” The man wanted to say something else, but at this moment, a strong voice came.
Captain Rohr, wearing the uniform of Captain Sea Sentinel, appeared in the spell training ground at some point. Next to him was Master Naxi, who nodded slightly to Gothe.
"I" Captain Rohr's voice made the sea sentinel mage immediately dare not say anything more, and retreated dejectedly with his head shrunk.
"Announce the result." He looked at the three examiners present and continued.
The three examiners looked at each other, and finally the examiner sitting in the middle stood up and announced: "Second-class apprentice mage Gaode, who knocked down Metis, the subject of the assessment, in the training assessment, does not need to be scored, and can be directly judged to have passed the assessment."
The training assessment does not require defeating the assessment object. As long as the score reaches the standard, you can pass. However, if you defeat the assessment object, you will pass directly without any dispute.
This is the default unspoken rule.
The assessment has ended and the results have been announced. The surrounding Sentinel mages have no reason to stay any longer and have left the stage.
Zo Wen Burns glanced at Gothe calmly, but the gloom in his eyes could not be concealed.
Because he was very angry in his heart.
It’s not that he was angry that Metis was beaten like this by Gothe.
After all, Metis is just his tool in the final analysis, not even his person, and he doesn't care at all whether he is hurt or not.
What makes Levon Burns angry is that he has lost twice in a row at Gothe.
The first attempt to recruit Gaode failed, and this time the attempt to give Gaode a little blow also failed.
This is unacceptable to Zuo Wen Burns, who has had everything he wants since he was born.
I was annoyed, but Zuo Wen Burns didn't say much.
However, this does not mean that he has no thoughts about Gothe.
But for him, verbal threats are the lowest and most useless method.
It has no meaning other than making the other party wary and showing one's own incompetence.
Besides, it’s just passing the assessment. The next execution tasks and annual evaluation are the highlight.
At that time, Gothe will understand that no matter how talented a person is, he is nothing in front of the powerful background of the nobles.
"Congratulations." Master Naxi stepped forward and said.
"Thank you Master Naxi for your careful guidance during this time." Gothe faced Master Naxi and leaned forward slightly.
Captain Roll watched this scene silently and nodded imperceptibly.
He and Master Naxi entered the scene in the middle of the battle between Gothe and Metis.
Captain Rohr fully recognized Gothe's performance in battle, his use of spells, and his on-the-spot reactions.
It was just Gothe's last move to deal a "bitter blow" to Metis when he had already won. Even though Captain Roll knew that the other party had bad intentions, it still gave him some other thoughts:
Could this be a mage with a violent temper? Could it be the second Jaden?
Gothe's respect for Master Naxi not only made Captain Rohr completely trust Gothe's character, but it also at least allowed him to see some positive qualities in Gothe.
"Carry the person down and take him to the Holy Healing Center." Captain Rohr waved his hand and ordered.
The staff present suddenly came to their senses and hurried forward to lift Metis, who was still wailing, away from the spell training ground.
"The training and assessment are over, you can go back first, and then you and Naxi come to see me. When Naxi first joined the Sea Sentinel, I was his mentor, and I can be considered your elder." Captain Rohr added.
"Okay." Gothe agreed, then nodded slightly to the three examiners, expressed his gratitude, and walked out.
He had just walked out of Collingwood Arts Hall when he heard someone calling his name.
Looking in the direction of the sound, it was Melia.
"You are amazing," Melia waved her fists excitedly, as if she was the one who defeated Metis, and sighed in an extremely rising voice: "That's Metis, one of the first-level mages of our Sea Sentinel, and you were defeated so easily!"
"Thank you for reminding me today." Gothe said with a smile.
After entering the Sea Sentinel, he received inexplicable malice, but also received a lot of goodwill.
For example, Master Naxi, such as Melia.
Melia wanted to say something else, but another person came over next to her.
is the follower of Levon Burns, Ur.
"Gothe." Ur looked at Gothe with a complicated look.
"What's the matter?" Gothe looked at the other party calmly.
"I can understand what you are thinking now. You may be very confident and think that you can defeat the famous Metis on your own. If I were you, I would definitely think so too."
He sighed and continued: "But you have to understand that you only defeated Metis, not the Burns family."
Ur's tone became very serious, "A mage as talented as you is a civilian and comes from another country. If you want to safely perform tasks and practice training in the Sea Sentinel, let me tell you, that is simply impossible."
"There are many pairs of eyes that will always be watching you, forcing you to make some choices. No matter how good your talent is, it is just a talent. If you don't make a choice, you will be targeted. This is not something you can stop with your talent." The same is true for Jaden, who was mentored by the master before. He is the most talented mage our Sea Sentinel has recruited in the past thirty years, but in the end he failed to withstand the pressure of the nobles, which was also the trigger for his betrayal of Plantagenet." It seemed that this matter was taboo. In the middle of Ur's words, he suddenly realized something and quickly stopped it.
"Did Zuo Wen Burns ask you to say these words to me?" Gothe asked.
"No." Wuer was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect that after saying so much, Gothe was actually concerned about this.
"Then are you done?"
"I'm done"
Gothe looked at Ur, "Never means there will never be."
"It's very simple, I just make that exception." He turned around, no longer looking at Ur, stepped forward, and said as he walked.
Ur watched in silence as Gothe'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?"
Ur gritted his teeth and said unconvinced: "How is that possible? Master Melia, you are also from a noble family. You should know that the situation in the dynasty cannot be changed by one or two people."
Melia waved her hand, "I dare not take it, my father. My dear, I am just a knight, how dare I claim to be from a noble family."
"At least to me, he is a noble."
"I won't tell you this." Melia shook her head, feeling quite bored, and left.
In Whitechapel District, inside a restaurant.
Eleven teenagers wearing gray and brown short coats were sitting on a long wooden bench 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 soot and brown stains, which was evidence that they were squatting in the chimneys and searching the sewers.
There is nothing wrong with every song, every post, and every content. Look at them one by one!
Every other day, these errand boys will report to Gaode their tracking results of the previous day.
Amap will list the situations reported by the errand boys on parchment paper to form a visual and intuitive table to facilitate analysis.
"No. 1 Tea Shop, the information provided by the seller himself is that the location is excellent and the business situation is good. However, the seller is preparing to return to his hometown for development, so he reluctantly transferred the shop."
"But in fact, according to the inspection, this shop only lit up cigarettes four times in three days. On average, less than twice a day is either a poor business, with short actual business hours, or it is on the verge of bankruptcy."跑腿仔观察也不小」
「但是有一个细节，跑腿仔发现这家面包店的排污极少，而且烟囱灰烬之中并没有麦香」
「大概率是濒临倒闭的店主刻意频繁烧火，同时雇佣他人伪装客人，制造客流量大的景象，好将生意惨澹的商铺卖出一个旺铺才有的高价。」
"The number of smoke burnings in Shop No. 5 is perfectly consistent with one in the morning, noon and one in the evening. It's just that after the runner who was responsible for keeping an eye on this shop poured lime powder into the chimney, he found traces of lime ejected in the flue of the crematorium of a funeral home a block away"
"Probably The rate is a shared flue, and it is said to be a prosperous shop, but in fact it is either an illegal workshop or a tool for fraud." Gaode looked at the data he listed in the table, eliminated one shop after another, and quickly crossed out three suspicious shops based on the existing information.
As for the remaining eight shops, he focused on three.
Located in the North District, this store was originally a herbal medicine shop. It was on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management, and the owner decided to sell the store.
Northern District is the gathering area for magic plant shops mentioned by the young guide that Gothe hired when he first came to Dorne City.
Most of the magic plant gardens in Dorne City are gathered here.
This herbal medicine shop is on the verge of bankruptcy because the location of the store is not good. It is located near the Nimarsh Garden and Mushroom Flat. It is severely crowded and the customer flow is squeezed out.
Considering this problem, this herbal medicine shop has been listed for a month, but there has been no transaction, and the price has dropped from 550 gorse coins at the beginning to 500 gorse coins now.
The advantage of buying a shop here is that it will help Gaode purchase tree species.
The disadvantage is that the location is not good. Faced with the squeeze from the two major magic plant stores, it is not easy to build a shop.
Although Gaode is not planning to continue to build a herbal medicine shop, he is leaning towards a magic material shop.
Kebei District is a gathering place for magic plant stores. Opening a magic plant store in such a place is like opening a hardware store in a snack street. It is inherently incompatible with the needs of fixed customer flow, and it is somewhat like asking for a dead end.
The second store is located on Dezo Street in the East District. It is a street-facing grocery store.
The shop is a two-story structure. The first floor is a street-facing store for business, and the second floor is a residential area, connected by internal stairs.
The reason why the shop owner resold the shop was that it was originally a traditional family-owned retail store. The shop owner’s son refused to take over the traditional industry and turned to work in a factory. As a result, there were no successors to the shop. The shop owner was getting older, so he began to consider selling the shop.
In addition, many large-scale grocery store chains have emerged in Dorne City in recent years, seizing the market through daily low prices. As a traditional family-style retail store, it is difficult to compete with this kind of competition.
Gaode is planning to transform it into a magic materials store and does not need to consider competition from large chain grocery stores, so there is no need to worry about this shortcoming.
The most important thing to him is that the Troll Skull Alley, as the "black market", is on the street facing Dezo, near this grocery store.
In other words, there will be many mages on Dezuo Street who need to buy or sell extraordinary materials and do not want to leave traces.
These mages only care about the quality of the materials, not where they came from.
This is consistent with Gaode’s situation.
——If he is in the magic materials business, most of the magic materials will be brought directly from the north, and their origins are unknown.
The asking price of this grocery store is 650 gorse coins.
Since the business situation has not reached an unsustainable point, there is relatively little room for bargaining.
With this in mind, Gothe drew a circle behind the grocery store and marked it as a key observation.
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 streets away from Dezo Street.
Compared with the second store, its advantage is that the price is cheaper, only 450 gorse coins, and you even have the opportunity to negotiate the price.
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 savings on hand:
271 gorse coins plus 7 silver dragon coins.
This amount of money is not enough to buy any shop.
If you want to invest in a shop, you will definitely need to go back to the north and bring some extraordinary materials to sell in order to save enough money.
He has now joined the Sea Sentinel, so selling extraordinary materials must be particular and cannot be as casual as before.
After entering the "system", a very important point is to ensure that the resume is clean.
If he suddenly had a piece of supernatural material of unknown origin, he would be easily suspected of being a "spy" if he was still from the Sien Province.
Gothe, on the other hand, has no doubts about Sea Sentinel’s ability to grasp the intelligence of the mages in the organization.
The reason why he wanted to open a "magic material store" was to rationally launder the extraordinary materials he obtained from the north.