14

The demon realm has its own form of long-distance communication called simply magic communication as far as I am aware. but it requires magic towers to be set up along the way between the two talking people like cell towers and also to have the communication devices themselves. I have neither, but I do have my form of communication magic from the advanced circles and I already discussed it with Shea I would be calling her when and if I found anything in yankou. after activating the call a circle appears beside my ear and even though it's a bit hard to see out of the side of my eye I can see it's a basic pentagram with no special markings. I wonder if I will ever get my own crest like on my Agares circles.

"Hello?" I hear Shea's uncertain voice answer from the other side. stopping a laugh from the mental image of Shea with her hand over her ear looking like a grandma unsure if she answered the phone right.

"Hi, Shea I was calling to inform you of your subordinate a mister Sheikh Saiful and his acts of embezzlement." putting on my best telemarketer voice.

"Emebezzl-what?" dang missed the mark.

"Oh, nothing just he has been forcing the residents of town yankou to mine a highly valuable magic material called jade ice crystal. he was hoarding it and keeping the profits to himself while sharing a bit with the town's garrison captain to keep people in line. so the reports of starvation were a cover-up so he could continue the mining and also get supply's from the dark moon." there's a pause on the line and it was at this point I wonder if she was in a public space and just froze some poor Basterds in her rage.

"Nova." an ice-cold tone calls my name like a grim reaper.

"Yes, Shea?"

"I am sending some supplies over with old Gauss to help the people working in the mines. in the meantime can you look into the chances of us keeping the mine operating? the fact that I didn't know of this might also mean others are unaware. he might not of even let the rest of the Saiful family in on it and if that's the case we could continue operations but with better conditions for the miners and we take the proceeds. we need to know who he was selling to so we can decide how exposed this is in the grand scheme of things." about the same thought process I had but I could just set up a long-distance circle here in the mayor's mansion and one in the palace so no one needs to travel far and with no one making back and forth trips fewer people will get curious what is going on in this 'Ghost town'.

"Shea give me some time to draw a circle on my side then I need to fill my energy back up and I can warp over and set one on that side. this way we can go back and forth without anyone seeing or knowing anything. me and Athena will still need to ride back together in case anyone saw us leave but that's not a problem. if someone did see us leave the Gauss also leaves and they find out where he is heading they could come and investigate." she agrees and I end the call and head back inside.

"Alright Sheikh if you tell me where you have been selling the jade ice crystal you will have a lot less rough of a time." the groveling fat man on the ground sweating buckets instantly goes on to tell me about his contact who is more or less a pirate from the dead sea in the south. he comes once a month and take the shipment and pays upfront with a small portion of the gold crystal. this is surprising to me since gold crystal's value far outweighs black crystal and even the rare blood crystal. as far as I can remember gold crystal is also one of the best materials for enchanting and holds the enchantment for a long time. after asking a few questions I find out his contact is a devil king rank great demon who works for some overlord of a coastal city that doesn't belong to any empire. this coast city overlord is a great demon king-level lich who specializes in frost magic and is said to have a massive fleet he uses to both trade with and rob.

I am super intrigued by this because it's something that never happened or was discovered in the novel. either it didn't exist or it was never found which pushes me to find out for myself. what kind of things will be uncovered in this town and what can I gain? for one the money sounds good and if this coast city has so much gold crystal they are using it to buy this jade ice crystal that tells me they're not scared of this mayor in a ghost town and are just using him to run the mine and stay in the background. they probably are using a gold crystal to buy jade ice crystal so they can sell easier. if they show up to a market to sell gold crystal they just might get killed by some powerhouse but if they sell jade ice no one will take that much interest besides trying to buy it at the lowest price.

I need to look into this more but Sheikh said it will be some time before he comes for the shipment I will just have to teleport back here when the people come back. but this also could be a way to find a way to get in contact with the water element king who lives in the dead sea. if I go to the black rainforest and befriend Dodo the slime and get the crown of wave from him I can get a favor from the water king and if he can get in contact with the dark king I can try to make a deal with him to have him not help the prince from the bloody empire in return for me helping him get his origin fragment.

( there are 6 element kings and all have an origin fragment they need to be full power for those who didn't read the original. )

Knocking out the mayor me and Athena begin to look for the basement so I can set up the circle. after finding I cleared off a large part of the floor and begin working.

"So what's the plan now Nova." Athena sits on some crate on the side watching me draw out the circle and hold it with my demonic energy so it doesn't disappear.

"When I finish this we are going to head back after securing the mayor and I will make one in the palace somewhere so Gauss can come and get the citizens settled and figure out who to make the mayor and continue mining in secret." She kicks her feet back and forth and watches me work for half an hour before I feel the circle has been completed. A permeant circle of this nature acts as a fast travel point of sorts but as things stand there is no other circle to go to so it's useless till I make another or a summoning contract is used. "There I am done let's tie up the mayor and head back so I can set up the other side." I could teleport there make it then use the circle to come back but I don't want to leave Athena behind she might get bored.

"So now Shea will use this mine?"

"Yea she will find someone she can trust to continue the mining and also will get the miners better supplies so they stop dropping like flies." I will probably write up a contract for whoever she sends to make sure they don't try anything stupid I don't want to leave any possibility of betrayal. I knew that I was coming here to make trouble but I feel bad for Athena I did say it was a date after all. " I know it was kind of a boring date but when we get back we could always go and get some food and hang out if you want."

"Really?" she turns to me as we keep walking and smiles.

"Yea I don't have anything planned for a few days so I was just going to relax for a bit before I went off again." She nods and we arrive at the stable the poor caretaker is shaking as we pass by him. it seems the rest of the guards woke up and got rid of the body but this poor bystander saw the whole thing he's probably scared we will silence him. pulling out some coins I toss them over and keep walking along as Athena pulls out the griffin. I cast spell on the guy as he is going through the pouch I tossed him to have him forget the whole day's events. now to deal with those guards so they don't run off and spill the details of the mine to anyone. " Athena fly us over to the garrison before we take off." she nods and I climb on behind her.

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After handling the garrison guards more forcefully I jump back on the griffin with Athena and we set off back for the dark moon. I will just write up in my report that Gauss needs to settle the remaining problems I left in the town. all he needs to do is get someone under a contract with me and have them get food and equipment out and keep the news from spreading.

"Hey what are you planning to do next? earlier you said you were taking a few days off what's after that?" Athena asks.

"I was planning on heading to the mount Xilang mountain mine and see if I can handle the bandits so it can start operating in full." also I want to loot all the sin in the ores that are in the waste room. they have a mountain of ores full of sin in that room because they couldn't use the ores with the crystals in them. perfect for me to go farm some sin. I am not too confident in helping the situation under the mine yet though. there is Glorfin Beelzebub trapped in his family's artifact the god-eating mask down there. he is using the mask to control the earth elemental king and Chen Rui's system bailed him out when he almost got possessed. but then again Athena using higher demon level strength managed to knock the mask off. with my body strength at great demon king and pair that with worthless at demon king level I could probably free the earth elemental king. I just don't think I would be able to resist if the mask jumped on me its one of the top-grade artifacts that can even make demigods into puppets with a strong enough wielder. It's a risk and if I can pull off taking control of the mask is a huge advantage but if I fail its game over.

"Can I go with you to mount Xilang? I want to fight the bandits as well, it could help me in gaining control of my demon forms fire and also I can watch your back." wrapping my arms around her and tightening my hug she squirms a bit.

"Of course, you can, if you don't go who else will watch my back?" she stops squirming and makes some happy noises while nodding at my response.

"Your right! if I don't watch your back you will probably get in a whole lot of trouble." I feel I will get in trouble either way.

These bandits are where I will meet Roman if things play out the same as the original. Roman is a guy I quite disliked in the original novel. he left behind the woman he loves because someone threatened him and he was too weak and they also had his father hostage. but after hearing of his father's death he doesn't try to rescue her or get in contact to run away he just leaves her behind and becomes obsessed with stealing wives and screwing widows. even after his redemption arc, he was more of comedic relief than anything else he wined about how unfair the MC was and only contributed to anything like twice. other than that the MC had to save him a few times from causing problems. I will just see how things play out this is real to me now these people are thinking and breathing for all I know Roman could be entirely different.