Chapter 1697 Cheap

Date- 15 April 2321

Time- 16:33

Location- Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, Dungeon Highway, Barren Lands, Central Tower, Blood Rock Cave Gate Dungeon

"After the treaty between the Card demigods and the supreme beings, the Way Beyond has become a land of opportunity for those willing to gamble with their life for riches—" 

"Ann cut straight to what you want. I know Way Beyond is rich in natural treasures but it is also equally rich in danger. Many card apprentices are tempted to explore it for resources. Some strong noble families and sects go as far as to form an alliance with supreme beings to explore the depths of Way Beyond but still cannot guarantee safely navigating the land across Way Beyond. If I am not wrong the Southern royal family should be in a weird on-again-off-again alliance with 26 different supreme beings. Your problem is not with them, you have a problem with smugglers who allow card apprentices to move their haul from Way Beyond to the five regions without having to pay the hefty toll fee and taxes to the Southern Watch upon their return. 

If my guess is correct, the people responsible for this smuggling chain, are part of the Southern watch guarding the border to Way Beyond. You guys might have already found these culprits thanks to the excellent 15-year-long operation of the undercover agents Mr. & Mrs. Bright. However, you did not apprehend these culprits because you know catching these people was only a temporary solution, you guys are after the hand guiding them, the mastermind behind this smuggling ring. 

I do not how this is my problem. I am not the one getting rich by taxing the people who risked their lives to gather rare resources," Wyatt interrupted Ann midway and explained that he had already caught up with the case that Corey's parents were working on and also made it clear to her that he had no interest in poking that hornet's nest. Many people's interest was tied up with this. Southern Royal family was not the only royal family troubled with smugglers, even the central government was helpless when it came to smugglers. They could not possibly regulate all the card apprentices with weird abilities. 

"I am not going to ask how you know all this but you do not know that the only reason those people are able to explore the Way Beyond for resources is because of the treaty that we help put in place if not for it these people would still fighting for their lives in the supreme wars," Ann asserted as if it was only right for the royal families and the central government to collect high toll fee and hefty taxes on the resources gathered by the card apprentice who risked their lives to collect them in the Way Beyond. 

The general public knows the Way Beyond as the land ruled by the Supreme beings but that was partially true. Unlike the Card demigods that came together to form a working civilization building the five regions, the Supreme Beings stuck to creating their own domains. So the land in the Way Beyond was basically unclaimed except for that which has become part of a supreme being's domain. 

These supreme being domains are clustered around the Five Regions, so the further one goes from the five regions into the Way beyond they were more likely to end up in unexplored lands that do not belong to the card apprentices or the supreme beings. 

Seeing how even the Supreme beings, the favored children of rules, were afraid of establishing their domain in these lands one could see how dangerous these unexplored land were. But in this danger lies huge riches beyond one's imagination, therefore the strong of the Card world know the Way beyond by another name the land of opportunities. So it was not surprising to see the card apprentices who had confidence in their strength to try their luck or Powerful factions time and again join hands with Supreme beings to explore these lands.

"Sure, whatever you say," Wyatt replied uninterestedly as he watched Aria try to touch Dredre's pink pixie dust but failed. This time Dredre did not offer Aria to use her pixie dust on her, Wyatt had asked her not to. His reasons for asking Dredre this were obvious. 

Seeing that Wyatt wasn't even paying her or her words any attention and just agreeing with her, Ann was not happy but she knew that it was she who wanted something from Wyatt, not the other way around. So she shamelessly continued demanding, "Wyatt, the Southern royal family needs your help." 

"Tell me something new," Wyatt said sarcastically. However, he was intrigued by how the Southern Royal family wanted him to help them with their smuggler problem. 

"We want a card recipe to create a card that can catalog the Card apprentice's actives when equipped," Ann did not bother with Wyatt's sarcasm but continued with her demands. They basically wanted to spy on the card apprentice crossing way beyond.

Listening to Ann, Wyatt raised his left eyebrow because any platinum card creationist could create the card recipe she was asking for. Lorenzo or his junior brother could create something like that half asleep. 

Ann noticed the doubt in Wyatt's face. Understanding that she had caught his attention she began to explain to him what exactly the Southern Royal family wanted from him, "We want you to create a card that not only catalogs the card apprentices' activities but also uploads it to our safe database in the grimoire network in real-time." 

"A virtual database in the grimoire network, that is what you guys are after, huh? No, still Lorenzo will not have a problem creating something like that," With the extra details given by Ann, Wyatt immediately understood what exactly she wanted from him, a virtual database something similar to VR-universe in terms of security. They were after the defense mechanism protecting the VR universe. 

Since the creation of the VR universe, various forces have tried to break into it, but none of them were able to do so. Even the central government and the top ten universities were unable to make it past the first layer of protection. Though they still have not given up on breaking throught the defense of the VR universe, they were so impressed by it that now they seek inspiration from it. 

The VR universe has showcased many revolutionary ideas and anti-theft security was one of the most important ones. The Southern Royal family who did not have either the great minds or the resources like the central government and the top ten universities to learn from it and upgrade their game have turned to the creator of the revolutionary VR universe for help. 

However, they were too cheap to pay the right price for what they wanted so they decided to use this method. They were asking Wyatt to create a card recipe for them knowing that he would use the best he got to create the card recipe for them. This means that the virtual database created by Wyatt will have his secret top-notch security measures. No one will be able to break into it and tamper or steal the recorded data. 

Truth be told, Wyatt was not the one responsible for the top-notch security measures but the devil merchant code was as the VR-Universe was hosted in Wyatt's private realm network of devil merchant code's inter-realm network. The reason the combined forces of the top ten universities and central government were never able to make it past the VR universe was that it was never in the grimoire network but a private network of the inter-realm network. The grimoire network was just the bridge connecting card apprentices to Wyatt's private realm network. 

"Yes, but Lorenzo has a handful with dealing with the aftermath of the battle of the southern region so I thought you would be able to help us create the card recipe and build the virtual database in the grimoire network," Ann explained. With the dual gate dungeon soon to be opened to the public Lorenzo really had a lot to deal with let alone handling the aftermath of the battle. 

"Sigh, fine I can create it for you. I will even do it for free. However, it will cost 30 devil-grade ingredients per month to host the virtual database. I only accept annual payments. So you will have to pay 360 devil-grade ingredients up front and another 1800 devil-grade ingredients as a safety deposit," Wyatt did not bother to play games with Ann and decided to generously help the southern royal family. 

"What the heck?" Ann cussed hearing the sky-high price quoted by Wyatt. Not to mention it is a yearly payment. If Wyatt had stated this price before he created VR-Slime cards in exchange for devil-grade ingredients, then she would not have minded such an arrangement. However, now things have changed. The value of the devil-grade ingredients has increased drastically. The southern royal family could no longer be as careless when handling the devil-grade ingredients as before.

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