Harvey had met Mister Misfortune only once. Truth be told, their bond was not deep, but gazing at the knowledge recorded in that notebook, Harvey could not help feeling profound gratitude toward the old man.
He had truly passed on everything he had learned in his life.
Harvey could not hold back his question. "Teacher, creating souls is what you're best at. Couldn't you use this fragment to resurrect Mister Misfortune?"
Anbaixiu looked toward the glass jar containing the soul fragment and said helplessly, "Resurrect him? How? This soul fragment has entirely lost its original will. All I'm doing now is keeping it from dissipating on its own. I could indeed use my abilities to patch the fragment whole, drawing on my impressions and memories of Vladimir to craft a soul that resembles him.
"That would be simple enough—no trouble at all. But you and I both know it would just be a fake molded from my impressions. A fake like that wouldn't have the abilities of a divination wizard, nor the memories of straining his mind for centuries on behalf of the Unholy Hymn, nor the will to sacrifice himself for his kingdom.
"Manufacturing a counterfeit like that would be an insult to him."
Back when Captain Aige of the Silent Night Pirates had asked Anbaixiu to resurrect her father, he had similarly been powerless. At best, he could have fabricated an imitation based on memories, which was utterly meaningless—nothing more than self-deception.
Still reluctant to let it go, Harvey asked, "Then could we ask the guildmaster from the City of Alchemy for help? You mentioned before, Teacher, that he can cast Wish without restriction."
Without even looking up, Anbaixiu replied, "Setting aside whether Wish can resurrect a divination wizard who just altered the fabric of the world, even if it could, Gary Watts would never agree to it."
"Why? Is it a matter of cost?"
Anbaixiu shook his head. "No, it's that he doesn't want Vladimir alive. Vladimir sacrificed himself for the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn. If he were brought back, he'd certainly enter Chaos Space to continue watching over those tieflings. What Gary Watts wants is the tieflings' faith. If a grand hero who sacrificed himself to save the kingdom suddenly appeared, to whom would that faith go?
"The hearts of mortals cannot be controlled. As long as Vladimir lived, those tieflings would instinctively revere him. The result would be that Gary Watts would receive precious little power of faith, and he'd have to waste time eroding Vladimir's influence. That process would inevitably turn them against each other.
"In our earlier transaction, Gary Watts and I never said it aloud, but we both understood tacitly: these tieflings bought their survival with their faith. If they fail to provide it, Gary Watts wouldn't hesitate for a second to abandon them... No, knowing his temperament, he'd turn those tieflings into alchemical ingredients without a second thought. That man is crueler than any undead."
Anbaixiu never doubted Gary Watts's cold-blooded nature. The old man had used the entire City of Alchemy as material for his apotheosis, claiming countless lives along the way. Factoring in how viciously he had treated his own kin, he was the most cold-blooded person Anbaixiu had ever met.
Even so, Gary Watts had one distinct trait: absolute rationality.
Those ten million tieflings and the territory of an entire kingdom formed the bedrock of his formal ascent to godhood. He would not give them up, nor would he skimp on caring for them. Any good alchemist would make sure their lab mice were well-fed, plump, and healthy.
Yet Harvey still seemed unwilling to surrender hope. "Then... what about the power of a time dragon?"
Anbaixiu looked at Harvey in bewilderment. "I knew him for centuries, so my feelings are one thing. You met him once—where did you get such a burning desire to bring Vladimir back?"
Harvey pondered for a moment before explaining, "I don't really know. Maybe I just genuinely admire the man. When I read books, what I hate most are plots where heroes sacrifice themselves. I prefer stories with happy endings, even if they make no logical sense."
"Personal taste, eh." Anbaixiu offered no criticism, merely continuing his explanation. "Time is an immense power. Reversing the past may look simple, but in truth, it has its limits. I taught you before: manipulating fate is like toppling dominoes. As tile after tile falls, those become established facts. Trying to roll back time means setting those fallen tiles back upright, so the power consumed between the two is worlds apart.
"This time, Vladimir knocked down far too many tiles. The severed threads of the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn's fate will bind themselves to him in another form. Even if the Demonic Dragon Tyrant of old were reborn, he couldn't use time reversal to bring Vladimir back—there is far too much causality involved. What's more, the Goddess of Fate would never allow Vladimir to banish an entire kingdom to the Chaos Lands without paying a price.
"Accepting merely the body and soul of a legendary divination wizard as the toll is already exceptional leniency from the Goddess of Fate. And you want to bring him back on top of that? Do you take the Goddess of Fate for some cheap harlot you can take advantage of? Anyone who thinks like that will only have their legs swept out and snapped by her, then get their head crushed under her high heels."
Harvey felt an imaginary phantom ache in his skull and quickly changed the subject. "All right, I won't ask again. So Teacher, what do we do now? The Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn is gone, and you mentioned the dragon race is returning to the mainland. We can't very well keep doing business as usual, can we?"
Anbaixiu leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and replied in the most natural tone possible, "Why not? Doing business has always been my most important enterprise. What we need to do next is expand our operations. Do you know what sells for the highest price on the continent right now?"
Harvey froze for a moment, then gave it serious thought. "Excluding war supplies, now that the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn has vanished... if I remember right, their kingdom's specialties were spices, weapons, and armor?"
Anbaixiu nodded. "Not bad. You're improving. Tiefling smiths are world-renowned. Unlike the standardized goods from the City of Alchemy, they specialize in custom-crafted, exquisite enchanted armor and weapons—an area where even the City of Alchemy's techniques fell short. As for spices, that was entirely due to the tieflings' unique geography; spices produced anywhere else are always a notch inferior in quality."
Harvey asked, "So, Teacher, do you want to grow spices and set up a workshop for exquisite enchanted gear?"
Anbaixiu scolded him immediately. "Are you an idiot? If we started planting spices now, how many years would it take to harvest? And with the tieflings gone, where am I going to find master smiths of that caliber? Just when I thought you were improving, this is what you come up with? Why would we manufacture things ourselves when we can just be middlemen?"
Prompted by Anbaixiu, the realization struck Harvey at once, leaving him stunned. "Teacher, you can still communicate with the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn in the Chaos Lands?"
"Of course," Anbaixiu said smugly. "My teacher sent me such a handy artifact—how could I not help promote Him? I gave Gary Watts a magic mirror. It's an artifact that routes through the God of Alchemy's divine realm, allowing cross-planar communication. With that mirror, small-scale cross-planar transport is possible. Spices are too bulky in volume, and substitutes exist, so we won't touch that business. Instead, we'll swallow all the custom crafting orders the tieflings used to handle.
"On top of that, our trade won't just be with the other kingdoms. Those exiled tieflings will have needs of their own, won't they? The Chaos Lands are so barren, and Gary Watts can't oversee everything. In that realm, up, down, left, and right are completely inverted. If they end up fighting others, they'll definitely lack ranged weapons. Magitech cannons, magitech rifles, flight packs—we can sell all of that to them!
"An exclusive monopoly. We'd have to try hard not to turn a profit."
Having heard all this, Harvey could not help asking, "Teacher, I have a rather impolite question. You didn't intentionally scheme against your senior brother just so you could turn that kingdom into your own backyard, did you?"
"What are you imagining?" Anbaixiu scoffed. "Do you really think your teacher is some omniscient deity who calculates everything in advance? If I were that capable, I wouldn't need to fear the Lord of the Dawn. This is nothing more than making use of leftover assets. After all, a large portion of that kingdom's land belongs to me. I can't very well let it go to waste."
The contracts sold to Anbaixiu by those Unholy Ones were still in his possession—black ink on white paper, completely legal and legitimate land ownership. He had to squeeze some profit out of it somehow.
Anbaixiu gave Harvey the frequency code for the mirror in the Chaos Lands, leaving the matter entirely in his hands.
Anbaixiu had grown accustomed to setting the broad direction and leaving the execution to Harvey.
Harvey's face fell into a bitter grimace. "Teacher, I'm already swamped on my own. The business here in the desert has stabilized, but there's a mountain of work every single day. Taking charge of another trade route on top of this is truly more than I can manage. Where will I find the time to study the notes you gave me?"
"Then go hire people yourself! Do you need me to hold your hand through small matters like that? Even your junior sister Isabel knows to find someone to help manage her castle, so why can't you... Oh, right. Put those drow elves to work for you. When it comes to business, those drow are shrewder than you are. And while you're at it, finalize the airship transport routes. Give priority to the Dwarf Kingdom and the Silvermoon High Court.
"It's about time we gave the elves a bit of hope, lest the Elven God King Corellon draws his blade to strike me down."
Having the drow elves operate airships for transport was an empty promise Anbaixiu had made to Catherine earlier. Back then it was just talk, but now the time was ripe to put it into action.
As for whether those drow elves were trustworthy, Anbaixiu hardly cared. In the worst-case scenario, a few elves would die; they could train and discipline them as they went along.
Harvey jotted down everything Anbaixiu instructed, only to realize that opening his mouth had saddled him with even more chores. Just sorting out the transport routes alone would cost him a good chunk of his hair.
No, he absolutely had to recruit help. Harvey decided he would post a recruitment notice shortly. With the renown of their "God of Alchemy Selected" brand, they ought to attract plenty of talent.
"All right, got it all down? Then I'll leave things here to you," Anbaixiu said.
Harvey asked in surprise, "Teacher, are you heading out again?"
Anbaixiu replied, "You said it yourself—the return of the dragon race is a major event. How could I not make preparations? I'm heading to the open sea to pay my good brother Gareth a visit, and see what I can find out about what's really going on with the dragons."
Chapter 351