Chapter 160: Seeking a Con Artist

Deep into the night, the palace where the Queen handled state affairs remained brilliantly illuminated.

Queen Linda rubbed her brow. Even with her strength as a Gold-rank wizard, managing the intricate affairs of a nation still left her feeling slightly fatigued—especially when the country was still bearing the deep scars left behind by her father’s tyranny and extortion.

Since ascending the throne, the Queen had worked tirelessly from dawn till dusk, pouring her heart and soul into restoring a modicum of vitality to the realm. Yet, numerous hidden perils remained unresolved, and Linda could not afford to lower her guard.

Sometimes, she truly envied her best friend—someone who had not a single care in the world and could carefree busy herself with eccentric and frivolous pursuits.

Take today, for instance. The matter her friend had come to her with left Linda between laughter and tears. She had actually come to apply for intangible cultural heritage status on behalf of a club once frequented by the leader of an enemy nation, and even wanted a state subsidy of a thousand magic crystals for them.

Did she want the Elan Kingdom to become the laughingstock of its enemies? How could Linda possibly agree to such a thing?

When she refused, her friend resorted to her ultimate weapon: unyielding persistence. She simply refused to leave, insisting that she had already given her word and that, come hell or high water, the allocation of a thousand magic crystals must be delivered to them.

Moreover, she whispered mysteriously that she was currently working on a grand master plan!

If this plan succeeded, Linda would share in the glory, and at that time, she would no longer need to sit here gloomily processing state documents all day long. She could play every single day, and even unifying the Azure Plane would be a breeze!

Therefore, she demanded by all means that Linda support her recent endeavor.

Linda found that her best friend was becoming increasingly unreliable lately. Ever since returning from the city of Dallas, she had grown secretive, taking on many behaviors entirely out of character compared to the past. Her drastic personality shift had even alarmed the patriarch of the Barov family and the Council of Elders. They all suspected her soul might have been usurped by another entity!

They prepared detection spell arrays and subjected her to a comprehensive examination. The results, however, showed that she was still the second young miss of the Barov family, with no signs of soul usurpation.

The Barov family was most renowned for their medical arts. Consequently, they possessed an extraordinary understanding of the human body, both physical and spiritual, and their diagnostic results were authoritative.

Thus, they concluded that since their second young miss was still entirely original, her drastic personality change must have been triggered by some external shock—most likely occurring when she accompanied the Queen to Dallas City. Because of this incident, they still held considerable grievances against Queen Linda.

The Queen felt entirely wronged! Yet she had no idea how to explain it to the Barov family. Based on her understanding of her friend, she felt that neither her habits nor her fundamental personality had truly changed drastically. Rather, it seemed as though she had suddenly experienced, overnight, a lifetime’s worth of events and had matured significantly.

She thought that becoming a bit more mature wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it would at least give them more common ground.

However, she realized she was wrong. While her friend’s way of thinking and methods had indeed matured, her ideas were now completely on a different plane from her own.

First, she pestered her relentlessly to change her name during the ennoblement ceremony. Unable to withstand the constant badgering, Linda endured the pressure from the Barov family and changed it to Nicole Barov!

Having changed her name, Nicole then demanded that the Queen issue a decree specifically protecting cats. At this, Linda refused utterly. Protect cats, indeed—should they protect dogs as well? Rabbits too? The Elan Kingdom might as well just rename itself the Elan Zoo.

And now, she was back with such an absurd request for a state subsidy. At this moment, Linda was already tormented by headaches regarding the tight resources in the national treasury. Confidential reports from Marshal Vaughn on the front lines stated that they had mastered an epoch-making weapon: magic crystal cannons invented by a genius alchemist from the Kamikaze Knights! This weapon had the potential to alter the strategic situation on the front lines. However, the consumption of resources by these magic crystal cannons was immense. To deploy them on a scale large enough for tactical use, the front lines required a massive allocation of magic crystals.

In fact, even before Marshal Vaughn’s secret report arrived, the Queen had already received another report concerning the magic crystal cannons from her covert agents stationed at the front. The letter of ennoblement for the inventor, Bill Armstrong, naming him a baron, had already been prepared. She was simply waiting for the magic crystal cannons to display their might before summoning him to the royal capital to bestow the title in person!

As Queen, she naturally could not let personal emotions dictate her decisions, so no matter how much Nicole threw tantrums and acted shamelessly, there was no way she could grant her request. Just when the front lines urgently needed support, how could she use the already strained treasury funds to support a club that once sheltered enemy leaders? Nevertheless, to send her friend away, she came up with a compromise.

She remembered that earlier in the year, a member of the Lower House had proposed a Grim Academy Club Support Program. That proposal suggested opening up pathways for clubs to accept private donations from citizens. The document was still sitting on her desk.

Right in front of Nicole, she stamped the proposal with her royal seal. She declared that if some wealthy patron truly wished to donate a thousand magic crystals to the Blue Phoenix Club, it would be a personal private affair. The state would not interfere and, to facilitate the support program, would even grant certain conveniences.

That finally managed to pack the young lady off. After Nicole left, Linda looked over the so-called application for intangible cultural heritage status for the Blue Phoenix Club, and seeing the name of the club president, Andy Charles, she felt the name sounded somewhat familiar.

"Andy Charles... could he be someone from the Charles family? But I heard the only one in the Charles family with any real achievement in wizardry is Sazo. For him to become the president of a Grim Academy club, could he be some sort of rising star?"

Then, addressing the empty air, she said, "Investigate him!"

"Understood!" a female voice responded from the void, though no figure ever materialized.

***

Andy, the very subject about to be investigated, was currently grinning from ear to ear.

He had returned to the night market of the royal capital's transcendental goods trading district and was chatting cheerfully with the owner of a stall.

The vendor was spouting saliva while enthusiastically introducing his treasured artifact—a chamberpot once used by the Queen! Knowing full well it was a fake, Andy listened with rapt attention, occasionally chiming in to show a deeply fascinated expression...

The reason for his buoyant mood dated back to the day Nicole departed from the Blue Phoenix Club.

After she left, Andy, who had been closely monitoring his spiritual power over the past few days, habitually entered his spiritual space and was pleasantly surprised to discover that his spiritual power had grown by another small increment.

Clearly, Andy had just completed meditation right before she arrived, and his spiritual power hadn't grown then.

Thus, Andy began to carefully recall his interactions with Nicole to see which factors had triggered the growth of his spiritual power. He linked this back to the first time he noticed his spiritual growth, which occurred right after he completed a transaction with the former president of the Blue Phoenix Club. Then he realized that both individuals had, to varying degrees, deceived him...

Andy could not help but recall the characteristics of the Abyss demon's power growth mentioned in the memories of Gristofin he had recorded. Gristofin derived his power growth precisely by guiding people into hypocritical and fraudulent behaviors.

It seemed that after integrating the source of that power—the Demon Heart—Andy had also acquired this trait. As long as other people engaged in fraudulent behavior because of him, his spiritual power would increase!

Realizing this, Andy felt he had suddenly stumbled upon a shortcut to leveling up that was far easier than grinding pills! If deceiving people could increase his spiritual power, why on earth should he bother with hard-earned pill-popping and meditation? He might as well just go out and hustle!

Therefore, he prepared food and a note for Catherine, rushed off to the transcendental market in the royal capital, and spent the entire day there. Wherever there were counterfeits, his figure could be found!