Chapter 150: Mage Bryan’s Heart Stirs
Mage Bryan had been in Autumn Field Town for some time, but he spent most of his time thinking and struggling. He didn’t leave his room until his apprentice brought him news.
“Mechanical puppets for farm work?!” Bryan thought Duomi was exaggerating. After all, even a crudely made puppet could fetch a good price from rural nobles, so who would use puppets for farm work? He came over to take a look and realized it was true. Judging from the details of the puppets, they were quite mature works, and he knew exactly what that meant. Bryan’s heart stirred.
“Immediately visit the lord here in my name,” Bryan said, his voice tinged with excitement. As his only apprentice, or rather the only apprentice still alive, Duomi dared not hesitate in the slightest at his teacher’s instructions and went to the town center at the fastest speed to deliver a formal visiting card.
Because of the special nature of the visitor, Maya quickly received the visiting card. However, she only had one comment.
“Mage Bryan, another trouble.”
If wizards and warlocks were unstable factors, then mages represented a constant source of trouble.
As a profession for intelligent people, mages were not simply magical turrets; in fact, warlocks were more suitable for that title.
Mages were more like scientists exploring the realm of mystery. Compared to constantly increasing the lethality of magic, they preferred to immerse themselves in a specific field.
The problem was that research required money in any world, and the more powerful the mage, the more money they needed. This meant that mages couldn’t just shut themselves away and focus on research, nor could they bury their heads in farming for resources. Therefore, figuring out how to trick suckers into giving them money became a compulsory course for them.
In his previous life, there were contracts to constrain investments in research, and researchers wouldn’t dare to offend their investors too much. However, in this world, the reputation of many mages was not very good. They used both deception and coercion, often leading to investors losing everything. The worst part was, you couldn’t even fight back because you never knew what they did with your money. What if they created some super magic bomb? No number of people would be enough to die from that.
When the steam engine was first put into use, a mage sent a visiting card. Maya could guess what he wanted with just a strand of hair.
“It seems it’s time for our allies to show their worth,” Maya murmured to herself, then had someone deliver the visiting card to the Black Hand, that is, to Harvey.
Harvey was very aware of his current situation. Although he had now become an elite member under Little Finger, his past failures and signs of betrayal had created an invisible barrier between him and the organization.
However, he was hesitant to completely betray the organization and join Owen. Therefore, Harvey could only desperately try to demonstrate his abilities, ensuring that he still had value to one side if he was abandoned by the other.
“Our ally needs information on Mage Bryan? Interesting.” Upon hearing Harvey’s report, Little Finger put down his work and revealed a meaningful smile.
“Then give it to them, without holding back. I want to see what choice this lord will make.” Little Finger said calmly to Harvey, who was still unaware of what was happening.
Not long after, information about Bryan was delivered to Maya by Harvey personally.
Bryan hadn’t concealed his whereabouts or origins when he traveled to Autumn Field Town, so the Black Hand had noticed his presence early on. Moreover, due to his profession and identity, he received a considerable amount of attention, and the collection of relevant information had already been partially completed. Therefore, the information provided was quite detailed.
“He was once a mage attached to the Imperial Border Army and conducted research under their support for ten years. Now, the cooperation has ended, and he recently arrived in Autumn Field Town. It seems he really sees us as suckers to seek investment.” Owen chuckled, then put down the information in his hand and said to Maya.
“Ten years, even the Imperial Border Army was unwilling to continue funding. It seems Mage Bryan’s research project is quite something, just very expensive.” Maya said calmly.
To be able to get funding from the Imperial Border Army, the project naturally went without saying. It must be attractive. The problem was, who would dare to continue investing in a project that even the wealthy Imperial Border Army had given up on?
It was important to know that mages would stop at nothing to ensure their research continued. They would cheat, lie, and steal, and as long as they could trick people into giving them money, they didn’t care if the investors could recoup their investments. There were countless cases where investors lost everything. That was why mages were said to be all crooks.
Therefore, the Imperial Border Army’s decisive decision to cut off funding and stop losses was a lesson learned from countless years of dealing with mages. Never think that investing another sum of money would be a gamble worth taking, because mages would show you what true despair was.
However, Owen was confident that he could achieve results with this project. After all, he had cheats. The problem now lay in Mage Bryan’s background.
Theoretically, Bryan currently had no relationship with the Imperial Border Army. But the question was, would the Imperial Border Army really remain indifferent if the project yielded results?
Owen didn’t think the Imperial Border Army would reason with him. So, it was fine if there were no results, but if there were, it would be a big problem.
Anything involving the Imperial Border Army was no small matter. Even if Bryan only had experience serving in the Border Army, Owen still didn’t dare to be careless.
There was no other way. The Imperial Border Army was the largest military group in the Empire. Even the Emperor couldn’t ignore them, so what qualifications did he have to disregard them?
Owen had never had a deep understanding of the Imperial Border Army, which was closest to him. His initial impression wasn’t very deep. After all, even the primitive Northland barbarians were difficult to completely eliminate. However, through the information provided by Maya, Howard, and the Black Hand, he had only just begun to understand what a terrifying monster the Imperial Border Army was.
Considering the size of the Empire’s territory and population, the number of troops it possessed was an incredibly exaggerated figure.
Overall, the Empire’s military power could be divided into three parts: the Royal Legion, the Imperial Border Army, and the Garrison Legion.
Among them, only the Royal Legion and the Border Army had true combat power and expeditionary capabilities.
However, the Royal Legion was responsible for guarding the Imperial Capital and suppressing powerful nobles within the Empire. They could not be easily mobilized, nor should they be.
Although the Garrison Legion was the largest in number, with millions of troops, they were responsible for guarding major cities and towns within the Empire. They couldn’t be easily mobilized on ordinary days, and their origins were complex. It was questionable whether they would listen to the Empire or the local lords.
Therefore, the Imperial Border Army, responsible for confronting external enemies, became a powerful military force that the Empire absolutely couldn’t ignore.
Not to mention the exaggerated number of standing troops, the Imperial Border also possessed a considerable number of Knight Orders and Mage Guilds, all of which were strategic-level forces.
If not for various concerns within the Empire, keeping the Imperial Border Army on hold for years, the Northland barbarians wouldn’t have been able to live so freely for so many years, and there would have been no need to use the Northland Pioneer Group as an excuse to barely solve the problem of the Northland barbarians.
This didn’t mean that the Imperial Border Army was weak; it was just that they were subject to too many restrictions.
After all, neither the Emperor of the Empire nor the nobles in various regions wanted to see an Imperial Border Army that was out of control.
