Mage Manual

Chapter 1634 - 1201: Tearing Off the Mask

The five nations have wildly different development tendencies, so it’s hard to say who’s advanced and who’s backward. Blood Moon’s necromantic industry has reached its peak, not a single corpse is wasted; Gospel excels at nationwide coordinated production; Dazzling Star has the cleanest and fairest bureaucracy; Earth Abyss relies on Void Realm creatures to participate in production and reproduction; Paradise can let souls ascend to the Eternal Paradise... you can only sum it up as "each with its own strengths and weaknesses."

But if you take "mage ratio" as the only metric, then Gospel absolutely crushes the others. Under a proactive and well-developed educational guidance system, the proportion of Gospel’s mages reaches an astonishing 10.19%. Though the vast majority remain Silver Mages their whole life and don’t even dare explore the Void Realm to condense Void Wings, it’s precisely thanks to this excellent demographic dividend that the Kingdom of Gospel could seize the initiative in the tide of the five nations uniting and take the biggest slice of the cake.

Absorbing advanced foreign technology, tapping into foreign market potential, Gospel sees 600 small and micro enterprises born every single day; Gospel alone occupies 30% of the transport quota of the Permanent Void Gate, it’s practically Gospel dumping goods on the other four nations. Even if the others are jealous, there’s nothing they can do. At best, they can sign large inter-state contracts, but private trade can only depend on the subjective initiative of entrepreneurs.

They can’t even protect their own markets by raising tariffs and the like—Supreme Star took a very hardline, one-size-fits-all approach and laid down extremely liberal trade rules. Right now the five nations are a picture of vigorous vitality and universal competition; even the Kingdom of Stars doesn’t gain much advantage and is instead falling behind in the national competition.

But Supreme Star couldn’t care less which country is leeching off which, or which country is falling behind—after all, they’re all her countries now. It’s like playing a management strategy game: as long as she can raise one monster-tier capital, what’s wrong with making the capital ring suffer a bit?

However, Gospel only holds an advantage in mage population; when it comes to "high-end combat power," the situation flips. Not because Gospel has few Legendary Mages—on the contrary, Gospel’s number of Legendary Mages is also among the top of the five nations.

But Gospel’s Legendaries are all just external power sources and processors for the Divine Beings.

That the Gospel Divine Beings can shroud the entire nation and net all living beings, without needing the Divine Lord to intervene, depends precisely on dozens of Legendary Holy Domain mages driving it in their stead. And those Legendary Holy Domain mages are also willing to become plug-ins for the Gospel Divine Beings: after all, the Gospel Divine Beings grant them the qualification to come into close contact with the Divine Domain. Very few mages can resist that kind of temptation, not to mention that Holy Sanctuary Mages often can use this contact with Gospel to advance to Legendary—what Holy Sanctuary Mage dares guarantee they’ll definitely achieve Legendary in their lifetime?

Holy Sanctuary Mages in other nations who have reached the end of their magic path are one after another submitting requests to the Yisu royal family, willing to give up everything to head to Nabistin, even if it means becoming prisoners of the Divine Beings for the rest of their life—they’re still more than willing. Any Holy Domain mage who truly pursues Magic, who wouldn’t want to see the scenery of Legendary, even if the price is their whole life?

However, this flourishing age of "the court full of loyal ministers" is just a brittle prosperity that shatters at a touch. Watching the Gospel senators show their unsightly, unbearable sides under Legendary pressure, the poker-faced Blood Saint Elf Merda couldn’t help revealing an expression of disdain.

She knew that over a dozen Gospel Legendaries were in the Divine Palace less than a straight kilometer away, yet not one could stand before them. In fact, she was hoping the Gospel Legendaries would overestimate themselves and answer their provocation; then the Blood Saint Legendaries could humiliate their Legendaries right here in their capital... what better way to help these barbarians find their place than snapping their spine?

Merda’s confidence wasn’t arrogance, but because Blood Moon had long since investigated clearly: the Legendaries of Nabistin basically have no combat power to speak of!

To support the Gospel Divine Beings, the Legendary Mages have no leeway for cultivation at all, raised by the Gospel Divine Beings into a bunch of fattened pigs who only carry the title of Legendary without any substance... Back in the closed era of the six nations, this mechanism of crippling high-level mages was without doubt beneficial to the state. A country does not need a Legendary Mage who can wipe out a nation by themselves. In fact, not just Gospel, all six governments used every possible means to restrain Legendary Holy Domain mages. Any regime based on strong centralized power will inevitably suppress high-level mages—this is the unavoidable contradiction between the state as an organization and powerful individuals.

But Gospel really went too far in the suppression—crippling all Legendary Mages means they can only bully Holy Domain Mages at best. In the past this was more than enough, but the "bully-your-own-nest" patch is over; now is the era of joint struggle and competition among the five nations.

These fattened pigs who immersed themselves in a pastoral age will eventually have to enter the same arena as bloodthirsty bats and vicious jackals.

"Dragon King’s Divine Power!" "Angel Alliance!" "Heaven-granted Divine Armament..."

As the Royal Secret Guard opened the Gospel Book, rays of multicolored glory pierced the hall and shone upon the Gospel mages. Various Blessings from the Divine Beings fully enhanced all their attributes; even Silver Mages could now withstand the suffocating Legendary Killing Intent!

"Gospel’s Protection..." Merda murmured softly. This was the biggest variable in their plan: Gospel mages could borrow the authority of the Gospel Divine Beings by spending Merit. The Yisu royal family had meticulously managed the country for seven hundred years, and their accumulated Merit could only be measured in bulk. Even though the Gospel Divine Beings aren’t particularly good at offense and slaughter, the divine authority they leak is enough to raise a mage’s Combat Power by a whole tier.

But that’s about all it can do.

"Ambassador Merda!" The Third Witch Yvalin couldn’t suppress her Anger, bristling like a blue hedgehog: "What is the meaning of this! Do you intend to spark a war between Blood Moon and Gospel?"

"Of course not. Under the gaze of the Star Cluster, how would we dare violate rules and regulations to infringe on another country?" Merda shook her head. "This is merely our sincerity. To assist Gospel in hunting down the heinous Demigod Mage Ash Heath, Blood Moon is willing to dispatch three Legendary martial officers to participate in the pursuit operation and spare no effort in completing the Task issued by Supreme Star."