Page 103
"Do you think that Mr. Lin En has already broken through and become a great wizard?" Someone in the crowd suddenly asked curiously.
Yesterday's [Magic Weekly] mentioned that an organization called the Doomsday Cult was infiltrated by members of the Vatican, causing quite a stir in the city of Greenriel, and that Lynn made an extremely outstanding contribution to this incident, almost single-handedly delaying the return of the legendary wizards.
This doesn't seem like something a three-ring wizard can do.
"That shouldn't be possible. I heard from Professor Orlando that Lord Lin may not even be 20 years old this year..." the wizard in black robe said in disbelief.
A great wizard who is less than twenty years old, this is really too horrifying, but when you think that he has won the highest honor in the magic world that even great wizards cannot get, it seems normal again.
At the same time, as Lin En and others entered the square in the center of the city, the crowd gathered here became more and more excited, shouting loudly [Yieta's Magic Star]!
The shouts became louder and louder, echoing throughout the entire city.
For a moment, Lin En didn't know whether he should be happy or depressed. Although this meant that he had gained the recognition of the vast majority of people, the last person who was called the Magic Star was still locked up in the [Magic Core].
Taking advantage of such a heated scene, Philip, Kevin and others, after discussing with the official wizards of the Yieta School, quickly announced publicly that Lin En would take over the position of dean of the Yieta School in the future.
Amidst praise and cheers, Lin En officially took over the entire magic school and gained actual control of this port city.
……
In the evening, after the celebratory banquet, Lynn climbed to the top of the college tower for the first time and entered the dean's office.
Everything here was more plain than he had imagined, with only some simple decorations. There were some dusty parchment rolls scattered on the table, and a magic clock for telling time. It was hard to tell that this was where a great wizard usually stayed.
It's a bit too shabby...
Lin En couldn't help but shook his head. If you don't consider the troubles caused by resurrecting his daughter, Helram, the founder and controller of the Iyeta School, can be called enlightened.
"Elemental wind!" Lin En raised his hand, and a strong wind suddenly blew up in the principal's office, sweeping away all the accumulated dust.
There was a knock on the door outside.
"Come in!" Lynn said.
The tightly closed door was pushed open, and the person who walked in was Orlando, followed by two fairies holding thick pages of books and materials. They were flapping their little wings hard to keep up with the former.
"Professor Lin En..." Orlando called out out of habit, and then corrected himself in annoyance. "No, I should call you Dean now."
"You don't have to be so polite." Lin En smiled and then asked, "Have you finished organizing all the information I asked you to do?"
"It's all here." Orlando handed the few pages of parchment in his hand to Lin En. The two fairies behind him also hurriedly waved their wings to put down the heavy documents, panting tiredly...
Lin En reached out and took the parchment and began to read it. On it was a list of names of personnel, which were exactly all the wizards and apprentices trained by the Yieta School over the past 20 years.
Excluding those wizards who died of illness, were killed in battles, or left the school, there are currently about 1,100 wizard apprentices and 260 official wizards left in the port city.
This was less than he expected!
After Orlando's explanation, Lin En realized that this was related to the tragedy in the South City a month ago. The entire Yieta suffered heavy losses.
A total of 141 wizard apprentices and 15 official wizards died in the catastrophe, and more than 1,700 poor people died...
Chapter 201: Wizards who don't pay taxes and civilians who can't make any money
Hearing these numbers, Lin En felt overwhelmed. He personally participated in the entire incident and guessed that there would be many deaths, but he did not expect so many.
"In addition, during the follow-up investigation, the security team discovered something strange. On the day of the catastrophe, nine wizards in Harbor Town were inexplicably mentally damaged. Five of them have been confirmed dead, and the remaining four suffered severe brain damage, which is no different from death." Orlando continued to report.
"After searching the mansions of these wizards, the security team found some books on psychic magic, and this thing..."
Orlando took out a small box and placed it in front of Lynn. Inside was something that looked like nine rings.
"Each of them carries this thing with them. Judging from the runes on it, it might be a kind of magic for mutual communication. However, the spell on it has long been invalid, so we can't continue to track it."
"Leave this matter to me. When I have time, I will ask Master Raphael to study it in depth." Lin En nodded calmly and put away these [Faceless Rings], preparing to rework them into [Mystic Rings] when the time comes.
Orlando nodded, without thinking much about it, and started talking about another thing.
After the news of Helram's death was exposed, more than 30 wizards chose to leave Yieta Harbor, and some even directly changed their schools and joined other schools, taking some apprentices with them.
"Do you need me to send someone to invite them back? I think these people would be happy to do so." Orlando said with a smile.
He felt that these wizards must have regretted their decision after learning that Lin En had won the Corona Medal.
They would never have imagined that the Iyeta School, far from declining, was on the contrary showing a trend of soaring.
"No, since it is their own choice, let them go." Lin En shook his head without any regret. These people had no sense of belonging to Yieta, and it might not be a good thing for them to stay.
You know, sometimes internal traitors are more difficult to deal with than external enemies. It's true that he is short of people now, but he doesn't want everyone...
Lin En, on the contrary, felt that although the entire port city had experienced a lot of hardships, it was not entirely without benefits. At least most of the unstable factors within the school had been eliminated.
"What about those poor people and their families affected by the disaster? Have they been arranged? Have the pensions been paid out?" Lin En asked with concern.
Although the whole story of this incident had little to do with him, it was caused by Hellram. The Parliament concealed this information for the stability of the Wizarding Land. At least they had to settle these innocent victims.
The total population of the entire Yieta Seaport is not large. The poor people living in the South City are considered dispensable waste by the wizards, but in Lin En's eyes, they are very good working population.
"This... I'm afraid Yieta can't come up with so much money right now." Orlando said helplessly with a look of hesitation on his face.
Lin En was completely stunned. As the largest seaport city in the wizarding land and monopolizing a part of foreign trade, it should be very rich.
It couldn't be that while Helram was secretly researching psychic magic, he secretly spent all the reserve funds of Yieta Harbor, right?
Lynn quickly found some financial reports from a pile of information. After reading for a few minutes, he found that the economic situation of Yieta as a whole could only be described as weird.
First of all, wizards and civilians are two completely different economic systems. Apart from the need for the latter to supply food to the former, there is basically not much connection between them.
After all, it was common for precious magic materials to be sold for a dozen magic gold coins, and a laborer who didn't know magic might not be able to save that much money even after working for decades.
Wizards basically do not engage in ordinary production activities, and the alchemical tools and potions they make are only affordable by wizards.
Therefore, the thousands of wizards and a large number of apprentices in the entire wizarding land formed a unique cycle, building an economic superstructure that was completely disconnected from the civilians.
The most important thing is that as a privileged class, they don’t even pay taxes!
In the past, the finances of port cities basically did not rely on taxation, and they could not make much money by extorting civilians, so they basically just collected a symbolic amount.
The real big money comes from foreign trade. By taking advantage of the geographical advantage of the Iyeta Port close to the outside world, they use merchant ships to continuously transport various minerals and scarce products from the wizarding land. Then they only need to turn around and sell them to Greenriel City to make a lot of money.
Yes, it’s just to make a lot of money... Although this is a near-monopoly business, foreign trade also means taking the risk of exposing the entire wizarding land.
In exchange for the tacit approval of the parliament, the scarce materials that were transported over had their prices fixed in advance. It was impossible to make huge profits from this. The annual income was approximately 30,000 magic gold coins, which was barely enough to supply the operation of the entire port city.
Thanks to him, one of the three lines has been cut off, and the largest source of finance is likely to shrink.
Lin En immediately felt that the tens of thousands of magic gold coins he earned from selling glass, paper pages and even airships did not seem to be a lot.
I can still make a lot of money now, but that may not be the case in a few months.
The entire wizarding land has a total population of only a few hundred thousand. The market is too small and will soon be saturated, so we have to consider continuing to expand foreign trade.
Many of his subsequent big moves will require money, and appeasing the families of the poor who died unjustly in the South City District will also be a considerable expense.
Lin En thought for a long time, and had a rough idea in his mind, so he looked at Orlando. "I have roughly known the situation of Yieta Harbor. I will take out 10,000 magic gold coins to replenish the treasury and settle the innocent people who were affected by the disaster in the southern city first. We can't delay any longer."
“As for the remaining funds, use them all to purchase these materials.” Lin En handed over a thin piece of paper with words already written on it.
Orlando took it. No matter how many times he saw this snow-white paper, he always felt some emotion in his heart. Who would have thought that this thing was actually made of wood.
"Hmm, saltpeter, charcoal, sulfur, brass..." Orlando took a quick look. The paper was filled with various raw materials, including very common things like saltpeter and charcoal, as well as some minerals that he had never heard of. Lin En also specially marked many characteristics of these ores and asked him to find someone who knew these things.
Chapter 202: This thing is called a magic internal combustion engine!
"Dean Lin, can you tell me what these things are used for?" Orlando asked curiously.
"Make some weapons to deal with a possible war that may be coming." Lin En explained.
Orlando's expression became solemn. Although the news of the war was only circulated within the parliament, many wizards had already guessed a clue through the recent major actions of the parliament.
"By the way, I also plan to expand Yieta College and recall those wizard apprentices and even formal wizards who have left the school back to Yieta so that they can continue their studies." Lin En proposed again.
Orlando was completely shocked, and it took him a long time to react, "But what should we teach?"
Those wizard apprentices who were expelled from the academy were all over thirty years old. They had basically learned everything that could be taught, but they were unable to be promoted due to their lack of talent.
Not to mention the graduating students. As official wizards, they cannot teach even if they want to.
"Of course it's chemistry, physics, and mathematics Olympiad!" Lin En said firmly.
"Chemistry? Physics?" Orlando paused. He understood Mathematical Olympiad, but what were these two subjects?
"You can also understand these two new subjects as the principles of magic, or the laws by which things work!"
Lynn gave a brief explanation, and finally asked Orlando to compile a list of alchemists, especially those wizards who had done some research on steam engines, and invite them all to the academy!
……
At noon the next day, in the alchemy laboratory of Yieta College.
More than twenty wizards gathered around a few large pieces of white paper, turning them over and over. On them was drawn a very strange machine with very complicated components, which made it difficult to understand. However, the exquisite structure immediately attracted everyone's attention.
Darren and others were also invited, but they were squeezed outside and did not dare to compete with the wizards for the drawings. Only Lydia moved a high chair without hesitation and even wanted to climb onto the table to take a look.
"Dean Lin, what is this?" An alchemist looked at Lin in confusion, and then suddenly seemed to remember something and said in doubt. "Is it the blueprint of the alchemical steam engine?"
Upon hearing this speculation, all the wizards present were excited.
The alchemical steam engine is the highest achievement of the Alchemy Association and is said to be a magical invention that can change the world!
Naturally, they were very interested in this thing. Some people even dismantled the alchemical instruments placed on the ship and studied it secretly. They have also achieved some results over the years.
However, the structure of the alchemical steam engine did not seem to be like this. They even suspected that the dean had taken the wrong drawing.
"No, to be precise, it is an upgraded version of the steam engine. I call it an internal combustion engine!" Lynn explained with a smile.
Upgraded version? Philip and others looked at each other in bewilderment.
"Is there any difference between it and a steam engine?" another witch asked curiously.
"Its efficiency is more than ten times that of existing steam engines!" Lynn replied affirmatively.
He had already checked the steam engine developed by the Alchemy Association and found that its thermal efficiency was between 3 and 5 percent, which could only be described as extremely inefficient.
Steam ships powered by this were not much faster than sailing warships when sailing on the sea, and the cruising speed of airships could only be maintained at a pitiful 15 kilometers per hour.
Of course, this does not prevent the steam engine from being a groundbreaking invention.
"How much? Ten times?" A group of alchemists took a deep breath and looked at Lin En as if he were a monster. Then they looked at the blueprint in front of them and their eyes became much more eager.