73 conflict

  The ironmonger and the Reverend Wegg looked at each other for a few moments, then their inquiring gaze fell on the frowning Pennie and Hughes.

  Ma Er Qi also saw two colleagues who had arrived earlier, the muscles at his eyebrows slightly raised, revealing a surprised and strange expression.

  "Do you have any more signed vouchers that can bypass the transaction sequence in your hands?" Pan Ni asked, not deliberately removing the anger from her voice.

  "That's not the case." Marci turned to the auctioneer: "Raw iron is a military material, although your auctions have been registered, but our southern Satoka Bay urgently needs these things to make weapons against pirates, so temporarily need to requisition from you, as compensation, we will give certain subsidies."

  To the outside world, apart from frequently launching aggressive wars, the attitude of the Red Robe Sect is not extremely arrogant, especially when conducting commercial transactions with the outside world. Unless it's a special situation, people from any sect are still reasonable and understanding.

  When Marci mentioned Satoka, Penny furrowed her brow, only then realizing that the domain of this Red Cloak was directly north of Hiroun.

  This is not good news, a domineering and overbearing colleague who leaves no room for others to breathe, wherever he goes, is always annoying, and being his neighbor is even more of a disaster.

  "Huh? Lord Vicar..." Hughes suddenly spoke up: "As my colleague said, pig iron is a military material. Although your auction has been registered, our southern Hiren Mountains urgently need a batch of pig iron to forge weapons against mountain bandits, so we temporarily need to requisition from you. Of course, we will also provide certain compensation."

  Xien's face twitched, and except for a few places, this sentence was basically the same as Malchi's original words. Speaking in such an obviously sarcastic tone showed that Hughes had also been provoked by the other party's aggressive manner.

  "Hughes is busy doing something important and doesn't have time to play with you." Marcy frowned, clearly very impatient.

  "Malchi, I'm also busy with proper business, no time to fool around with you." Hughes sneered: "This isn't an armory, you've already gotten three tons of pig iron, enough to arm a whole army, so just be content with that."

  "Huh? Your territory, no matter how much metal you have, it's just a waste. " Marquis hummed a few more times, with a sarcastic expression on his face: "Save it, young master, what do you know?"

  "Whether you understand or not, we must take down this batch of raw iron." Penny spoke up: "I'm very sorry, sir... uh... senior, the conditions here are the same for everyone, but we were here first..."

  "There's no place for you to speak here!" Marci glanced at Penny with disdain: "As a follower of Lord Trophidi, you should know your identity."

  It's clear he didn't distinguish between Penny and Hughes, let alone put Penny in his eyes at all.

  Penny's anger suddenly surged into her eyes, jumping up and down before settling back into a deep calm.

  "You're wrong there, Marich, this is my lord." A sarcastic smile spread across Hughes' face.

  Malchi was taken aback, then burst out laughing: "Huh?! Young master, what did I just hear? You actually lowered yourself to play house with a kid in such a dangerous place? Ah, I should have thought of it earlier, with your courage, how could you possibly enter Sel's politics..."

  But his laughter soon stopped due to Hughes' unchanged expression, and he looked at Penny with a slightly puzzled expression for a moment before hearing Hughes clap his hands and speak in a relaxed tone:

  "Alright, in any case, we arrived here first, Marichi. Don't bother us anymore. According to the laws of Seru, we have equal administrative authority and no superior's approval is needed. You won't get any special treatment here."

  "Hmm? Is that so? Equal administrative power, perhaps... But in this case, another kind of power is clearly more suitable. Ah, almost forgot, it's actually been a while since I should have used this." Marci smiled and pulled out a large box from somewhere, seemingly from his magic bag. He turned to the auctioneer: "The market price for raw iron is at most thirty Tarlan (copper coins) per pound, one ton would be just over eight hundred Berlen. Here's a thousand of them, plus the emergency requisition subsidy, should be enough, right?"

  "Oh?" The auctioneer looked at the box filled with gold coins, a hint of excitement on his face.

  Two factions of lawyers arguing, he saw it with his own eyes. In this situation, wanting to please both sides was impossible. Often coming and going from Serre, he knew that no matter which side he sold the pig iron to, under the protection of the temple, he would not suffer too much damage.

  So he just needs to focus on his own interests.

  One thousand gold coins is roughly equivalent to half a year's tax revenue of a medium-sized town, which is quite considerable.

  Hues' face changed color, and it was clear he didn't have much cash on him.

  "This merchant, sir, don't be in a hurry to respond." Panni took out a piece of sheepskin paper and handed it to Pastor Wogin, then smiled at Malchi: "Actually, I want to say something to my predecessor, if we're talking about economic power, you don't have enough capital either."

  "Huh? What's this? A receipt for the transaction?" Marquis slanted his eyes at Pastor Wogin: "Pastor, accepting something like this goes against principles..."

  However, he immediately saw the pastor's originally dull eyes quickly come to life after glancing at the note. Marley had a bad feeling and swallowed the rest of his words. He then heard the pastor solemnly return the parchment to Penny's hands and say to the merchant: "The church will take over the purchase of your ironware from this Mr. Siyen, go get the payment in the back."

  "Alright." The merchant was shocked, looking at Penny with a smile on the corner of her mouth and the pastor with an extremely serious expression, but he didn't have time to think about it, so he turned around and left.

  "You! You broke the rules, envoy of Wogin." Maruji was out of breath and glared at the pastor viciously.

  "It is a pity that Mr. Xi'an carries the favor of our Lord, and we should naturally give him convenience." The pastor said calmly.

  Marci and Hughes simultaneously looked at Penny with a colorful gaze, mixed with astonishment, surprise, and incredulity.

  A god's followers number in the hundreds of millions, and it is extremely difficult to receive a divine blessing except for clergy and other religious personnel. However, once obtained, it is equivalent to receiving the attention and favor of the gods, which is clearly an extraordinary thing.

  "So, Lord Marichi, your terms of trade are not competitive here. I suggest you give up." Panni spread his hands and made a gesture of regret to Marichi.

  “…I think I really underestimated you.” Malchi's anger, which seemed to have been provoked by being played with, was slightly suppressed. He finally looked straight at Penny Sien and began to remember the appearance of this younger mage in his mind. After sizing up Sien, he turned to Hughes: "I'm starting to believe what you said, young master. This little friend's level is indeed much higher than yours."

  Hues snorted sarcastically, but didn't counterattack. Firstly, the anger in his heart had dissipated, and secondly, he was still reeling from Penny's astonishing revelation about Lady Goddess.

  "I'm curious about you, little friend. I wonder if there's an opportunity to exchange magic with you?" Although he said it was a friendly spar, Penny had already seen a hand with a decaying aura reaching for her face.

  They say it's a spar, but they just want an excuse to beat you up.

  This kind of communication is not rare, in fact, for formal red robe masters who have left the apprentice era, the order generated by legal constraints has gradually had a significant impact, but the red robe solves disputes through private fights, as long as it does not exceed the consequences of serious injury or death, it is still widely recognized.

  Sometimes even if it results in loss of life, as long as the killer has a strong backing, it won't make much noise.

  Marv wasn't too keen on messing with Routh, especially since the one who'd been eating his lunch was Penny - he rather fancied teaching this young whippersnapper a lesson.

  Panny was also surprised by this instant second-level spell 'Ghoul's Touch' - because he could cast a two-ring spell instantly, indicating that the caster had touched the sixth layer of the magic net. However, when he saw the long tail at the wrist, he realized he had thought too much.

  It's just magic cast with a wand.

  In less than half a second, Hughes had just reacted and hadn't even had time to reveal an angry expression when the finger was already in front of Penny's eyes, less than two feet away. The mage's reaction was simply to raise his right index finger.

  "Interference!"

  A simple word escaped from Pan Ni's mouth, and when the tail sound came out, his index finger flashed a faint light in the shadow under Marci's large sleeve, stretching several inches and pointing at the magic wand.

  As a goddess-given high imitation golden finger, Penny's right hand has many brutal abilities.

  Because it is made of special materials, this finger can stretch and shrink within a certain range, and even twist into strange angles. Of course, this is just an ordinary trait.

  For example, it can change the shape of materials with its own supernatural material affinity - Qixiashi uses this convenient ability to mass-produce mechanical parts.

  For example, it can touch the internal structure of a magical device, allowing the magician to gain an intuitive understanding of how magic works.

  For example, it can also be used to shape the arcane power directly with that arcane sensitivity, making it more convenient to attach magical powers to tools - those magical items that were widely used in ancient empires appeared in batches.

  Correspondingly, it can shape magical items with the above characteristics and also destroy magical powers.

  In fact, destruction is easier than creation. With Penny's grasp of the power of this finger, it's not difficult to make a magic wand useless.

  So March felt a burst of negative energy erupting from his wrist, the power on his fingers 'popping' out of existence, and the massive loss of negative energy caused his sleeve to directly rot, while that hand connected to half of his body became numb and paralyzed, emitting waves of foul odor, as if it had become a corpse that had been dead for several months.

  His face had just shown a look of astonishment when he saw the junior law master opposite him take out a crystal ball with a pupil-like shape. As his gaze touched the ball, his instinctive bad reaction made him want to shift his line of sight immediately, but in that instant of hesitation, Panni's crystal ball released a strange light that only Malchi could see!

  His mind went "buzz" with a soft hum, all his thoughts instantly fell into chaos, and his eyes wandered aimlessly on the ground.

  Xian sneered and retrieved the crystal ball, focusing on casting a spell to deliver the final blow to Marcy, who was still under the influence of the "Confusion Spell".

  After a brief incantation, a giant warhammer made of force field appeared in front of the mage, and this spell called "Siege Hammer" heavily struck the back of Marci who was wandering around in confusion. Marci let out a miserable cry, and when the tail sound of this cry came, the source of the sound had already been at a certain distance from the temple.

  His knightly retinue looked at Penny a few times, but ultimately did nothing threatening and turned to walk out to help their own lord.

  "Alright." Penny clapped her hands together.

  "This time you're in trouble." Hughes's face was strange, and he twitched the corner of his mouth, as if suppressing a smile: "That person bears grudges."

  "Must we endure this in silence?" Pan Ni furrowed her brow: "I'd rather not forcibly swallow that one, touched by the Corpse Eater."

  "But where have you hidden the scroll or wand to dispel the magic?" Hughes' eyes suddenly lit up, deciding not to dwell on this matter anymore, but instead became curious about something else. Apparently, he was puzzled by Penny's method of disrupting Malchi's spellcasting.

  "It's just a small trick." Penny muttered a few words.

  "Not a bad fight." A voice came from the entrance, an old-looking man with more than a dozen followers walked down from the back door of the temple, Penny and Hughes looked over and were stunned for a moment.

  This old man in a crimson robe with shaved head and tattoos familiar to all Sel'kor, looked at the two mages in the temple, his smile seeming very benevolent.

  "Good day, Mr. Andes." Reverend Woggin bowed respectfully.