"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.

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.

(End of this chapter)