Chapter 39: Newspapers Are Indeed a Novelty
Lin pushed a dining cart, walking slowly along the quiet street. His destination was a detached residence not far from the cemetery church.
Entering and exiting the Blade-Sealing Chamber beneath the cemetery church was far too troublesome. Lin still remembered his master’s expression at the time—he had silently shaken his head, said not a second word, directly lifted all the alchemical instruments and forging tools beside the Blade-Sealing Chamber, walked straight toward the outer passage, and tossed these things into the detached residence.
But thinking about it, it really was inconvenient, requiring his master to verify his identity every single time they entered or exited.
Now, the detached residence had been transformed into an alchemical laboratory and forging workshop. The surrounding railings had been replaced with walls over two meters high, completely blocking the view from the outside.
Whether this had any impact, Lin didn’t know, but at least compared to the Lord’s Manor, this place was closer to the Blade-Sealing Chamber, allowing him to occasionally perform maintenance on the other Divine Mechanisms.
Using a key to open the gate in the wall of the detached residence, Lin continued pushing the dining cart and entered.
The originally elegant courtyard was now piled high with discarded metal parts, steel blocks used as raw materials, and magical materials. From time to time, loud noises could be heard coming from inside the house—the clamor produced by alchemical machinery starting up.
After his master returned from slaying the dragon, there hadn’t been much change in his daily routine. He still trained as usual, instructed the knights, handled official business, designed some strange things with the old dwarf, and read the newspaper.
Yes, reading the newspaper.
This thing was a novelty that had only appeared in recent years. Originally a custom in halfling society, it was later popularized by goblins and had only recently spread to the Northern Empire, rapidly becoming widespread. Even the imperial government itself had released a new newspaper called the Monthly Briefing.
The black-haired Divine Mechanism youth still remembered that when his master first saw this thing, he had let out a soft sigh and said something like, “It only appears now.”
Currently, Joshua subscribed to three publications: the Investment Monthly Report published by the Western Mountain Goblin Federation, the Monthly Briefing published within the empire itself, and the Spellcaster Weekly from the Sky-Piercing White Tower in the Eastern Plains. He subscribed to every issue. As for the one from the Far South, it was too far away, so no newspaper had circulated over from there. Otherwise, Lin guessed his master would have subscribed to that one too.
Speaking of which, his master wasn’t a spellcaster at all—why did he read the Spellcaster Weekly?
Looking down at the black-and-white newspaper placed beside the dining cart, this thought flashed through the youth’s mind. But then he shook his head, stopped pondering such matters, and continued pushing the cart, entering the detached residence.
Gold-rank warriors had great demands for food. Their daily food intake equaled ten days’ worth for an ordinary person. But now, although Joshua could also eat ten days’ worth of food in one meal, he could go for long periods without eating. This proved that he had entered the final stage of the Gold rank, and his digestive system was gradually beginning to assimilate with energy.
However, it had now been three days since he and the dwarf master Moria had been improving the Mana Armor in the basement. No matter how strong his strength was, no matter how little he needed to eat or drink, as a human, even if only out of habit, he should eat something.
Thinking this, Lin arrived at the door of what was originally the main hall, now the structural laboratory.
He could faintly hear the sounds of discussion and the noise of machinery operation from inside. Pushing the small dining cart in his hand, he prepared to enter.
But before that, he saw Ying standing at the door.
The silver-haired girl was wearing a small apron commonly worn by blacksmith apprentices, a headscarf wrapped around her head to prevent stray hairs from scattering, and there was some oil stain on her face. She seemed to be taking a break, stretching lazily at the door.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a curve.
It wasn’t completely flat, but it was only at the level where you could tell she was a girl.
This thought flashed through his mind. Before Lin could greet her, Ying noticed her younger brother’s arrival. She blinked her green eyes, then looked at the dining cart in front of the youth, clapping her hands in surprise: “That’s right, it’s time to eat now!”
“Come to think of it, it’s been so long. It really is time to eat.”
Hearing the noise outside, Joshua, Moria, and No. 3’s projection all came out. The warrior and the old dwarf were also wearing blacksmith’s clothes, and No. 3 had cooperatively changed her projection to look the same. Joshua looked at the dining cart, nodded thoughtfully, and said, “Come to think of it, it has been about two or three days since I last ate.”
These two people really were alike in their lack of common sense!
No wonder he had chosen Ying back then, not him.
The young butler sighed inwardly, then politely arranged the dining table and chairs outside the hall. After the others tidied up the equipment in the laboratory and cleaned themselves up, they came out to eat.
As he brought out the hot dishes from the dining cart one by one, Lin’s mood wasn’t affected by this. At first, he had been somewhat puzzled by Joshua’s choice, but now it didn’t matter anymore. After all, he had already been summoned, and he had no other demands.
You see, finding someone who could bear two Divine Mechanisms was something you wouldn’t encounter even once in four hundred years.
Joshua sat at the table, looking at the newspaper Lin had just handed him.
As someone who had grown up in an era of information explosion, Joshua’s brain was basically never idle. On ordinary days, he would ponder how to improve his own strength, and the rest of the time, he would handle official business. In short, he tried his best not to feel bored. In his original era, he could play games, go on forums when he got tired of them, or, if all else failed, run a hundred laps around his family’s dojo.
But not now. Although the technology here wasn’t very backward—it wasn’t truly medieval—the popularization of magic still had a long way to go. Infrastructure was acceptable because of various supernatural abilities, but the construction of civilization and culture was indeed lagging behind. Moreover, his strength had grown too quickly. Even running a few hundred laps around the city wouldn’t have any training effect.
But now there were newspapers—that was good enough.
Reading a newspaper in leisure time was indeed a good way to relax without feeling bored. Although in his previous life, this habit had always been called something an old man from the last century would do, why would Joshua care about others’ opinions? After all, the news in the magical world was often very interesting.
At this moment, he was reading the Spellcaster Weekly from the Eastern Plains.
The Eastern Plains contained countless kingdoms, but the major powers were still the various magic academies. The largest force was the largest gathering place for mages, the Sky-Piercing White Tower. Their status was equivalent to that of an empire, and their supreme leader was a Legendary Mage, whose diplomatic status equaled that of the empire’s Emperor. The news they published mostly related to magic and supernatural phenomena.
For example, what Joshua was reading now—on an island in the Eastern Sea, a new mage academy had been established. After a strength assessment by the Sky-Piercing White Tower, its comprehensive ranking had directly squeezed into the world’s top ten.
This was quite big news. Although this ranking only covered mage organizations, what kind of monsters were in the top ten? The Sky-Piercing White Tower was naturally the undisputed first, followed by the Seven Luminaries Council, the Imperial Royal Mage Corps, the Far South National Academy of Magic, and other large mage organizations. In terms of power, they were comparable to small countries. And a newly established academy had directly squeezed into the top ten like this. Joshua could imagine what the mages who saw this news were feeling.
However, this organization hadn’t appeared in his previous life either. But that wasn’t strange. The warrior knew very well that games and reality were vastly different. Perhaps some reclusive Legendary Mage had suddenly had a whim and established an academy with his students?
This wasn’t impossible. In the future, this phenomenon would become more and more common.
Shifting his gaze back to the newspaper in front of him, Joshua continued reading the previous news.
The next news wasn’t worth mentioning—just that an ancient ruin had been discovered in some Black Forest, or that sea beasts in the Southern Sea had increased, requiring caution when sailing.
Joshua had originally hoped to see his dragon-slaying feat reported in the newspaper, but it seemed the news hadn’t spread abroad yet. And the domestic Monthly Briefing had just been launched not long ago, so it probably didn’t have the space to cover this matter.
Lunchtime ended without him noticing. Joshua, Moria, and No. 3 continued holing up in the laboratory, improving the Mana Armor.
The main structure of the Mana Armor came from the rune plates on it. Each rune plate had a part of the function, and when combined, they formed a complete multi-layered magic array. Compared to the effort required to inscribe a complete magic array, inscribing a single rune didn’t require much skill—only the mana of a magic apprentice level was needed. The biggest requirement was precision, which wasn’t a high demand compared to the difficulty of improving mana. This was also the reason it could be mass-produced on a large scale in the future.
But now, what Joshua and Moria were doing wasn’t that kind of mass-produced, common armor. It was armor specially optimized for an individual.
Although the current design was still not very mature, with No. 3’s assistance, the technical content of this small workshop definitely surpassed the era.
The days of experimentation came to a temporary end. Even a Gold-rank warrior couldn’t withstand the high-intensity thinking without rest day and night.
Joshua therefore temporarily returned to the Lord’s Manor, preparing to rest for a while.
However, in the stable, Black was still in a state of bloodline evolution.
After observing for a while, Joshua felt something was off.
Was it that everything related to him could gain experience through the system and level up? Otherwise, there was no reason for this Black, who had started as a level 15 elite-quality dragon-blooded warhorse, to have now leaped to become a level 29 excellent-quality half-dragon.
Thinking this, he frowned, crouched down, reached out one hand, and touched Black’s forehead.
“Not a fire dragon, and certainly not a Great Bird. There are many dragon beasts that use fire, but very few match this bloodline characteristic.”
So, what kind of bloodline was it?