The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

"So this is the entire staff of the Rune Mark Alchemy Society?"

Linde's face showed a rare expression of surprise, almost as exaggerated as when he saw that Lena had intelligence.

“That’s right, I did warn you before that the Fu Sheng Society was in internal chaos because of the death of its former president.”

The long-unseen proprietress of the Shining Gold Alliance was still puffing away on her exquisite pipe.

That's what they say, but when Linde saw the girl in front of him, he still felt it was somewhat surreal.

An alchemy guild of dozens of people was reduced to just a little girl in the end.

The girl had ugly scars on her face, as if she had been scratched, and wore very thick glasses. She followed timidly behind the proprietress.

"Originally, the Fu Sheng Society still had some members."

Inside the lord's tent, the proprietress of the Shining Gold Merchant Alliance explained to Lin De while puffing on a cigarette.

"However, because the Fu Sheng Society was in dire need of funds after the old president died, some people sold off all of the Fu Sheng Society's assets and, together with the nobles, robbed the Fu Sheng Society of all its property and ran away. Now, the Fu Sheng Society is left with only the former president's daughter."

It's obvious that the proprietress is a heavy smoker, but this time she seems to have used some kind of herbal medicine, which made the secondhand smoke in the tent smell less strong and less pungent.

"If you hadn't paid three times the deposit initially, to be honest, we probably would have refunded you directly."

After hesitating for a moment, the proprietress continued to Linde, "Considering that you have done a lot of business with us recently and can be considered a valued customer, I should remind you, or rather introduce you, the last member of the Rune Saint Society: Lisha Derek."

After saying that, the proprietress pushed the girl behind her in front of Lin De.

"First-tier rune masters, alchemy apprentices, basically cannot mobilize magic power on their own. They are the final research success of the Rune Saint Society."

"Final research results?"

Linde looked at Lisha with suspicion, then, in his old habit, got up and started circling around her, seemingly trying to find something special about her.

"I don't know the specifics, but old Derek, the former president of the Holy Symbol Society, spent all the savings of the entire Earl's territory just to enable Lisha, an ordinary person, to use magic. Judging from the result, it seems to have failed, and even Lisha's magic disease was not cured in the end."

From the perspective of traditional mages, the Rune Saint Society was indeed a failure. In an era where nobles could exploit commoners without any limits, the wealth of an entire earldom was used to produce only a first-tier rune master and a half-baked alchemy apprentice. This was meaningless to those mages, and even mages who could buy large tracts of land with a single staff felt it was a huge waste.

From Derek's perspective, the Charm Society also failed. It was founded to cure his daughter Lisha's magical illness, but in the end, it was not cured.

The full name of "Magic Disease" is Magic Mobilization Imbalance Syndrome. It refers to a person who, although born with the ability to absorb and store magic like a magician, is unable to perceive or mobilize magic. In the end, they either become a human battery for the magic tower or suffocate to death from the magic within their body.

"What a poor kid."

Lena looked at Lisha with heartache. Actually, Lena hadn't understood much of what the landlady had said before, but she did understand that Lisha had lost her father just like her. However, Lena at least had a grandfather who loved her, but Lisha had her family fortune stolen by the other members of the Fu Sheng Society.

“Brother, let’s take this child in. It’s just another first-tier runemaster craftsman for our territory.”

Linde nodded, agreeing to Lena's suggestion, and paid the remaining balance to the landlady, in full as stipulated in the contract.

"Thank you for your generosity."

Although Lin De's behavior seemed like that of a sucker, the proprietress still displayed professionalism, maintaining the same business smile on her face.

After that, Lin De ordered some alchemy materials and basic books from the proprietress, and then watched the Radiant Gold Merchant Alliance's convoy leave Gray Collar.

Even if Lena hadn't said anything, Lind would have continued to fulfill the contract and bought Lisha.

From the perspective of both traditional mages and Lisha's father, the research of the Rune Saints was a failure, but it was different for Lind.

Transforming someone who cannot perceive or manipulate magic into a first-tier runemaster and alchemy apprentice is not something that can be evaluated by a simple job rating. It is a process of creating something from nothing, enabling ordinary people to use magic. Linde believes that as long as there is even a little progress in this kind of research, it is worth investing any amount of money, not to mention that now a research result is standing right in front of him.

After the proprietress of the Shining Gold Merchant Alliance left, Lisha was obviously very nervous. Just as Lena said, Lisha also believed that she would just be an ordinary first-tier rune craftsman in the territory in the future.

At most, thanks to the Lady of the lord's kindness, she was able to live a little better than ordinary craftsmen, but even so, Lisha was very content.

Looking at the helpless Lisha, Linde thought of the autistic students in his class in his previous life who sat in the back row. They were extremely self-conscious and could not get along with the older students in the back row or the good students in the front row, but their grades were not bad, and they were even very smart.

Thinking of this, Linde did not discuss business directly with Lixia like he did with his other subordinates. Instead, he summoned a maid and arranged accommodations for Lixia first.

To get to know these students and have them talk to you seriously, you must first give them enough personal space, or a safe zone.

To be honest, Lisha was a little surprised by the arrangement. The house Linde arranged was better than Lisha had imagined, even much better.

After all, Lisha was assigned to the Runecrafter district, and Runecrafters are arguably the best-paid profession in the territory right now, with salaries far exceeding those of management positions.

Although Lisha is the daughter of an earl, her father has spent almost all of the family's savings on her medical treatment since she was old enough to understand. The elders in the family are very dissatisfied with Lisha's father's behavior, and the family begins to split.

This made Lisha's childhood unhappy.

People in the family blamed Lisha for nearly bankrupting the Derek family.

The people of the Fu Sheng Society also criticized Lisha, saying that despite investing so many resources and conducting so much research, Lisha still couldn't mobilize magic. Those mages who could mobilize magic as easily as eating and drinking couldn't understand why patients with magic sickness, who clearly had such strong aptitude, were suffering a backlash because they couldn't mobilize magic.

Lisha tidied up the room, placed the photo of herself and her father on the bedside table, and then dumped everything from her backpack onto the bed.

It contained a pile of research notes, ink, various types of markers, carving knives, and jars of magic stone powder—all materials for drawing magic circle runes.

After arranging these things, Lisha opened the research notebook left by her father.

This is something Lisha reviews every day, because without this notebook and the dense formulas inside, Lisha might not even be able to become a first-tier runemaster.

The notebook was covered with all sorts of annotations, most of which were added by Lisha later. Although she felt somewhat sorry for her deceased father and those who had worked hard on the research, after Lisha recalculated, she found that some key parts of the original contents of the notebook were calculated incorrectly.

Lisha felt that apart from her father, no one in the Fu Sheng Society was seriously studying this notebook; they were almost all just there to scam funding. Because there were so many mistakes in it, Lisha kept scribbling and adding annotations to the notebook.

But Lisha was actually wrong about those members. Although there were many people who were swindling money, there were also some who were genuinely helping old Derek. However, mathematics is a subject that really depends on talent. People might do anything when they are angry, but mathematics won't. If you don't know it, you just don't know it.