Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation(Vol 5)

Vol 5/ Chapter 23: The Lord of Sifur

Since we had already gathered quite a bit of information in town, we didn't waste any time and went straight to our next stop - the merchant guild.

It was almost evening, and the guild staff were about to finish work. We just barely managed to see the person in charge before they closed.

At first, the guild manager didn't want to meet us. He insisted on going home to rest and dealing with our request tomorrow. But he couldn't resist when Adrian secretly slipped him a whole gold coin as a "tip". The manager's face immediately lit up with a big smile, and he warmly welcomed Adrian and Cyra into his office.

"Tsk, we should have chosen a different identity," I thought.

As the "carriage driver", I couldn't go in with them. But luckily the office window was open, so I could easily see what was happening inside.

"Of course there's no problem with you doing business here! But Sifur is under the direct control of our lord. Large trade deals must be approved by him first. And as usual, we need to take a certain tax rate, usually 20%. The exact amount can be negotiated. Can you accept that?" the guild manager explained the rules after hearing our request.

"No problem at all!"

A 20% local tax was quite high. This didn't even include the national taxes of Ilandra Dominion Empire. But we weren't really here to trade, so it didn't matter how high the tax was. So Cyra, pretending to be the young master, agreed right away without thinking. This surprised the manager.

Ah, her voice was still too obvious. Even though Cyra tried to lower her voice and had practiced many times, it was still far from sounding like a real "young master".

This was the first time Cyra spoke out loud in her disguise. The guild manager looked a bit surprised. Luckily, Adrian was quick to smooth things over.

"Young Master Antonio just turned 16 recently. He came here to learn about business at our master's request. So he needs to make most decisions himself. I'm just here to assist."

"I see. I was wondering why Young Master Antonio looked a bit feminine. I didn't expect him to be so mature at such a young age. Very impressive indeed!"

The guild manager seemed to "understand" now. After praising Cyra a lot, the discussion finally got back on track.

"So what kind of goods do you want to trade? Food or other daily items? If you're importing foreign goods to our town, our lord might give you early approval if he likes what he sees!"

"It's not really food, but not exactly daily items either... The goods we want to trade are quite special. How about we show you a sample first?"

We had prepared our lines beforehand. After Cyra spoke, she nodded to Adrian. He immediately took out a small bottle that was glowing faintly white. He stepped forward and carefully handed it to the manager with both hands.

"This is... holy water! And it looks very concentrated?"

The guild manager knew his stuff. It only took him a few seconds to recognize what was in the bottle. He looked very excited, and his pupils seemed to dilate.

"Of course! It's good quality, right? We have a lot more of this, about 40-50 bottles. We got them specially from the holy city in Cresthaven Papal Dominion. They were all made by a high-ranking cardinal in the church! Then the Sage Council helped transport them here. You know Parristol tried to become independent recently? The taxes there are so expensive now. You know how valuable this stuff is!"

Cyra was clearly an expert at making things up. Her exaggerated bragging and wild associations immediately fooled the manager again.

Because of the new Emperor Reider, the empire had introduced many unreasonable new policies. Not just the household registration policy we mentioned before, but also banning religion, which many people complained about.