Roland explained, “As I said before, I didn’t want to convince a stubborn elf that it would be a considerable waste of time even if it worked. At that time, I just wanted to find another breakthrough.”

“You really weren’t playing hard-to-get?”

Roland shook his head. “No, I was just thinking that since there are these two professions, there must be some other people in this human world who know what they are. Since Sejuani won’t talk about it, I’ll go find someone else.”

“How will you find them?” Cage asked. “Do you know any other elves or half-elves?”

“That’s not the case,” Roland said with a smile, “but I would think that a particularly well-informed organization like the Mercenary Guild, the Assassins Guild, or organizations like the Assassins Guild would have information on these two professions.”

“But they may not be willing to tell you.”

Roland laughed lightly. “It’s not that I underestimate them, but the courageous spirit of these guilds is nothing special. If ten gold coins can’t buy them, I’ll give them thirty; if thirty can’t buy them I’ll give them fifty; if fifty isn’t enough, I’ll give them a hundred. This should be their limit, and besides, intelligence is something that is meant to be sold. There is no information that money can’t buy, as long as the price is right and a channel is found. I’m sure it’s even possible to find out exactly what color the underwear of the queens of all the countries wear every day.”

Cage laughed aloud. Although he was the senior, he was also a rather open-minded man due to his early years as a mercenary, and could even be said to have a rather heavy prodigal air about him.

Roland’s minor dirty joke was actually quite to his liking.

He thought Roland was an interesting person, not one of those pretentious, dull Mages.

Moreover, this person’s mind was quite flexible. He wouldn’t be stubbornly fixed on a point and knew how to go around any obstacles, and most importantly, when Roland chatted, his innocuous words would reveal a message from time to time.

He was rich… very rich.

To buy a piece of information for a hundred gold coins without blinking an eye, his niece probably wouldn’t face any hardships if she followed him.

After these two or three days, Cage had become quite agreeable to Roland as a person and thought that he was indeed worthy of his niece.

After returning to Reed, Roland and the others stayed there for three more days before setting off on their tour again.

Cage personally sent the three to Winterwind, and before parting, Cage pulled Roland aside and said, “Now that Anna is even more beautiful and has purified our Hero bloodline, I expect there will be action from the royal family. The old king is dying, and if he does pass, the new king will most likely have thoughts about Anna. You’d better find a way to nip this in the bud.”

Roland’s expression turned stern as he said, “I understand.”

Then Roland and his party parted with Cage. Andonara was a little reluctant; after all, since childhood, Cage treated her as if she were his daughter.

Nothing noteworthy happened in the leg of the tour that followed.

Roland passed through twenty more cities with Magic Towers, and only a third of the chairmen were willing to share their experiences with him.

But even that was enough. Roland picked up many tricks learned through experience with magic, and after blending them all together, he also comprehended a native specialty on his own.

Metamagic: You can infuse small amounts of magic power from other schools of magic into the spell you’re currently casting and produce special, unknown effects.

This technique was quite useful. After infusing some wind magic power into the large fireball, the stability of the large fireball would be reduced, but the ballistic speed and the power of the blast generated when it exploded would be increased.

And by infusing a little spatial magic into the Ice Ring, the Ice Ring would produce a “leap” effect, no longer a circle cast with the caster at its center.

However, Roland still couldn’t control the distance and direction of the leaps, and didn’t find a pattern in it for the time being.

If the leap ability of Ice Ring could be fully controlled in the future, then Ice Ring would have a remote control effect without Roland having to teleport to cast it at a close range every time.

This greatly enhanced his own safety during combat.

By the time they had circled the country of Hollevin and returned to Delpon, nearly another six months had passed.

During this time, both Jerry and Vivian, due to the extensive knowledge and experiences exchanged, finally made a breakthrough and managed to advance to the rank of official Mage, or level two.

The other four magic apprentices felt that they were also close.

Both Roland and the magic apprentices benefited greatly from this study tour.

Of course, Andonoar was the one who gained the most.

After purifying her family bloodline, she had not only gained some unique specialties but her strength had also soared in the past six months. She was now level thirteen and starting to climb toward the Legend rank.

Roland was going to have to work harder to break her defenses.

Back outside of Delpon, Roland discovered an open-air theater just outside the city, and he realized that the Vienna Opera Company had been here.

Then, back at the Magic Tower, the magic apprentices sat down and rested, all with a lazy look of “finally home and don’t want to move.”

Vincent, on the other hand, looked even more exaggerated.

He sprang out of the Magic Tower’s lab, shook Roland’s hand vigorously, and choked out, “You’re finally back. I couldn’t keep the situation in check.”

“What’s wrong?” Roland was somewhat surprised.

“It was Silver Wings again. The first two months after you left, they were quite restrained, but then they started joining forces with other nobles to target the Magic Tower,” Vincent said gloomily. “Although I’ve already clashed with them several times, I’m not a match for them as I’m outnumbered. So now some of the Magic Tower’s businesses have been swallowed by them.”

Roland was stunned for a moment, then said helplessly, “These people from Silver Wings have no memory at all. Didn’t I say that if they dare to enter Delpon, I will kill them once I see them?”

As Andonara heard this, she immediately came over and said excitedly, “I’ll go with you to cut people down.”

“No need.” Roland waved his hand. “This is an internal matter for the Golden Sons.”

“Tsk!” Andonara pursed her lips in disappointment.

It was only then that Vincent noticed Andonara and asked in surprise, “Chairman, who’s this!?”

He thought Andonara looked familiar, but he’d never seen such a pretty blonde before as far as he could remember.

“The queen.”

Huh???

Vincent looked like he had question marks written all over his face, then he realized that the general features of this great beauty before him were really Queen Andonara’s.

He was startled for a moment before he pulled up the system camera to take a few pictures of Andonara.

Then he opened the forum quickly and wrote a post.

Roland’s Too Terrifying, It Took Him Six Months to Sc**w the Queen into a Blonde[1].

Then he uploaded Queen Andonara’s photos along with the post.

All of this was done in one fell swoop.

[1] Blondes represent cuckoldry in popular Chinese online memes and culture deriving from anime and eroge