Chapter 498 – No Back Doors Allowed

In the living room, Mo Lan sat with her legs crossed, lounging on the sofa. A massive Grimoire hovered in the air before her.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, Mo Lan turned to look. Lilith, Sylph, and Vasida had returned, looking utterly dejected.

“What happened? The magic scroll sales didn’t go well?”

“It’s not just that the scroll sales went poorly — we also couldn’t get Greta to give us an invitation,” Lilith said.

“We were so close! She even said she had a way to help us earn more money, but unfortunately we’d have to wait until she found a new place to stay before she could invite us over to discuss the details.”

Vasida said regretfully, “If I get invited, I’m going to open a hot pot restaurant right away to make money. That’s definitely better than setting up a stall in Apprentice Square selling apprentice-level magic scrolls that nobody wants!”

“Ah! Greta has already decided to quit her job at the Gold Globe Flower Inn immediately. Now we just have to hope she finds a place to live soon. I’ve already recommended Jenny and Lena to her,” Sylph said.

Seeing how they all acted as if they could start raking in money the moment they received an invitation, Mo Lan kindly reminded them, “Even for you three, you can’t use back doors to get your disguised identities into the Dawn Society, you know!”

“What do you mean?” Vasida asked, puzzled.

Lilith thought of something and asked in disbelief, “You don’t mean that we need to complete the trial tasks just like Greta and the others before we can become official members, do you?!”

“It’s not just you three — me too!” Mo Lan said. “Otherwise, if the few of us became official members the moment we accepted the invitation, wouldn’t that look obviously suspicious?”

“!!!” Sylph collapsed onto the sofa in despair. “That may be true, but trial task two requires successfully inviting ten spellcasters within three months! We’re strangers in a strange land — where are we supposed to find that many spellcasters to invite?”

“Don’t worry!” Mo Lan said. “Inviting ten spellcasters within three months is the requirement for early admission to the Society. If three months isn’t enough, then six months. If six months isn’t enough, then a year. As long as you eventually succeed in getting ten spellcasters to sign the invitation letters, you’ll complete the trial.”

After all, she wasn’t here to screen talent — she was here to sell magic and earn mana.

The Dawn Society was merely a front to help her promote and develop more contractors. At its core, she still needed to sell magic to earn mana.

Business was business. No matter how much you dressed yourself up, you never turned away customers.

Anyone who accepted a trial invitation would ultimately pass the trial, as long as they didn’t give up themselves.

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph: “…”

Was she trying to comfort them, or crush them?

Lilith still found it absurd. “You never leave the house and you don’t socialize with anyone. How are you going to complete the trial tasks?”

She wasn’t just screwing them over — she’d screwed herself too!

Mo Lan pointed at herself and emphasized, “Me! Advanced mage!”

“So what?” The three Sorceresses didn’t understand.

“If I wear my advanced mage badge and take a stroll around Apprentice Square, I’ll be swarmed by ambitious apprentices trying to chat me up — believe it or not? Then I’ll just hand each of them an invitation letter! All they need to do is accept the trial invitation, and my task is complete.

Accepting a trial isn’t the same as officially joining the Society. It doesn’t cost them anything. An invitation letter from an advanced mage — do you think they’d be willing to give it a try?”

Mo Lan said confidently.

“…”

Lilith and the others naturally wanted to disguise themselves as advanced mages too.

But it wasn’t something they could do just because they wanted to. They didn’t understand mage magic well enough and their meditation levels weren’t up to par — they simply couldn’t pull off the disguise.

Not just anyone could disguise themselves as a mage, inside and out, in such a short time.

The thought that even if Greta invited them, they would still need to get ten spellcasters to sign invitation letters before becoming official Society members and being able to openly use their cards — it made all three of them feel like the sky was falling.

The next day, without Mo Lan needing to say a word, they headed out early to set up their stall in Apprentice Square.

But today’s goal wasn’t just earning gold coins — they also needed to keep an eye out for opportunities to get acquainted with more mages.

Greta, as usual, didn’t go to set up her stall in Apprentice Square until the afternoon.

She had resigned last night, but this morning she packed up her simple luggage and left the Gold Globe Flower Inn. Then she found a reasonably priced inn near Apprentice Lane in Lance City to stay at temporarily.

She hired one of the city’s young guides to help her look for suitable rental housing, while she herself stayed at the inn all morning, meditating to accumulate gem coins.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that she converted all her gem coins into instant noodle ingredients, loaded up her little pushcart, and headed to Apprentice Lane to set up shop.

But as always, she stopped by Number 21 and Number 22 on Apprentice Lane first.

Yesterday evening, she had brought several portions of instant noodle ingredients to Number 22, Apprentice Lane, and even personally taught the beginner mage’s maid how to cook the noodles.

That beginner mage really enjoyed the instant noodles and asked her to deliver more today — she wanted to bring some to the Mage Tower to share with her friends.

Since she was already at Number 22, she certainly couldn’t skip the advanced mage at Number 21!

This time, Mo Lan finally gave her the money for yesterday’s noodles, but then told her, “You don’t need to come by anymore.”

She was a stingy, unaffiliated mage with three apprentices to support — how could she afford to eat noodles that cost one gold coin per bowl every day?

Yesterday’s bowl of noodles had been cooked long enough that the neighboring residents had all smelled it. Those who hadn’t come out to ask had still overheard what she’d told Amy the other day.

Eating more wouldn’t achieve any additional effect.

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph were so troubled by the situation — as their instructor, she might as well give them her invitation quota!

She alone was worth 10 contribution points, after all!

Two more days passed, and Greta finally found a small house in a neighborhood next to Apprentice Lane where she could temporarily pay rent on a monthly basis. After getting it tidied up, she immediately invited Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph over to visit her new home.

At the same time, the Dawn Society Management Card in Mo Lan’s hands showed some activity.

Generally, the Dawn Society Management Card only alerted her when Society members she was particularly following made significant progress.

She was currently following only two Society members: Greta, the first human contractor, and Aramir, the first elf contractor.

Greta’s side was steadily developing her downstream network. Aramir’s side had shown no movement yet — he had been reading and studying in preparation for his exam.

Checking the Dawn Society Management Card, she saw that Aramir, who had been silent for three days, had finally chosen to begin his exam.

Unlike Greta, everyone else’s reading materials could be read repeatedly.

However, what they didn’t know was that the exam could also be taken repeatedly.

All the trial tasks only stated the criteria for success and the rewards — none of them mentioned what would happen upon failure. That was because the trials only ended when you succeeded.

Under these circumstances, the fact that Aramir had studied for three days before starting his exam was actually quite fast.

He was probably genuinely eager to obtain the Temporary Item Card — No. 9 Spatial Planting Pot and bring Yar back to the Elven Woods.