Chapter 623 – Reactions from All Sides

The flexibility of the rules far surpassed all Magic!

Everything in that advance notice — whether stripping them of their Magic or restricting their use of cards — Mo Lan, the master of the Dawn Society who commanded Card Magic, was truly capable of doing it all.

In an instant, the old nobility of the Yala Empire and the Mage Empire calmed down and sent orders to their subordinates to stand by.

The Acolytes and Paladin legions advancing south along the River of Origin halted their march and set up temporary camp.

The commander of the Mage Empire’s Border Mage Corps burned the indictment he had just drafted.

The outlaws of the Land of Chaos also suppressed their restless hearts, which had been itching to claim the massive bounties on Witches.

The Goblins urgently began transferring all assets stored in their spatial cards, fearing their friendliness scores would be wiped clean and their cards — along with all their wealth — would vanish with them.

The Angels sighed at the Witches’ good fortune, and Krotack courteously saw off the Culinary Witch who wished to leave.

Only the Demons — their yearning for Witch souls overpowering everything else — persisted in their tireless efforts to fan the flames everywhere, luring others into cornering the Witches and creating opportunities to harvest their souls.

However, under the combined deterrent of the benefits brought by the Dawn Society and the emergence of a new Sorceress among the Witch clan, the Demons’ efforts yielded little result.

Dawn Society members who had acted unfriendly toward Witches waited anxiously for the friendliness assessment that would come with the Card Magic update.

Meanwhile, those who were on good terms with the Witches quietly looked forward to it.

One hour passed quickly.

The Card Magic interface for all Dawn Society members flickered closed for an instant, and when it reopened, a new friendliness panel had appeared alongside the personal information screen.

It displayed the words: “Friendliness tracking begins from one week ago. Initial friendliness score is zero.”

Whether it was individual friendliness or collective friendliness, every increase and decrease was clearly itemized, with specific regulations available for reference.

However, increasing or decreasing friendliness proved far more difficult than anyone had imagined.

In the Holy City of the Sacred Mountains, many Hermits breathed a sigh of relief.

“Praise the holy light — the Witches didn’t deduct our friendliness!”

Their relationship with the Witches in the city had been rather poor, yet to their surprise, their final individual friendliness score turned out to be “0” — no increase, no decrease. The cards in the Card Shop remained at their original prices.

On Delicacy Island, Krotack also breathed a sigh of relief.

His threats toward the island’s Witches over the past two days had only resulted in a single unfriendliness warning, without actually deducting his friendliness score. He could still freely purchase gourmet cards in the Card Shop.

Those who felt the most relieved were the Goblins, who had played an enormous role in spreading the news of Anita’s demise.

The source of it all, the Goblin merchant Gnome, had only been docked 50 friendliness points for widely spreading rumors unfavorable to the Witches.

And his act of alerting the Witches first had earned him a reward of 10 friendliness points.

Although his individual friendliness was now at “-40,” meaning all card prices in the Card Shop had increased fortyfold, at least the cards he already owned hadn’t been sealed, and he hadn’t been permanently blacklisted by the Dawn Society. There was still room to maneuver.

The only thing making the Goblins anxious was that too many of their kind had participated in selling the information this time, causing their racial friendliness score to also turn negative. This was far more dangerous and far harder to raise than individual friendliness. In an instant, every Goblin redirected their money-making minds toward figuring out how to curry favor with the Witches and boost their friendliness scores.

After all, friendliness was now tied to card prices — which was no different from being tied to gold coins.

Many Goblins searched through the friends lists on their Communication Cards for Witches, offering all sorts of discounted and special-priced goods, hoping to win the Witches’ favor and raise their friendliness scores.

But in the end, they discovered this approach was completely useless and only resulted in a net loss of supplies.

After checking the 《Friendliness Reward and Penalty Guidelines with Examples》, they realized there were no provisions in it whatsoever for protecting Witch property.

So the Goblins then found ways to swindle some money from Witches in their transactions, and sure enough, no friendliness points were deducted.

Only then did they realize that the key to their friendliness deductions this time wasn’t about how much profit they had extracted or how many gold coins they had earned — it was about the harm they had caused to the safety of the Witch clan.

“The friendliness system only protects the Witches’ lives and personal freedom. The Witches’ financial security is for the Witches themselves to safeguard.”

This was something Mo Lan had deliberately designed to prevent the Witches from losing their sense of crisis and vigilance under excessive protection.

While the Goblins could still count their blessings, the atmosphere on the human side was far heavier.

Every person who had been in the know and participated in actions targeting the Witches — from the masterminds at the top to the ordinary Acolytes and mages preparing for battle at the bottom — had been docked massive amounts of friendliness. Not a single person was exempt.

The masterminds of the Mage Empire and Yala Empire’s operation — those old nobles who had designs on the Wilds and the Dawn Society — had all been docked 80 individual friendliness points, landing at “-80.”

All purchasing and usage rights for high-level resource cards had been temporarily suspended. For cards like the Green Phantom Fruit card, no matter how many Gem Coins they had, they could no longer buy them — the purchase window had simply grayed out.

Even Green Phantom Fruit cards purchased from others could no longer complete the once-trivial step of materializing the card into an actual Green Phantom Fruit.

The only good news was that since they hadn’t yet had time to inflict major losses on the Witch clan, their friendliness hadn’t been docked to the “-100” lockout threshold — which would have meant permanently losing their Dawn Society membership and all ability to use cards.

But because of the sheer number of participants and the severity of the matter, collective friendliness scores were also affected.

The human racial friendliness, the Yala Empire friendliness, and the Mage Empire friendliness — all three collective scores had gone negative, stacking an additional 15-point deduction onto each individual’s score.

As a result, every one of them ended up at a final score around “-95” — just one small step from being expelled from the Dawn Society.

Some who had already privately carried out attempts to capture Witches had a few extra points docked, leaving them just one or two points away from -100.

Many felt deeply grateful that the Witches had been too formidable — they hadn’t managed to capture a single one. Moreover, since they had committed these acts before the friendliness system existed, the deductions came with a certain degree of leniency. Otherwise, the outcome would have been far worse.

As long as they weren’t at -100, there was still room to turn things around.

Grateful as they were, the resentment and hatred toward the Witch clan in their hearts hadn’t diminished one bit. After poring over the 《Friendliness Reward and Penalty Guidelines with Examples》 again and again, they discovered a method that would let them both vent their anger against the Witches and rescue their own perilously low friendliness scores — issuing personal challenges to Witches.

As long as a Witch accepted their challenge, and as long as they ultimately neither killed nor imprisoned the Witch, regardless of the challenge’s outcome, the Dawn Society would not deduct their friendliness. They might even earn friendliness points as a reward.