"Mm." Leilin nodded absently, seeming somewhat distracted.
"There are quite a lot of Wizards here!" He pointed outside.
Over there, a Wizard dressed like a wandering minstrel was playing an organ, drawing a circle of citizens to watch, with the occasional cheer rising from the crowd.
"Yes! Here, full-fledged Wizards are extremely common — they even mingle among the ordinary folk. And the citizens here are quite knowledgeable about Wizards…"
Gubler explained to Leilin in meticulous detail.
"On the Central Continent, Wizards and nobles alike use Byronic as their common tongue, so Master need not worry about any language barriers whatsoever. Moreover, here is a rough map of the Central Continent along with materials on several widely spoken common languages!"
Gubler respectfully handed Leilin a crystal sphere containing a great deal of information.
As a Wizard, Byronic was a required area of study. So back when they had met in the Dark Apex Domain, the moment Gubler spoke in Byronic, Leilin had understood him immediately — there had never been any issue with communication.
Leilin picked up a spoon and scooped a bit of pastry into his mouth.
A rich, sweet flavour stimulated his taste buds again and again. "The food is quite refined too. The ordinary folk on the Central Continent seem to live considerably better than those in the Dark Apex Domain…"
"Of course — our Central Continent is the very heart of the entire Wizard World!"
A note of pride crept into Gubler's voice, but Leilin merely smiled and shook his head.
Setting aside the underground world of the seven subterranean layers, which had yet to raise any objections, even the Central Continent of antiquity had boasted at least seventh-rank Wizards presiding over it.
But now? It had merely recovered a faint glimmer of its former glory.
On this point, Leilin had no desire to correct anyone. After all, the Central Continent of the present suited him far better.
The next day, after a night's rest, Leilin and Gubler made their way to a location outside the city walls.
Carriages and all manner of conveyances passed through ceaselessly here, loaded with luggage and cargo, giving the area a bustling, prosperous air.
Moreover, virtually every person passing by carried some degree of energy fluctuation — it was rare to see an ordinary citizen about.
After crossing a wide, sturdy road, Leilin and Gubler spotted a colossal structure resembling an airfield from a later age. Numerous white, oval-shaped Airships rose and fell across a vast, flat plaza.
Streams of people poured in and out like ants.
Several Airships still dragged massive cargo containers behind them, and crews were bustling about unloading luggage and cargo. The whole scene was lively yet somewhat chaotic.
Since the Central Continent stretched endlessly, and overland travel was both extremely time-consuming and rather dangerous, Airships had become the most common mode of transportation across the region.
Even small cities had an Airship boarding point, staffed by on-duty Wizards and their apprentices.
They were responsible not only for maintaining order, but also for routine Airship resupply and maintenance work.
They had even trained a dedicated batch of goblin engineers for this purpose. Leilin watched a group of gaunt, bug-eyed goblins — with hardly a hair on their heads — crawling into the undersides and pipelines of the Airships, wrenches and other tools in hand.
Building and maintaining an Airship was far from cheap, but once you secured a route, the profits flowed in endlessly. It was a high-investment, high-return business — only a truly wealthy Wizard organization could hope to pull it off.
Compared to the Central Continent's network, the Airships on the South Coast were much smaller, served only a handful of fixed routes, and could only fly within designated time windows. The difference was staggering.
"Which organization controls this Airship network?" Leilin asked Gubler quietly.
A single Airship ticket cost one hundred Magic Stones, and that was for a standard cabin. As for Leilin and Gubler, they naturally occupied first-class seats — the two of them had spent six hundred Magic Stones on fares alone.
Fortunately, Leilin was wealthy enough in his own right. Having claimed dominion over an entire region, even a light skim of its resources had yielded enormous wealth. Magic Stones alone filled an entire spatial ring, so he certainly wouldn't be stingy about this.
But even with the entire Dark Pinnacle Domain backing him, Leilin still felt a vast gap between himself and a colossus like the Airship company.
"The entire Airship network across the Central Continent was built single-handedly by the Feile family — it's their private property!"
"Private property?" Leilin was somewhat surprised, and immediately asked, "Who is the Wizard standing behind them?"
This kind of enormous profit, especially one that controlled a critical transportation lifeline — without an incredibly powerful backer, no one could hold it. Even if they had already seized it, they'd be forced to bleed and hand it over.
The fact that the Feile family had managed to monopolize the market all this time meant they had to have an overwhelmingly powerful patron.
"The Feile family themselves possess two Morning Star Wizards — but of course, that alone isn't what matters. The key is that the Throne of Skies stands behind them!"
"The Throne of Skies? A sixth-level Radiant Sun Wizard?"
Leilin nodded.
A Wizard standing at the very pinnacle of the Central Continent — that would be more than enough to bear the backlash. The so-called Feile family were probably nothing more than caretakers and butlers. The true controller of the entire Airship network was that lord of the Throne of Skies!
"Yes, under the majesty and deterrence of the Lord of the Throne of Skies, the safety of the Airships is extremely well guaranteed!"
Gubler said, a hint of longing surfacing in his eyes.
A sixth-level Wizard! This was the absolute apex of the Central Continent — an existence whose every action could influence countless Wizards beneath them!