Chapter 2326 Gotham Music Festival (Fifty-Eight)
Chapter 2319 Gotham Music Festival (58)
Before the Atlantic Ocean cruise ship restarted, several figures jumped on board. The leader Constantine shook the water from his hair. Next to him, the orangutan detective Bobo jumped on the shoulders of the Night Master. Zatanna was sorting her pockets. The utensils inside and the black orchid next to it made sure nothing was missing.
The appearance of this group of people surprised Oliver. Although he didn't have much dealings with the magical world, he had heard about the previous major incident of vampires invading London, and had also consulted the Master of the Night when dealing with the indigenous wizards in Mexico.
"Jim, why are you here?" Oliver stepped forward and shook hands with Jim. Jim smiled and patted his arm and said, "It turns out you are back. I thought you had to wait for a while. How are you doing? "
"It's not bad. Are you here to help Schiller?" Oliver immediately realized something.
"Of course, but to be precise, he helped us." Master An Ye showed a trace of sadness between his brows.
Oliver put his arm around his shoulders, led him to the deck where the crowd gathered, and said, "I heard that the situation in the magical world is not very good. Has it gotten better recently?"
"It may get better in the future." Master Dark Night shook his head and began to talk about the recent situation in the magic world.
Previously, Schiller arranged a plan to harvest a wave of famous black box Constantine in the occult world, which caused many middle- and high-level demons who had invested a lot of chips in Constantine to lose their pants.
The influence of the previous vampire invasion of London has spread to this day. Mages have been killed and injured, and the talent pool in the magic world is withering. Moreover, Gotham Academy of Magic has just been established, and most students have not studied for two years and are of no use at all.
This has resulted in the current magic world in the universe where Schiller is located. The demons have been much more cautious when lending out their power because they have lost a lot of money. The number of magicians has dropped sharply, and there are many fewer people who can lend their power. Power, no one likes to consume, and the economy in the occult world suddenly went down and deflation occurred.
But the universe actually needs magic, because in addition to angels and demons, there are also many magical creatures mixed in. Their attitudes towards humans are mixed. Magicians are the backbone of the response to the invasion of such creatures. Strange said The proposed Earth Magic Defense Network also needs to be built. If everyone keeps searching like this, they will do nothing.
If things go on like this, the development of the magic world in this universe may lag far behind other universes. If any major magic-related event occurs in the future, it may collapse at the drop of a hat. This is something no one wants to see.
To break this situation, the laws of economics must be used. Normally, when the economy is down, the government should provide various preferential measures for enterprises to help alleviate pressure and stabilize production; for consumers, increase consumer welfare Investment in the field stimulates consumption, and Schiller naturally does the same.
Since the backbone, middle and high-level demons who lent their power have no money, they must find ways to promote their development. Only when they have money can they lend money to others.
It may sound ridiculous, but after so many years of development in hell, the vast majority of demons still make money by earning price differences. Even the generals under the demon king also rely on this method and have not thought about innovation for tens of thousands of years.
The general process is to give a human a little power, and then recycle their soul after death. To demons, the souls of mages are worth slightly more than their power, and they earn the difference.
As for the demon kings, they are nothing more than giving them more power to deceive more cherished souls and make more profit.
Of course, if possible, they would also want to carry out massacres and secretly take the souls for themselves, but unfortunately, on the one hand, heaven is watching, and on the other hand, the Destiny family cannot let them do this, so hell has long been in the hands of small farmers. The economic level is not incomprehensible either.
After discovering the need to revitalize the magical world, Schiller went to study a plan with the other three members of the evil fourth power, and found Azazel and Beelzebub, who currently have the final say in hell. A fly did some research and found that it seemed to work.
The previous method of trading between demons and magicians was a bit similar to slash-and-burn farming. It was probably that the demons lured humans into contact with magic through some loopholes, and then lent their power to them. The humans then squandered the power, and after they died, they became the devil's food.
This deal seems fair, but in fact, human beings are creatures with little self-control. They are basically tempted and accurate, which is the same as never testing human nature.
Therefore, humans have little initiative in this regard, but in order to obtain powerful power, they usually make no bottom-line compromises with demons.
In the past, no matter whether you sacrificed other things or not, you yourself could not escape. Demons did not accept contracts that used pure foreign objects as trading conditions, because most demons were not that strong. Except for marked souls, They are not 100% sure that they can take back the foreign objects.
But after the devil's leeks were harvested, they had to lower their arrogant heads and find ways to get some funds to circulate first. This gave humans a lot of room for negotiation. The most critical point is that they can Change the price paid to something other than yourself.
Ordinary foreign objects cannot impress demons. What they like most is actually human souls, but in their eyes, human souls are also divided into superior and inferior ones, and the best ones are the souls of sinners.
Sins will add a lot of weight to the soul. The heavier the soul, the more mellow the taste, and the greater the power it can provide. This is why many demons bet on Constantine even though they knew the chances were slim.
But it is not so easy to add more sins to the soul. In a world where God exists, if you are a very devout believer and conscientiously abide by the doctrine, you can actually wash away many sins.
Even if you are not a believer, you don't believe in anything, you haven't done many bad things, or the bad things you have done are not serious, and you don't reach the threshold of sin, you will not be engraved, even if you sincerely repent after doing evil, this one will not be added.
Some evil people do not do good things outside, but treat their family and friends well, and their sins will be reduced. Even some people do evil behind the scenes, and do some good things on the surface to cover up, and their sins will be reduced.
So it is very difficult to accumulate a soul weight of more than 21 grams. Although there are many humans, there are not many such evil people. Even often you have to carefully distinguish and investigate to get one or two.
Moreover, if the souls of these sinners come to hell by ordinary means, they will also be damaged. They must go through the sacrifice of the execution ceremony to minimize the loss.
"We just drew a magic circle under the sea." Constantine explained to Oliver: "After all, the souls of these sinners on the ship are very heavy. The execution ceremony is a bit like the way of express packaging. It must be rigorous enough to express delivery so that it will not be damaged. However, the magic circle that collects the souls is a bit like airplanes and trucks during transportation. If the quality is not good and it is too bumpy, it will also cause losses."
"So you transported all their souls to hell?" Oliver asked.
"Yes, as the first batch of transaction materials, a full 99 sinners' souls, with an average weight of 25 grams, this is a great gift that even the demon monarch will look at..."
"Wait, 99? But there are more than 99 people on this ship."
"Yes, there are only 99 truly perfect sinners' souls. Some others are below this standard and are considered gifts. There are also some souls that are not even 21 grams of defective products. They will be sent back later."
Oliver slapped his forehead.
Although it sounds very strange, if you do good things, even if you do good things for your own benefit, it will cleanse your soul, causing your soul to be not heavy enough, and be despised by the devil who loves sin, or even become a defective product.
At this time, Amanda walked to the side of the scale. She wanted to know how heavy her soul was. Maybe it should be 25 grams, after all, she has killed many people.
The goat demon sitting there looked her up and down, tutted his lips and shook his head, and seemed to be very unimpressed with her. Amanda walked up to the scale and weighed it. It was exactly 21 grams.
"Don't dawdle, lady, judging from the state of your soul, you are not suitable to stay here. Otherwise, turn left and ask those angels if they will accept you." The goat demon said with disdain.
"That's impossible." Amanda said in disbelief, "I'm the head of the secret service. I've had my men kill a lot of people. I've also done all kinds of things like stealing secrets and snooping into people's privacy, and even breaking into people's homes."
The goat demon saw that he couldn't convince her, so he had to flip through the parchment scroll in his hand, and put on a pair of glasses from the side, and said with a frown, "Last June, you caught two killers. One of them killed 15 people indiscriminately, and the other killed a family of four, right?"
Amanda recalled and said, "Yes, the Michigan Ripper, and the other one should be called the Garden Gnome or the Family Killer. I forgot, he's not very famous."
"This has reduced your soul weight by at least 0.2 grams, and this summer, you presided over the trial and execution of a killer who trapped children in cars and burned them to death."
"'The Firewood Adder', I remember him, that damn bastard, he refused to plead guilty until the end!" Amanda gritted her teeth and said.
The goat demon's face became better and better, and he even smiled. He said, "I remember that this guy's soul seemed to have gone to our place. My grandmother liked his taste very much."
"Madam, it's an honor to meet such a righteous law enforcer like you. Why don't you go down there and have some tea first? After our boss finishes talking, I will take you to the depths of the fire abyss to meet our grandmother?"
Amanda looked at the goat demon's enthusiastic smile in a daze, but was still squeezed off the scale by the soul that came later.
At this time, the black man with the eye mask came over, waved to Amanda and said, "Ms. Waller, come with me, your family has been waiting for you for a long time."
Amanda was stunned, but when she turned around, she saw her mother's slightly old but unchanged face, and then she heard a familiar scream.
"Amanda! Amanda!! My little Mandy!"
She felt herself suddenly thrown into an embrace, her mother held her face and said: "Oh my God, it's really you."
Amanda was about to speak, her father came over and hugged them both, and said: "You don't know how lucky we are that you were not there that day. We were thinking about this in the last second before we died. Fortunately, you were not there!"
Amanda finally couldn't bear it anymore, and tears burst out of her eyes like a dam breaking.