The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 413: Iger's Debt

Anphel pulled out a chair and sat gracefully across from the fraudster. She said, "Congratulations, Mr. Iger."

Iger rubbed his temples, a weary sigh escaping him. "And what is there to congratulate about being ranked number one on the Schemer Rankings? Now the entire Gospel is lumping me together with Harvey. I've already heard the rumblings in Montphera. People are calling the Rusty Crow and the Corpse King the twin harbingers guarding the gates of the apocalypse. Apparently, my stock is even higher. After all, the necromancer Angel's inheritance can only be passed down to Harvey, but the ritual knowledge I will control in the future is a core technology anyone can exploit."

The two spoke in tones that mimicked the intimacy of a lovers' tryst, yet they were not lovers, nor had they planned any such rendezvous.

He rested his cheek on his hand, looking thoroughly put out. "Speaking of which, is there a complaint hotline for the Gospel? I'd love to report it for a poor user experience. If a scheme is exposed to the world, can it still be called a scheme? If a mystery is laid bare, can it still make people laugh?"

"Can't it?" Anphel countered softly.

Iger looked directly at the red-haired girl, the corners of his mouth curling into a slight, sharp smile. "Of course... it can."

He leaned back. "In my career, the only absolute insight I've gained is that there are far too many fools in this world, and never enough liars to exploit them. The only lesson humanity truly learns from history is that it learns nothing at all.

"Reputation, be it good or bad, is a scarce resource. How it is wielded depends entirely on the individual. Now that everyone knows I am a master schemer, their subconscious reflex will be to reject anything I say. If I exploit that psychological inertia even a fraction, I can lay a thousand invisible traps for my enemies.

"Even if they possess future knowledge of my schemes, that knowledge will not transform into wisdom. Instead, it will become their handicap. As long as I slightly alter the premises of the question, these examinees, incapable of extrapolating for themselves, will stumble into my traps exactly as before. Because the essence of deception is not an asymmetry of information. It is desire."

In a tone dripping with mock sincerity, Iger went on, "Amplify their desires, and hand them exactly what they crave. I am genuinely grateful I came to Montphera, to the Belldet. Without this journey, I wouldn't have understood my own path so clearly."

Anphel blinked. "You seem to have taken a liking to the core principle of the Control Class."

Iger smiled, wagging a finger. "Too narrow. Your perspective is far too limited. That is not merely the essence of the Control Class. It is the very architecture of social order, the fundamental law of how our world operates.

"The societies of the Blood Moon and the Gospel are vastly different on the surface, but at their core, they dance to the exact same rhythm. They evoke the people's desires, then hand them the means of production. Strip away the theater, and is all social operation not just the ruling class deceiving the lower class to extract their value? The deception is merely dressed up as political doctrine, while the exploitation grinds away inside the invisible gears of society.

"The Virtual World is no different. Sorcerers spend their entire lives chasing strength, yet in the end, all their accumulated wisdom becomes mere nourishment to be swallowed by the Virtual World. What blade is sharper than death? Whose harvest is more absolute than the Virtual World's? A deceiver like me, who still relies on words, is a third-rate amateur. True deception requires no speech at all. It endures flawlessly, like a perpetual engine that countless geniuses willingly throw themselves into across millennia.

"Society stirs the desire for a better life. The Virtual World stirs the desire for greater power. But ultimately, they both dangle the exact same bait to trick living beings. And that is..."

Iger raised a finger. "The future. As long as there is the promise of a future, anyone will give up everything for it. The Rusty Crow understood this perfectly, which is why he could manipulate all of existence and toy with the Gospel itself."

Iger clasped his hands together, his smile widening. "I may not be the Rusty Crow yet, but observing the Schemer Rankings has given me an impeccable theoretical foundation. All I lack now is practice."

"I have no doubt that you will reach the heights foretold by the Rankings, Mr. Iger," Anphel said smoothly. "But my congratulations were never about fame, resources, future knowledge, or material rewards. Rather, it is because the Schemer Rankings have laid everything bare. You no longer have to worry about being misunderstood."

She blinked innocently. "You're actually quite grateful to the Gospel, aren't you? It has become your ultimate witness."

Iger's theatrical warmth faded. He looked at her, his expression utterly flat and calm. "Are you here to stop me?"

Anphel shook her head. "Of course not. I lack both the power and the pedigree. I am not even a sorcerer.

"Still, Evelyn has a mountain of questions for you. Since you most certainly won't be meeting her anytime soon, I've come to act as her proxy."

"Very well," Iger said, adjusting his posture. "I have questions of my own. Let us trade them one by one. How does that sound?"

Anphel nodded. "A fair exchange. As I mentioned before, Lady Evelyn has many inquiries, but the one she demands to know above all else is... Mr. Iger, how exactly did you seize the Belldet family's highest authority?"

Without a doubt, Iger's maneuver had cast the Belldet family into a pit of filth so deep they could never hope to wash themselves clean.

Throughout the entire Gospel, it was common knowledge that the Control Class was the crown jewel of the Belldet family's heritage. Should the group known as the Funeral Agency manage to slip away, the public would instantly assume Belldet was playing protector, no matter how frantically Evelyn tried to deny it.

Even if she brought forth absolute proof, claiming, "Iger bypassed us and usurped our highest authority," and even if the Gospel itself verified her words as the truth, the court of public opinion would simply pivot. The reaction would be immediate and cynical, something like, "You must have somehow rigged the Gospel's verdict, right?

"Your family has ruled this city with an iron fist for centuries. Are we truly expected to believe that the first failure of your infallible core technique in hundreds of years just happens to occur right now? Who would buy that?"

Even if the masses conceded that Iger was ninety-nine percent to blame, wouldn't Evelyn still be held accountable for the remaining one percent? As the saying went, "It takes two to tango." If the system was truly secure, why hadn't Iger targeted any other family? Why the Belldets? The people of the Belldet family were definitely not without fault either!

More than that, Evelyn was explicitly to blame. If she hadn't tried to put a leash on the sorcerers of the Eight Great Families, none of this mess would have happened in the first place. Regardless, the Eight Great Families were doomed to suffer. The only difference was whether they were squeezed dry by Evelyn or directly crushed by Iger.

Iger explained, "The moment I arrived at the estate, I noticed the sheer number of statues scattered around, and how unusually complete the variety was. Since I also hail from the Mind Class, I couldn't help but wonder... could these be vessels designed to store mental energy?

"Evelyn is merely a Two-Winged sorcerer. Her soul simply cannot contain the mental energy of millions of people. Given how long the Control Class has been passed down in your family, there had to be a mechanism simple enough for even an idiot to operate.

"The reason behind the vast array of statues is categorization. It ensures the mental energy of similar individuals flows into the corresponding vessel first, where impurities can be filtered out and refined."

Anphel nodded. "I heard that in the past, most of the statues were dressed as plain-clothes farmers. Now, they've mostly been replaced with figures in business suits."

"Then I asked the Gospel where a statue matching my archetype would be," Iger continued, his expression darkening slightly. "I'm not sure whether the issue lies with the Gospel or your family's selection criteria, but it actually determined that the statue most similar to me is a Veela Paladin."

Anphel covered her mouth to muffle a laugh. "I think that suits you quite well."

"Moving on, I conducted numerous experiments near the statues," Iger said, brushing past the comment. "Most of them were pointless. Mind Class Miracles had absolutely no effect on them, until... I used Bel Points."

"Oh? So that's how it is."

"After spending Bel Points, while continuously observing my inner state, I discovered a microscopic strand of my mental energy flowing into the statue. The amount was so infinitesimally small that it was almost impossible to detect. The next moment, my soul energy was restored to the point I even suspected it was just my imagination playing tricks on me.

"But as I continued my research, I found that regardless of whether I spent a single Bel Point or a hundred, the loss of soul energy remained exactly the same. In other words, this mechanism isn't about extracting energy at all. It's about establishing a connection.

"The statues are base stations, the individuals are terminals, and the connection between them is Bel Points.

"I used to wonder why your family bothered maintaining something like Bel Points as a currency. After all, you don't need a virtual currency to hoard wealth," Iger lowered his gaze to the Book of Gospel. "Only then did I understand. Bel Points aren't for the public. They are for you. At the same time, it is the most secure lock your family possesses.

"The highest authority is paramount, yet not every generation of family leaders is a genius. So how do you ensure the Belldet authority can't be tricked away by an outsider? It couldn't be a physical object, nor could it be a password or a spirit. So, your ancestors came up with a brilliant alternative, a virtual currency completely monopolized by the Belldet family—Bel Points."

"The act of spending Bel Points is a Mind Class Miracle in its truest form!" Iger said, his voice laced with genuine admiration. "The mechanism is elegant. As long as you can clear a debtor's outstanding balance, you can dominate the mental processing power they've pledged as collateral!

"Everyone has a price. And that price is their debt. There is no such thing as an abstract highest authority at all. Whoever can instantly spend the most Bel Points holds the crown. Naturally, the Belldet family leader, possessing an effectively infinite supply of Bel Points, is the one who dominates all debtors.

"There's also an ingenious safeguard built into the design. Only those carrying debt can activate the system. Therefore, if an outsider wants to meddle with the system, they must first become a Belldet debtor. It's the equivalent of a meal delivering itself straight to the predator's jaws.

"But this rule applies to the family leader as well, meaning the leader position itself has a price too." Iger glanced toward the window, as if he could see Evelyn standing in the far distance, gazing out over the railing. "So, she goes the opposite route. She simply ensures her own debt is so astronomically high that no one could ever hope to match it. For example...

"One billion... per minute."

Anphel tilted her head, a trace of confusion in her eyes. "But... Mr. Iger, you don't exactly strike me as a wealthy man either."

"I'm not wealthy, but Evelyn was kind enough to grant us access to Spend Bel, and the credit limit is exceptionally generous," Iger spread open his Book of Gospel. "Conveniently, it happens to be exactly one billion."

"Though I must say, after centuries of rule, your family hasn't made a single technological improvement. Not even a basic anti-tracking protocol. I simply used Spend Bel to borrow, spending one Bel Point, then two, then three... After seven consecutive queries using varying amounts, I successfully traced the signal of the modified credit limit through my own mental energy fluctuations.

"This was the only technically stimulating part of the entire scheme, cracking Spend Bel. Granted, my transactions are still recorded, and since this is a financial system overseen by the Gospel, I can't simply steal the funds outright. However, no matter how many Bel Points I spend, my credit limit refuses to drop. In other words..."

Iger turned the face of his Book of Gospel toward Anphel. "Right now, I can spend one billion and incur one billion in debt every single second."

Anphel looked down. Across the pages of the Book of Gospel, Iger's debt was compounding at a terrifying rate second by second, yet the fraudster himself looked utterly unbothered.

"I understand now. My sister lost fair and square," the red-haired girl said softly. "You have completely unraveled the essence of the Belldets' rule."

"In the Control Class, those who pre-spend their own future are the ruled. But those who pre-spend the futures of millions... are the rulers."

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