The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 2031 The Portal Plan

Karl thought about the options that he could offer them for a few seconds, then laid out a plan that he hoped would make them happy, and the Darklight Host very rich.

I am willing to link a portal array to the portals in your home cities, and allow passage for a nominal fee. If we have to open the portal, we collect, if you open the portal, you collect. We will set the fee in a contract, so there is no question about who gets through and for how much.

Exemptions for Elders of the signatory Clan, of course.

Presently, there is nothing even resembling a regional portal network, which is a travesty. Perhaps it's due to a lack of maintenance, as I have seen signs that there was a more robust magical presence here in the past.

But that's not the point.

I can make the arrays that will allow direct travel between each of your cities and the Darklight Host. I can also arrange for portal guards at my end who can open one directly to a requested linked location, as long as it is in a public area.

If you put it within your Clan, it will be with permission only.

But I request that you do not, as it defeats the purpose of having them. We want people to travel, to come here for market days and tournaments.

The New Home Merchant Clan already does a weekly market day, and we have a constant portal to them. I do not object to having guests every week for the market days. The more, the merrier, and it will save on transit fees to get goods to your Clan territory.

Then, once every quarter, on the solstice and equinox, we will arrange a tournament.

Even if there are Immortals who don't believe in the same calendar, they can still find the right day based on the sun. Those are already holidays, at least in this region. So, there is more incentive for Immortals to spend their time off coming here for the event.

"What price would you suggest for the portal?" One of the Clan Leaders asked.

"Two hundred and fifty gold coins. That's about the worst rate that most Clans give for a single clan credit. So, making that the standard fee to move between cities with a portal makes the math for taking on longer distance missions easy to calculate."

The Elders looked concerned with Karl's math.

Sure, he had the number of coins roughly right. But one clan credit to move that far across the continent? Wasn't that too cheap? It would cripple the trade caravan operators if they could move between cities that cheap.

But then, they didn't go directly between any of these cities.

They were too far apart.

Most trade caravans covered small clans within three or four hundred kilometres of their home territory. Any further, and they were usually outside an alliance. Only the larger and more powerful merchants would do that, and they didn't need the portals as they had fast enough movement skills that it would be cheaper to simply fly.

Even the Blue Elves, whose ships travelled much more slowly than flight, even with their water and wind magic usage, would find using the portals to be questionable value.

Though, the Elves rarely travelled over land anyhow, so it wouldn't matter to them.

Karl did have a plan to assist them as well.

The ships might not care about a ground-based portal network. But they would love if he arranged a ship-based portal assist array, allowing them to move much further in a single jump, and then sail the last portion, to avoid arousing suspicion.

He strongly suspected that they had an array of portals in the ocean anyhow. They were too good at getting through storms, around blockades, and to remote destinations with sensitive cargo.

But having them on the ships would add flexibility.

He wasn't wrong. Each of the Elven Cities had a portal array to move fleets. It looked like a breakwater to their port, stopping the worst of the ocean waves. However, it could be activated as a portal as well, without arousing suspicion when it was inactive.

One of the Clan Leaders unrolled a map, with the cities destined for portals marked on it.

"Just to clarify, you can make a portal array that would allow travel between these locations and the Darklight Host's Guild Compound? Directly, without intermediate hops?"

Karl checked the distances and nodded. "Yes, that's not an issue. It takes an impressive amount of magic, but with my skills, I can reduce that enough to make it feasible even for your mages."

The Clan Leader nodded, accepting the fact that Karl was likely much better at portal magic than average.

"Alright, we will agree to that. How much do you want for the portal array itself?"

Karl shrugged. "Standard price, it's a Peerless Grade Immortal Rank item. I could have it made as a Rare or Epic Grade Supreme Ranked item, but that's actually more expensive at market rate, with similar portal efficiency."

The Clan Leaders nodded. Supreme Ranked items were extremely expensive, and generally worth their cost. But Peerless Grade Immortal Rank items were so rarely on the market that their price was also prohibitive.

"We can cover that, it's more than reasonable for the infrastructure investment that it represents. There will be additional security costs keeping it in public, but we can cover that."

Karl nodded. "It comes with a barrier of its own, and I can geographically lock it, so they have to break the enchantment to move it after it is activated for the first time. That will reduce the theft risk of the portal array.

It seems crazy, since the other party could still open a portal directly to the thieves, but if they're looking to throw it in a volcano or something, as a trap to users, it wouldn't be the craziest thing I've seen."

The Clan Leaders looked a bit horrified.

"You have seen a portal relocation worse than a volcano? I had assumed that they might try to put it into a Clan Prison to capture members for interrogation."

Karl smiled, "Actually, the one I had in mind was a Legendary Demon God Prison, run by Wrath Demons. A completely mana restricted area, designed to keep an Immortal there for eternity."

Speaking of which, he should go visit Carnage again once he reached Supreme Rank.

The old man must be getting bored by now.