“Carve projection magic onto a newspaper!?”
Luo Lin, the chief editor of the Morning Red Newspaper, looked at the silver-haired girl sitting across from her, who had just made this request with a completely serious face.
Her first reaction wasn’t to refuse, but to laugh…
Ahem, ahem.
“Forgive my bluntness, Your Highness.”
But given the other party’s formidable reputation, Luo Lin didn’t dare to casually comment.
“Our newspaper is a small business. Carving projection magic like that would drive up the production cost of the paper.”
She counted on her fingers.
Even using the crudest, cheapest first-tier Grass Shadow Technique and etching its magical circuits onto the newspaper…
“If we engrave the runes for the Cut Shadow Technique onto the newspaper, a conservative estimate would increase the cost by over a hundredfold,” she explained patiently.
Seeing that this little rich girl, born with a silver spoon in her mouth and utterly unfamiliar with the hardships of common folk, actually seemed to be pondering this…
Luo Lin couldn’t help but feel a surge of frustration in her heart.
An increase of at least a hundredfold in cost!
Does that even require consideration?
She irritably tapped her knuckles on the office desk, trying to use a series of sighs to remind Her Highness Luwei that this was simply an impossible task.
But the laws of the Kingdom of Avalon stipulated that any distributor of content on paper or Shadow Stones—which, of course, included newspapers—their responsible person must cooperate with the local lord to control and review the content being published.
Therefore, Luo Lin couldn’t even make a request to refuse…
Shearing the wool off the local newspapers…
this actually isn’t the first time.
Just a week ago, at the request of this young lord heir, all the newspapers in the Kares Territory had been operating at a loss, providing free positive coverage for the Caris Family.
Luwei had given them many stories.
Things like providing subsidies to the families of fallen soldiers, organizing wealthy merchants for charitable donations…
even the recruitment announcements for expanding Carris Manor were handled by their newspaper.
Thinking of this, a sense of resentment rose in Luo Lin’s heart.
Ninety percent of the news we reported came straight from Luwei’s mouth.
Because the law was there, they couldn’t even verify the truth of the information.
They just embellished whatever Luwei said and hurriedly printed it in the paper, with absolutely no guarantee of authenticity!
The Morning Red Newspaper was not only operating at a loss to promote Luwei, but also had to bear all the risks.
If Luwei’s information turned out to be false, all the responsibility would fall on the newspaper…
So…
Luo Lin looked at the silver-haired girl who had been deep in thought for a long time.
This time, what difficult demand will our lord come up with?
The girl wasn’t much taller than the office desk to begin with, and since she was sitting in the chair, lost in thought with her head bowed, from Luo Lin’s perspective, all she could see was a single, slightly swaying strand of hair.
Watching the strand of hair sway, its rhythm sometimes speeding up, sometimes pausing…
Luo Lin, the chief editor, felt extremely anxious.
If Luwei really slapped her head and demanded that the newspaper must incorporate projection magic, they would have no way to refuse!
Either refuse directly and face legal sanctions, with the entire newspaper staff ending up in jail…
Or grit their teeth and agree…
Due to the cost, the price of a single newspaper would skyrocket from 1 copper coin (10 coppers) to over 1 silver coin!
Who would buy a newspaper then?
And Luo Lin, this insignificant chief editor, caught between the newspaper and the Caris Family, would become the primary person responsible for the collapse of the Morning Red Newspaper!
No, I can’t let this little ancestor push me into the fire pit…
“Your Highness Luwei, actually, you are not the first person to propose this… brilliant idea.”
Luo Lin carefully chose her words.
“Long before you, people had already wanted to change paper newspapers, to replace them entirely with Shadow Stones.”
“They hired many reporters to record news reports from the front lines, then packaged the news into Shadow Stones for sale.”
“But the consequence of doing this was: in the entire kingdom, only nobles could afford such Shadow Stone newspapers.”
“And, because of production cycles and the timeliness of news… even nobles wouldn’t buy this kind of thing!”
Feeling she hadn’t made her point strongly enough, Luo Lin continued.
“In the end, all the newspapers in that country went bankrupt.
People were cut off from information…
Sigh, even a wise lord couldn’t tell his people about important matters.”
She tried to coax and persuade, attempting to make this young little lord realize just how important this matter was.
But the Luwei before her didn’t seem to have listened at all.
“I am not asking you to record on Shadow Stones, Chief Editor Luo Lin.”
Contrary to Luo Lin’s expectations, Luwei had actually come prepared.
She took out three scrolls.
“This is the first-tier Cut Shadow Technique.”
Luwei activated the magic.
A grayish-white image appeared on the first scroll.
It was blurry, but one could barely make out the scene.
“Chief Editor Luo Lin, this level of image quality absolutely cannot meet my needs…”
Hearing this, Luo Lin almost jumped out of her office chair.
“Y-Your Highness… what kind of image quality do you even want?!”
Luwei didn’t answer.
She simply opened the next two scrolls.
One had a blurry picture but possessed color and sound.
The other had an incredibly clear picture but made no sound.
These were second-tier projection-type magics…
“Your Highness, please reconsider… If we do this, the price of the newspaper would increase by at least five hundredfold. Absolutely no one would buy it!”
But Luwei remained unconcerned.
“The price of the newspaper won’t change. These costs don’t need to be borne by the people buying the paper…”
Hearing this, Luo Lin felt her vision darken.
She almost instantly understood Luwei’s meaning.
[The losses are your newspaper’s problem anyway I just want the recordings published. Whether the newspaper lives or dies is none of my concern. Besides, news in a recorded format would definitely have better propaganda effect.]
“Your Highness…”
The smile on Luo Lin’s face was uglier than crying.
If Luwei wanted to publish news using such a newspaper, the Morning Red Newspaper would have to sell over a thousand regular newspapers just to cover the cost of producing one recorded newspaper.
“Is there a problem?”
Luwei’s expression was calm, her tone casual.
“…Such a major task might be beyond the capability of our small Morning Red Newspaper alone.”
“Do you wish to defy the law?”
A huge accusation was suddenly dropped on Luo Lin’s head.
“No, no, no!”
she hurriedly explained.
“What I meant was, could you perhaps consider… other newspapers?”
“Or, like before, assign this task to all the newspapers in the Kares Territory. It would be better if everyone worked together to complete it…”
If not for saving face, Luo Lin would have knelt down and begged this ancestor.
“I only want to support you. The other newspapers don’t count.”
Support?
What support?
Is this some kind of twisted joke?
There’s no support here, none at all!!!
Even half a year ago, when rumors about Luwei were flying everywhere and the newspapers fabricating stories about her were making a fortune, the Morning Red Newspaper had stuck to the truth of the news and hadn’t followed the trend…
“This is an opportunity for you. Seize it well.”
“Work hard. Strive to capture the entire Human Federation’s ‘Magic Newspaper’ market in one go!”
Luwei patted Luo Lin’s shoulder encouragingly, that terrifying smile still on her face.
Could she really believe this is helping the Morning Red Newspaper?
If that was the case…
Luo Lin felt a wave of despair.
The rumors outside said the heiress Luwei wasn’t very bright and treated gold coins like dirt…
she was starting to believe it now.
Could Luwei really think this is a profitable idea?
Also, what news did she want to publish that required producing such an expensive batch of magic newspapers?