"Dark Gold Society?"
In the hotel room, Dorothy sat on the sofa, looking down at the "wen hai hang zhi" placed on her lap. Seeing Beverly's response on it, her expression couldn't help but turn serious.
'So... all of this is the Dark Gold Society's doing? Listening to this name, this society should believe in the'Shi' (Stone) domain deity, dark gold, that Beverly mentioned before. It's said to be a purely commercial deity. I remember she said the society that believed in dark gold was the Secret Merchant Society, but how did it become the Dark Gold Society here? Is dark gold a deity that different societies believe in simultaneously?'
Dorothy pondered this, then immediately picked up a pen and wrote her questions on the "wen hai hang zhi", taking advantage of Beverly's current "online" status to quickly ask her some questions. Otherwise, she didn't know how long it would take to see a reply after she went offline.
Soon, Dorothy finished writing her questions. She silently watched her handwriting sink into the pages, then quietly waited for the other party's response. Before long, Beverly's clean and neat printed handwriting reappeared on the page.
"Yo, Miss neighbor, I didn't expect you to still be up so late. I thought you would have been asleep by now, doing experiments until this hour. It's rare to have such a coincidence to chat with you."
"Unlike the order construct core, which is believed in by the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild and is the God of Crafting, dark gold is known as the God of Commerce, the God of Wealth. It's a deity whose belief is very hidden and unknown to the public, one of the hidden gods outside of the Three Saints. Since ancient times, the society that believed in dark gold was the Secret Merchant Society, and the Dark Gold Society is, in fact, the result of the Secret Merchant Society's split and evolution. You can see the Dark Gold Society as a society that evolved from the Secret Merchant Society."
"Evolved from? So, is there a successor relationship between the Dark Gold Society and the Secret Merchant Society?"
Looking at Beverly's response, Dorothy rubbed her chin with interest, then continued writing on the page. Soon after, Beverly's handwriting once again appeared on the paper.
"In a sense, it's roughly like that, but if you say complete inheritance, it's not entirely accurate. It's not just the Dark Gold Society that inherited from the Secret Merchant Society, but also our Craftsmen's Guild."
"Craftsmen's Guild? Is there also a connection between the Secret Merchant Society and the Craftsmen's Guild?" Dorothy wrote on the page with some surprise, and the other party quickly responded.
"Of course. In fact, the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild's commercial tradition comes from the Secret Merchant Society."
"What you might not know is that the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild wasn't initially a society with a strong commercial nature like it is now. The essence of the Craftsmen's Guild is an alliance of craftsmen, a platform for countless Extraordinary craftsmen to connect, communicate, and pass down their skills. The core was craftsmanship, not trade. Although the former Craftsmen's Guild had internal resource trading platforms, the scale wasn't large, only enough to meet their own needs, far from the extent of undertaking most of the hidden transactions in the entire hidden world as it does now."
"For most of the Fourth Era, the entity that served as the hidden world's trading platform was, in fact, the Secret Merchant Society. Compared to the Craftsmen's Guild, they were purely a merchant organization composed of various businessmen, specializing in all kinds of hidden transactions. The deity they believed in was also dark gold as the God of Commerce, not the order construct core as the God of Crafting."
"So... the real merchant society should be the Secret Merchant Society, not the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild?"
"Yes, at least it was like that in the past. Four hundred years ago, the Secret Merchant Society was the largest neutral merchant organization in the hidden world, and this situation ended due to the split of the Secret Merchant Society."
"Few people can clearly explain the specific reasons for the Secret Merchant Society's split. Many only know that it seems to involve some secret related to dark gold. In short, on the day of the split, a tragic accident occurred among the Secret Merchant Society's high-ranking members. Two of the three Golden Three Seats died, and the remaining Black Coin Noble claimed to have become the worldly incarnation of dark gold, taking full control of everything in the Secret Merchant Society, and issued new regulations. Then, the vast Secret Merchant Society began to split."
"Those Secret Merchant Society members who did not comply with the Black Coin Noble largely withdrew from the Secret Merchant Society. The Black Coin Noble organized forces for retaliation, just as he was executing a large number of traitors. The Craftsmen's Guild's order construct core very rarely issued an oracle to the Golden Three Seats, demanding protection for all those who had withdrawn from the Secret Merchant Society. As a result, most of the members who left the Secret Merchant Society were absorbed by the Craftsmen's Guild. While the Craftsmen's Guild was able to expand, it also accumulated many commercial talents."
"The Secret Merchant Society, after splitting, changed its name to the Dark Gold Society. Under the leadership of the Black Coin Noble, the Dark Gold Society abandoned almost all the regulations established during the Secret Merchant Society era, conducting various hidden businesses by unscrupulous means, expanding into markets that never existed before, and ruthlessly squeezing profits through every conceivable method."
Regular letters appeared line by line on the blank page. Dorothy watched the reply written by Beverly with a serious expression. After reading it all, she immediately picked up her pen and wrote.
"Abandoning regulations? Unscrupulous means? What exactly is it like?"
"Specifically, it means being completely unrestrained for profit. Among the Dark Gold Society's businesses, there are many areas that the Craftsmen's Guild would not be involved in. The most prominent example is human trafficking. You should know that many hidden societies' Spirituality accumulation methods require a large number of people as materials. The way these societies obtain 'human materials' is either by luring and capturing them themselves or by directly purchasing them from the Dark Gold Society."
"The Dark Gold Society's scope of activity is very wide. They constantly capture ordinary people across the three continents to sell to various hidden societies, including even Extraordinary individuals who fall into their hands for various reasons. These Extraordinary human materials are more advanced materials."
"Besides human trafficking, the Dark Gold Society also acts as an Extraordinary trading platform like the Craftsmen's Guild, providing transaction services to other hidden societies. However, the content of their transactions is more reckless than ours. Besides these transactions, they also provide services like usury and hiring killers. A large number of small societies involved in conspiracies and fraud are also connected to them. They almost represent the most ugly and cruel aspect of the hidden world."
Beverly's words continued to appear on the page one after another. Looking at Beverly's response and her description of the Dark Gold Society, Dorothy's brows couldn't help but furrow.
After spending a long time in the hidden world, Dorothy had gained some understanding of the Spirituality accumulation methods used by those cult societies. A common characteristic of their accumulation methods is rapidly obtaining Spirituality by directly exploiting humans, the primates of all things.
For example, the Blood Food method of the Placenta lineage requires human flesh and blood. The Torture method of the Eight-Pointed Nest requires torture slaves who can be long-term tormented and abused. The Black Dream Hunter Group needs to devour human dream cocoons to raise moths. Within the Netherworld Coffin Society, Bonecrafters need to extract human bones, and other "Silent" Extraordinary individuals need human souls...
Looking at it, the number of societies that require human materials is surprisingly high. With such a large market demand, it's obvious that the profits will be extremely generous. Therefore, the emergence of organizations specifically capturing human materials to sell to these societies is inevitable, and the Dark Gold Society clearly serves as such an organization.
'Now I finally understand why those two guys wanted to take Brandon back. It's probably to sell him as human material. Looking at what Beverly said, if it's an Extraordinary human material, the value would be even higher.'
'It seems the Dark Gold Society can be called the black market merchants of the hidden world.'
Thinking like this, Dorothy gained a general understanding of the Dark Gold Society. Then, she continued to pick up her pen and write on the page before her.
"The Dark Gold Society is also a commercial society. Is there a competitive relationship with your Craftsmen's Guild, and is that why your two factions are hostile?"
"You could say so. According to the oracle from the order construct core, after the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild accepted a large number of Secret Merchant Society members, it began to vigorously develop and strengthen its commercial attributes, formally evolving from a pure craftsmen's association into its current state, replacing the Secret Merchant Society as the largest trading platform in the hidden world. Since the Craftsmen's Guild chose to accept former Secret Merchant Society members, we have been in a hostile relationship with the Dark Gold Society."
Beverly's response was written on the page again. After reading these responses, Dorothy continued to write.
"As for now, you seem to have the upper hand over the Dark Gold Society overall. It's quite interesting that the Dark Gold Society, which believes in the God of Commerce, dark gold, is actually losing to your Craftsmen's Guild in the commercial field..."
"Heh heh... The reason we can suppress the Dark Gold Society is actually due to multiple factors. Firstly, the original Secret Merchant Society split, and we absorbed a portion of it, while the Dark Gold Society is essentially the remaining majority of the Secret Merchant Society.
"Secondly, because the Craftsmen's Guild conducts business with more principles and has areas it won't touch, we are more easily accepted by official Extraordinary organizations. As long as there is demand, there will be a market; the hidden transaction market will always exist, and the role of a trading platform must be played by someone. For the Church and the secret police of various countries, instead of leaving this market to the rampant and unscrupulous Dark Gold Society, it is better to leave it to us, who can at least sit down and talk properly.
"If the dominance of the entire market fell into the hands of the Dark Gold Society, a large number of rampant and unscrupulous hidden transactions would make cults and societies in various countries more active, and the probability of malicious Extraordinary incidents would sharply increase. Therefore, official secret agencies led by the Church would prefer to give us the dominance of the hidden transaction market. Although we don't completely avoid trading with those cults, we at least won't engage in large-scale human trafficking. As long as we can satisfy the transaction needs of the vast majority of people in the hidden world, they won't seek out the Dark Gold Society.
"Thus, in the eyes of the official secret agencies of various countries, the Dark Gold Society is defined as a dangerous evil society, while we are often implicitly allowed to exist. The attitude of the official agencies is also one of the main reasons why we can suppress the Dark Gold Society.
"As for the issue of dark gold you just mentioned... In fact, there are many mysteries surrounding the deity dark gold. Historically, His name appeared alongside the Secret Merchant Society, and information about Him is very scarce, making it difficult for ordinary people to make any judgments... However, I already mentioned it, right? The split of the Secret Merchant Society originated from infighting among the upper echelons. After the infighting ended, the Black Coin Noble even claimed to be the incarnation of dark gold.
"For a large society with a deity in good condition... this level of infighting shouldn't really occur. Almost no deity in the entire Fourth Epoch has ever descended in the name of an incarnation. Therefore, in my opinion, it's debatable whether this dark gold even exists in the first place, and even if He does, He's probably not in a normal state."
Responding to Dorothy, Beverly's words continued to appear on the pages of the "wen hai hang zhi". After reading them, she finally understood why the Craftsmen's Guild could suppress the Dark Gold Society. Then, Dorothy picked up her pen again and began to write on the page.
"The Dark Gold Society is hostile to you, so you think the problem with the Truva Craftsmen's Guild outpost is their doing?"
Dorothy finished writing, then waited quietly for the text to sink into the page. Before long, Beverly's response reappeared.
"That is natural. We and the Dark Gold Society are mutually hostile. Their attacks on us in all aspects have never stopped, ranging from commercial competition to armed clashes.
"For example, they often use the convenience of their abilities to silently replace a city's Craftsmen's Guild outpost through infiltration and assassination. Then they would disguise themselves as members of our Craftsmen's Guild and conduct transactions with other hidden individuals in the city, collecting information about the entire city's hidden world while trading. After obtaining the customers' locations, they would secretly go out and harvest the customers, taking their Extraordinary resources and even the customers themselves.
"After harvesting a city's Extraordinary resources as much as possible using this method in a short time, they would immediately withdraw and choose the next target. This way, they not only harvested Extraordinary resources but also ruined the Craftsmen's Guild's reputation in the local hidden world, making it very difficult for the Craftsmen's Guild to rebuild an outpost there and giving them an opportunity to come back later to dominate the hidden market there. Judging from your description of the situation in Truva, that should be what is happening there now. Since you bought something from them, you'd best be careful. There should be things like Beacon Sigils mixed in with what you bought. They will come to harvest you soon after locating you."
At an extremely fast speed, Beverly's words appeared on Dorothy's page as if typed by a typewriter. After reading this information, Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief, then continued to pick up her pen and respond.
"Thank you for the reminder, but it might be a little late. Those guys have already been here. They were two Wall Walkers, and I've already dealt with them."
"Oh, you've already handled it? That's impressive. Since they sent two Wall Walkers, it means they thought quite highly of you. You managed to deal with them; that's quite capable."
"Who do you think I am..." Dorothy wrote on the paper in a conversational tone. As she wrote, she bit the tip of her pen and thought for a while, then continued writing.
"Oh, speaking of Wall Walkers, I have one more thing I want to ask you. Does the Dark Gold Society have some special secret method? It can make Black Earth Wall Walkers who are primarily'Shadow' and secondarily'Stone' as hard as those who are primarily'Stone', so hard that even handguns can't penetrate them. Because of this, I couldn't deal with them immediately and wasted a lot of Spirituality."
Dorothy finished writing, then quietly waited for a response. After a short pause, Beverly's words reappeared on the page.
"Who told you that Wall Walkers are primarily'Shadow' and secondarily'Stone'?"
Looking at Beverly's response, Dorothy paused, then immediately wrote.
"I heard it from an An Yin Bureau Hunter from Alster. When I met him, he was being hunted by a killer from the Eight Point Nest and told me when he was about to die. Is that not right?"
"That's definitely not right. First, you need to know that the Wall Walker path is the Dark Gold Society's most important inherited path. It's rare in other societies, including the Eight Point Nest. So the killer you encountered back then was probably not an Eight Pointed Nest spider guy, but someone from dark gold. I told you before, dark gold's business is very broad, including hired assassination. As long as you can pay, many people can hire a Dark Gold Society killer to kill someone. You likely encountered a Dark Gold Society killer hired by the Eight Point Nest.
"Before the Dark Gold Society begins activities in a new area, they often deliberately leak some incorrect hidden information into the hidden circle of that area to confuse people. After their actions are initially noticed, the false information they release often includes some false information about Wall Walkers, the most typical of which is confusing the spiritual composition of Wall Walkers.
"I can tell you directly that the spiritual composition of Wall Walkers is primarily'Stone' and secondarily'Shadow', not primarily'Shadow' and secondarily'Stone'. That Hunter from Alster was completely mistaken because he was misled by the false information they spread in Alster. For official secret agencies, if the spiritual composition of an Extraordinary profession is misrepresented, the measures they formulate will also be misjudged. They can use these errors to gain advantageous opportunities in confrontation, just like how you unnecessarily lost Spirituality just now because of false information. They particularly like to spread such rumors in areas where they are just starting activities to facilitate their actions.
"In the hidden world, due to Spirit Sight and clandestine activities, the flow of information within various hidden circles is very poor. Everyone has significant information gaps between each other, and it is difficult to form much common unified understanding among themselves. The Dark Gold Society often uses this information barrier to employ many deceptive strategies. In Prit, the traces of the Dark Gold Society's activities are not significant, so even the secret police of Prit have insufficient understanding of the Dark Gold Society. The number of people who know the correct spiritual composition of Wall Walkers is likely very small, except for the old guys in Tivian."
Beverly's words appeared on the page one by one. Looking at this series of texts, Dorothy couldn't help but freeze slightly in place. She hadn't expected that she had been misled. The so-called Wall Walkers were not primarily "Shadow" and secondarily "Stone" at all; they were completely primarily "Stone" and secondarily "Shadow"! They were Second Order hardened skin, so they could definitely block handgun bullets.
...
Hmm... I have things to do tomorrow and will be quite busy. Also, I'm a bit stuck on the writing, and it's the beginning of the month, so I plan to take a day off to adjust.