A Madman’s Guide to Chapter 7: Provocation

The sun had fully risen. The duplicate Samuel left his house and walked along the streets of Reins.

His clothes blended perfectly with the city: black trousers, a gray vest, a black overcoat, a black bowler hat on his head, and a pair of off-white gloves on his hands.

Unlike last ti, for a better play experience, his current body, abilities, and computing power were all far inferior to the main body.

He only had the body and powers from his Third Life, able to create only so basic illusion magic, and his physical strength could barely lift a small car with one hand.

After activating this body, Samuel retracted most of his spirit. Although both bodies still shared the sa consciousness, the computing power handling information for this side was much smaller, leaving less than one percent.

That explained why previously, when the main body lay down, the duplicate instinctively leaned back and fell to the ground.

It was like operating two accounts at once: when you play seriously on one account, you occasionally glance at the other in the corner of your eye and sotis fidget with it.

But for him this was only an adjustnt. After a few minutes of brief acclimation, he could still live like a normal person, and his reaction speed to the outside world remained much faster than that of ordinary people.

In his left hand he held The Lunatic's World Travel Guide, and between two fingers of his right hand he pinched a few banknotes.

He had fished them out from the drawer above the shoe cabinet before leaving.

This country had two types of currency.

Small denominations were called "sien." Judged by purchasing power, one sien was roughly equivalent to three to five yuan in Samuel's previous life. The large denomination was called "yur," and one yur could be exchanged for one hundred sien.

This made Samuel a little disappointed. He had hoped to experience the dozen-based currency systems common in Western fantasy novels.

Unfortunately, that exchange rate had been changed many years ago.

Back then, twelve sien equaled one ris, and twelve ris equaled one yur.

Now it had been converted to a decimal system, and the interdiate "ris" had been removed, leaving only sien and yur.

The forr served as petty cash, the latter as large-denomination bills, with an exchange ratio of one hundred to one.

Samuel quickly ca to terms with it.

Even if the old system had remained, after the novelty wore off he would probably have lazily called them "copper coins," "silver coins," and "gold coins" and refused to bother converting them.

The few banknotes he held were sien: one, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred—exactly matching the sien denominations in this country. Coins ca in one, five, one-half, and one-quarter.

He hadn't found a yur tied directly to gold value in the drawer above the shoe cabinet.

That was understandable. If the house had been set up for everyday living, then the money in the shoe-cabinet drawer was probably for routine outings or tossed in there when coming ho and changing shoes—als, groceries. In such a case, large bills would be unlikely.

There weren't many notes, but Samuel could simply create more of them out of thin air to double his cash.

A one-to-one perfect copy—if this world had magic bill-verifiers, they probably still couldn't tell real from fake.

After all, it would be a perfect duplicate.

Suddenly, his brows arched.

Samuel's main body had already tried this.

He had indeed found money in the bedside drawer: a twenty-yur note, the highest denomination in the entire currency system.

He could copy it, but he had failed.

The perfectly identical copy felt, instinctively, like counterfeit the mont it was held.

"Is sothing missing?" Samuel muttered.

He moved his fingers and flipped the banknote to the front. The portrait printed on the face was the contemporary king, Corlemon Odius.

It looked like a middle-aged man without a beard. Golden hair, golden eyes, a cleanly shaven face with not even a trace of stubble.

The king's face bore no expression, serious and stern. Because it was only a portrait, no clothing was visible—only the collar around the neck. No scars or decorations marked his face; on his head rested a crown studded with a few gems.

This was the Kingdom of Liastan's currency format: the front bore the portrait of the contemporary monarch plus numbers; the back showed a group portrait of past kings. When a contemporary king died and a new one ascended, the new king would be added to that group portrait on the back.

Since such powerful extraordinaries existed in this world, the royal family should be the strongest among them. Otherwise, the extraordinaries would have no reason to tolerate soone ruling above them.

"So is it because they printed their own portrait on the money, forming so kind of link with themselves?"

He rembered the foolish stunt he'd recently pulled.

Because he had imitated a priest who looked amusing, he had mutated into a tree that looked far from pleasant.

"What if I copy a million or two hundred thousand of them to attract their attention?"

Because his computing power here was minimal, by the ti he had the thought, the main body had already put it into practice.

Samuel, ever the experinter, acted without hesitation.

Determined to beco the Top Spot on the Bottom-feeder Leaderboard, he intended to continue provoking the lowly uncle.

The study filled with stacks of banknotes appeared in an instant, then slowly caught fire. The faces of past kings on the bills were pressed together, blackened, holed, and twisted in the flas, producing thick smoke.

Samuel's main body stood in front of the study, containing the fire so it wouldn't spread, while waiting to see if soone would knock on his door and say, "Samuel, you're under arrest."

But unfortunately, nobody did.

To be exact, no one needed to.

Samuel's main body sensed a gaze. That gaze descended from the sky, pierced the roof, and landed on the "bonfire."

The gaze paused for a few seconds, then began to slowly circle the room before finally fixing on Samuel.

"Why did only you co?" Samuel smiled and looked up to et that stare. "I rember there were six people on the banknote, right? One on the front and five on the back—who are you?"

There was no response. Samuel simply felt the space around him freeze in an instant, the air growing heavy under that scrutiny.

Samuel, however, showed no great reaction. He smiled and waved toward the direction from which the gaze ca.

He followed the gaze and seed to faintly make out a face similar to the contemporary king on the front of the banknote.

The two gazes collided in the air, producing ripples. Even the nearby fire flickered and dimd under the shock.