Running a Magic Magazine in Dalaran

The Secrets of Severosa was the name of the magic monthly Orendo had privately launched in Dalaran.

Because the editor-in-chief of Kirin Tor Monthly had adamantly refused his request for payment, and Dalaran's official resources had continued to ignore him.

Short on spending money, Orendo simply decided to steal Kirin Tor Monthly's business and create his own magic monthly to make money.

Printing was not particularly difficult; this world already had magical printing technology. Combining it with printing techniques from Earth, Orendo modified magical printing and set up a complete set of equipment on the first floor of his castle to begin printing his own magic monthly.

Dalaran had no laws stating that only Kirin Tor Monthly could exist, nor were there regulations forbidding mages or residents from printing their own newspapers.

A copy of Kirin Tor Monthly, which cost roughly three silver coins to produce, could sell for ten Dalaran gold coins. With monthly sales of over fourteen thousand copies, that meant production costs of three or four hundred gold coins could bring in one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty thousand gold coins a month!

That was more outrageous than a ten-thousandfold profit—it was a profit of tens of thousands of times! After Kirin Tor Monthly explicitly rejected his demand for payment, Orendo simply came out to grab the money himself. That was how The Secrets of Severosa came to be.

Orendo appointed himself editor-in-chief and owner, dragged his good friend Kel'Thuzad over to serve as an editor, and also roped in Kel'Thuzad's friend Ansirem Ruin to help.

The monthly's content was mainly written by Orendo himself, with Kel'Thuzad and Ansirem Ruin contributing a little as well. His mentor Solarian also provided some research results, and even Nielas Aran submitted a paper on the state of southern mages.

At the same time, in the first issue, he announced that any mage was welcome to publish their academic findings, emphasizing that he was different from Kirin Tor Monthly. Every mage's academic work and paper published in The Secrets of Severosa would receive appropriate compensation!

He even openly disclosed the payment for Nielas Aran's least academic paper, The Current State of Stormwind Mages. The amount immediately made many mages who heard of it green with envy.

It was merely an investigative paper, the sort of article any southern mage could write, yet The Secrets of Severosa had actually paid one thousand Dalaran gold coins for it!

That was right—Orendo wanted to use a thousand gold coins to buy a horse's bones. Unlike Kirin Tor Monthly, The Secrets of Severosa had no official status. Without benefits, most people would likely submit to Kirin Tor Monthly, since papers published there could more easily draw the attention of Dalaran's upper ranks.

To make his magic monthly more appealing, Orendo even published a powerful spell at the end of the magazine—Severosa's Grand Fireball!

With the help of the Eye of Truth, he had drawn inspiration from the Grand Fireball Technique in his previous life's Naruto, combining mages' Fireball spells with Dragon's Breath and then refining it under Aegwynn's guidance to create this new spell.

This new spell allowed mages to breathe fire from their mouths, while the Grand Fireball also possessed the ordinary Fireball spell's trait of being able to vary greatly in power.

Even in Dalaran, this was an exceptionally powerful evocation spell. If not for increasing the appeal of his first magic monthly, he would never have paid such a steep price by placing this powerful spell in it.

The first issue of The Secrets of Severosa contained five papers and one new spell incantation. Orendo himself contributed two papers, Kel'Thuzad published his latest research on pet rations, Ansirem Ruin published his research on casting materials for teleportation spells, and Nielas Aran contributed that social survey paper any southern mage could write.

Altogether, it came to around thirty pages. Unlike Kirin Tor Monthly, The Secrets of Severosa did not use ordinary paper, but Silverleaf Paper containing a certain amount of arcane power. With Orendo's aesthetic sense shaped by countless newspapers and magazines from his previous life, the latter was also more exquisite, more attractive, and more eye-catching.

And in order to expand sales while also showing off its prestige, Orendo enchanted every copy of The Secrets of Severosa with a small spell.

This spell ensured that only the purchaser could read The Secrets of Severosa. Whenever someone wished to open it, they had to recite a password to the monthly—the password was set by the purchaser when the magazine was first opened.

If the password was incorrect, the monthly could not be opened for reading. If someone forcibly opened it, the magazine's self-destruct mechanism would activate, and the entire book would burst into flames.

That was also why Kirin Tor Monthly used ordinary printing paper, while The Secrets of Severosa required magical paper such as Silverleaf Paper.

Only magical paper could be enchanted, allowing the spell's effects to last for a long time.

This meant a monthly could only be read by its purchaser, at most being lent to one or two friends. It ensured that the magazine would not be easily pirated and could also boost sales somewhat.

With magical paper and enchantments, the production and printing cost of a single copy of The Secrets of Severosa alone came to more than three gold coins—over a hundred times the cost of Kirin Tor Monthly.

That did not even include the payments to Kel'Thuzad and the others. Once those payments were included, the cost definitely exceeded four gold coins.

Of course, compared with Kirin Tor Monthly, it was also more exquisite and more prestigious—a magazine that required a password to read, a magical book with self-destruct capabilities. It was more high-class than an ordinary book, wasn't it?!

A copy of The Secrets of Severosa, which cost over three Dalaran gold coins to produce, was priced the same as Kirin Tor Monthly at ten Dalaran gold coins. Preorders were supported, with home delivery!

In the seven days since its release, more than 3,500 copies had already been sold. After deducting costs and payments, Orendo had earned over twenty thousand Dalaran gold coins.

It was not a ten-thousandfold profit, but the profits were still extremely generous. And as sales increased, costs would decline slightly, allowing profits to rise again.

If sales could reach ten thousand copies, he could earn roughly seventy to eighty thousand Dalaran gold coins a month.

He could vent his anger, fatten his empty wallet, and expand his influence all at once. Orendo was doing it very happily.

Today, he once again received several friends who had been helping him recently on the first floor of his castle laboratory, which had temporarily been converted into the printing plant and headquarters of The Secrets of Severosa.

Before Kel'Thuzad and the others, Orendo explained why he had summoned them.

"Everyone, I have a new idea. An idea that can make our monthly more tasteful and more beloved by mages. At the same time, it can reduce everyone's workload and lower costs."