Zheng Qing had always known that Beta Town North District was gray.
This grayness was not merely literal—North District Wizards "liked" to wear dull, coarse linen robes; the outer walls of North District houses were often painted a lifeless gray; even the sky above the North District seemed a few shades gloomier than elsewhere on the island.
This grayness also carried a philosophical meaning—compared with the other districts of Beta Town or wizard settlements elsewhere in the world, the social rules observed in Beta Town North District seemed less black and white. It was like a Silent Forest disguised as human society, where the Wizard Codex and the law of the jungle coexisted without conflict, and the boundary between good and evil was somewhat blurred.
From the cryptic, brief exchange between Crow Mask Number Three and the finely dressed North District wizard, Zheng Qing could easily infer what kind of deal the two were making.
In this modern age, when Danhaag and the Wizard Codex had increasingly taken root in people's hearts, the continued existence of ancient slave trading in Beta Town North District sounded impossible.
But Zheng Qing knew that was the reality of the North District—or at least, it had been before Colmar advanced—because tricksters possessed magical reactions, yet their magic was exceptionally weak, making them the best source of test subjects for Black Magic experiments.
Many tricksters willingly signed harsh contracts selling their bodies and souls, perhaps to trade for a powerful healing scroll for their families, or an opportunity for their children to join a small magical organization like Genie's Hut, or perhaps simply because they had given up on themselves and wanted to use a brief, dazzling life to end a long, cold reality.
At least, that was what the North District had been like