To be honest, Ed didn't want to explain the company's concept to Seraphina so early on before he saw the rickshaw.
For some time now, although Ed isn't a professional economics teacher, he's managed to deliver his daily lessons vividly thanks to his ability to use his brain to access the internet.
But he was also very careful to conceal things while telling the story. For example, Seraphina still doesn't know about "compound interest" and was completely taken aback by Ed's simple interest contract that promised to double every hundred years...
But today Ed discovered that although this dragon seemed a bit silly, she was actually very good at using known information to her advantage.
Without the Demonic Tide, this dragon might have been able to become a great banker through self-study in a thousand or two thousand years. By then, riding the wave of industrial revolution, it might have become the richest dragon in the world.
Seeing that the other party was about to go astray, Ed had no choice but to preemptively teach him the trump card concept of "company".
It's a pity that now that Seraphina knows about the company, it seems we won't be able to use it to cash out from her anymore...
Fortunately, Ed also knew about the higher-level concept of "corporation," which means that even in the real world, there is a certain degree of expansion in combat power.
After Ed's explanation, Seraphina finally understood the difference between the so-called company and her village, which was similar to a chieftain's village.
"I'll go back and think about it, and then I'll come back to talk to you after I've made up my mind."
Seraphina left with those words, then carried her solid cast-iron rickshaw back to the bank with one hand.
With the matter finally settled, Ed, carrying the alchemical golem and all the paper documents he had found at the White Wax Town Church, entered the "forbidden zone" to begin his secluded study.
Hundreds of eyes opened from the tips of the vines, Ed was Drain the contents of these documents in an extraordinary way.
This place contains not only all the experimental records from White Wax Town over the past thirty years, but also some letters from different years.
Among these letters, Ed saw two that he had reported to Duolin: the Holy City Commission he had brought with him at the beginning of his term and a secret letter from the Archbishop of the Provincial Governor's Office.
After opening the secret letter, Ed also saw the coded text revealed by the flames.
Based on Yiden's and others' performance, Duolin and others' complete ignorance of some of the shady issues surrounding the Tree Worship Church, and the contents of the two letters, Ed roughly understood the current situation of the Tree Worship Church.
As I deduced, the Tree Worship Church can currently be roughly divided into two categories: the Fallen One and the naive.
Whether there is something in between remains to be discussed.
Looking at the commanding tone of the provincial archbishop in the secret letter, Ed couldn't help but fall into deep thought.
Why is this archbishop acting like a military governor? He doesn't seem to care much about the Holy City's orders.
How outrageous!
This loyal follower of the Tree Worship Church simply couldn't stand it anymore; he'd have to find a way to impeach him sooner or later!
Anyway, whether it's the province or the Holy City, they're both his current enemies. If he could let them fight like dogs, maybe something interesting would happen.
Meanwhile, the tentacles searching through the experimental records also made new discoveries.
Ed reviewed the data chronologically while recording it, and he found that the experimental data from the last ten years were almost useless.
Under prolonged indulgence, Yiden and his colleagues seemed to have forgotten their original mission, mechanically conducting certain experiments without any regard for the loss of experimental subjects, and cutting corners in recording information, appearing to be merely going through the motions.
But scrolling further back, I actually found some useful information.
About fifteen to twenty years ago, Yiden's notes were not so messy. He would carefully record the reactions of the experimental subjects and the results of each experiment.
Although all human experiments are of equal value and no one is superior or inferior, Yiden at this time was at least more serious, which was much better than his completely insane state in the last decade.
This also explains the large number of children disappearing in White Wax Town over the past decade and the continuous decrease in the number of experimental subjects in the dungeon.
Opening the next record, the vines only glanced at it before immediately closing it up and looking at the cover again.
After confirming that its appearance was identical to those of the experimental records, the vine rolled up the notebook and gently placed it in Ed's hands.
This is actually Old Deng's diary!
While it's true that decent people don't keep diaries, Yiden, that old geezer, was clearly not a decent person.
Since he hadn't considered the possibility of losing before today, Ed figured he wouldn't be smart enough to prepare misleading content in his diary beforehand.
He flipped through the thick diary from beginning to end and found that its contents were far more valuable than the numerous experimental records.
After flipping through just a few pages, Ed's eyes were glued to one line of text:
[On the 3rd of the 9th month of King 850, I became a Stained Ones one.]
Ed could easily guess the meaning of "Stained Ones" —it was probably the internal name for the Fallen One within the Tree Worship Church.
But... it's a diary from fifty-eight years ago...
Ed recalled Yiden's appearance and realized that the old man was probably around seventy years old.
However, based on this diary, he should be at least seventy-five years old this year; otherwise, if we calculate based on seventy years old, he would only be twelve years old in the year 850 of the Wangli calendar.
If there truly is a twelve-year-old Stained Ones, then they are simply God's chosen one, a born the Bad Seed.
Following the timeline, Ed continued reading Yiden's legacy.
Although the other party wasn't some so-called time-traveling senior, this diary is still very valuable. Indeed, keeping a diary is truly beneficial to both oneself and others.
Ed quickly found what he was looking for.
The archbishop told me that both animals and plants possess this characteristic: repeated injuries in the same place lead to unexpected proliferation. The things the Stained Ones must do are similar, only more complex.
Ed's eyes darted around, connecting the statement with some knowledge he had gained from his previous life.
He came up with two scenarios: one was hypertrophic scarring, and the other was cancer, which terrifies most people.
Even with trees, a similar situation exists. If you keep cutting the same spot of bark with a knife day after day, the cut area will become extremely ugly.
The Stained Ones of the Tree Worship Church are doing something similar; the archbishop meant to induce unknown mutations in this way and try to sift out the useful ones.
This answers some of Ed's questions, such as why it was necessary to repeatedly torture the poor experimental subjects.
But what does this have to do with the Tree God?
With these questions in mind, Ed continued reading.