Opposite the "Wind Ladder" is a corridor. Nikita opened the door at the end of the hallway, turned and made a "please enter" gesture to Roland.

Roland took two deep breaths to stabilize his slightly nervous mood and strode into the council chamber.

In the spacious and bright hall, the rulers of Beacon Hill, the chief masters of the eight arcane schools, were all present, and when they saw Roland enter, they all stood up and smiled and applauded the prince who had come from afar.

"I'm really sorry to wait for the masters for a long time......" After entering the door, Roland first stood still, bowed to the eight chiefs, and then took the initiative to shake hands with the masters one by one, showing enthusiasm and humility.

Two years ago in the Star Boundary, Roland had met with the masters. At that time, the war situation was urgent, and he didn't have time to communicate more, but fortunately, he had a good memory, and he still remembered the names of each master and the school he belonged to, and he didn't make jokes about Zhang Guan Li Dai when he greeted him.

The chief of the five schools of spells, variations, illusions, confusion control, and protection was not familiar with Roland, and seemed somewhat reserved. The old man Kosygin of the prophetic school is an old acquaintance with Roland, and the first sentence of the meeting invited him to visit the lighthouse bank, and joked that he asked "the governor of the central bank to guide the work", which made Roland's cheeks hot and embarrassed, and quickly said: "Don't dare to be, I am here to learn from the masters......"

"It's strange that you cheeky boy has times when you're embarrassed!" Old man Kosygin laughed and hooked up with the young man, without the usual demeanor of an elder.

Mrs. Anna had long regarded Roland as a quasi-son-in-law, and she couldn't get used to seeing Cosygin bullying him, so she pushed the old man aside very righteously, pulled Roland to ask for warmth in a soft voice, and asked him if the pomegranate was delicious.

Of course, Roland nodded vigorously and said that it was delicious, so he was told to bring a large bag with him when he went back and take it back to share with relatives and friends......

Mr. Andre, the lord of Lighthouse Mountain, the chief of the Plastic Energy School, and the legendary archmage "Red Robe", expressed his appreciation for his son-in-law in a more upright way: "Hurry up and get down to business, let's find a place to drink after we get down to business, and we won't go home if we don't get drunk!" ”

Roland was hesitating to accept his invitation, and the mother and daughter on the other side had a tacit understanding and flew into their eyes, so the plan to buy drunk had to be stranded.

After chatting for a while, the guests and hosts sat down one after another and began to talk about business.

Roland didn't go around in circles, and frankly stated the two purposes of his visit to Beacon Hill.

The first is, of course, to visit Nikita, a confidante, in the hope that she can help her in the advanced trials she will participate in tomorrow. Hearing this, Mrs. Anna turned her head and looked at her baby daughter with a smile, Nikita's pink eyes flushed, and she leaned into her mother's ear and whispered in shame: "Don't listen to what he says, in fact, visiting me is only incidental, and the business is still to come!" Lady Anna smiled but did not say a word, but touched her daughter's hair lovingly.

Roland had already heard that the chief of the eight major congresses was all old, but most of them were single men and women, and it was best to stop "showing affection" in moderation, and straighten his sitting posture to make himself look more serious.

"Another purpose of this visit to Beacon Hill is to seek technical support from all knowledgeable masters and carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of communication and media."

"Looking for technical support?" Andrei pondered, "In other words, you need us to provide some arcane arts that can be applied to communications and press publishing?" ”

"That's what it means." Roland nodded and smiled.

Andre whispered a few words with his colleagues, then turned back to Roland and said: "There are many spells and magic devices in this area, you can refine the requirements, what are the specific standards, so that we can have a direction to follow." ”

Roland has already considered this question, and he also knows that this kind of core technology related to the industrial foundation will affect the whole body, so he can't be ambiguous, and he has the cheekiness to answer with bargaining skills: "There is actually only one requirement - good quality and low price." ”

"Good quality and low price", a little more elaborate is called "cost-effective". The spell sought by Roland will inevitably be widely used in the communication and media-related industries of the Far East in the future, and if the cost of the spell is too high, all subsequent industrial chains will have to increase the cost accordingly, which will also compress the profit margin in disguise.

So, where does the cost of spells come from?

Without considering the solidification of spells into magicians, you only need to consider the service fee for hiring mages to cast spells.

Spellcasters in the world of Varess adhere to a default industry rule, and the average cast service fee is 10 for the spell's ring × caster ×level (usually in Imperial Gold).

Specific to different countries and regions, due to the different proportions of casters in the population, the demand for spell services in society is also different, and the spellcasting service fee may vary greatly. However, in general, the cast cost fluctuates around the above-mentioned benchmark price, and it is also realistic to use the benchmark price directly when performing macro statistics on the cast cost, and can simplify the calculation.

As you can see from the formula of the base cast price, there are two ways to reduce the cast price. The first is to hire as low-level casters as possible.

For example, hiring someone to cast the "Fireball Technique", the cost of hiring a level 20 mage to cast spells is at least twice as expensive as hiring a level 10 mage, but the damage of the "Fireball Technique" has its upper limit, and the casting effect of a level 10 mage and a level 20 mage is basically the same, so hiring the former is obviously a more rational choice.

However, there are prerequisites for this way of reducing the cost of casting. For example, if an employer needs a "delayed burst fireball", a level 10 mage cannot provide this service, and only a mage above level 13 can cast this 7-ring spell, which is a hard constraint. Under-ranked mages can also cast the spell with the help of scrolls or staffs, but the cost of casting is much higher.

In addition to compressing the cast level, another idea to reduce the cost of the cast service is to reduce the spell level. For example, if someone needs a mage's help to teleport to a place a hundred miles away, a 5-ring "teleportation" or a 7-ring "advanced teleportation" will meet the requirements, and it is obviously cheaper to choose a lower-level "teleportation".

Roland put forward the requirement of "good quality and low price" for communication spells, to put it bluntly, he hoped to use low-level spells to meet the communication and dispatch needs on the railway line as much as possible.

"Today's long-range communication devices in Vares, such as the 'Communication Stone' and the 'Advanced Communication Stone', are all based on the core technology of 5-ring 'short message technology', in my opinion, this technology is very mature, is there any room for improvement?"

While the masters were still discussing, Nikita first questioned Roland's request. It's not appropriate for others to say this, only she can say it, it doesn't matter if it's wrong, the elders are only childish words.