Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 371: Setting Terms

While it was widely known that seeing and just hearing about something gave completely different feelings, only those who experienced such things could truly understand.

At this moment, Sidal was able to relate to the saying more than anything else.

Apart from the head officer who was more concerned about his aching body having already faced the astral beast, looking at the towering body, everyone else was scared out of their wits.

As even in death, the beast emanated a presence that struck fear into their hearts, while the astral energy compelled a repulsive and nauseating feeling.

Then you had trepidation towards Ezra who had killed such a beast-they could see at least three large holes made in its body-causing some of their throats to dry.

Without concern for their expressions, Ezra turned to Sidal. "Mr. Sidal, does this confirm my claims?"

"Ah" Sidal quickly regained his bearing, and pushed his glasses back in place. "Please give me a few minutes"

"Sure" Ezra shrugged and Sidal hurriedly tapped on his communicator.

As if to prove its sophistication, parts of the base shifted to reveal multiple metal appendages, which then carefully grabbed the corpse at different parts before raising it up.

Upon doing so, the floor of the storage also opened up to reveal a large white basin, in which blood dripped into.

"I’m impressed. Have you dealt with astral beast corpses before?" Ezra commented.

"No" Sidal shook his head. "But this storage was built with that in mind"

In no time, a skinny man came running, holding up his long robe and...a crown? In place.

Sweating as he stopped in front of Sidal, he quickly wiped away the sweat and straightened his posture. "Sir, I’m here. I made it in time"

Garbed in long sleeved dark purple robes that lightly grazed the floor, the man was adorned with jewellery all over.

Small gold earrings and multiple silver bracelets on both hands assented his taste before finishing things up with a white helmet that only stretched down the back of his head to his neck, making it look like a crown when observed from the front.

Attached to it was a gold plumage, which was a streak of gold hair stretching down from the top of the helmet, looking like a horse’s tail.

All in all, his attire was very ’unique’.

Ezra felt like he was looking at a member of royalty, as they were the only ones who could dress like this in Orion.

Though when placed on the man’s rich yellow skin tone and handsome face, it all weirdly clicked into place.

Clicking his tongue, Sidal tapped his communicator. "Yes. Thank the stars for your luck"

The man left a heavy sigh of relief, Ezra wondered what Sidal had threatened him with.

"Mr. Sylvester, this our alchemist, Warren Albas"

"Pleased to meet you" Albas slightly lowered his head.

The introduction had Ezra skeptical, but he simply nodded as approval, it wouldn’t be his first time meeting peculiar people.

Rather, as he found, most of those who were skilled had peculiarities.

Albas quickly walks to the astral beast’s corpse, intriguing Ezra.

’He’s not dumb enough to touch it with his bare hands? Is he?’

Ezra thought so, but remained silent.

Upon reaching the corpse, the man brought out a set of purple gloves and some glass tubes from a storage bag of some kind and wore them.

Placing the glass tube underneath the lifted corpse, Albas fills it till half point with blood before placing it by his side.

Then, he takes out a small transparent orb encasing a bright white light and dipping very little of it into the tube.

Upon contact with the astral blood, the light within the orb changed colour, turning from white to purple.

Turning to Sidal, Albas gave a thumbs up, giving the green light.

Glad that all his worries turned out to be unfounded, Sidal gave a bright smile.

Turning to Ezra, he lowers his head.

"I apologize for the excessive examination, but I had to be-

"I understand. I simply hope this proves my authenticity" Ezra cut him short.

"Yes, yes. Of course"

"Good. I also hope that I won’t have to go through such tedious process the next time I intend to process an astral beast"

That struck a chord with Sidal, as he hadn’t thought that far.

’Is he implying that he might have more astral beast corpses stored away, or that killing an astral beast is no big deal for him?’

Killing an astral beast was usually done by a group of higher beings who were backed and nurtured by large clans or other organizations.

Meaning the corpses were processed by the organization, making it a scarcity, rarely sold since after all, the elixirs and weapons would be used to boost the clansmen and develop the clan.

The same went for Nascents who could hunt fledgling beasts single handedly.

Firstly, there are very few nascents that rose to that stage without nurturing, not to mention that they would rather use the elixirs themselves than sell it to increase the power of their competitor.

So, Sidal couldn’t help but feel that Ezra’s words were arrogant, yet at the same time, he was excited at the possibility.

’If it turns out he’s not bluffing...’

When he reached the end of this thought, something popped up in his mind right away.

’I have to secure an exclusive contract with him right away!’

Sidal realized that he might’ve changed upon his golden rope that would elevate him through multiple ranks.

Ezra’s voice shattered his thought bubble’s and brought him back to reality.

"Mr. Sidal?"

"Yes yes" Sidal responded, nodding heavily, "You can be rest assured that won’t have to go through such a tedious process the next time you come here"

Ezra simply nodded. "Alright, since all doubts have been cleared, I’ll be taking beast’s body now and come back to finish ironing out the details once my remuneration is paid-"

Remembering the circumstances that led to this moment, Sidal’s soul almost left his body, interrupting Ezra in a rush.

"Wait, Mr. Sylvester. There’s no need for you to do that"

"Huh?"

Instantly, skyfall appeared in Ezra’s hands as his presence burst out in full, causing everyone nearby to stagger.

"No, no, no, no, no! Please don’t misunderstand! I mean no bad intent!"

Seeing the situation about to devolve into a misunderstanding, Sidal spoke with urgency, quickly calming rising tensions.

Withdrawing his presence, Ezra spoke in a skeptical tone while his eyes remained cold. "Then, what exactly do you mean?"

Regaining his wits, Sidal coughed to clear his throat as he wound up his words to save the situation.

"Actually" he started. "Whilst I hadn’t told head officer, I had planned to negotiate terms with you once I could confirm the astral beast’s corpse, but my excitement got the better of me and I almost caused a massive misunderstanding"

"Would it not be better to discuss terms after I have enough capital as we initially agreed?"

Upon hearing this, Sidal’s mind went straight into panic mode.

’No, no, no, no! That’s the worst option!’

If he let Ezra leave without binding him to any legal commitment, he would surely lose his chance!

It would take a day or at least, a whole week before Ezra’s remuneration would be remitted, and Sidal wasn’t so naïve to think other, bigger, merchant groups wouldn’t find Ezra within that time to negotiate better, more lucrative deals with him.

From the moment the security guards saw the astral beast corpse, it became only a matter of time before news of it would spread, before it would then become public knowledge.

He couldn’t even be certain that there wasn’t even another merchant out right now looking for Ezra.

Furthermore, there were likely dozens of informants waiting for the head officer’s report, as even he had one there too!

He’d only chanced upon the head officer through sheer luck! As it was his merchant sense that alerted him!

All of this combined virtually meant this was his only chance at grabbing the golden rope in front of him.

After so many years of strife, Sidal was definitely not going to let this one slip through his fingers!

Honestly, Sidal could only berate himself for not taking Ezra far more seriously from the start.

Maybe it was suspended disbelief that had him doubting even though in his heart he wanted it to be true?

Well, hearing that an astral beast was killed single handedly by a rank two transcendent would do that to a person.

Straightening his posture, Sidal’s gaze sharpened, he felt all his years of experience were for this present moment.

He had to convince Ezra-a new client-to sign an exclusive and he couldn’t accept no for an answer.

"I’m not sure about Mr. Sylvester, but I believe that it would better to at least set rudimentary terms of a contract in place as soon as possible to avoid delay as the remission of your reward may take some time"

’Hmm, that’s true’ Ezra inwardly agreed, staring straight at Sidal, whose gaze no longer shook.

While wary, Ezra steeled his nerves, opportunities always came with risk. He would try to run from reality.

’Well, I can’t lose much either way’

"Alright" Ezra gave the go-ahead. "Let’s do that"

Nodding, Sidal jubilated in his mind. The first step-getting the other party to the negotiating table-was successful.

But this was just the beginning.

"Wonderful. But it wouldn’t do to keep talking while standing, why don’t we all take a seat?"

Quickly, a round table and three chairs-all white in colour-were arranged into the base.

With it being big enough to fit two of the astral beast corpses, there was more than enough space for two people.

Two people as Ezra requested that the head officer excuse them for a bit.

While he was thankful to the fellow, bringing a third party to a negotiation table was unnecessary and would be very out of place.

Ezra sat on one side while Sidal sat on the other end, with his back to the astral beast corpse, while the security arranged themselves ten meters behind.

Even the alchemist lay in tow, as while he would love to request permission to leave, his senses told him from previous experiences that interrupting Mr. Sidal in this moment was definitely not a good idea.

So he stood alongside the security guards, mute as a statue.

Common sense was not wasted on him, it seems.

Seated, Sidal slowly eases into the talks, and based on the few exchanges they’d had, he made a rough outline of Ezra’s personality.

In order to minimize the chances of failure, he was going to use the traits that Ezra seemed to appreciate the most.

Honesty and straight talk.

"Mr. Sylvester. Are you going for a complete dismantling or do you want to do partial processing? If so, which parts of the beasts do you want processed?"

"I’m going for a complete processing. The blood and flesh will be refined into elixir and pills while the bones are to be forged into weapons"

"Okay" Sidal responded. "What sort of elixirs do you want made and what types of weapons do you want forged?"

"Hmm..." Ezra’s voice trailed off.

’I hadn’t thought of that’

He hadn’t thought that far.

"How much do you know about the Red dragon clan?"

The out of the blue question stunted Sidal’s momentum, but he managed to calmly respond. freeweɓnovel.cѳm

"I know a bit of Red dragons, what of it?"

"What kind of astral elixirs are they mostly in need of?"

"The kind of astral elixirs they are mostly in need of...hum!" Sidal’s breath caught a pause when he realized what Ezra was hinting at.

"Yes, I intend to sell the elixirs to the red dragon clan"

This was big news.

But his next words were basically bombshells.

"I might use your company as my trading intermediary"

Sidal had trouble stopping his gasp, this was shocking news!

"You’re into trade with the red dragon clan?" Sidal inquired in a tone laced with incredulity and disbelief.

Tapping his chin, Ezra replied. "Well, I will likely soon be"

Immediately, Sidal caught himself.

’Right, I need to calm down. It was stupid for me to get so excited when nothing’s even confirmed yet’

On the other hand, Ezra felt that his plan of baiting Sidal was working-he hadn’t spoken out of impulse.

Thinking about it, trading with the patron in person was not a wise move.

Not first mentioning the fact she would be stronger than him, making an in face meeting a stupid action.

Having to continuously contact Evanol to coordinate dealing on his lonesome would easily have him demystified and his hidden identity stripped of any mysteriousness.

That would not benefit Ezra in any way at all, which is why he decided to suddenly reveal an upcoming trade with the red dragon clan to Sidal.

It wasn’t like he was lying, Ezra planned to sell the elixirs to the red dragon clan. Specifically, Evanol’s patron, which was why he requested his contact information-it was what he had in mind when he mentioned trading to Evanol.

"So?" Ezra replied.

"So?" Sidal replied back, confused.

"Which astral elixirs does the red dragon clan buy most?"

"Ah. That would be cultivation enhancers and bloodline strengtheners" Sidal answered.

"Then I want all of its blood made into cultivation enhancing elixirs, how much will that cost and how long will it take?"

"Hmm, I have to clarify that refining astral blood into elixirs consumes a lot of resources, including many expensive ingredients"

"Refining such a large amount of blood would cost you at least 16 million Cryst"

"I see" Ezra wasn’t fazed by the astronomical amount at all, as it was within his estimated range.

This was why Evanol was surprised when Ezra hinted that he wasn’t selling the corpse as it was.

Processing astral beasts required astronomical amounts of money. The kinds of which only large organizations or rich individuals would be able to fork out.

And whilst there was no shortage of rich people, only clans had the manpower to kill astral beasts as very few mercenary groups had such capabilities.

If they did, they’d soon be recruited by a clan, leaving rich individuals with the only option of purchasing finished products-elixirs-sold by these clans and sometimes, top class merchant companies.

Processing just the blood into elixirs would cost at least 16 million Cryst! That was enough to tell you that processing the entire corpse would cost at least 30 million Cryst!

"That corpse contains at least seven thousand litres of blood. With that much, I expect at least thirty elixirs to be produced"

To quote a minimum of thirty bottles over a reserve of seven thousand litres-it sounded absurd to whoever heard it.

But refining astral blood was just that hard, as at least twenty percent of the blood would be wasted, and this was the case top class alchemists.

Lower ranked alchemists could have more than fifty percent wasted.

As for alchemists that would lose more than half, it was a question of what they were doing trying to process astral blood in the first place!

Naturally, AlphaNova wouldn’t hire just anybody. So, Albas was definitely a capable alchemist despite his looks.

"I understand" Sidal nodded.

"How long will that take?"

"Two months, no, a month and half should be enough"

"Hmm, that’s a bit long, but okay"

’He seems serious about it though’ Sidal observed.

’Time will tell’

Nothing was for certain, but for now, he still had to secure that exclusive contract to at least get the rights to the astral beast in front of him if nothing else.

"As for the weapons I want forged, I’d like to meet the blacksmith in person to tell him my specifications"

"Alright. But he’s not around at the moment, so you might have to wait a few days to see him"

"Okay" Ezra nodded. "It seems all the terms have been settled, I will come back once I receive my remunerations to finalize our agreement"

As Ezra motioned to rise from his seat, Sidal spoke.

"Please wait. There is another matter I would like to discuss with you"

Intrigued, Ezra placed his hands back on the table. "I’m listening"