Chapter 1853: Paranoid Or Prudent?
With Karl constantly refilling the shelves, and Rue making more of what was selling in large batches that had simple designs, the crowd began to rapidly disperse.
There was only so much that they could afford, and now that they had what they came for, it was time to go back to their chosen disciples and finish the orientation rituals.
Every Clan had something that they did to welcome new members.
Some of them made a huge deal about it when they got back to the Clan, some of them had the new member take on a mission to prove their worth before they even got back to the rest of the Clan. But there was always something to make the new member feel like part of the group.
In Rue’s mind, it was mostly just trauma bonding. But she also had very poor luck with Clans in the past, and even her own had still maintained a form of hazing ritual to weed out those who would betray the Clan with little motivation.
It had worked wonderfully, and many moles had been eliminated before they could ever report back to their home Clans.
Usually, she wouldn’t leave them dead. She would simply drop them on the far side of the continent next to an active treasure location and let them fend for themselves. If they were lucky, they got a reward. If they were not, they were killed by the others who were actually looking for the treasure.
Karl finished with the customers that were currently in the shop, and then waited for the ones who had surely been delaying their entrance until there was less of a lineup.
Many of the Elders disliked crowds, and didn’t trust members of other Clans in such close proximity.
Especially given the constant feuds.
As the room cleared, two Peak Immortals came in wearing badges with what Karl immediately identified as a [Recall] spell on them. That was a whole new level of paranoia, in his opinion. You could keep a lifesaving device on you that had the effect, but keeping it out in the open to discourage people from trying to kill you?
That was just a bit weird.
"Good evening, how can I help you today?" Karl asked.
"We have come with a proposal from the Yizimon Clan’s mining conglomerate. It has come to our attention that your Guild has a particularly well-built dungeon raiding team, and we would like to arrange a deal to trade dungeon clearance attempts for raw materials."
Karl frowned. "Perhaps this would be better discussed in the office. Please, follow me."
He took a seat across from the two Peak Immortals, and set the privacy spell to block all sound in and out of the room. It would be better if there were no misunderstandings about the level of privacy here.
"Alright, so how would you propose that this deal works?" Karl began.
"Well, our Yizimon Clan controls two low-grade dungeons. However, while the dungeons are considered low grade, the difficulty is actually quite high, as they consist of nothing but three roaming bosses at Peak Immortal power output.
While that is not great from the viewpoint of those who do dungeons looking for rewards, the dungeon area itself is actually quite large, and set up as an underground mine.
So, we send teams in to control the bosses while the workers dig.
That is how we formed the Mining Conglomerate, and the mines contain a wealth of high grade crafting materials, gems and rare ores that can’t easily be synthesized with magic.
Even with Earth Manipulation.
So, we would like to contract your team to do the control work, keeping the bosses away from the mining teams, in exchange for a share of the gathered resources.
You are a crafting Guild, so it’s only natural that you would need the resources that the mines provide.
But the instance is otherwise under the control of the Yizimon Clan, not open to the public."
Karl nodded slowly as he began to understand the issue.
"So, you are short on members who are strong enough to keep the bosses contained, and if a second or third boss patrols over, you are currently forced to abandon your mining efforts and waste a visit to the instance, correct?"
The two men looked uncomfortable, which told Karl that he was correct.
"I don’t see an issue with that. As you said, my team is exceptionally skilled at dealing with dungeon bosses. However, we may also be able to defeat the bosses, which would put us in an awkward place, as we wouldn’t need your miners anymore, only permission to use your dungeon in exchange for a portion of the collected rewards."
The two immediately saw where Karl was going with this. If the Darklight Host could actually kill the bosses, they were in the stronger position.
They weren’t just holding off as long as they could so that a mining team could work. At least, not if they could actually kill the bosses.
"How many people do you need for a Peak Immortal Boss fight? The instance allows up to twenty-five in total, including the mining team. While it is certainly possible to clear the dungeon with a full team of Ascended Immortals, we are not particularly interested in that trade."
Karl nodded. "I was thinking of ten for the fight, with fifteen of yours to mine. And then we take a share for protection, plus any extra that we can mine after the bosses are dead.
Assuming that we can defeat them entirely, that is."
The two men considered that. "I think that can work. By the time that you finish the fights, a large portion of the dungeon should already be cleared, but clearing the entire thing would take two to three hours with fifteen people.
If you’re willing to have your combat team help mine after the bosses are dead, we won’t begrudge you what you can get, and we will pay the combat fee out of what is collected by our team. Twenty-five percent, by market value. No exclusions, but no more than half of any resource with more than four pieces."
