“How many do you need?”
Joanna gazed fixedly at Su Ping. Since Joanna had made it sound serious, Su Ping felt he couldn’t demand an exorbitant amount. After all, each divine crystal represented a fallen god. At the Divinity, Joanna was somewhat of a ruler. Eating her subjects… her fallen people, right in front of her, was not that proper.
“How about ten thousand pieces?” Su Ping
proposed.
Joanna pulled a long face and turned him down right away. “Not possible!”
“How about nine thousand and nine hundred?”
“… No!”
Su Ping bit his teeth. “Then, nine thousand and eight hundred?”
Joanna was speechless. Who would bargain like this?
“One hundred at most.” Joanna kept a straight face.
Su Ping was practically hopping. “One hundred? You are so cheap. I can collect more than one hundred pieces even if I go and kill the Void Bugs by myself. At least five thousand! Do not forget that you are my employee. Do you want to visit the Archean Divinity or not? Those divine crystals are from already deceased gods. I am not asking you to kill someone, am I?”
Joanna made up her mind. “You can threaten to lower my grades but I can only give you two thousand pieces and that is final!”
“Okay!”
Su Ping agreed. Joanna was furious to see Su Ping accepting so readily. “You!” Su Ping interrupted her calmly. “Don’t ‘you’ me. This amount is within your expectations. You must be gloating inside!”
Hmm!
Joanna snorted.
Of course, Su Ping was right to some extent. She made it appear that she was full of wrath but inside, she was happy.
The amount she had predicted was much more than two thousand!
Here was the detailed train of thought she had for this trade war
Back to the second Su Ping mentioned divine crystals. Freeze-frame. Right there. Joanna used 0.01 seconds before she understood what Su Ping was up to.
During that time, she recalled how she had been controlled by Su Ping. He had strict rules for grading her and it was difficult for her to fight him back.
Therefore, the first look she had to put on was surprise with some anger mixed in!
She had to let Su Ping know that this was a serious matter and it was a huge violation to them to talk about this.
As for that Major God who was their driver here, his reaction was perfectly authentic. She gave him a thumbs-up inside and remembered his contribution.
Then, for the following discussion, Joanna stuck to her serious, determined attitude!
Hence, the negotiation began.
Su Ping asked for the divine crystals, dead to shame, which was within her expectation. She had to make counteroffers.
She knew the charm and importance of divine crystals and was fully aware that Su Ping would take advantage of her identity. But, Su Ping’s need was bottomless. Greedy as humans were, no amount of treasure could fill that pit.
Here was when her former work came into effect.
Eventually, they struck a deal and she would give him two thousand pieces.
Without the previous efforts, Su Ping would threaten her with her grades. No matter how wealthy she was, Su Ping would milk her dry.
Besides, she had not seen the Archean Divinity yet. Naturally, she wasn’t willing to give up all her wealth to Su Ping for nothing.
Hmm, good for me. This guy might have asked for hundreds of thousands, even a million pieces or more. Where would I get him those? Joanna was happy about herself.
Trying to mess with her?
When she was born, Su Ping’s great, great, great, great, great… great-grandpa had yet to be born!
What was her focus on cultivation? Mind games!
I will take the two thousand divine crystals this time and will come back later to ask for more. She surely forced the numbers down. I think I have to give her some hope of visiting the Archean Divinity some time. Only then will she will fully identify with her status as my ’employee’ and completely fulfill her obligations… Su Ping said to himself.
To win over and control through conciliation was his strategy with Joanna.
The carrot and stick strategy could come in handy as well.
He couldn’t spend all of his time scheming against her. He would be exhausted and truth be told, he wasn’t confident that he could win every time.
After all, Joanna had lived long years. She was more sophisticated than he could imagine.
He had to show her the tangible benefits of being an employee and view her identity as his employee as the most important thing of all. Only by then could he truly control her. By then, it would be her turn to exhaust her ways to please him. He wouldn’t have to beg her like he did just then.
“I will take my time…”
Su Ping was in no rush. He considered how to divide up the two thousand divine crystals and decided to give them all to the Little Skeleton.
Helping the Little Skeleton develop would be more assurance for him.
Last time, in the Divinity, Su Ping had worn himself out and merely collected hundreds of divine crystals which were shared among all of his pets. This time, Su Ping wanted to use all of the two thousand divine crystals on the Little Skeleton to see if it would transform.
“That is the spring.”
Joanna showed Su Ping to a pond behind the building
It was more like a lake with some golden liquid that was emitting divine energy.
Su Ping smelled a lovely scent. He sensed as if he were breathing through every pore. He thought of an idea. If the spring could help refine the pets’ bloodlines, then… Wouldn’t it better his as well?
Joanna glared at him. She must have guessed what was on his mind. “You can bathe in here as well. At least, wash the foolish stink off of
you.”
“I will lower your grades if you continue to talk to me like this!”
“Hmm. I have other things to attend to. Stay here. I will send over a Celestial God. You can tell him if you need anything.”
“A Celestial God?”
Su Ping was surprised that a being more powerful than the legendary battle pet warriors would come to serve him. It was too good to be true.
But this was indeed the truth.
Also, he had hired Joanna the goddess as his employee. He had encountered that mysterious being in the Chaotic Realm of the Undead. While he remained weak, his mind had opened up. A Celestial God could no longer stun him.
After Joanna left, Su Ping called out the pets and he hopped into the spring as well. Feeling the warmth and enjoying the sweet scent, Su Ping felt he was more comfortable than ever before.
He sat in the spring with his legs crossed, bathing himself in the water as he cultivated.
Just as he started cultivating, the divine energy in the spring flowed into him through his pores.
The overwhelming power of the Chaotic Star Char once again demonstrated its strength. Su Ping was immersed in his cultivation, wildly sucking in the divine energy from the spring. He realized that the star vortexes inside of his cells had turned from blue into a soft gold color.
He cultivated for a day.
When he opened his eyes again, he felt full of strength.
He examined himself closely. His realm stayed at the intermediate position of the sixth rank. However, he could tell that the energy within him was much richer and condensed.
It was hard to describe but he was sure that the force he could muster would surpass that of the intermediate position of the sixth rank.
“I always hear people say that aptitudes vary from person to person. I wonder how mine is now.” Su Ping’s eyes flickered. How many people could enjoy a chance to bathe in a Divinity spring?
He checked the pets. They had not changed much. Their ranks remained the same as before. Probably the pets had merely become more intelligent.
That would only be demonstrated in real-life combats.
Su Ping planned on having the pets train in the arena. As for how to get there and how to train, that was not his problem. He could have Joanna take care of that. In the meantime, he could make the best of his time in the spring and cultivate.
Soon, three days had passed.
All the pets’ training had completed and they had progressed by leaps and bounds.
Joanna had bought out the arena in the city just for the pets to train. Those pets dying and reviving repeatedly alerted some people, but since Joanna booked the entire venue, few people were aware of this. Those were all of Joanna’s trusted subordinates and she had ordered them to keep quiet about it.
During rounds after rounds of life-risking battles, all of the pets had learned new skills and they were different from before. Every pet carried a ruthless feeling they had picked up from the senior pets that lived their whole lives in the arena.