ATG 5

Two and a half years had passed since Carl had arrived in the world. His daily efforts had been paying off for him. He had just recently broken through into the Emperor Profound realm. When cultivators enter the Sky Profound realm, they are able to freely fly in the sky with their profound energy. When they enter the Emperor Profound realm, they gain control over a domain type ability.

The domain ability was a huge reason why there was no one below the Emperor Profound realm that could realistically fight any Throne. Each cultivator's domain ability was different, but the domain would take control of the element they were most adept in over an area the Throne was fighting in, and turn it to their advantage. If the Throne's opponent didn't also have a domain, they would almost always lose, having to fight against their very surroundings as well as their opponent.

Carl's domain was currently over the element of fire, since that was what he primarily practiced. Having his domain active would increase the power of his fire skills, while decreasing any other elements others would use. Of course when two domains clashed, whoever's skill, affinity, and profound energy proved superior would win out in the end.

Now that he and Rover were Thrones, Carl had received another drop of Phoenix Blood. He was now up to 7 drops. He would occasionally keep an eye on what the various bloodlines were doing to his physical body. Carl was impressed by how much they were improving his base physique. It was sometimes hard to determine which drops of blood were doing what, though, since he had three different bloodlines in addition to the Great Way of the Buddha.

He had mastered the fourth stage of the Great Way of the Buddha, which increased his bodily strength by over 50,000 kilograms. Added on to the strength his Ki and Dragon God's Blood gave him, and he was capable of lifting well over 200,000 kilograms with just his physique alone. Added onto what he could do while channeling his profound energy, and he was able to fight way above his profound level.

Over the last year Carl had mastered the fourth stage of the Golden Crow's Record of the Burning world, and was well on his way to mastering the fifth stage: Golden Annihilation. His mastery of the fire element continued to grow stronger as he grew more adept in the use of his profound energy and elemental manipulation. And Rover was now working on his fire wings. Seeing Rover's two sets of majestic wings flapping separately from each other always brought a smile of amusement to Carl's face. But Rover was proving to be a very fast adversary!

One of the things that Carl had tested with Rover was a number of trap arrays that were powered by profound energy, and he and Rover found out that it didn't impede Rover's use of his Phoenix Flashing ability, which appeared to be magical in nature. So the bird had taken to wandering the world once more, looking for interesting things. He would occasionally bring back rare herbs, fruits, and gems he found in his travels for Carl to add to his farms production. And especially since they attained Emperor Profound realm, the bird had been eager to travel around and see what he could see.

Carl had built his reputation as a good doctor over the past year. He occasionally had to deal with some city official coming around to "inspect" his premises. Which was code for sniffing around for a bribe. So Carl had taken them out to have a meal, and handed over some token amount of herbs, or gold, or whatever.

If there was something he'd learned about the cultivation world, it was that a large majority of people were looking out for their own interests. And having a decent relationship with the officials (smoothed along by bribes) was more important than being in the right where the law was concerned. Problems could be easily solved or "talked" away with the appropriate lubrication. Alternatively, if someone had a poor relation with the officials, it wouldn't matter if they were 100% innocent, they would receive punishment in some way.

It was very different from how Carl had grown up in the states. But it was the way the local people did business, so when in Rome, Carl would skip on the roads leading to it. Or something along those lines.

And Carl only had to deal with three cases where someone was trying to bring a fake sick person that he had supposedly caused with his "poor medical skills" in order to extort money. They expected that Carl would simply pay them to get them to shut up and not ruin his reputation. Fools.

Carl was briefly amused at their audacity, then faintly annoyed. A quick mind scan showed the first one to attempt the ruse was just a scam for money. The subsequent two frauds were schemes from his supposed competition, other doctors who weren't getting as many patients now that Carl's business was booming.

Carl just rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of the schemers. If they had come to him with their concerns, maybe looking to ally with him to build a larger medical business where they all benefitted, Carl would have been quite happy. It would mean he could unload more work to those doctors and focus on his training more. He was only setting up shop in the Capital as a doctor to build a reputation, after all. He didn't really need the work.

But no, the idiots immediately resorted to schemes to try to run him out of business. At that point, he couldn't let it go so easily. To deal with the problem immediately in front of him, Carl had simply slapped the fakers a few times while injecting his profound energy to make them look healthy, and using his magic to cast some jinxes, and suddenly they were the very picture of health as they jumped around and danced like they had never even thought about getting sick, let alone faking it.

So in a way, those scammers and doctors trying to ruin his reputation actually helped him build it when the crowd saw him "heal" them with just a few slaps. They were so generous to give him those opportunities.

Carl was still considering just what he would do in retaliation. If he just left them alone, they would likely continue coming up with more schemes. Carl eventually decided that he would actually go and meet with the two doctors who set up the schemes in the next couple of days. Depending on their character, he might be able to use his Basic Decency Inducing perk to convince them to change their ways. It wouldn't hurt to give it a try, anyway.

He might even go ahead and rope those two doctors into an association anyway. Revenge and retaliation were all nice and fine and would make him laugh, but it wouldn't get him any closer to his goals. At most it would be an instance of losing sight of his goals and getting distracted by trash on the wayside.

'There, if calling others trash doesn't make me a murder hobo, er.. I mean protagonist, then who knows what will!' Carl joked to himself.

Who knows if there wasn't also someone behind the good doctors, goading them on to act the way that they were for some obscure reason? No, getting actual intel on the situation was still the most appropriate first step, Carl decided.

Going off in a rage to kill whoever besmirched his honor wasn't the appropriate first step. Carl kept reminding himself that just because he's living in a cultivation world, doesn't mean he needs to keep running around yelling "You Dare!?" anytime someone doesn't agree with him, all while plotting to kill of their family in retaliation.

With those thoughts and ideas firmly in mind, Carl exited his clinic and started making his way on foot through the city to a local restaurant where he would be meeting Yun Xiao and Seventh Sister. He had spent the past year solidifying his friendship with the two young lovebirds. He met the two several times a month to have a meal or spar, and they seemed to enjoy his company as much as he enjoyed theirs.

Even though the two were ahead of him in cultivation level for the time being, Carl was stronger than them with his various legacies and techniques, and he had many more years of practice in martial skills, so he was able to help the two refine their combat skills greatly. He was sure the two could beat anyone in their own profound realm at this point, aside from him. At the rate they were improving, only another year and they would break through to the Tyrant Profound realm.

He was already studying what information he had about pills to help people break through realms, to insure the two had a smooth transition. The issue was that the recipes required quite a few rare ingredients that were basically controlled substances. So he wouldn't be able to get his hands on the ingredients anytime soon. And it would actually take quite a bit of time to concoct the pills. Like, the actual time to concoct the pills, if it was fast was 6 years, and if it was slow would be 24 plus years.

It almost made him wish he had also purchased the Heavenly Poison Pearl with cp. With the Heavenly Poison Pearl, which was named pretty ridiculously in his opinion, he could instantly concoct any drug, medicine, or pills, as long as he had the ingredients, instead of spending years doing it manually. It would certainly be a time saver.

His own Heavenly Time Pearl was finally starting to charge up decently now that he was getting higher in profound level. It was still only about 11% filled, but it should start going faster in the next couple of years. While Carl had thought about using it to see how much dilated time 1% would get him, he decided to hold off for a while. He was advancing quite well in cultivation at the moment, so he would hold off until he had more alchemy materials so he could really take advantage of the time dilation to pump out some important, rare, and expensive pills.

And it wasn't like he was currently in a crisis where he needed to be frantic in his cultivation. Since Carl wasn't running around being offended at everyone around him and starting fights with anyone he saw, he actually had peaceful days to cultivate in.

Carl arrived outside the restaurant, named the Happy Dumpling. The signboard above the restaurant had a picture of a fat happy little kid running around. Carl still smiled every time he saw that picture. He would have to make a copy of the signboard sometime for his own amusement.

Upon entering the ground floor, he looked around at the full and bustling ground floor. Every table was packed with diners. Good thing he had reserved a private room for his group. The server on door duty recognized him, and led him up to his reserved room. He sat down, waiting for Yun Xiao and Seventh Sister to show up.

The room had a window that overlooked the street, so Carl spent his time idly watching the passerby while waiting. After several minutes Carl saw Yun Xiao and Seventh Sister together walking towards the restaurant. Just as they entered the Happy Dumpling, Carl saw a group of six scions of different families gathered just outside the building, laughing and pointing at Yun Xiao.

Carl smirked slightly while shaking his head. Apparently the group was planning to do a little bit of bullying of Yun Xiao since he was usually such a push over. Such a stereotypical set up for these people. Carl began considering just how he would handle the situation.

Only moments later, Carl's two friends arrived in the room. "Yun Xiao! Seventh Sister! It's been too long! I have missed you two. You're such a balm for my poor soul." Carl greeted them, laying it on thick.

Seventh sister lightly slapped his shoulder. "Oh, you. You saw us two days ago. Why do you act like you haven't seen us in forever?" Yun Xiao just nodded solemnly in question. He too was curious.

"So you wouldn't believe it. Yesterday we had another two fraud cases show up, trying to hold my reputation hostage for money…" Carl went on to narrate in great detail how he had taken care of and embarrassed the two, causing the two teens to get a good laugh at the situation.

Over the past year that Carl had been meeting with the two, he had been working on Yun Xiao, tryng to get him to be more assertive and not such an easy mark for bullying. While he was still gentle and polite, Carl had actually seen him stick up for himself several times. So there was hope to turn him into a more assertive person.

It had only taken a few weeks for Carl to realize that Yun Xiao's problem wasn't that he was weak willed or cowardly. Absolutely no cultivator that can claw their way up to the Emperor Profound realm with practically no assistance from his family can possibly be weak willed. No, his problem was that he thought too much. He was concerned that while his parents and family were in their precarious situation, then if was to fight back, it would be leading trouble back home. And he didn't want to add to his parent's burden. So he had been silently taking it.

Carl had been trying to subtly get across to him that his parents would prefer him to stick up for himself and fight back, even if it brought trouble back home. They were parents, they would want to handle that kind of thing for their kid. But Carl's friend was too stubborn. Carl was resigned to the fact that Yun Xiao would probably have to hear it from his parents in order to belief it. So this afternoon he would finally be getting Yun Xiao to invite him back to the clan to meet his parents.

Just as Carl was getting to the funny part of the story, the three of them heard a commotion outside their door.

"Sirs, please, all our private booths are being used. You'll have to wait until one clears up." The weak and ineffectual voice of a server of the restaurant was heard by all three of them in the room.

"You can just clear out this booth. Nobody important is there, and we're hungry!"

Carl looked over at Yun Xiao and Seventh Sister and raised an eyebrow in question. Yun Xiao just looked resigned, while Seventh Sister was clenching her fists, an angry look on her face. They obviously recognized the voice and it looks like this had happened to them before.

Carl smirked at the two confidently.

The door flew open.

In the doorway stood a member of the Helian Family, one of the 12 Guardian Families. Now that the Yun Family was being suppressed and had fallen in the rankings, the Helian Family was now the number one family.

"Loser Xiao! What a coincidence seeing you here!" The scion of the Helian family boisterously declared. "It's good that you kept our booth reserved for us, but you can leave now. But the nice looking girl can stay, to keep us company!" He lecherously looked at the 14 year old.

Carl sighed at the amazing amount of arrogance and ignorance. Apparently the Helian family member didn't recognize who Seventh Sister was. If he did, he certainly wouldn't be talking about her in such a cavalier manner, since it was widely known how protective her six older brothers were. All six were in the Tyrant and Sovereign Profound levels. This boastful youth, who was only at the Emperor 10 level would be flattened by any of her brothers with barely any effort for the insult to their sister.

Carl intervened before they could get dig themselves any deeper. Coughing to get their attention, he stood up in front of them.

"Well, now. I'm sure your mothers made sure that you were taught some manners, even if you sometimes let them fall by the wayside. Let's get introductions out of the way first. I'll start, shall I? My name is Carl, a humble doctor here in the city. This is Yun Xiao, the young Patriarch of the Yun Family."

Carl could see two members of the Yun family who were among the group of bullies flush in shame when he pointed out that they were part of a group that was trying to humiliate their young patriarch.

"And this is the princess of the Under Heaven family, Number Seven." Carl could feel the scowl he got from Seventh Sister on his back, she really didn't like her name. It was worth it though to see the faces of all six of the group go pale as they realize just who they had been insulting. "Now, I believe it's your turn to introduce yourselves?"

"Helian Ping."

"Hui chu."

"Yun Tu."

"Yun Peng."

"Nangong Cheng."

"Chiyang Yan."

Carl was amused to see the group shuffling their feet like they had been caught out doing something naughty while introducing themselves. Sometimes he really enjoyed the non-combat perks. It could lead to so much entertainment.

"Okay. Obviously we have a little conflict here, so I have a proposal." Carl continued bulldozing the group of rich kids while he had the momentum. "Yun Xiao and Helian Ping here will have a little match outside to determine the winner." Carl revealed his plan.

Helian Ping was at Emperor 10, while Yun Xiao was at Emperor 9, so Helian Ping obviously felt like he was going to win the match if the growing look of glee crossed his face. He seemed to think he could still pull off his original plan to get Yun Xiao kicked out of his private booth.

Carl chuckled inside as his plan was progressing well. As they were making their way outside, Carl gave instructions to the server to keep their room ready, and that they would soon be back. So they should have their food ready for them when they returned.

They soon arrived at the street and opened up a space among the crowd for the match. Carl stood next to Seventh Sister. Seeing that she was a bit concerned over Yun Xiao, Carl bumped her shoulder and gave her a reassuring grin. "He'll be fine, you'll see."

Yun Xiao started on the defensive, easily dodging and blocking the blows that Helian Ping was throwing at him. After a short while, Helian Ping was frustrated at not being able to land a blow, so he moved on to using his elemental attacks, but Yun Xiao pulled out his Purple Cloud Arts techniques, which was the Yun Family's arts, and deftly blocked every blow.

Carl grinned at the moment when Yun Xiao had the realization that he was vastly superior to his opponent skill wise. Despite all the practice and matches they'd had the past year, Carl had just kept the pressure on Yun Xiao high, continually rising. So while Yun Xiao improved greatly, to him it felt like he was still stuck at the same level compared to Carl. Only now was he realizing just how good he had actually gotten.

Yun Xiao suddenly got focused and went on the offensive, blasting Helian Ping off his feet and defeating him within a dozen moves. Several bruises and lumps started sprouting on Helian Ping's face. Seventh Sister cheered and clapped for him, happy that he won. The look of wonder on Yun Xiao's face as he looked at his own fist was hilarious for Carl, so he chuckled along.

"Fine, you won. The dining booth is yours." Helian Ping gritted out as he got up and made to depart.

"Where do you think you're going?" Carl sternly asked the young man, causing him to freeze in his tracks.

Helian Ping slowly turned back around, glaring at Carl. "I admitted my loss. But don't take things too far. You don't want to make a big deal out of this, just because you won a single match. You won, so as agreed the dining booth is yours."

"Oh, no no no. You totally misunderstood. That match wasn't to decide who got the booth." Carl laughed at the shocked look on the youth's face. "No, the match was to decide if Yun Xiao was enough to pay you back for the insult you said about Seventh Sister, or if we'd have to get her big brothers involved to teach you a lesson." Carl eyed the bruises starting to form on Helian Ping's face in satisfaction, and was amused at the dawning horror on his face at the realization that if he had won he would have to watch out for Seventh Sister's older brothers in the future. "But, you're lucky. Since Yun Xiao won, we'll consider the matter over. Just don't repeat the mistake, or we won't let it go so easily again."

Out of the corner of his eye Carl could see Seventh Sister beaming at Yun Xiao for having defended her honor, while Yun Xiao was beaming in pride. Carl smirked at how well things were going.

"Now come on, the food is likely getting cold while we are standing out here." Carl stated, motioning back to the restaurant.

"What?" Several of the group of six asked at once, completely confused about what was happening.

"Well, you young men must be on the verge of starving to death, since you were so damned hungry you burst into an occupied booth, hoping to beg some food from us. So out of the goodness of our hearts, we're inviting you to share a meal. Come on now, don't dawdle." Carl said as he starting pushing the young lads to the door of the Happy Dumpling.

Carl completely ignored their embarrassed splutters as they tried to explain that they weren't starving beggars under the disdainful looks of the crowd. Almost completely embarrassed now, they wanted to hide their faces from the looks they were getting from the crowd, which made it easier to get them up to the room and seated.

Their dazed looks, as if they were in a dream, amused Carl greatly as they automatically picked up chop sticks and started eating the feast that was already laid out, only realizing after a bit that they had completely fallen into Carl's tempo. They gave him some wary looks after that, thinking he must be strange but dangerous if he could do that to them.

Carl meanwhile returned to telling his story about the fraud cases from the other day from the beginning. His descriptions of the frauds dancing in the streets, demonstrating their fine health, soon got the six lads and Yun Xiao and Seventh Sister laughing. Carl didn't let them get a chance to think too much about their current situation or who they were sharing a human moment with and continued to engage them in conversation, even getting them and Yun Xiao to talk with each other, sharing stories, and occasionally talking about fights or adventures they'd had in the past.

By the end of the feast, the six lads and Yun Xiao had a better understanding and respect for each other. Carl would bet that the six lads, as long as they didn't fall under someone else's influence, wouldn't give Yun Xiao anymore problems in the future. And they may actually turn into friends if they continued to hang out in the future. Too early to tell for sure, but it was a start.

Celestial Profound Basic Decency Inducement perk for the win!

The six lads went their way, while Carl, Yun Xaio, and Seventh Sister remained behind.

"I'm not dreaming, right? That really happened?" Yun Xiao asked abruptly.

Carl exchanged glances with Seventh Sister, before both started laughing. Carl clapped Yun Xiao on the shoulder in consolation.

"I'm so proud of you Brother Yun!" Seventh Sister gushed. Yun Xiao felt a smile slowly creep onto his face.

Carl smirked as he saw Yun Xiao enjoying the feeling of accomplishment and winning. As long as he could keep that up, he would be less likely to want to return to passively accepting the hate and bullying. And Seventh Sister would continue to give him plenty of reasons to make her proud of him.

"Yun Xiao, before you go, I've got something I want to ask you." Carl seriously stated.

"Sure, whatever you need." Yun Xiao immediately offered. He felt he owed Carl a lot for all he'd done for him.

Carl smiled and shook his head. "I'm touched you trust me that much, but you shouldn't offer such open ended support." Carl wryly shook his head. "This has to do with your parents. I've heard that they have been injured and haven't been able to recover in the past 16 years. I'm a doctor, and I'd appreciate an opportunity to check them out, at least to further my craft. I'm not promising that I can do anything to heal them without even knowing what they are afflicted with. But if I can, I promise to do what I can to help them recover."

Yun Xiao looked conflicted for a moment. His parents had already had hundreds of doctors check them out, and no one could ever help them. At this point, the family of three had pretty much given up hope that they could ever recover. But this was Carl. Yun Xiao trusted that he wouldn't have any bad intentions. And even if he couldn't do anything, at least they wouldn't have lost anything, really.

"I'll talk to them. I can't promise anything, but I'll let you know." Yun Xiao promised.

"Sounds good. I'll be off first, then. See you two later!" Carl then stepped out first, letting the two teens that cared for each other have a bit of alone time.

XX

Carl raised a cup of tea to his mouth and took a sip. He certainly wasn't a connoisseur, but the tea that was served there was pretty tasty.

He was seated alone on the second floor of a café, enjoying a snack while watching the traffic in and out of the shop across the street. That particular café was chosen because it gave him a good view of the storefront across the street. He was able to watch the people coming and going, while he was pondering how to approach the situation in front of him.

He had been spending a few hours sitting at the table, because he was unsure on how to approach the doctors in the shop across the street. The doctors in the shop were related to the scammers that tried to ruin his reputation so a part of him wanted to tear them up and ruin their reputation.

But then he had discovered with a bit of detective work that they were funded by the Mu Family. And the Mu Family was the family of Yun Xiao's mother.

Going in all heavy handed and ruining the business and reputation of people that were backed by the Mu Family wouldn't win him any allies. And it could cause some issues when he tried to interact with Yun Xiao's parents if he had done something to damage the reputation and businesses of the Mu Family.

This was a perfect example of relationships being more important than the law. Sure, Carl could have the satisfaction of getting even, but then it would ruin his relations with important families that he was trying to interact with, and it would, in the long run, hurt his own best interests.

So the first thing Carl had to keep in mind was to ensure that however he handled the doctors, he needed to do it in private instead of public, so they could work something out without a loss of honor or benefits for the doctors or the Mu Family.

"Well, no time like the present." Carl muttered. He paid his tab and left the café. He soon entered the shop, the Silver Needle. Once inside, he saw that it wasn't as busy as his shop had become, so that was probably why they had gotten as desperate as they had. If they had an organization like the Mu Family to answer to, who probably didn't care about excuses so much as results, he too would probably have gotten a bit desperate in their shoes.

Carl spent some time looking over the medicines, cultivation pills, tools, and other goods they offered. He then came to the realization that he had been offering high quality goods for significantly less than they were worth.

'Huh, it just goes to show, just because I can sell stuff for the right price to any store, it doesn't mean I can't make mistakes when running my own shop. And I always acted so confident my employees must have thought I was purposefully undercutting other shops to drum up business and establish myself.' Carl thought.

The information that Carl just learned once more changed the approach he would take with the doctors. Asking around, he discovered the two doctors were unavailable due to being in an important meeting. Carl snagged the thought from the worker that they were meeting with the Mu Family member that managed their business.

'Huh, my luck must be high to catch them at just the right time.' Carl thought in amusement. He quickly penned a note that he had the employee take to the doctors. He may have used a weak confundo to insure that the worker would interrupt their meeting to hand over the note.

Several minutes later Carl was escorted into a room where the Mu Family member had been meeting with the doctors. Looking around, Carl saw that one of the doctors was tall and thin, the other was short and stout. The two were sitting off to the side, trying to look small as if they were a pair of school kids that had just been scolded by their teacher. Carl smirked on the inside.

Looking at the head of the seating arrangement, Carl saw an older scholarly looking gentleman, with a grey beard. Carl noticed the man seemed to be assessing Carl in turn. So he smiled and greeted the Mu Family member in a polite manner.

"Hello, I'm Carl. Pleased to meet you."

"Greetings. I am called Mu Gang. I understand that our people have done some unfortunate actions. I believe they have something to say about this matter." Mu Gang then glared at the two hapless doctors sitting to the side.

"We apologize for whatever inconvenience our actions have caused you, Master Carl." The tall one immediately apologized, bowing low.

"Yes, we were impulsive and made mistakes. We apologize." The shorter one followed up, also bowing.

Carl nodded magnanimously. "These things happen sometimes. I hope we can put it in the past and not worry about it anymore." The Mu family member had already extended an olive branch. Carl was pleased that the man was reasonable, it made working with them not as onerous. And with Carl showing that he wasn't going to pursue the offense, Carl was sending a message that he was willing to cooperate and do business with the Mu Family, instead of turning it into a big thing.

Mu Gang nodded in satisfaction at his underlings performance and that Carl was willing to let the issue go. "Your note intrigued me, Carl. I would be interested in hearing more about what ideas you have for a cooperation between us."

"Well, I'll be blunt here. I'm pretty new to the capital, having just been released from intense studies by my master to go out in the world and gain experience. I was looking to find a place to practice my crafts, and so chose to set up shop in the Capital, since it had the most people. Unfortunately, I've come to learn that I have done a poor job in researching just how much my products should sell for, or how popular they would get. It shows I still have much to learn."

"So I had the brilliant idea that if I could gain the help of the illustrious Mu Family to handle the disposition of the products I make, then I can rest easy that they are being handled in the correct manner, and I can gain more experience in the area of finances."

Carl figured that mixing flattery in with his portrayal of an inexperienced young man would have Mu Gang more willing to join him in a business arrangement, especially with the hint that the Mu family would profit off the arrangement.

"It is wise of you, Carl, to know where you need to grow. The Mu Family is interested in what you say. What is your proposal for our partnership?" Mu Gang showed a bit more eagerness to Carl than he probably wanted. It showed that he was eager to get a piece of the profits pie.

Carl smiled and went into his explanation of how he saw their partnership going with a proposal that would be slightly in Carl's favor. After listening to his proposal, Mu Gang countered with a proposal that would benefit the Mu Family more than Carl. They settled down into bargaining, and eventually settled on a happy compromise that both sides could live with.

Carl knew that he could have negotiated harder to maximize his benefits if he so desired, but had chosen not to for a number of reasons. The first being that now that he was established in the capital, he was hoping to cut down on the number of hours he was stuck healing people in the clinic. So many people were showing up, that he felt bad turning them away, and had been spending too many hours in the clinic.

So shutting down his clinic and redirecting them to the Mu Family stores and doctors was just perfect for Carl. He could use the hours he took back to cultivate or train instead.

He would then repurpose any employees that stayed on to work on managing a team of hunters to capture profound beasts for him. The hunter teams wouldn't even need to bring the animals they caught to him, he would provide portkeys so they could transport them directly to him.

Another reason that he didn't negotiate as hard as he could, was so that Mu Gang felt like he was giving the Mu Family face, or respect. When Mu Gang went to report to his superiors in the family, he would then give a nice review of Carl, thus making him seem like a better ally of the Mu Family, which would pave the way for a smooth business cooperation.

Once the negotiations were settled, Mu Gang invited Carl to a feast to celebrate. Carl couldn't very well refuse, so he spent some time eating and drinking with Mu Gang and the two doctors. They mostly talked about various light topics, staying away from anything too heavy.

In the end, Carl drank the three under the table. His Dragon God bloodline and physical regeneration from the Great Way of the Buddha insured that he would have to drink something a lot more potent than they had before he would be incapacitated.

After making sure that the workers would take care of their bosses, Carl made his way back to his own shop. Tomorrow he would have to make arrangements for his employees to shift focus, and arrange transport of the goods he was providing the Silver Needle shop/clinic.

Carl was quite pleased that his meeting with the doctors and Mu Gang had gone so well. He then settled down to brew some more potions that would be delivered the next day.