Negotiations

Looking at the puppets in front of him, Luther's lips twitched.

"What are these? You call these good-quality puppets?" he was a bit offended. What disorder brought him was the opposite of what one thinks when one hears the word 'good.'

The puppets were basically rotten corpses; it was actually impressive. Corpses of high-ranking immortals won't rot under normal circumstances, so finding such rotten immortal corpses is actually difficult.

"Hey, this is the best I can do! These poor guys were trapped in a time loophole and died; that's why they are rotten; if they were in fine condition, the administration would have taken them long ago," Disorder said.

"Well, Endless Skies is not going to be persuaded with these as gifts," Luther sighed.

"This is the best I can do! Do you expect me to go get fresh corpses for high-quality puppets? Sorry, but I won't kill my fellow gods; finding these was very expensive already!" Disorder was a bit upset with Luther's reaction to his hard efforts.

Sighing again, Luther nodded and said, "Thanks!" Then, he took the puppets and disappeared.

...

"Why not? Just give him a few fresh puppets; then, I help you and give you a job in the Anti-Rachel; the leader of Anti-Rachel is a host of mine," said Rachel, in the mind of Disorder.

The leader of the Anti-Rachel is named Lin Ming. Lin Ming was the leader of the Clear Water Sect; many years ago, he left his sect and became the leader of Anti-Rachel, an alliance that he had a leading role in creating. Lin Ming is one of the strongest Rank 13s in the universe, with over 1,000 universal laws under his direct control; except for Luther, there is no other Rank 13 who can be compared with him.

After over a billion years of Anti-Rachel's creation, it is now a behemoth, getting bigger and more influential every day. Its contribution points are currency; now, it has an independent army and is without rivals.

The reason it was formed was that many were frustrated with Rachel, who was basically a virus on a universal scale, infiltrating worlds and stealing stuff; but that is only the surface-level reason. The true reason was that high-ranking civilizations wanted to use Rachel as a bogeyman and form a big alliance that, in a sense, unites the entire universe. Bringing the entire universe together is near impossible without a bogeyman like Rachel; they said, "We must stop Rachel by uniting, otherwise, she gets so strong that she can start infiltrating Rank 12 worlds."

Unbeknownst to many, Rachel had a direct hand in creating Anti-Rachel and now can control it through Lin Ming. This led to an ironic situation where the Anti-Rachel Alliance takes orders from the very enemy it was formed to fight against.

"No, Rachel! You know me! I would not betray heaven!" Disorder said passionately.

Rachel sighed; of course, she knew him, so she didn't insist anymore. 

...

Luther looked at the dim, open world in the chaos. Then, he called Endless Skies to get permission to enter. He had known her for a few hundred trillion years; unfortunately, she had a bad memory. She would probably not remember him.

"Who is it?" Endless Skies said.

"It's me, Luther! I brought a rank 12 angel puppet!" he said.

"Rank 12? Come in!" she said, excited.

...

Endless Skies looked at the puppet; it actually looked very clean. Luther did his best to fix it as much as possible, and now, it looks quite nice, but only the surface has changed; it is still rotten deep down.

"So ugly!" said Endless Skies.

She looks like a woman with red hair. The most distinctive factor about her was her front teeth, which are big, nearly out of her mouth, like a rabbit. Other than that, she looked like a typical human woman.

"Ugly? It's so perfect! I looked a lot to find it!" said Luther.

"Wait! What is that? Is its skin fake? Are you bringing a fake present?" With a motion, Endless Skies completely tore off the surface of it, revealing the rot.

"Damn!" cursed Luther; he did conceal it well, but it's her territory after all; in the chaos, Endless Skies is much stronger. If it was a battle, Luther would have vacated all the chaos, weakening her greatly, but this is no battle, so he could only helplessly sigh when she realized his carefully designed disguise.

"So Amazing!" She smiled wildly, her front teeth out, trembling.

"Amazing?" asked Luther, confused.

"Look, it's completely rotten, but it's not just any rot; it's art! It's true art!" she started touching the puppet, stroking it all over the place.

"It's one of my best Puppets! Luther, right? I love you!" Endless Skies hugged the puppet and started getting naked.

Speechless, Luther cleared his throat and said, "Well, I'm happy you liked it! Now, let's—" He wanted to continue, but Endless Skies was already completely naked and performing some censored acts with the Puppet.

Seeing this, Luther didn't leave. The memory of Endless Skies is tricky; she won't remember him if he leaves.

...

After just sitting there and waiting for a few days, Endless Skies finally put the puppet away.

Wearing her usual red clothes, she said, "Who were you again?"

"I'm Luther, the one who brought you that puppet you liked," he said.

"What puppet?" she thought doubtfully.

Luther knew Endless Skies, so he was ready; he took out a detailed 5D picture of the puppet he had taken while Endless Sky was busy with the puppet.

Seeing herself busy with a beautiful puppet, she nodded and remembered. "Right! You were … I don't know your name, but I know that I liked the puppet! What do you want from me?" she asked.

"Teach me about chaos!" said Luther, nearly begging; he knew Endless Skies and knew that she loved to see others begging her.

Luther doesn't care at all about pride, etc. Even though he is a Rank 13 with the power to completely destroy Endless Sky in any battle, he would beg and bow before her to get what he wants.

He is not unique in this regard.

Mortals may care about appearances, pride, and face, but immortals usually care very little about those things. The only thing that matters is if something benefits them; if it does, they will do it. Immortals have thick skin and have nothing close to shyness in their existence.

Shy people would usually shed all their shyness by reaching Rank 4; it's very hard to imagine someone remaining shy after meditating and cultivating for thousands of years. Usually, those who live for thousands of years won't any longer care about nudity, about face, about loyalty, etc.

Time would wash away most of those.

Seeing a Rank 13 beg her, Endless Skies laughed and said, "Sure! Now, get ready for secrets of chaos! Here it comes ... !"

...

"I need more than these!" said Luther, frustrated again. It's not that he never tried drawing the secrets of chaos out from Endless Skyies before; it's just that the previous times went exactly like now.

"More? You want to know more?" Endless Skies kept asking, daring Luther to say yes.

"It's hard," Luther thought. What Endless Skies taught him was just elementary and basic knowledge about chaos he already knew. It makes sense; if it were this easy, every Rank 13 already could have gotten all the chaos data.

"Yeah, I need more than that! I can give you data regarding Rank 14!" said Luther.

"Rank 14? I'm only Rank 12 and have no shot at another chaos universal law, so I can never reach Rank 13, let alone Rank 14!" she said.

She was lucky enough to get one chaos universal law, but expecting her to get another one by luck is too much. If one wants to get a chaotic universal law, there is basically only luck; other than luck, there is no other way to get them here in this universe.

"You can jump through Rank 13 straight to Rank 14!" said Luther, tempting her.

Technically speaking, one can jump ranks. Rachel even has jump rank pills, though her pills only work for ranks 0-11.

It's theoretically possible to build a Rank 12 jump rank, but Rachel hasn't been able to do it.

But the jump rank here is not talking about her jump rank pill. This time, Luther was talking about literally ignoring Rank 13 altogether. Rachel's jump rank would have accelerated one's speed; one just moved past ranks, not altogether ignoring them.

Cultivation looks like 15 continuous stages, but that is false. Cultivation actually has 5 main steps independent of each other.

The first main step is the pure mortal step, where one is unable to utilize magic power at all.

The second main step is the energy step, where one can utilize energy to do things; this main stage includes ranks 0-9.

The third step is the complete law step, where one can utilize complete laws; it includes 10-11 stages.

The fourth step is the universal law step, where one can utilize universal laws; this main step includes ranks 13-14.

The last one is rank 15, which is omnipotent, omniscient, and invincible; there can be only one such entity.

Rank 14 is a weird transition. It isn't reliant on universal law, but it isn't Rank 15 either; it can be said that Rank 14 is the first step to Rank 15. Rank 14 itself is not a main step by itself. It can be considered the 5th step, but just barely.

These are the main stages in this universe; in another universe, all bets are off.

There is no general law for main steps 1-4; only the 5th step, the rank 15, is constant and the same everywhere.

One can ignore the main steps; for example, even someone with only a rank 1 mage can completely ignore the 3rd step and jump straight to the 4th step, the universal law step. Of course, if it's theoretically possible, it doesn't mean it's really possible; the resources required to reach rank 12 are so great that even those with millions of universal laws can't reach it, let alone a rank 1 mortal.

Luther didn't lie, though; Endless Skies can truly reach rank 14 without needing to go through rank 13; sure, she has a tiny chance, but it's within the realm of possibilities.

"You are actually telling the truth!" Endless Skies used some kind of lie detection skill and exclaimed.

She knew jumping steps in low levels was possible, but didn't know even jumping through rank 13 could be done.

Luther noticed her lie-detection skill and didn't resist it; it would be good if she knew he wasn't lying.

"If you give the data to me, I promise, with Alive as my witness, that I'll give you critical data about rank 14 that can drastically increase your chance of reaching rank 14!" he said.

Rachel is kind of an ally with Alive, so she can use its name to make oaths. Witness oaths are very secure ways to do this; they use rank 14s as witnesses, and if either side violates them, they will die by the hand of rank 14s.

After thinking for a while, Endless Skies said, "Let me see the technique first."

"I can give you half of it; you also give half of your entire research on chaos," said Luther.

"No! You are not giving me your entire research on rank 14, so why should I give my entire research?" said Endless Skies. As they have Alive as a witness, she cannot agree on things easily anymore; when things get serious, Endless Skies loses her forgetful nature and becomes sharp.

"You are saying research on chaos is on the same level as rank 14?" Endless Skies didn't answer; she just stared at him.

Sighing, Luther compromised. "You can keep your absolute trump cards; other than those, though, give half of the data; if they are worth it, we exchange the other halves," he said, to which Endless Skies nodded.