Dealings

Isaiah was seated at the back side of his café, enjoying a delicious coffee. When the bells chimed, the man that walked in was none other than his uncle, Louie. In his hand was a large suitcase with his own brand, his face was all smiles which got wider when he spotted Isaiah, "Isaiah! You ready for a payday?"

Isaiah, without getting up from his seat, pushed the chair in front of him with mana for Louie to sit, "You seem to have gotten used to being Rank 1, huh?" Louie promptly got seated and put the large suitcase on top of the table.

Isaiah nodded, "Of course I have." He signaled with his hand for Lily to bring his uncle a cup of coffee as well. "Did you manage to get the offering I wanted?" Louie, with a swift movement, opened the suitcase and passed him the deal he got, "Who do you think your uncle is?"

Isaiah took the stacks of papers in his hand and focused on the part that was important to him, access to advanced formation knowledge. This was what he had especially asked his uncle to acquire, even if it meant giving up the entirety of his cut. "Oh? You managed to get me 10m gc plus the formation knowledge? I thought I would get less."

Louie chuckled, clear that he was going to boast, "Well, I managed to sell your talent well. You can think of this as their willingness to continue working with you." Isaiah nodded; mages proficient in formations were far and few between. Even though it was easy for Isaiah, that wasn't the case for the majority of the mages. The experience he had with technology and systemic science gave him a clear edge in this department, coupling that with him just being intelligent made him an outlier when it came to formations.

Once he finalized this deal and managed to get his hands on advanced formations, he could finally start working on his casino security formation which he coined "Mana Detection Formation" for now. He would still have to see if a single formation would be enough.

He looked around and saw people soaked in sweat; there was hell-baking heat around. The sun, unobscured by any clouds, especially terrorized the citizens of the city. While there were some methods of cooling systems around, Isaiah found them to be lacking. "Nothing like a good AC. I should also make an 'AC Formation' with that advanced formation knowledge," he thought to himself.

"Do you need me there?" he asked his uncle, who smiled, replying, "No, but they said they would like to meet you." This put a huge smile on Isaiah's face; his smile didn't reflect an ounce of good intentions. "Did they now? Well, we shouldn't make the government officials wait," with that, he got up abruptly and walked out, Louie following right after him.

The mana vehicle was waiting right outside the café. Louie threw the keys to Isaiah. "You seem interested in its mechanism." Isaiah caught the car keys, impressed by his uncle's observation skills. Well, it was not like he was hiding his interest in the first place.

They got into the ride and started driving to the agreed place to meet with the officials. It was a rather quiet ride due to Isaiah focusing on memorizing and understanding more of the formation that made the vehicle work.

Soon they arrived in front of a towering building built solely from white silver; it could be noticed from kilometers away due to how much it shined under the sunlight. This was the building of the Ministry of Finance.

A woman waiting under the shade the roof of the building provided quickly walked towards them the moment they arrived. Once she arrived near them, she gave a small bow and with a professional but kind smile said, "Hi, Mr. Isaiah and Mr. Louie. My name is Haley, I will help guide you towards Mr. Daniel's office."

The two men followed the woman inside; the building's interior was as dazzling as its exterior. The dominant color was gold; it was everywhere: tables, paintings, couches, and especially the huge carpet that seemed to cover the entire building. "Man, I love dictatorship architecture," Isaiah thought to himself. Having conquered numberless oppressive governments in his past life, one thing he could give them credit for was their sense of artistic style.

Thinking back to it, his own government was also a haven of art. Back then, he didn't hold back funds when it came to artistic buildings. Of course, with advanced technology, labor being dirt cheap helped a lot in this artistic vision coming together. He was a man who valued beauty immensely.

Haley soon led them in front of a door; it was the biggest one in the entire building. "Here is Mr. Daniel's office. He is inside, waiting for you, gentlemen," with that, she excused herself.

Isaiah took the lead, knocking on the door. A voice that sounded like sandpaper rubbing came from behind the door, "Come in." Isaiah opened the door, a professional smile on his face.

Inside stood a middle-aged man; he wore glasses, his hair meticulously styled. It looked as if a cow had licked it. "Louie! My friend! How long has it been?" The man extended his hand and shook Louie's hand. He then turned to look at Isaiah, "And this must be your nephew. He seems to have grown into such a resourceful young man; I have no doubt he will be a great businessman just like you," then proceeded to shake Isaiah's hand.

He then walked back to his seat, with his hand he gestured towards the guest seats, "Please, please, get seated. Don't stay standing. I wouldn't want people saying Daniel doesn't treat his guests well." The two men got seated.

Daniel shouted outside the door, "Haley! Please bring me and these two gentlemen three cups of tea." After that, he turned his attention back to the two men and with a clap of his hands said, "So where were we, the deal, right! I have no doubt you have it done, right?" He said this while looking at Louie, knowing his sly nature.

Louie, with a smile, passed the contract he had prepared; he promptly placed it on Daniel's table. Daniel took the papers and looked through them. Even though this contract went through different government officials before, it still had to go through him to be finalized. "Interesting, advanced formations, huh?"