“Ready?” Yang Zi asked as we made our way to the eting point.
“Hopefully,” I replied. I didn’t feel ready, but there was no other option at the mont. As intelligent and focused as I was, I could not recreate a knowledge base far beyond . It was like handing soone a modern car and telling them to figure it out. I might see how it works holistically, but there were just too many small details. Like the material composition of the various components. Or the programing in modern cars.
At a certain point, it just wasn’t possible for a single person to do everything. If I had a working example and only needed to make minor changes like for the energy pumps, that wouldn’t have been so bad. That would be like switching out the battery of the car when I knew how batteries worked. I didn’t have to figure out everything else that was involved.
On top of the knowledge needed for energy compression and purification systems, we also needed energy liquid. Getting this stuff wasn’t simple or easy, which was why we had ended up here.
We were eting with the Xyon Front, a cartel of the Firmant. A cartel was the term used for a large organization that wasn’t a super organization. They didn’t hold territory, which was a requirent for a super organization. They also didn’t have only one backer, but multiple. How they managed to pull this off was sothing I was thinking about, but hadn’t co up with a good answer for yet.
The people running the Xyon Front were too good at what they did, which was why super organizations contracted out to them, or supported them. The exact internal chanisms were hidden, so how it all worked out without everyone betraying and killing each other was hard to say. Most likely each cartel was different, just like each super organization.
The Xyon Front was a human dominated cartel. Combined with our eting gift of the monster parts we had managed to recover, Yang Zi had arranged a eting with soone able to make decisions at the level we needed. We weren’t eting at the Free Port with the Administrator, but rather their own small outpost hidden inside a refraction rock. Yang Zi knew a person, who knew a person, who was able to arrange this eting.
This was a high-risk eting, but for the energy liquid and other stuff we needed a supplier and technical expertise. Also, the eting gift should ensure safe passage. If we were killed, word would get out that this cartel wasn’t trustworthy. Organizations like this depended on their reputation for adhering to deals and safe passage when offered. If they didn’t, they would struggle with whatever operations they would have in the future. Killing soone was fine, but killing them after they got your approval to visit was looked down on heavily. Even with social norms supporting our survival, I didn’t like this, but we didn’t have a safe choice for what we wanted. In fact this was our only choice at the mont.
We entered the eting room, and we were greeted by an immortal cultivator who wasn’t hiding his level of cultivation, unlike myself. “Welco, welco. I am Longwei of the Xyon Front.”
“Yang Zi.” He gave a short bow.
“Greetings Immortal. I am Yuan Zhou,” I said and gave a short bow as well.
“Welco as guests, no need for titles. Your safe passage is assured, and we won’t attempt to follow you after your gift. Not many people would bring monster parts are a welcoming gift,” Longwei said. It was the only thing we could afford that was valuable enough. The fact was, we were both incredibly poor at the mont. While we could scrape togeather so units for operating expenses, we didn’t have enough for any more large transactions at the mont.
“It was the most valuable item we were willing to part with,” Yang Zi replied, and Longwei nodded at this.
“Normally people bring so kind of energy infused item or piece of technology, but your welcoming gift is more than acceptable. Please sit and make yourselves comfortable. Your impressive gift is why I am eting with you. Normally, small tirs like yourselves wouldn’t even warrant a eting with the Xyon Front, let alone soone of my stature within the organization. Now, what exactly do you require?” What he didn’t say, was how hard he would screw us over with his offer. The fact he was playing up his level of importance was clearly an attempt to put us on the back foot.
“We require a processing, compression, and purification system for energy liquid, along with unused energy liquid,” Yang Zi bluntly explained. Longwei leaned back and got a thoughtful look on his face.
“Energy pirates. Since you don’t want pumps, you clearly have a set up already. You just need so support. How much are you looking for?” he asked. He probably already knew all of that from his contacts. I slid across a technical sheet I had put togeather. Longwei picked it up and looked it over for half a minute before setting it back down.
“That much energy liquid, well you two are incredibly daring and not small operators at all. I would guess around 50 to 60 energy pumps with the amount of energy liquid you want. Let guess, you want to pay with a fractional share of what you earn?” Longwei asked. One did not beco an immortal cultivator making deals on behalf of a massive cartel by being stupid.
“Yes. Our offer is twenty percent, and payback for the base cost of all investnt to you first,” Yang Zi said. We had discussed this between ourselves beforehand. This was the lowest offer we felt we could get away with, without insulting the Xyon Front.
“Since you would be buying the liquid, you would be selling the processed energy to us?” Longwei asked.
“We would prefer to sell directly at the Administrator’s Free Port for units, but we would be willing to sell to you for 80% of the market value. That way you could make up your share by selling at the Free Port if you don’t wish to trade in units,” Yang Zi replied.
“If we have to do work, like selling and transporting this energy ourselves we would need more compensation, the offer should be 40%,” Longwei said.
“That is a bit more than we would be willing to part with. We are taking all the risks and you would be paid back first. We wouldn’t be able to run away either, since we would have to co back to trade with you. We would go up to 25%,” Yang Zi replied.
“But you have nowhere else to go. Energy liquid is highly controlled. And you want a processing system, which is even more tightly controlled. That would be a large investnt on our part. While your offer is tempting, I would agree to 30%, and there would be a couple of other conditions,” Longwei said. That was clearly the percentage he was aiming for and was within our range of what was acceptable. The problem would be whatever conditions he listed out.
“Please list them and we will do our very best to be as agreeable as possible,” Yang Zi answered.
“I will be sending soone to accompany you and collect information. That is the main business of the Xyon Front after all. In addition, there would be a list of super organizations you are not to bother with what you are doing,” Longwei said while looking at us intently.
“Very well we agree, as long as there is no consignnt once we drop off the energy we collect. We are happy to take paynt in units,” Yang Zi said. We knew this demand was coming and that it was a trap. The unfortunate thing was that we didn’t have another choice. Eventually the Xyon Front would betray us, taking the location of the energy pumps for themselves. The quick agreent was designed to put them off kilter, making them wonder what contingency plans we had.
We did have contingency plans. The energy pumps were heavily booby trapped. While whatever person Longwei sent with us would be able to work out their locations, the Xyon Front would be hesitant to make a move. We were also quite far away from their usual stomping areas in the Firmant. That would make them hesitant about taking over.
Longwei’s demands were also a chance to add that requirent about not selling things on consignnt. We would be paid imdiately and not have to wait for Longwei to sell what we dropped off. We had to make as much energy as possible while we could, before the inevitable betrayal. Hopefully that betrayal would co after I reached immortality, but it was impossible to say.
If Longwei and the Xyon Front thought they could get a bigger advantage through betrayal, then they would do so without hesitation. This might seem contradictory to the guarantee of safe passage we had received, but it was all about the possible benefits they would be able to take compared to the risk. Getting our vessel wasn’t worth that much, compared to gaining knowledge of the location of the energy pumps we had hidden about the Firmant.
It would take a while to make back our original investnt, now that we would be losing a quarter. Instead of getting paid first for my investnt, I would be getting paid second and getting a smaller percentage. We had been willing to go as high as a third, but thankfully Longwei hadn’t pushed that hard.
Yang Zi and Longwei continued to discuss minor issues regarding our future cooperation. Like how any fees would co out of our end and how we should contact the Xyon Front in the future. I paid attention, but Yang Zi was taking the lead in negotiations here. I knew this was a bad idea, dealing with the Xyon Front, unfortunately there were no better ideas. Even getting this eting required us to give up the monster pieces we had collected as a gift. I didn’t like that part, but it was necessary to show our sincerity. That was the problem with being in the weaker position in any negotiation, you just had to suck it up.
The door opened and a middle aged female cultivator entered. She wasn’t an immortal and her cultivation seed to be less than mine. “Ah, this is Luo Yingtai. You ntioned that you would prefer soone capable in handling the compression and purification systems. I would consider her experienced.”
“Greetings. I am Luo Yingtai of the Xyon Front and will be your companion.” She gave a short bow to both of us.
“I am Yang Zi, the technology specialist and I handle our path through the Firmant.”
“Yuan Zhou. I deal with arrays, formations, and any hands-on issues,” I introduced myself. Since we would be working togeather for a long ti, I didn’t want to insist on titles.
“Excellent. I am sure you will all make an excellent team. It will take a couple of days to prepare what you requested. Our teams will have to enter your cargo area, to install what you requested,” Longwei said.
“That is fine. Nothing beyond that,” Yang Zi replied. Longwei smiled at this and stood up. We both quickly got up as well. Surprisingly that hadn’t been that difficult. But it made sense, since he wouldn’t have invited us here if he didn’t want to make a deal and we needed to make a deal.
“Excellent. I always love it when a deal cos togeather. I am looking forward to when we make great profits,” Immortal Longwei said. We gave Longwei a small bow as he left the room. I noted Luo Yingtai bowed much more deeply.
There were other groups of humans out there besides cultivators, but Yang Zi didn’t have any contacts that could put us in touch with one of their cartels. Even at this level, most cartels were still divided by the type of energy system they used from what he had explained to . There was just an incredible amount of division and mistrust built into all beings across the Firmant.
I had seen this with Yang Heng, but even large criminal type organizations had the sa prejudices. Even on the Free Port with the Administrator, the division went species and then advancent thodology. Beyond that it was hard to say what divisions existed. These separations felt like unique characteristics, and it made wonder if things were different in another area of the Firmant.
“You enjoy working with the Xyon Front?” I asked Luo Lingtai to try and break the ice. She gave a look, like I was a bug beneath her boot. I had just asked a pretty innocuous question to start a conversation, but apparently she didn’t feel that way.
“The Xyon Front is amazing beyond all words. But due to negligence on my part, I am being assigned to your garbage barge,” she said. Soone was seriously stuck up and insulting. My mind raced to try and make sense of this situation.
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“So how long until you betray us?” Yang Zi didn’t even hesitate and went full savage with his question. She gave him a look like he was an idiot who couldn’t understand what a small useless person he was.
“I will honor my promise made to Immortal Longwei. I will serve on board your vessel and learn from you two,” she replied with a facial expression indicating that each word was pure torture. She was really expressive, and it was quite amusing. It also raised so serious questions I was trying to figure out.
“We are going to be traveling with each other for a lot of cycles. Possibly the rest of your life. No need to be so antagonistic,” I replied casually. I should see her facial muscles visibly twitch. She really wanted to leap at and attack . I would have been more worried if she was hiding her cultivation like , but I wasn’t.
“Accidents can happen,” she replied with a snarl.
“You have my apologies, but why are you so hostile to us? There is no need to get worked up,” Yang Zi asked. He really was laying down better questions than , but I was more amused by her antics. I was not overly concerned about getting answers. While it promised trouble, I couldn’t easily change her personality.
“You are both regular people and I am expected to obey.” Soone had been drinking too much cultivator juice lately. My cultivation was hidden. Putting on the stealth band to conceal my energy was a pain.
“Your ignorance is amusing,” I replied with a smile as she glared daggers at . “I am hiding my cultivation, which you will have to do as well if you are coming with us.” She looked confused by my statent for a mont and then shocked.
“Why? Why would you even hide? Unless your power is so imnse?”
“Longwei was able to realize I am a cultivator. And I hide since we need to take every precaution we can. While the energy I absorb is far less, it also ans I am releasing extra energy at a far lower rate. Low enough that it makes hard to detect using energy focused thods,” I calmly explained while observing Luo Lingtai.
“We take stealth very seriously. Did Longwei pluck you from so backwater on a whim?” Yang Zi guessed and Luo Lingtai mutely nodded. She was probably mortified at insulting a senior cultivator like . The difference between us was that I would never have underestimated soone in my position that was introduced by my superior. Politeness cost nothing except one’s pride. But in a situation like this, it was better to be careful rather than create pointless drama. Unless the drama was the point to see how we would react. That kind of action seed unlikely, but the Xyon Front and their assigned monitor should not be underestimated.
Still, I didn’t think she was pretending with her emotions and expressions. That difference in mindset, not seeing the situation for what it really was, would have led to her death long ago if she didn’t have the luck to make it this far. While she was incredibly pleasant looking to the eyes, my guess was that Longwei was tired of her as a mistress and was giving her a chance to prove herself. It both increased and decreased the risks for us, since he might be more or less likely to betray us.
If I had to guess, I would say less likely. An Immortal of standing in the Xyon Front ant he could pick out whatever woman he wanted from billions of people. He could even have won custom made if he desired. The fact he had soone like this showed he was more interested in her spit fire personality, not her appearance. It was much harder to select for personality than it was for so physical characteristic, especially a spit fire personality that was rebellious in certain ways.
Based on how Luo Lingtai reacted to learning I was her senior in cultivation, she was probably beaten down by Longwei over ti. While so might think his choice was born out of so sort of progressivism, it was sadism instead. He wanted to train her like a dog, keeping her spit fire personality, but making her docile to him.
Handing Luo Lingtai over to us as a monitor probably served several purposes. The first being was a final test of her training. How well would her personality hold togeather once she was away from his direct influence. Would she look to undermine him, or faithfully report everything? My guess was she would report everything with how broken ntally she was. Also, she was probably one of his more trustworthy subordinates.
The second purpose was a test of us. If I attempted to replace Longwei in her ntal programing, he would know when we ca back to trade energy liquid. If I attempted to suborn her loyalties, then he would lean more towards betrayal. If I didn’t, he would get more information as she fed him information. He had probably tired of her as well and didn’t want to invest in her to beco an Immortal, unless she proved herself in so way. A lose-lose situation for us, while a win-win for him.
That was the thing about old powerful cultivators. They were incredibly shaless. The sa was true for all the old people across the Firmant, the Coordinator coming to mind. They had long lost any type of sentintality they had and only looked at risk versus rewards while leveraging every advantage they had.
Longwei clearly was treating us as an investnt. While it was questionable how much ti he had personally put into Luo Lingtai, he had put in ti. The problem was her ti was a finite amount. This guess was on much more shaky ground than the previous guesses, but he might be looking to see if he could have a spit fire personality, break it, and then have her look for benefits while not betraying him.
If she grasped for immortality while not betraying his interests, she would be promoted from a pawn to a bishop in the Xyon Front was my guess. While Yang Zi and I never got Longwei’s title or position in the Xyon Front, he was probably very high up. He would need to be to conduct such a high risk, high value transaction with both of us.
The fact he left right away showed how valuable his ti was and how little he valued us. I would put him as a rook, possibly a queen in this type of organization. While he might be ranked highly, he would not rank at the top of the organization. Such a figure would never interact with us, due to our weakness and the level of value we brought to the Xyon Front. That was the kind of individual who was able to reach out directly to super organizations to negotiate with them.
Or perhaps there was so kind of ruling council, and he was on it. Unlike super organizations, there was much less public information about the Xyon Front. Super organizations had territory and even if they had strict borders, stuff would still be discovered about them. But a cartel could be more fluid.
In fact there might be different beings to handle different supplicants, like us, and super organizations. I had originally thought they were human and cultivator focused, but that was probably the surface information. To cultivator humans, they might be the Xyon Front. To so weird tentacle creature, they could have an entirely different na.
Our arrival ti was strictly controlled and there were no other vessels. We also parked inside the refraction rock and couldn’t see outside of it. This wasn’t the Free Port, so everything was kept hidden. It was so obvious, once I asked the key question to understand these types of organizations.
What is the most shaless and profit seeking thing they could be doing? My thinking had been too shallow before. They wouldn’t leave huge sections of the market untapped. They would seek to gain as many benefits as possible. In fact it could be sothing beyond a super organization, expanding across a vast territory in the Firmant, acting in the shadows.
With no real policing, except for super organizations themselves, it would make sense that a singular powerful being would rise up and take control of all the cartels, controlling a vast network of illegal activity. While they might fund energy pirates, and actual pirates, they would take a percentage of every transaction just like the Administrator.
I could easily see most of that energy being channeled into a singular being who was their ultimate trump card. Losing soone like Longwei would hurt or even this base, but it ultimately wouldn’t end the cartel. Unlike super organizations, the weak or compromised portions could easily be cut off. It was just a matter of performance.
The more I learned, the greater the depth the Firmant had. If it was an ocean, then the super organizations were just the great structures the light reached, but there was a hidden depth filled with terrors.
That raised the question of how big was this pyramid of cartels. Did this boss have another boss he had to pay energy to? Did they have a boss? These were questions that required an imnse amount of strength, connections, and understanding to get an answer for.
Even if there was only one boss above Longwei, they would not reveal themselves easily. The entire point would be to be a hidden boss, gathering strength while supervising everything. That was when another epiphany ca to .
Longwei would probably use us to pad his own inco. The deal was between us and him. While he was representing the Xyon Front, we hadn’t been funded by the Xyon Front, specifically energy pumps. He also sent us soone he had trained personally, not from another faction in the organization.
The first rule of any criminal organization was to look for benefits. The second rule was to take more power wherever possible. Energy was the primary factor for both power and trade. Getting more energy for himself would only benefit Longwei in the long run. Allowing him to improve his cultivation to the point he could challenge his boss or beco a possible replacent once his boss made a mistake.
Whatever boss was out there behind Longwei was probably more competent than him and had more hidden asures to protect himself or herself. Cultivation didn’t discriminate between genders in the pursuit of power. But that didn’t matter, the fact was that Longwei was most likely using us as an undeclared channel for extra energy.
I could be wrong about all of this, since it would alter my previous knowledge about cartels being segregated. There was always another layer to everything. Since the Firmant had existed forever, it made wonder who or what was the most powerful being out there in charge and how they compared to the ancients hiding in the Astral Plane.
“We are going to be working togeather for a long ti. You can refer to as Yuan Zhou,” I said to Luo Lingtai. The best option to dealing with her after all the realizations I had co to was to work with her efficiently. Trying to turn her into a subordinate would only create trouble. If we would only have a couple of interactions, then I would have insisted on being referred to as Senior. But since there was a good chance we would be working togeather for hundreds of cycles, it was better to make things as harmonious as possible.
“Very well, Yuan Zhou,” she replied. “I apologize for my earlier words.” She had been beaten down hard. Longwei had really ssed her personality up.
“Apology accepted. Since your expertise is with the compression and purification of energy, I think it is best if we make sure that everything is built into our vessel correctly and that our stealth isn’t impacted,” I said while looking at Yang Zi.
“Yes. We need to build tanks for energy liquid and the piping. All of this will need shielding. A lot of shielding so it isn’t detected. I would say two layers of internal shielding at the least, possibly three. Won’t leave much room left to move other things,” Yang Zi said. I nodded at this, but that was our current plan.
Building more energy pumps on our own was possible, but it would be a huge investnt. The current energy pumps had us recycle several of the core components to make sure there were no hidden traps. That was easy enough to do with what we had on board. Attempting to make an entirely new energy pump would be a long term project once we had the compression and purification systems installed and working.
We would have one very large tank that took up a third of the storage space with unused energy liquid. Half of the storage area would be repurposed with several tanks of decreasing size and the purification and compression system. We would take in the energy liquid from the pump, compress and purify it, put it into a tank, then repeat, going to smaller holding tanks. The compression and purification system could run the energy through four tis, so that was what we would be doing.
We would lose a lot of energy, but it was better safe than sorry. The price didn’t change much based on the level of purification, just the level of risk the buyer was willing to accept. Since there were so many different thods and systems, it was a gamble if you used an untrustworthy source. But those sources tended to be used in less critical applications, like the construction of certain materials instead of cultivation.
That was how demand stayed consistent and there was no purification grades or standards. Compression of energy was for ease of transportation and for use in higher grade applications. This overlap with compression and purification was why the systems ca togeather and most people treated compression as the standard in relation to purification. While this was mostly true, it wasn’t always true.
If soone was desperate to sell lots of energy, they could skip over the purification step. They could easily save over 20% of the collected energy while compressing it, since purification consud a lot of energy, while compression didn’t.
But individuals who sold highly compressed energy that didn’t go through a purification step were asking for trouble in the form of Chaos. Compression, from what I understood, created an increasingly dense crystalline structure. That crystalline structure represented order. The problem was how much order could be applied, removing errors from the structure.
Even the Soaring Star Society allowed issues to get through their Infinite Ring Complex at such a base level, the more I learned about these types of systems, the more impossible it seed. The problem was the level of purification did not match the level of compression.
There was a logarithmic limit to purification. Removing errors in the energy liquid and then the crystals was easy at a high level. But energy was inherently chaotic. The more one purified, the more energy was lost at an exponential rate, until you wouldn’t have any energy. That was where there was a theoretical limit to purification.
In terms of compression, it was a linear cost, not an exponential cost. One just had to apply increasing levels of technology to make the crystals more compact. This too had a theoretical limit. The reason why the energy from the Infinite Ring Complex used the term hyper was because it exceeded these limits.
That was the advantage of creating a giant straw to suck up energy directly from Chaos provided. There was an infinite amount of energy, with the main limitation being the number of steps to process the energy and compress it. That was why such a massive complex was built along with habitats.
If there were errors in the energy used, the large population would have shown signs. It wasn’t just a recruitnt ground, I had realized it was a large scale testing ground for the quality of their energy. Since the energy was sucked up and then filtered back down. If there were problems with that energy, it stood to reason that lower ranked cultivators would show signs first.
The problem was that Chaos bypassed all of that, by allowing itself to be built into the very system of micro cultivation that those cultivators used. Sothing like that defied all logic, but that was what happened when you poked Chaos with a straw.
That was why in most cases only a certain level of purification and compression was expected. There were exceptions, like the hyper compressed energy cannister I had, but they were rarely seen. But that was just at the Free Port. The more I learned, the more I realized how shallow my understanding of the Firmant actually was.
It was like looking at a map of countries and thinking one knew about geopolitics. That kind of idea was laughable. There were imnse nuances and layers to everything. I hadn’t known about cartels before Yang Zi had arranged this eting. It was humbling in a way that made realize that I might be playing on a bigger stage, but I was still nothing in the grand sche of things.
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