“Yep, that’s right. My Lil Belle’s really smart! Every time someone connects a divided pair into a perfect single pathway, he or she breaks through to the next level.” Patting her head again, Virus praised the snuggling cat.
After Virus was done patting and touching her head, recalling something very important and relevant, the golden beauty queried, “Then… doesn’t that mean unlike other people, master’s [Liberation] stage will have 9 levels?! Wow, master’s really amazing then! Since you will be naturally a lot stronger than the other cultivators of the same stage!”
“…” Catching these delighted words of her, however, furrowing his brows, Virus denied in some disappointment. “Regrettably, that’s not going to happen since only the pathways that have been successfully disentangled can be fused together.”
“Eh! Isn’t that simple, then? Can’t master just disentangle all of them before breaking through?” Feeling lost, the golden beauty suggested.
“Unfortunately, I already broke through after untwisting twelve of my pathways, so that’s impossible now.” He notified her of the implausibility of the situation.
“Ah! Why did you do that, master?! Why didn’t you wait?” In fact, this news came as a big shock to the golden beauty since she knew exactly how fond of perfection Virus was.
Staring at the empty cup before him, Virus provided the answer that was confusing the golden beauty, “Sadly, even untwisting the knot within my 13th energy pathway was going to take a few decades at least… I think. Now let’s not talk about the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th Pathways. I even had this gut feeling and notion that perfecting the stage would be nigh impossible even for me, now however much time I spend in it.”
“Therefore, I decided… why should I feel greedy and waste my precious time over something that’s perhaps not even attainable? And as you can see, I finally let go and broke through.” To the golden beauty, the unshakeable resolution emanating from his facial expression was very clear at this point.
“Oh, I see.” Even though she was feeling somewhat sad for her master, being the intelligent girl she was, she didn’t hesitate to change the subject. “Alright, master! Thanks for your elaboration! It was really helpful. Now, let’s enter our session of closed-door training. Also, please let me know when you’re hungry, I’ll be cooking or ordering something from outside if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure, let’s-” Just as he was about to end their conversation, a familiar voice interrupted the two, “Master.”
“Oh, what’s up?” Locking eyes with the CEO ugly, Virus proclaimed.
“I’m here to report some of the company affairs.” He said respectfully.
“Un, please go on.” Wanting to end the report as quickly as possible before entering seclusion, Virus didn’t waste any time before permitting him to talk.
“First, I want to notify you that our Mining sector is already in the production phase as we are extracting massive amounts of nearly every type of ore, taking from iron, silver, copper, gold, and molybdenum to rough diamonds.”
“That’s great. And what about it?”
“Well, due to the exaggerated number of our mines, our production is simply too much, therefore, if we want to sell our ores indeed, we need to lower the price of those minerals to an extent so the customers of other mining corporations would be drawn to us.”
“In order to do that, I want to sell them at 50-60% price of other mining corporations throughout the world. Like this, we wouldn’t need to do anything as everyone would come flocking to our doorstep wanting to form a type of contract with us. What do you say to that, master?” At this point, gazing at his master’s dependable figure, he patiently waited for Virus to open his mouth.
“En, a good plan indeed, though that would most likely upset the rest of the mining sector and would definitely come to affect the entire price market of the globe since, in a way, ores are commodities without which a modern industrialized economy can not exist. But… why the hell would I bother myself with that? So, go on and break the balance.” Displaying an amused grin of expectation, he didn’t forget to add, “Now, I’m slightly looking forward to what reactions that would derive from the economic world.”
“Yes, master’s truly wise.” In fact, the CEO ugly had this weird premonition that Virus had already predicted his next hundred steps before he himself had even made the decision. So a simple analysis on the matter of the price didn’t really amaze him in any way. Still, that didn’t stop him from throwing a sentence of brief praise at his anticipated insight. It was always good to try to become the object of Virus’ favor.
“Anyway, that was the first part of my report.” After a simple pause, he continued, “I also wanted to inform you that I’m about to initiate the second part of my design.”
“Hoh, and what would that be?”
Witnessing his master’s evil grin that was clearly saying ‘I’m interested, continue’, the CEO ugly began to talk, “Now that we have the mining sector functioning without any issues, as I’m sure you’re already aware, what we lack is the capability in being able to turn those ores into their respective metals ourselves. Thus, I would like to spark the process of setting up our Basic Metal Production sector.”
“Explain your thoughts more extensively.”
“Yes, master. The first part of my plan is to make use of those numerous wide fields which we bought near the various mining grounds with the initial plan of stopping others from discovering that the lands we buy are rich in minerals. Anyhow, since they are in very close proximity to our mining grounds, I would like to utilize them and set up our basic metal production factories there.”
“Not only would that save a lot of transportation time and price, but those useless lands would also come to be economic and extremely profitable. To be honest, other than trying to mislead others and cover the potential of our fields, that was my plan all along. I never had any intention of leaving them as useless fields.”
