” Come in ” Neatwit said as he expected to see Christian Grey, however, was surprised to see Max.

” Hello, guildmaster ” Max said as he awkwardly sat on the chair in front of Neatwit

The two of them sat in silence for a while as Neatwit inspected Max, while Max noticed the changes in Neatwit

During his brothers time as the guildmaster, Neatwit was his key player whose only obsession in life was to be at the top of the levelling leaderboards.

It was not until many years into gaming with the elites that he slowly started to care more about the guild than his personal glory and was moulded into a responsible elder in the guild.

Still, he had that cool carefree player aura around him, and Max remembered him being a pretty chill guy until his brother stepped down as guildmaster and handed over the reins to his friend Karna.

When Karna became guildmaster, he promoted Neatwit to the vice guild master post and it was there that Neatwit became truly buried in work and had to slowly become more mature.

However, he was unrecognisable now.

His aura was dangerous, his eyes were sharp and his demeanour was suspicious, he looked nothing like the chill guy Max knew once upon a time, but rather had the same aura that Patricia Won Knight and Regus Aurelius had, the aura of a king.

” What can I do for you today Max? I hope it’s a pleasant reason for you to visit us at the Elite headquarters today ” Neatwit said as he leaned forward towards Max awaiting reply.

” I’m here on behalf of a close friend, he needs a planet to station roughly 500,000 troops, but has no place to keep them.

I can vouch for him, and pay any reasonable rent amount on his behalf, but I need you to lend me a planet for this purpose”. Max said, as he had to lie about needing it for a friend, since he could not be forthright about wanting it for himself as it would expose his identity as Ravan.

” Who is this friend of yours? ” Neatwit asked as he seemed to be curious about the identity of the person who could make Max come ask for a favour.

” Captain Ravan, a vampire ” Max said as Neatwits eyes brightened at the name.

” I’ve heard about that boy, a funny one he is, if I were you, I’d stay away from him, he’s made enemies with the Caesar clan, I’m not sure they’ll let him live for too long, they already have a hit order out on his head” Neatwit said as he casually revealed critical information that Max was unaware about.

The Caesars had put out a hit order on Ravans head, and since the True Elites were one of the best guilds in the universe, they naturally received a hit order on this mission alongside the other assassin guilds.

” How much is the bounty? ” Max asked, as he felt his heart beat faster, if the bounty was too big, it would put the top Assassin’s on his tail

” 300 million gold coins, enough to mobilise tier 5 Assassin’s ” Neatwit said nonchalantly as he leaned away from Max and began to think about his proposal seriously.

” Max, I do have empty planets where I can rent you space, however, I will charge you three times the rent because you met me today through backdoor channels.

Karna and Rudra were my brother’s, when Karna died, I was depressed for a whole month, literally on the verge of mental breakdown.

If your brother did not decide to take on the thunder nation back then, I might have thrown my life away trying to kill Thor on my own.

There is no favour in this world I won’t do for you until it’s not detrimental to the guild, however, since your brother is not around I need to take it upon myself to teach you a valuable lesson.

There is nothing like free meals in this universe, your connections are only good when both parties get something out of it, the moment you try to leverage connections for one sided profit, they start to crumple.

If you met with me today after making a proper appointment and going through the right channels, I’d give the planet to you for free, I really would.

Christian Grey had to wait 7 months to get 20 minutes of my time, yet you walked in infront of him.

I don’t mind, and I won’t refuse to help you, but you will pay three times the amount, understand? ” Neatwit said as he let Max know the importance of not overusing his connections and status

The empire that Rudra had built, Max could undoubtedly use it and leverage it to his advantage.

It was not his fault that he was born the younger brother of Rudra Rajput and he had every right to leverage his birth name, however, he also needed to learn that everything came with a price, especially favours.

” I understand guildmaster, I’ll give you a confirm answer in 24 hours ” Max said as he politely bowed and took his leave

” Meet Amelia on your way out, she will hand you the documents about the planets location and habitat, also stay away from the Ravan boy, he’s more trouble than you know ” Neatwit said as he insisted that Max rethink his ties with the vampire.

” I’ll keep that in mind ” Max said as he felt weird telling Neatwit that he would stay away from Ravan when in fact he himself was Ravan.

As Max walked out of the office, he saw a smiling Christian Grey waiting for him as he high fived Max and hit his butt before entering Neatwits office.

Max rolled his eyes at Christians behaviour, but he also knew that if everything went well and he became a lord, he would need unscrupulous merchants like Christian to really keep the economy of his lands moving.

——–

/// A/N – Chapter 8/10, we are almost there! ///