Chapter 374: The Art of Persuasion (1/2)
In any case, with the trial now over, Rosalia had no more reason to sit by the platform where Helios watched Argentum undergo through his trials. With that, she hastily headed down to where Argentum and Helios were, the center of the mini-arena Helios made.
Whoosh!
By the time Rosalia had arrived where Argentum and Helios were, she could not help but look at the two of them, noticing that both of them were grinning from ear to ear with glee. Of course, such a sight would normally frighten a bystander, but Rosalia only looked at this with confusion visibly written on her face, wondering how it had come to this point.
And so, to satiate her curiosity, she went ahead and sent a strand of energy to Argentum, asking him, ”What's making you two grin so widely out of nowhere?”
In response, Argentum shifted his sense of vision towards Rosalia before sending a strand of energy back, saying with a slightly bitter chuckle, ”I think I went a bit too overboard with my compliments. Now, he thinks that I live for the sole purpose of seeing him.”
”And how were you able to pull that off within such a short manner of time?” Naturally, Rosalia could not help but have her eyes widen as she asked in response. ”I may have taken my time getting here, but that's still around 10 seconds, you know?”
Scratching his head, Argentum then extended out his right arm as he pointed at the ground of the arena. Soon, a great mass of Wind energy particles condensed around the tip of his finger before hastily manipulating itself to form an image of Helios's face. Naturally, such a sight brought pride and joy to Helios, who loved seeing images of himself whenever he could.
Then again, Rosalia was sure that Argentum didn't do anything like that while she was making her way to where they were. With that, she asked once more, ”Did you really do something like that while I made my way here?”
”I guess you can call it a variant of it,” Argentum responded as the image of Helios disappeared, eliciting a small frown of sadness to appear on Helios's face. Fortunately, this frown didn't last long as Argentum gathered a large mass of Wind energy particles again before allowing them to burst and form an image of Helios that disappeared within seconds. Unsurprisingly, a smile of pride and joy appeared on Helios's face once more, though this time, he could not help but clap at the show Argentum had given him.
”As expected of my biggest fan. To have someone like you who would live and die just to see the satisfaction of this divine being right here, I would like to say to the heavens that I am grateful that someone like you has appeared in my life,” Helios said as he clapped, prompting Argentum to let out a bitter smile as he looked at Rosalia…or at the very least, that was what his aura made her feel.
In response, Rosalia could not help but let out a light sigh as she shrugged her shoulders, thinking to herself, 'You brought this onto yourself, so don't ask me for help getting out of it.'
After saying those words of praise towards Argentum's show of proficiency towards the Wind element, which superbly pleased Helios, Helios then returned to the original topic he and Argentum were on before they entered the Heaven's Gust Inheritance. Clearing his throat to catch the attention of the two, an indifferent expression soon appeared on his face as he looked at Argentum and said, ”As stated before, you need to fulfill a condition of mine before I can agree to your offer. Now that you have fulfilled that condition, I, the great Tempest King, shall do whatever I can to help out in the development of your town, namely in the production and selling of the potion recipe you gave me.”
”Speaking of which, since you know Felix and the others, are they benefactors of your town as well?” he soon asked, to which Argentum nodded as he replied, ”Yes. Just like you, great Tempest King, they produce potions that have the same effect, though they focus on another element.”
”If my assumptions are correct, Eleanor's concocting the Heaven's Fire Potion and Felix is concocting the Heaven's Water Potion. Is that correct?” Helios asked, prompting Argentum to nod.
”Since I presume that I'm the only one you've offered the recipe to the Heaven's Wind Potion to, who's in charge of producing the Heaven's Earth Potion? Is it Rosalia or Melzarin?” he asked yet again.
Surprisingly, it was Rosalia who responded this time around, saying with a hint of pride, ”I'm the one concocting those potions, thank you very much.”
Seeing how proud Rosalia was to concoct those potions, Helios shrugged his shoulders as he said, ”Well, go figure. Melzarin didn't really strike me as someone who could concoct a potion like that, much less do it well like Felix and the others.”
Just as Helios said that…
”Achoo!” Out of nowhere, Melzarin let out a sneeze inside his Desecrated Inheritance, even though he was in his skeleton body. Nevertheless, he found it weird that he would sneeze all of a sudden, which prompted him to ask himself, ”Is someone talking about how great of a being I am?”
In any case, Helios now knew who concocted which type of potion, allowing him to ask something else. ”If my assumptions are correct once again, by becoming the benefactor of your town, that means we would have to share a part of the profits with you, is that correct?”
”That would be the case, yes. In exchange, you would be able to use the potion for yourself whenever you want and even earn money in the process,” Argentum responded, forgetting to flatter Helios in the process.
Fortunately, Helios ignored that as his mind was currently focused on business. Rubbing his chin as he pondered over something, he then asked Argentum, ”How much of the profits are they giving you?”
”Half of it,” Argentum succinctly replied.
”In that case, I'll give you 30% of the profits I obtained from selling the Heaven's Wind Potion,” Helios said not long after with a tone of confidence and determination. Of course, Argentum wasn't expecting Helios to show such an expression. It was as if he was saying to Argentum that his 30% was better than the others' 50% cut.
Surprisingly, Rosalia backed up Helios's confidence as she said to Argentum, ”Don't underestimate this cut, Argentum. Even though it's only around half of our share, you'd still obtain more than double the amount of gold coins than you would from one of us.”