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Chihiro suddenly stopped his words and just… stood there, leaning over the table while staring straight into Clayton\'s face, as if making sure to put a great emphasis on the point he was making.

"Then again, if we do it on our own, once it comes to the light, we won\'t be able to bear the consequences this discovery will have upon the world," Chihiro stated while spreading his arms out. "That\'s why, we are here for three reasons," he added while stretching his hand out and showing three of his fingers.

"First, we are here to announce me becoming Tim\'s fiancee," Claire started while taking a set by my side. "That\'s why we are here so openly, that\'s why we spent half an hour just sitting around and being seen," she explained with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Second, we are here to ensure your cooperation with our project. Cooperation, that on your end will be limited to hiring just a few security guards, giving us all the grants and approvals that we need so that we can establish a place where we will exploit our discovery in peace while giving you time to figure out how to prepare for when the news about it will break to the world."

"And thirdly," Chihiro spoke again, "I\'m here to do you a favor you are in desperate need of, yet a favor that will bury you if you ever as much as think about stabbing us in the back."

Rather than using threats on the city or state level, it was much better to just threaten my uncle personally. After all, he wasn\'t guaranteed to care if the consequences of treason would come to fall upon the city or the country as a whole. But if he were to be the one to bear the consequences himself, then the decision of turning his back on us wouldn\'t come as lightly.

"A favor I need?" Clayton muttered while raising his eyebrow and giving Chihiro a doubtful look. "I\'m sorry, but it seems that detaching yourself from the political scene made you blissfully unaware of just what kind of problems I deal with. In other words," Clayton leaned back in his chair as if to show just how much of his confidence he regained with just this statement alone.

"It seems like you are overestimating your influence."

In response, Chihiro just… smiled.

"Aren\'t you short of three votes for the roundtable rounds to retain the initiative?"

Silence.

For the first time since the meeting started, no one had anything to say. Even if it only lasted a short moment, it was there to show just how well-aimed Chihiro\'s retort was…

Even if I personally had no idea what were those two guys on about.

"It\'s not the kind of knowledge that would be hard to find out about," Clayton replied with a seemingly total lack of care… But the sound of his voice changed just enough to confirm Claire\'s dad struck him true… and sank him down in one go.

"And yet, to abate the situation you are willing to give up on half of the reclamation marks, don\'t you?"

With a perfectly satisfied smile, Chihiro shattered Clayton\'s hastily mounted defense, proving that his research into the man ran far deeper than my uncle appeared to expect.

"It was never the city\'s authority to decide on the distribution of those marks…"

"And yet, it\'s going to be decided at the city council, meaning, rather than by a popular vote, it\'s going to get decided between the city and the elites," Chihiro shrugged his shoulders while the look of amusement started to fade off his face, indicating he was nearing the limits of his patience over how long this discourse should last.

"That\'s…"

Judging by his hesitation, Clayton didn\'t really have any way to retort the last of Chihiro\'s points.

And no matter what those reclamation marks or the roundtable rounds meant, I could tell that our deal was by no means bad.

\'He wouldn\'t react like that if those things weren\'t of vital importance,\' I thought, taking my leisurely time trying to learn as much about what was going on as I could. \'And if he can avoid some sort of a really sour pill for the low price of just cooperating with us…\' I squinted my eyes a bit, \'wouldn\'t it be stupid to refuse?\'

I didn\'t need to know what the two men were talking about in particular to realize it wasn\'t just a small, random topic of no significance. And that alone was pretty much to confirm that we were, indeed, offering him a really good deal.

"All in all, we just need to get a direct deal with the city\'s distributor of the electricity and enough paperwork to bury all the records of it ever happening. Then, we just need a few men on constant duty, always ready to stop any other authority from infringing upon our project," Chihiro ignored the need for Clayton\'s approval and moved right to explaining how the deal would look like.

\'He clearly considers the topic to be settled already,\' I thought, leisurely watching how the confrontation between the two men went.

"You wouldn\'t have come to me if you didn\'t actually need my cooperation," Clayton stated, seemingly out of nowhere, right as Chihiro was about to move to the next part of his explanation. "And that\'s why, not only will you take care of getting me the votes I need, but you will also join the city\'s council in a full, official capacity."

That… came out of nowhere.

And what was worse, without proper background knowledge about what the hell the city council was, I couldn\'t even tell whether this ask was worth a lot or not.

"I\'m still only ninth stage," Chihiro spread his arms open as if to show himself to the governor bare. "As such, it would be illegal for me to…"

"Oh, come on," Clayton rolled his eyes before putting down his left elbow on the table before bringing his head down onto his palm. "We both know that you wouldn\'t move for anything but the opportunity to break through to the tenth stage."

Even though Clayton was the Governor of the city and had little to no authority on the matters of the cultivation district…

He still was de jure overseer of those lands and all that happened within. As such, he didn\'t have the freedom to ignore the world of cultivation as most of the modern folk did, not when the political party he belonged to won their current mandate to rule on the back of the promise to keep the relationship between modern and spiritual moderated.

"That\'s…" Still, regardless of what the weight of Clayton\'s ask was, when I saw the look of hesitation on Chihiro\'s face…

I could already tell.

Even though I didn\'t really spend much time with the man, the same couldn\'t be said about spending time with his daughter. And regardless of what was the problem of their relationship, their mannerisms were still, largely, the same!

And so, I could tell that Chihiro\'s hesitation was nothing more but an act, aimed to settle the deal on the current terms by making it seem as if he wasn\'t all that ready to agree to the current offer!

"Okay then, I\'m going to join the council, not before breaking through to the tenth rank, though," Chihiro stated while making the face of the utmost reluctance if not outright grief.

"Good," Clayton nodded his head, acting as if he was satisfied with the deal… even though the rapid movement of his eyes made it quite obvious he was well aware of what was going on.

\'I guess he just got greedy for a moment there,\' I thought, holding back a sigh.

Even though Clayton changed by a whole lot since the last I saw him… at the very core, there was no doubt in my heart that he was still the same, manipulative and greedy man!

"Now that we agreed to the deal, how about you tell me just what the hell is that thing I\'m going to need to prepare the city for?" my uncle asked with the look of exasperation mixing with the look of exhaustion on his face.

"It\'s nothing much," I smiled while leaning back in my chair before stopping my words and turning my head to take a look at Chihiro.

In a flash, a wave of heavy, extremely heavy energy washed over me… Or, to be more precise, washed through the entire room, throwing everyone inside into a bubble of extremely thick Qi.

Which, in turn, was my cue to continue.

"I found a way to turn electric energy into spiritual Qi," I explained. "And with that said, I\'m going to let you figure it out yourself why do all three of us consider this discovery to be an emergency."