"I have some important news to give you, I believe you will be very interested."

Master Giovanni finally informed through the phone.

​​

He was not scared of building up anticipation as he was certain that the meat was up to par.

"How important?"

The voice on the other side asked casually.

"Top priority importance."

Elijah's interest was peaked in an instant.

He was very much willing to move his schedule back for top priority level importance matters, something he wouldn't have done even if Master Giovanni had said that it was a high priority level of importance.

Though of course, sometimes that depended on his mood as well as what he could push back and on to other people's hands that particular day.

If Giovanni didn't come up with something worth Elijah's time, in the future, his matters would be pushed back in Elijah's mind, so it was only natural that one wouldn't want to mislabel the level of importance of a matter.

"Then come over to my office," Elijah said with an amiable smile that Master Giovanni couldn't see, but it was also one that Master Giovanni could simply imagine.

Just as Master Giovanni thought that that was it, Elijah added something else.

"Do try and impress me more than your disciples have, okay?"

The man joked playfully, but Giovanni could hear all the hidden seriousness and threat in his voice.

It was as if he were saying: Don't waste my time as your underlings have, or you won't see what's coming! Or perhaps you will hehe… either way, you won't like it very much.

The relaxed mood he had built up to that point completely disappeared as Master Giovanni got red in his face.

A large smile plastered all over just to hide the fact that his middle-aged self wanted to punch this man not even half his age.

'Don't be too disrespectful, brat!'

Master Giovanni almost wanted to say it out loud, but it stopped at the tip of his tongue as the other side had hung up on him.

'Just you watch kiddo! This master has more than this lot of disciples, so don't come regretting and begging me when you find out that this youngest disciple of mine isn't one that you can offend easily!'

'Oh, youngsters…you don't know what it means to burn bridges? I'll show you what it means!'

Now that smile was scary.

The smile on Master Giovanni's face clearly spelled out: 'I'm trouble.'

It was the kind of smile one would have before murdering another.

The smile your mother, sister, or wife had on when they are truly angry, enough to wish you dead.

Yeah... that one.

That one sentence of Elijah was truly effective.

If Master Giovanni didn't impress him, then Elijah could use this opportunity to settle some debts or to put some more pressure on the man.

As for if one had something that could truly impress Elijah, then this one sentence would make them much more inclined to expose that information in a fit of rage to prove themselves.

Of course, such a tactic would not easily influence Master Giovanni, but when coming from a man much younger than himself, it still had its effects.

Such as his temporary loss of control over his temper as well as the previously stated inclination, only much weaker than how it would feel to a normal person when faced with such a troublesome opponent.

***

A few moments later, Assistant Liam opened the door to his boss's office to let Master Giovanni in.

In his heart, he was not as calm as he was made out to be on the surface.

He was crying.

'Boss, you can't be like this!'

'How come all you have pushed is the time in which you have to look over paperwork? And you didn't push it off but rather pushing it onto me??'

Liam could still see the endless stacks of paper in his mind.

Those were just a few meters away from this very spot.

And to think that this was Elijah making time for this important appointment.

The man was just one step away from saying that he had nothing important to do at the moment!!

If Elijah could hear the thoughts of this good assistant of his, he would surely comfort him with a stern yet amiable voice, saying: Can't you see this is my trust in you? I would only let someone as trusted as you supervise these 5 projects as well as the launching of these 3 lines of products and of course the building of these 3 franchises.

At that point, Liam could only cry in his sleep while clutching tight to his resignation letter which he could not turn in as he too had been schemed by this boss of his into a 20-year contract with a penalty fee that he could not afford.

Yes, he had not read the terms properly, but hey, at least he would never make such a low-level mistake ever again.

But slowly, he was convinced by his boss's strengths, strengths at obtaining manual labors!

Each time his boss caught another prey, Liam would smile kindly in schadenfreude.

How great it was to know that he was not the only one who had fallen into his boss's trap!

There were of course also many who were willingly trapped by this boss of theirs, which took the fun out of Liam's game, but the ones who were tricked were also not small in number.

Many of them are still clueless to this day.

And just like that, he had started in the journey of becoming a hunting tool for his calculative boss.

Though he had piles of paperwork to do, Liam gained pleasure in knowing that his subordinates had even more paperwork than he himself.

And thus he could only put that hard stuff in the back of his mind and a smile on his face as he led yet another fox into his boss's trap.

There was a saying that his boss had told him in the past, one that he wholeheartedly believed after many interactions with Elijah.

"No matter how sly the fox, in the end, they are still a fox, and they will still be my prey," he had said with a calm, yet imposing demeanor.

This was quoted straight from the boss himself, and be it past, present, or future, Liam had never seen Elijah fail to hit the target.

As the office doors opened the handsome man inside lifted his head to make eye contact with Master Giovanni.

"Come, sit here," Elijah smiled amicably, but his words clearly left no room for any sort of refusal.

There were some more items made of Aether Ebony, ones that had not been there just a few weeks prior.

Most of them were placed on the coffee table.

But Master Giovanni didn't notice since he hadn't been here in a while.

The calming, gentle, yet permeating smell gave Master Giovanni an uncharacteristically calming feeling, as if having let down all mental defenses.

Something he had yet to notice.

Younger people often found this effect harder to observe, but it was still there.

This was mainly an issue on the observational skills of each person as well as their sensitivity.

And in general, though people of younger ages often had better sensitivity when it came to their 5 senses, people of elder age had grown to have better observational skills, especially those who admired antiques and such.

This was one more reason why the Aether Ebony was put in such high esteem.

There were simply more mysterious effects than one could care to imagine and with the fading of this plant, fewer and fewer people were keen to find out these effects.

Slowly, fewer and fewer people could even point out this wood.

With many of the remaining people with their eyes on the Aether Ebony being those of much higher social classes and social standings.

People that these woods could affect at some point in their lives as well as people who could afford to buy such an expensive commodity.

Master Giovanni, though old, was not old enough to reach the age where he would be calm enough to observe such details.

He was still a hot-blooded man at heart and being a hacker who sat at his computer for extended periods of time did not help him notice such things either.

He was rather unattuned with nature, so even if his defenses were being lowered, he wouldn't notice as quickly as others may.

And really, by then, it would oftentimes be too late.

This is what is called starting one step behind the starting point.

Unbeknownst to Master Giovanni, the game had already begun.

Liam, knowing his boss well, could only sigh and pray for Master Giovanni to fall quicker so that his boss could go back to work quicker.

He didn't even bother lighting a candle for this unknowing prey as the number of candles he had lit previously had already warned him of the fire hazard involved.

As his boss's assistant, all he could do was light one in his heart.

But even so, that was already him being way too kind of him since it was also because of this man that he had to do another stack of paperwork.

From experience, Liam also knew that his Boss would never get to it.

And of course, by 'this man' whose fault it was, Liam, of course, meant Giovanni as he dare not blame his boss in his heart too much lest Karma hits, and his boss decides to take a vacation out of the blue.

That would really be a finishing blow.