The two men, one young and one old stared at each other intently.

Both of them seemed rather relaxed, perhaps due to the incredible effects of the Aether Ebony or perhaps for another reason that was completely unrelated.

​​

Even so, just from their sitting postures, it could be seen that one was more comfortable in his seat when compared to the other.

This was the advantage of being on your home ground when on a battlefield.

Master Giovanni had pretty much walked into the other party's playing field, but it wasn't really his fault since Elijah was known for not liking to talk over the phone when it came to important matters.

And there were clearly a lot of reasons for that.

Elijah liked to set the stage, and what would be the point of setting the stage if he couldn't even see the cast?

If things were discussed through the phone, many truths may be distorted as one wouldn't be able to see the facial expressions of the other, even the voices may be different through a speaker.

Elijah's pale green eyes pierced through Master Giovanni's narrowed eyes in a cold light.

Elijah flicked his sleeves to straighten out the creases as the other had yet to speak, but seeing as the silence was moving on from an "I'm observing you, you are observing me, we a creating a mood for negotiations" silence to a "this is getting awkward" silence and Master Giovanni had yet to show signs of opening his mouth, he spoke first.

That could be seen as a sign of him conceding a little.

"What important matter are you here to speak about today?"

Elijah said with an air of indifference as if he had a million better things to do.

Master Giovanni finally let out his pent-up sigh and relaxed in his seat, as if to say: F**k it, I'm done.

"Okay kid, you've gotten your point across so can you leave your sham of an attitude at the door?"

This was fake, too fake!

How could this man be here pretending to be all serious as if having become an advocate for 'all business no play', acting as a straightforward man, when he was the most scheming of them all!

'You had the upper hand, but now that's going to end!' Master Giovanni inwardly thought.

Suddenly, a smile grew on the young man's face, making his whole presence a few degrees warmer.

"How could I possibly do that? If I leave my attitude at the door, then I'll surely be swallowed up whole by you old foxes before I can even take a step into my own office!"

Elijah said in an accusatory tone as if he really feared being swallowed whole by this big bad wolf.

This young demon was playing the white lotus!

How shameless could one be?

WTF!

Master Giovanni's eye twitched.

'His skills have improved significantly...'

Not only was this young man who he had worked with multiple times before, accusing him of being scheming, he also didn't miss the chance to reinforce the fact that this was 'his office' and his territory as if telling him to not make a fuss.

Damn kid!

I'll make it so that you don't have the mood to act, later don't come begging for mercy!

Master Giovanni got riled up quickly, but he also cooled down quickly in this environment, all of which Elijah noticed through the man's expressions.

In fact, this had been the first time that Elijah took into consideration using the Aether Ebony during negotiations.

Though the initial effects were good, the more they got into the conversation, the more flaws Elijah saw in using the Aether Ebony.

It seemed like he would have to put this idea back into the incubation period.

From his initial observations, such a method would only be able to be used in very specific scenarios.

Elijah had previously failed to take into account that, though it did lower Master Giovanni's mental defenses, it also assisted him in calming his rage, which would prevent Master Giovanni from making rash decisions during key moments.

In other words, the effects of the Aether Ebony would help Elijah's opponents think rationally and with a calm mind at times in which they might have made a slip-up, rendering some of Elijah's discreet provocations useless.

That was quite annoying.

In the end, Elijah could only settle that annoyance in his heart as this was indeed the first time he had used these tactics, it was only natural that it wasn't mature enough to be used at its full potential.

"Okay, let's do it according to how you say."

Elijah relented, there was no point in inserting silent provocations just to waste both his time and efforts.

He wasn't a fan of that kind of play.

"We can get straight to the point?"

Master Giovanni asked in exaggerated mock surprise.

"Of course, I have to respect the elderly, right?"

The sentence just flew out of Elijah's mouth... there was no helping it.

Master Giovanni's vein bulged, but it once again relaxed in no time.

'I'll deal with you later kid!'

"I'll just be straight then, this is about our previous agreement and bet. I know that my disciples have disgraced me quite a bit in the past few months, but that is not important, because another one of my disciples came to redeem my dignity."

Elijah was surprised at how straightforward Master Giovanni was being about his past shames.

After all, this was an old man who cared for his face and reputation for its weight in gold.

It was not unreasonable as the jobs, resources, and opportunities given to hackers were greatly connected to their name.

This was also why many hackers made it their life's goal to make a name for themselves.

Who would trust a no-name with a job to steal company secrets from their competitor?

Not only was their name, but also their reputation of great importance.

If you've sold out your clientele before, or even had rumors of doing so, people would naturally be less inclined to hire you for a job.

Even if it's not true, just the fact that there was such a rumor about you means that your skills are subpar, or else no one would want to offend you after a job was accomplished successfully.

Elijah was the next to speak.

"You mean the bet concerning your disciples? I do seem to recall something like that, something about you believing that your disciples would be able to accomplish any job handed to them in this small company of mine. The agreement was to let them work for me in this period of time…"

Elijah's head moved to rest on his hand as he leaned forward before continuing.

"But their sense of presence has been so small that I had almost forgotten."

Elijah was stabbing at their lack of achievements so far while acting as if he was dissing his own poor memory.

But Master Giovanni simply gritted his teeth, pretending to not understand the not-so-hidden connotation in Elijah's tone.

"Well, your memory is indeed quite bad as the bet was on my certainty that my disciples as a group would certainly show you satisfactory results in your matters."

"Without your interference," Elijah added as if having just remembered the contents of the bet.

If it was this bet they were talking about, wasn't it a little too coincidental if they were to say that results were produced by the zoo animals, right when their teacher had come out of seclusion even though there had been barely any progress in the past 7 months?

Master Giovanni once against spoke through gritted teeth.

"Yes... without my interference!"

The man could feel his hair whitening the more he spoke.

But even those whitened hairs calmed down and receded in front of the frightening effects of the Aether Ebony.

Before Elijah could throw in another maddening tactical comment, Master Giovanni spoke again first.

'It seems like my words still had some effects, though not as strong as they normally are,' Elijah thought to himself.

It was as if his life goal was to whiten all of Master Giovanni's hairs so that he could die of old age before he died of frustration.

Actually, he would probably be satisfied with either or.

"And there has been progress?" Elijah asked with just the right amount of skepticism mixed in with some level of intrigue.

"Indeed, there has."

Master Giovanni didn't plan to elaborate until the other asked.

"And this progress is with the project X20Xn3 project they were delegated with?"

Master Giovanni feared that he would grow an eye twitching problem if he stayed any longer.

"We are the only ones here, so can you please use the human language to converse with me? Certainly, you don't expect my OLD brain to remember the serial code of their assigned project, do you?"

Elijah chuckled.

Hearing this from someone who could easily memorize 20 lines of code at a single glance was an interesting experience.

"Then how would this elder like me to phrase it? The M project? Is that simple enough?"

Elijah acknowledged that they were indeed the only people there to hear these words as if there were others, he would not be willing to say such words that revealed so much information in a single sentence.

Three words would be enough to expose their purpose.

Master Giovanni rolled his eyes, but he still relented to the stronger, younger generation.

In the end, he still had quite some respect for this young man, decades younger than himself.

"Yes, quite some progress."