God Of Crafting

Chapter 13: If this is your way of trying to make me dual cultivate with you…

"Then, instead of adding two more stacks like this one, I will add one more zero instead."

At first, my eyes widened a bit.

Before I could react in any other way, however, my well-developed instincts kicked in, putting me in a state of deep focus.

It was a natural result of the way I've trained and hoped to overcome the wall of meditation, by forcing myself to regain my focus whenever my attention would spike.

Normally, this kind of focus reset would happen whenever I would be in an already deeply focused state and with something extremely minor about to distract me. Right now, however, with my thoughts already agitated, Claire's suggestion...

It was as much of a shock in my already agitated state as much a fly flying past would be a distraction while I tried to focus.

And so, with just a single twitch of my eyes, I've entered this quasi-meditative state, momentarily slowing down my perception of time and allowing me just a slight moment to think things through.

"So, a hundred thousand for a finished design with some slight improvements to how well it works?" I've asked, not for the sake of negotiating the price, but to buy myself more time.

'Should I just get the money and run?'

'Maybe cooperating with her is not the worst idea? Ten big ones are a lot, but nowhere near enough to keep going for long, especially with all the added costs...'

'Am I insane for even thinking I can trust someone I just randomly met?

A thousand different thoughts raced through my mind, each of them helping me to distance myself from the weight of the money the girl offered right away, and the sum she claimed to be willing to pay for a finished product.

Yet, even with all of that said...

"That's right," Claire nodded her head, leaving the neatly arranged wad of cash on the table before pulling her empty hand back. "A hundred big ones for what, a week's worth of work?" she asked with a small smile, shrewd enough to already include the rough timeline in the deal she was proposing.

But after all the thoughts that went through my mind, after all the things I noticed, thought, and processed... This wasn't the course I wished for our discussion to take. Not just yet, at the very least.

"Before I say anything else, allow me to suggest two stipulations," I stated while crossing my hands over my chest and doing my best to put a small, non-committed smile on my face. "From here and out, we are going to be fully honest. No bullshit, no half-truths, no lies of convenience or omitting the important details.

"If this is your way of trying to make me dual cultivate with you..."

'Huh?'

Despite the obvious seriousness of the clerk's misunderstanding... Her rage died down as soon as it came to be.

And I could only guess it was the genuine surprise on my face that made her realize that her interpretation of my words didn't align with my intentions at all!

"That was never my goal," I quickly rebuked the accusation while raising my hands up to my chest and showing my palms as if to show that I was completely harmless - just like my intentions. "I mean, you saw me some hours ago. As embarrassing as it is, today is the very first day that I've touched mana, so..."

I was twenty-five years old.

While it didn't matter all that much in the modern day and age, I've already started between two and five years later than usual. And with how I've only come to accept my absolute lack of talent two years later than pretty much even the worst practicioners were expected to enter the realm of cultivation...

I couldn't really fault Claire for not taking me for a total and absolute newbie!

"Is that why you asked...?" Slightly startled, Claire raised her eyes to my face as he... took a deeper look into me.

It wasn't just her expression.

Just like when the air around her tensed up a moment ago, her stare felt... heavier, deeper than before.

"You actually are just a newbie..." she then muttered before I could even give her the answer.

Still, this girl clearly wasn't the one to dwell on the topic while she pondered over her options.

"On a scale of one to ten... I can confidently claim to be seven. With that said, though," Claire's voice turned lower and fainter as her sentence drew to an end, only for the girl to squint her eyes as her stare, once again, pierced through my eyes. "While I can guess why you ask about it, I'm not really sure what it has to do with your crafting or our deal.

With a hundred big ones, you could easily hire..."

"That's what my second question was for," I interrupted the girl, courtly ignoring the opportunity to ask what made her rate herself so relatively high on the scale I proposed. "How much would you prize a device capable of thickening the mana in a room about the size of this shop so much, a newbie like me right now would actually struggle to move?"