“These injuries will probably take about half a month to heal. Just lying here all day is quite boring, do you have any ideas?” Celine asked while humming cheerfully.
“Ideas?” Garen was about to speak, but the ward door suddenly burst open. In came Instructor Hamm and a yellow-haired man with a neatly shaved buzz cut.
“If you’re bored, why not go on the Battlenet?” The yellow-haired man said.
“Coach, you came?” Celine looked at the yellow-haired man. It wasn’t a look of pure and utter respect, it was more like a look one would give a friend.
“I went to your ward earlier but you weren’t there. After asking the nurses, they told me that you transferred to another ward. It was at that moment I knew that you were definitely after contestant Nonosiva over here,” The yellow-haired man shrugged nonchalantly.
On the other hand, Instructor Hamm had a worried look as he stood at Garen’s bedside. Following closely behind him was Mina and Aier, and also a few others from Garen’s class. They were all here to visit Garen.
“Instructor,” Garen turned over while trying to stand up, but he was stopped by Instructor Hamm. Hence, he had no choice but to lie back down on his bed.
“Rest well, don’t think too much about formalities right now,” Instructor Hamm patted him on his shoulder. “You already did amazingly well and now it’s time for you to take a break.”
“If it wasn’t for meeting you, I would’ve breezed straight through to the top 3,” Celine chimed in from his side.
Garen ignored her words and asked the instructor about the situation regarding the tournament. As expected, after they had taken their leave, the tournament progressed to its final stage and the final 3 were decided. Unsurprisingly, Merseus got first place, almost one-shotting Bally, who was in second place, with his Level 3 Double Magnetic Field Line Cut. As for the third place Caus, this kid knew his own limits and didn’t even attempt to challenge Merseus for his first place. Thus, the rankings for this tournament were decided.
The spectator team at the judge’s seat came to the decision of accepting the three as Elite Students on the fly, allowing them to enter the council and choose their own specialization for their training.
“They’re currently holding the closing ceremony for the finals, but a lot of people have already left earlier. So, we decided to come over to visit you guys,” Mina said with a smile on her face. “Nono, this time you’ve really came into the limelight. To be able to suddenly get such a huge leap in rankings, our class getting 9th rank was all thanks to you.”
“Well, I can rest easy now knowing that you guys are doing fine,” Instructor Hamm laughed. “Mina is right, the academy will reward prize money for getting 9th rank. However, since the judge’s panel unanimously agreed that your strength and potential was on par with 4th place. Thus, although you won’t get the treatment of the 4th ranked student, the amount of prize money awarded to you is equivalent to that of a 4th ranked student. So that’s some good news for you.”
“How much is there?” Garen was suddenly energized at the mention of prize money. He was truly in need of money right now, mainly because the impure White Peacock Stones required to learn the Peacock Technique were burning a hole through his wallet. As he progressed deeper and deeper into this ‘hobby’ of his, the accumulated requirements got increasingly higher. If he already needed so much money at this point in time, surely he would need even more in the future. If he didn’t start saving up now, he’d definitely go bankrupt.
Instructor Hamm and company paid no mind to it, after all, Nono was from a poor household, so him being excited about prize money was, of course, completely natural.
“Eighty thousand!” Instructor Hamm answered with a cheeky grin, showing off his pearly whites.
Eighty thousand, for a normal household, would be approximately a year worth of household income or even more. Now, just by getting the 4th place in a tournament, he’d managed to get his hands on this gigantic sum in the form of prize money.
Garen felt as if he was relieved of a great burden, as the prize money solved his current worries for now. The third batch of white Rainbow Stones was in sight.
‘However, directly purchasing these Rainbow Stones isn’t worth it. All the high-energy fuel powder I obtained can be covertly resold off, I just need to find an anonymous trading service. This eighty thousand can be used to purchase a small laboratory. Using that as a cover, I can bleach the fuel powder and sell it off.’
Garen started thinking of different alternatives. On the surface, he was still casually chatting with Instructor Hamm, Mina, and Aier, and also thanking his classmates for their thoughts and prayers. However, the only thing Garen had on his mind at the time was the question of how he could bleach the fuel powder he had on hand.
Based on his prior research, in the current market, the high-energy fuel powder he had was currently, even in its most impure form, worth about 120 thousand universal Units per thousand grams. Of course, that was only the retail price, and if he sold it in large quantities, the price would no doubt be slightly cheaper. However, even if he only charged 100 thousand Units per thousand grams, he would still make a killing.
Garen thoroughly calculated the amount of powder he’d obtained from absorbing the White Peacock Stones from the start. The first batch was some stone powder that cost him 1000 Units, and the amount of powder that remained was approximately 2 kilograms. That amount managed to completely fill a bottle. This powder was also very dense, and it also had a bit weight to it. The second batch was the powder that remained from his previous absorption, it was easily 20 kilograms in weight and had cost more than 10 thousand Units.
In other words, if the degree of purity could hit the standard, his investment of 1000 Units would easily net 200 thousand Units in returns. This was an insane 1:200 rate of returns!
“The current problem now is the question of how to solve the anonymity issue. With this huge amount of profits, there would be plenty of people investigating me and my methods in a fit of jealousy. What kind of cover can I use to prevent that?” Garen was still a bit unfamiliar with these sorts of schemes.
After staying with Garen for a little longer, Instructor Hamm and company finally left to give Garen and Celine some time to rest.
“Hey, Celine,” Garen called out to the green haired girl.
“What’s up?” this girl suddenly opened her eyes, as if she was a cobra that had just awakened. For a young girl to be able to give off such a vibe, it was obviously the results of the intense training of her willpower attributes.
“Normally speaking, if you were to obtain a batch of chemical raw materials from an unknown source, how would you go about exchanging it for money?” Garen asked directly, not even trying to hide anything. This kind of training techniques wasn’t something that others could learn anyway since the Life Secret Technique was something that only a person with a soul seed could learn. In this world, except for him, it was impossible for anyone else to have the second seed for the Hellfrost Peacock Technique. Even if thieves stole the powder from him, he could easily just create even more from his training.
“Chemical raw material from an unknown source?” Celine was amused by the question. She had no idea how this topic suddenly came up. Now that she thought about it, Nonosiva must’ve gotten his hands on some sort of stuff and is trying to earn some money from it.
As she was quite fond of Garen and wanted him to teach her in the future, she felt that there was no harm in giving him some aid.
“You can just hand it to me, if the amount isn’t too much, I can directly exchange it for Universal Units. This way, you don’t have to worry about anything in the future,” she said in a carefree tone.
“How are your guys going to go about doing it?” Garen questioned on.
“I have friends from various professions that deal with different types of illegal items and undocumented assets and valuables. They will have their means to settle this. Why do you ask? Do you have some goods you need to settle?” Celine looked over at Garen with suspicion. Based off of his looks, he seemed to be from a simple and innocent background with a completely clean record. Why would he come in contact with these kinds of stuff?
“What if I can provide a long-term source for these types of undocumented valuables?” Garen continued on.
“If that’s the case…” Celine started to frown. “I’m not very interested in these kinds of stuff, but if you’re really keen on doing this I can introduce you to some of my connections. He should be more familiar with these sorts of topics, this issue should be trivial to him.”
She looked Garen in the eye and said, “However, you have to guarantee that the source of the goods won’t cause trouble.”
“That’s not a problem,” Garen nodded.
“Then I don’t think there’ll be any issues. I’ll give you his number so you can contact him directly. I’ll give him a heads up in advance,” Celine nodded.
Garen continued on with his queries about this issue. When he hit on the issue of the laboratory, Celine was suddenly shocked.
“This project of yours, at a larger scale, would cost tens of millions or even up to a billion. Even at a smaller scale, it would at the very least take tens of thousands of Units just for attaining the laboratory itself. It’s common sense that no matter how amazing the facilities and equipment are, if you do not have a decent human researcher, it wouldn’t yield any good results. On the other hand, if you have a good researcher, but you only have mediocre equipment, you’ll still manage to yield decent results.”
She suddenly realized something as she looked over at Garen once more.
“You cheeky bastard… Did you come up with some sort of new technique or skill?”
All these teenagers who were talented enough to hold the title of genius or prodigy weren’t people to be taken lightly. Especially for people like Celine who was from a huge influential household, they grew up surrounded by all sorts of big-shots. Naturally, their mental responsiveness was very high, and they were usually able to piece together everything accurately with just a couple of clues.
Garen also felt that there was no point in hiding anything.
“Yes, I developed a new technique. The goods produced from it are worth quite a bit, but it should just be mere pocket change for you.”
“What stage is it at?” Celine got more curious.
“Do you want to become a shareholder?” Garen chuckled. “If you help me settle the underground issues, I’ll give you 10% of the shares. Think of it as my gift to you, you don’t need to do anything except for helping out once in a while during key stages of the project.”
Celine was seriously considering his offer.
“Alright, this is such a blatant bribery-based relationship though!”
Garen was very calm about this. He knew that if he took all the profits for himself there would be a lot of trouble. With such a large cash flow, it would be near impossible to hide from the rich and the powerful. For an average person like him to have such a high yield technique, he would definitely be viewed as a sinner. Rather than having to deal with the pressure from other forces in the future, it would be easier for him to just start strengthening relationships right now to protect him.
In this case, for someone like Celine who is from a rich and powerful household, she was definitely a prime candidate to form a strong connection with. There was no such thing as too much money after all. Even if Celine wasn’t too mindful her wealth, there was still no reason to refuse.
“How much would the approximate income for this project be?” Celine lowered her head, seemingly deep in thought. She then raised her head and continued, “To be honest, I truly just want to become your friend, I’m afraid that you’ll still have reservations about teaching me.”
“The monthly income should be at least 100 thousand Units,” Garen didn’t dare to promise too much, so he gave a conservative estimation.
“100 thousand Units per month… That’s still somewhat acceptable, count me in.” Celine nodded after a brief moment of hesitation. For her, this amount nothing much at all. In her current position, even if she took only her own assets in her household into account, the number of funds she could liquidate within a year would easily be over a few million. If Garen’s monthly income was around 100 thousand, giving her 10% of it would be approximately 10-20 thousand per month, it was just pocket change to her.
“I meant that your income would be 100 thousand Units per month,” Garen noticed that she seemed to misunderstand his statement.
“!?”
Celine was completely shocked, she could only stare at Garen in disbelief.