'They really held nothing back, did they?' I thought as I looked up, trying to have my eyes pierce the clouds in the sky so that I could see the top of the building where I was invited.
It was one of the fancier towers of the town, fitting everything inside. From the shops at the bottom, service, and office sectors in the middle all the way to the hotel and high-class restaurants near the top, one wouldn't be mistaken to call this building the pearl of the city.
Which, by no accident, was also the name of this magnificent tower. And whoever was behind the faint illumination on the tower's walls clearly played into the joke, making the base of the tower look as if it was made from shiny pearls.
Everything about this place, from how high it went into the sky, through the fancy front parking with three separate access points to its underground counterpart, all the way to the ever-present security that ensured the safety of not only the insides but the immediate outside too… Everything about this place screamed luxury, importance, and excess.
And it was the exact place where apparently Claire's dad wanted to have a talk with me to discuss the details of our potential deal.
'All of a sudden, my fit ain't that fancy, huh?' I thought, looking down at what, just a moment ago before taking the corner, I considered to be my best clothes.
I wore no suit, for I never saw the need or had enough free money to spare to get myself a proper one. Instead, I came dressed in long, black pants and a simple, buttoned shirt, reaching the level of casual elegance at the very most… Which still made me stand out in this place like a sore thumb, for I fit neither the high-class category of the guests who all arrived in suits and dresses nor the casual look of those rich enough to actually take up residence in the pearl.
'Ha-ah…' I let out an internal sigh. 'They really did it now, didn't they?'
It was hard not to get annoyed right off the bat.
Even if the other party wasn't perfectly aware of my financial status yet, they had enough info to guess the rough estimate of my situation.
And what else was an invitation to the fanciest place in town if not an intimidation tactic prepared to limit my ability to speak up, for me to be too overwhelmed to properly advocate my own points and rights?
'Well,' I thought as I breathed out, attempting to push all the emotions aside as I did, 'that's a well-calculated move on their end, assuming getting this sort of advantage is worth the cost of reserving a table in this place…'
Taking the whole situation as a mere extension to the negotiations, negotiations that have yet to properly start, suddenly allowed me to just push ahead, ignore some of the stares, and move all the way to the reception desk where I simply presented a QR code to the automated scanner, only for a magnetized card to slide out from just below the scanner's access point.
[Floor: 65: Please, use the magnetic card provided in the elevator]
There was no point for anyone to greet me on the bottom floor of the tower, where there were more customers making their way to and from the shops than an actual tower guest. And so, with just the magnetic ticket in my head, I made my way over to the slightly calmer part of the tower's bottom floor, with an entire, huge square dedicated to nothing else but a series of what looked like nearly forty different elevators arranged all over the perimeter of the square.
From that point on, I had to wait in the queue for a bit to get to one of the lifts where, upon closing the doors, I pressed the ticket against the scanner on the lift's side.
'Now that I think about it, why wasn't there a room number on the screen?' I thought, quickly looking all over the elevator only to find a small screen right in the most eye-catching part of it. As the lift started to move up, I patiently waited for further instructions…
But none appeared.
And the moment the elevator doors opened up to the sides, I finally figured two things out.
There was no room number on my ticket or anywhere else simply because floor sixty-five… was a single entity.
Secondly, my estimation of just how much Claire and her dad were willing to invest just to overwhelm me… was nowhere near the actual number!
As for the two of them, while obviously notified of my arrival, they didn't deem it fitting to leave their spot on the balcony that overlooked the entire city, with Claire stretched back in her fancy chair while her dad calmly sipped down on some sort of juice from a whiskey crystal.
"Is all of this really that necessary?" I asked as I stepped out and closed the distance a bit. Yet, all the way up to the point where I actually stepped out onto the balcony's entrance, I didn't get the answer.
There was only one reason why I managed to remain largely unbothered by the overwhelming display of financial might by the other party. And that's because after I finished my crafting yesterday, I made damn sure to research all about Claire, her family, their size, background, and everything else I could find about their clan on the internet.
Sure, it was no easy task given how the majority of their assets and influences were locked within the cultivator's domain where even governments would find it hard to put their greedy hands on it… But there were just enough scraps for me to piece the general picture together.
And as out of the water as I was on this privately rented floor of one of the most expensive buildings in the entire damned city… It was still well within maybe not my expectations but surely within the realm of what I imagined to be possible.
"So," putting the glass down on the fancy, glass table, Chihiro turned his head and looked at me, finally acknowledging my presence. "What do you have for us?" he asked, outright ignoring my question from earlier.
And so, I decided to have some fun myself, since this bastard felt so free to entertain myself at my expense.
"Do you want to hear the reasonable or the cultivator's name first?" I asked while leaning my head over my shoulder and putting on a small, cheeky smile.
Chihiro apparently didn't seem to mind my approach, even going as far as to allow the corner of his mouth to pull up, forming a small, slightly mocking smirk.
"Let's start with the fancy one, then," he suggested only to raise the cup to his mouth and take a sip of the vibrant red, viscous liquid in his glass.
"Then, allow me to present to you, a rechargeable seed of the purifying tree," I announced, only to reach into my bag and then pull out the end result of all my hard work yesterday.
Now that it was properly dried off, it looked like an actual, oversized seed of some mystical tree or fruit. A seed even slightly bigger than my own head and covered in nothing but solidified leaves.
Chihiro only raised an eyebrow, while Claire leaned over the table to get a closer look at the item in my hand.
"And its reasonable name would be…?" Claire's dad inquired, even going as far as to put his glass away.
And so I smiled, placed the device down on the ground… and opened up my arms only to shake them a bit.
"A rechargeable air purification unit."