"You must be the group behind the Display artefact, correct?” Gaius asked. Three old men, all dressed in a white long coat, nodded, and the one with the longest beard stepped forward.

“Young man, I’ve heard that you are interested in investing in us? I’m Bo Shi, the leader of the Display Project, and we’re always in need of more money!” The old man’s eyes were aflame with some intense emotion as he looked down on Gaius, and the boy took a step back involuntarily. It was an action that didn’t go unmissed by the three, and a second later, Bo Shi squatted down, so that the two of them were now eye-to-eye.

Gaius was speechless for a moment. It wasn’t like he was a kid who would be scared easily by tall people, but from their actions, it was evident that this group was thinking that way. After putting some distance between them — Gaius had the feeling that these people were maniacs that didn’t bathe once every day — he said, “Yes, I feel that the Display has a lot of potential, which is why I want to invest in it.”

“Potential…you think there’s more to the Display than you can see right now?” One of the two old men standing behind Bo Shi asked.

“Yes. And you are…?”

“Doushi Chishiki,” he replied. “Shiki will do, however. My parents were old-fashioned…”

“Nice to meet you, uh, Mister Shiki.”

The old man laughed, and pulled Bo Shi up from his squatting position. A few bones creaked, but that was about it. “Excellent, excellent! To tell the truth, this Display project was inspired by legends! According to Champion Octantis, there was a device from Earth called the smartphone. Apparently, it was able to connect the entire Earth together through a very powerful network known as the Internet.”

“Of course, those words are disputed by Solaris and Polaris, who claimed that no such thing existed.” Bo Shi gestured at the third old man. “Ihae here has done the most research on that period of history, but the records are still very confusing.”

Gaius blinked a few times. For something like this to happen…did it indicate that the Cardinal Champions were not summoned from the same time period? Or were there parallel Earths that developed independently, that acted as a pool which the great gods picked from? Or were there still other possibilities that he couldn’t conceive?

It was an interesting topic, but Gaius placed it aside for now and said, “Well, would seventy-five thousand gold be enough, for starters?”

“Seventy-five thousand?!”

The three old men and Paragon Ying Xin exclaimed together, and everyone still in the Pagoda of Equivalent Exchange turned their heads curiously. After a whispered apology, Paragon Ying Xin said, “I didn’t know you were that rich…”

“That’s definitely enough!” Bo Shi exclaimed.

“I hope you brought a contract or something,” Gaius replied. “Paragon Ying Xin, would you be our notary?”

“Naturally.” She looked at the crowded room and said, “We should go to some place more private than this, however. Come.”

She walked back to the counter that Gaius had received the two Engines from, spoke a few words, and then gestured at the three old man and one young boy to follow her into a door that had just opened. Once the small group stepped across, the door closed, and the new room they entered lit up to reveal a little office.

After rustling through a few papers, the Paragon returned from the cupboard at the opposite end of the room with a few sets of papers in hand. “The four of you don’t seem to care too much about the details, so I’ve prepared a standard contract for you. After reading it, if you want to make changes, just mark it out.”

Gaius scanned through the document, as did the others, and then placed it back down after ten minutes. It was, fortunately, not written in the legalese that had been used back when Gaius first became a Harvester. “One thing to change, Paragon Ying Xin.”

“Hmm?”

“The investment of seventy-five thousand gold…I’m funding them using this.” Gaius produced three bags and placed them on the table, and as he loosened the opening, gentle sparkles entered everyone’s eyes. “Each bag has fifty such gemstones…and all of them are from Heritage.”

Paragon Ying Xin breathed in sharply. “You know of Heritage?”

Gaius indicated the bags in front of him by way of reply. “Last I checked, each gemstone was around five hundred gold, and there are two hundred and fifty gems here. As for how you want to use them…”

He left the sentence hanging.

“Two hundred and fifty gems…” Paragon Ying Xin murmured.

Gaius had brought six such bags with him, just in case he suddenly needed money. And well, the discovery of a group creating such an artefact was something he felt had potential, so he didn’t mind funding them with these gemstones here.

That reminds me, I wonder how the South is handling…didn’t I pass Flynn a lot of gems too? Maybe he’s the new overlord of the Southern Assembly now. Gaius shook his head at the irrelevant thought, and then returned his attention to the old men before him.

“We might need to amend this contract further,” Paragon Ying Xin said quietly. “The price of such gemstones have doubled over the past month. Demand is sky-high, due to the four great gods…and because something odd is happening inside Heritage.”

“Odd?”

“Mm. Some robber’s been going around the place. Most of the people we’ve sent have been robbed of their belongings.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s like there’s a bandit camp in the Intersection and in Heritage competing with each other, so no power has bothered to send their people in. A few Lords have died in the Intersection too, so…”

That sounds familiar…but if I’m here, who’s doing the robbing in Heritage? And how about the Intersection? I don’t recall operating there…but Lords dying there? What? Gaius made a mental note to ask Nexus about this, and then nodded perfunctorily. “Anyway, about the contract…”

“A new one’s on the way to reflect the changes.”

Gaius nodded, and took back the excess gems. It was fortunate that these gems weren’t big at all, or else he would have to leave them in his backpack, an action he was rather loathe to do for valuable items.

“Is there a way I could keep in contact with the three of you?” Gaius asked. “I might be travelling around the Five Lands, for instance, and it would be great if you three had a means of contacting me.”

“Naturally, naturally.” Bo Shi handed a Display over, but this one had a small keyboard, the QWERTY keyboard Gaius was familiar with back on Earth. “This is our latest invention, and it allows you to send messages to other people in the, uh, Internet.”

Gaius wasn’t sure what to think in the face of such blatant plagiarism, and he made do with bobbing his head instead. Before long, another set of contracts had been prepared, and the four of them placed their signatures on it.

“Excellent,” said Gaius. “May we have a happy partnership.”