Darius nodded and collected all 20 items. He raised an eyebrow as he held the Soul Paper. "Don't you want to bind me to a contract?"
Darla shook her head. "Nah, no need to waste it. You already have those 20 goodies, so what's left will not make you act against me."
Darius tilted his head in surprise. "What makes you think so?"
Darla chuckled. "You're one of them smart, handsome types. Even though your greed spiked just now, it wasn't enough to overwhelm your intelligence. As such, after being given this… ermm… 'hush money', you won't bother to burn bridges unnecessarily."
Darius gazed at Darla silently, giving her a mental thumbs up.
She had a good grasp of people, how to read them and how to deal with them. Her becoming vice guildmaster despite her young age seemed to be more than just the result of her absurdly high Luck.
This reinforced his clarification that Luck wasn't the be-all and end-all of things, but rather a supporting stat that gently influenced all others.
Otherwise, with his previous logic, why would he need to fear any Grandmasters?
Whatever the case, Darius assisted Darla with appraising the rest of her items. As both parties expected, this new batch was slightly better than what Darius had taken away, but neither party made any rash moves.
Darla pocketed her items before clapping happily. "Now that the fun part's over, I remember you came to me for business as well?"
Darius nodded as he folded his legs. "I wish to purchase information."
"Then you've come to the right place. I can get you everything up until 30 minutes ago from the beginning of the camp's setup. What would you like?" Darla crooed with excitement.
"Give me everything." Darius requested with his trademark soft smile.
......…
Darius exited the encampment of the Thieves Guild with a heavy heart. What had just occurred had taken its toll on his mind, but he didn't want to dwell on it too much.
Well, since he was to be given a 'seat' by Elijah in tomorrow's meeting, it would be prudent to settle himself down. He and Gunner browsed the camp until they came upon a smaller spot that was empty, left in case other parties were to arrive.
Without further ado, the duo laid down their tents and created a small fence around them. They even put up a flag of the Stone Family from Westerlier Empire to mark their territory.
Darius left Gunner in the camp as he chainblinked 20 kilometers away from the place. Making sure there was no one around, Darius slowly began converting his various stamina and health potions into Purification Potions.
[Would you like to change the Common Stamina Potion into a Common Purification Potion? This will cost 0.02 Conversion Points.]
It would cost him a total of 14 CP given the cost of conversion.
Luckily, he had not spent his CP for the day, and he also had a large stock of Purification Potions from the second week which he had spent making preparations.
Unfortunately, Darius could not mass convert them, so he had to do it one by one. This was not only tedious, but time-consuming. However, he was arguably quite patient spending the next hour making the changes until his CP ran out.
He then blinked back into the encampment to see Gunner who had been meditating quietly on his bloodline as usual. Amused by this, Darius settled down and began researching the Magical Method.
He already had the means to create his own spells, but he needed to reach the Journeyman stage to put it into practice. He had naturally tried many times as an Amateur, but there seemed to be an issue whenever he made the conclusion and tried to formulate it.
The problem came in the form of him having the required Intellect and veracity within his work, but not the correct stage. Here, the Supreme System was likely to blame as in the eyes of the local Faustian System of power, he was technically an Adept.
Seeing as it didn't allow him to cut corners, he took out his tablet and began playing on it. Without the necessary connection to Gravitas, he couldn't update the games or add new ones, but he was content with just having a bit of modern tech by his side.
As for the 20 items he received, Darius didn't take them out for the time being. Just like the items he got from Foldo, he kept them in the depths of his Inventory, only to be removed when the proper time would arrive.
He was confident that after their earlier discussion Darla wouldn't dare to send anyone to spy on him and Gunner, but the same could not be said about the Assassins Guild.
Soon they would receive info that he had visited the Thieves Guild, but not them. The fact was bound to piss them off and they would likely send one of their shadows to observe him and see what he got from the Thieves Guild.
With Darius's current Mind Power, he couldn't easily detect them, so it was better to act like Christ, flawless and pure.
The duo was spending their time in leisure until it was time to go to sleep. Alas, although they were safe in the camp, today would be another night without the comfort of Emily or Fashina to relieve their worries and pent-up stress.
Before they closed their eyes, Darius wondered how his two undead would fare.
When he had gone out to transmute the potions, he had summoned Mikey and Joneson out.
Their current directive was to travel around the Adept or the Journeyman band throughout the night, doing whatever it took to raise themselves to the Adept stage.
Excited, Joneson had pulled a shouting Mikey away as they blazed through the landscape, heading towards the Journeyman band first. It was better to kill the various undead there and accumulate Death Energy up to level 41 or so than to cause chaos in the Adept band.
After all, the duo of undead had heard the same report from Elijah that Darius did, so they knew the current state of the battle.