"I'm sure it's here. I'm just not sure where it is" Cavarl spoke with haste.
The Emperor's aura disappeared.
Then the lightning on his body shot outwards as he flashed away.
Rather than asking questions, he quickly searched around, before heading out of the mountain and reentering through the gap Fredrick had made.
Quickly, he searched there as well, and as he did, his face scrunched into a serious frown. He didn't pay attention to it at first, but weren't too many mana crystals missing?
It didn't take him long to find the mana stones, and his frown became even deeper.
The uneven wall and the large amount of rubble on the ground told that someone had scoured the mountain before he arrived.
He used his fist like a familiar someone to break the wall even more.
A minute later, a familiar object of eclipse shape shining with cerulean blue light came into view.
The Emperor clenched his fists, before quickly snatching the stone into his space ring a second later, afraid that it might disappear.
Be as it may, the Emperor had never seen, not to mention touching, a mana stone.
And similarly to him, most hadn't.
He had only seen it in books and heard of it in stories.
This didn't cause him to dilly dally.
Immediately after, he moved to the side and dug out another mana stone with extreme focus.
Five minutes later, he held two more mana stones within his ring.
With the one that was destroyed, a total of five mana stones were known.
Wow, Fredrick was ruthless.
It was to be expected. It would be stupid to allow your enemies to grow stronger with that which you could use for yourself.
And the Emperor knew it too, and oh, was he enraged!
'Someone scourged this place prior to this!'
To let out his frustration, he pushed the wall, causing the whole mountain to shake.
Then, as he began planning, familiar auras suddenly popped up on his senses.
His eyes immediately narrowed as his mind whirred.
The next instant, he bolted back to the space underneath the mountain and brought Cavarl to the area where he found the mana stones.
Cavarl, whose body was still feeling a bit strained, stared at the Emperor with a raised brow.
"Your majesty? Wh-"
"Tell me, how many know about the existence of the mana stone?" the Emperor quickly interjected.
Cavarls body immediately rose in fright.
There was no way he didn't know where this conversation was going, and what would most likely be its end, so he lied instantaneously.
"Everyone below, Sire"
Alas, his previous reaction of standing up like a beast sensing danger had also made something very clear to the Emperor.
'He's smart, no, he's very smart!'
It was high praise, but the Emperor wasn't laughing.
Then again, it would be weirder if the man capable of manipulating him wasn't smart.
Seeing his plan foiled before it could even be enacted, the Emperor spoke his thoughts sincerely.
"What is your price?"
"What price?" Cavarl replied with a dumb expression.
The Emperor's aura flared up far fiercer than before as he then spoke in a very thick tone.
"Don't play dumb with me. You know what I mean"
Only then did Cavarls face revert back to its iconic blank expression.
"Are you asking the price to leave my guild? Or the price to keep the existence of mana stones a secret?"
The Emperor's eyes widened. Cavarl had thought even farther than he did.
"Both" he quickly replied.
For the first time, a light smile came into Cavarl's face as he spoke…
"How do I know you're not going to kill me?"
The Emperor replied instantaneously, as he had already thought of it.
"Simple, I'll have you join the royal army"
It was Cavarl's turn to be surprised. It seemed he also underestimated the Emperor.
So he nodded in acknowledgement. It was indeed a very wise decision.
With that, Cavarl made his own decision.
"For the keeping of such a heavy secret, what I want is simple-"
Cavarl spoke as his eyes wandered around the cave filled with rubble, before settling back on the Emperor's face.
"-you must have taken the other mana stones, right? Give me one. That's all I want"
The Emperor's face didn't change in the slightest as he spoke…
"I secured four. Someone else has made off with the rest"
Cavarls eyes shined like never before.
One should not forget that it was Kurt and Ulrik who saw the mana stone before it exploded, not Grenald and Cavarl.
But Cavarl was able to piece the knowledge about the mana stones and the dense mana dome with the words "they already know about the stone" from Kurt's mouth.
Using his wits and that alone, he arrived at the current situation.
Cavarl's eyes darted all over the Emperor's figure, when suddenly, he burst into laughter.
"Hahaha, you're serious? You're actually serious? Then that means we've all been made into fools. Oh my world! This has to be the biggest joke of the millennium, and one of the greatest, not to mention the cleanest heist in history since the likes of Nameless and Nobody"
Nameless and Nobody, names that couldn't be called names.
They were aliases of two legendary figures who came within three hundred years of each other, with Nameless being the first.
Each was notorious as they were known as legendary thieves, who were especially famous for their clean getaways or unseen actions.
Peak Experts that all thieves use as the highest benchmark, but that was for another time.
Cavarl was still talking.
"That's truly too bad, but I believe three mana stones are more than enough to satiate the Emperor's need. I shall not be changing my request. After all, I need the mana stone just as much as you do"
The Emperor palms popped a vein, but Cavarl nonchalantly added…
"So, what shall it be?"
"You shall have it-"
Cavarl stopped him there.
"I shall have it now" he said with utmost conviction, and added…
"And to leave my guild, you'll just have to pay a price to the guild. That way I will look less like a traitor, and yes, a good position must be guaranteed to me before I join the royals"
The Emperor nodded without a word, as it was something very easy for him to do.
Since the mana stone was an excessive and very expensive price, Cavarl lowered the other price significantly.
With a thought, the Emperor pulled out a soul contract and scribbled the contents of their deal on it, before both men quickly signed it. It turned to particles and binded them.
Both the Emperor and Cavarl found it funny how things had gotten to this stage.
The Emperor was planning to kill off all those who knew about the existence of the mana stone to keep it a secret, but had to cancel such a plan when he saw Cavarl had caught on.
Cavarl in the other hand was thinking on surviving before anything else. Yet somehow, he had netted himself immense profits without doing much.
At this moment…
*BAM!*Crash!*Break!*
Three tremors resounded simultaneously.
'They're here'
The reason for compromising on a mana stone so easily had arrived.
