"This could be bigger than I think." Soverick thought to himself.
It is certain that the realm lord has benefited or will benefit by stopping the exploitation of life trees. What isn't certain is what the benefit it. It might not even be about the life trees at all. If the realm lord is half a good schemer as the first sage and is capable of thinking multiple steps ahead, the benefits might be related to the enmity created by stopping the exploitation of Life trees.
The more he thought about it, the more shaken he got. It could be that the realm lord is somehow benefiting from having enemies. It seems absurd but it is also possible if there is an angle to it that he doesn't see. And that's just one of the possibilities he came up with. It is an average one too.
"Maybe I am overthinking this. I guess I'll just have to find out and see if I am right."
He wants to know what the realm lord is up to. There's clearly something to be benefited going on about the life trees. His ignorance has made him unaware of the possibility. But now he knows about the possibility of a benefit and he is terrified at the possibilities. So he will try and find out. Knowledge is power after all. Plus the benefits could be massive and he wants to take part in them.
"I am sure you are satisfied with my answer. Let us move on" The sage urged him.
"I am satisfied despite the fact that you omitted what the reward the realm lord is using to entice world gods."
He may be satisfied but he has to complain. It is also an obvious omission. The first sage didn't mention anything about the project despite his careful explanation. It is almost as if he wants to use the deluge of information about the era of conquest to blind Soverick to that omission.
The sage replied with an amused glint in his eye, "That will be another question. You're free to use one of your requests to ask for it."
Soverick refused. "Nice try old man. I am very satisfied with your compensation for my death. It seems to me that the realm lord has to go through a lot just to become a world god. I hope all his effort will be worth it."
The sage scoffed. "Ignorant boy. I think highly of you but sometimes you just disappoint me when you ask such silly questions. Of course, it will be very much worth it. You don't know what he will get when he succeeds and how powerful he will become after the transition."
"Oh. Enlighten me then."
The sage would have rolled his single eyes if he could. Instead, he settled for snorting. "Nice try young man. But I wasn't just born a million years ago. Make a proper request if you want to know."
Soverick shrugged. "It was worth a shot. Now on to my two requests. Should we go back and forth or should we just do this straight up?"
He moved on quickly after his failure to get extra free information from the sage. Apparently, the sage can't be fooled so easily because he is more than 10 Origin cycles old.
The first sage replied, "Straight up I suppose."
So he decided to skip the negotiation and skip straight to something that he is sure he can get.
"I want to use my two requests to ask for the two other components of a realm heart apart from the world spark."
"Dream on. You're looking to bite more than you can chew. You won one competition among mortals. There's no way you will get what origin gods spend most of their eternal life to acquire as a reward for your victory in it." The sage refused.
He frowned, "I see that we will have to go back and forth then."
The sage wasn't deterred at all. "Bring it on then."
He brought it own. "I want a complete realm heart for one of my requests. You owe me for my services."
"So what if I owe you? Your services are not worth that much. All you did was win a competition between two planes and prove which plane is better. It was easy for you too. I made sure it will be easy. You just had to come in and finish what I started." The sage said. Then the sage lied. "Anyone could have done what you did." He also added some truth, "In fact, I had several options apart from you so don't think so highly of yourself."
Soverick was indeed paramount to the success of the competition but he doesn't know that and he doesn't need to know that. The sage already said that the knowledge that you don't know is priceless. Soverick doesn't know how important he was for the success of the competition. So he is going to continue paying the price of his ignorance until he doesn't have anything to pay with anymore.
This is a negotiation with high stakes. The sage is surely not going to help his opponent to get a good deal. He is going to sprinkle his truths with lies and manipulate Soverick until he reaches his preferred outcome.
Soverick insisted, "What about the bets and the stakes with the other world god? It can't have been that simple."
The sage refused to budge. "No, it was not simple. But it is also none of your concern."
"How can it not concern me? I died because of it." Soverick argued.
"No no. You can't play the dead card anymore. You died and I paid for your compensation. You're obviously alive right now so that won't work on me. Besides, what is common between world gods will look like a big and highly significant thing to you. So you can't really understand our bet. But if you insist, I will increase your reward if you can guess what we bet about apart from realm hearts."
A/N:
Surely you must have thought about it. What are the things that the first sage gained from the serpentine world god? I have provided a window into some of those things. You know what a realm heart and its fragments are now. You also know what they can do. So can you guess what other things constitutes the wealth of a world god?