The essence of an attribute value increase is a kind of leap in the level of life itself, and for someone like Gauss—a perfect lifeform whose six Attributes have all skyrocketed—the degree of this leap will only appear far more obvious than it does for other Professionals.
Her arm, which had just started to lift, stopped beside her hip, and suddenly she felt a strange sense that her hands weren’t hands, her feet weren’t feet.
A strong wave of inferiority instantly took control of her whole body.
"You don’t recognize me anymore?"
Gauss shook his head with a soft laugh, his powerful Charm Attribute radiating an infectious aura that made people instinctively feel at ease.
Haylir’s rapidly beating heart slowly calmed down; she took a few deep breaths, pressed down the muddled emotions in her chest, and finally squeezed out a smile.
"You’ve changed too much. Who would dare say they recognize you?"
Gauss chuckled and turned his gaze to the couple beside her.
"Uncle, Aunt, good to see you, sorry to intrude on you like this."
"C-Captain Gauss, you’re far too polite..." The two didn’t dare pick up the conversation, only hurriedly bowing in return. "Please, come in, come in."
These past days, their Golden Beak Trading Company could be said to have stepped onto the fast track, and all of these changes stemmed from a single sentence spoken by the young man before them.
You could say that with just one idea from him, their family could head toward a completely different destiny.
This also left the two of them utterly unwilling to put on the airs of being the parents of his friend.
Once the group entered the house, Haylir’s parents, weighed down by pressure, hurriedly found an excuse and slipped out of the hall.
Gauss could see they were very nervous, so he didn’t insist on making them stay.
"How’s business for the company lately?"
"Thanks to you, we’ve opened a few more branches recently." Haylir said gratefully.
Not just Gauss’s Red Dragon Team, but several other adventure groups he’d introduced had all helped the Golden Beak Trading Company expand a large number of channels.
And these resources were ones a small company like Golden Beak would never have been able to access on its own.
She understood that even though Gauss never mentioned it, in essence it was the Red Dragon Team behind him providing her with a guarantee; the constraints that had originally hindered Golden Beak Trading Company from expanding further had quietly vanished into thin air.
Competition between companies is just as fierce. The cake is only so big—if you eat a little more, then everyone else has to eat a little less.
That’s why many large trading companies grow up with the backing of nobles or adventure groups.
"Right, Gauss, about the Magic Clay you asked us to collect—we’ve temporarily gathered a bit over a hundred kilos. I’ll have someone send it over to you later."
Haylir said, returning favor for favor, without mentioning money at all.
"No rush. Just have your people coordinate with Ivan from my Guild."
Gauss had never stopped collecting Spells and Magic Clay; relying on the Red Dragon Team’s channels, he’d already accumulated close to two tons of Magic Clay.
To him, Magic Clay was equivalent to bottom-rung soldiers with maxed-out loyalty, which was also why he hadn’t been in a hurry to recruit more Red Dragon Team members.
Two tons of Magic Clay was enough to split off 60–70 Clay goblins at once—an extremely terrifying force on the front lines.
What he hadn’t expected was that Haylir’s efficiency would be this high—in just a few days, she’d collected over two hundred kilos of Magic Clay. He could only say that everyone has their own area of expertise.
Two hundred-plus kilos of clay was enough to add nearly ten more to his Clay goblin army, bringing him another step closer to the scale of one hundred.
The uses for Magic Clay weren’t very broad; it wasn’t some mass-market commodity. Add to that its limited output, and the quantities being sold and circulating on the market were very restricted.
From this alone, you could see Haylir really had put collecting Magic Clay as her top priority.
"This is a long-term business, there’s no need to rush it. Just keep collecting boldly—however much you can get, we’ll take it all." Gauss said reassuringly.
If his guess about this meeting was correct, then he needed to strengthen his current combat strength as much as possible.
Clay Magic might only be an inconspicuous 2nd Ring Magic, but in certain situations its effects could surpass even the 4th and 5th Ring Spells he had mastered.
Recently, he’d made some new breakthroughs in his research into Clay Magic.
"Don’t worry, I’ll definitely make sure everyone takes it seriously." Haylir quickly nodded and promised.
In truth, Gauss’s guess wasn’t wrong. In the matter of collecting Magic Clay, she really had mobilized the most manpower, and had repeatedly convened meetings emphasizing the importance of this task, tying it directly to departmental performance. As a result, the entire Golden Beak Trading Company was practically straining every nerve to fish for information through all their channels.
What had been purchased and transported so far was only the first batch. There was still more Magic Clay currently under negotiation, but out of consideration for not increasing the Red Dragon Team’s procurement costs too much, she was pushing the talks further. The way she saw it, results wouldn’t be far off.
For Haylir to take full control of her family’s business in just one or two years, it was obvious she had more than enough Talent for commerce and management.
Moreover, she understood that even if Gauss was someone who valued emotions, as the gap between their statuses continued to widen, their old friendship would inevitably come to an end someday. She had to become someone useful to Gauss.