The rewards for clearing stage 3 were far higher than what Max or Lucius could have ever imagined.
Instead of a shard of life, an object that could even make monarch's fight, they found a chrono gem, an artefact of the legends, a piece that could even buy one entire lordship.
[ Chrono Gem ] ( Tier9 ) ( Divine) - A gem that reveals one's true deepest desire and shows a path towards achieving it.
It only has 3 uses before the gem goes opaque, and each use must be done via carefully placing the gem against one's eye.
" I can't believe it, it's a real chrono gem! " Lucius exclaimed as his hands began to tremble with excitement.
This gem alone was worth 3 shards of life and could easily fetch him 50,000 merit points.
If he won over the rights to use this particular gem, he could almost certainly guarantee his road to becoming crown prince.
As an individual, Max could understand Lucius's excitement as once he read the system description he precisely understood what this gem was.
When he was a lost soul who was yet to reincarnate, Hazriel had shown him three distinct visions, visions that would change his fate and in a way the chrono stone was an object that would do the same.
For Max, Hazriel told him that he had to become the vampire king, however, the chrono stone made it so that whatever was one's deepest wish, they would show a path to achieving it.
If one wanted to be the vampire king, it would show a path to reaching there, if they desired a woman, it would show a path to win her heart or circumstances where one could rape her.
It was a dangerous, yet very desirable object and the fatal mistake that Lucius did was to show his excitement after seeing it.
Now, Max knew that he wanted this stone very badly, which meant that he could leverage this desire to force a disadvantageous deal on him.
If there was one trait that merchants understood after years of experience, it was to never praise a product that they wished to buy.
11/10 times, if the seller realised that the buyer was desperate to buy, they ended up increasing the price and that was precisely what Max intended to do.
" I'll be frank with you, Lord Max, I need this gem. I'm willing to pay you 30 billion gold coins in exchange for it, but just let me have it " Lucius said in a desperate voice, as he hoped that after hearing the exorbitant price, Max would not negotiate with him further.
Unfortunately, he was just a greenhorn in front of Max and was going to get fleeced badly.
" I agree that the price of 30 billion is reasonable for the gem Prince Lucius, however, the problem is, I don't have an explicit need for money currently.
I'm going to get 100 billion from your dad in instalments over the coming year, I'm promised 15 more by you for the shard.
The finances of Dombivli are perfectly fine and the revenue is solid, if I accept more gold it'll just rot in reserves as I don't need it urgently at the moment " Max said as he very pragmatically explained his circumstances to Lucius.
Lucius's face darkened when he heard Max's words as only now did he realise that Max was looking to fleece him.
" What do you want? " Lucius asked in a grim voice as Max listed his demands.
" What I want is an upgrade to the strength of my military.
After the dimensional war, a lot of the military gear is damaged or too cheap in quality to be used on a daily basis.
What I want is for you to refit the entire Bloodfall military with dark-gold grade gear and give all captains and higher military figures at least epic level full gear and weapons.
I want you to secure the Bloodfall clan, a fleet of 12 new top of the line destroyer battleships and at least 50 frigates alongside surface- air missiles and other city defence systems.
Naturally, If you do this right it will cost you around the 30 billion gold mark and since I understand how difficult it is, I'm willing to give you 6 months time to fulfil my demands " Max said, as Lucius sucked in a breath of cold air.
A new top of the like destroyer ship could easily cost 1-1.5 billion gold each, however, it wasn't a commodity that money could buy.
One needed the diplomatic clout and backing to make such large deals come through in such short time frames, while re-fitting the entire army with new gears came at a significant cost as well.
Not only would Lucius need to hire and work relentlessly with a large team of blacksmiths and blacksmithing firms, the project could easily blow over-budget because of the time constraint.
In ideal conditions it would only cost 30 billion, if he could re-sell the existing army gear or scrap the poor built weapons, however, if the prices of materials rose, or there was some unexpected delays it would be a heavy burden on Lucius's pockets.
It was a deal that would require more than just money, as it would take all of his stature as an Aurelius and constant monitoring over next 6 months to see it through.
For Max, he could have achieved the same results with the 30 billion, however, then all the headache would have been his instead.
By proposing such a deal, he pawned off everything that he planned to do with the money on Lucius and was undoubtedly getting the better end of the two.
Lucius gritted his teeth, he knew he wanted the stone so badly that he was willing to bend over backwards to get it, hence although begrudgingly, he still agreed to Max's steep asking price.
" I'll do it, but only if I get to scrap the existing army gear " Lucius said
" You have a deal " Max replied with an almost evil grin on his face.