The expression of the elder of the Blood Skull sect eased a little when he heard her offer. He became interested again and asked, "How much and how will it be calculated?"
Before she could reply, he made another statement. "I want it to be clear that our help doesn't mean that you will win this war. We want to be able to withdraw and advance however we want. We don't want to die with your sect, so our reward should be based entirely on our work and effort, not on the victory or defeat of your sect."
She sighed again and said, "What choice do we have?"
He replied confidently, "Not much. There are not many crazy people who like fighting that will join the losing side.
The two of them began to negotiate on behalf of their sects. Of course, what they saw now is not binding.
The two of them are just the initial liaison officers for the future cooperation. They still need to bring back the result of their conversation to their sects so that the leaders of their sects can finalize the agreement.
Even though they are just at the third mortal coil, they can represent sects that have people at the fifth mortal coil. This is because members of the sects at the third mortal coil are the ones who manage the sect.
This situation is not strange in the world of Ethera. It is a pretty common thing to grant the management of a sect to the strongest group of cultivators who can't progress anymore and are large enough to manage a sect.
Management is a lot of work. It is not about power, and it is simply not given to those who are still trying to advance on the path of cultivation so that it won't interfere with their progress.
In the situation of the five veins region, the strongest group of cultivators in their sect who are large enough to manage a sect are those in the third mortal coil.
There are people in the fourth mortal coil in the sects who can't progress, but they are not nearly enough to manage the sect.
The cultivators in the sect at the fourth mortal coil who are free to serve in the sect are not enough to manage each hall in the inner and outer sect, not enough to teach disciples in the lecture hall, not enough to guard each accommodation mountain, and not enough to take new disciples on tours of the sect.
Golden core cultivators are also too strong to do these menial things. So instead, the golden core cultivators serve as generals for the sect.
In this specific situation, after the two elders are done discussing, they will take what they've discussed to a nascent soul patriarch of the sect, not a golden core elder.
This matter is too important for the sect. Since a golden core elder can't make the decision about the matter, the matter will be brought straight to the highest leadership.
The patriarchs will decide on cooperating or not. If the patriarchs agree to cooperate, they will send orders to the golden core of elders, who will then partake in the fight.
The patriarchs themselves won't join the fight yet. Only in special situations will they join the fight. Ideally, this would be close to the end of the fight.
So elders have a lot of power in the sect. This is why a meeting between them is so important that the outcome of their discussion can affect the stability of the Five Veins region.
While these two elders were discussing, the disciples below were counting their spoils. In the case of Arthur, he was counting his spoils together with Arthur.
The two of them had made a bet. To decide who the winner of the bet is, they have to evaluate what they gained from the secret realm, and they must compare the evaluation of their gains to each other.
The evaluation took an hour because the two of them earned a lot. Eventually, it was decided that Goldwyn won.
The difference between what they earned wasn't big. It was only about 20% of what Arthur earned. Since their agreement was that the loser would pay double the difference, Arthur would have to pay 40% of what he earned in gold to Goldwyn.
This 40% was worth 4,000,000 gold coins or 40,000 low-grade energy stones. He can afford this with the amount of money he has in his possession.
He doesn't even need to include the value of the things he earned in the secret realm for him to pay the debt, but he didn't want to pay it. So he challenged Goldwyn to an arm wrestle to decide if he would pay the debt or not.
He promised to pay double if he lost the arm wrestling, but Goldwyn refused to bet any more.
He said to Arthur, "I have already beaten you once. I don't want to beat you again. I also don't want to make you destitute with debts. It will sour our friendship."
He spoke as if he was doing Arthur a favor, but Arthur didn't appreciate it. Arthur was sure that he could defeat Goldwyn in terms of strength. He suspected that Goldwyn also knew this, which was why he refused to bet again.
After denying Arthur's challenge, he began to walk away. As he walked away, he said, "I will contact you soon with information about how to get my pile of gold to me."
Arthur wasn't willing to let him go, so he said, "Just say that you're afraid of losing."
Goldwyn rejected him again. "No, I will not."
Then he laughed and walked away.
Jason came over to Arthur and said, "I heard that you saved some people from my family. I want to thank you for that."
Arthur's eyes lit up immediately. He asked eagerly, "How thankful are you? Are you thankful enough to give me 4 million gold coins?"