(Twin Fang Planet — Venom Lily Bistro, Table 33)
Everyone expectantly looked at Leo, waiting for an answer, as he sat back slightly in his chair, his arms still resting calmly on the table while his eyes moved from one face to the next, carefully assessing the team.
He started by evaluating their power levels, as he performed an instinctive scan of their aura density, breathing rhythm, and unconscious suppression of presence.
And here, it seemed like Raiden and Cipher had done their research well.
Each member of the team, whether it was Patricia, Bob, Cipher, or Raiden himself, exuded the calm, centered weight of Grandmasters.
Their mana cores were stable. Their spirit undisturbed. While Karl, with his timid glances and soft presence, lacked that edge, hovering faintly at the Master tier.
Leo didn't mind that. Every team needed a support, and Karl didn't give off the delusion of being more than he was, which made him perfect for the role.
Next, Leo moved on to assessing the balance of the party. And, to be fair, it seemed well-constructed.
The team had two seasoned combatants in Raiden and Bob.
Cipher filled the role of the scout/ scholar with his theoretical grounding in time-stilled anomalies.
Patricia was the poison master, with specialties in infiltration, and terrain mapping.
And finally, Karl, played the role of the survivalist support who was a field medic, cook and the perfect bait for the team to sacrifice should the situation calls for it.
And as an added bonus, it seemed like the team was cohesive as a whole, as although they had not undertaken any missions together yet, nobody seemed to have too bloated of an ego that made them feel bigger than the collective unit.
'It's not a bad line-up' Leo acknowledged, as his thoughts drifted towards the personality dynamics of the group.
Bob's gruff stoicism and Patricia's flamboyant teasing were both strong flavors. But Leo didn't mind them too much.
Strong personalities meant strong minds. And strong minds were far harder to corrode in the madness of a Time-Stilled World than weak ones that bent with every shift in atmosphere.
Which was why, in a way, he preferred having team members with such unique traits.
*Sigh*
He let out a small breath, before making his mind as he said—
"I'm in," his voice even.
Raiden smiled faintly, when Leo accepted the proposal, as the entire table raised their glasses at once in cheer.
However, before anyone could toast or have a sip, Leo interrupted the celebrations as he said, "Before we move forward, I need to know how we're handling loot division, and how the party plans to stock resources,"
"If I'm putting my life on the line for this mission, I want the logistics straight."
Leo added, his tone sharpening just a touch.
Patricia let out a low whistle at his words, as she leaned back, and crossed one of her legs over the other.
"Straight to the boring part, huh? I like it." She said, rolling her eyes in disapproval, as she clearly did not enjoy the technical conversations.
*Huff–*
Bob grunted in approval but didn't speak.
While Raiden nodded, his fingers interlaced again as he prepared to lay out the structure of loot distribution.
"Of course, Let's go over everything." He said, as he put up 6 fingers.
"The total loot is worth 6.5 BILLION MP. And we are 6 members in total.
Off that 6.5 billion, Karl's share, should he survive till the end is fixed at 500 million MP. Which leaves 6 billion for the five of us," Raiden explained as he put down one finger.
"Off that 6 billion, we all get paid 1.2 billion each. Each of us having an equal split in the main loot, should we complete the mission—"
"However, myself and Cipher have first priority on anything else that we find within the time-stilled world.
So should we come across any dead bodies of criminals or find some ancient artefact in that world, Cipher and Myself shall have the first right to choose whether we want it or not and we will not be splitting that loot.
Yes, we will still compensate you fairly in the form of MP once the mission is over for any item we picked.
However, as for the item itself, we will always have priority of choice," Raiden clarified, as Leo gave him a rather evil smile.
It wasn't unfair to want priority on loot, however, to not compensate all members evenly for such items found was pushing their luck too much, as, if in the end the expedition ended in a failure and they were forced to return early with nothing but some individual items they found along the way, then the largest chunk of profit would go to Raiden and Cipher while the rest of them would be left begging for scraps.
"Interesting…. And the rest of you are okay with it?" Leo asked, as Patricia shrugged her shoulders in response, while Bob continued to ignore him like he did not even exist.
"It's not unfair when you realize that myself and Cipher are sponsoring everything from the food and mana stones we will need in that world, to hiring a cook to accompany us on this suicide mission.
It will set both of us back by 150,000 MP each, so the risk that we are taking is not minimal either.
That's money we have saved by working hard for the past 5 years.
It's not a small amount—" Cipher argued, as Leo let out a dry laugh.
To be fair, they weren't wrong, the two of them were taking all the risks here and hence it was only natural that they take a bigger share, however, Leo still wanted to tease them over it for a bit before agreeing.
"What quality of mana stones are you sponsoring? I'm sure you know that the better quality ones last longer—" Leo pointed out, as Cipher's eyes widened in surprise.
"Did you already read everything in the archives? That was fast!" He said, sounding nervous, as he tried to avoid the topic.
"I asked you a question…. Captain…. What's the grade of stones you will sponsor us with," Leo asked again, as this time a nervous Raiden was forced to answer.
"Low grade ones…. We were thinking about low grade ones" he admitted, as Leo wagged his finger in denial.
"Medium grade stones at the minimum…. The better quality stones last longer, you know it too…. And if we don't have the budget for high grade ones, we should at least buy medium grades" Leo demanded, as Patricia and Bob instantly nodded in agreement.
"The sexy man has a point here… we want better mana stones!" Patricia added.
"Don't be cheap, ya punks—" Bob said, as under the group pressure, Raiden eventually caved.
"Alright! Alright! Although it will set me back another 70,000 MP, I'll make sure to buy the medium grade ones.
Happy?" He asked, as only now did Leo nod in approval.
His plan was to secure a heap of medium grade stones from Raiden, and to then also buy some purest high grade stones for his own personal use, as part of his preparation to go into the Time-Stilled world.