The two men looked at each other, asking each other with their looks as to how much they wanted to believe his stories. Not only that, if they did believe him, could they not do the same themselves too?

They had various Converters on their payroll too. As long as they got them to do Dust and try to learn it, they could make it too. The proof existed right before them after all.

“That is a good story, brother Ning,” Jay said. “But I do have a question. After you got your powers, why didn’t you report it? You could become an Officer or a Chief officer too.”

“I thought of doing it,” Ning said. “I was running out of money after buying so much Dust, so I needed more. But, when I thought of how much I could make by promoting, I realized that I would only be making enough for a full month of Dust.”

“Now, I didn’t need to buy Dust at this point, but the thought still kept me thinking in that direction, and soon I got to the thought. What if I sell Dust instead?

So, I decided to do so. I came to the city, looking for people to sell Dust to. I did some digging for a while and finally realized that you were the people that sold Dust.

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“And you can certainly make a lot more with this than your job as an Officer,” Jay said.

“Yeah, and Cadets have more invisibility in the ranks, so I decided to stay this way. I will have to continue lying on Spark tests every half a year though.”

“That’s good,” Cenn said. “So, let us talk proper. I’ll be honest, we can’t really buy everything you sell us. If you sell us too much, we’ll flood the market and the military will come after us. When they come after us, everyone gets taken in. We don’t want that.”

“Everyone?” Ning asked. “Including your suppliers?”

“No, not our suppliers. We don’t even know who they really are right now,” Cenn said.

“Oh, so I can’t meet them if I wanted to?” Ning asked.

“You want to meet them?” Cenn asked.

“Yeah, but ignore that for now. Tell me what you were saying.”

“Ah right,” Cenn continued. “We don’t want to flood the market. Ignoring the danger is a bad strategy altogether. When you saturate the market with too much of something, when you meet the demand and exceed it, people will start expecting it to cost less.”

Ning frowned. “But you’re a monopoly. How could you possibly sell for less?” he asked. “You decide the price.”

“We have to follow the market too, brother,” Jay said. “We can’t just set the price too high or else people won’t buy anything from us. And if we have too much Dust on sale, there could be people that won’t buy it, leaving us with stock. And by the time our suppliers come next, we’ll be forced to buy less. That’s bad for business.”

“Buying from two places at once is not a good idea,” Cenn said.

Ning thought for a bit. “I… have a suggestion, but it is a bad one. Would you like to hear?” he asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” Jay said.

“What if you… completely cut off your deal suppliers and keep me as one instead,” Ning said. “I can make you just as much as need, and I will be here whenever you need more. I will also take less if that is what you’re worrying about.”

The two men looked at each other, both very thoughtful.

“That is an understandable route you wish to take,” Cenn said. “But we cannot go that route. At least, not right now.”

“And why is that?” Ning asked, curious.

“Have you checked recent Dust?” Cenn asked. “The purity of it is incredible, isn’t it?”

Ning raised an eyebrow. “Now that you mention it, it is indeed quite amazing. I had to improve my Dust twice to reach a similar level to them. What about it?”

“Well, our suppliers who make Dust are improving at an amazing speed right now, and their improvement just continues to grow while their prices also increase proportionally. Until the day when they stagnate in their growth, we cannot imagine the thought of cutting ties with them.”

Jay nodded along. “As good as you are, Ning, these people are something else. Unless you can improve just as they do, I will confess that we cannot cut ties with them.”

“No, no, I understand,” Ning said. “I was too forward here. The matter of purity truly is important. And since I’m just a copycat, I don’t know the first thing about how Dust is made.”

He looked up at the glowing spheres in the ceiling high above the underground city, thinking about something.

The other two went silent, waiting for Ning to say something. After a long pause, he finally looked down. “I do have an idea there too.”

The two perked up their ears and listened.

“So the pro we have is regarding purity, isn’t it? So all I have to do is find a way to improve it,” he said.

They looked at him weirdly.

“Yes, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “We were just talking about the same thing. But

this is different.”

“How?” Cenn asked.

“When is your next supply coming?” Ning asked.

“In 5 days,” Jay answered.

“Okay, so when your supply comes. Someone has to bring it right?” Ning asked.

“They… do,” Jay replied.

“So, when they come, you tell them to take me along with them,” Ning said. “I will go with them, mingle with them, learn their secrets, and come back.”

The two men looked at each other awkwardly.

“That plan hangs on the fact that our supplier agrees to your demand of joining them,” Cenn said. “And I very much doubt they will.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ning said. “If they accept it, good. If they don’t, then I’m going to stalk them. Either way, I will get what I want.”

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