Chapter 42: Enjoy Life More

"So this is Goldspear Thistle?"

"Yep! This is Goldspear Thistle. The rootstock is incredibly tough and quite sharp, and above all it's an outstanding conductor of both spiritual power and vitae—with a little refining, it makes a perfectly decent weapon. Not really suited for combat, but great for fitness equipment. If it could be farmed at scale, the economics would be stunning."

"You're sure you're not on some multinational biotech company's payroll?"

"Ha! The Raging Gale's subsidiary, the Nordus Group, owns not only several famous biotech companies but a top-ten global sporting goods company."

Nathan had been through plenty of conditioning these past weeks, but the Raging Gale's true purpose still left him "shook."

The Raging Gale's interest in the four great ascendant seeds wasn't what he'd imagined—combat, Art, crafting enchanted gear, breeding bio-weapons, anything along those violent lines. It was almost all for legitimate commercial development, and not a sentence went by without the word "profit."

His brain, bombarded by the new information, went a little sluggish; it took several moments to recover before he could gripe: "The Raging Gale is nothing like a military organization—it's got the whole style of a super-multinational. So why are the guys it sends out all muscle-brained types who only think about fighting?"

Lucan laughed heartily. "The bloodborn world and the human Art world still see their share of fighting, sure—but the mainstream goal of Art nowadays is longevity and squeezing as much enjoyment out of life as possible. The great bloodborn and the powerhouse human magi especially prefer to retreat into pocket-realms shaped to their own dreams. It's the newbies—weak, and clueless about how the real world works—who keep thinking the Legions ought to be out conquering it."

Nathan murmured to himself, a little hollowed out: "So those two bloodborn—the fierce, sinister-looking pair—were really just a couple of delusional crackpots? No wonder they got owned in front of Granny Rowan and got offed like nothing by Sebastian. And here I'd always figured they were at least minor big shots."

Lucan snickered. "Me, I'd never dream of challenging Granny Rowan on Elderrow. Never mind two little bloodborn barely a century old apiece—even a great bloodborn with ten thousand years of Art is absolutely no match for Granny Rowan on her home turf, her being the Between keystone and all."

Nathan shook his head, dropped the line of thought, and asked point-blank: "What's in it for me if I help the Raging Gale?"

Lucan casually laid out a contract—detailed clauses and all—and walked Nathan through them, item by item.

The Raging Gale's offer was exceptionally generous. For example: if Nathan could deliver a living specimen of Goldspear Thistle, then once the Raging Gale successfully practiced it and rolled out new "fitness equipment," he'd get one percent of the profits every year. By the contract's long-range market projections, that was a market starting around a billion US dollars—hot sellers across the entire global bloodborn world, even exportable to human magi. Nathan stood to pull tens of millions of dollars a year in royalties, which in starlings also started in the millions.

The other ascendant-seed rewards ran along the same lines; besides the royalty partnerships, there were even one-time buyout prices—rich enough to tempt anyone.

Nathan read the contract for a while, feeling a faint regret. He cut off Lucan, who was still pushing him to sign on with the Raging Gale, and asked, low: "Money's not my concern. I just want to ask one thing: can the Raging Gale send someone over to take Sebastian out?"

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Lucan shook his head. "the Commonwealth is the Concord turf. The Four Hosts can only field bit players and go-betweens like me for their errands. The moment they deploy a senior legionnaire, it means defying the Concord—and risking crippling losses. They'll run the numbers on whether the losses cancel out the profits, and even if they do decide to send someone, that's a few rounds of executive meetings away."

Nathan's disappointment was total. He'd hoped to borrow the Raging Gale's muscle to root out Sebastian; he did have some plans of his own, but the odds on them were honestly shaky, and hitting the goal the easy way beat doing it personally by a mile.

Nathan let out a soft breath, somewhat deflated, and suddenly recalled the last of the three pieces of advice Granny Rowan had given him: "Every organization has an ugly side, no matter how lofty its charter." He muttered anyway: "So once an organization gets big enough, even the bloodborn can't escape low efficiency and bureaucracy?"

Bound by its agreements with the human magi, the Concord wouldn't touch human affairs; the Raging Gale had to run its profit math, and only when profit wildly outran cost would it bestir itself.

Sebastian was plainly fluent in those unwritten rules—that's how he swam so free, beyond anyone's discipline, running wild and doing exactly as he pleased.

Lucan had no idea why, but Nathan's enthusiasm for him had suddenly gone flat—clauses that got even him hot under the collar failed to stir the boy at all. Mildly surprised, he was about to push a little harder to get the contract signed when Nathan suddenly asked: "Do you know how to go about hiring a great bloodborn of Blood Lord-tier?"

Lucan jumped. "Are you insane? A Blood Lord-tier great bloodborn, taking a job from an ordinary bloodborn? Blood Lord-tier great bloodborn are practically richer than Croesus, okay? You don't even have their pocket change."

With his last sliver of hope shattered, Nathan's mood dropped clean to rock bottom, and he lost all interest in discussing business with Lucan—though he had absolute, dead certainty he could knock out one of those tasks inside ten minutes.

Goldspear Thistle was exactly the pale-gold thatch he'd taken into his black-light heart-seed—and the stuff was everywhere in the Hourbound Grove, practically a plague.

"I've got stuff to do. Let's talk next time!"

Nathan said his goodbyes and got up to leave. Lucan hesitated a moment—and then actually chased after him. At the Atlas Grand Hotel's entrance, while Nathan waited for a cab, Lucan swung a Mercedes van around in front of him and opened the door: "Let me give you a ride!"

Nathan didn't refuse; honestly, he had no idea where to go anyway, so he just tossed out a place. Lucan didn't pry, just drove with single-minded focus.

Sure enough—no surprises—driving at this hour, they were jammed up in traffic in no time, a river of cars ahead and behind, stretching on like it would never end.

Lucan leaned over from the driver's seat and kindly asked: "There are drinks in the car—want me to crack you a can?"

Nathan had been about to get out—but when he realized they were on the highway, with at least a few kilometers to walk before he could even get onto a sidewalk, he gave up on hope entirely!