Immortal Kingdoms

"Gentlemen…" Leonardo smiled flatly and nodded at the party of three, leaving the last nod and brightest smile to Jeffery before he sat down into his leather chair. With both arms resting on the table and hands clasped together, Leonardo declared his intentions, "I will invest in recruiting manpower and supplying equipment from the various channels going through Valdmor. Of course, to keep our involvement a secret, I'll delegate the task to an elven representative under my command."

As he spoke, spatial fluctuations untraceable by anyone in the room, including Leonardo himself, flooded the table surface. The next moment, a stash of gold, silver, and energy crystals sparkled in everyone's eyes.

Mason and Andrew jumped to their feet with mouths agape in shock, whilst Jeffery's face darkened. They haven't even started negotiating, but Leonardo had already skipped to the investment segment.

Jeffery coughed lightly and said, "I had a feeling that you'll come to realize it sooner or later, but I didn't expect you'd see through us so quickly. Hm, let me see, this will fast forward our plans by a lot."

Leonardo nodded. Of course, he realized their pinch.

Since the operation is obviously set up in a low profile setting, it means that they came lacking not only in bodyguards but also manpower. Hence, they entered Valdmor in hopes of finding business partners who could supply them with funds while being in the dark to the human domain's real intentions.

Building relationships with the local business community of Valdmor, fund raising, and arming their forces could take months if not outright a year. Of course, if they had space rings to transport funds, things would have been smoother.

However, how rare were space rings?

Only peak saints can create space rings with their understanding of dimensions, and how many peak saints is there on a planet like Arcadia? Hence, Leonardo flaunting his space ring hints at two things; wealth and backing. With so much funding in liquid assets, the plan to rally up arms and workers can be implemented directly.

The question is, "The only way for you to join us is if one of us willingly sold you some of his shares, and I can tell you now that I'm the only one in a position to sell." Jeffery said, his intentions between the lines clear as day.

"Wait a moment!" Both Mason and Andrew interrupted, having second thoughts about this whole thing. That was a goddamn space ring for god's sake! Let alone the mass of wealth on the table, the existence of a space ring by itself foretold Leonardo's influence in the near future!

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With that much funding, Jeffery can go ahead and start expanding his influence, leaving them both behind. Their supporters behind the scenes wouldn't like that one bit. Sadly for them, they weren't insightful enough to recognize the inconspicuous wealth on Leonardo's person from the last meeting.

They were too busy cutting their losses and gloating over Jeffery's misfortune.

Unfortunately for them, Leonardo wasn't in the habit of working with idiots, neither did he care for whatever project they had undergoing as he was merely in this to establish a foundation of connections.

Although placing one's eggs in one basket isn't wise, that sort of indecisive behaviour is detrimental for a long term business cooperation built on trust and integrity.

Thus, Leonardo ignored them and smiled faintly at Jeffery before saying, "How about you sell me 1% of your shares? That should be enough."

Jeffery's mouth hung wide open.

Mason's mouth hung wide open.

Andrew's mouth hung wide open.

…

Somewhere far away in the human domain, in a comforting wide in-door jacuzzi, a certain beauty's mouth hung wide open as she observed the meeting through Jeffery's point of view.

…

Jeffery blinked, coming back to his senses when a certain magnetic voice echoed in his mind, reminding him of the conclusion his noble lady came to after the full recount of the last discussion, "I want him!" She declared back then.

Jeffery then swallowed a lump of stubborn saliva as he wiped off the sweat off his forehead while checking in case he heard wrong, "All of this? For only 1% of my shares?"

Leonardo raised his brows, "Not enough? I can double it if you want…" Leonardo's expression seemed genuinely confused, which escalated the shock of everyone else.

The offer rang in Jeffery's head, almost driving him to the edge of insanity as he quickly waved off the offer despite having no clear understanding of Leonardo's real intentions. "Enough! Enough! More than enough!"

He then stood up and extended his right hand from between the petrified Mason and Andrew to introduce himself, "My name is Jeffery, you can call me Jeff."

Leonardo accepted the gesture with grace as he replied with a faint, charming smile that overshadowed the melancholy in his pitch-black eyes, "My name is Leonardo, you can call me Leo."

Both Mason and Andrew felt infuriated by being ignored. Mason was the first to speak up, "Wait, I will sell you 2% of my shares for your investment!"

Andrew was quick to follow up, "4% of mine!"

Andrew and Mason glared at one another before quickly shouting at the same time, "5%! Final offer!"

Leonardo smiled from ear to ear at their response. The reason he chose Jeffery was, first and foremost, the man was smart. Secondly, the other two were prone to manipulation, exactly like now.

They wouldn't want the balance to break before their project even started, exactly as Leonardo predicted.

Jeffery's heart sank at Leonardo's smile as he finally picked up on the latter's scheme. As he feared, Leonardo chuckled lightly and spread his arms.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, I am a businessman of integrity, I'm afraid I can't have multiple partners for the same endeavour…" Leonardo shook his head lightly.

"But," He went silent for a moment, the silence shredding at the two middle aged men's hearts as they swallowed nervously.

Leonardo said, "Although I won't invest in your business, I will offer you an additional 20% in liquid assets to buy exclusive rights to 5% of your shares; each! This might not provide you with much for the long run, but it will provide a decisive advantage in short-term."

"Of course, this means that we will not be partners, and you will be obligated to provide me with full documentation on the operation in hand. This is a take it or leave it offer!" Leonardo smiled deviously at the party of three.

As much as Jeffery wanted to interfere, this would be nothing short of stabbing his partner in the back, which would violate his conduct of good faith. On the other hand, Andrew and Mason were too entranced by greed and self confidence that regardless of the long term plans, as long as they held an advantage during the initial phase of the plans, losing 5% of the essence ore mines is worth it!

Thus, almost without an ounce of hesitation, both agreed and shook hands with Leonardo while introducing themselves. Jeffery could only watch with cold sweat drenching his back over Leonardo's business acumen.

Within one session and under half an hour of negotiations, this young man scored himself a seat as prime long term investor and a business partner with exclusive rights to 10% of the mines, and shared interest to an additional 1% that if Jeffery guessed correctly, Leonardo would resell to one of the two businesses in the long term.

The question is, who will buy it? Because as of this moment, Jeffery is a leading shareholder with a 4% edge over his two partners, leaving him with 32.3% shares.

Each of Andrew and Mason are left with 28.3%, and Leonardo at the bottom of the ladder with 11% of the shares.

Although it wouldn't make a difference to Leonardo whether he kept the 1% or not, that same 1% represents a world of difference to Mason and Andrew who would soon be at each other's throat to earn an edge as the second biggest shareholder.

It all made sense now as to why Leonardo was content with a mere 1%.

This mere 1% became a hard leash for Leonardo to control both Andrew and Mason, putting the youth in a seat of power. Both of them would realise that getting shares from Jeffery is impossible due to the heated contest in the human domain, but Leonardo is an external party without an involvement to the political parties of the domain.

The more Jeffery thought about it, the colder he felt.

This was a beautiful move as it was scary.

"Shall we draft the contracts?" Leonardo asked with his magnetically alluring voice akin to whispers of the devil. Andrew and Mason nodded enthusiastically with big grins on their faces before they called forward their personal aids to draft the contracts.

Leonardo glanced over at Jeffery who swallowed with a bitter smile before nodding his head as well.

Thus, that night concluded Leonardo's first of many smooth negotiations, and the birth of his formidable business empire.