Drax analyzed Max’s personality and memories in depth and understood one thing about the kid, which was that he lacked focus and commitment to a single project.

Drax often found Max starting a project, mapping every step of the project out, yet never following the plan through to completion because there was always some disturbance mid-way.

This was a huge problem that Drax needed to fix, as he had the tough job of keeping Max focused on the job at hand.

Currently, the goal that Max had was to enroll in the academy, and to enroll in the academy he needed to raise money for which he needed to offload the items in his inventory.

Being away from civilization for all these years, the only understanding of modern trade that Drax had was from Max’s memories, but even then he understood that Max’s strategy of selling goods under anonymity was completely bogus because he couldn’t unload a payload this big in a tier 0 environment without getting the attention of major parties.

This is why, after deeply analyzing every single corner of Max’s memory, Drax found the solution to this problem in a contact that Max had but never utilized properly.

Currently on Earth, while Max’s big brother Rudra was the political and military superpower, the Grey international group was the economic powerhouse.

The Grey international group was the one to have invested in Rudra’s guild when he was a newbie gamer and over the years the partnership between the founder Ethan Grey and Rudra had developed from business partners to that of a deep brotherhood.

Not only was Ethan Grey the most successful businessman on Earth, but he was also married to a Russian mafia lord wife and their son, who was Max’s age, was a very promising merchant in the universal market as per Max’s past life memories.

In this life, with Sigma having just started he was yet to make it big, and this was exactly the opportunity that Drax felt should be grasped by Max to form a lifelong partnership/bond.

Christian Grey, the son of Ethan Grey, was a childhood friend of Max and despite having his contact information, Max had always been too proud to ask for his help in the past life.

Drax intended for Max to give his goods to Christian Grey and form a partnership early on, even if it cost him a 10% commission because it was the best way for Max to offload his goods without attracting trouble.

Not only was Christian Grey well connected in the business world through his father, but he was also very powerful through the thugs under his mother.

He was the ultimate merchant and exactly the kind of person who could arrange the sum of money that Max needed for his goals.

One good quality that Max had was that he was open to suggestions and advices and he gave the wise word of grandpa Drax the respect that it deserved, although he was reluctant to give up even 10% of his money to an outsider, after a lot of consideration and sound discussion with grandpa Drax he decided to give the meeting a shot, but he wisely chose not to meet Christian under his real identity but use an alias instead.

Max used an anonymous messaging service to drop Christian Grey a message to meet him inside BlackLake City at a designated restaurant for the deal of a lifetime. Where he waited for him wearing the den of thieves mask while hiding his identity.

Max had no idea whether or not Christian Grey would show up for the meeting and whether or not he would take him seriously, but when he showed up right on time for the meeting Max was relieved.．

The location that Max chose for the meeting was a cramped Chinese-style restaurant serving white octopus meat seasoned in the blood of goblins.

It was a disgustingly smelly dish, however with an incredible taste that had many fans across the universe.

Christian Grey had an intimidating aura around him, as he was well-built and had that killer look in his eyes.

From his demeanor it was clear that he was pissed to be called in this manner to this meeting, however, he was maintaining decorum just till understanding the other party’s offer.

Christian seated across Max and stared straight into his eyes, as if he was not bothered by Max’s mask at all, a failed inspection spell following as the mask blocked attempts to read Max’s identity.

” Who gave you my thief number? I don’t recall having any connections to your den of thieves organization….. My number is one of the most protected assets. If you tell me who leaked it to you, I will pay you 10 gold coins here today and let you go. If you don’t tell me, then you better pray your proposal is good, because otherwise, you die “. Christian said in a cold tone

Max did not pay any heed to his opponent’s words, thinking it was empty intimidation tactics, being in the safe zone right now nobody had the guts to have him outright killed.

However, Max’s line of thinking was wrong, as when Max did not reply for 15 seconds or so, Christian snapped his fingers twice and the entire restaurant of seemingly normal customers and even the shop owner stood up and drew weapons towards Max.

Christian said ” I bought this place today morning itself, it cost me a fortune but I did it. All these men here also work for me, I hired them as mercenaries and they have been sitting here pretending to be customers, waiting for you since morning.

Don’t take me lightly thief, I’m not the average guy, and I’m not someone you can mess with”.

Max was now impressed with Christian Grey, he had never seen this ruthless side of his childhood friend and it was truly worthy of being the son of a mafia lord. But Max was also the brother of Rudra Rajput himself and was not to be intimidated by such petty tactics.

Lifting the bottom of his mask up, Max took a sip of the octopus curry and said in a calm voice ” Can you sell dark gold and epic-rated items in bulk? ”

Christian was shocked when he heard the question, up till this moment he was clawing his way hard inside BlackLake City, however, he had not even gotten a whiff of silver-rated items, much less dark gold or epic-rated ones.

His attitude taking a full 180, he asked in a shocked voice ” Sorry what? “.

————–

/// A/N – Two news for today. Check author notes for details. ///