“First off, congratulations,” the boss said the second we sat down in her office. “Your idea took the markets by a storm,” the woman explained, sitting down in her chair. 

A smug look of satisfaction on her face told me everything I needed to know about how the business developed. 

“I hope this amount of bones will be enough for a while,” I pointed out, laying out the foundations for my future plans. 

“We should be able to establish our own sources soon,” the woman nodded her head. “Until then, the ones you brought should suffice to cover the needs,” she added. 

‘That’s perfect,’ I thought. 

As hyped as I was for both the power and the money that this project would bring, I couldn’t spare it much of my attention. 

I still had to deal with the Sect, provide the resources, scout the situation…

“Right, you were asking about the contract,” the boss suddenly called out, tapping the end of her goose’s feather against her lip. “What exactly do you want to know?” 

“How high do you need to cultivate to fulfill the contract?” I asked without even a second of hesitation. “What would happen to someone whom I sponsor?” 

“Straight to the point, aren’t you?” the boss smiled, stretching her hands above her head. 

“Normally, reaching the ninth stage should be enough, but some require the tenth,” she said, providing me with quite important information. 

‘If that’s true…’ I thought. To a degree, I expected that. But hearing it in the first person packed its punch. 

In other words, I could now graduate from being a contractor at any given time!

“As for your other question, the moment you fulfill your obligation, the sect has to take the burden of your sponsorship,” the boss smiled, most likely aware of why it was such a bother for me. 

“That’s perfect,” I replied before releasing a sigh of relief. “Oh, right,” I suddenly recalled another burning question I had. “What do you know about the next stage?” 

“Huh?” the boss shrugged, turning her surprised eyes on me. “Tenth one?” she asked, misunderstanding my question. 

“No,” I shook my head with a small smile. “Eleventh,” I specified my earlier question. 

For a moment, the boss simply continued to breathe heavily. Only after she managed to calm herself enough did she bother to ask the question that clearly bothered her. 

“Did you…” she muttered before coughing and shaking her head. “No. Tell me,” she refocused her attention. “Did you break through to the eleventh stage already?” she asked, her eyes trembling with excitement. 

“Excuse me?” I pretended to act shocked. “What do you take me for?” I asked, shaking my head and putting on a slightly dissatisfied grin. “What do you take me for? I only managed to reach the tenth stage,” I smoothly lied.

I could break into the eleventh stage at any moment I so desired. With all the resources I had in my storage ring, I could easily conquer the other half of the tent stage, filling the potential that I had worked hard to further before. 

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t scout ahead what the next cultivation level was all about!

‘Actually, am I even still following the path of a cultivator?’ I thought, recalling the choice that the system offered me before. 

And that realization begged another question. 

‘Is the stage that I’m currently at even remotely similar to what the rest of the cultivator is going through?’

I shook my head. 

“Forget about it,” I said. Since the boss was unwilling to discuss this topic, there was no point in pushing it through. “Let’s talk business instead,” I smiled. 

“Yes,” the boss clearly relaxed when she heard my words. “It’s going pretty nicely. We managed to sell the idea to quite a lot of different cities,” she said, bringing out some papers from the avalanche of documents occupying her desk. “While we still have yet to strike a deal with some of them,” the boss muttered while looking at her papers.

“Just a rough estimate will do,” I said, pushing the woman to give me the answer already. 

Was the idea going to sell? Or would it burn out before giving away any flame in the first place?

“Now that we have those stones, we are going to start the first dual cultivation rings in about a week,” the boss finally said, raising her head from above the papers. 

“That’s great,” I replied with relief. 

What was initially about to be an advanced pleasuring tool that could be used to take advantage of the dual cultivation in this world has long expanded into an entirely different business idea. 

Instead of using the dildos and sockets at the brothels, the auction hall would establish its own cultivation halls. 

Any and all could just walk in there and request either side of the service. 

They could either spare their ying or yang energy by filling the formations within each of the individual tools or…

Or they could come in and request to train in either yin or yang-dominated air within one of their formations!

Instead of trying to pry the market from the greedy hands of the dual cultivation sects, my idea allowed the Auction Hall to tap into the market of people that didn’t participate in dual cultivation before. 

The people who weren’t interested in giving away their intimacy for something they could achieve without doing so. In other words, people like me, who were unwilling to just happily dual cultivate with the first partner, accessible for their own reasons!

“Well, I assume I can count to withdraw some of my profits, then,” I smiled.

Since the boss herself claimed that our business had more than just fertile ground to expand, then surely I could ask for some advance payment, couldn’t I?”

“You managed to reach the tenth stage so quickly, yet you are still in a rush to cultivate?” the boss asked. She squinted her eyes as she looked at me with suspicion. “Do you have some sort of mortal enemy you need to defeat?” she asked, clearly trying to sound the waters.

“Not at all,” I replied with a smile, only to shake my head and emphasize what I just said. “I just want to secure a future for me and the girl that I’m sponsoring right now,” I replied casually, bringing out the point that I knew for sure the boss was already aware of. 

“That…” the woman hesitated for a moment only to end up shaking her head a second later. “That’s fine,” she finally said before pulling out another storage ring from one of her desk’s drawers.

The item that I had to splurge quite a lot to obtain quite clearly appeared to be a commodity for the people I was dealing with. 

In a sense, it was pretty scary. The sudden jump from a position with no wealth at all to a position where the riches of the world couldn’t faze me. 

But it was also pretty reassuring. 

“Thank you,” I said, grabbing the ring and standing up.. “If you will excuse me now,” I said, turning my face to the doors only to throw a quick glance to the back. “There is a contract that I need to graduate from as soon as possible!”