"Is there anything I can do?" he asked her earnestly.

Yuna looked at him, still undecided if she was going to go easy on him or not. Eventually, she turned to look at him with a look of victory and elation.

"I know! You'll give me an all-you-can-do ticket!"

"A what?"

"If you give me that coupon, then you can't say no to me for a single day. If I want you to say that I'm beautiful, then you'll have to say that no matter what!"

Michael tilted his head. "But… you don't need that ticket for me to say that you're beautiful. You already are."

Yuna froze. Michael's unexpected compliment left her completely speechless. She felt her cheeks blushing, her heart rate spiking to abnormal levels.

She'd heard literally millions of compliments back in her previous life, and probably a million more in this one. And she never really felt that good when she received it.

However, Michael's simple words felt like an arrow sneakily shooting through her chest.

"Wha–whatever." Then, she crossed her arms on her chest, her head turned away from Michael and trying her best not to make eye contact with him. "You're not getting away that easily. You can't sweet-talk your way out of this one, mister."

Michael raised his hands in defeat. "Okay, okay," he chuckled.

Somehow, he didn't feel all that bad with this.

Just then, they heard the sound of silence suddenly overcome the entire ballroom. Then, footfalls.

Michael turned around and saw the five conglomerates approaching them from the side.

"Yuna~ Care to introduce us to your 'friend," Neytiri said, immediately approaching Yuna and hugging her from the back.

"Oh, right. Keo, these are my friends from back when we were in school," Yuna introduced.

Immediately, a blonde-haired urbane and handsome man approached Michael, giving out his hand for a shake.

"Gabriel Vanderbilt. Pleasure to meet you," he said.

Michael returned his greeting with a courtly shake, matching his solid grasp. He could tell that Gabriel was curious about him. He could feel the prodding in his Aubility Power, like a gentle push to see how strong his foundation was.

[Inspection magic detected. Automatic rejection in place.]

Gabriel's scan ended up as useless as cold water on a winter's night. He sensed nothing around 'Keo's body. Literally. In his eyes, Keo was nothing more than a normal human, with a normal beating heart.

But he knew that was not true. He could feel Aubility Power from Keo, no matter how slight it was.

The fact that Keo could hide his own cultivation from him, a peak 9th stage Body Formation cultivator meant that Keo must be of a similar strength or even greater!

This earned a look of shock from the handsome Gabriel, not expecting such a strong reaction.

Of course, Michael reciprocated the action. He'd long used his Drone to peer through Gabriel's actual cultivation and powers.

[Gabriel Vanderbilt]

[Realm: Peak 9th stage]

[Aubility Power: Inexorable Light: He wields the power to bend his own incandescent light. His brilliance is malleable, allowing him to create any object of his desires out of pure light.]

[Protection: Unc—Feline Brightness Armor Set]

Gabriel put his hands together in penance. "You'll have to forgive me for snooping on you. I just got really curious, you see, about the man willing to—"

Neytiri immediately threw her shoe at her man, making him keel over and fall into the ground.

"I'm sorry for him," Neytiri said, before giving another glare at Gabriel. That was a stare implying that there would be no second warning.

Michael waved off her concerns, while taking this chance to see through Neytiri's powers.

[Neytiri]

[Realm: 9th stage Body Formation]

[Aubility Power: Desert Construction: she is able to create monolithic desert structures out of anything she touches.]

[Protection: Hieroglyphic Obelisk Armor Set]

While he was busy inspecting Neytiri's power, three more figures appeared before him, each one prompting a window to appear containing all their essential information.

[Alexis Oscorpe]

[…]

[Vera]

[…]

[Cedric Goldstone]

[…]

The first three were the same as Neytiri, having the same base 9th stage Body Formation cultivation. Only Cedric was in the peak 9th stage. The fact that there was a distinction between them probably meant that there was an actual difference between those only in the 9th stage, and those already just a half-step away from the Nascent Spirit realm.

Now that I think about it, it's been a long time since I've increased my cultivation.

The last time he tried it, the GodForge pieces refused to enter his chest. For the first time, this enigmatic and divine-like metal had repelled away from him.

But he expected it. He'd been warned that advancing too fast was never ideal. It had only been a few months since he advanced to the 7th stage after all.

Now for most people, those few months were entirely too short. They'd need half a year at least before they're going to think about advancing. But Michael was different. He'd experienced far too much for an ordinary cultivator.

He faced off against tens of Maugnetics all at the same time, and killed them all! They had Artifices instead of Godforge pieces, but their effective strength didn't differ that much from the real thing.

He also had a brief, but very dangerous encounter against a Nascent Spirit Piece, for god's sake! Not only that, but that piece belonged to the Grandmaster, someone that Katarina even feared!

In short, he definitely had enough experience to finally advance to the next stage, and hopefully the next one after that.

Now, he just needed the GodForge pieces.

Fortunately, he'll definitely be able to get the money to buy them. The Elves and the Dwarves were begging him to take on more phone orders. He wanted to, but the fact that he hadn't even delivered a fraction of what he was supposed to deliver made him hesitate.

Unfortunately, he didn't know where he was going to buy the GodForge pieces.

Well, at least that's what his new friend was for.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.