Otherworldly Affairs Office-Chapter 749 Xila’s Proposal Part 2 (Seeking Subscription)
Faced with Xila's angry exclamation, Pei Yan tapped his ear and turned to whisper with Gu Shenghui beside him. After their discussion, they decided that having a double insurance in the group competition would be a good choice, and some concessions could be made on the individual competition prizes. After pondering for a while, Pei Yan looked at Xila again and said, "This suggestion isn't unacceptable, but I have a precondition and a question."
"Go ahead."
"To state the condition first, if we cannot secure one of the top two positions in the group match, then our agreement automatically becomes void, because the Origin Seed is equally important to us. Without the group competition reward, we can only strive in the individual competition. Apologies, Miss Xila, sometimes effort doesn't necessarily lead to returns, so I hope you won't blame us for being untrustworthy then." Pei Yan said honestly.
In response, Xila nodded in understanding and said, "We can accept that. Mr. Pei, tell me the other question you have."
"Uh, the question is how can you be certain that I can surely win the first place in the individual competition? As you said, this time there are many strong contenders. If I can't attain the first place, aren't all our prior discussions pointless? You can't expect me to give you the Divine Artifact seed then." Pei Yan laughed bitterly and mocked himself.
"Hehehehe!" After hearing Pei Yan's words, Xila giggled. Once she finished laughing, a shade of resentment with a hint of murderous intent emerged on her spirited face as she said in a deep tone, "This is our second cooperation condition."
As she spoke, she touched the Storage Necklace around her neck, and after a flash of pale blue light, a person-high wooden chest and a long-handled wooden box appeared in the room. Seeing her action, Pei Yan and Gu Shenghui, who were sitting in chairs, stood up and circled around the massive wooden chest a few times before looking at Xila in confusion and asking, "Miss Xila, this is...?"
"Regarding your capabilities, my father, the Demon God, has given full acknowledgment. He believes that you can definitely win first place in this individual competition. However, the other contestants this time are by no means ordinary. To ensure your success, Father has decided to add a little weight to you."
With that, Xila walked to the middle of the two wooden boxes, large and small, and introduced with a smile, "Here are two items, one is a Divine Artifact, the other is a pseudo-Divine Artifact. Both of these items are gifted to you by my father for you to use freely without the need to return them. How about it, Mr. Pei? Our sincerity is quite ample, right? Regardless of whether you achieve your goal, your Investigation Hall has already obtained two Divine Weapons."
"What? Divine Artifacts!" Hearing this, everyone present was filled with shock. Pei Yan even lightly rubbed the wooden chest in front of him to sense the items inside, but to no avail. After a while, Pei Yan, with a puzzled look, gazed at Xila and asked in confusion, "What's in here?"
Xila, seeing this, patted the wooden chest beside her and sighed, "Actually, strictly speaking, the two items here are both pseudo-Divine Artifacts. Mr. Pei, you've been on the Hell Plane for quite some time now, and you should have heard of my father's nature, um... Father is usually quite flamboyant and carefree." At this point, Xila paused to think of the right words, and after a moment, awkwardly added, "Father is quite the debonair and nonchalant individual."
Hearing this evaluation, Pei Yan smiled knowingly. This Demon God is indeed nonchalant; among the four major planes, only he is keen on possessing people's bodies, wandering the mortal realm and philandering around, leaving offspring everywhere. Thinking of this, Pei Yan nodded at Xila to show understanding.
Only then did Xila continue to explain, "And inside this chest is an Alchemy Puppet custom-made for my father using Taoist techniques, Magic, and our Hell Plane technology, incorporating materials from the four major planes including the Spirit Monster Plane. It allows my father to attach himself when he doesn't want to possess human bodies or appear as an energy form. This puppet, from craftsmanship to materials, and combat power, has already reached the standards of a Divine Artifact, but because it's for my father to attach to, it cannot produce an artifact spirit, thus failing to qualify as a true Divine Artifact."
"This, this, this is too precious!" Hearing Xila's introduction, Pei Yan's eyes sparkled as he eagerly rubbed his hands around the wooden chest, turning over and over with excitement.
Seeing Pei Yan so excited he was nearly incoherent, Xila exchanged a glance and smile with Samikina, who accompanied them. For the Demon God, this puppet—which can be considered a Divine Artifact—was merely the most useless piece among his many collections. It's not that it wasn't valuable, every word Xila and Pei Yan said earlier was true, and the Demon God indeed poured a lot of effort into creating it when he was at his peak and extremely bored. However, it was like an unreasonable client proposing a series of unreasonable demands in a design scheme, forcing the creator to haphazardly add a bunch of powerful settings to the puppet. But once it was completed, after merely trying it once or twice, the Demon God abandoned it due to its discomforting nature.
The three designers from the other planes, summoned to satisfy the Demon God's demands for both external splendor and potent lethality, had to repeatedly reduce the space for soul storage to make room for other equipment inside the puppet. This resulted in the Demon God's energy body being cramped in a fist-sized small ball within the puppet, making it feel like imprisoning himself, something the inherently free-spirited Demon God could not bear. After a few test drives and being told that it could not be modified further, the Demon God had to discard this custom-made puppet, letting it collect dust in the warehouse, uninterested in touching it again.
Offering it to Pei Yan now not only wins him over but also resolves a concern of the Demon God, achieving a dual purpose—it can be said that it found a good home for this puppet.
Unaware of these insides, after his initial excitement, Pei Yan began to calm down gradually. With such an unusual gesture, there must be a hidden agenda; they wouldn't invest so heavily solely for a few Origin Seeds for winning first place in the contest. With this thought, Pei Yan wiped the sweat from his forehead and fought the urge to immediately open the box and absorb the item, turning to Xila with a bitter smile, "Miss Xila, I must say, this gift of yours strikes directly at my weak spot. Speak up, besides the first-place prize, what additional demands do you have?"
"Mr. Pei, you are indeed straightforward, talking to you is truly refreshing." Xila said as she returned to her seat, sipping the tea from the table before asking rhetorically, "Then Mr. Pei, do you know the biggest difference between group competitions and individual competitions?"
Upon hearing Xila's counter-question, Pei Yan was taken aback and shook his head in confusion, "This is our first time participating, we're not very familiar with the details yet. Aside from the competition format and the number of participants, is there anything else different?"
