Looking at Elise and Uriel, Sokram continued, “But I also know none of you knew about their plot of using Eversnow as a stepping stone. I know that you truly needed the gold they offered, so I can’t blame you; none of us here can blame you.”

Elise nodded in silence.

Uriel scratched her chin and glanced suspiciously at Sokram, “Then you’re saying that you are willing to share those techniques with us as long as we keep it a secret?”

“No, whether you keep it a secret or not, that will have nothing to do with me or my family.”

Sokram’s expression remained nonchalant, “The only secret you already agreed to keep is the source, after all, if you started telling everyone you have techniques for Spirit Magic, Titan Force, and Vital Magic, wouldn’t it be the same as entering a den of thieves and screaming I have a lot of gold in my pockets?”

“Aren’t you doing the same right now?” Kamal asked him.

“No, I believe I am among friends, am I wrong?”

Sokram rebuked, but hearing their silence, he added, “Besides, we all read the consequences of leaking the contents of this meeting; we all signed the same contracts after all.”

Hearing that, they all realized that Sokram probably plotted everything, even if Sahvus was the one who called this meeting.

Kamal looked at Sahvus, his rival, now also collaborating with his backers, and didn’t know how to react.

And seeing that Sokram wasn’t excluding the Silverfangs, even after what happened with Kazzah, left him even more confused.

“You’re between friends,” Uriel offered with a smile, but leaning back, he intertwined his fingers, resting his two hands over his belly, and met Sokram’s eyes, “But there is no free lunch in the world. What will it cost us?”

“We’ll get to that soon,” Sokram nodded and summoned ten sets of three scrolls.

“These will be given to you today. Each scroll contains a core conversion and cultivation technique for one of the three fused energies.”

Sokram then summoned a few sealed, cubic transparent glasses, each containing a single pill.

“These pills are the same ones Grandmaster and Nana Kasine used to advance, but it’s not guaranteed that whoever uses them will advance; it will depend on how close you are to advancing…”

“And your help.” Kasine interjected bluntly, “Without his help in digesting and absorbing, neither I nor Kamus would have succeeded. I doubt even Neloph here could do it without him.”

“Yes, although I helped, both of your cultivations were well consolidated enough that in less than a hundred years you would have advanced anyway.”

Sokram confessed with a humble smile, then turned back to the others, “This is what I offer today, but not all I intend to offer from this day forward.”

These words stunned everyone, even those who already knew, but Sokram gave them no time to ask questions.

“I assure you that once I have something more concrete, I’ll show you, but for now, this is all: A way to bypass the bottleneck from Exalted to Semi-Perfect. And these three well-sought cultivation techniques.”

“Now, for the prices, for those of you, my friends, who are already collaborating with me, I’ll only ask you one thing: Once, a couple of days before the feast held by Uncle Silverfang, I held a barbecue for my teammates.”

Sokram pointed to Kayn sitting beside Kanami and continued, “And Uncle Grey Fang presented me with books that he gathered from mages he had felled in battle. So, from the Goldenmane, Greyfur, Chrystalia, Whitefur, Blackfur, and Silverfang, that is all I’ll ask for. Knowledge for knowledge.”

Leona, hearing that, grinned bitterly, thinking, ‘Wasn’t this the time to go for their wallet, kiddo? Sigh…’

Her reaction was shared by many among the family heads and elders present.

Sahvus looked at him thoughtfully.

Then, as if someone whispered something to him, his eyes sparkled with understanding, and he decided to ask Sokram about it later.

Sokram shifted his focus back to Uriel and made his offer.

“As for the Blackmane, I’ll ask you to exchange with me the butchery locations you recovered from the Steelhearts. Not the butcheries, what I want is ownership of the locations. Twenty of them.”

Sokram, using Force, made the list of locations he wanted float toward Uriel.

“Since the Steelhearts had already paid for them and you didn’t have to pay to recover them, I think it’s a good offer, right?”

Uriel saw the list and frowned, expecting the other shoe to drop, but Sokram didn’t say anything else. “Is this all?”

Sokram knew that his generosity would be seen with mistrust, so he added, trying to hint that he was looking for something.

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“If you think what I’m asking is too little, you can also add some books about… Well, anything really. For example, books from ancient languages that you never managed to translate, magic that ferals usually can't use, alchemy manuals, anything.”

“And from us?” Elise asked bluntly.

“The East Gates Stables, and the three neighboring buildings at the central square in the market district,” Sokram answered, mirroring her tone.

“The stables, I understand, but those three old buildings? Why?” Elise wanted to see anything, but no matter how she looked, she couldn’t see his endgame.

“The stable for Nana Marg’s Caravan; one of the buildings will become the Androny Caravan’s center of operation here in Eversnow. The other two, which are side by side, I’ll demolish and build something else.” Sokram explained nonchalantly, as revealing this much was fine.

“And knowledge?” Elise asked in suspicion.

“If there’s anything you have that I can’t find in the Arch Mage’s Tower, sure.” Sokram grinned, knowing that there wasn’t.

That irked Elise, even if what he was giving her and her family was such a great gift, she couldn’t stop feeling like it was some handout.

“Now, as for the pills, I’ll only gift each family two of these, as they are quite costly,” Sokram told them, and it wasn’t a lie.

If some were to look for the ingredients, they would spend a fortune, while Sokram got them for free.

“Yes, the two main ingredients are Ten Roots Pure Extract and Frozen White Lotuses,” Kasine spoke with a serious face, which would be hard to doubt if she wasn’t simply shamelessly trying to help Sokram extort the people around them.

But once she named those two ingredients, even Sahvus gasped.

Those pills casually placed on the table were worth at least twenty thousand gold just for the ingredients alone.

Elise, still not satisfied, insisted, “You’re giving too much and asking for too little. What is your true angle?!”

“My angle is not only our survival but absolute victory over those who are aiming to destroy this city I love. The city our ancestors fought to preserve! This city, which has cost my family so many lives! I don’t want the past to repeat itself with any of our families.”

Sokram, for the first time in this timeline, raised his voice toward an elder. Because he needed his performance to be convincing.

“This much should be motivation enough. We're the founding families of Eversnow; we’re all one family formed by the bond we share with these walls that guard us. This used to be enough! Enough for us to sacrifice, to kill, to risk everything!”

He slammed his palm on the table, his heart thumping in the ears of every feral, confirming how honest his words were.

“It was enough for our ancestors! I don’t want to have to face my ancestors if I ever enter Aetherium or Azula’s eternal battlefields without having done enough. Can you deal with that shame? Because I don’t want to have shame etched on my face when my eyes meet theirs. Is this not motivation enough, Elder?"

Elise flinched, caught off guard by his tone and passionate speech.

She recoiled slightly, her fingers tightening on the table’s edge.

For a moment, the sharpness in her eyes dulled, and what remained was a woman staring at a ghost from her past.

Kamus placed a hand on Sokram’s shoulder, “Calm yourself, kid. We can all see that your motives are honest. We all share your goals, but Elise is just skeptical because all you offered is more than you seem to realize. This knowledge is enough to be the foundation of an Empire.”

“I know this, Grandmaster. But it’s also the foundation we need to make Eversnow… No, to become the sword that leads Norwinter to greatness.”

Sokram met the gaze of all his elders one by one: “This is what I truly want. For us to be strong as one. We started this city as different families with a common purpose. But today, I see us all as one family. Let our purpose remain the same, with us not dividing and turning our backs on each other, but standing side by side so nothing can ever take from us what we love: this city, our families, our friends.”

Elise lowered her gaze, ashamed, but a nostalgic smile filled her face, “Heh, Uncle Sodram would be proud. It’s always you, Dracnakrids, doing the most, hm? Once I asked him why your family is so prone to self-sacrifice…”

She raised her gaze to meet Sokram’s with pained eyes.

“He told me that the northern continent was once an empire led by a single dragon with your name, and Eversnow is the last piece of that ancestry in this land, one you’ve been holding onto for generations. A land worth dying for, he told me. I didn’t understand how much of that was true, but I can see it now.”

Elise took four rolled sheets of paper.

“These are the deeds for the stable and the three buildings in the central square. I don’t have much more to share, but I promise that when the time comes, I’ll be there, fighting by your side, Young Head Dracnakrid.”

“Thank you, Auntie.” Sokram smiled at her sincerely, but only outwardly.

Inwardly, he was grinning greedily, knowing he had taken another step forward.

And upon seeing Uriel place another twenty deeds on the table, Sokram also thanked him.

But Uriel asked, “When the time comes, will you help us like you did to Kamus and Kasine?”

"Yes, Uncle.” Sokram nodded promptly.

No one could see anything but sincerity and goodwill on his face; only Lucille caught a glimpse of something more.

But his secrets were her secrets too, so he was safe.

Uriel nodded with a warm and friendly smile on his face, “Good! You can count on the Blackmane family, young Head Dracnakrid. As for knowledge, I’ll check my family’s treasury. There are some old books only gathering dust that haven’t been touched in centuries; might as well gift those to you for these gifts you’re giving us.”

The elders sitting with him also nodded eagerly.

Sokram had to control his heartbeat so as not to reveal anything.

Then Neloph asked him, “You said that my Chrystalia family is in active collaboration with you, but why didn’t I know about any of this?”

The one who answered was Moira, “Because you never leave that academy unless the King calls you, grandpa.”

Moira extended her hand and showed him her dominion over Vital Magic. “The younger generation has already started learning it. I’m leaving the temple. Lady Belladona is already sending a replacement.”

Neloph's eyes widened in shock, “Have you found the path you want to follow then?”

“Yes, I’ll be working with him.” Moira pointed to Sokram, smiling sweetly: “My dearest nephew.”

Neloph looked at Sokram, studying him more carefully now, then at Kasine and Kamus, and then back at him, “Can you aid me too?”

“Sure, Great Uncle.” But then, remembering something, he asked, “Is there a token or a pass you can give me to Frozen Root’s library?”

Neloph grinned, hearing that, “Your hunger for knowledge is commendable, but only Head Mistress Elena can authorize something like that, sorry.”

But then Neloph added, “But I have a small library that I can lend to you.”

He took a pouch tied to a chain around his neck and started going through some old spatial rings.

He sat three aside but continued looking.

Then reached for another pouch, this one older, frayed at the edges.

Then another.

And another.

Dust puffed from the rings as he laid them on the table.

Ten in total.

Only then did he turn to Sokram and say, “Here, after you finish going through these, find me in the academy, I’ll lend you some more then.”

Then Neloph flashed him a greedy grin, “Can you give us a demonstration of the pills? I volunteer!”