Early morning.
After snooping around in the Atlas Seven for the entire night, Crow left for the Luciente Casino. His appearance imdiately drew attention.
In front of the entrance were two buffed bodyguards with shoulders twice as wide as Crow. They wore black tailored suit with an earpiece at their side.
The two approached Crow.
"Looking for trouble?" The bodyguard said.
"Tommy wanted to et . Tell him Crow is here." The Abomination said.
The bodyguard spoke into his earpiece, "Boss. We have soone outside that wants to et you... Let him in? Okay, Boss."
The bodyguards stepped to the side, allowing Crow to enter the Casino.
The bodyguards observed the shadowy man leaving. They couldn’t help but be impressed with the amount of drip Crow had on him.
"Usually I’d call these people pretentious. But that suit actually looks good on him."
"Who do you think it is?"
"Probably a Freelance Psychic. Boss needs a lot of help recently because of the issue with the Selomo Family."
A tall female employee was already there waiting for Crow. She wore an all black suit with a modest skirt. Her legs were extrely nice to look at.
"Please follow , Mr. Crow."
She led him through the back and onto the second floor, where Crow could look down to the entirety of the Luciente Casino.
The Luciente Family specialized in alcohol-smuggling. Alcohol was banned by the Union in the past and many cri families tried to partake in the smuggling of the trade.
The Luciente was the best in smuggling booze and because of that, they got rich.
Nowadays, they dabbled in many more variations of the underworld. Gambling was one of those.
However, the gambling business had always belonged to the Selomo Family and they did not want another cri family to get their feet in.
As the newborn of the gambling business, Crow had to admit that the Luciente was doing pretty well. This frustrated the Selomo.
Crow walked up to the upper floor and entered Tommy’s office.
Tommy was smoking a pipe in his office when Crow arrived.
"You arrived, Crow..."
Tommy placed his pipe down.
The female employee went out and closed the door gently.
"Justin told us. You need so help?" Crow sat down at the opposite side of Tommy.
"Yes, I do. Are you familiar with the Selomo Family?" Tommy nodded and said.
"I know they exist and that’s it." Crow said.
"I see. The Selomo Family is the second richest family in Aeliz City. They have a very big area under their control. So of the cops are even on their side.
Their main specialty is gambling."
"And now they don’t see you eye to eye because you enter their field?" Crow said.
Tommy nodded, "That’s exactly it. There have been conflicts. Small and big. But most are under the radar of the Union.
We cannot go all out on a war. The Union wouldn’t like that. As powerful as we are, we could still get wiped easily by the Union."
"And this is related to the matter, how?"
Tommy raised a hand, "Let finish. So instead of killing every single made man out there and risk angering the Union. We have figured out a more peaceful way. The Trial of Comat."
"Don’t tell ..." Crow said.
"You are correct. Each of our family shall propose a champion to fight for our side. We place our best before the Trial. The winner takes all.
The champion can only be a nace-level Psychic and not more. Stronger Psychics would cause too much havoc and would not be easy to contain.
The Selomo Family has a very strong champion. The peak of nace-level."
"Let guess. You want to borrow a champion from us."
"Precisely. I want to borrow you, Crow. You are reaching the realm between nace and Hazard. You will be the perfect champion.
Of course, we will pay you handsoly for what you did to us."
"I see. This can be considered. My Master shall give you an answer."
Tommy nodded, "I’ll be waiting."
Crow returned to the Cold Storage afterwards and reported back to Mater. The black cat and Selina were just about to leave.
"A Trial of Combat?" The black cat stroked its whiskers.
Mater was very familiar with this concept. Many of his world conflicts were settled with this process. He didn’t think that there was a similar thing in this world.
"Should we agree, Master?" Crow said.
"It depends. If they give us the right price." The black cat owed.
"What do you think we should ask?" Selina said.
"Chaos Singularities. Crow and Aurora need it to advance to Rank-2."
"What should we tell them, Master? I’m afraid the mafia won’t know what a Chaos Singularity is." Crow said.
"We just ask for a Peak nace-level wraith. One that is between the border of nace and Hazard. Either a live wraith or a location of one would be fine."
The black cat turned to Selina, "Tell Justin i to work out the details with Tommy. Our price is Peak nace NCE. As for how many, tell Justin to negotiate it with Luciente. He would know what to do."
"On it." Selina picked up her phone and dialed Justin i.
"Hey Justin. I need you to do sothing for ..."
She quickly disclosed what needed to be done to Justin.
"That’s right. Peak nace NCEs. Uh huh... Great. Tell once you have finalized the details."
Selina hung up.
"Alright. Let’s return to the list."
The equipnt list needed to enroll in the Institute.
There were quite a few items.
A battle uniform. A P.S.I. device. Regular and ceremonial uniforms. Neural Buffers. And a V.I.S.O.R.
"God damn! The Institute really is a rich private school, huh. These items must cost a few thousands of credits."
"What are these things, Master?" Crow looked at the list and said.
"It’s for Selina. These are the items she needed to attend the Institute."
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