Chapter 19: invitation from the union

Chapter 19 - invitation from the unionAlex turned to look at Owen, who had just entered the office, he turned away after taking a glance. Owen's arrival had pulled his attention back to reality, he was reading through his system to kill time while waiting for the other party.

Owen smiled nervously when Mr Chen simply glanced at him before turning his back to him, he was trying to keep himself calm after learning that Mr Chen might very well be a powerful mage who was hiding his appearance and didn't want to be recognised.

He pushed the door close before walking to his seat on the other side of the desk opposite Mr Chen; he glanced at the pair of eyes that gazed at him through the two holes in the white mask before looking away.

He reached into his pocket and brought out a small black bank card before placing it in front of Alex.

"This is the union card, the void rock you gave me was valued at five million Zen. Adding to the previous amount, there's a total of 6.310 million Zen in the card." Owen said with a sincere smile on his face.

Alex "...*

"Five million?!" Alex gasped in shock upon hearing the amount that the small piece of rock had gotten him, it was several times more than what he had made after selling beast corpses and beast cores.

How could he not be shocked? He had been excited over making his first million earlier and suddenly got five more from selling a single void rock.

However, Alex's eyes widened the next second and he almost cursed out. He quickly composed himself and stared at the frightened man in front of him. It's a good thing that he still had his mask on and his expression could not be seen; he almost gave himself out!



On the other hand, Owen had been startled by Mr Chen's sudden gasp. Since he couldn't see the latter's face, he didn't know that Mr Chen had gasped because he was shocked. Owen thought that Mr Chen had gasped out of disbelief at the price the void rock had been sold for, maybe he wanted to sell it for a higher price and didn't like the five million Zen prices that the union had provided.

This frightened Owen, thinking that he had left a bad impression on Mr Chen. After all, he was in charge of inviting him to their union branch.

After forcing himself to calm down, Owen hastily explained that five million was a really good deal and they had even added some amount of money and had not deducted any service cost since It was his first time selling such an item to them.

Owen nervously looked at Mr Chen's plain white mask, hoping that his explanation would calm the other party. The fact that he could not read the latter's expression was really killing him, it was unbearable to be dealing with a poker face.

Listening to Owen's explanation, Alex secretly heaved a sigh of relief; he had not been exposed.

He made a sound akin to clearing his throat before speaking. seaʀᴄh thё Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

"Fine, I'll take it." He took the black card from the desk and kept it under his robe. He actually just held it under his robe since he didn't have a storage device to keep it in.

Owen was delighted to hear Mr Chen's response, he watched Mr Chen keep the union card under his robe and assumed that the old backpack from earlier was also under.

After keeping his money, Alex stood up to leave. His business here was done for the day and it was time to return.

But just as stood up and was about to leave, the man sitting opposite him called out to him to wait for a moment.

"Excuse me, Mr Chen, could I bother you for a few minutes of your time?" Owen stood up and asked politely before Alex could walk away.

Alex paused and turned to look at the other party with a raised eyebrow but Owen wasn't able to see this action because of the all-knowing mask, although he still took Mr Chen's pause as a positive response.

He didn't waste time and immediately went straight to the point.

"I'm sorry I didn't formally introduce myself yet, my name is Owen Starwood, you can just call me Owen and I'm one of the two elders of this branch." he paused for a bit to see if Mr Chen would say anything but continued after the latter just kept staring at him.

"I want to know if Mr Chen already belongs to any explore group? If not, I would love to invite you on behalf of our union branch to join us. With your strength, you'll surely get a respectable position and the benefits of joining our union branch will definitely not disappoint you. In addition, the benefits will also be available in other union branches across the world." Owen said slowly, trying to make Mr Chen understand the importance of his offer.

After he had said his piece, both sides fell into a short moment of silence as Owen waited for Mr Chen's response.

Meanwhile, Alex was in thought. Owen's offer was not bad, it was very good, to be honest, since he was aware of the benefits of joining the union, but with his current situation, he didn't think joining the union would be a wise choice.

He had yet to leave the academy and it would be difficult to explain to his parents if he was to suddenly disappear for days while on missions for the union. Plus, he doubted that he would be able to remain anonymous if he were to join the union; they would definitely ask for personal information, which he wasn't ready to give.

After a short while of keeping Owen in suspense, Alex spoke up after making his voice sound hoarse.

"I'm not in any explorer group but I have to turn down your offer."

Owen revealed a strange expression before asking if there was a reason.

"Yes, I work alone," Alex replied bluntly.

Owen showed a stunned expression as he didn't expect such a response. His expression returned to normal after a few seconds, and he let out a small laugh; he felt that it made sense, considering how mysterious the other party always looked; who would want to work with such a person?



"As expected from someone like Mr Chen, I understand. Then I hope we'll be seeing you more often in the future, we'll gladly buy whatever you bring back at a reasonable price." Owen stated while stretching out his right hand toward Alex for a handshake.

Alex on the other hand, simply glanced at the hand stretched toward him.

"Hmm," he made a sound and nodded, he then turned around and walked off.

Owen was left with his hand hanging in the air, an awkward look on his face as he stared at the bad of Mr Chen's black robe.

"Well, I figured he wouldn't like physical contact either." Owen sighed before dropping on his seat, his mind drifting into thoughts.

Alex exited the elevator after reaching the bottom floor and headed straight for the door.

'Not like I wanted to leave your hand hanging on purpose, but I don't know if you have methods of checking someone through touching. I have to be careful.' Alex mentally apologized to Owen as he left the building.

He felt bad about leaving the man like that since the other party had been very polite the entire time but he needed to protect himself, better safe than sorry.

.....

Boom!