A small meeting began with high spirits and ended with everyone silent.
The Admiral, carrying a hint of vexation, adjusted his mindset as he walked toward the spot where the Ahtal-Ka had previously been settled.
When he reached the transit area, he saw that huge Ahtal-Ka acting like a curious child, touching here and looking there, showing none of the wariness and restless agitation that the Fire Wyverns had displayed upon seeing unfamiliar things when they came to Astera.
It was completely at odds with that aloof demeanor it had shown at the Ancient Tree.
Seeing such a "friendly" Ahtal-Ka, the Admiral's faint worry relaxed a great deal.
"As I said, any monster that could be valued so highly by the Fire Wyvern boss—so much so that it could be allowed to live on the Ancient Tree unsupervised for long periods—definitely wouldn't be some mindless, violent brute. Without sufficient safety, how could they possibly allow this fellow to move freely on the Ancient Tree?"
"Honestly, I worried for nothing."
The Admiral exhaled, smiling in self-mockery, folded his arms, and walked slowly toward the Ahtal-Ka's location, planning to establish some rapport—then he saw Spice hopping up and down at the Ahtal-Ka's feet.
"You can't, meow! You can't take this apart, meow!"
"Chirp, chirp~"
"No, meow—it'll make relations worse, meow!"
"Chirp, chirp, chirp~"
"Not even a little, I'm begging you, meow~ Don't take it apart, meow!"
Spice was about to cry. When they had just entered the base, the Ahtal-Ka elder sister had still been able to control herself, facing everything here with great calm.
But whether it was a bloodline awakening or simply its nature—
After it had looked around at Astera's buildings, as well as all these various architectural components placed in the transit area that had not yet been fully processed, and the defensive fortifications specially built earlier to deal with Kushala Daora during the Elder Crossing—
After that, the Ahtal-Ka simply couldn't control itself anymore: touching here, touching there, even wanting to spit silk and pack things up to take away. If not for Spice's constant persuasion, the Ahtal-Ka would likely have already started dismantling the place.
That it had held back until now was truly a miracle.
Hearing Spice's words, the Admiral's steady steps halted as he came over.
He felt that he might have misunderstood the meaning of the Ahtal-Ka's behavior. This wasn't becoming a curious child at all—it had clearly taken a fancy to those construction machines and was picking out parts!
Thinking of this, the Admiral also stopped folding his arms and quickly stepped forward, appearing in the Ahtal-Ka's line of sight.
"Haha, sorry for the poor hospitality. I've already communicated things. As we said before, after we produce the Dragonator later, we will deliver it at the first opportunity. Before that, we'll first forge those 10 metal pillars."
After the Admiral finished speaking, he calmly sized up the Ahtal-Ka, only to find that the other seemed to have fallen into a kind of frenzy, constantly staring at the wheel-like waterwheel core before it that had not yet been finished, its scythe-like forelimbs rubbing over and over, like a fly rubbing its little hands.
Seeing this, the Admiral's heart sank. He could no longer pay attention to Spice, who had been winking at him anxiously; his mind began racing.
Humans might not surpass monsters in intelligence in certain aspects, but add emotional intelligence to intelligence, and you could say they are absolutely the world's ceiling.
In just a few seconds, the Admiral had an idea for how to respond.
After giving Spice a reassuring look, he took a deep breath, came to the Ahtal-Ka's side, and reached out to pat the other's iron-like lower limb.
When the Ahtal-Ka tilted its head slightly to look over, he showed a big smile.
"How is it? Do you want it?"
Although, looking at the Admiral's appearance, the Ahtal-Ka kept feeling something was off, in its simple-mindedness it still honestly indicated that it indeed wanted it.
Hearing the Ahtal-Ka's chirping, the Admiral could understand its meaning without needing Spice to translate.
At that, the smile on his face grew even deeper.
"It's like this: we have a small favor here that needs your help. If possible, how about we make a trade?"
"Chirp?"
The Ahtal-Ka was somewhat unaccustomed to the Admiral's way of interacting.
As for trading and such, it had done plenty of that with the cats in recent years.
But only limited to barter.
Whether it was its silk thread or those components from ancient ruins that it didn't think much of, the cats would pick them up themselves and take them away, and what they returned to it was some tasty food, processed walking fortress components, and the like.
But in this exchange with the Admiral, the Admiral actually wanted the Ahtal-Ka to sell its labor and help construct some buildings.
Are you kidding!
It was a very rare female Ahtal-Ka!
The world's top predator, the highest-level monster—this was the pride of the Insect species!
Do manual labor? Don't even think about it!
"Besides these, we have many, many other good things too! And rest assured, we absolutely won't make you do anything you don't want to do!"
"Chirp~~"
Seeing that the Ahtal-Ka seemed a bit hesitant, the Admiral immediately sensed hope and decided to add more fuel to the fire.
"Ten Machalite Ore metal pillars."
"Chirp!!" The Ahtal-Ka's gem-like compound eyes lit up, but it still restrained itself.
It was, after all—
"Twenty pillars!"
"Chirp!"
Its scythe-like forelimbs lifted, and in an instant the Ahtal-Ka was brimming with fighting spirit.
As a monster occupying a top ecological niche, the Ahtal-Ka had indeed entertained thoughts of simply tearing down Astera and directly seizing these building materials.
As the theme of this world dictates—survival of the fittest—this was something etched into the genes of every living creature.
However, the Ahtal-Ka's absolute intelligence made it forcibly suppress that instinct once it understood humanity's ability to process materials, and the Admiral's negotiation with it became an outlet for that pressure.
It gave the Ahtal-Ka a new anchor in its heart—a reason it could accept to rationally suppress its instinct to forcibly dismantle things.
With this reason in place, when looking at the mechanisms and constructs within Astera, that feverish urge in the Ahtal-Ka's head subsided greatly.
Although now there were 20 more metal pillars—and this big wheel~~
"Chirp~ chirp, chirp~~"
The Ahtal-Ka let out a dragon-like roar akin to that of an eagle or hawk.
Seeing the other agree, the Admiral's lips curved in a satisfied smirk.
Ever since reaching the compensation agreement with the Ahtal-Ka at the Ancient Tree, he had felt that this creature was a simple-minded monster.
Although it possessed considerable intelligence, dealing with it always felt like dealing with a child. In a certain sense, negotiating with the Ahtal-Ka was much easier than dealing with the Fire Wyvern boss.
Therefore, by that logic, to calm the Ahtal-Ka down, one only needed to coax it like a child—go along with its wishes, then set some conditional restrictions.
As for the things that would have to be paid for in this negotiation, he believed that the members of the Second Fleet would definitely be able to satisfy them perfectly.
Spice rubbed his head, puzzled as he looked at the Ahtal-Ka that seemed to have suddenly returned to normal, then looked at the Admiral, who seemed to be in quite a good mood. For a moment he didn't understand—this was just a transaction, so why did these two look as if they had each achieved some goal, and moreover seemed to have gotten along much better all of a sudden.
"My head itches, meow—is my brain about to grow, meow?"
Not far from the Ahtal-Ka, Mother Chameleos, who had originally been sneaking about, relying on invisibility to observe the Ahtal-Ka in secret, intending to try to find the Ahtal-Ka's weaknesses through daily observation and then begin formulating targeted toxins, used her powerful sensory analysis to hear this person-and-mantis conversation loud and clear.
When she saw that, under such a dialogue, the Ahtal-Ka really agreed to the transaction request, even Mother Chameleos couldn't help taking a deep breath.
"So it can be done like this! I've learned something, I've learned something! When that Fire—mm, the Sunblaze Dragon comes back, I'll go try it!"
Even though Mother Chameleos had already lived with the Research Commission for many years, at this moment she had to admit that in many respects, these fellows who appeared weak in strength really had a lot worth learning from.
As one of the few Elder Dragons able to coexist peacefully with humans, Mother Chameleos felt as if she had found a few more reasons to continue coexisting with humans.
Though she sighed inwardly, Mother Chameleos still did not forget her purpose. She simply refused to believe that, as an Elder Dragon good at thinking and possessing an astonishingly elastic 'Arrogance', she would have no way to deal with an ordinary monster.
Even if this ordinary monster possessed strength with a lower bound at Elder Dragon and an upper bound at Dangerous First-Class Monster level.
However, lacking vitality commensurate with strength was precisely the greatest weakness of these monsters.
She, Mother Chameleos, indeed couldn't beat this fellow, but if they really tore their faces in the future, it would be no problem to disgust the other party a bit.
Prepare for a rainy day~
Mother Chameleos cheered herself on inwardly.
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