Spare Me, Great Lord!

The allies that the Heavenly Network selected for trading their standard swords had to fulfill a few conditions first.

Firstly, they had to be in possession of the ores needed by the Heavenly Network. The Network was not a philanthropist and it was meaningless to exchange the weapons for tens of thousands of magical stones too.

Secondly, they had to be geographically close to the Network’s potential threats for strategic reasons. Nowadays, the competition for remains and resources was world-wide, and it would not be a worthy deal if it could not result in two powers draining each other. Otherwise, the Network would be nurturing their own enemies.

Thirdly, they had to be strong enough to safeguard the weapons provided by the Network from the other organizations. Else, the Network’s potential threats would be the ultimate beneficiaries of their deals.

Nonetheless, the Heavenly Network was not omniscient. In their available information, the two greatest practitioners organizations in Russia were the White Bears and the Red Sparrows.

The Red Sparrows had been more powerful all along because they were the first to produce a Class B and their total number of Class B’s had always been more than that of the White Bears during their subsequent development. In Russia, the White Bears took up about 20% of the cultivation force while the Red Sparrows the remaining 80%.

Usually, other forces would be more careful when plotting against the White Bears because it would be a drain on their resources and manpower. What if they were taken advantage of by other organizations then?

Therefore, Nie Ting would want to restrict the development of the Red Sparrows using the White Bears to create some room to grow for the latter.

In the end, things were too unpredictable. The White Bears had already been wiped out…

It was an unexpected and unprepared plot twist even for Nie Ting. At the moment, the leader of the White Bears had fled overseas and his people had been almost exterminated.

As a result, the initial plan to go to the north was now rendered meaningless.

The negotiation team had spent days studying the relationship between the White Bears and the Red Sparrows but now their efforts had all gone down the drain. What’s the use of it now, with the White Bears out of the picture? Yet, the secret practitioners showed no sympathy at all. Instead, they were all happy for their misfortune. They had purposely raised their voice loud enough for the negotiation group to hear. “Haha, I also conducted some good research on the relationship between the White Bears and the Red Sparrows. Although I couldn’t really get it, it seems that those professionals can’t do the job either.”

It felt as if a professional team had lost their match by 0 to 3, and then people were bitching online saying they would have achieved the same result if they were on the field…

Here, the negotiation group were the professional players, and the secret practitioners were the gossipy ones…

But Lu Shu disagreed with their view, because one would not even be able to enter the Finals without professional expertise…

Everyone stayed at the hotel and waited for orders from the Heavenly Network.

Unexpectedly, the order came on the night itself. Xia Rensheng frowned at the message. Their new destination was thousands of miles away from Europe, it was South Africa!

Xia Rensheng had studied that country before. At the moment, the entirety of South Africa was involved in a battle between the practitioners and the mercenaries, vying for the ownership of a recently discovered, enormous mineral reserve of special metals. It was the only war-torn place in the current relatively peaceful world…

As a matter of fact, most of the native practitioners had disappeared from the land and the current owner of the reserves was a mercenary organization called the EO. At the beginning, they were a group of soldiers hired for military purposes, but in the end they started slaughtering local practitioners after the discovery of the mineral deposits.

Undeniably, the mercenary industry had always been a messy one. It was not because of their complicated demographics, but their interest-oriented nature.

However, the order Xia Rensheng received was not to fight them, but to hold a preliminary trading negotiation with them. Afterwards, people would be sent there to finish off the follow-ups with the EO and only then could the team leave for Europe.

What made the matter even more complex was that it was not their own plan to head towards South Africa. After claiming the ownership of the mineral reserves, the EO had sent an invitation to all big organizations in the world the night before for a business deal.

Therefore, the exercise might be more dangerous this time.

Xia Rensheng was confused. He had yet to reach the completion stage despite his peak-Class C abilities. But there would probably be Class B’s in South Africa when all the big organizations swarmed there. He was clearly incompetent for the task! Why couldn’t they at least send a Heavenly King for such a serious matter?

However, he was well aware of the working style of the Heavenly Network and the Network would never send their men on an impossible mission. In the movie series Mission: Impossible, it seemed super cool that Tom Cruise could always complete extreme tasks. But they were not in a drama! It would be a failure of Nie Ting’s duties if he intentionally sent his people on a deadly assignment.

So why his team? Xia Rensheng was perplexed and could not figure out why. The only possible reason was that his was the only ready team at the moment and the task was too urgent to allow time for other teams to prepare.

Everyone was shocked to hear the new order from Xia Rensheng. Although none of them had been to South Africa, they had all heard about how inhumanely cruel those mercenaries were.

Furthermore, the secret practitioners in the team were a far cry from the mercenaries. On one hand, they lacked professional training and were obviously inexperienced in killing people and on the other hand, they were totally different people at heart. While Liu Fan and others simply longed for a stable life with sufficient money and time for cultivation, the mercenaries would not even blink an eye to have blood on their hands.

“Don’t worry too much, though,” Xia Rensheng explained, “We are not there to fight. In fact, the EO will probably be responsible for keeping the order as they were the invitation sender. Anyway, they are businessmen this time, not soldiers. Hence, the result will be different as the starting point is different.”

But even Xia Rensheng himself did not buy it. Why would practitioners obey rules? He could not say it out loud, though. What if someone in the team wanted to escape!

While the group of secret practitioners remained quiet, Lin Ganyu spoke, clenching her teeth, “We are going since they need us to negotiate with the EO. If we die in the end, we’d rather die on a mission… Captain, please tell the Heavenly Network that we will study the EO’s information carefully.”

Lu Shu was surprised by Lin Ganyu’s courage as the only woman in the team. The secret practitioners looked at one another and squeezed out a few words. “Let’s go then. How can we, a bunch of men, be more cowardly than a woman?”