Commission(I)

With each person having their own opinion and motive on the matter at hand, they exchanged some pleasantries. Then, they had serious discussions about how they would cooperate with each other in the future, and also about the income and profit distribution following their cooperation.

Thus, Maximus and Donatello officially began their partnership. Over time, they would grow close enough to call each other brothers. As for what Maximus provided for Donatello, it was simply novels that contained various idealized concepts of superpowers or supernatural powers. A majority of which were unknown or had yet to be realized by the supernatural community.

Naturally, the sudden appearance of the new novel concepts on Superpower Schematics aside from the well-established superpowers would undoubtedly attract the attention of various powers in the world, and they would without a doubt seek out the creator of these new Superpower Schematics. That was how valuable Superpower Schematics were in the present world that focused mainly on attaining all kinds of potential supernatural abilities.

After all, a Superpower Schematic was more valuable than numerous Superpower Blueprints that only had the general concept of the type of supernatural power. This was simply because it had extra details that could easily be understood by any rune expert that had all the prerequisite knowledge regarding rune application and deployment.

In order to prevent himself from being sought out by the populace, especially the various powers and forces in the world, Maximus thought deeply before deciding on a course of action that would enable him to proliferate his ideas without drawing trouble toward himself.

That was why Maximus decided to use a novel platform as an outlet to showcase his abilities, and also make some extra money on the side from the sales of the novels. This way, no one could target him directly and he would be able to sell and also introduce his expertise without causing too much commotion. If everything had worked out well with his plans, he would be able to build his own reputation without revealing himself.

Although he would come to realize that many people would hate his novels for their overly excessive and detailed descriptions and concepts that they didn't understand. They also skipped some details when reading his novels as they thought it was irrelevant to the story.

After all, most readers only cared about the action aspect of the story and not the excessive details and explanations that they couldn't comprehend as they read the story. Therefore, he stopped writing and publishing for a while. Instead, he simplified the concepts for Donatello who would later sell them to various powers and forces in the world and they would split the money equally afterward.

Of course, that was the original intention and agreement, but Donatello said that since he had to do the extra work of illustrating his complex ideas, he should get more money as compensation. Thus, they reached a compromise where he received a 60 percent dividend from the total earnings and Maximus would receive the remaining 40 percent.

Maximus didn't refuse this mainly because he didn't have an identification, so didn't want to go against him, lest he rattle him out and his plans would get ruined as a result.

However, despite acting taciturn with everything regarding the allocation of the money, he was still pissed when he found out that Donatello was dishonest with him regarding how much money he was giving him. It turned out he had been minimally paid all this time, as Donatello was keeping most of the money to himself and he only received about 10 to 20 percent of the total income made from selling the concept illustrations.

He didn't know about this until a year ago when they had managed to sell a concept illustration to a prominent family. At that time, he was invited by Donatello to join the celebratory party as a guest. After the party ended, he was supposed to return home, but on his way, he realized that he forgot to ask Donatello how much they made this time, as he was kept in the dark the whole time.

After failing to reach Donatello's phone, he decided to head back to his mansion to ask him directly. However, as soon as he reached the front gate of the mansion, he overheard Donatello talking to someone on a phone in a loud and excited voice. He halted his step unconsciously as he instinctively decided to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Maximus could tell it was most likely his lover judging from the contents of the call, which was about buying this person an expensive Air Drift Car that was introduced recently. Through their conversion, he accidentally heard Donatello unwittingly mention the amount of money they made from the commission before and also how much they made from their recent commission.

Upon hearing his words, Maximus was left shocked and betrayed when he learned that he had been cheated by Donatello, as the money for the last commission that he stated to his lover was higher than what he had been told, meaning he had been underpaid.

However, he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He entered through the semi-opened gate shortly after Donatello finished his call, giving Donatello a momentary fright as he thought Maximus had overheard his conversation. But he shook off that thought a moment later as he noticed that Maximus had just entered the mansion through the front gate.

Maximus, with his heart beating erratically from hearing Donatello's words from earlier, decided to ask him what he originally came there for— which was to learn about the amount of money they made from their recent commission.

To his shock, Donatello told him a different number compared to what he had just told his lover on the phone. This caused Maximus to be infuriated, but he did not call him out right away. Instead, he waited until the next commission before confronting him and saying he wouldn't work with him anymore. This caused Donatello to become desperate. He sought him out for the reason for his sudden decision.

Maximus reluctantly revealed the truth to Donatello, shocking him. However, Donatello did not give up trying to find excuses for his actions. He immediately pleaded with Maximus with 'justified' excuses, saying that he had to pay some tax money to the government with the money he deducted. Moreover, he even used Maximus's situation as a springboard for his arguments, making it difficult for Maximus to refuse. Thus, Maximus eventually had no choice but to continue working with him until he was financially stable and independent.

After all, the whole reason why he didn't do the job himself even though he could have done it himself was that he had his reasons. Furthermore, these reasons did not allow him to expose himself or his capabilities openly. Otherwise, that would be counterproductive as it would defeat the purpose of hiding his true identity in the first place.

As Maximus recalls all the injustices he suffered from Donatello, as well as the past injustices that led him to move to Mystic Runic City in the first place, Maximus was filled with resentment and indignation, and his expression was also livid. There was this terrifying and overwhelming anger building up inside of him. This seething anger made him want to destroy all those who stood in his way and those who took advantage of him for their own benefits without regard for his personal feelings.

Despite his seemingly uncontrollable anger issues, he somehow always managed to control himself in the nick of time before he explodes. In other words, one could say that he simply has high mental resistance to resist his impulsive urges. Either that, or he had developed a strong mental fortitude over time, enough to negate his tumultuous emotional fluctuations that recurred throughout his adolescence years until now.

Because of this accomplishment in his self-control, he initially thought he had become desensitized to his explosive emotions and that he would not be susceptible to any impulsive behavior since he had been controlling his emotions so well all this time. But every now and then, especially starting from when he had failed at his experiment a certain number of times, he would lose control of his emotions and proceed to let loose all his pent-up frustrations.

…

Moments after looking through the email sent by Donatello, Maximus turned to Nini and instructed: "Nini, I will leave the clean-up of the mess in the room to you. Luckily, some of the cleaning robots are still safe and functional, so you can just command them to assist with the cleaning. I will be heading out for a bit to handle a commission."

[Leave it to Nini. But Master, can Nini come along this time? Nini can just let the cleaning robots handle the cleaning of the room.]

"No. Just stay here. I don't want anyone with high perception discovering your existence, at least not now. After all, I'm still much too weak to protect you or myself against many of the threats out there."

Although Maximus said that, there was simply no way that anyone would discover Nini's existence in Mystic Runic City. Unless they have a high combat power level boosting their senses to extraordinary levels or have extremely high perception abilities resulting from their supernatural powers, they shouldn't be able to discover her existence. Not to mention that such experts with high sensory or perception abilities were quite rare. However, just to be on the safe side, he decided to let her stay and monitor the house as always.

[...Understood, Master.] Nini's tone sounded somewhat dejected, albeit subtly to the point that it was barely noticeable.

"Anyway, I will be back, so take care of the house for me. Once I get back, we will begin creating the first construct for my new inspiration, so wait for me, okay?"

[Okay, Master.]

After settling things with Nini, Maximus took the elevator connected to his lab and headed to the top floor. But before that, he had to undergo his regular routine checks for identity verification. These include biometric scans such as full body scans, facial scans, retina scans, and even blood scans.