To Live Again, For the First Time!

Master Giovanni called Boss Elijah while ignoring the piercing gazes of the uninhibited zoo animals.

On a technical level, Elijah was not Master Giovanni's Boss, but rather he was currently this group of disciples of his's Boss.

Elijah was in fact Master Giovanni's associate. 

They had worked together previously, which made them more like business partners, but since they also knew each other on a personal level, as much as Master Giovanni hated to admit it, the level of trust couldn't be compared.

It was hard to describe their working relationship, but just from the fact that his disciples had all come to work on this assignment for Elijah, it was clear that it was by no means simple.

In this specific case, Master Giovanni was using Elijah as a test and a starting ground for his students, while Elijah was using Master Giovanni's students as labor workers as well as a link to strengthen Master Giovanni's ties to his "company".

Working for Elijah and completing the assignments given to them was a form of Master Giovanni's trust in his students, trying to set his students up for success as Elijah's background was by no means neglectable, but also a harsh test as Master Giovanni knew Elijah's personality well.

Elijah's strictness when it came to work came right from his bones. 

Just imagine how disappointed Master Giovanni was when he came out of seclusion, breaking past the peak of the intermediate Master level, just to discover that his students had thoroughly trampled on his face and reputation in front of their current Boss, who was also his business partner.

Unable to accomplish a single task in over half a year.

(The zoo animals had done some loose tasks in between, but the M task was their 'Main' mission)

Elijah was definitely going to use this against him sooner or later, be it discretely so to not bring up past shames, or openly to pour salt in this untended wound.

At first, Master Giovanni could only hope that it was discretely, but now, he wouldn't have to suffer at all.

This was a great gain!

The zoo animals didn't know that at this moment, their newest junior brother was climbing up in the rankings when it came to their places in their teacher's heart, and fast!

How could you even compare between a lot that brought you shame with one that help you regain your dignity?

Of course, emotional ties with the older disciples were still stronger, but now Master Giovanni had a great impression of TWO, which would help Theodore later on when he wanted to learn more and more, becoming much less restrained when it came to his demands.

It was simply embarrassing for Master Giovanni and if this event with TWO hadn't happened today, Master Giovanni was sure that he would have to pay for this failure, and the price wouldn't be small.

Thankfully, this time, he was confident that most of his face could be restored by accepting TWO as his disciple, not that that was his main goal.

Not to mention, he would not easily let off his other disciples now.

Since he came out of seclusion, their training definitely had to be increased by manyfold.

It really had to be said that this group of poor souls had really kicked a brick wall this time.

What they didn't know was that Elijah had purposefully sent them to this specific wall, telling the group that it was made of Styrofoam.

They were all too blinded by the pain that came from kicking the wall, wanting to break it down to get revenge that they had missed what was in plain sight… they had dismissed who it was that had brought them to this wall for them to kick.

Of course, this analogy is not completely correct as these hackers were no idiots, at least, most of them weren't, but the general idea is still there.

The reason why this analogy works is not because the hackers were idiots, but rather because Elijah had thought ahead, much more ahead.

They had fallen into Elijah's trap the moment the hackers were emotionally invested.

It would have been great, amazing, simply perfect if these hackers were able to get a hold of TWO and thus by extension M, but Elijah was a realistic man.

Master Giovanni and his disciples were not the only trusted hackers that Elijah had contacted and employed for this mission, they were only one of his side plans.

So many other, more trained, more experienced, and more skilled hackers had failed… just how much hope could Elijah possibly put in this lot?

In fact, even if they didn't succeed it would still be a win for Elijah.

This was something that even the sly fox Giovanni had yet to notice.

Really it was about time he realized, but sadly, here he was, happy that he would not have to suffer against this younger man, not realizing that he had still inadvertently fallen for Elijah's schemes.

The phone ring twiced before the other person answered.

"Why, isn't it ol'Master Giovanni, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

A magnetic, lazy voice sounded.

Though the man always sounded relaxed and nonchalant as if he had all the time in the world, as someone who had worked with him previously, Master Giovanni knew better than others that Elijah was in fact a man who hated wasting time the most.

Master Giovanni knew this well because he had felt the feeling of unwinding after finishing a job with Elijah, if that weren't the case, Master Giovanni may really have missed that as Elijah always seemed calm and in control when he wasn't putting up an act.

In fact, even he had been surprized when he let out a big sigh after closing the first case with Elijah back then.

After further observation, the man's impatience was obvious to this observer.

Elijah distained anyone who wasted his time and thus though he may slowly approach you as if he did not want anything from you, as if he was trying to help you, in his mind, he had probably already found a thousand ways to calculate you into his plans.

If you weren't useful to him, he wouldn't give you a second glance.

And if he did look at you a second time, then you should be ready to be trapped by the man.

But that was not his biggest merit.

What Master Giovanni had found to be Elijah's greatest merit was his amazing patience.

Yes, it may sound contradictory, but Elijah was in fact, a man of great patience.

If he were someone who only calculated you into his next plans, then he may very well have been ruthlessly used my society.

Used and thrown away.

Such a short sighted and greedy person would have never been able to have gotten to where Elijah was right now, even if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

That was what was scary about this man.

He was incredibly long sighted.

From the moment you met Elijah, he would already be observing you as prey.

First starting by calculating your worth.

From that point onward, he would decide whether you were worth the long con or not.

If you are not, he may very well use and discard you, though those cases were few and far between as Elijah wasn't fond of making short term investments for some chump change.

If you were only barely worth it, depending on his mood, Elijah might still ignore you.

What Elijah specialized in were long term investments, which was something hard to imagine when considering his relatively young age.

And if you were divided into these cases of people worth being invested in long term, chances were, you were going to be in the palm of his hands for years.

Even if you yourself didn't know it.

Even if you were countries away, doing your own thing for years, that may very well be part of his plan.

In the end, if he had his eyes set on you, no matter how far you were, you would never leave his sight.

Be it days, weeks, months, or years.

It didn't matter how long he had to wait, how many plans he had to concoct, that was Elijah's patience.

That was a hunter's patience, and his hunger to get what he wanted was what pushed him to be what he was today.

His hunger for talented people.

And of course, by the time you realized that, if you realized that at all, it would already be too late.

He would calculate you so thoroughly that you would end up being willingly used, because he knew exactly what to give to get what he wanted.

He hunted talents, and he was a patient hunter.

As for people not worth his time, not a second would be spared.

That was his inpatience.

If things could be done more efficiently, then they would.

If things could be ignored, then they would.

If Elijah could spend one less second doing paper work and other useless stuff that could be given to his subordinates, then he would.

His impatience for wasting his own time was correspondent and directly correlated to his patience when hunting for people who could work for him.

In the end, these two opposing adjectives both resided strongly in this man in a way that was not in the least bit contradictory.

But then again, even if it was contradictory, humans are contradictory beings to begin with.