The two martial artists were indeed taken aback for a moment upon hearing this. Tiram was merely a middleman supplier for a slave trader; the person backing him had quite a reputation. Yet in business, some measures had to be taken to ensure one's safety.
Especially in the trade of slaves, there was always the risk of tribes of these slaves attempting to kill him to free their captured members. Tiram only had the strength of a fifth level Source Energy User, so he hired these two Divine-level martial artists at a high price.
Many civilizations had bodyguard companies where protection was clearly priced according to skill levels. These two martial artists were at the fourth level of Divine Ability Users, with a hiring rate of about 5 billion Mola currency a year, which was the industry average.
