Kyrion moved in front of Michael and entered the tower. As he did, an array of Lapora were kneeling. The males were dressed in suits, while the few females wore leotards. They were positioned at the edge, and the path led towards his throne. His accountant held a clipboard that Kyrion dreaded having to go over. Various jellies were being used to roll his throne towards them.
“Welcome home our great master.” They said in unison.
“When did you become a ruler?” Gamodren eyed his student with a mischievous expression.
“When I deposed the previous regime I was named their new ruler. But I didn’t order them to dress like this, nor act like this.” Kyrion put his hand over his real eye and sighed as his throne arrived.
It was a large and plush chair that appeared quite gaudy.
“Milord. We have managed to get the soul coin production facilities in motion. The Lepora have, however, managed to also build an entertainment district in your absence with the help of the queen.”
“What queen?” Kyrion asked, concerned about painting his expression.
Gamodren’s slitted eyes suddenly became solid and visible as he heard the words entertainment district. His body became completely solid briefly as he heard coin production.
“The lady in black from the top. She came down saying that she will soon be joining the royal harem.”
“Oh. Just that? I’m not sure why that would demote her to a queen. She’s already a goddess unless that was a lie.” Kyrion looked away. He wouldn’t say it was someone else’s harem he asked her to join.
Mike stepped forward and grabbed Kyrion by his shoulders. “What have you done to our goddess?”
“I rescued her and then came to get you.” Kyrion said as he wiggled out of the grasp and sat upon his throne. Upon doing so, he felt a surge of soul force flood his body.
“I am his instructor. While my student attends to business I will help you administer this place.”
“Our lord is invincible.” One of the Lapora stated.
“Your lord has yet to reach his full potential. Although I assume its rare souls here are capable of gaining strength.” Gamodren sighed while shaking his head.
“Oh… That means I probably broke something… I wonder if I’ll be penalized for breaking certain rules.” Kyrion attempted to scratch his chin.
“I’m open to serving as a temporary tower organizer while he gets his affairs in order.”
“The Que…Goddess will fill that role.You may assist but.”
“What would an old hag know about propper tower management? Fine. Kyr? How much does a floor currently cost.”
Kyrion looked up as though he were thinking. A factory on the first floor produced 100 soul coins an hour. The soul force gathering efficiency doubled after each floor up to the tenth. There, it tripled. Floors eleven to twenty haven’t been remodeled yet and are free to purchase. Each floor could handle up to four factories without losing efficiency and space.”
“The price for floor eleven will be 3,072,000 soul coins or 30,720,000 units of soul force. It takes ten units to make one coin and you can absorb soul force by slaying creatures in this world.”
“How many floors can I own?” Gamodren raised an eyebrow.
“As many as you can properly manage.” Kyrion knew he was walking into a trap when he decided on a set number. So he swung high before realizing that no. Instead, He had forgotten to multiply exponentially because his master would recoup his investment in less than a day. He’d fix that on floor twelve should Gammodren attempt to buy it.
“Show me one of these soul coins.”
Kyrion held out his hand and created a soul coin by exerting some power.
Gamodren watched in fascination as the crude coin was formed. “Kyrion? So you know, the process you’re using causes about 75% of the energy used to be lost. You’re flooding it with power, but you aren’t properly condensing. That’s a bad habit, even when you have an absurd amount of power.” Gamodrren gathered soul force into his palm, and as a solid object began to form, it condensed rapidly using the same amount of power Kyrion had used to make one coin. Gamodren had made a better one after seeing it once.
“I’ll need to alter my factories.”
“You could. Or we can agree on something.” Gamodren shattered the coin in his palm and remade it. Albeit it was only slightly bigger and purple instead of blue.
“Like what?”
“One purple coin is worth five of your blue coins.”
“Let me see that.” The accountant said stoically.
Gamodren tossed him the coin, and everyone watched as the creature sighed. “It is worth exactly five times as much soul power as the coins we are currently making. How did you manage to figure that out?”
“I’m half dragon. We don’t play with money. Now I can pay the price for floor 11 if we agree that my coins are currently as valuable as five of yours.”
“Bleh. Fine. But you need to work that out with my numbers guy. Have some Worker Jellies and Repital assist him in getting the groundwork set. He’ll need homes for his minions as floor 11 is town floor. Do you need my help building the factories?”
“You jury rigged a few mana gathering runes to a rather bad condenser. I assume they are Cecil’s runes. Albeit with you changing things to suit your purposes? Hence the bad condenser, your limit is your current skill and lack of finesse in mana control.”
“I’m used to powering them personally, not using them to draw energy from the world around me.”
“Uh…What are you up to?” Volain asked.
“Right. You three need to go and briefly soak in that pond over there. After that we can begin the process of training.” Kyrion pointed towards the lake he had previously drowned in. A small shrine had been added to the middle of the area.
“So we get revived here when we die?” Gamodren asked.
“I believe so. You can also use it to get back to the first area. Although it takes about four hours to get back.”
“Only if you’re injured. Otherwise it brings you to a pond that you’ve linked to.”
“Noted.” Kyrion scowled as he eyed his hand in suspicion.
The others moved to soak in the spring while Kyrion tended to some paperwork.
“So… Why did you invite your great great grandmother to join your harem?”
“I have a what?” Kyrion decided to move on and continued to speak.” That’s just what I call it. I figured out what most people think it means a while back but they’re wrong. This harem is a group in love with developing magitech or Cecil. I’m not quite sure sometimes.”
“So it isn’t your harem?”
“No. But I am the mass scotch. I think it means bait for those who find me fascinating,” Kyrion hated how the word fell off his tongue.
“So you’re the honey and he’s the hammer?”
“I like honey, and Cecil uses hammers, so I guess that works.”
“Can you leave the harem after joining?”
“Yes, but most don’t; the benefits are nice even if you can only contribute funds or unskilled labor. Quite a few were relieved when they found out that we were all about building stuff.”
“I’m going to drop that subject and move onto a totally separate subject. Is there a special someone in your life?”
“I will not answer that. It would be quite rude to tell you and not her.” Kyrion answered while waving his finger as he looked at the numbers. As it turned out, he severely undercharged his master, and inflation would be a thing. “Why are we absorbing so much soul force?” Kyrion asked aloud.
“Our tower is absorbing all of the power that had been contained within the betrayer. It is limited but until you can find a way to use it. The tower will continue to absorb it, the que-Goddess has given you access to the clipboard of delegation. Using it you can expend a vast amount of soul force through her.” The accountant handed Kyrion a strange brick device.
Kyrion accepted the new brick and scowled as he poked at it, and the screen changed. It was like magic but made no sense, as though it was made using techniques he couldn’t comprehend. “Oh. So I can upgrade the tower with this.”
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“Yes, but only you can use it at this moment.”
“So I don’t need to alter all of the buildings manually? Is it too late to be born on Almira?”
“A bit. Most of them are born with system access or something like that. It truly boggles the mind how you survive without knowing how much health or mana you have..”
“Repair.” Kyrion poked the glyph that meant repair and saw an astronomical sum of soul force required. Then I looked to the top left and noticed a bigger number steadily climbing and selected it. He hadn’t noticed the change but felt the tower was no longer slanted.
“You don’t need to say what you press out loud.”
398,374,432,926 Soul Force Remaining.
“Right…How much is this?” Kyrion hadn’t understood the concept of numbers getting that pretty high. Who would ever need more than 999 million of one thing anyway? The world’s population was only around 400 million, regardless.
“Around four hundred Billion.”
“Oh. Let me guess, next would be tril?” Bi usually means 2, and Mil is 1 in this case.
“Yes. It goes up and up as scholars create new words to describe numbers that probably won’t change much. Although they don’t matter here unless you manage to maximize output.”
“Housing districts and commercial districts here. An educational facility here. A hospital for quick heals. A few soulforce gathering monuments, and some automated defenses set to eliminate all hostile creatures or law breakers. Simple laws should work, don’t bring physical harm to others, don’t cause others undue psychological harm, and don’t steal from each other.”
Kyrion went through the first three floors, organizing things before getting to floor four, where he added another spring. He greatly expanded the desert area on the fifth floor and filled it with vicious enemies. He proceeded to alter floor six by filling the area with falling traps that brought people down a floor if they got stuck. He called them extra quicksand. The seventh floor contained creatures with tough carapaces.
The eighth now held a different boss. This one is an 8-armed Lapora woman capable of separating into four smaller Lapora. They were fast, agile, and extremely deadly. They also shot him the same look he got from Nicole, so he gladly built a third spring on floor nine to avoid unnecessary meetings. He also added a personal bar stocked with food and drink and a chest for those who managed to make it there. The chest. The trunk was empty, and going over the options, he decided to have it generate one soul item that would fit the person who opened the chest. Teams would need to run from floors 4-9 multiple times as it wouldn’t spawn unless they came in through the stairs. It was foolproof.
Finally, there was the tenth floor, which held an elevator and a key. One could use said key to access the elevator and go to the first floor or up another ten, assuming they also get the key to that floor. Kyrion couldn’t wait to tell his dungeon how easy his job was when he got to the eleventh floor and found that the prices had jumped quite a bit while still within range. Still, he repeated the process on floors 14-20 and 24-30, following the pattern until he reached sixty. From there, he jumped to the roof and instead installed a spatial beacon.
The world shifted, and Kyrion felt a connection with his body. It was currently in stasis, but he could feel it was finally getting close to the point where he would have to act. Another week here until he would need to act, not enough to take over but enough to impart some knowledge. He made sure to add another spring on the top, which he then used to soak.
“Welcome back Kyrion. How do you like the system I imparted onto you?”
Kyrion looked up from his soak in the spring and smiled. “Don’t you know it’s rude to peek at people while they’re in the bath?”
“But that isn’t a bath and you aren’t exactly my type. A bit too young.”
“Oh, how you wound me so.” Kyrion falsely swooned. He didn’t have anything to really be embarrassed about here.
“With enough power we could get a soul or two back to their bodies from here without erasing their memory. No need to climb the mountain.”
“But I can’t go that way. I know. This tower will act as an anchor point for me, and until I can get one set home, I’d be abandoning a great deal of power as well as my people.”
“Correct. You would have to climb the mountain or find another way back. You can, however, exert enough willpower to affect your body.”
“Right. Now then I’ve done all I intend to do. I’m sure you have enough pattern recognition and foresight. Handle things here for a bit.” Kyrion said as he handed Almira the brick. From there, his body sank into the water and disappeared from the top.
A head poked out of the pond and looked about. Volain and Mike were gone. Gamodren was looking at the factories in closer detail, and Marigold was looking him right in his eyes.
“You know I’d make a bathing pun but it’s just too pruned.”
“You’re overreaching. Now, about my problems.”
Kyrion sighed. “Do you know where Mike is?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“Find your biggest problem and how you want it handled.”
“You killed me. It may not have been the you that is present but it was someone who shares your soul.”
“Correct.”
“How did you figure that out?”
“Psycho. The one that share my face but isn’t me in any way shape or form. Master of blood and death magic?”
“So you do know him.”
“Well, he lived rent-free in my head for about twelve years, and I’ve known about him for seven. About six years ago, while he thought I was being suppressed, he said something about having a wife and daughter. One of which he wanted to name Ceres. That didn’t mesh with the lies he told me a while back. Then I realized he hadn’t lied. He just wasn’t who we thought we were. I’m pretty sure he’s going to be born soon. Albeit, I don’t know when or where I can find him.” Kyrion sighed.
“So he was like family to you.”
“Maybe. I do hate his guts though. He crippled my emotional development by controlling the chemical reactions in my brain. I’m finally figuring out who I am and now I’m dumb and in love with someone I just met. He left me high, dry and confused. Next time I see him I’ll slap him onto the other side of the continent.”
“But you won’t kill him?”
“If he dies from a mere slap, then he isn’t the Psycho I know and tolerate. Maybe I could send him to you personally.”
“You’re going to send him here?!”
“If you’re going to stay here then I guess I could figure that out.”
Kyrion scowled as he jumped upward out of the spring and shook the water from his body. He was so used to leaving all the water in the spring when he left that he had been surprised when it didn’t move according to his will.
Marigold turned and walked away, the conversation over.
“Good. Good, looks like your free. So you know, your fire affinity isn’t coming from me. I said that because you seemed to misunderstand something I told you. While here you currently only have access to fire and blood, which translates to fire and soul. Many people that use the term affinities don’t quite understand how they work. Suffice it to say, your use of fire mana doesn’t come from an affinity and is heavily tied to your emotional state. Something about you changed around the time it activated. Something about you changed fundamentally.”
Kyrion looked at his ancestor. “It was rage at first. My emotions had been carefully subdued through chemical reactions. You know this,and when I enhanced my brain along with my other organs with mana, the being controlling them left. I can see why now, as I would have been quite a problem if left to my own devices.”
“Then you had an innate fire affinity. But that doesn’t make much sense. Not unless…Can you boil water?”
“Yeah. Thats easy. Why are you asking that now?”
“Can you move hot air?”
“Yeah. But its not something I intend to do often.”
“What about molten earth?”
“That’s a recent change, if I’m being honest.” Kyrion stretched.
“Is that so? What about flame teleportation?” The ancestor raised an eyebrow.
“Also recent.”
“Yet such an undeveloped affinity is compatible with with all of your main affinities. Can you teleport through rain? Or move through rubble as though it was a shortcut to get places?”
“Not like that. I can tunnel underground but not what you said.”
“And yet you can move through flames you create despite having control over fire for less than a year. I believe there’s a seal somewhere on or in your body that broke when you enhanced yourself.”
“This is just a pain.”
“I bet. Now then, imagine half your body covered in fire and then ask your soulforce to take that shape and hold it for ten seconds.”
Kyrion sighed as he moved back to the tower’s roof. From there, fire flowed from his entire body before getting pushed to the left side almost instantly. From there, it raged, damaging everything from the tower’s tile floor to his own body. Even the air ran from him in fear.
“One.Two. Three. Four. Fii…ve” Kyrion fell to a knee as his soul force was nauseated, and his body needed time to recover. The fire died out when he came to that realization.
“Again. Ten seconds.”
Kyrion got up wheezing despite feeling empty. He ignited the area around his left side. The force of the ignition proved combustive. It sucker-punched the exhausted Kyrion off the tower. A monotonous “Huh.” eased out of him as it seemed to be more power than he thought he had in him.
Almira had turned curiously to see what was up, only for her expression to fall into worry and then confusion as she saw the listless projectile plunge to what would be either a painful or quick death. She moved through the speed of sound in a panic. However, the force of her movement blasted the falling Kyrion out of her reach and towards the forest of thorns.
As Kyrion continued to fall, he felt an influx of soul force enter him, giving him some energy but not enough to shroud himself in power. “This is inconvenient…”
“Kyr. You need to pull yourself together. If you don’t then you’ll die.”
“And? I’ll be down for a week.” Kyrion shrugged mentally as he didn’t feel like wasting energy.
“If you die, I won’t teach you anymore.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“I didn’t want to do this,” The ancestor sighed. “I’ll tell your crush how you really fell through someone else.”
Alertness shot through him, filling his soul. “What do you know?” Kyrion’s eyes were glowing red as he swore he was looking at a familiar smirk.
“More than you know…You could say I’m keeping a close eye on you.” The ancestor sighed.
Kyrion clicked his tongue and pushed a blast of fire from his back, causing him to bounce briefly and begin slowing his fall. The fire sputtered out as he descended into the treetops.
With his left hand, Kyrion reached out and grabbed a branch. Near instantly, a spike passed through his left hand and spread outward. Locking him in place and draining his soul force.
Kyrion struggled and tried to pull the spike head from his hand.
“Please let go of me. If I die here then I’ll have to come back and do something you will regret.”
A second thorn pinned his left leg and pulled it to the tree. Followed by a third that pulled his right leg and pulled. That spike, however, was from an adjacent tree. As Kyrion thought it couldn’t get any worse, a vine shot out and wrapped around his right arm as many smaller thorns pierced his limb, locking it in place.
Kyrion looked up and saw a creature that did not belong on a plant. While similar to the shape of a turtle, turtles have many sawlike teeth and white beady eyes. Or had mouths the size of most houses.