Milo smiles as he overlooks the vast plot of land he owns. The representative for Oats, had come back to negotiate. An older man, with a graying beard, and animal fat slicking back his hair, wearing simple, but well kept clothing.
“How much do you want for the rites to use your dungeon?” The man grunts, immediately getting to the point.
“I don't know, a gold a month?” Milo smiles, ignorant.
The man looks down, before rubbing his face, “Probably shouldn't say this, but you know anyone who agreed to, or suggested that before this, was scamming you. As a guild we charge a flat 10% of everything that our members take out of that dungeon, and we can make stacks of gold, in a month, in a good quality dungeon like this one.”
Milo blinks… “Oh…”
The old man waves his hand. “Tell you what, 7% tax, but for the first couple months we will take 3% of that money, to outfit you with gear, help you learn how to cultivate, and even allow you to party up with people from our Guild. Kapeesh?”
Milo blinks in surprise at the old man's helpfulness. “That sounds great, thank you!”
He nods, “A couple of the earth mages are getting kind of antsy, with the whole being so close to the Orcs thing, and having no fortification, so they were wondering if they could build fortifications to live in.”
Milo grimaces. “I quite like the natural beauty of this area, I'd rather they not.”
The old man smirks. “I've seen what they mean by fortifications, it won't make it worse, and I GUARANTEE, it'll look better than just having our camp spread all throughout. Also do you understand how the adventurer ranking system works?”
Milo shrugs, “I guess I'm ok, with you building, just make it look good, I care very much about vanity. Also, I do not know how your ranking system works…”
The old man nods, “By the way, I'm Ivan.” Ivan holds out his hand to shake Milos hand.
Milo holds out his hand, “nice to meet you Ivan, Im Milo.”
Ivan nods. “The ranking system runs by lettering, and number, F all the way to SSS. It runs from whatever letter to 9. Like right now you are a F-1. But I am an A-4 rank and my class is earth mage.” Above, the rank of A, the people you meet are going to spike in strength because then we gain enough strength to start manipulating Souls, which are much more potent than mana.”
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Milo nods along, “so how do I get more powerful, and honestly, why do I want to get more powerful?”
Ivan nods, “All good questions, you want to get more powerful, because, you own, a dungeon, with VERY pure ambient mana inside of it, as well as owning enough land that if you acquire enough wealth, which you will, im certain the Kingdom, of Vorrak, will instate you as a noble in the region.”
Milo nods along. “Soo… Why do I need to learn to cultivate.”
Ivan rolls his eyes. “You youngsters are so impatient. A with an abundance of wealth, and power, people WILL try to assassinate you, and B, do you know how old I am? I probably look 70 or so right? Wrong, I started cultivating when I was 70, that was 86 years ago. While the Vorraki were still at war with the western herd. I'll probably be alive for another several hundred, and if I can reach the S ranks, no S rank has EVER been recorded dying of natural causes.”
Milos, eyes widen. “Fair enough…”
“Also, you get stronger by doing two things, cultivating, and killing beasts. Cultivating is usually just cleansing your system, but it also makes you draw in ambient mana slightly faster, but to be honest, it is easier to just kill beasts.” Ivan explains.
Milo nods along. “Ok, that makes sense… How do I cultivate.”
Ivan nods and begins to speak. “That!... Will take me too long to explain, I'm going to need to guide the other earth mages in making the fortifications, there is only one other A ranked mage, and she is a newborn A ranker, so I'm going to have to guide her as well. You… Instead… Take this note,”He scribbles something onto a scrap of cloth. “and go into our encampment and look around for Alistair, once you find him, give him this. Once you are done with that. Take this other note.” He quickly scribbles out a second note. “Find Luther, and give him this note. He will guide you in opening your cultivation circuit.”
Milo nods, and blinks as his brain absorbs the long stream of information, Ivan just gave him. “Uh, Ok.”
“Oh! Uh, wait!” Ivan once again, stops Milo, and turns him around.
The encampment is in the center of the valley, but about a third up the mountain, is a basin surrounded by steep stone cliffs, where in the center of the basin is a moderately sized lake. The dungeon is just slightly more up the mountain side to the basin.
“Is it ok, if we build in there, and around there?”
Milo, raises an eyebrow, incredulously. “Sure. I don't know how you're going to build much of anything, but alright. I'm considering making people pay to rent the land, just a moderate amount of money, but I'll probably increase it depending on the usefulness of the land, and how disputed it is…”
Ivan shrugs. “Well, that basin is useless, so as long as you don't charge us lots…”
Milo shrugs. “I’ll just let you use it for free, because it's completely useless, and you were the first person to explain to me I was being scammed.”
Ivan smirks, and pumps his arm. “Being nice finally pays off.”
Milo chuckles.
Milo walks down into the valley, and Ivan starts herding mages, towards the basin.