37 - Chapter 35
Tasha did not spend a lot of time with her newly loyal vampire clan. They discussed the impact of becoming vassals. What it meant in essence was that the clan would pay a tithe or tax of 10% to her company based on the profits of the clan. They would also provide intelligence assets. She choose to let Hanna deal with that part, just giving Mailm and the Ancestor her details and instructions to bring her into the fold.
Apart from that, in the event of Tasha declaring war, the clan would have to provide soldiers to aid her cause. In return she would need to let them survive. For that part, she ordered them to stop targeting random people and institute some sort of blood donor programme. She also ordered them to put a stop to the killing of innocents. If they really needed to kill, she would provide targets. There were enough people with questionable ethics, that her conscience would happily let her new minions take care of.
The last thing on her list was to inform Mamat that Malim would be working closely with him to manage her affairs in the region.
She was told that they were being shadowed by a group of syndicate people, but as they were in the city, and an affluent part of the city, it was unlikely that they would be targeted. Even the syndicate had to be careful in its actions. Her enforced changes would raise some eyebrows, but could easily be explained as a reaction to almost being caught due the events surrounding her family. A change to secure their secret would actually come across as responsible and long overdue by most of the other groups. That brought their meeting to an end.
Malim escorted her back to her hotel, both making small talk on the drive back. Tasha still maintained her guard. As much as she had come to rely on and trust the system, she still did not want anyone to know the fact that she had been the one who had killed Malim’s daughter. It was only after she was back in the hotel did she truly relax. It had been a very stressful few days.
She took a few minutes to provide an abridged update to Hanna, keeping the truly sensitive topics for when they would meet. Hanna was shocked by the sudden changes, but didn’t press for details understanding that operation security was paramount. She did tell Tasha that their own SKIF would be ready by the time Tasha returned, or at least a version of it. With that little bit of business out of the way, Tasha took the time to review her status.
Name: Tasha Andersen
Race: Human (Tier 0) - Level 1
Class: Rogue (Tier 2) - Level 1
Profession: Technocrat (Tier 2) - Level 1
Strength: 50
Dexterity: 50
Proprioception: 50
Constitution: 50
Intellect: 50
Will: 50
Charisma: 50
Soul: 50
Luck: Locked
Quest Points: 95,610
Tasha was torn on whether to spend her windfall of quest points on increasing her power, or to keep it for other purchases. In the end, based on the enemies she now faced in the syndicate, she decided to increase her power. She would need to complete more quests and gain more QP for future purchases.
It would cost her 93,600 and take 24 hours to reach 80 in all stats. So the first thing she did was order a large amount of food. Then she took the time to relax and refresh herself. Lastly, she knew that she would need to reset herself after such a massive increase. So she booked a private training room for the whole of the next day followed by a full blown pampering session. That would include hair, nails, various treatments, and a long massage.
Then she waited for room service to deliver her order. She took her time to enjoy the meal. Once she was sure everything was prepared, and letting everyone know that she would not be available for the next 24 hours or so she brought up her menu. She put all her points into stats. The, by now, familiar prompt presented itself.
Stat points needed to reach 80 in all attributes 240 - will require 24 hours to assign.
Please ensure you are in a safe space and a comfortable position before proceeding.
Assign now? Yes / No
Tasha positioned herself to be as comfortable as possible, then selected yes. The pain started gently, then ramped up to torturous levels over the course of a few minutes. All Tasha could do was endure. Yet, she found it easier this time. The fact that she had managed to avenge her family's deaths had felt like the lifting of an immense weight from her very soul. That very feeling helped her endure the pain until she passed out.
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She came to, feeling stiff and sore. The release of her muscles felt cathartic. She was drenched in sweat, as was her bedding. She was also ravenously hungry. She dragged herself out of bed and almost threw herself across the room by accident. Her stats had increased her strength to incredible levels. She moved herself slowly to the shower, treating everything around herself as fragile. She had already been insanely strong, now she would need to retrain herself from scratch.
It took her time to get into the shower without breaking the hotel room. She slowly turned on the shower to the hottest setting and stood under the hot water enjoying the feeling. She had no idea how long she stood there, but finally was pulled out of her trance-like state by her body demanding food.
She slowly got out to the shower and dressed herself in casual wear and returned to her sofa. The bed would need to be changed before she could use it again. She ordered herself another large set of meals. Then pulled out some of the food items from her storage to munch on to take the edge of her hunger.
By the time room service arrived, she had already finished off everything in her storage, and was still feeling hungry. She asked the bellhop to send someone to make up her room while she dug into her food with gusto.
By the time room service arrived, she had managed to polish off all the food. It had just about taken the edge off her hunger, but had not even come close to sating it. She did not know where the food was even going. Her stomach felt like a bottomless abyss. She ordered another round of protein heavy meals and took the time to slowly stretch as she waited.
Slowly she began to get rudimentary control over her body. She was so happy that she had not pushed these upgrades before her meeting, otherwise stats or not, she would have been as weak as a newborn kitten, and about as coordinated as one too.
It was only after another round of protein and calorie dense food that she felt somewhat normal. A quick look at the calories count on the menu, and she realised that she had to have consumed over 20,000 calories of food in one sitting. That did not even take into account the snacks she had eaten while waiting for her meal to be delivered in the first place. Was this a one of due to adding so many stats, or would her body require a lot more energy to function?
She felt a lot more confident in her own ability to come across as normal, and so made her way down to the exercise hall that she had booked for herself. She made sure to lock the room before she started to acclimatise herself to her new strength.
She started with some slow martial arts forms, and realised that it would be a lot of work to get her fine control back. She spent the next several hours slowly working through her forms and slowly increasing her speed.
Even 6 hours of practice later, her control could only be called rudimentary. By this point she was also starving again. She did not want to draw attention to herself, so returned to her room after ordering another colossal round of room service. As she waited for her order, she called her team and sent them on a shopping run to get a large amount of high calories high protein ready to eat foods. She wanted to ensure she had enough just in case this was her new normal.
Only after consuming another 20,000 calories in food was she feeling sated. By now her team had delivered her order to her room. She packed away everything into her storage space, then went down for her pampering session. On the way her phone rang it was Mamat wanting to update her on the events of the past few days.
She told him to meet her for dinner in a few hours, then made her way to the parlour. She needed to relax after the stressful few days she had.
As she lay on the massage table, feeling the strong toes working her muscles, she let herself drift away. Only after her full pampering session did she feel relaxed enough to return to work. Still she took her time to take a bath before getting ready for her dinner meeting.
Mamat waited for her in the restaurant. He was conflicted by all the changes he had seen happen in the last few days. From the time he had received the call from his old friend to becoming the de facto country head of a massive mining conglomerate was a surprising short amount of time.
If that was not strange enough, he had also been contacted by Malim bin Daud himself. The man had informed him that the whole clan was now partnered with TA Consulting. Just what had Tasha done to get such an influential family to partner with her. Not only that but Malim had delivered all the outstanding contracts from the companies that had rejected their offer in the first place. This now made Tasha the largest mine operator in the region.
Tasha came down and joined him.
“Thank you for waiting Mamat,” said Tasha. “I have had a hectic few days. I trust there have been no issues and that Malim is behaving himself?”
Mamat was taken aback with how Tasha referred to Malim. Were they not just partners, but had Tasha somehow taken over the clan? “No, no issues,” said Mamat. “In fact, it is the opposite. Malim has delivered everything he promised, including the outstanding contracts.”
“So our agenda is complete for this trip,” replied Tasha. “So I am free to return to London?”
“The ministers have been asking for another meeting,” said Mamat. “I don’t think they were expecting you to be so aggressive in your acquisitions.”
“Well that is their issue,” said Tasha. “Give Malim a copy of our agreement, and then let him deal with them. Make sure you accompany him.” That would give Tasha a way to gauge how well the clan was adhering to its vow.
“Sure,” said Mamat, a little nonplussed. “Do you have any more instructions for me?”
“I will need a large amount of processed rare earth metals in the next year or so,” said Tasha. “If you can, buy more mines and processing companies. Sell other resources, but stockpile rare earth metals.”
“Do you have any idea of how much you will need?” asked Mamat.
Tasha considered how much to tell him, and decided to extend a little trust. Hanna would keep an eye on Mamat in any case. “I am going to build and launch the most advanced fleet of satellites to ever exist,” she said. “I need the resources to build them.”
“So we are going to be competing with the tech giants?” asked Mamat.
“No,” said Tasha. “My plan is to leave them all in our wake.”