"You want me to… What?!" I nearly screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Think about it," Ozpin's expression did not change in the face of my disbelief. "You've managed to take down Salem and pretty much convinced the entire Grimm population worldwide to head off to the uninhabitable Dragon Continent. If you let me bring you to the media's attention, it would go a long way in improving Human and Faunus relations if it later became known that you were together with Velvet."

He had caught me in Beacon's gym while overseeing Velvet's experimental training to unlock her Ki and proposed this insane idea out of nowhere.

"Yeah? You know what else that would do? Fucking ruin our goddamn lives!" I glared at him, "Don't think I can't see through your bullshit plan. No one is just going to believe I'm as powerful as I am without proof. The moment you tell anyone about me, they'll dismiss me until I show off. Then for the rest of my life, the only people around will probably be bootlickers, people afraid of me, or doubters who will refuse to believe the things about me without seeing first hand."

"A small price to pay for world peace, is it not?" Ozpin shamelessly argued.

"Not if Velvet and I are the ones who have to pay it." I said, completely against the idea.

"I'm… not against it," Velvet quietly said after dropping her weights.

"Why?!" I turned to her so quickly that she and Ozpin flinched.

"I'm not against you getting credit for pretty much changing the whole world for the better. I also have nothing to be ashamed of or feel in any way bad about letting everyone know who we are to each other. The decision is still completely up to you if you really don't that information to get out there. I just want to let you know that you don't have to feel pressured into saying no because of me," she resolutely said.

"Velvet… Really think about this," I urged her. "It isn't really a problem for me when I can just take on another appearance at will—" with the Transformation Technique, "—but if it gets out for you then you'll probably never live another day normally. Except for maybe your team and family, everyone else is likely to change how they treat you and, at least in my opinion, almost none of it will be for the better."

"So, nothing will change?" She covered her mouth to suppress her laugh, "Lapis, besides you, my team and my family, there aren't any other people who can start treating me differently in a way that would change how I already feel. As long as I still have you guys, I'll be fine."

"That's two to one, Lapis," Ozpin said, "Do you still insist on leaving this opportunity on the table? I know you care not for more power, prestige or wealth, but the position of 'Great Unifier' will come with all those benefits regardless."

"Ugh, whatever. Just… Don't set me up to give out any public speeches. I don't care if you can't spin that into a good narrative. I'm not going to be campaigning or doing anything else besides providing a reason for why the world has suddenly changed."

"I can work with that," Ozpin said as he pulled out his Scroll. "When do you think you'll have time to make an appearance? For the proof, I mean."

"At least three days from now," I decided.

He left and I was left to keep working with Velvet to see if she could unlock her Ki. It had only been two days since we had first slept together and she was so close to getting access to it that I could feel the confines that shackled it to her body shaking with each cycle of progressive overload.

That afternoon, while I was still working with Velvet, my Scroll pinged and when I went to look at it, I was surprised to see it was from Jacques Schnee.

"Apologies for the terriblly late message, this is Jacques' Secretary using his scroll to message you, Mr. Lain, regarding the young miss' performance tomorrow. Please see use the code provided at the end of this message to RSVP for your VIP tickets. Apologies again, there is no excuse for my tardiness and I ask that you forgive the undue and unintentional disrespect."

God, that was a terrible read.

I went to get the tickets and seeing I could get the limit of 99, I offered some to Velvet's teammates.

"No thanks," Yatsuhashi politely declined.

"And ruin your date? Do you think I want that on my conscience?" Fox rhetorically asked.

"Ditto to the last idiot's message," Coco deadpanned.

"Hey!"

…

"Mr. Lain! You're back!" My favorite — and only — tailor said once she spotted me enter her store. "And with such a lovely young woman," she added and instantly cemented herself as someone worth being a patron to.

"Yeah, we're here to see if you can work your magic for her. We have a concert to get to later tonight and I want her looking positively fetching," I snorted.

"Will you be wearing the same ensemble that I arranged for you earlier this week? It will be much easier to accommodate her to fit an aesthetic that has already been completed."

"Sure. I mean, it's not often that I plan on wearing that outfit, so I might as well use it when appropriate," I said.

She practically sprinted away before returning shortly with a few… dozen dresses, under dress wear, shoes, and various accutroments that seemed to all fit together despite it all being extensively varied.

A few hours later, Velvet and I left the store with her outfit fully kitted out and tailored to fit her perfectly. We had a couple hours before the concert was set to start, but I didn't want her all fatigued and exhausted from a full day of training, so I cut the afternoon part of it out for today. Instead of doing that we just spent the hours leading up to the concert hanging out in my apartment, either watching TV, talking to each other or by doing some other time-killing activities around each other.

I let her know that she didn't have to feel pressured to stay with me for literally "every waking second," as she had put it, if she was bored and could leave if she wanted to when I caught her just watching me practice me drawing. But, she let me know that it was actually entertaining to watch. I believed it since there was a whole niche of videos online for speed drawing or speed painting, so as I continued to practice, I talked to her about it and asked for some recommendations on what to draw next.

Eventually, the time to leave approached, so we both changed into our outfits and left for the venue of the concert. The whole way there, I almost literally couldn't peel my eyes off of Velvet. She looked good with regular clothes and great without, but in this fancy dress, I was seeing a new side to her that would steal my full attention even if she was surrounded by the greatest supermodels in the entire world.

She wasn't even wearing anything remotely lust-inducing, it was just the charm of the beautiful woman she was, being brought to the forefront that ensnared me and I couldn't help but keep the grin on my face as I believed I was the luckiest man in the world. The way she smiled right back at me as we walked hand in hand kept my mood at an all-time high until we reached the concert hall.

We made it a good fifteen or so minutes before people were supposed to be allowed to file into the seating area of the theatre. However, because I had VIP tickets, Velvet and I were let through to our assigned seats and the special meet and greet area where we could talk to Weiss or any of her accompanying musicians for the night.

The moment we entered the VIP area, all eyes fell on us. The reaction I got was very different from the one Velvet received. This time, though, the worst of the treatment Velvet received was still reserved acknowledgment so we were spared the indignance of having to suffer through muttered backtalking and constant side eyes.

Weiss walked over to me and bowed very stiffly as she said, "I want to thank you for what you did at the Charity Gala. We didn't talk then, so now that I have the chance, I'd like to let you know in case you decide to skip the aftershow meet and greet."

"Hold up, there's no need for all of that. I was actually going to come up to you to apologize for the bad impressions I gave off, the first two times we met," I said.

"I should apologize as well," Weiss said as she picked herself up from her low bowing position, "I've reflected on what happened when we first met, and I realize now that I was wrong for talking to you the way I did."

"It's fine," I waved her off, "You were right. I was being a pig, then. That was kind of the whole point of my childish display to the restaurant across the street that didn't let me eat there because I wasn't on their precious list."

"Be that as it may," she cleared her throat, before smiling at me, "I was still in the wrong. I hope you enjoy your time tonight."

"Uh, sure," I said before feeling my hand get squeezed pretty damn aggressively by Velvet.

Weiss looked at her before her eyes widened and she gave her a much more forced smile before walking away.

"Oh shit, your little snuggle bunny is baring her fangs," Katayoki's laugh reverberated in my head.

I ignored him and focused on Velvet. She didn't look mad or upset and had at some point dropped her death grip on my hand. The smile on her face and clarity behind her eyes lacked any kind of negativity that I could perceive, so I assumed there was nothing amiss.

"You want to go over to our seats?" I asked her.

"I'm a little hungry so I'll eat a few of the snacks they have out here. I can wait for you by the snack bar while you can go talk to the musicians like you said you wanted to on the way over," she said.

So that's what we did. I went to the band and asked a bunch of probing questions to see if any of their input would help me decide which instrument to first pick up. I managed to talk to one of the bass players and was in the middle of talking to the drummer who had offered to let me mess around with his drums after the show was over, when we were interrupted by an unexpected medical emergency. The pianist, an elderly man in his sixties, had called out for help as he felt a heart attack coming on before he collapsed on his chair.

I walked over to him, held my hand to his chest and filled him with Magic Healing until his volatile Ki stabilized. It only took a few seconds for him to fully recover and begin to profusely thank me, keeping me occupied until it was time for the show to begin.

Thankfully, that was the only interruption for the night as the rest of the concert passed without any further hiccups. The entire time, I kept a look out for Velvet and saw that she was about as entertained as I was. Not mind-blown or captivated like it was the best performance of all time, but it was definitely well worth the ticket price for what the event would have been with how good the production and talent were.

When it was time for the post-concert meet and greet I got right back to talk to the musicians and after a bit of messing around with the drums, I asked the pianist if he could play a loop for me to try and recreate a pretty iconic breakcore song that was mostly all drums and a piano. Nobody in the room was prepared for the absolute beatdown I gave the drums while trying to recreate what was originally a cut-up and heavily spliced breakbeat running on close to 200 BPM.

The pianist being the professional that he wasn't didn't break from the loop even as I cut in and out of it with my unhinged drumming. The experience was all I needed to know that beating the shit out of drums had to be a part of my life going forward. It was way too much fun to be putting it off to the side when I was also getting back some of the music I knew I loved, that just didn't exist in this world yet.

Of course, not everyone was a fan, and if I had to guess I'd say most people weren't given the audience in attendance. Pop and Rock were the main genres of everything Weiss performed tonight and seeing as most of the people present were older businessmen types who were probably only around to network, they were barely able to stomach that.

They were obviously not going to react very positively to a derivative of a derivative of Electronic Music that hadn't even been invented yet. Not that I particularly cared, I was just happy to get something out of the night out with Velvet besides an hour or so of pretty good music.

Some people though were at the very least impressed with the technical finesse I demonstrated while trying to recreate the song that I couldn't get quite right. These "some people" were mostly composed of the musicians I had been chatting up, several of which had offered to trade contact information with me to make our acquaintance last more than just for tonight.

Overall, it was a pretty good way to spend a Saturday night. Though, especially the last part of that night as Velvet was all over me the second we got back to the apartment. With the way her dress hadn't made her lose any of that charm that had me so enraptured earlier, I was probably even worse than her.

…

[Congratulations! For coaching a disciple (Velvet Scarlatina) into unlocking their Ki, you have earned an Epic Set | 20,000 Gacha Coin!]

"Stop," I told Velvet as she struggled to push up the barbell in her hands.

"But I can still go," she sounded confused and I didn't blame her.

"I know, but I'm pretty sure you just unlocked your Ki. You wouldn't be able to to tell because you have no control over it and can't do anything but increase it now that it's started to spread across your body. I want to try to get you to make a mind-body connection with your Ki first to make the process go by quicker," I said.

I put my hands on her shoulders and gathered about a thousandth of a percent of my total Ki into my hand. "Can you feel that?" I asked her. When she shook her head, I slowly ramped up the amount of Ki I was drawing into my hand until she reacted.

"Try to remember this feeling," I said as I moved my hands from her shoulder to her arms and hands.

I stopped, thinking, I might have been pushing my brutal training methods too far as every time I moved my hand to a new muscle group for her to get familiar with the feeling, she winced and let out little yelps. I hesitantly took my hands off her from her hands, but before I could step away she caught me by my wrists.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Her face was flushed, red and sweaty. "I can feel the energy spreading across my arms, but if I remember correctly, the bench press mostly focuses on developing the chest."

She stood up from the flat bench and brought my hand right over the neckline of her gym shirt where it covered the smallest bit of cleavage she showed. The look in her eyes was unmistakably that of lust, but… we were in the middle of a public gym.

"Well, would you look at the time?" I said, after doing just that, "It might be a little early compared to the last couple days, but I think we should stop and celebrate the fact that you unlocked your Ki."

She looked disappointed before it likely dawned on her what she had been doing and quickly took my hand off her breasts in the middle of the crowded evening gym. She perked right back up the moment the door leading into my apartment closed and I continued where we had left off in the gym.

It started in the middle of another one of our shared showers; one I suggested we have before going to a nice restaurant. Where I charged up my hand with the same amount of Ki I'd used back at the gym and poked at her shoulder. The reaction was immediate as she hadn't been expecting it and actually let out a little cry.

I wanted to apologize for it, but she didn't let me as she tackled me into the large tub that was connected to the shower and mostly filled. Since her chosen action was to invade my mouth with a desperate kiss and not punch me, I assumed it had been a jolt of pleasure instead of pain. This was more or less confirmed when she took my hands and smushed them into her breasts while wrapping her legs around mine.

When I gave into her unvoiced request to touch her while amped up on Ki, she turned even more ravenous and needy than before.

Welp, the plan had been to do this eventually to get her acquainted with how Ki felt spread all over her body. So, I indulged as much as possible and made sure every square inch of her body was baptized in my Ki before we were done.

"Do I have to start worrying about you developing an addiction?" I asked as I gauged the look of heartbreak on her face over the fact that we had run out of condoms. "I mean, I get that it sucks that we need to stop when neither of us really want or need to, but it's been over an hour."

Let it be known that I was deeply upset over this most terrible blunder on my part. What the hell had I been thinking, only buying one bulk pack of contraceptives when I was a borderline demigod of lifeforce and had literally stolen the aspect of Vitality from a God with a pretty well-established domain in creation and longevity? I should have known after my first night with Velvet that I was probably going to need industrial-sized shipments on a monthly basis if I ever hoped to keep her satisfied.

"I'm not that bad," Velvet pouted before pausing. A look of embarrassment and horror slowly formed on her face as she asked, "Am I?"

"If I were anyone else, I'm pretty sure you would have ground my pelvis into bone dust by now," I said. At the look of denial and aggravation, she cast upon me, I held my hands up in surrender, "That's only partially true; Aura could probably buy most brave souls a bit of time before their inevitable demise. But, in all seriousness, I was just joking earlier."

While it had been a subconscious effort on my Level 10 Learning Skill, I had more or less pieced together that she was only reacting so strongly because of the way my Ki had been interacting with her. Who could have guessed that flushing her body with pure life energy could accomplish the equivalence of firing off all her pleasure nerves? Since I hadn't been trying to hurt her, her own Ki was at capacity and I wholeheartedly considered her my lover, what else was my Ki to do but activate the pleasure sensors in all her nerves when I didn't know exactly what I was doing?

There was probably a right method to my idea considering that by the end of our time in the shower, she had grown aware enough of her own Ki to bring it out to her skin; literally the first step to performing a Kiai. But, I was running off theories and my own predilections. For what I got as a result and its "cost," it was a decent enough outcome.

…

"I would like to begin today's State of the Kingdoms Address with a confession," Ozpin said. He was standing before a podium and speaking to the Vale Council while being recorded and broadcast across the world. "The attack on Beacon last week wasn't resolved as simply as I made it out to be during its subsequent press conference. Similarly, the sudden and strange behavior of the Grimm all migrating away to the Dragon Continent had details I did not give out when the matter was discussed earlier this week."

"In truth, there was an individual involved in mitigating the damage done during the attack on Beacon. This person was responsible for saving the lives of over a hundred students and members of the staff. He was also responsible for exorcising all of the possessed from their Giest parasites and later went on to be the cause of the sudden migration of the Grimm."

"He did not originally want his involvement in either of these situations to become public knowledge, but I convinced him otherwise. This man… His power and influence can not be overstated."

"It has been enough to rid us of the threat of the Grimm over the course of a few days. Land and resources which has otherwise been impossible to make use of, have suddenly become viable with no undue risk of harm or death. With time, this can lead to more development and innovation."

"Then there is the matter of his personal strength and let me tell you that in no uncertain terms is it any less impressive. I was personally present for the moment when this man's Aura was unlocked and right afterward there was a new record for Aura Capacity worldwide. Even before then, he was strong enough to mow down packs of Grimm on the short fifty-mile hikes he took between Vale and Beacon to warm up for his workout routines."

"Much like the namesake for the academy I oversee, I truly believe that this man I will be presenting to you is a beacon of hope for the betterment of our world's future. He is an individual I feel is befitting the title and position of the 'Great Unifier' which has long been suspended since the death of the last King of Vale. This man," Ozpin paused for dramatic effect as he gave me a cue to start walking over, "is Lapis Lain."

Internally, I was already starting off with an unspeakable hate for the position I was in. But, this was a concession I was happy to make if it meant the overwhelming majority of people who saw me out with Velvet recognized my position and realized it would be a bad move to show intolerance to someone called the "Great Unifier." Even if they were just making a show of it, if it helped make Velvet more comfortable, I'd probably do almost anything… Within reason.

So, I walked over to the chair that had been set out for me and sat down. From there, Ozpin continued his very longwinded and insultingly sycophantic speech about how great I was and why I deserved the title and prestige, and everything else that came with the position before he finished and let the Vale Council and news reporters present ask questions.

"A question for Mr. Lain," the very first person allowed to speak besides Ozpin said.

"Yeah," I couldn't be bothered to put in any more formality into my tone or attitude.

"...Sir," the news reporter seemed taken aback, but he recovered pretty quickly, "We've heard a lot from Councilman Ozpin, but what do you have to say about his proposal? Why did you initially not want the information of your involvement in the aforementioned incidents to get out and what changed to get us to where we are now?"

"Honestly, I still don't want to get famous or take on some fancy pants title. I don't really care for any political power or money, so becoming extremely famous by taking on the title would see almost everyone I interact with change overnight, which would be an inconvenience. But… Ozpin made some pretty good points to me about how I was already changing the world with the Grimm, so why not continue to make the world a better place by becoming a symbol of unification for Humans and Fanus when it gets out that Humanity's Great Unifier—" I made air quotes and snickered, "—is together with Faunus."

At the look of shock on pretty much everyone in the audience's faces and the exasperation I could see on Ozpin, I leaned back into my chair feeling marginally better now that I was amused.

A bunch of people began to talk over each other in an effort to ask me another question until Ozpin tapped on his microphone and the feedback produced a harsh shrieking noise that stopped everyone in their tracks.

He pointed to a member of the council, and politely offered the man the chance to voice his question by calling out his name, "Councilman Winchester?"

"What more than your word can we trust to verify your claims, Ozpin?" He looked cross between serious and neutral in a way that left me unable to read how he felt about me.

"Hey," I said, getting everyone's attention. When all eyes were on me, I raised my hand and slipped off the black ring I'd been wearing all this time off my finger before saying, "You know what this is?"

"No," Ozpin loudly interjected. "Lapis, please don't tell me that's what I think it is," his face rapidly paled with sweat beads running down one side before he dapped it off.

"Ever heard of the Titan, Naga? Well, I was banking on at least one person questioning my ability to manage the Grimm, so I picked up this little cutie and asked her to come with me just in case," I said.

"Is this a joke to you? That is but a mere ring and not a thousand-foot-long serpentine monstrosity" the Councilman with slicked-back burnt-orange hair scoffed.

"Help me out here, would you?" I said while looking at the ring before it "broke off" into a tiny snake that rapidly grew until it was the size of a massive python. Naga slithered up my arm and wrapped itself comfortably around me before raising its head at the councilman to hiss at him rather aggressively.

"You brought a Titan to the heart of Vale?!" His cry of outrage was probably shared by most if not everyone else in the room.

"I mean, it wasn't a problem until you started to make it one," I scoffed at him. "Relax, would you," I told everyone in the room, which included Naga who took back her aggressive hissing to rest her head on my shoulder, "All the Grimm do whatever I say without question after getting a look at my Dark Magic."

"You have Magic?" One brave reporter asked when no one else dared.

"I have a lot of things," I rolled my eyes and materialized a replica of him made entirely out of Dark Magic, "For, um… reasons, the Grimm take my mastery over this ability to mean that they should follow and obey me."

'Because they assume I'm the second coming of the God of Darkness,' went unsaid because I really didn't want that confirmed by me. I wouldn't be able to stop the people that inevitably made it to that — correct — conclusion, but I could at least keep the number that worshiped me or cursed me as a false god low.

Hopefully.

"Is that how you got the Grimm to leave for the Dragon Continent?" Another reporter asked.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Something like that. How it actually happened was that another Titan, Raksha, was drawn to me when I was practicing. He hadn't started a fight with me and instead joined all the other Grimm that were just standing by and waiting for a command. So, when I made the offhanded comment that I wouldn't have a problem with them if they left people alone, preferably on the Dragon Continent where nobody lived, Raksha got the idea to go around the world and spread the word to all Grimm that they needed to make a Great Pilgrimage back to their Holy Land."

For a time, reporters and other members of the Council quietly talked amongst each other. Before another question or a resolution to the conference could be made, requests from members of the Council and militaries of the other Kingdoms started to get patched through to the room's center Scroll Control. From there, I was asked all sorts of questions.

Some of the questions were basic and only required me to give more of my background. They were things like, "Where are you from? How did you get that Dark Magic? Is it actually Magic or just a Semblance? What is your Semblance if it's not Dark Magic?"

The questions progressively got more multifaceted and agenda-driven as time went on though as I was asked, "What else have you been doing besides helping out at the attack on Beacon and making all the Grimm go away? You mentioned wanting to improve Human and Faunus relations, how exactly do you plan on doing that? What will you plan to do with the influence that comes with being the Great Unifier?"

When I found myself starting to respond to questions that seemed like they were just being reframed in a way to draw out either a contradictory response or a specific narrative, I started to just stare at the people asking like they were dumb while slowly repeating myself verbatim.

"Do you have any plans on backing legislature in support of additional Faunus rights?"

"No. I'm not getting involved in any politics."

"Then are you by chance in support of harsher sentencing and more funding to combat the terrorists that threaten the peace in the four Kingdoms in the name of the fighting for equal rights?"

"What part of 'No. I'm not getting involved in any politics,' do you not understand? No support for either side and don't even pretend like this isn't specifically about the White Fang," I scoffed. "Look, I've already smacked Adam Taurus around twice and gotten him arrested for crashing a Charity Gala that I had been invited to last week. He was — and might still technically be — the region leader of the White Fang for Vale, so you can consider my relationship with the group to be 'bad,' at best. However, I don't particularly attribute his dumbass actions to the rest of the group and their ideology so long as they stick to peaceful protest."

"I am of the opinion that while these terrorists—" I emphasized, "you talk about are in the wrong, I can still kind of see where they are coming from. It's annoying when I go out in public with my girlfriend and I have to deal with the side eyes and hushed whispers, so I can only imagine what she and most all other Faunus have to deal with. That's not an excuse for committing literal terrorism, I just think it makes it understandable."

"This brings me to why I'm making it a point to come before you all to get this Great Unifier title and openly share the details of my relationship. The hope is for me to make enough societal pressure for Faunus to stop being treated so badly so that radicalized parts of their own movement no longer have a reason to commit terrorism."

"So… What you're saying is that you support the White Fang, just indirectly and through subliminal influence," A reporter asked.

"Do you want me to send Naga out to smack you?" I asked. At the look of horror on his face as he frantically shook his head in denial, I smiled and said, "Then stop asking vague indirect questions that can be misconstrued and represent to different people with completely different interpretations. I don't support anyone or any agenda. That means, no asking for favors to pass any kind of laws, no money to lobby for my interests, and remaining no contact except for maybe Ozpin, and that's only because I regularly use his academy to train at and visit my friends."

"Sir, the position of Great Unifier is traditionally one that is inherently predicated on the titleholder exercising their political power to change the world. If you're not intent on creating or passing new laws, what will you do?" A member of Mistral's Council asked as a holographic projection through the conference room's Scroll.

"I don't know, I'm more of the idea of taking the position and being looked up to as a symbol. Like I've said probably over a dozen times by now, I don't care about politics. If your question extends past what I plan on doing besides existing as someone you can turn to in the very unlikely case that the Grimm revolt over my command to stick to the Dragon Continent, I don't really have any plans besides maybe picking up a few more disciples. Aside from that, I guess my only plans are to travel around the world."

"You already have disciples? What are you teaching them?" A reporter asked.

"I have two disciples and right now I've mostly just been teaching them how to unlock and make use of their lifeforce energy, Ki, which is a completely separate thing from Aura. That doesn't necessarily have to be what I teach other people I either pick up or get assigned whenever I decide I want to get serious about teaching, though."

"How is Ki different and…" The interview shifted to this topic for quite a while eventually culminating in me giving an example of my Ki techniques by flying and casting a contained Ki Blast that harmlessly exploded a few feet away from me.

"Where do you plan on traveling to first when you decide to leave Vale?" A different reporter asked, once the Ki questions ended.

"Probably Menagerie. I had the idea of taking a trip with my girlfriend to Mistral for their hotsprings, but, you know… It probably wouldn't go over as well for us if we went there. So, instead of doing that, I figured it be better if we went to Menagerie instead where, worst case scenario, I can just transform to appear like a Faunus and go about my life normally."

"T-transform?" I don't know who it was that asked, but they were clearly fatigued by all the random nonsense I'd mentioned and proved I was capable of.

I brought up my hands and slowly weaved through three hand signs before seamlessly taking on a pair of bunny ears to match Velvet's. It was always a joy to see people stare uncomprehendingly at me.

"Wait a minute," a Councilwoman that was present spoke up, "Let me get this straight. You can command the Grimm, transform and you have impossible magic-like powers you can coach others into possessing?"

"Pretty much," I shrugged.

"Can you turn into a dragon?" She pressed.

"If I really wanted to, I could imitate the forms of the Brother Gods," I cut straight to the point of the insinuation she was trying to make, "that doesn't mean I am one or in any way related to them. So please, please don't start asking me for guidance or start some weird cult around me. I'm just a normal, if mostly impossibly strong, guy with tons of ridiculous abilities," I said that last sentence to the nearest camera that I could find.

From there the questions slowly trickled down until the whole conference was over with. The moment I was able to, I stood up and asked Naga to turn back into a ring I could slip onto my finger before leaving.

…

"Hey Lapis, old buddy, old pal," Fox said as he approached me in Beacon's gym.

"What's up?" I asked, wondering what his deal was with how weird he was acting.

"About that disciple business you mentioned on TV, can you let me and the others in Velvet's team know when or if you have openings for that? It's getting kind of old how badly Velvet can now kick all our collective asses while barely even trying."

"Yeah, having unlocked Ki is a pretty ridiculous advantage that widens how much stronger people who have it are from others on a daily basis, pretty much," I commented. "I'm kinda getting back into the grind of building up my own Ki so I won't be able to coach you through the whole process, but that isn't a requirement. I'll tell you what, meet me here tomorrow and I'll have something that will get the job done, sound good?" I said.

He nodded and excused himself before leaving. I appreciated him for having come to me directly and not asked through Velvet as I imagined many might try to do to pressure me. If he, or anyone else on Velvet's team for that matter, had done that, I might have had mixed feelings about being used. Since that hadn't happened, I didn't think twice about helping him and the others out.

I finished my workout at Beacon before heading back home. Once back at my apartment, I spent a good three hours making concentrated Health and Stamina Regeneration Potions. I needed to accept several rewards from my reserves of Items I'd received through Gacha to get the ingredients required to make the potions. But that was fine, because I had already started to slowly, responsibly, use my Gacha powers if only to not come out of this period of rehabilitation and immediately cash in everything at once like an idiot.

So far, things had been going great with Velvet's support and my restricted approach to using Gacha. But… I was honestly starting to get bored. It wasn't anything I could help as I still valued and appreciated my time with Velvet and my new and increasing array of hobbies. There just wasn't anything around for me to feel the thrill of battling and the unknown which had been missing since I last entered a Scenario.

I thought it was honestly kind of dumb; to want to be inserted into an unknown situation, in an unknown world; to want there to be a possibility for something terribly horrible to happen. It was stupid and foolhardy, but that's what I knew I wanted in my life to cure the boredom I had after more or less conquered the world of Remnant.

When even the Gods of this world ran away from me and nothing even came close to approaching their level of power, there was nothing around to keep me on my toes. There was nothing around to work towards overcoming the stagnation I felt from knowing there were Divine and possibly higher Grade Gacha Coins that I was missing out on by remaining on Remnant.

Getting Jaune, Velvet and others to unlock their Ki and possibly reach or maybe even surpass my own power — If I did absolutely nothing to improve mine in the meantime — was a step in the right direction towards resolving that issue. However, at the rate they were going, it would take decades before they approached the Brother Gods, let alone me.

My boredom was still manageable and I'd like to think I could probably deal with it for the rest of my life if I absolutely had to give up on encountering interesting situations and strange worlds, but I didn't really think I needed to right now; not if I could control myself and stop myself from doing anything too stupid.

I was already actively combating the issue of my impulse control by restricting myself to only accepting a couple rewards a day and using my powers conservatively. These restrictions would decrease progressively as the time approached for Hogyoku's Wish to be useable again, but I was dead set on keeping a hard limit on how badly I could exercise my power to not have to go through this experience again.

…

"You know, on second thought, maybe we shouldn't do this," I said as I awkwardly stood with my Zanpakuto in its Asauchi, fully sealed, state.

"Why?" Velvet looked at me suspiciously. "Weren't you excited about finally being able to teach someone how to cast Kido spells? Why are you getting cold feet now?"

"To give you Shinigami powers while you're still very much alive and not a Pure Soul like I can become should I adopt the right form, I'm going to need to stab you through the chest with my sword. In theory, it should be a mostly painless and harmless procedure, but I haven't exactly tried it on anyone else," I explained.

"Ok? Just try not to hit anything too important when you go to stab me," she said with the nonchalance of someone with no fucks to give. "With how much Ki I have and the fact that you're right there to help me if anything goes wrong, I don't see what the issue is."

"You're not even the slightest bit put off by the fact that I need to stab you? I'm not talking a little scratch, for the power transfer to go through smoothly the swords gotta penetrate the whole way through."

Velvet laughed, "Tell you what, big guy, as long as you promise you stick something else in me that will penetrate the whole way through once we're done here, I won't complain about the sword."

God, she was insatiable.

Well, not really. Not to the extent that it made her life worse off and I was all for it.

I gave her a serious look and waited for her to nod back before I went through with the process of creating a Substitute Shinigami. I accelerated myself to the point where the action happened faster than she could literally comprehend and stabbed through her chest before flooding her body with my Spiritual Power.

In the fractions of a millisecond the passed after I stabbed her, she managed to surprise me by effortlessly accepting 1% of my base Spiritual Power. Either her potential for the Spiritual Power System of energy was through the roof, or the fact that she had her Aura unlocked played a pivotal role in making it seem that way.

I raised my Spiritual Power to 3%, then to 5% and finally to 10% before her body finally began resisting the surge of energy.

10% was… Horrifying. In my current Base State without any spiritual transformations, it was around half as strong as I had been when in my Hollowfied State I took over a thousand Rare and Unique Spiritual Enhancements and managed to beat Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. Accepting that much of my Spiritual Power now through the transfer didn't instantly bring Velvet up to that level, but it did speak volumes of how much more powerful she could get once she managed to make contact with her own Zanpakuto and master it.

I took back my Asauchi and in the literal blink of an eye, Velvet's Shinigami Form phased out of her physical body.

"So, how do you feel?" I asked after catching her physical body.

"The same? I don't know. Am I supposed to be feeling something?" She asked as she looked down to appraise her Shinigami Robes and Asauchi.

"Not really," I said. "The only thing you might be able to sense immediately is my Spiritual Pressure if I exerted it on you."

"Um…" Velvet began to look around, "Lapis, do you hear that?"

"No?" I narrowed my eyes on her.

"I think," she hesitated, "I need to go back to my physical body, right now." She sounded panicked.

"You can slip back into it. The moment you are perfectly superimposed with your body, you should wake up inside it," I said, trying to keep my own panic down as I watched her get increasingly frantic in her attempts to slip back into her body.

The moment her spiritual and physical body were superimposed, the one combined body began to phase in and out of reality by quickly shifting between states of opacity. One moment she was translucent enough to almost pass for invisible if I hadn't been staring right at her and in the next she would look perfectly normal.

My heart was at my throat as I struggled between wanting to douse her with potions, Healing Magic or several of the other restorative Items I had pending for my acceptance in my reserves of Gacha rewards, and the very real sense I got from my Pesquisa that she was perfectly fine and would be better off left untouched for her Soul to evolve like mine had way back when, when I first unlocked my Aura.

At the thought that she might be stuck as she was for anywhere as long as I was when back then — about thirty hours — I decided to gently pick her up and take her back to my apartment to monitor her in a more comfortable place. On my way back, her chaotic Spiritual Power snapped back into a stable position and I found her stirring in my arms.

Stopping my rooftop traversal back home, I watched as she slowly came to. "How are you feeling," I asked once she finally opened her eyes.

She took a second before grinning and propelling herself out of my arms, "Great!" As she landed on the roof, she held out and extended her right hand and in it appeared an Asauchi.

[Congratulations! For creating a Substitute Shinigami— Shinigami— Error…]

[Congratulations! For establishing the basis for an afterlife archetype— Error…]

[Congratulations! For rewriting the fundamental laws of the universe to accommodate purely spiritual beings you have earned a Divine Ability Gacha Coin!]

"What the— That's not supposed to be possible," I was bemused by the fact that she could call out her Zanpakuto outside of a Shinigami Form.

After all, she wasn't being sustained by the reality-warping effects of my Gacha Powers. Normally, a Substitute Shinigami would need to be dragged out of their physical body to be able to bring out their Zanpakuto as a Pure Soul. But, maybe having one's Aura unlocked made it possible to bring out enough Spiritual Power while not in a Shinigami Form to get away with what Velvet had just done.

I tested the theory by trying to bring out my Asauchi in my base form and succeeded rather effortlessly. The only drawback to not being in a Pure Soul state seemed to be that it brought back the previous restriction, removing about 10% of my total Aura just to materialize the spiritual sword construct. It used to be 50%, but maybe one or several of the Perks or Abilities I'd picked up since getting rid of that limitation did something to lower it for me.

"I managed to learn her name," Velvet said as she looked at her sword.

"Yeah? Well, don't keep teasing me. Bring her out… Unless it will manifest some kind of AOE effect. In that case, we should probably go back out of the Kingdom," I said.

She smiled and held her sword parallel with the ground. With her left hand on the tip of the blade, she brought both of her hands to meet in the middle right in front of her as she said, "Consummate, Kansatsuhoshi."

I virtually teleported over to Velvet before taking both of us several miles up and away from Vale. The reason for my abrupt action was the fact that Velvet's lacking control over her Spiritual Pressure had begun skyrocketing even before she finished her Release Command. Even after she had finished and I had set us down in a forest far away from any people, I could feel her Spiritual Pressure continue to climb.

"You know, I've seen and heard about a lot of odd ways for a Zanpakuto to manifest itself in its Shikai and Bankai states," I said, as I took a step back to look Velvet over. "Turning a sword into spiked brass knuckle trench knives, is definitely a new one, way up there." Not that I had any right to judge when turning a sword into a throwing knowing was much stranger since at least the brass knuckles were still a melee weapon.

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet," she said while taking an offensive fighting stance.

"Hmm? Show me what you've got, then," I said while grinning right back at her.

She charged at me and immediately the scope of the fight eclipsed all the other spars I'd had with her as her Aura, Ki, and newfound Spiritual Power propped her up to approximately city-levels of destructive attack potency. Her Semblance bestowed her a pseudo-Sharingan allowing her to challenge me into actually thinking about how I was going to fight her instead of just brute forcing my way into winning through sheer speed.

I noticed right away when her Shikai Ability kicked in because it came with a noticeable increase in her exerted Spiritual Pressure and Spiritual Power. A translucent yellow tail of raw Spiritual Power materialized and attached itself to her tailbone. Then another, and another, and so on and so forth at what I later realized were precise 60-second intervals.

Every tail gave her a noticeable and linear boost in Spiritual Power and Spiritual Pressure; that was just the convenient side effect. The actual main ability of her Shikai was much more impressive.

In the middle of one of our clashes, she directed her tails to hit me and in my infinite wisdom I let them collide just to see what would happen. When all that happened was that their color changed into a hodgepodge of mismatched hues, I backed off and asked, "Was that supposed to hurt me?"

Maybe I was being arrogant, but when the difference in Spiritual Power between two people was high enough, the one with more Spiritual Power could automatically just cancel out all the force and effects of the other. Perhaps subconsciously, I'd taken the threat of her attack seriously and unintentionally stopped it from doing anything to me.

"No, but this might," Velvet said as she pointed at me and one of her tails glowed.

"Bakudo Number Four: Hainawa!" From her extended fingers, a beam of light shot out and struck me before compacting into a mass of constricting energy.

Another one of her tails glowed and out of her hand shot a Ki Blast right at me. Or, not really a Ki Blast, but a simulacrum of one replicated entirely out of Spiritual Power.

I had to exert about 25% of my Spiritual Power to break out of her binding spell in time to dodge the Ki attack. As I committed to the evasive maneuvers, I whistled at the radiant heat and thunderous boom of the explosion created by the Ki Blast. The amount of proficiency she showed with those two techniques that I hadn't taught her yet was suspiciously high. Considering I was literally the only person who could have taught her, I think it was reasonable to infer that her Shikai copied my level of mastery.

Velvet vanished in a flicker of speed, aiming to attack me from behind. An amusing idea wormed its way into my head and I waited precisely for the moment her foot would have made contact with my head to do the exact same flicker trick on her. Of course, because of her Semblance, she likely saw it coming and just kept the chain of flickers going.

When she made it clear that she would not succumb to my counters after ten or so recursive instances of each of us appearing behind each other with the Afterimage technique, I let her have the victory in this exchange by tanking her punch with my forearm.

"Alright, alright," I said as I held my hands up in mock surrender. "You've made your point. Your Shikai Ability is very impressive. What remains to be seen, however, is whether or not it is broken." I asked, "Can you retain those techniques you picked up from me once you leave that state?"

Velvet considered the question for a moment before shrugging and dismissing her Zanpakuto. The multicolored tails disappeared and immediately afterward, she performed a textbook execution of a Ki Blast followed by a couple Kido spells.

"I don't think I'd be able to do this without my Semblance," she said, appearing somewhat apologetic for some reason.

"Welp, there goes my plans for teaching you the art of Kido. I wonder how quickly we can get you to start casually flinging around Level ninety-plus spells," I muttered to myself.

"Let's find out later," Velvet said as she sauntered her way over and melodramatically held on to me, "Right now I'm tired and, if I recall correctly, we had a deal." She laid her right index finger on my chest and began to lazily drag it down and about my lower body.

"Hmm," I hummed with a smile as I picked her up and made a hasty retreat back to my apartment.

…

"Alright, I'm going to start now," I solemnly said as I looked between all of the Grimm Titans.

They each bowed their heads to me before roaring profoundly enough that it could probably be heard for hundreds of miles and after all the lesser Grimm in the immediate vicinity left, I began… to activate my higher Rarity Gacha Coins. Not all at once, because that seemed like a terrible idea, but still fast enough under my accelerated perception that even if I was going through them one at a time, it was still enough to get through dozens a second.

I started with the Locked Gacha since those were guaranteed to be beneficial, even if they might come with indirect consequences; like by causing spontaneous unconsciousness.

The results were pretty tame as I started with all the rewards from the Battle of Beacon. The Rares gave me veritable truckloads of Lien, which still only amounted to chump change compared to all that I already had, with every hundred giving me a Level in Skills for the six basic Aura Skills I'd already pretty much mastered on my own.

The Uniques gave literal tons worth of high-quality Dust in all the various types and levels of industrial refinement. The standard was ten kilograms of Crude Dust, but every tenth Unique would drop a kilogram of Crystalline Dust, every hundredth would drop 100 grams of Powdered Dust and every thousandth would drop 10 grams of Criticalized Dust.

If the grades were converted to energy output equivalent from a world that didn't run on Dust, the Crude Dust could be comparable to wind or solar power, Crystalline Dust was like gasoline, Powered Dust was rocket fuel, and Criticalized Dust would outperform any theoretical nuclear fusion reaction per gram of material used. To put it another way, Powdered Dust was the really, really good stuff that powered the main infrastructure of cities and Criticalized Dust was so unbelievably rare that it was not public knowledge how much of it was kept around to power the strongest of mankind's weapons that usually only came out to drive away the Titans.

I didn't have any Epic Gacha from the Mission and all the Legendaries I'd gotten had already been accepted, which was a bummer. But that just meant I could get on with accepting all the stuff I had pending from the Final Release Scenario.

The Rares, coming from Unseated Officers of which I'd defeated and killed thousands, gave me tons of Skill Levels for various Kido Spells, none of which were over Level 69. This included sealing spells, combat spells, healing spells, and even barriers, some of which didn't get to Level 10 due to me not having enough Rare Gacha Coins to use up.

The Uniques gave me higher level Kidos along with several Unique level Skills; some examples included the Flash Step or a Skill to augment my mastery over my Zanpakuto like I had for Melee or Firearms. Again, I didn't have nearly enough Unique Gacha Coins to max out every Skill I got, but I probably got all the various ones available for the Grade.

At the tail end of this round of Gacha, I began to slow down as I started treading on truly busted rewards. For the Final Release Scenario, the only Unique that warranted this kind of attention was the one I got for unintentionally killing Orihime Inoue with that indiscriminate Cero during my fight with the Captain Commander.

[Results: Rarity — Unique 9,900 (Locked) | Orihime Inoue (Summon)]

Now, this was a particularly noteworthy reward because, for one, I felt terribly awkward knowing I could just summon one of the two simulated people I felt most badly over killing and two… Orihime had one of, if not the most, broken ability I'd come across yet. At least, if I was understanding it correctly from what the background information of my Directives told me, then her power allowed her to — among other, less important things — reject and reverse phenomenon (literally whatever) and reconstruct anything to a previous whole state.

Sure, she was limited by her relatively insignificant Spiritual Power to work slowly, but she could, in theory, reject damage or effects done by a godlike or beyond godlike entity. Pretty much the only things that I had to worry about, were things of that nature, which even with all my busted cheats and abilities I wouldn't be able to counteract, but if I could just hold on until I summoned her…

Her value to me could rise to or beyond that of a Mythical or even Divine Gacha once I started taking on things that could actually threaten me.

I moved on to the twelve or so Epic Gachas I'd gotten from defeating or killing most of the Lieutenants in the Gotei 13 along with one Uryu Ishida. Half the rewards were Companions while the other half were Epic Grade Spiritual Enhancements; both of which were kinda "meh" for Epic Grade rewards. The only exception to this was what I got from killing Uryu Ishida.

[Results: Rarity — Unique 88,088 (Locked) | Royal Blood (Ability)]

[Congratulations! For adopting traits and powers from the three main spiritual races (Shinigami, Hollow, Quincy), you have earned a Mythical Ability Gacha Coin!]

[Results: Rarity — Mythical 9,999,999 | Perfect Hybrid (Ability)]

[Congratulations! For replacing a superior version of an Ability (Perfect Hybrid) with that of an already existing Ability (Saint & Sinner), you have earned a Locked Divine Gacha Coin!]

I was forced to accept the Mythical Gacha when I noticed my perfectly even Shinigami and Hollow spiritual powers threaten to extinguish the barely formed Royal Blood that was supposed to give me Quincy powers. That would not go over well, given it would result in my physical body breaking down in a manner that involved at least a continental-level detonation.

Perfect Hybrid fixed that before I had to resort to giving up my physical body or risk scaring the entire planet with worldwide earthquakes and all the environmental concerns that came with such a cataclysmic event. Moreover, once again, my Spiritual Power was exponentiated to a higher degree now that my previously barely present Quincy powers were evenly matched with the Shinigami and Hollow counterparts.

I was not twice as strong as before, nor was I four or even eight times stronger. To be honest, I was at a level so far removed from what I previously gauged was my peak against the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13 and even the Brother Gods, that I wasn't even sure how much more potent my Spiritual Power was. At the very least, blowing up a planet the size of Remant was definitely in the cards.

Setting aside the scary thoughts, I moved on to the Legendary Gacha Coins.

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 100,000 (Locked) | Spiritual Enhancement (Consumable)]

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 200,000 (Locked) | Zanjutsu Master, Hoho Master, Hakuda Master, Kido Master (Perk)]

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 300,000 (Locked) | Soul Syphoning Eyepatch (Item)]

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 500,000 (Locked) | Shunko (Skill)]

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 700,000 (Locked) | Bankai Upgrade: Deathless (Perk)]

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 900,000 (Locked) | Mayuri's Stash (Item)]

Ok. I'm still conscious. Very good…

The rewards were again, kinda "meh," but that was only compared to what I already had. Obviously, everything would pale in comparison to my most broken Abilities and power-ups. But, such was the trying life of a helpless gambler. Being self-aware of the fact is what allowed me to appreciate what I got for what it was worth.

Spiritual Enhancements even at the Legendary Grade were entirely useless at this point. They were the equivalent of dropping a cup's worth of spiritual energy into my already lake-sized reserves. The "Master" Perks were similarly useless as all they did was raise my talent and proficiency in using the various disciplines Shinigami cultivated; disciplines I'd more or less already maximized my efficiency in.

The Soul Syphoning Eyepatch was a perfect replica of function and fashion that Kenpachi Zaraki wore which would severely limit my Spiritual Power to any level I set. Why it was not a negative Gacha pull was beyond me, considering it was just a much better version of my other Chunni Eyepatch of Power Suppression, but I digress.

Shunko and the Deathless upgrade were the only rewards that actually made a difference to my combat prowess. Shunko was a pretty intense force and speed multiplier of a Skill, fitting for the Legendary Grade, while the Bankai Upgrade was all about utility; namely, I could swap places with Katayoki whenever I brought him out to play.

Mayuri's Stash was… better left alone. Again, how that "Item" was not a negative pull was entirely anyone's guess. There were probably a ton of questionable things in there that mishandling would result in, well… Maybe not my death, but still probably a bad time. I didn't have the guy around to use Stolen Valor on and figure out how useful or not whatever unholy mess of his I brought out.

Moving on, I had two Mythical Gacha from killing Unohana and Shunsui and two Divine Gacha from killing Captain Commander Yamamoto and for achieving "transcendental power."

[Results: Rarity — Mythical 1,000,000 (Locked) | Bankai Upgrade: Double Dipping (Perk)]

[Results: Rarity — Mythical 9,000,000 (Locked) | Shikai Upgrade: Semi Unleashed Permanence (Perk)]

Welp, there goes my Zanpakuto becoming even more unbearably overpowered than I could have ever imagined prior to this very instant. The Bankai Upgrade let me take on a second permanent trait, for a total of up to three taken away — one held by Katayoki until he was dispelled — at a time. The Shikai Upgrade though, turned that state into a permanent half-Bankai state where Katayoki would not manifest completely outside my body, but his limbs could along with his copy of the knife. Essentially, the most busted of his abilities were now available to me while in Shikai and I got a nice pair of ghostly limbs and knives to ward off any melee attackers.

[Results: Rarity — Divine 10,000,000 (Locked) | Final Resort: Kaminaki Tengoku (Ability)]

[Results: Rarity — Divine 66,666,666 (Locked) | Extradimensionality (Perk)]

[Congratulations! For attaining a Fifth Layer of Transcendence (Beyond Shinigami)— Recalculating…]

[Congratulations! For attaining a Sixth Layer of Transcendence (Beyond Shinigami & Hollow)— Recalculating…]

[Congratulations! For attaining a Seventh Layer of Transcendence (Beyond Shinigami, Hollow & Quincy)— Recalculating…]

[Congratulations! For attaining an Eight Layer of Transcendence (Beyond Shinigami, Hollow & Quincy, Synergized With Aura)— Recalculating…]

[Congratulations! For attaining a Ninth Layer of Transcendence (Beyond Shinigami, Hollow & Quincy, Synergized With Aura, Consolidated with Apportioned Ki and Magic) you have earned a Transcendant Gacha Coin]

Wow, the sheer disparity between the rewards was extremely jarring. The first gave me my Zanpakuto's unique version of the be-all-end-all move that every Shinigami could theoretically attain if they mastered their blade to a point that made Bankai look like Shikai, while the other… Kinda just masked my Spiritual Power.

No really, becoming an extradimensional entity just meant that my power was so incomprehensably high that even Captains couldn't perceive it unless they approached it in scope. I didn't get any stronger, but I had a pretty much set-in-stone suspicion that the level of my "Extradiemsionality" would determine how many leagues in power I'd jump the moment I accepted that Transcendant Gacha Coin.

Feeling like the chances of me blacking out were approaching 100%, I decided to lay down before accepting the Transcendent Gacha Coin.

[Results: Rarity — Transcendent 100,000,000 (Locked) | World God — Soul (Ability)]

Astonishingly, I wasn't rendered unconscious. I felt like I definitely should have considering the horrifying transformation my Soul had just endured, but in the end, I remained lucid. Also, much like with Extradimensionality, this new World God Ability didn't do much to increase my power, although, it did very much increase the potential for my Spiritual Power beyond my wildest dreams.

All this time I'd been running on the well-founded and formerly concrete idea that Spiritual Power was among the least powerful systems of energy manipulation I had access to. Ki could grow infinitely and Magic could take me well beyond the point of attaining any conventional meaning of Godhood. Spiritual Power and Aura on the other hand were finite and defined pretty much at birth. Gacha allowed me to get around the latter part of that previous statement without issue, but in the end only the strongest spiritual beings were even remotely close true divinity; power in potency or scope that threatened a universe.

Now that I was a "World God," everything I knew about Spiritual Power was flipped on its head. Suddenly, my previously soft-capped Spiritual Power could grow by leaps and bounds again. It wasn't up to me, though, considering I technically lost "my Soul," but all the inhabitants that would appear in the veritable universe that had taken its place would do the growing for me.

Yes… The World God Ability basically caused my Soul to implode into a microcosm of the universe; a World if you will. The vast unending tide of my Spiritual Power gave birth to a multilayered universe that replicated the dimensional hierarchy of the world its power originally came from.

There was a set dimension for a Human World, a version of Heaven, Hell, and a domain for Hollows. There was a system for reincarnation and the generation of new Souls and life to start populating the various worlds. There was even a virtually endless amount of extradimensional space for me to no longer need to bother with Inventory Slots.

This was… a lot to process and I was honestly starting to get mental fatigue from considering all the implications that came with accepting a bunch of these higher-Grade Gachas. Fortunately, there weren't many more to go through considering I fell into my depressive funk between the Final Release Scenario and the Extinction Mission.

I didn't bother with the Grade or whether the next set of Gacha came from the Final Release Scenario and just started accepting all the remaining Gachas.

[Results: Rarity — Divine 75,000,000 (Locked) | Relativistic Acausality (Perk)]

[Results: Rarity — Mythical 6,825,000 (Locked) | Shadow Form (Ability)]

[Results: Rarity — Mythical 4,250,000 (Locked) | Corrupting Haze (Skill)]

[Results: Rarity — Uncommon 69 | Lover's Mark (Item)]

[Results: Rarity — Uncommon 6,969 (Locked) | Partner's Privilege (Perk)]

[Results: Rarity — Mythical 9,999,999 | Champion of the Gacha Gods! (Perk)]

[Results: Rarity — Epic 20,000 | Character Potentiometer (Ability)]

[Results: Rarity — Divine 20,000,000 | Faith™ (Ability)]

And with that I was done.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I went over my newest haul of bullshit powers. Relativistic Acausality allowed me to get around faster-than-light speeds without any of the drawbacks that came with the feats, like the shortening of distances or blueshifting of everything. Basically, it was a Perk that told physics that "it could go fuck itself" and let me exist as an exception to the speed limit of the universe without grave or unforeseen consequences.

Shadow Form and Corrupting Haze were self-explanatory. I could turn into an entity made out of darkness and shadows to basically ignore physical or material damage and I could cast out waves of corrupting darkness that decayed just about everything into nothing. It was a lite version of becoming an immovable object and an unstoppable force.

Lover's Mark and Partner's Privilege were the things I got from the first night I slept with Velvet. Both Perks implicated her as she was my only Lover and Partner, although, the way the second Perk worked implied it could work on several people at a time. I doubt I would let it, but that was beside the point. What they did was pretty simple.

The former gave me a matching set of paper-tattoo-like pieces of parchment that I could use on anyone I "loved" to share with them our general location and give a rough approximation of how we were feeling. For an Uncommon "Item" the effects were pretty ridiculous considering that the only restriction was that the Item could be misused and wasted if the people who applied the marks didn't genuinely love each other. There was no defined range on the effects.

Contrary to what one might initially think of Partner's Privilege given the way it was earned, allowed anyone I considered a partner — romantic or otherwise — to share my Gacha powers. Not get a version of it for themselves to start getting their own Gacha Coins, I meant that I could give them an extension of my existing Perks, Abilities, and so on… to a very limited extent. It was honestly a very technical and complex Perk that came with a lot of potential and just as many hardships to make the most out of it.

Champion of the Gacha Gods! Was a Perk that made breaking Curse easier. Basically, it made it so any Curse I previously needed a certain higher Grade reward or ability to break would now required one lesser Grade to break the same Curse. If that didn't make any sense, with Hogyoku's Wish — whenever it finally finished cooling down — I could now break up to Divine Grade Curses where I could previously only break Mythical Grade Curses. Alternatively, I could still break Mythical Grade Curses but it would only take six weeks instead of six months to cooldown and use Hogyoku's Wish.

Character Potentiometer allowed me to perfectly customize how broken I wanted to be to make learning new techniques or engaging with others in spars a much less miserable experience for all parties involved. It was better than either eyepatch I had as it worked on more than just my Gacha-gotten gains. Moreover, it was a very comprehensive customizer, meaning I could theoretically take away all my powers to essentially become a powerless civilian but not turn off the aspect of Vitality I'd stolen from the God of Light to keep my safety all but guaranteed.

Faith™ kind of did the same thing my new World God Soul accomplished sans the whole recreating of another universe in an extradimension within my body. Basically, it empowered me based on how many people believed in me… Which, turns out, is a lot considering all the energy in my body nearly doubled the moment I got the Ability.

It made sense, since I had been the Great Unifier for a couple months now. After appearing on TV to disclose my more impressive feats to the world, I'd never gone back to do another interview or speak publicly again. Yet, after the fact, people started really looking into me and reporting on my background. When the mainstream news coverage of my background finally died off, I was officially given the title of Great Unifier and that kept me in the limelight for a couple extra days.

Things seemed like they would die down after that, but by then so many people had heard of me that I'd become world-renowned even though I had been trying to live a relatively simple and quiet life. That meant that whenever I left the house or could have been spotted publicly, there was always at least one person who recorded me. Some people were chill and either politely came to say hello or ask a few benign questions, while others… not so much.

Whenever I had run-ins with bigots or haters, doubters and just generally shitty people all around that made my life uncomfortable, I'd be forced to either take their shit or subject them to just a little Spiritual Pressure; not enough to hurt them, just but just enough for them to sweat and feel dread until they got the memo and promptly fucked off. This always caused a scene and ended up on forums and various non-mainstream news outlets. It gave me a reputation that solidified the opinions of everyone at the same time.

The people who believed in me had that belief validated, while others who remained skeptical were convinced that I was faking the videos. This caused more people to try their luck and more so on the cycle went until just last week when a group of 100 strong organized a protest outside the Bistro Cafe during one of my Thursday workdays to "prove" I was a phony.

That kind of nonsense was exactly why I didn't want to become famous, but no, I just couldn't keep my hypocritical hands out of any situation I could change for what I felt was best. Granted, I hadn't really been trying to make my life any easier. It wouldn't have even been a challenge to keep my personal identity separate from a false one I made just for the Great Unifier persona. But that would have been too much trouble and I didn't feel like it was needed when I could just brute force the issue, like I did with everything else.

Why the hell should I change my lifestyle just to avoid a disgruntled minority? So what if a hundred people showed up and tried to disrupt my life? That disruption would only last for as long as their most willful hater in the face of a fraction, of a fraction, of a fraction, of a fraction of a percent of my Spiritual Pressure. If anything, it made for a decent bit of entertainment to watch larger and larger groups of idiots have their world view shattered firsthand by just standing there… menacingly.

Anyway, with all the clout and hype about me as the Great Unifier and my presence felt around the entire world, Faith™ brought about an immediate and noticeable boost to my powers. This combined with the fact that I now had a miniverse for a Soul which would eventually give birth to entire worlds of people, Shinigami and Hollows that would all consider me their One and True God paired for a devastating combo.

At this point, I wasn't even sure I could eventually catch up with my Ki. Although, there probably wouldn't be a point to it as I was already on the fast track to having universe-breaking raw power. The only thing I really lacked to round out my build and consider myself pseudo-omnipotent and omniscient were more reality-warping powers.

That meant either waiting for Velvet, Jaune or anyone else I helped unlock their Ki to get strong enough that sparring or defeating them gave me new high-Grade Gacha, or I could go back into the grind of completing Scenarios and Missions. With Hogyoku's Wish, I was only one carefully worded desire away from getting dropped off in a hellscape with eldritch abominations or evil gods in need of slaying.

Alas, that was still a ways away. Until a few more months passed and my most prized Perk could be used again, I would be content to continue relaxing as I had been until now.