Owen and Myra finished talking to Peggy fairly quickly and Owen made them stop by Thomas again before they were to head to the police station. "Hey, I saw you waving, anything I can help with?" Owen asked unable to hide the impatience in his tone. Thomas smiled and took out his wallet. "You know, your friend Peggy, she saved my daughter and grandson. I can't express my gratitude properly. I don't think I would ever be able to repay the debt either. You young folk are this city's future and I want to help support it. I heard you mention something about a guild. Are you planning on starting a union?"
Owen was confused for a moment before realizing the miscommunication. He spent a couple minutes explaining the business idea he was planning on using for what would be a US guild and Thomas had a serious look on his face. "Will you need funding for this?" That made Owen hesitate, they probably would, but it was hard to say if they would need a lot of money or barely any to get started. "I'm not sure. In the things I've read, guilds are essentially contractors that spend money on people to clear gates. They then make money from the materials gathered from monster and other things that are of the system. The real problem is I don't know if there is anyone who is interested in trying to make system gear yet using monster parts. I don't think they are enough people interested in the idea either."
That made Thomas nod his head in agreement. "The gates awarded loot, so there might be some who are interested, by why but loot when you can just clear a gate and probably get better." Thomas mumbled and Owen nodded his head in agreement. "My goal in the short term was to try and establish us as a healing force with Peggy at the forefront since she has gathered a lot of good will from the people involved in these gate breaks."
"She is also a good people person and could handle some of the more interpersonal problems that might come with creating a free clinic as a starting point." Myra added. Thomas looked between the two looking deep in thought, before pulling out a phone and dialing. "I have someone who might like to speak to the two of you." Several minutes went by as Owen and Myra continued to talk about their plan with Thomas nodding hear and there. The person he had called was some type of investor that neither Owen or Myra had heard about, but if it was someone who could provide money, Owen didn't mind at least meeting them.
They ended needing to run to the outskirts of the city where the damage had been less severe and got into a car there. About an hour's drive away, Owen only felt his heart sink for the future, but he blocked it away for the moment. The day wasn't done yet and he still had things to do, before letting himself go and mope. The thing that made his heart sink was the city's surroundings. Many gates that hadn't been close to the city center had wreaked havoc on the countryside as Owen could still see some monster stragglers wandering slowly towards the city.
When they made it to the possible investors house Owen felt like he had gotten sucker punched with wealth. The surrounding area had looked like normal farmland, with nothing truly special sticking out about it other than some planned tree lines. As they rounded one of the tree lines, A mansion took up most of the view, the decorations, lawn and architecture only managed to remind him of something like a palace rather than a country mansion. He felt his eyes wandering across all of the wealth simply displayed on the outside of the house. It was utterly disgusting how much money this man had.
They parked by the front entrance and a retinue of maids immediately moved outside to help guide everyone inside. Owen hardly noticed the pampering as they walked through the front doors only to see an even gaudier display of wealth, with several sections just being large bars of gold. It reminded him of cartoon characters wealth as each new thing made his eyes open wide. "Who would ever need this much money," he muttered and Myra murmured her agreement. He was give a cup of tea in the hallway walking towards some grand sitting room and it quickly began to feel gross putting up with the display.
Owen handed the teacup back and walked at a much faster pace towards the sitting room, which combined with his increased stats made it impossible for any of the maids to keep up without running. Bursting open the doors, Owen was surprised to see instead of the one wealthy investor he had been told about, there were two.
"Ah, you must be Owen, hopefully the drive here wasn't too much time out of your day. I'm Scott Bower and this is my sister Audrey." Owen smiled and introduced himself and Myra to the man. Everyone shared a smile as the maids were dismissed. Thomas moved to stand outside of the room and Scott gestured for chairs to be taken. "I understand you are hoping to create an organization based on the system?" Owen then took a couple minutes to explain how he had imagined their guild would begin, and doing his best to map out it's trajectory. Myra filled in for him here and there, but she left Owen to do most of the talking. By the time Owen was done explaining, Scott seemed troubled, but Audrey looked genuinely intrigued.
"I would be willing to provide the funds for the beginning operations, since you two don't seem to have much in the way of funding, I will take a 95% share of the profits, but I will defer to you on the different business ventures depending on if the ideas actually seem to have a high chance at profit." Owen nodded, he didn't have much of a leg to stand on quite yet, but this was a good start. He had gotten ready to accept, but Myra cut in. "20%. 20% or we will have to look for other possible investors. We currently are some of the strongest people on earth and even with just our strength, that is enough backing that we need more. People know of us now and know we are strong."
"Why would we choose such a low percentage, when we already have begun some of the process. My sister Peggy is out there right now building trust with the people of the city. Anyone else who chooses to back us in turn will get some of that trust in them." Myra stated flatly, she didn't look nervous at the chance of them saying no, but Owen immediately felt like his hairs were standing on end. Scott nodded however and it looked like a fire had been lit in Audrey's eyes. "20% is a lot for trust by itself. What about 15% and we give you both a sum up front." Owen felt out of his depth as Myra and Audrey began to haggle and did his best not to make too much eye contact with Scott who still seemed somewhat disinterested.
The eventual agreement Myra haggled for was 17% of the profits and a lump some of cash to be split among the group. Myra discreetly handed the money over to Owen who immediately placed it inside of his storage bracelet. They continued to talk with the Bower's for a while, before taking their leave. There wasn't much more they could do for now, while a lot needed to be done by Audrey. Several hours later, they were back in the city, with Peggy and Lucas gathered together as the four started talking plans.
"Each of us was given approximately ten grand to use on whatever we'd like, as part of our agreement with Audrey Bower." Myra began to explain. "I think we should use it in whatever way opens us up to clear gates as quickly as possible. There aren't many more gates that can be cleared by us right now, unless we want to try clearing a tier 3." Even Myra sounded hesitant at the idea, but Owen somehow felt like they were ready, he chose to keep his mouth closed this time. As Myra updated the others on the current plan. Owen was also getting impatient as he hadn't managed to look at any of his notifications for more than a glance while riding in the car.
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They decided to reconvene in the morning, with the decision being to meet up at Myra and Peggy's apartment. Lucas waved the girls bye before throwing a grin to Owen as he left. "Don't forget, you still have to teach me more skills to help with my inheritance." Owen gave him a fake smile. He didn't feel any amusement anymore, he had pushed himself to the limit over the past day and he needed real rest. "Do you guys mind if I crash at your place?" Owen asked as he only barely remembered that he no longer had an apartment to live in. Another sign that he had been working himself to hard over the past couple days.
Peggy smiled. "Of course, we have some space on the couch reserved just for you!" They each looked wiped and slowly made their way to the apartment building, glad to see that it had hardly been damaged when they arrived. Owen practically collapsed onto the couch and was about to fall asleep, but a light reminder from Peggy that he still had dried up blood covering his body, he waited as gratefully accepted a chance to shower. It felt nice as the warm water slide through his hair and down his back, the tension that had held a strong grip and him slowly being washed away as he gave himself a chance to relax.
He only got out when the water started to get cold, feeling grateful that they had left him clean up last. Stepping out of the shower he saw a set of clothes already set aside for him, not giving himself to long to think about it. He dressed and moved back out into the living room. "I guess you do clean up nice." Peggy smiled and Myra glanced over. Owen felt his cheeks burn slightly, but he ignored it. "I appreciate that, I'd love to spend some more time chatting, despite it not being that late into the day quite yet, but I think I need some time alone."
Both of them immediately looked concerned, but Owen gave them a wistful smile. "I think I'm okay, just need some time to process things. The last couples weeks have not been... well they haven't been great." Myra nodded thoughtfully and pulled on Peggy's arm to guide her away from the living room.
Before the inevitable moping he knew was going to take place as soon as he would try to fall asleep, it was time to look at some notifications. Deciding to ignore all of the individual kill notifications, he just skipped to the end of them.
*32654 experience gained, 16327 experience has been consumed by your 2nd grade soul.
You have gained 5 levels, you have 10 unallocated stat points.*
*Your class Polymath's apprentice has leveled up. you gain 1 stat point in mana, strength, perception, agility, dexterity and luck*
*Your Familiar has gained a skill through devouring a monster of high quality x6*
*Congratulations, you have earned the title, Against the Strong, for slaying more than 10 tier 2 bosses in a single day. Against the Strong grants +2 to every stat when facing a boss monster.*
Owen was thoroughly blown away, a single day of grinding, even if it was against several gate breaks had resulted in 5 full levels, with him already having almost 20% of a bonus towards his next level. He could feel himself getting giddy as he also now had the opportunity to train for free stat points again, though he remembered one of the conversation with Xerxes being that you would only be able to gain half of the possible stats points if you already had a class. He would still be able to gain 15 free stats, which was already several levels worth of strength. Even if most of it would go towards his mana. It was too hard to increase it otherwise.
Sadly, all of the extra possible free stats for every ten levels would eventually be used up, when you upgraded your class and unlocked a secondary class. Regardless, with that being far in the future, Owen immediately began to focus on all of the other upgrades he could give himself now that he had some free time and free stats to gain.
He spent the first hour of the night focused on upgrading his mana stat with free points, before spending another several hours absorbing the experience his soul had absorbed into his core. The light green color of his core slowly began to darken as more and more of the experience was absorbed into it. By the time Owen had finished his core was shining a dark green color. He knew he still had some time before he would be able to upgrade it again. When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see that the 1 mana stat he had gained from an hour of meditation had turned into 6 stat points after he had absorbed all of the experience. Confused he dove back into his core space trying to get a better idea of what had happened.
He tried remembering the process of absorbing the experience and he realized that as he began to control the flow of his core, his man began to circulate throughout his body several times faster that Owen had thought possible. He did his best to keep up the speed, but without anything to absorb he only managed to keep the pace for a couple seconds before his entire body began to hurt. Deciding not to do that again, without at least having some experience, he finally did his best to get some rest.
He went through a cycle of crying and trying not to make to much noise as he gave himself a chance to grieve his dad's death. He decided he would take some time the next day to go and bury some of his dad's belongings at the very least. He hated the sins even more for using a skill that even burned up the body, but the belongings would have to be enough for the ceremony. He wished he would've been able to fix things with Jared. He hadn't seemed in control of himself at all when they had fought, the movements he had made were nothing like what someone at level 30 should be capable of. Owen decided that he would also try and find a way to research the sins or at least make a list of questions he would ask the goddess in 9 days time. Eventually his tears dried and sleep took him.
The following morning, Owen didn't want to wake up quite yet. A comfy blanket had been placed on top of him sometime during the night, with an even comfier pillow having been placed under his head as well. He didn't remember having been given anything to sleep with, but he was grateful nonetheless and decided to repay the favor by getting breakfast going. Hot steaming pancakes were placed onto plates with eggs and sausage patties joining them on the plates. Peggy said her thanks as she sat down, but a still not very awake Myra only ended up mumbling her thanks after stuffing most of her mouth with food.
After breakfast, Owen took a better chance to describe what had happened the day before with both both his dad and Jared. Finishing with the description of his meeting with the Polymath. He wasn't as sad anymore and neither Myra or Peggy overdid their sympathy. They both simply listened and began trying to help him plan in preparation against the sins in the future. Lucas arrived an hour or so later and they all began moving to an address Audrey had texted to Myra.
"So do you think this is a meeting to talk about how the management system will work or some other business focused conversation." Owen asked already preparing to not understand anything being said, but Myra just shook her head. "No, I think the address is the location of the new guild building." She said with a small smile. Owen was surprised, but after a moment of comparing what Audrey had been like during the first meeting, he felt it made sense how quickly she was moving. "So what's the plan then, we become a charity for clinic for a while?" Lucas asked without much enthusiasm. Peggy gave him a quick look, but also looked at Myra interested.
"I think for now, we charge a minimum, I think Audrey will give more specifics, but essentially there won't be almost any profit in the beginning, but once the system has been around for a while longer, people will began wanting monster parts for things." Owen looked at her with a big smile. "I guess since you seemed to be leading the charge, I think that would make you the CEO of the worlds first system guild?" He said slightly teasing. She just smiled back and a window popped up in front of Owen.
*Congratulations, you have earned the title, Rising Guild Leader, for being the ninth person to create a guild. This title grants 3 stat points to perception and 3 stat points to luck.*
"I passed level 25 earlier yesterday and unlocked the title system!" Myra cheered.