Epecteos
Summoning his bastard sword into his spatial storage ring, Epecteos Ka’Dravone sighed and waved his left hand over his head, emitting water element infused mana to clean his face and the ten horns his race had instead of hair. Then he took a white T-shirt out of his spatial storage ring and put it over his purple and black patterned chest.
Epecteos was tired. He’d lived too long and almost every day had been spent training with his sword. But the passion wasn’t there anymore, and he was noticing the starting signs of his body truly starting to age.
He’d been alive for 5,347 years, yet what did he have to show for it? He’d been the only member of his tribe to ever make it to D rank, so everyone he'd ever loved had died over half his lifetime ago. And no one in the tribe had been knowledgeable enough to tell him the dangers of following the path of 12 elements, so no force powerful enough to help him rise had ever been willing to take him in.
He was stuck. Advancement was impossible. And, while he controlled an E rank and five F rank planets, he had to serve at the whims of a king less talented than himself just because the man was C rank. What was the point?
Considering yet again to just give up on his advancement and live out the rest of his life like a hedonist, Epecteos activated Telekinesis and launched off the surface of the ocean, flying through the sky about a quarter of the way across the planet in just a few minutes. Then he landed on the rooftop garden of his palatial penthouse apartment taking up floors 678 to 683 of the planet’s tallest building.
“Bothil!”
Almost immediately, a human male with pale pinkish skin, blond hair, and blue eyes appeared, having teleported next to him. “You called, sir?”
As he entered the rooftop entrance to his home, a door which led onto a balcony overlooking a large room, his butler followed him. The room was five stories tall, took up 400 square meters, and housed his book and weapons collection, the room filled with the aura of all twelve elements emanating out of 144 Epic Grade E rank weapons and 1728 books of magic.
Jumping from the balcony down into the center of the room, where there were three couches surrounding a triangular table, Epecteos sat down on one. “Bothil, I want to be entertained.”
“Women, performance, or story, sir?”
“Woman, singular, new.” Epecteos leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes.
“Yes, sir. I have just the female.” And with that Bothil disappeared.
Then, about a minute later, a young woman wearing a forest green sundress was teleported in to sit on one of the couches and Epecteos opened his eyes to look at her. Human, she had long scarlet hair, pale skin, and bright green eyes, or at least that’s how she wanted to appear. It took Epecteos a second, but he had a Law Pupa of Illusion and the Perception of a max level D rank, so he could tell there was an illusion around her, though he couldn't tell what it was hiding.
Intrigued, as he took off his shirt, he also puffed out a breath and the illusion around her crumbled, showing a woman who looked exactly the same, only with different coloring. Instead of red, her hair was black. Instead of bright green, her irises were yellow. And, instead of pale, her skin was a light violet. She wasn’t a normal human, but one with Infernal ancestry.
Her dress was also blue, not forest green, but Epecteos didn’t care much about that, as it would be removed soon anyway.
“Interesting.” The woman smiled at him. “Your E rank butler didn’t appear able to see through the illusion, but you could easily. It seems my skill isn’t strong enough to hide from a peak D rank, at least one that trains in the Law of Illusions.” She leaned forward, placing her left elbow on her left thigh and using her hand to hold up her chin. “But are you able to see through my other layer of disguise?”
Epecteos started to frown. This woman was interesting, and her form was definitely beautiful, but she wasn’t the type of woman Bothil would generally pick for him. Epecteos was long bored of flirting, especially with a youngster like he was still sure this woman was. But, more than her personality, after thinking about it for a second he realized the subtlety of the woman’s illusion had been far stronger than he’d ever heard of from an F rank, meaning she likely had several abilities strengthening an already very high grade skill. And, if her words were to be believed and she had another layer of disguise, it was a disguise he couldn’t see through, which was a bit scary.
She had to be an emissary of some kind, but by this point in his life Epecteos didn’t really care. Anyone who sent an F rank emissary to him wasn’t someone who could help him with his advancement, so what did it matter?
Using his Telekinesis skill he gently tried to remove her dress, but she smiled at him and used her own Telekinesis skill, one at least Legendary in grade, to hold her dress to her body, and, as he didn’t feel any desire to use force, he stopped.
“You’re welcome to take me, Mr. Ka’Dravone. I can’t and won’t try to defend myself.” She smiled warmly. “You would however most likely anger the only man in the universe both able and willing to give you what I’m guessing you most desire.”
The woman summoned what looked to Epecteos to be a pair of F rank telepathic rings, one of which she put on and the other she tossed at him.
Intrigued, and honestly not having anything much better to do, Epecteos put on the ring, the artifact resizing itself slightly to be able to fit on his right pinky.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“So, what is the offer you are trying to make? And why make it while disguised as a high class prostitute?” Epecteos leaned back in his seat.
“For the latter question, it is difficult for an F rank to meet with someone of your stature, especially if she wants to remain secretive about the offer she’s making. For the former, I’d need you to sign a contract first before we talk about it.”
[Blank] has sent you a contract request.
Terms:
1. For one standard hour, neither you nor [Blank] can tell a lie to the other
2. Any information shared during the next hour must stay confidential and cannot be shared without the explicit permission of the other party
Punishment:
All stats reduced by 36 times for 24 hours
Do you accept?
Yes/No
“Interesting.” The fact she was even trying to make a contract with him, a powerful D rank, meant she was confident the contract would be able to bind him, which was almost as revealing as her ability to hide her name. The woman had already shown off a powerful illusion based disguise skill and implied she might have a biological based one as well, both of which would have to be heavily boosted and of high grade—or, more impressively, possibly a single triforce based skill which could do both. If her contracts were as powerful as her being able to bind him with one would imply, combined with the strength of her disguise, it meant he was likely talking to someone with at least a Legendary grade class. And, given her ability to hide her name in the contract and the strength of the Law of Illusions he’d felt from her disguise, she had at least two Law Larvae at middle grade, which was very impressive.
No matter how stupid he’d learned such a choice of starting class grade was, it meant he was likely talking to someone with an even higher degree of talent than himself.
“Forming a contract with an unknown party is generally a bad idea, what with the Devil’s Contract skill, which, seeing your other skills, you might have.”
The smile on the woman’s face grew wider. “It sounds like you don’t know much about the Devil’s Contract skill. Even with the highest grade version, its special ability requires the target’s soul to be at most one rank higher, with the only exception being if the higher rank target’s Soul stat is half that of the user’s or less. And, even boosted, a two rank difference still makes it nearly impossible for the skill to change any punishment clause.”
Epecteos started laughing, having almost confirmed the woman’s contract skill was in fact Devil’s Contract, and then agreed to her terms, the contract binding him like he expected. “So, what is it you’re offering, young lady?”
“Attunement increase by 6.25% and affinity with all Laws increased by up to 25%, dependent on the affinities of your race, both of which are likely to double within 7 years if you cooperate. Also, a high grade D rank System boon which you can use to clean your body of impurities, greatly increasing your chance of forming a core.”
Epecteos felt his eyes go slightly wide. Attunement increases were nearly impossible to come by, yet the woman seemed confident he’d get the full 6.25%. More than that, however, a high grade System boon was very rare. The only case he could think of where he could possibly get one would be to take an apprentice at F rank and raise him or her up to become an absolute powerhouse of a C rank. Given the obvious talent of the woman in front of him, she would likely fit the criteria if she were to rise to C rank, but he didn’t think she’d be a good fit for his teachings, so it was more likely it would be the man she’d mentioned.
“What is it you want?”
The woman smiled, likely knowing she had him interested. “Have you ever heard of the Twelve Element Primal Code?”
“Yes.” Of course he had. Knowledge of the names of the best cultivation techniques in the universe weren’t much of a secret once one reached D rank and could use D rank universal credits to buy information, and the Twelve Element Primal Code was the one he still dreamed of seeing a full copy of. One of the main reasons he hadn’t been able to advance after all these years was that his foundation wasn’t stable, and this was because the cultivation technique he practiced didn’t have an elemental leaning and wasn’t powerful. Had he trained in the Twelve Element Primal Code from when he was an F rank, he would have become C rank long ago, and, if he could get his hands on the section of the cultivation technique which described core formation, it would be a huge help in his advancement.
“If you can help me acquire the full first 8 levels of the cultivation technique within the next three standard years, I can help you have a much better chance of advancing.”
Ah. Epecteos had a better understanding of what he was dealing with now. This woman was ridiculously talented, but she likely didn’t have a big force behind her, or her force wasn’t willing to help her with what she was attempting. The man she’d mentioned was then also likely an F rank, but one she had confidence would at least reach E rank, thus the need for the Twelve Element Primal Code.
Epecteos, as one of the relatively low number of people in the universe to have ever followed the path of 12 elements to D rank, had been looking for the Twelve Element Primal Code for over half his lifetime, and thus had quite a bit of information on the forces in his galaxy cluster and the surrounding galaxy clusters which had the technique. He just didn’t have the power or influence to gain access to any of the versions of the technique he knew about without paying an exorbitant price, so it had never been worth it before.
“Why me?”
The woman summoned a bastard sword out of her spatial storage ring and tossed it to him. “My partner thought highly of the training he received from that.”
If Epecteos had been surprised before, he was much more surprised now. The sword was a legacy artifact he’d made and sold to the System only a hundred years ago, wanting to leave his techniques behind before his death, but not having any living heirs to leave them to. And he’d received a System notification about a year ago saying a native cultivator of a world undergoing an apocalypse style integration had chosen it as a reward.
The partner the woman was talking about thus couldn’t be someone from a major force, and almost certainly neither could she, despite her talent. He was dealing with two little people who’d managed to defend their newly integrated world, but who had made some major mistakes during the process, and it seemed one of them was already at least half his apprentice.
A genuine smile appeared on Epecteos’s face for the first time in over five hundred years. He’d mostly given up on teaching a long, long time ago, but he was starting to feel that urge again.
“Alright.” He summoned a cracked 3 cm diameter orb which glowed with twelve different colors and tossed it to the woman. “I’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s work together.”
“I was sold that 16 hundred years ago and it contains undamaged copies of the third, fifth, and seventh levels of the Twelve Element Primal Code.”
Epecteos couldn’t help but laugh at the surprised look on the woman’s face. Sure, it was unlikely the woman would actually be able to help him advance, but helping out two talented F ranks would at least be more fun than just training by himself and hoping for a miracle.