Mila
“So this Sea Master Aozen, just by father taking him as his lord, can boost the affinity to water Laws of all cultivators in our Territory by 25%?”
“Yes.” Mila’s doppelgänger, who looked like a humanoid with blue hair, pale skin, and gills on her neck was standing in the middle of the private chambers of the leader of a clan of aquatic cultivators, meeting with the clan leader and his two sons.
All about four meters tall, they looked kind of like a cross between frogs and chimpanzees, and they towered over her, all three of them D ranks.
“What is in it for him?” the same son asked, his father and brother yet to speak.
“He needs Territory for his race advancement.”
“And nothing else?”
“No.” Through the doppelgänger’s Sensory Domain, and the domains of several other doppelgängers spread throughout the underwater city, along with her real body near the teleportation platform, Mila could see the movement of the clan’s soldiers and knew things weren’t going to go as planned. Still, as this was by no means the first time this type of thing had happened, she wasn’t worried and didn’t let her knowledge show.
“I don’t believe you.” The clan leader finally spoke, his voice deeper than his son’s, more powerful. “I think you’re trying to scam us.”
“That is your prerogative.” Mila’s doppelgänger chuckled slightly. “Can I take this as you refusing my lord’s offer?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.” Mila’s doppelgänger turned to leave. “It’s your loss.”
But, before her doppelgänger could take two steps, the clan leader’s two sons moved with rapid speed and stood in her way.
“For the crime of trying to scam the Imbari Tribe, you will be imprisoned until we decide what to do with you.” Through her Sensory Domain, Mila could see the clan leader grin, the man likely thinking she had wealth on her due to the two spatial storage rings her doppelgänger appeared to be wearing.
“No, I won’t.” Mila’s doppelgänger turned and looked back at the clan leader, her aura radiating anger. “You will either let me go, or we will restart our negotiations.”
“Restart our negotiations?” The clan leader let out a booming laugh as twelve max level E rank clan elders entered into the room as well, all with weapons drawn. “I’ve already said no.”
“Let it be noted.” Mila’s doppelgänger looked around the room at the fourteen other members of the Imbari Tribe. “I gave your leader a choice.”
With that, she telekinetically grabbed all twelve elders and the clan leader’s two sons with Telekinesis, lifted them into the air, and tore off their legs at the knees, the floor of the clan leader’s private chambers quickly stained by greenish-yellow blood.
“Let’s restart the negotiations.”
Still E rank, Mila’s effective Aura stat was 155,199, and her doppelgänger’s aura stat was 66% of her own. Given most in the universe found it extremely difficult to raise their Aura stat, however, with even powerful D ranks generally only having a few thousand at most, none of the Imbari Tribe had an Aura stat of anywhere close to a twelfth of her doppelgänger’s. So she could use Telekinesis directly on their bodies so long as they weren’t expecting it.
Even with her Spirit stat maxed out, however, it would be difficult to break the bones of the clan leader’s two sons and the twelve elders, as everyone else in the room was a warrior, but their ligaments and connective tissue, well, they were much, much weaker.
“You will accept my lord as your master. You will report up any findings of E rank or higher resources in your Territory or beyond, with my lord having first purchase rights if you manage to secure the resources yourself. And, for the next 1,728 years or until my lord’s next rank advancement, you will pay a tax of 12.5% of your clan’s profits.” Mila sent the clan leader a contract with all the clauses she’d mentioned, as well as added wording to make cheating on the latter two points nearly impossible. “Do we have a deal?”
The clan leader looked from her, to his injured sons, to the injured clan elders, and then back to her. Then he accepted the contract while verbalizing his answer as well. “Yes.”
“Good.” Using her stealth skill, Mila had another of her doppelgängers bring her personal artifact, the Twin Dragons of Yin and Yang, to the doppelgänger dealing with the Imbari Tribe, transforming the two dragon shaped earrings into the form of a stamp with the image of a twelve-pointed multicolor star surrounding an actual star on the way, before using her disguise skill to make the image on the seal look like an ocean wave instead.
Then, when the seal arrived and the second doppelgänger dissipated without the clan leader or anyone else ever noticing its arrival, Mila’s doppelgänger placed the seal up against the clan leader’s forehead and communicated with Aalam to perform their new type of servant contract.
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In the status window of the clan leader, it would look like he was a servant of the fictional Sea Master Aozen and, rather than getting the many benefits of being one of Aalam’s true servants, the only boon he received had his affinity with the water element increase by 25%, his Territory gaining the same benefit.
This hid the fact Aalam was the Heavenly Spark Soul King while also greatly reducing the burden on his soul, allowing him to have around 8 servants under different identities for every one he received with the identity of the Heavenly Spark Soul King. And this in turn had allowed Mila to more than double his Territory over the last six years.
“I’ll be on my way then.”
Mila’s doppelgänger left the room and headed to the teleportation platform, no one blocking her. Then Mila had another doppelgänger take back the Twin Dragons, returning the artifact to her real body, as the doppelgänger the Imbari Tribe knew about made it to the teleportation platform and pretended to teleport away.
Mila then waited a couple hours, making absolutely sure no one was tracking her, and then her real body stepped onto the teleportation platform and teleported back to Earth.
* * *
Silvia
Silvia Davies, daughter of the President of Earth and head of Earth’s external monitoring department, officially called The Watchers due to Diana Alvaro’s love of Marvel comics, bowed slightly as Li Mila, the true leader of Earth, entered into the underground Russian bunker The Watchers were based out of.
“The Imbari Tribe is now category three.” Ms. Li nodded to Silvia and then walked toward her office.
The compound, while underground, had windows made of higher technology than previously available on Earth, showing scenes from seven different locations on the planet, from a jungle in the Philippines to the streets of Paris, and most of the workers were in one large room.
Their job had them connected to Earth’s soul net most of the time, and from there to the universal soul net to gather news about the state of the universe, so the main room had a series of comfortable couches to lie on. To the side of that main room, however, were three offices, one for Ms. Li, one for her grandfather, and one for Silvia.
Following Ms. Li into her office, Silvia used one of her other four minds, which were all still connected to the soul net, to update the list of the United Federation of Planets' territories. But, with her main mind, she decided to ask Ms. Li a question. “Ms. Li, you’re aware that the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s identity was revealed in the last council meeting, correct?”
“Yes.” Ms. Li chuckled slightly as she took a seat in one of the three chairs in the sitting section of her office, indicating for Silvia to sit in another. “What is it you would like to know, Silvia?”
Silvia took a seat and then took a second, recognizing by Ms. Li’s use of her first name that this would be an informal meeting. “You and Mr. Alvaro are monsters, correct?”
“Yes.”
“What type?”
Ms. Li smiled slightly. “Is this relevant to your job?”
“Yes.” Silvia nodded. “Part of my role is to look out for resources which might be of use to our force, and it seems likely you and Mr. Alvaro would have different needs than I would expect.”
“Oh.” Ms. Li chuckled slightly and her smile grew a bit wider. “I’m a Sublime Soul Succubus Empress and Aalam is a Sublime Soul Incubus Emperor. These are Heroic grade races of a much higher quality than even the Fabled grade race of Diana. And, like Diana, we require resources of a much, much higher grade than you’ll be able to find from searching the soul net. So you don’t need to worry about us.”
Silvia took a deep breath. As far as she could tell, Ms. Li looked almost exactly the same as her previous human self, an extremely beautiful half-Polish half-Chinese woman of average height with a lithe hourglass figure, and her bright pink eyes were from a skill, not a racial trait. But, looking up succubi on the soul net with one of her other minds, it seemed they generally changed to look like whatever they considered the epitome of beauty with every rank advancement, so it seemed Ms. Li was just confident in her own appearance, or possibly disguising her real form with that of her former life using her disguise skill.
“What about the other Earthlings who died during the last month before the integration? Did they end up on the same planet as you? And, if not, are we doing anything for them?”
“Your aunt and uncle?” The way Ms. Li’s bright pink eyes looked at her, as if they could see right through to her soul, was slightly unnerving, but also comforting in a way given this extremely skilled individual was her boss. “Is that who you’re worried about?”
“Among others.”
Ms. Li nodded. “No other Earthlings were reborn on Hira, the planet Aalam and I came from, but I’ve been deliberately targeting the D rank forces who managed to take over worlds during the same batch of integrations as Hira and Earth, as well as those still competing for contested planets.” Ms. Li, who had even more minds than Silvia despite also being an E rank, sent her the list of known planets whose apocalypse style integrations had started at the same time as Earth, of which there were over a hundred. And, crosschecking the forces already subservient to the Heavenly Spark Soul King, Silvia could see Ms. Li’s words were true. “That’s pretty much all we can do until the 72 years of the System hiding the planets are up and we send people to go investigate. At this time, I feel it’s a little too risky to send our own G rank youngsters in as reinforcements to contact the Earthling monsters, though that might change in the future.
“As for monsters from other planets on Earth, there were eleven confirmed cases, all killed by Earth’s factions before my arrival. And there are seventeen other likely possibilities.” Ms. Li sent Silvia another list containing monsters who acted with more intelligence than normal, and in several cases a higher level of morals. “Until recently, I didn’t want the possibility Aalam was the Heavenly Spark Soul King to be known, so I haven’t dealt with these monsters, but now seems like a good time.
“Why don’t you organize attempts to start dialogues with these beasts, preferably using those with the Omniglot Reader racial ability?
“A special System-run universal auction, which only happens once every 2,985,984 years, is about to start in a few days, and I have to get ready for it. So I leave this matter to your full discretion.”
Ms. Li indicated for her to leave, and Silvia rose, bowed slightly, and then did so, both excited by the idea of her uncle and aunt, who’d died to one of the plagues, still possibly being alive, and impressed yet again by Ms. Li.
The System auction she was referring to was a huge deal, with only B ranks and higher generally allowed to attend, even though the auction was hosted through the universal soul net, yet Ms. Li was going as well, the leader of a B rank force despite her being only an E rank.