Rory woke curled around Steph, her back to his front. Both of them were shirtless, but Rory was only in his boxers and she her sweatpants. Dim light was streaming in from the window, so Rory checked the time on his commo. It was after seven in the morning and they had to get going.

Rory shook her shoulder. “Steph, it’s time to get up. We have to get the day started.” She groaned and rolled over onto her stomach, her mussed brown hair covered her face. Rory laughed and tried again.

He did eventually manage to wake her enough to let her know the time. Steph was not a morning person. Good to know.

It turned out that, since it was a measuring day for him, she had the evening shift. That meant there was no rush, so they decided to go out for breakfast together.

“Like a real couple,” Steph called it. Rory grinned widely, proud of that description.

After a leisurely breakfast, they went to Cosmica so Steph could set up a secure delivery of the infusers and ring but mainly for his measurements. The post-measurement discussion was standard for them, with the exception of an idea she had.

“I’ve been doing some research. We, and by that I mean Cosmica, has a particular enhancement that I’m pretty sure could help you.”

Rory looked at her from his normal pillow on her lap. “Oh? Trying to sell me your products now?”

She bonked him lightly with her tablet, which had become their thing when he was being snarky. “I’m serious. It’s actually more of a supplement than an enhancement. To summarize, it’s a generous infusion of specific nutrients to encourage body health. We use it to help hunters recover and rehabilitate after severe injuries. I was hesitant before because I was concerned about your body’s changing condition, but after some thought and recent… revelations, I think it could help you reach your optimal state faster, and maybe you can get that armor a little sooner. It’ll take more than a single infusion and I want to monitor you after taking it; just in case your body tried to do too much with it, or you have an adverse reaction.

“I was planning on going back on the hunt. I’m stalling a little in my growth.”

She nodded. “That’s normal, especially for a solo like you. Your gains per beast are going up, but not by nearly as much as your requirements. If you were in a group, you could fight much higher level beasts and even though the myst is shared, your growth would still be faster because they have substantially more myst. The general consensus is that from level 15 and on, everyone’s growth slows because it takes so much myst. It’s one of the reasons we create tiers. 15 is a sort of threshold where the math starts becoming untenable and that happens again and again throughout a Soul Wielder’s growth.”

“It can’t just be the myst requirements, though. Right?”

“Well, not. It’s also because of the myst beasts. Those a solo level 15 Soul Warrior can kill are substantially below level 15, which I imagine you’ve seen?”

He nodded.

“Yeah. Spending 16 SV is just not a lot when compared to the strength of creatures even as low as level 7 or 8. It was why putting one or two SV into sharpness was wise. Your body’s strength will allow you to do more damage with each blow, but you are still really vulnerable. A level 7 or 8 beast is equivalent to a level 15 warrior, which is why people pay for armor and enhancements.”

“That makes a ton of sense,” Rory affirmed. “It also pretty much matches what I’ve been experiencing.”

“But you have no armor yet, so you need to play it safe.” She glared down at him. “Right?”

He held his hands up in surrender. “I don’t want to die. I haven’t tried to fight anything above eight.”

Her face showing relief, Steph continued, “So back on topic, what do you think? Want to try the nutrients? They’re only twenty-five thousand pounds per infusion.”

“Only?” he coughed.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”

***

Thirty minutes later Rory was stepping out of the infusion and medical monitoring station. Most reputable facilities always want to monitor the repients after an infusion, just in case there’s a negative reaction. It happened only about once every million or so infusions, but it needs to be reacted to quickly when it did.

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“Why don’t you stay in the city today,” Steph asked, “just to make sure everything’s okay? If nothing goes wrong, you can go back to your normal schedule.”

Rory nodded, feeling she was really worried. “Okay. If that’s what you think’s best.”

She smiled hugely at him causing him to blink at her dumbly for a second. She grabbed his arm and dragged him away, waking him from his beauty-induced daze.

She let him go at the door and sent him off, reminding him to come back if he had any issues and to document any unusual discomfort that wasn’t too bad. If it got bad he was ordered to return immediately.

So Rory went to see Elphina and Penny first. They were in high spirits and put him to work immediately helping them arrange a new enclosure for the rainbow snakes. It still seemed small to him so he gave Elphina £500,000 cash from Carlisle’s stash and told her to expand the shop so they could have something of their own beast and materials warehouse.

“You know what? Just buy that weird shop next door and take over the whole building.”

Elphina cackled. “It’s not weird, it’s a sex toy shop. You aught to visit, it might spice up your life a bit.”

Rory rubbed his face with his hands, trying to hide his blush. “Yeah. Umm. I’m good. More importantly, if that cash isn’t enough, let me know. This rainbow potion is our future and we don’t want to mess it up. And add really good security. Don’t skimp on that.”

The old woman, who by the way looked like she’d been aging backward a few years, laughed again and hugged him. She then gave him a peck on the cheek and immediately started scrambling around, making comms, and ordering things and people. He got the hell out of the way.

Penny came up to him and gave him a nudge. “You knoooooow, Carlisle’s has been closed for days. Whispers are going around that something happened.”

“Huh,” was Rory’s only response.

“Hmmm. You know what else?”

“What’s that?”

She sounded concerned but her grin was huge, “Morton’s people have been really quiet. Almost silent since a few days ago too.”

“Huh.”

“Huh,” Penny parroted and then wandered off.

That reminded Rory what one of next stops should be.

***

Rory went to a hunting and camping shop he liked and filled back up on those infused foods and drinks. He even bought some of the more expensive ones. They did a little more and cost a lot more so he only bought a dozen. Cause he was rich now didn’t mean he should be wasteful. And frankly, he wasn’t used to spending a lot. Investing in businesses was different than just buying stuff for himself, because that wasn’t really spending, it was investing in his and his mum’s futures. At least in his mind.

There was one shopping experience he was disappointed in though. He had hoped he could just buy infusers that could refill his Soul Power but it turned out those were a bit more complicated than expected. There was some risk in using them because they could overfill and cause permanent damage to the channels that carried Soul Power throughout the body.

On the other hand, he could use some weak and insanely expensive healing infusions now that he was technically in tier one. He got a handful. Their expense plus the fact that he had not needed anything better than what he had to this point made him hesitate to get more.

Shaking his head at the price, he wandered over to Elphina’s new shipping company and asked how everything was going. George told him things were going well and his recent gains from Carlisle’s issues had helped business. He offhandedly mentioned needing to expand and hire more people but he wouldn’t have the capital for a few months at the soonest. Rory nodded and left.

Reading on his tablet, he went around back and wandered casually next door into the back warehouse door of Carlisle’s that he had remotely opened last night before handing the ring over to Steph. The place reeked of dead bodies, acid burned flesh, and just overall awfulness.

Rory coughed, quickly dropped what was left of Morton’s body, grabbed the chair that was still there, sat outside the door and summoned Teanga inside. He told his snake to destroy everything as quickly as possible, leaving only the outer walls alone.

While that was happening, he snacked on restoration jerky and fluids to offset some of the energy loss, and resumed his reading. A minute later, an exhausted Rory dismissed Teanga and stuck his head in the warehouse. Yeah, it was a disaster zone. Terra basilisk acid was just fantastic stuff… when it wasn’t aimed at you. The place was basically an empty warehouse except for slag and fumes.

Rory recovered for a few minutes and then headed back to George, who seemed surprised to see him again so soon.

“Hey, George. Sorry to keep bothering you. But I figured I’d ask. What would you think of a…” and looked at the tablet confirming the word he’d been researching. “Silent investor?”

The man looked at him, surprised. “Uhh… What would you be looking for from it?”

Rory shrugged. “Priority service for my businesses and money when it’s being made?”

“No say on how things are run?” George asked as he sat back.

Rory shuddered and shook his head fervently. “No way. And don’t ask.” The idea of managing a business held absolutely no interest for Rory. He wanted to be a Soul Warrior. “Silent investing” was apparently a very common way for Soul Warriors in higher levels to “have their money work for them.” The concept made sense to him. Why have it just sit in a bank when it could be invested in a profitable business.

Of course there were stories of businesses that failed, but risk was part of a Soul Warrior’s life.

In the end, he and George signed an agreement and Rory handed over £250,000 cash in exchange for twenty-five percent of the profits from then on. It was a simple agreement and he didn’t have to do anything, which was brilliant in his mind.

And that was the last of his planned spending for the day. His next stop, however, would not be as pleasant.