One of the things he hated about being forced to work for an organisation was that basically everything he did had a chance of offending people, who even if not personally important, could very well chip in with fellow losers to cause him problems despite the importance of his work.

But the thing he hated most was his lack of authority with those under him and clout with his superiors. He was literally one of the most logical, knowledgeable and incorruptible officer available for fuck's sake!

Yet the only people who even respected him in the palace seemed to be a couple of old healer who he talked shop with regularly and his group of enchanters. Old Vi and old Ra asside, his subordinates had easily grown to respect his professionalism and willingness to discuss their jobs while freely giving credit where it was due, so he could not right understand how none of those above him thought it worth to consult him on stuff.

Oh, he could perfectly understand the need to substitute for that cabal of mages, and it'd even allow him a break during the moments where he was upholding his disguise. But it very much was a problem he saw coming when he went through the current guidelines on the employment of agents with psionic capabilities, so of course he had warned the leader of the operatives.

Apparently, the restricted number and guidance received by those people was both by design and because they did not have the proper teaching material. Which was of course an opportunity he tried to cash in by providing a way to reduce such worries with his knowledge on contract work and the knowledge to further advance their operative's capability.

To this day, after the first two propositions were rejected, his third proposal to bind and control cabals of psionics with relative freedom to the units was still being discussed and processed.

The knowledge on how to advance psionics was almost immediately accepted though. And so his credits rose even further. Not that he could actually keep using them.

'Black crowns' could be used for a miriad of things. Political favours, nobility titles, ownership of businesses through the empire, weapons and armour of the greatest available quality, natural treasures, poisons, medicine, training, exotic foods, information, gems…

He had bought pretty much everything he could and still had plenty of crowns in the end. Partly because contributing knowledge that was so sought after paid very well, partly because there was a limit of how much you could buy of any one thing at a time, nevermind the restrictions and requirements on both specific rewards and entire sections of possible exchange.

The empire didn't want to hand over nobility titles to every idiot that could swing a sword harder than normal after all, so there were tests, there were mission requirements and other procedures to ensure the wellbeing of the empire was not disrupted by the requests of an operative.

Not that people normally went around and pretty much raked in those crowns, but it was all there.

As it stood however, he currently had a set of good equipment, a set of top of the line equipment, including disguises, raw materials, pots and chemicals, armor and weaponry of a few stiles, a hulking bank account, and most important of all, the equivalent to a +5 to endurance, +5 to vitality, +10 to intelligence, +5 to wisdom and +5 charisma.

A whooping 30 stat points! That was a bit over half as much as his own trait had awarded him already, and despite the diminishing results past five points, he could still force it and take things up until ten points like with vitality, nevermind that he had yet to take in strength and dexterity treasures, leaving another forty possible points and whatever else he could add to his intelligence with his void meditation.

At the same time, identifying a treasure as one capable of increasing luck was incredibly rare, and there were simply none so easily available for him around here, so there went some ten points he would never need to invest into that bothersome stat.

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Not that he didn't plan to look for those kinds of things in auctions and the holds if his enemies, but if the royal family didn't have some in reserve then he didn't have much hope of seeing those things anytime soon.

There was still the venue of simply shoving more and more treasures down his throat to gain a scant few more points all around, finding a luck consumable on the way, which he intended to do, but he couldn't help but wonder what he could work on to directly increase his attributes.

Maybe extreme exercise focused on muscle density and power coupled with constant battering from critical sources of damage could help increase his physicality if he also fed on being of great vitality, but his mental stats… well, he had the exact opposite problem with them, as he had already experienced a successful increase with great efficiency, but due to it's complexity and difficulty, reliably using that method was not possible, while he had yet to find a way to cause even an inneficient but successful increase in physique.

As he held onto those thoughts though, the caravan in which he was currently traveling finally passed the city gate checkpoint. And after a grueling, boring week of staring at the distance and grunting people away, 'Gaius' finally reached his destination.

He had thought about going with Julius or Cesar, the romans being such a great pool of names with their tri name thingy, but honestly, after three months of working uninterrupted on overtime and in such a toxic place like the castle, he did feel like choking on a dick big enough to make him pass out due to obstructed airways, crying and gagging as he allowed himself to just be a dumb pain slut for once.

Sure, it was probably a not so good idea, but so long as he pretended to be drunk enough during it and seemed ashamed of it in the morning, his currently purple ass would look just like any other pride that found themselves conflicted about liking to be dominated.

And while his soft bdsm fantasies ran on the background of his mind, Aki couldn't help but suddenly hate all the paper and prepwork he needed to do before being allowed to 'get in character'.

The whole thing about being a brooding edgy baby would not be the most fun, nor the especially bad accomodations he had to deal with so his character could 'accumulate money through his many future achievements and peny pinching ways', nor the drinking, but he could certainly enjoy making up for the years in which he never went out.

While latching onto the first cute boy he saw and going full 'we should break up for your own good' after a surprisingly meaningful and passionate smut story wasn't on the list (because of course Gaius was a gay as f edgy boy with a traumatic story and overarching goals), there was no reason not to break a few hearts here and there with corny plays and daring dos.

Likely sensing his happy thoughts, work robbed his fake money pouch away, his contact running into an alley after they were sufficiently far away from the gate, his visage that of a rather irritated and murderous young man on a war path.

Quickly catching up to the little girl after getting away from the bigger alleys, Aki let his face go slack, tiredness showing as he stepped in front of the little thief and used a small gust of wind directed towards himself to make her backwards jump useless, though even then she was still turning around in mid air.

"Slow." He muttered, tagging her on the shoulder. "I guess an orphan this size would actually have a higher concentration of envy essence, but, yeah, they would also try to avoid a mean looking guy who looks aimless even if he's a bit of a slob, don't you think?"

"That's what you're going with? To me you just seemed insecure." Snorted the transforming rat kin, flesh turning gray and malleable as they started reverting to their actual form.

"Gaius doesn't have the experience for proper killing intent. Fixing that instantly would be weirder." He shrugged, looking at the androgenous demon-kin with mottled green skin that seemed to be some kind of natural camo.

"Well, you're certainly into this. Sorry to tell you though, there's little time before we need to make our first move. There is…" The man seemed surprised at his willingness to commit, likely unused to dealing with actual spirits and people willing to use work as a vacation, but he still frowned when Aki raised a hand to forestall their next mission information.

"The spring roll catches the bone worm, for it was first." He recited his identification, getting an eye roll for it, but the other man readily answered in kind, possibly because he still had a hand over their shoulder.

"And the crow feast upon both, for it was smart. We done with the bird sayings?" The envy demon-kin asked, receiving a nod. "There seems to be a paladin of the separatists in town, supposed to cause a distraction by suddenly being rather obnoxious. We will strike at dusk. Meet the rest at this address later and we will talk shop."

A brief exchange of nods later and they were both on their own ways again. Back in character, Gaius was even more pissed, his supposed coin pouch returned but torn. A feeling that he more than made obvious while registering at the adventurers guild, which ended up in a fist fight with a guy that didn't like him acting conceited in front of a pretty half elf receptionist.

Yeah, the mission was going well. Would probably even be a breeze too.