After breakfast, I asked everyone to follow me to a secluded area where no one would be watching.

When I had decided to travel to Evola to try and learn as much as I could about Antonius, I had no idea that I would end up having my own crew. That wasn't at all in my plans. And now, less than 24 hours after arriving on this new world, Cara and I had become the leaders of a band of some of the most notorious criminals in the area.

But here I was, standing in front of a group of thugs and it was time for me to take command. My idea for now was to reform them, something that I wasn't even sure was possible.

"As of now," I paused for dramatic effect and looked each of them in the eyes, "all of you, are working for me and Cara. Is that understood?"

Most of them nodded in agreement, except for Arvel who apparently had questions he wanted answered first.

"If we are going to be working for you, what will we be doing? How will we earn a living?"

"I come from a world" I explained "where our first dungeon has recently appeared, and there should be many more in the near future.

"We will be needing need artisans, trainers, guides, tradesman, merchants and guardians, because no one knows anything about dungeons or magic on my world. There will be plenty of work and especially for ascenders or persons with magical ability. "For some of you, it may not even be necessary to travel to my world, as some things can be done through the portal.

"Also here, I would like it to become a place where people of my world can travel to in safety and buy from your shops, eat in your restaurants and visit your dungeons as well.

"So I want to make one thing clear, there will be no more criminal activity, from any of you. We will be working to make this place a safe place to visit and to live, and at the same time get lots of rewards from dungeon runs."

"But only a few of us are ascenders, and even less have any knowledge of any trades." Arvel countered, "How will they make a living?"

"That will depend largely on each one of you." I said. "If you want to learn a trade, I will try to help you with my network, but if someone wants to become an ascender, I can most definitely help you to become successful ascenders. If you have no interest in working with us, I will let you leave, but not without certain guarantees, which you might find disagreeable."

Arvel seemed satisfied with the answers and agreed to join our group.

"Up until now, you have all been basically working as criminals. Criminals are not exactly known for being honest. So, it is normal that I can't trust any of you. You understand that, don't you?"

They all agreed.

"I need to be able to trust you, but for me to be able to trust you, I only see a few options. Of all the options, the one which is by far the easiest and also the most reliable is a blood pact ritual."

At the mention of a blood pact, many looked very uncomfortable.

"I don't want you to do this against your will, but the other options won't be much better, just ask Henni, Saduk or Linx."

They looked to their 3 colleagues, who confirmed what I said, without giving any further details.

"If you agree to the blood pact, hold out your right hand."

Some hesitated, but in the end they all held out their hands.

I created a bowl made of mana and took one of their own daggers from my storage, and cut each of their palms letting their blood gather in the bowl.

I then had them each vow loyalty to myself and Cara; not to do anything that would go against us, our objectives or our wishes, either directly or indirectly, and to forfeit their lives if they broke the vow.

They all pronounced the vow and I performed a magical binding with my blood and Cara's and the ceremony was completed.

"Keep your hands out" I instructed

I quickly used my healing mana to close the wounds on their hands. To them it looked as though the cuts disappeared before their eyes and they were amazed to be healed so quickly without the use of a potion.

"If it's any consolation," I said "I think that you will find that working for me, will be much better than working for your previous boss. You may not be as feared as you were before, but I intend to make you respected. I want you to become the protectors of your town, you will be viewed as heroes. This way you can make amends, at least in part, to those you have hurt in the past.

"I expect, once it becomes known that your criminal activity in the area has stopped, other crime bosses will try to move in and take over. This must not be allowed to happen. I expect you to shut them down before they have time to get installed. Who knows, we may even end up recruiting some of their members.

"If someone moves in, who is too powerful for you to deal with, I will help you. I will not be physically here all the time, in fact, I will be absent more often than I am here; but I am planning on creating a communication device using runes.

Also, I imagine that you have "under the table" arrangements with the local law enforcement, but that will have to change as well. I will speak with your previous leader about this in detail later, and if necessary, I will have to pay the local police a visit."

I then turned my attention to their previous boss. I wanted him to serve as an example for everyone from his old crew.

"How does it feel having your mana cut off and being humiliated in front of everyone? I asked him in front of everyone."

"It's worse than death." he replied, all fight had gone out of him and he looked totally dejected.

"Do you think that I crossed a moral boundary with you, or do you still think that the powerful can do whatever they want, defining right and wrong at their whim?

"I get your point; I went too far." he conceded.

"You might get my point, but do you deeply regret your actions? Would you take them all back if you could? I have the feeling, that if I removed the blood pact, and gave you your mana back, you would return to doing the same things as before, probably within the week. Am I wrong?"

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"No, you are right, it is the only way that I know, and people don't change easily."

"How many people have been humiliated, tortured, robbed or killed, at your orders? What did you feel when you gave those orders?"

"Too many, and I have lost count." he replied. "And when I did it, I felt powerful, I felt untouchable, I felt respected, feared. Other times, I felt nothing. I don't exactly like who I was, and I am not proud of what I did, but it will be hard to change."

"Thank you for your honesty, and I agree, and this is the reason that I am going to leave you cut off from your mana until I see that you have changed, but I get no pleasure humiliating you with that floppy appendage hanging from your chin, so I am removing it. A moment later it disappeared.

"Also, I will call you by your real name from now on because I don't enjoy making fun of people. I think it was necessary for you to experience just a small part of the pain that you have been inflicting on others. It is easy to confuse fear with respect, but in reality, you were hiding from your own fears and insecurities.

"The same goes for everyone here." I continued. "We are looking for persons who have a moral compass, who know right from wrong. Who look to help others and who earn respect through honorable actions and not through fear. If any of you have these qualities, you will gain far more with me, than you ever did by preying on the weak.

"You most likely didn't choose to be what you have become, but circumstances can push us to make choices, and at one point we let those choices define us, but we don't have to let ourselves be defined by the bad choices we have made in the past. We can make ourselves better, redefine who we are. I am really hoping that some, hopefully all of you can find the strength to change.

"Now, enough for the patronizing morality speech. Let's get down to business.

"You can call me Xander, it is not my real name. I am from the planet Earth, where Eternua is the first dungeon on our planet in known history.

"It is still closed for travel to my planet via the portals, but it should be opening soon. I am the dungeon champion but I still haven't done all the floors. Only the first and the 10th."

That last statement got their attention as I suspect they had never met anyone who had done the top level of Eternua.

"I have pretty advanced mana control and manipulate all elements and their hybrid forms and can also perform healing. I have magic, runology, combat and healing skills.

"Creating new enchanted weapons is a bit of a hobby for me."

I took out my hammer and threw it at a large boulder about 15 meters away. On impact there was a blinging flash of lightning and a loud explosion which rendered the boulder to rubble and the axe returned to my hand and I put it away.

Everyone was left speechless by the power of the weapon, and there was one of them in particular who was virtually drooling when he saw what my hammer could do.

"This is my girlfriend Cara and whoever crosses her will regret being born, and I mean that literally."

"Cara?"

"I have pretty much the same abilities as my boyfriend," Cara said, "but I mainly have experience in combat and the earth attributes. I hope to train the other attributes but I haven't had the chance as I only got them 2 days ago."

"What do you mean that you got some attributes 2 days ago?" Mr. Jensu said "You either have them or you don't, you don't just gain new elements later."

"No, that's not true. Xander can give anyone all the attributes if he wants. He can even take someone without a core and give them a fully functioning core complete with channels and meridians in a matter of minutes. He has done it for at least 2 people I know."

There were murmurs amongst a few of the group, but Jensu still refused to believe it.

"That's impossible, no one can do that. If someone could do that, they would be a God." He said, still not convinced.

"Believe what you want," Cara said, "but have you already forgotten what he did to you?"

"It is true he has done a number of inexplicable things," Jensu conceded "but if he has the power to grant multi-elemental abilities, then he is by far the most powerful mage I have ever met. I was a fool to think that I had any chance against him, even with my entire crew."

"Enough about us," I said "I want you all to tell us a little about yourselves."

"Tell me your names, your strengths, your weaknesses, your talents and your weapons of choice, and what you would like to do with the rest of your life.

"You", I pointed to the biggest one in the group, the one who had been mesmerized by my little display with my hammer. What is your name?"

"My name is Emac, but everyone calls me Hammer, and as you probably guessed, my weapon is the Hammer."

"May I see your weapon?" I asked.

He pulled out a Hammer that was even larger than the one's Mitch and I used. There were no visible enchantments, but with his size and muscle he could do plenty of damage even without any enchantments.

"Do you have any particular talent?"

"I worked in a forge for a while and I was pretty good at it."

"Great", I said "I could really use someone with your experience help me forge weapons."

I examined his core and saw that it was not very developed and that his channels were barely open, so he was pure muscle.

"Next, you", I pointed to the next person in the line and went through the same questions.

His name was Nevel, his specialty was knives and daggers and he preferred close combat. His weapons were all unenchanted. His body was lithe and muscular like the body of an assassin. His core and channels were more developed than Hammer's, but they wouldn't be of much use, he would purely useful for physical combat and combat training.

I went through all 12 of the band this way, and found that, although some had specific fighting skills, the only ones with any mana skill were Mr. Jensu (who no longer could use any mana), Hennisen, the second in command that I met on my arrival, and Arvel the other second in command who seemed to be a pretty decent mage.

If it came to a dungeon run, I could only really rely on Myself, Cara, Arvel, Hennisen, Nevel and Hammer. Most of the others, Saduk, Linx, Solomon, Katun, Jensu, Konir, Elga and Gareth were just basic thugs with no particular talent, a couple didn't seem to be thugs at all and I wondered what they were even doing in this group.

I could of course improve their power levels, but I was hoping see if they could rely on each other working as a team. I also wanted to reserve the upgrades as rewards for those who had done something to merit them.

"I want you to empty all the contents of your storage spaces here, we are going to start by redistributing the weapons and the wealth."

Everyone accepted without too much resistance but Mr. Jensu did so begrudgingly as all of the best and most valuable items were in his storage.

I separated the gold and jewels in 2 parts. Half I took for Cara and myself, and the other half was distributed evenly between the 12 others. Most of them ended up with more than what they had originally, except for Jensu who ended up with considerably less than before.

I gave Hammer back his hammer and Nevel got back his knives and daggers. There was an enchanted dagger which I gave to Arvel and an enchanted sword which I gave to Hennisen.

The rest of the weapons I let everyone pick for themselves.

"Hammer, Nevel, Arvel, Hennisen, you will be the group leaders besides myself and Cara. Each of you can choose one of the others to be in your group, and you will be responsible for that person once we enter the dungeon. Cara and I will look after the others.

"If I find that one of your group members gets seriously injured or dies has and you didn't do anything to try to help him it will go badly for you. If you see that another group is in trouble, and you don't do anything to help them when you could have, it will go badly for you. I expect you to work as teams but I also expect you to help the other teams if you can.

Now, I have one more, very important requirement. Everything Cara and I told you about myself and about her, remains with you. You are not to communicate anything about us or our abilities, nor anything else that you learn about us in the future. You can say that we are your new bosses, and that's it. Remember your blood pact.

"Now let's go to the dungeon with the best loot in the area, but not Eternua, we just came from there.

A few minutes later we arrived at a portal for the dungeon known as Lunira.