Zibo scrolled through the screen with increasing speed as he searched for any way out of this predicament.
At first, he’d taken over the landlord’s rooms because it was the only place he could think of to go and he didn’t have anything else lined up. He needed someplace enclosed and familiar so Mira could be unsupervised while he searched the tower for their mysterious benefactor. He knew of no one else he could trust, and he needed to figure out what to do next.
But with one thing and another, people showing up with money to pay their rent, people asking for directions or demanding repairs… Zibo had somehow ended up acting as the dead man’s personal assistant and keeping the entire compound running by making calls, redirecting funds, and managing the inhabitants.
He’d had several people tell him they were glad Frane the old miser had finally brought in someone with the time to actually help, which made him feel incredibly conflicted.
This wasn’t at all what he’d envisioned for his life, but it was surprisingly doable. He had the necessary skills, and with the deck in his heart calmed and stabilized there was no urgent need to go rushing about.
Only the question of whether anything could be done for Mira, whether awakening her deck would be a good or bad thing for her.
But, though he could use alternate accounts to shuffle money around from rents to maintenance workers to purchases for minor upkeep issues and damages, without access to Frane’s actual accounts, sooner or later he was going to end up with something like this.
The tax reporting was due, and he hadn’t been keeping any sort of records whatsoever. He had a checklist in his head of who he’d hired to do what, which outstanding contracts had yet to be accounted for, and the people who still needed attending to, but it was a constantly updating thing. Once a task was finished, he didn’t keep it hanging around.
And here he’d thought he was doing a pretty good job managing everything.
He couldn’t even walk away at this point, too many people had seen him in his fake role as building manager. As soon as the auditors found no Frane, Zibo would be the first person they came after.
How did he end up here? Each step had made sense at the time, but now he was trapped. They had nowhere to go, no way to hide.
So he finished searching the files for a passkey that he was never going to find for the twentieth time, and headed back to the tower.
How was it that the place he’d once dreaded had become his sanctuary? At least trying to find someone he would never find was something reliable, and he could level his personal strength in the process. It was satisfying in a way that helped to balance out the frustration of his unexpected second life.
And who knows, maybe this time he’d find the man who could answer all his questions.
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It took three weeks of almost nonstop grinding, pushing deep into floors he’d never before visited and only heard rumors of, but Merek was in the favor of the beyonds. By the end of the third week, he’d obtained five uncommon cards, another dozen uncommon shards, and more commons than he cared to keep track of. It was like a whole different game up here on the higher floors. What would be an amazing drop fifty floors down was utterly commonplace here.
Most card drops—from monsters, at least; humans were another matter—were destined to be sharded: split up into their base attributes to be recombined by cardcrafters.
Cards in hand, relieved that it was almost over for real this time, he strode in to the grimy acquisitions office of his employer.
He went up to the first available accountant and slapped the stack of cards, shards, and fragments down in front of him. “Exact change. One thousand six hundred and fifty-two shards. That should zero out my balance.”
The accountant—a different one this time, female and less tired than most—scanned it with the registry block, smiled, and made a note. “Very good progress, Mr. Sion. All your additional loans and interest have been paid off, leaving only the primary.”
Merek’s smile froze. “I paid off the primary weeks ago.”
The accountant frowned and scanned the block output data. “No, according to this, you made a minor payment of six shards four weeks ago. Nothing since then.”
“I brought in an epic. Dominant Vengeance.” He leaned up on his toes, searching the people for anyone he recognized from the day he’d brought it in, but didn’t see anyone familiar. “Ask your boss. He accepted it personally.”
“You’re saying that was you? The epic auction everyone’s been talking about.” She looked incredulous and a little pitying. “That wasn’t anything to do with our branch, unfortunately.”
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“Don’t you have cameras or something? Just check the records.”
She sighed. “I’ll send a memo. Expect his reply within eight business days.”
Merek took a breath to force down the chaotic emotions swirling through him. “I have legally and morally fulfilled my obligations to you. I will be leaving and I won’t be back.”
“Legally, you are still indebted to—”
Merek walked out and didn’t look back. He wished he could believe this was a simple accounting error, something that would be rectified soon, but his gut knew better. Ray Liash, that snake, had stolen his epic and was going to pretend it never happened.
This wasn’t going to end well.
He stopped midway across the metro skyway, then turned and walked briskly the other direction. If things were going to get worse, he’d need allies. And his allies would need powerful cards.
Good thing Merek knew where to find some.
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Zibo gave himself until he reached level 12 to search the first tier of the tower for any sign of his savior. When he still hadn’t found the prince who’d sold him his deck or the female companion, he had to accept that it had been serendipity to have met them at all.
He couldn’t force a meeting, however desperate he may be. They had their own lives, and though his heart was heavy as he gave up the search, he’d still done well today. Just not found what he was looking for.
It wasn’t a complete loss by any means. He’d continued to increase his stock of monster shards and even a full common card. Though he hadn’t gained a level today, it was all progress.
It was as he was leaving the tower sector that Zibo noticed something a little unusual. One of the other climbers, one who’d been moving much faster than Zibo himself—though he’d seen the other man in the lobby a few times, it was clearly someone with a major sponsor just going through the motions. Recognizing people from the tower leaving the tower wasn’t that unusual, but the way the guy immediately headed for the exclusion section was.
What kind of climber would be visiting the voids? That was a place for people who’d given up fully, willing to subject themselves to anything to be rid of the parasitic card in their hearts. Even at his most desperate, Zibo would never have considered turning void.
So why would someone like that, someone clearly rising fast and with very good connections from everything Zibo could ascertain, be visiting a place like this?
His anxiety over how to deal with the situation back at the tenement weighed on him, and the desire to not confront it yet made the decision to pursue his curiosity an easy one. He slipped out of the streams of normal traffic between the tower and the commercial district and turned down dark side streets through unwelcoming gates.
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From where she’d hidden to watch, Verox recognized many names amongst the prior Ascension, now Retribution members. They’d tried to be sneaky about their transition, but due to James’ annihilation of all things Ascension, it was a simple matter of survival. She understood and even thought it was a stroke of genius, if it weren’t for one thing.
Verox knew the Patines quite well, knew Laril’s whole family history, and knew it would only be a matter of time before James knew too.
“Not my problem.”
For the purpose of analyzing the most powerful person she’d ever come across to integrate different augments to upgrade her next generation mechs, she recorded James’ ambush. From the beginning, he’d warned her to stay back and simply watch. She’d noted the subtle protectiveness in her voice.
“Maybe he really does care?” Though she doubted he cared for her and likely cared about what she could offer his precious little sister.
But those thoughts passed quickly.
And, oh boy, she couldn’t stop giggling in glee.
Hars and Rynia Patine were a power couple everyone knew, even if begrudgingly. Sylvia “Quicksand” Walker, Aimee “Lockdown” Andrews, and so many others from amongst Verox’s generation had made an appearance, all for the sake of hunting down her new compatriot.
Unfortunately for them, even with all the preparation in the world, they couldn’t have prepared enough for what they’d face. Their assault team, as ineffective the first moment as now. Their rear team looked like her first attempts at an ionic cannon, pitiful. He asserted his dominance over their arrogant assault with very little effort from himself, simply being too great a being to succumb to the plebs arrayed before him.
“Better to be here then there.”
He did all of that ever-so slowly, his stride calm as he stepped out of their mixed miasma with a grin. Even after taking Rynia “Killshot” Patine’s bullet straight to the face skull, he remained undisturbed. His demeanor, the confidence in his actions and the power to back it up, made Verox realize just why her prized driver acted so high and mighty.
If he was a king among ants, then she was the princess.
“And I, the mad scientist sticking along for the ride.” No matter how hard he tried to run from her, he would never escape as long as his precious driver was out of her reach. She winced as he finally struck. “Ouch, that looked like it hurt.”
A great gust of wind ruffled her labcoat and flurried her hair into a bigger mess than it already was, going as fast as it’d come.
Not even a smear of blood remained behind, and he hadn’t even fully impacted Simren “The Stormfist” Colax.
“Yes, that’s good. Show me more.” Her stylus scribbled various magical circuits on a portable screen relaying all of her footage and notes back to a private storage device on the fiftieth floor—a hideout away from the rest of her prior faction to perform special experiments.
Each new blood splatter, she ignored in exchange for the simple power behind each movement and the brief moment in time where she caught sight of the activation sequence and greater magic arrays, hidden to the eyes of the unindoctrinated.
But she saw.
Each new insight, she began working into a new and improved version of the ELS to gift Ivy when she finally returned from wherever in creation she’d been stolen off to.
“Do it again!” she shouted. “Punch him slower this time! I need to take more notes!”
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