It had been a month since Joy’s rousing speech, and expansion had been going well. Too well. It was almost hard for Joy to believe, and while she had studied old-world governments and revolutions, she wasn’t prepared for just how well everything worked on these people.

It shouldn’t have shocked her too much, she supposed, as no one had actively tried to manipulate the scorned… ever. Well, besides the scorned themselves that is, and they weren’t great at it, but the point was that they weren’t equipped with the proper level of skepticism that a reasonable person should have towards a politician.

And great Machine, that was what she was, wasn’t she? A politician. Dealing in hopes and dreams for the future, ultimately, for her own gain. The thought was revolting. Getting by on manipulation and lies wasn’t above her at this point, she knew, but she would vastly prefer to just crush her problems with overwhelming force.

Actually, Joy took that back. Having to resort to politicking was beneath her. To an extreme. She was… she used to be a Durand, after all. They were the attack dogs of the Alliance, and only used things like espionage or underhanded methods when absolutely necessary. They preferred to leave the more cowardly practices to other noble families better versed in being chickenshits.

Still, education ought to be well-rounded, and this was the exact reason why. You never knew when you would have to compromise your values to get things done, and the ends always justify the means. That was what it meant to be a Durand. It was contradictory, it was prideful, and it was exactly the kind of thinking that she still defaulted to.

Getting herself back on track, Joy glanced at her surroundings. She was on a walk back to her office, at the top of an earthscraper no less, and was starting to see real change. People were making an effort to pick up trash, and some of her citizens were walking around with a smile on their faces. They genuinely felt hope for the first time in generations.

Joy may mainly care about herself, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any empathy. Just very little. And it was shrinking every day.

Joy shoved that thought away and brought herself back to the point once again. She wasn’t going to take over and make things actively worse. Not unless it benefited her, so she was going to make good on the promises she made. There was no reason for the people down here to suffer like they were, and while it may have endlessly irked her how the lessers down here had it better than her for a few years, she had come to realize that it wasn’t the scorned’s fault that happened. Just like it wasn’t the universe's fault either, as much as she used to brood about that being the case, it was the systems of power in place that were truly at fault.

Power that she had the opportunity to seize, now. If she happened to bring a few disenfranchised people up with her on the way? Well, she wouldn’t kick them back down for no reason.

And the scorned could tell. They could see change everywhere they looked, and they understood that things had a real chance of getting better. That must be why they were so… fervent in their following of her.

And like most fanatics, her forces saw fit to convert anyone they could find. Her intention wasn’t to start a cult, but she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

They were spreading fast, too. When Joy had first started this whole escapade by taking over the Furies, she only had two small sectors in the North-Eastern Quadrant, and while they were at a strategic placement, that didn’t mean that they had much power to work with. If Joy had tried warring with the gangs in a typical manner, she would have been crushed by sheer numbers.

But she hadn’t been crushed. She had cleverly schemed her way to the top and captured the whole Quadrant, and even managed to expand. It had taken two weeks to capture the South-Eastern Quadrant, effectively making her control half of the Undercity.

There was a high chance that she was the most influential figure in the city at this point, and that came with gains. Especially for a Power that dealt in influence.

Power: System Spymaster Type: Sorcerer/Criminal

Abilities:

System Interface Access (Active)

- Gives access to system interface

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- Allows the User to Query the System at their leisure

Mana Vision (Active)

- Allows user to see Mana

- Allows the User to see people through Non-Mana insulating walls

Stealth (Passive)

- Gives the user knowledge on how to sneak effectively

Peek (Active)

You can look at other’s statuses without their knowledge

Drawbacks:

Aura of Deceit - Others find you harder to trust

Migraine - Overuse of vision abilities can lead to intense headaches

Gaining three-thousand experience for each quadrant, was, quite frankly, insane. It took most people years to make it to class 3, and she was nearly a fourth of the way there… for her [Spymaster] Power at least.

Envy’s Tithe (Passive)

- Steal a small part of experience from those you deem lesser. On kill, if you deem the target lesser, take the target's experience with the highest efficiency possible.

Envy’s Allocation (Active)

- Allows the user to transfer experience between Powers, can only be used out of combat | Banked Energy [0967] | Total Energy [7487]

Joy didn’t know what [Envy]’s starting factor was, but she knew it was over 8.89. She was nowhere close… motherfucker.

Sub-System, can you display how much experience I need to Class Up according to my drawback.

Sure!

Limited Power - You are as strong as the accumulated energy you have. Starting

Factor: [9.99]. Energy Needed To Remove Class Barrier: [92,512].

MACHINE’S TITS! 9.99! That’s the motherfucking theoretical limit!

Wow. Joy knew that she had come upon something special, but this just proved it. No one, except maybe the Devourer, had ever had a factor that high. Curse this damn drawback, she would already be the strongest person in the universe if she didn’t have it! Or… maybe not. Her power did seem to rely a lot on stealing others. Still, she would have been, at least physically, on the level of a Class 1 without it.

Still, though, it wasn’t exclusively a drawback. Well, it was, but in terms of what other people have to deal with, it wasn’t that bad. It proved that she really did start as a Null-level being. For most people, Classing up was an excruciating experience. It cleared their body of all their impurities and essentially changed them on a molecular level for every Class they went up. For Joy, though, it was different. She was already above that. Now all she had to do was get the prerequisite energy to destroy the barriers.

Hey… where did all my impurities go?

Going to Null immediately would have required you to be deconstructed and reconstructed on the spot, so unless you get a surplus of energy and Class all the way up to 1 or above, the system will slowly change you over time to match your true Class Level, starting with your insides. You still get all of the physical benefits, besides power of course, of being Null Classed, but the appearance aspect will take longer to become apparent.

Well, that was useful.

But enough observation and reflection. It was time to take on some problems, namely, what she was going to do once she took over the city. She hadn’t quite planned this far ahead, and, if Joy was being honest, she kinda winged a few things while doing the whole management change thing.

There was no world in which having this much power was a downside, but there were a few key details that she didn’t account for. One was that, as she Classed Up, her drawbacks would become stronger, and not just the insanity-based ones either, though those were concerning.

Right now, when talking to her, she came off as a little shifty and slightly intimidating thanks to her [Auras]. Class 3 was a major bump in power, and, subsequently, it would make her drawbacks that much more powerful. She would go from shifty to straight-up untrustworthy, and from mildly scary to absolutely terrifying.

Obviously, these were terrible traits for a leader to have, so she would have to find:

One: A way to get rid of these drawbacks, or at least nullify them.

Or two: Find someone trustworthy enough to handle leading her cities for her.

That wasn't even mentioning trying to avoid the attention of nobles, how she was going to steal other Powers when she had only done it once, or who was going to deal with her when she finally turned nuttier than squirrel shit. Thank the Machine she had Omar.