“So, what are we doing with all of this?” John asked with a look into his inventory. Most of what had dropped was useless to him, what he had put aside he had already fed to Aclysia or used to spawn some cute little slime blobs with happy faces on their surfaces. He hadn’t seen Nia since creating them. “The obvious answer is put it on the auction…”

“Ja, that is the obvious answer, so go do that,” Rave told him, fanning out her still somewhat wet hair. She had showered after what had just transpired. “Not like ya need to walk to some local outpost to put it into the system.”

“Normal people need to do that?” John asked; he just put up the offer and then the thing was automatically taken from his inventory. If something didn’t sell, it was sent back by package though. Looking back at it, that did have the appearance of some of his bullshit going on.

“Nah, either ya have a premium membership for them to pick it up from you or ya need to give it to the local outpost. Remember the machines they had in that gaming store?” Rave reminded him.

“Oh yeah,” John nodded. “I met Victoria there… wow, that feels like it was years ago.”

“Fucking asscucking bitch,” Eliza commented while gnawing on some jerky.

“…I wonder if someone gets a heart-attack every time one of my items just appears in the stocks,” John said, half-jokingly.

“Gotta doubt it,” Rave informed him. “Just like with money, ya ain’t the only one with powers relating to inventory space. They have systems to take care of abilities like that.”

“Mhm, well, best put it on the auction, whatever the case is,” John said. He had gotten over two million dollars out of the four-hour encounter; how much he would get from the items he couldn’t even guess. The problem was that he had no idea what kind of price tag to put on things. The crafting materials at least somewhat regularly appeared on the auction already, so he could just orient himself on those, but the equipment? He just set it a decent base price and then put it up for the open bid. ‘Letting the market figure out that one.’

“Okay, I got my level, so I am doing Floors tomorrow,” John told everyone present, which was all of them but Nia and Aclysia. They had gathered in the cantina with the clear intention of using it. Aclysia was one room over, doing her thing in the kitchen, but she was listening in through John’s ears. “And for the foreseeable future. What are you up to?”

The question went out to Rave and Eliza, but realistically mostly Rave as the blood mage had to stick around people who could prevent Thana from taking control. Ergo, with John gone, she would have to go wherever the techno lover went. Both seemed to be aware of that, as Eliza looked to the pink haired girl and Rave in turn spent more time than usual thinking.

“I can sit on my hands here for a few more days before I go looneys, but I guess I am going to head into the city? Will have to take the ferry ‘cause island,” Rave said. A quick google search revealed a slight problem with that plan.

“They only sell tickets on the mainland,” he told her.

“…So we are stuck here?” his girlfriend did not look happy about that.

“Well, let’s see…” John went on a website Magoi had told him about and that Lydia had also used before in the shape of the Fateweaver taxi service. Chances were that they also had ferries in a city like this. John just couldn’t imagine that they would be foregoing the opportunity to make money.

Once he got on the website, he was greeted by a giant red disclaimer. “CURRENTLY DOWN – READ BELOW!!” he read in a dramatic way that hopefully made it clear that it was written in caps lock. “As the old structure of Fateweaver businesses is currently being dismantled, the business is taking a holiday to await the developments of the fifth council of Everest. Afterwards the staff will decide as to how to handle those developments and adjust prices if necessary. We will be back for you as soon as possible, please walk for the remainder of the time.” There was a further bit about how people that rented traffic tunnel access were affected, but that had no influence on John.

“So, we are stuck here?” Rave asked again. “Unless I wanna run the very low risk of getting on that ferry without a ticket.”

“Mhm…” John opened his building menu, maybe he would find something that could solve the problem there. There was indeed. “Apparently I can build a Transport Station that teleports us from point A to point B…”

“I hear a but, in that silence,” his girlfriend succinctly pointed out.

“…but,” he confirmed her suspicion, “the other side can’t be too far away, there is a limited number of endpoints, currently just one, and it needs to be on conquered territory. Not to mention that I need Room Slots and some special materials – namely Baelementium and something that can be used to start a magi-flux reaction of the fifth magnitude.” He had no idea what exactly that meant, but thankfully he was provided with a list of those things and in which dungeons to find them. Interestingly, he could go all the way back to the low-level ghosts and farm them for Ectoplasm; he would have needed 1500 of that though. Telling everyone as much, the conversation continued.

“Okay, here is my idea for all of this then,” Rave said, “I’m gonna be here on Eliza duty until ya get that stuff from grinding away at it and then we gonna hitch a ride on the ferry and set up some kind of outpost.”

Eliza kicked the table, “Could you not talk about me like I am a fucking dog you need to walk?”

There was a very easy innuendo there and Rave obviously struggled to not answer with that. “Ya know what I mean, Eliza, don’t be so offended.”

“I’ll be as offended as I like, seizure hands,” she grumbled. “I don’t want to bind you to anywhere, why don’t we just take the fucking ferry every day?”

“‘Cause they will let us go if they catch us once, unless we get some major dick of an overseer, but repeated offenses are gonna lead to trouble,” Rave stated.

“What are they going to do, fine us?”

“Ja, and it would be super annoying. Not like we have nothing to do here anyway, I could use some more training. Having a few days where I can’t reach any clubs will be as good a motivator to spend some time doing that meditative stuff I’ll get.”

“Hear, hear,” Copernicus, rolled together in her lap, yawned, “my summoner has a good idea for once.”

“Don’t ya be a dick,” Rave stubbed his head and then proceeded to scratch him under the chin.

“I think that’s a good plan,” John said and opened a map of New York. “God, I love this system,” he exclaimed when Google Maps was suddenly displaying an extra circle with the current teleporter range to him.

“There are currently three points where we could put that teleporter,” he told them. “The southern half of this thing called Ellis Island, Black Tom Island or the edge of Liberty Park. All of those are connected to the mainland, despite their names.” He checked the maps. “Although Ellis Island is probably out. There is a hospital there, so the Apothecaries have most likely put a base there. A teleporter is not worth angering one of the three great non-combat organizations over… although I guess that’s just two now. So I propose Black Tom Island.”

Rave fished the phone out of his hand, tossed it on the cushions next to herself, lightly tapped him on the cheek with her flat hand, kissed him, and then said, “You’re putting the cart before the horse, how about ya get the stuff we need, check whether or not your assumptions are even correct and all that jazz before we decide where to put the darn thing.”

“…Fair point,” John admitted and then pulled her into a second kiss. “Now you did it,” he said, getting into a third one, “you had to remind me how happy your lips make me.”

“Sounds totally not creepy,” she giggled but engaged a fourth kiss with her boyfriend. She tasted of bubble-gum and cherries. The smell of approaching food, a jealous Eliza tugging strongly on John’s sleeve, plates being put on the table, all of those things distracted John.

“Okay, so, in summary,” John picked up his spoon, it was soup today, “there is now an important side quest I need to get on, which is getting something from that magi-flux list and creating enough Baelementium to fulfil that condition.” Now, the amount of Baelementium he needed was 5 kilograms, or 2’537’112,884 mana from raw materials. In other words, if he spent several hours a day on that endeavour, he should be able to get there in a few weeks. After all he was (after his usual passive costs were subtracted) regenerating over 33’000 mana per hour, around 40’000 if he counted the capabilities of his elementals to that, which he could for this specific endeavour.

With those figures he could extrapolate that it would take him (rounded up) 64 hours to enrich enough Baelementium. To get that done in a week, he would need to spend over 9 hours a day on that. That was too much, better to give it two weeks and spend ‘only’ four and a half hours.

“I have a busy week in front of me,” he mumbled, as he couldn’t imagine having anything less than a couple of 100+ hours workweeks in the near future. Thankfully, the Baelementium creation wasn’t greatly spiritually taxing or anything. Neither him or the elementals had problems in that regard in the future. Therefore, those hours spent on that endeavour could be seen as breaks.

“No one ever said that becoming a king would be easy,” Metra commented as everyone but her and Aclysia started eating. Even the elementals had little bowls of soup.

“Whoever said anything about becoming a king?” John wanted to know.

Metra stopped in her act of balancing a fork by the grip on her index finger and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Isn’t that what all of this is about? You taking over America?”

“Yeah, sure, but I don’t want to be a monarch or anything like that.”

The berserker babe looked genuinely confused. “How are you going to secure your absolute power on your realm then? The leading position of your bloodline?”

“I am not looking for absolute power, I want to be the highest authority,” he told her. “I am going to make sure we have a united framework and then leave everyone who doesn’t violate that to their own devices. There is no need for my kids to follow in my position, not only because I will be basically immortal but also because they might not be fit for the job. I will leave them a world that is better than this one, not a position that secures them a safe place in a world just as bad.”

“What – the – fuck?!” now she was angry, which John had a hard time understanding. “What kind of realm are you building where the reigns are so loose it allows rebellion everywhere?”

“One where I am not as tyrannical as to invite rebellion,” he told her. “Metra, ask yourself, how many states you describe ever existed, how many of them did what was best for the people inside them and how many are still around.”

“A society must follow the rules of its leader, a leader headstrong and certain in his mission, carried out over multiple generations if need be!” Metra held her position.

“I can’t say I agree to any of that. What you describe is what is good to create a society out of tribes and clans maybe, and maybe it will be needed to get together the Abyss of North America, I don’t know how splintered everything here is,” he conceded that point. “However,” he wasn’t done, “generally speaking, you want a society that is bottom up, not top down. The freer people are to do what they want to do, the better. What I want to be is a guarantee for that freedom. An authority of independence, if you can accept that oxymoron.”

“I know I see one moron,” Metra shook her head. “Here I thought you could be… nevermind. Just go on, at least this contract is still entertaining. Just disappointing that I won’t get something bigger out of it.”

John knew that he was definitely missing something here, but by the frustrated look on her face, it was evident that the ancient weapon did not want to talk about this further. Still, he had to say one more thing.

“I hope you will come to see the result of what I do and judge me by that in the end, rather than whatever ideal monarchy you have in mind.”

“Sure,” Metra left it at that and went back to her balancing act.