A week later, Nero went to the Lyceum with his party and family. It was time for the award ceremony. During these three days, they had brief contact with the Lyceum and Amaryllis to tell them they were okay. The two unaccounted-for knights that slaughtered the village were still at large but things had settled down. Crystal knights stayed in the shelter's ocean.

News of prince Aslanbek expedition and peace agreement were spreading like wildfire. Nothing about losing to Nero in a duel but that was expected. He'd owe Nero another favor if he kept his mouth shut as the prince wouldn't like the publicity.

He expanded his shelter, increasing its radius by another kilometer but without adding layers. He lowered the ceiling to only a thousand feet and used the remaining height to leave a solid cylinder of granite a mile and a half tall separating the surface from a complex of caverns, rivers, and lakes crisscrossing all the remaining thousand feet of height. At the other end of the ocean, he added some of those coconut palms in islands because why not.

In the middle of that cylinder of granite, he created a set of strategic rooms. The first was a meeting room the length of a jousting field and half as wide, with a long set of interlocking tables where eighty people could sit next to a tall wall where he hung the massive map tapestry he bought. The tables and chairs were war loot from one of the knights' looted storage and came with the chairs.

Lighting and ventilation came from the ceiling, where an overcast but not oppressive sky hung. The illusion of jagged rock circling above made it look like the room was at carved the bottom of a crater or a volcano. The walls to either side of the table held a gallery where Nero would display his trophies and paintings. Already he had several dozen portraits of the Dungeons and his party members and family.

To a side of the room were servant quarters and a kitchen that would one day prepare a feast for his guests. On the other side a hallway with bedrooms, hygiene facilities, and basic necessities like a toilet and a few bathing rooms.

At the end of the long room, a stone arch led to a massive 1:330 scaled model of the whole continent made of colored rocks. It went up and down, mimicking the lay of the land. Veins of azurite represented rivers and lakes. Green marposite for the forests, white marble for the snow-covered mountains, and black granite for cities and roads. On that high-relief map, he kept his keyed portals for ease of finding the right place. Traveling from one place to another was just a matter of walking a few hundred yards from one portal to another.

The stone dome a hundred yards above the continent diorama had an illusion to mimic the day-night cycle of the world outside. The feeling was that the meeting room was the gathering place of titans that could on a whim walk over the land.

So far he only had Bast in deep detail but he left enough minerals at the sides to do all the rest by manipulating the stone later. A line of pure silver ran along the borders between Bast and the neighbors, branching to show where the borders between neighbors were. He wouldn't cross them now, because the armies were still mobilized and tensions were tough. Huron agreed with him.

He recruited his father-in-law for help with the shape of the map and placement of the portals. Huron plotted his route and every day Nero spent three to four hours running around to reach cities and other places of interest. Huron made use of this network to rake in profit by purchasing commodities where they were cheaper and getting the latest information to sell in the capital. He refrained from dumping these commodities for now because it would draw too much attention. He assured Nero that just the price of the information he was selling was already giving him enough profits.

He also visited places with clusters of Dungeons but most of these had large cities around for both the management of these Dungeons and to collect the profits of delving. They didn't delve but Nero also gathered information to sell. He used his abilities to check the grade and state of all the Dungeons by checking on their portals for the Guild. One last thing he did was to leave a portal near several interesting vacation spots to the northwest and southwest.

The day to announce the result of the cultural contest arrived. There were hundreds of entries and suggestions, but most were knocked out. They went to the Lyceum and sat with the judges, which very conspicuously were his teachers and the guild master, and looked at the entries. Crystal insisted on going with him, and Altia gave up brewing more potions and incendiary bombs to be there.

"Quite the selection your students gathered, Dean," Crystal cooed with glee at the list of Skills Nero could choose from.

"Yes. I might want one or two of these for myself," Altia chirped in a singing voice.

"Nero, you don't have to decide on two among them," Xalazuniox said. "Just appoint those that you think are the best so we can publish our results."

"They made some really good suggestions," Nero said. "I didn't know about most of these cards."

"This one looks good if you want to use lots of pets," Altia suggested, pointing at [Legion Commander].

The transcription of ceremony they held to announce the finalists was there too, including their commentary. "What is this about succubi?" He asked Amaryllis.

"You're too young to know," She dismissed with a playful pout. "Come back in another century."

"Seriously, there are guys can change into girls?" Nero insisted on that, ashamed, curious, and outraged at the same time.

"Nero, drop it," Amaryllis said with a serious and slightly angry face. "Or I'll tell Altia about Charlotte."

Altia jumped on her seat, turning ninety degrees in the air and landing a hand on Nero's shoulder. "Who's Charlotte?" She said at the same time Nero did.

"Oh, now you will try to deny," Amaryllis clicked her tongue. "You know, that redhead elf, Charlotte."

"Redhead?" Altia's voice rose an octave into a shrill shriek.

"Suspicious," Crystal glared at her brother with narrowed eyes, "So that's why you were skulking around town in stealth..."

"No! She's inventing someone that doesn't exist! I know no Charlotte, Altia."

Amaryllis giggled and waved a hand. "Of course you do! You met her at the Horny Peacock."

"Look, I know as much about that Charlotte than I know about a succubus."

"Really????" The pixie batted her eyelashes. "Are you sure you don't want to know?"

"Yes! And I don't want to ever learn about either!" Nero shouted.

"Great!" Amaryllis flew and did a barrel roll. "There's no Charlotte. I was just pulling his leg. Nero never set foot in a brothel. And won't ever, right?"

Crystal snickered. Altia still looked offended as she moved her mouth like a fish out of water. Nero crossed his arms and glared at the pixie.

"Just a joke, right?" Crystal nudged him.

Nero kept staring at the pixie.

"Just kidding?" She made a peace offering, smiling like the kid caught with the hand on the cookie jar. "C'mon, Altia knew it was a lie all the time!"

Nero's neck turned ever so slowly to look at his wife.

"I... I did! Obviously, I did. I trust you, my love!" She said without an ounce of truthfulness or confidence in her voice.

He hugged Altia. "It's okay. But I think we need to demand compensation for toying with our delicate feelings. What do you say, godmother?"

"We can talk about that later," The pixie said, trying to be diplomatic now that she saw that her prank went too far.

Nero nodded and turned to talk to Xalazuniox. "The winners will be [Undying] and [Accelerated Recovery]. However, I'm taking [Dual Class] and [Overcharge] instead. A bit of misdirection because it will be so damn obvious why we made this little charade. I'm also placing an order for three card presses. Tell me, is there a way to negotiate a discount if I pay everything upfront?"

[Dual Class] was going to be a money sink. For starters, it was worth only with yellow-grade Classes and above. He might even pull back from purchasing three presses at once, but any ounce of power he could squeeze from his build was welcome. He would basically sacrifice one Skill slot to gain about one and a half or two ahead. The fifteen percent penalty to the Attributes was negligible as he would halve everything anyway.

He had no idea how the Arbitrium would handle these calculations and the rounding though. He suspected it only rounded at the last moment after everything was accounted for. If it was so, the penalty would be even less of a bother. Even if it rounded down at each step, he would lose two to four points on each Attribute. Even in the worst-case scenario, he would get a six-special Class from two oranges, one more than the normal at the cost of a few Attribute points. Best-case would be three extra Specials, each one worth a Skill slot or more.

[Overcharge] at his current stats would allow him to safely use 12 points of mana. Reports said that the damage for even a single point was severe, quickly rising to crippling to downright deadly as more points were added. Going four over one's limit was certain death. The 240% boost to any spell - including the non-combat ones - was more than welcome, though. Not to mention it was another mana sink he could use to speed up the process of abusing his timepiece's bonus.

There were others he wanted. [Mind's Library] seemed awesome. Not only the scalable Attribute bonus would one day surpass any other, but there were the perfect memories. He did some math and found he would be able to hold twenty-one memories of five minutes each at his current Attributes. [Summon Einherjar] was interesting. But just interesting. He had enough support with his extended party and the goblin shaman pet. Nevermind he would be busy burning cards to get the perfect [Dual Class] combinations, a Skill most people would never think about using because they only had one shot at succeeding. His hope was that [Dual Class] could shorten the gap between himself and higher tiers even if he had to dump dozens of millions on it.

And he had two slots on his new Accessory to play with. No reason to not buy the other Skills. He decided to give [Mind Library] a shot right away. His thoughts were interrupted when Amaryllis sat on Nero's shoulder and played with his hair.

Once she got his attention, she asked. "Was Yrkandia that good to you?"

"Yeah. I doubt I'd be able to defeat Aslanbek if it didn't."

"Regarding the card presses," Bezzias answered, "I don't think you should purchase all three at once. I did probe the manufacturer and he has two machines ready for assembly. I went ahead and made a reservation. But they can't be moved around once assembled. You need to let their technicians into the place they'll be."

"That's rather complicated," Nero sighed as he thought about giving shelter access to strangers. "Doesn't it need a containment room? Can it be stored in a Dimensional pouch? What are their sizes?"

After giving it some thought, Tinkwezilsky answered. "Yes, it needs a containment room to capture and recycle the Essence. It is included in the price. Nobody was crazy enough to try. And A standard two-press room like the one you used is twelve feet tall by twenty-five feet wide and twenty feet deep. A three-press room would be twenty-five feet deep. They never had the need to do one with four, so it is unknown. People usually buy them in sets of two."

Nero knew the gnome was as pragmatic as one could be. His last sentence threw him on a tangent because he said 'usually'. He had no idea how long the cooldowns for the presses would be once they were calibrated for his nonexistent absorption rate. A perfect bond, they called it. Maybe two presses would be enough. it's not like he would make a living pressing card. It was...

"I'll take the three-press room with all three machines. It doesn't matter if I have to wait a little more."

Bezzias nodded. "I'll have to check with them to see because the position of the modules is slightly different depending on the room configuration."

Nero handed over the money for the card presses, which included the room and installation costs. He also obtained the two cards from the contest and equipped them.

[Overcharge]

+20 Willpower

"There is no kill like overkill."

Effect: Spend X mana. Increase the effect of a Skill or attack by 20% per point of mana spent. If you spend more than square.root(Vigor) points at once, you take damage.

[Dual Class]

+3 All Attributes

"Not to be confused with the duel-ist Class."

Effect: When equipping a Class, you can use two Class cards instead of one. If you do, their Attribute bonuses will be averaged then lowered by 15%. You must discard one Special trait from each Class. There's a chance that more special traits are lost. 20% to lose from one and 2.5% to lose from both. The traits lost in this way is chosen at random.

After checking his Status, Nero cheered. "I broke a thousand mana!"

Amaryllis perked on his shoulder. "Did the timepiece work as you thought?"

Nero nodded. And then he had to explain what they were talking about to the [Gadgeteers] assembled. Finally, he asked Xalazuniox if he could buy the [Mind Library] card and was surprised by his answer.

"Of course. You can have it. The weapon card you gave us were appraised at more than we expected. Being the only one of its kind, from an unknown Dungeon, and never seen before. Speaking of which, did you place the portal already?"

Nero shook his head. "No. I was hoping one of you could give me an idea."

"Inside the throne room!" Amaryllis shot.

Nero rubbed his forehead as he winced at the suggestion. He was distracted by the orange card the draconid produced from his coat pocket.

[Mind's Library]

+3% All mental Attributes

"I remember everything, the love and loss, the Triumph and anger, and it has broken me."

Effect: Spend 1 point of mana. Record a scene that lasts no more than (Reason + Willpower) seconds into permanent memory. All details your senses could detect are held with perfect precision. It takes one-hundredth of the memory's duration to relive it but you can spend any length of time inspecting the sensorial information. You can only have a square.root(Reason + Willpower + Perception) such scenes at any time. If you try to record a new one without enough room, you forget the oldest one. You can pay 1 mana and relive the memory to cycle it to the front of the line.

Distracted, he flipped open the lid on his custom accessory and was promptly trampled by his professors. They stopped him from activating the card.

"Nero, what is this?" Bezzias pointed at the module on his bandolier and asked with a serious face.

"A device I made while hiding from Aslanbek. I call it the [Twin Skill Booster]," He answered with a proud grin.

"Why does it have two card slots?" Tinkwezisky asked. "Are these salvaged from Arbitrii?"

"It can equip two Skills," Nero answered. "It is an expensive modifier and it was a pain to get it right. The Attribute bonuses are halved and it has to be an accessory directly connected to the main lifeforce channels too."

The professors were making a big deal out of it. It was something uncommon, surely, but to trigger this reaction?

"Does it work? Did you test it?" Bezzias grabbed Nero's shoulder and shook. "Are you sure it will work?"

It startled him. He looked up, a bit unsure of how to proceed. "Yes, it worked for Moira..." At their puzzled faces, he explained. "Hers is a prosthetic leg but the extra Skill worked without a problem. I got the inspiration from my [Jester] Class. The Arbitrium can support external, temporary Skills. Not so temporary though. This device can't be removed without destroying it like other pieces of equipment. I think I can deactivate it and swap for another."

"How did you connect the card reader to the main controller?" Glom asked. "Nobody was able to do anything with the main controller for centuries!"

The three [Gadgeteers] pinned Nero. He looked at his professors, finding burning curiosity and astonishment in their eyes.

"I didn't!" Nero defended himself. "But I got to study more than a hundred Arbitrii while dismantling them. The card slots don't connect directly to the main controller crystal. They go to another separate controller that controls the card readers and the Essence emitters that materialize the items. I connected to that, lifting the first reader of each Arbitrii with that controller. It sends instructions as if it were another card reader."

"Whole?" Tinkwezilsky mumbled. "Whole? Do you have any idea... No, you don't!"

"No, he doesn't!" Glom chortled. "That's the Nero I know. He just went on with his intuition. You put Moira in danger though. Not something you should do."

"Yes, the ethical implications of experimenting with--" Bezzias' scolding was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Come in!" Xalazuniox shouted.

The dean's secretary entered. "Dean, there is a message from the King. He's inviting you, the Guild Master, and Research Assistant Nero to have tea with him at his solar this afternoon at five."

Most people in the room froze. Nero and Altia were looking at each other, confused.

"What does this mean?" Nero asked after the secretary went away and the door was closed. "It's a quarter to four. The appointment is too soon."

"It means," Crystal answered with a victorious smile. "That the King wants to expedite the negotiations and settle the debt before it escalates too much. He could crush us but he probably thinks we can be swayed by whatever offer he has for us. By stopping the invasion, you made a lot of people that bet on Bast being quartered and sacked angry. These people are like sharks in the ocean, and they smelled blood. These people are could come after us for just satisfaction or devote resources to weaken the King. Right now we are too expensive to hurt, so they are aiming to damage the crown. King Zander Alexander VI needs to rein in his supporters, and we are wildcards to him. If we play our cards right, we might get something really good from him. We should go."

Nero whistled. Crystal was changing after they rescued the knights. Princess Serena - the real Princess Sereal pre-kidnapping - was surfacing more and more.