Jeffery pounced on the closest of the three, instantly tearing into his armor. The other two were in shock at the fact their buddy was being mauled.

The other sword user started to swing at Jeffery, getting in two shallow cuts before Jeffery attacked him back. The wand user however, locked eyes with Mathew.

“I wouldn’t do that. Jeffery seems to be enough of a problem for you three. Which is pitiful. Attacking me is suicide. Remember, I am his master.” Mathew said pointing at his red furred summon.

“Fuck you!” The wand user said as he hurled a bolt of white energy. Mathew didn’t bother dodging it, instead blocking it with his arms infused with [Resistance]. He felt the attack connect, but after looking at his barely scathed armor, Mathew knew he had the upper hand here.

Mathew glared at his attacker. He said nothing as he pushed mana forward and an icy chain flew from his hand and wrapped around the mage. Instantly he was bound and unable to fight back.

Now that it was a proper two versus two. Mathew pulled out the spear he was given as a reward instead of Tyrone. He rushed forward to the first swordsman Jeffery took down and held the spear point to his neck.

“Jeffery, down boy.” Mathew looked down at the one he assumed was the leader. “You won’t fight back anymore, right?”

“N-No! Please, we had you confused for someone else. We swear!” Fear was present in all their eyes. He swore one of them pissed themselves as well.

“Yea!” The chained up one said. His words were hoarse, and he continued to strain against the ice chains. “We are just idiotic kids!”

Mathew frowned down at them. They did look young, however they were probably at least eighteen, not kids at all. In the eyes of The System, they were adults since they could access their menus and level up. “Really? If you are going to try and start a fight, don’t chicken out as soon as you are overwhelmed. Fight back till the end. Unless you are so weak you give up at the first instance of losing?”

“Just let us go. We won’t bother you anymore mister.” The leader pleaded.

“Oh, so it’s ‘Mister’ now and not an old man? I’m not even 40!”

“Well they gray hairs are kinda misleading sir.” The mage wheezed out.

“Gray hairs? What?” Mathew reached up at his head but couldn’t see his own hair without a mirror. He summoned one to his hand. Upon looking at himself, he did see he have several gray hairs on the side of his head. “When did those pop up? After I ranked up? After meditating and aquiring two new Axioms? Was it Doozorka?”

“Uhhh, sir. Are you going to let us go? We promise to be good!” The leader said.

“Yea we promise.”

“Yea me too!”

Mathew looked at all three of them with disappointment. Then a very sinister idea popped into his head. “Actually, I have a proposition for you three.”

A contract appeared in his hand, and a pen started to get to work. He received confused looks, but finished in a moment. He didn’t bother giving them any comforts or answering their questions.

“Sign this. Then once you do something for me, you are free to go.”

“Sign that? What is this, some sort of recruitment into a cult?”

Mathew stared down flatly.“ It’s a contract. Sight it and you are free .Or, I can just kill you all, take your stuff, and feed one of you to Jeffery. He is really hard to keep full.”

Either Jeffery was playing along or was actually hungry as he licked his lips at the mention of food.

“What’s the catch?”

Mathew looked down at all three of them. They are stupid. Which means they are easy to manipulate. The reason he has been playing nice in Blue Oaks is because he has been in a position that was very volatile and can be easily taken from him. Here where nobody knows who he is… “The catch is you work for me here. Not with me. For me. You are going to find Challenges, and report them back to me.”

“We know where one is!” The leader said with hope in his eyes.

“Good! That’s where we can start. Sign this agreement between you three and I. Upon doing so, you work for me until I leave this floor. You can keep any rewards you find yourself in any of the challenges. You also don’t tell anyone about this agreement. If you understand all of that, and what is written on this paper, then we will have no more problems.” Mathew grinned as he handed a pen to the leader.

He signed it, with no hesitation, and without reading it. “Idiot.” Mathew thought to himself.

They all three signed. Once they did, Mathew freed the chained one, and had Jeffery let the third up. Looking at their names, the leader was Billy, the mage was…also Billy, and the swordsman was Trisian.

Mathew flatly looked at the two Billy’s. They were both staring intently at a menu. Mathew received three himself, showing all three were in a contract with him approved by The Council. Even with fake names, they realize that The Council only cares about intent when it comes to contracts. Fake signatures didn’t matter. They were not forced to sign, just heavily pushed to.

His contract powers still worked. Mathew assumed they still did, but this doubled as a test to prove that. Now he had three little helpers. That was until one of them tried to betray him. “They are in for a shock when they try to kill me in my sleep. I’m going to wake up with one of them dead probably, or worse, alive and suffering. Sucks to be them, but I can’t take risks here.”

Mathew put his spear back in his personal storage. “Now then. Follow me to a nearby challenge. Don’t fight anyone or anything that we discover along the way. Act natural, and let me do the talking.”

Tristan seemed to agree, the other two were hesitant, but eventually nodded. Mathew led the way. He let them talk among themselves, not realizing he could hear them all with his heightened senses from being Apprentice ranked.

“Brandon, I think that contract is real! I had a box show up and mention some council.” Tristan whispered.

“Us too. I used a fake signature, but it still counted I think. Just who is that guy?” Mage Billy said.

“Doesn’t matter.” Brandon said, who was the leader and first swordsman. “We play it cool. Just follow me and don’t fuck shit up. He’s strong, but can’t be watching us all the time.”

Mathew smiled to himself. “Oh, that’s where you are wrong.”

Thanks to his upgraded ability, [Attentiveness] let him know where Agnox was. It also now worked on his three new helpers. Now that Mathew sees them as allies, albeit temporary ones, he knows their location. The range was only fifty feet, but that was more than enough range for these three.

Agnox was at the edge of his ability. Staying high in the tree foliage. Eventually, Mathew came to a new portal. This one was colored yellow with blue swirls. A part of him wondered why the portals were different colors, then again, he truly didn’t care.

“Okay, you three go off and find me a new challenge. Where is the other one you mentioned before and what is it?”

“It’s a Dungeon. We never went into it.” Brandon said. “Boxes said it was a Boar Dungeon and Novice ranked. We didn’t go in since we didn’t have a large enough group.”

“There are dungeons as well? Excellent!”

“Good. I’ll meet you three there. I’ll finish this challenge, then finish that Dungeon. Once you find two more challenges or Dungeons for me, meet me at that portal. Don’t die. Don’t cause problems for others either. If someone attacks you, knock them out and bring them to me. New helpers are always needed.”

Brandon nodded greedily and the three turned to leave. Mathew watched them, and he remembered something important. “Also, don’t try to teleport out of this place. You three are mine until I leave this floor.”

All three paused, but said nothing and continued off. “Good thing they are so low leveled. I mean, how stupid are they? They can’t be over Level 15, yet are waltzing around causing problems like they are actually strong. I took them out of the fight by barely doing anything!”

Mathew thought back to their reactions. “They were afraid of me. As if I would actually kill them. Why? Sure, I held a spear and sent Jeffery at them, but they lost the will to fight after I put forth any effort. Are other groups really this pitiful?”

Once they were out of eyesight Agnox flew down. “Geez Boss. I thought you were going to kill them.”

“I was tempted, but a new idea formed in my head.” Mathew said, turning around to face the portal. “If they cause problems later on, I’ll be forced to do so. I have no reason to kill them outside of taking their stuff. Even then, It’s worthless to me.”

“So, what now?” Agnox asked.

“Now? We have a puzzle to solve, and a Dungeon to clear out.”

Mathew walked into the challenge. It was a Challenge of Logic according to the blue screen. Once inside, Mathew found himself and Agnox in a small room. Jeffery was there as well surprisingly.

In front of him was a tablet with squares that had random lines on it. On the wall in front of him was a larger version of it. In the bottom left of both there was an empty space.

“Agnox, did you ever play with puzzles or other intelligence testing games?”

“Not really. My first master did enjoy this card game however.”

“I played chess growing up. My brothers and I would host miniature tournaments every christmas. The winner got to open the first gift.” He smiled as he started to slide puzzle pieces around.

“My youngest older brother, Benjamin, was a chess master. The best out of all seven of us. He played in world tournaments and came in second world wide before he started to focus on his real career as a Physicist. Lost to some Russian guy sadly, otherwise he might have kept up with that rather than retiring from the game.”

“Huh, you don’t talk about your brothers very often.”

“Because they hate me and I don’t care for them anymore.” Mathew was having problems figuring out what the image of the puzzle was meant to be. There were no colors, just lines and right now he couldn’t tell what it was meant to be.

“Aren't siblings supposed to be together through the end? Even in my old clan, family was special. The only thing that came before family was clan honor.”

“That’s a longer story to explain. Let’s just say, I did something horrible, but for good reasons.”

Agnox gestured to the wall. “Seems like you are going to be here a while.”

Mathew paused for a moment. “Are you asking because you actually want to know, or trying to just talk since you are bored?”

Agnox didnt’ say anything for a moment. “I don’t know much about your past. Other than you are a stupid human who didn’t know his left from right when it came to how the real world works.”

Looking up at his floating familiar Mathew asked, “But why do you want to know?”

“Because I want to get to know you more. Ever since we survived that ghost thing, I’ve felt closer to you. We are in this till the end of time, remember? Plus, you mentioned them a few times. I wouldn’t mind getting to know more about your family dynamic a bit more.”

Mathew closed his eyes, thinking. “Fine.”

As he continued working on the puzzle Mathew took a deep breath. “It was a couple years ago. One of my brothers, David, wasn’t known to be the most honorable man. He had a wife. He also had two other girlfriends.”

“Out of all my brothers, David was the one who caused problems the most. My parents are big social figures. My father was still a very important Judge to my mother who was a Politician. She never kept the spotlight on herself for long. She preferred to work in the shadows. A suggestion on stocks here, pushing a legal bill there, stuff like that.”

“Because of that, they tried to keep David’s ‘activities’ out of the media spotlight. I was almost in the same boat since I chose to forge my own path forward. It was because of that choice David often talked to me the most.”

“We both hated our parents, and that’s what we bonded over.” Mathew licked his lips as he found four pieces of the puzzle lines matched up. He just needed to figure out where they went.

“I hated David’s cheating. So I finally told his wife.” Mathew let out a long sigh and rolled his eyes at the memory. “She handled it poorly. Went to the news stations. Blew up social media. It was a wildfire. My parents didn’t help by trying to put out that fire.”

“Instantly, they helped David’s wife get a divorce. They paid him money to go into hiding while things died down. It ruined-” Mathew paused as he looked at the puzzle. He turned the tablet upside down and smiled to himself.

“I think I figured out the image, now to just put the pieces where they go.”

Agnox poked Mathew, “You were saying about him being ruined?”

Mathew nodded and continued, “It ruined him mentally. Having his family turn on him like that. A few months later, I met up with him. I was genuine in checking in on him, but he assumed something else. He picked a small bar to meet up. He was always a heavy drinker.”

“After a few drinks he started to yell at me. Blaming me for ruining his life. Saying I was the reason his wife left him, not the fact he slept with two other women behind her back. I couldn’t care less how many people he slept with. It was the disloyalty to his wife I couldn't stand. She never knew, so I put an end to it all.”

“David then attacked me. At first, I just avoided his wild punches. Sadly it wasn’t a very big bar, there was no bouncer. Someone tried to stop him, but David was a big guy. Out of all of us, he was the strongest. Only one who turned to physical activities rather than mental activities.”

Mathew’s voice had an edge of anger to it. “He smashed a bottle and started to attack me. That’s when I had enough. I pulled out my gun, and told him to fuck off. He kept swinging, so I shot him.” Mathew shrugged as he finished the story.

“After that, I was charged with murder, and taken to jail. It didn’t take long before the bar’s security footage was acquired, and I was proven not guilty. The worst part of it all? My own mother and brothers were against me.”

Mathew frowned as he almost finished the puzzle. “My Dad was the only person who stood by my side.”

Agnox was quiet as he listened. He’s never seen Mathew this emotional about something. Even with him acting like he didn’t care, Agnox saw the truth in Mathew’s eyes. It was pain. Both emotional and the pain he has been holding back due to his damaged soul. Talking about his brothers and family seemed to make it hard to keep a stoic face on.

“I didn’t realize.” Agnox said with a hint of regret. Regret for digging this up about Mathew’s past and for the silence of pain he was going through.

“It is what it is.” Mathew said with a slight wince. Then he smiled and moved one final piece of the puzzle. “Just like this Challenge. It’s finished and done.”

A small green box appeared in Mathew’s hands, but not for Agnox. He opened it to see a vial of some pink liquid. Saving it to examine later, Mathew turned to leave. “Do me a favor, Agnox. If we ever meet with my brothers in this place, don’t trust them. At least one of them wants to kill me in revenge. It’s stupidly based, but I can’t disway their reasons. All because family blood is on my hands.”

Mathew licked his chapped lips. Memories of his brothers shouting at him flooded his mind. “None of them are loyal nor are to be trusted. The McGonalds are cutthroat, unloyal, and above all, will do anything to win. Yet, when one McGonald is in trouble, all others will flock to help them. There is a reason my father took my mothers name and not the other way around.”

“My mother was heartless, cold, and above all, downright evil. Every day I am glad she is dead. If it wasn’t for the fact the world was going to shit, I would have thrown a party at her funeral.”

Mathew took a deep breath, not used to being this emotion with someone. His soul ached from being this emotional. Another side effect from his condition. Emotions were tied to one's soul. Being emotional caused him pain. ”Am I a good person? Not at all, nor do I expect you to be. In the real world, you have to make choices that are not always morally right. My brothers? They will cut anyone down at their knees just because it gives them a 1% edge.”

“Me? I want those who work for me to respect me. It’s why I’ve been nice to those at Blue Oaks. I see a future where I’m in charge, and everyone who works for me fears me, respects me, and above all, knows I will protect them. That’s the true value of a McGonald I have embraced. You take no shit from anyone else when it comes to what is yours.”

Mathew looked behind Agnox at the image one more time. There was something about it that seemed…more. He wasn’t in the mood to figure it out, and left the area. Agnox sat in silence for a moment. A single thought couldn’t help but worm its way into his mind. “Is Mathew even going to live long enough to live up to such an idea?”