James walked into his guild master office and sat down at his round table. Already seated and waiting for him was his other 5 sins, the 5 Ghosts and what he was referring to as a knight in his own mind. He felt a profound sense of happiness as he surveyed his people.

The sins were the foundations of the brotherhood. Goliath of Wrath, Jessy of Lust, Exsue of Envy, Fatty of Gluttony, Kelly of Sloth and himself, James of Pride. Unfortunately, they’d lost their greed thanks to the strange deviation of his and Jasmine’s spirit realms, which meant there was presently an empty seat at the table.

The Ghosts were naturally, Alecksa of the Patient Famine, Cash of Apathy, Junior of Suspicion, Tommy of Discipline and lastly Cassidy of the Deceptive Memories.

Lastly was his only current Knight and his most loyal subordinate, Death ... also known as Harvey.

All of the people gathered here in this room were elites amongst their peers. They had yet to match up against anyone apart from each other, in the same realm, that could threaten their superiority.

James felt a perverse sense of pride at having ‘created’ these monsters amongst their generation. As he gazed at them, he organised his thoughts and finally let a sinister smile slip.

“In 3 months we will be holding the War of the Worlds tournament. Because we have agreed to represent the Yori Empire, I will be entering as one of their contestants. Also, we have some pending jobs.

“Firstly, the Spirit Jade will now be a long term goal. Instead of applying to apprentice under Tantsu this year, I will wait 4 years and attempt it then.

“Secondly is the Spatial Stone. We can move to recover some more of this now, but I would rather we wait until the War of the Worlds is over. I originally intended for us to leave Tech City immediately and only return occasionally, but it seems I’m going to be stuck here a little longer until I’ve successfully accumulated a better knowledge base and skill in both forging and alchemy.

“That said, you all will be starting some rather specific jobs for me. Fatty and Alecksa, you two shall be working in concert in the West. The nation of Soel is a religious nation that worships the three suns. Your task will be simple. Go there and cultivate your Famine and Gluttony.

“After some time considering it, I’ve discovered something interesting in regards to our Abstract elements. This will concern all of you, even Harvy who only has a Rare element. For those of us who have Scrying, you too have no doubt noticed this anomaly. Abstract elements don’t usually appear in nature. At any given time, the surroundings are filled with primal spirit energy and free spirit energy.

“Most free energy is created when primal energy interacts with something in the world and is created from the reaction. The earth generates a feeble amount of free earth-based spirit energy, the wind generates tiny amounts of wind energy, etcetera. Free energy serves two purposes.

“The first is how it interacts with a person’s refined spirit energy. This usually allows us to more easily influence matter and energy in the world. For example, if I use a martial technique to try and alter the earth nearby to create a wall, the free earth energy is what I am actually influencing and it, in turn, will allow me to raise an earth wall from the ground.

“In the case of materialising spirit energy, for example creating water out of thin air, or creating a blade made of wind, this is when we don’t rely on the interaction between our energy and free energy, and directly create matter using our refined energy. This requires a tremendous amount of spirit energy but also allows us to create matter that reflects the properties of our spirit energy and not just the nearby free energy.

“The problem with this is that it requires a great deal of control and spirit energy, and it also slowly loses its form. Naturally, the more spirit energy you use to create something, the longer it will exist and the stronger it will be.

“The second point is the matter of free energy’s influence on cultivation. After some testing, I’ve discovered that free energy is a great boon to cultivators. Your spirit realm can easily absorb copious quantities of free energy that aligns with your own elements. This means that being in a place that has a large saturation of free energy similar to your own will speed up your cultivation speed tremendously.

“At the same time, it also allows you to study the free energy and further increase your experience and affinity with it. This in turn, greatly increases your control over your refined spirit energy. Phew.”

Finished his little speech, James looked at the faces of his guild members. Some showed recognition and others showed surprise. A few showed confusion and one or two showed a lack of interest. James expected as much, but he went through the trouble of explaining this to them both to help him order his thoughts on the matter and in the hopes it would help some of them with their cultivation.

Seeing that at least some of them understood his explanation, he continued on.

“The reason I’ve mentioned this is because Abstract elements don’t appear in nature. They only appear on people. This means that if you want to increase your cultivation speed in an abstract element with free energy, then you will need to find people who are giving off this free element.

“In the case of Fatty and Alecksa, both your elements align. Fatty, explain how exactly you cultivate.”

Fatty nodded and stood up with a serious expression on his face. Everyone was curious as to how exactly he cultivates. Fatty took a breath as if he was going to go into a long deep contemplative explanation only to simply say; “I get hungry and then eat stuff.”

Everyone nearly fell out of their chairs, and James’ eyebrow started to furiously twitch. “What about a breathing technique, have you bothered to develop one yet?”

Fatty gave another nod. “When I breathe in, all the primal spirit energy nearby get absorbed. When I breathe out its just air.”

James put his face in his palms and felt deep regret at having had picked Fatty to start this discussion. He then looked at Alecksa with some hope in his eyes and nodded for her to explain her cultivation practices.

Alecksa stood as Fatty sat back down and then began to explain. “My cultivation is in three elements and as such requires a little more effort. In a sense, I’m worse off than the rest of you because I actually have two abstract elements. Famine and Patience. We thought that famine would be considered a rare element at first, but after thinking on Guild Master’s explanation, I’m now certain it’s also abstract.

“For Famine, I carry around a box enchanted with hunger arrays that keep me in a perpetual state of hunger. This has helped me to better understand, control and speed up the cultivation of Famine. It also allows me to temper my patience. Similarly, anything that requires patience helps to fuel my cultivation. Even now, as all of you exert patience sitting here, I can feel my cultivation speed jumping up.

“My last element is water, and I generally cultivate that through my breathing technique. For the moment I haven’t created one as suitable as Guild Master’s star point breathing, so that is all I use.”

Alecksa then sat down, and everyone returned their eyes onto James. James felt slightly better hearing that Alecksa at least put some thought and effort into her cultivation, as opposed to Fatty. He then nodded his head after thinking for a moment.

“Well, I suggest that both of you start thinking of methods to create a breathing technique that will resonate with your elements. The breathing technique doesn’t just increase your ability to draw in spirit energy, but also increases your bodies attributes and allows you to generate more power or control in martial techniques.”

James threw out two folders to the duo showing their respective tasks. “Well, I suggest that both of you consider methods to generate your own personal breathing techniques. Also, you should consider and practice some new martial techniques that are personalised to your elements.

“Right now, I know that Fatty doesn’t have any techniques at all, and relies entirely on his strange body. Alecksa, you also mostly only rely on releasing your element wildly into the surroundings, you should consider creating some martial techniques to focus your talents.”

James then looked around again and took out two new folders. He threw one over to Jessy and the other to Goliath. “You two will also be working together on this assignment. You will take the 3 dark brothers from the ghosts. Tommy, you will follow their advice, but ultimately you are in charge of you three brothers. In addition, you will have another mission, but ultimately I want you to assist these two in their task.”

James then threw another folder over to Tommy, who sat between his other two brothers. He knew they didn’t particularly like the idea of splitting up from their siblings, but they would eventually have to learn to act independently of each other.

James then glanced at the 5 people and considered for a moment. He then pointed at Goliath and asked; “Goliath, would you mind describing your method of cultivation to us?”

Goliath nodded and stood up. His tall, muscled figure loomed over the table like a war god, and his serious, stern expression gave everyone the impression he was a fearsome and disciplined soldier.

“My cultivation is in fire, earth and wrath. My breathing technique is unique in that my fire energy doesn’t run through my meridians but instead is focused like a solitude raging flame encompassing my heart. My earth runs through my meridians similar to an upside down pyramid and focuses on increasing upper body strength and reinforcing my centre of gravity.

“Lastly, like my fire element, my wrath energy doesn’t run through my meridians but instead is infused into my blood. With every beat of my heart, my fire energy heats my blood into lava and aggravates the wrath energy infused within. When I am prepared to unleash my spirit energy, my heart beats faster, and the flames burn hotter until the wrath energy can’t be contained any longer, at that point, it fills every part of my body like a great surge of anger.”

“Within my spirit realm, my earth element is a great mountain, stable and unshakable. On the top of my mountain is an earthen altar within which is my ever burning flame, engulfed within that is a blood orb of my wrath which is constantly being refined and envelopes my True Spirit. At the moment, this structure is the most helpful for my cultivation but also somewhat unstable and difficult to maintain. When I eventually reach palace realm, this will be the structure of my palace.”

Goliath then gave another nod and sat down. James was surprised that Goliath had already begun structuring his palace, even though they’d all only recently stepped into the True Spirit Realm and had at minimum a few years or more until they reached the point they would face their three tribulations.

James considered for a moment whether he should restructure his own spirit realm to reflect how he wanted his spirit palace to look. After another thought, he decided to wait. He had quite a few more energies that he would need to structure together to resonate properly with his soul.

At last James glanced over to Jessy. Seeing everyone’s gazes focus onto her, Jessy couldn’t stop herself from blushing. Finally, after the silent pressure of everyone’s curious stares built up for a moment, Jessy humphed and stood up with and angry glare at James.

“As you all know, my aspect is lust, and I also have wind and water. My breathing technique is still the star point technique because without as many elements it’s difficult to operate the hands of time properly and feels uncomfortable for me.

“I discovered the link between cultivating an abstract element and experiencing the aspect it represents back when James told me that it would be the only way to increase my control over it. As such I ... ahem, well, have lots of sex and create various sexual fantasies while I meditate. This increases my cultivation speed rapidly.

“I’ve also discovered that when I ... erm ... have sex with strong cultivators and release my energy into their bodies it returns to me with huge amounts of excess lust energy. During sex, I can rapidly increase my cultivation through this method...”

Jessy then paused for a long moment with an awkward facial expression as she thought back to her times experimenting with this method of cultivation. “Unfortunately, this often comes at the expense of my partner’s cultivation. If I use this method on someone who has a weak willpower, it could even suck their entire cultivation from their body to fuel mine.

“In my spirit realm, my True Spirit sits in a cloud of pink mist. In the centre of this cloud is a pink flame which tempers my True Spirit. Although it greatly increases my sexual frustrations, this method raises my cultivation speed faster and increases my ability to visualise fantasies. Around this cloud is a constant gentle green breeze and beyond that is a stream of water which orbits my True Soul like a circle. It has characteristics of highly pressurised water and spins in and endless circle.”

Jessy finally sat down with a blushing face while everyone else stared at her with incredulity. Especially those other 3 from earth. James couldn’t help staring at her in shock. ‘Isn’t she a succubus? Does she not suck the life force out of people she fucks? Holy crap! I’ve actually created a demon.’

Finally, he shook this thought off and glanced over to the three brothers of the ghost team. Tommy stood up at this glance and bowed to everyone. “Seniors, we three junior all have similar methods of cultivation for a darkness attribute. It’s easiest to cultivate in the cold dark of night, and we each operate the star point breathing technique. Cash cultivates his apathy by just not giving a shit. Junior cultivates best in the underground black markets where everyone is deeply suspicious of everyone.

“I cultivate my discipline through patient cultivation and quiet introspection. As the only one of us with a normal element, my cultivation is fastest because the earth element helps me to temper my heart and mind as an immovable rock.”

Tommy then sat down with a straight back and continued to listen to the conversation at the table. As one of the youngest members of the Dark Brotherhood council, he greatly relished this chance to interact with his senior brothers and sisters. Although they didn’t meet often, but he acknowledged each of the sins as incredibly powerful seniors.

In fact, it wasn’t just the three brothers. Alecksa and Cassidy both acknowledged these 6 sins as powerful seniors. Even with their strange talents, they could feel the bizarre level of power they gave off. Although none of them could scry, the instinctively knew that the sins each had incredibly powerful willpowers.

Even after James had found them and explained how soul pressure worked and told them it was a reflection of their willpower and their ability to influence the world around them. Even after they’d spent countless amounts of effort training their willpower and spirit pressure, they could still feel that they weren’t a match for these 6 seniors.

Actually, the one they were most instinctively afraid of wasn’t even one of the sins. Although James had tempered his willpower the most, and Exsue was simply unreadable, Harvy was actually the most frightening. It wasn’t a case of his spirit pressure being more powerful or well controlled than James’, but that the nature of his spirit pressure was simply ruthless and unyielding. Like the cold hand of death, it just kept coming no matter how much you ran.

It was as if Harvy didn’t have a limit to the amount of spirit pressure he could release. Although he was limited in his control and power, his spirit pressure was endless in quantity and could exude from him endlessly.

Although this was just a sense, like intuition, it still left them most afraid of him out of everyone.

They, of course, weren’t the only ones aware of this oddity. James too had talked with Harvy and experienced his endless spirit pressure and the strange clammy cold feeling it gave him when it was acting on him.

Probably the only certainty he felt in defeating Harvy came in the fact that Harvy’s pressure was still quite weak and he had trouble controlling it. Also, he had the Pressure Diverter which helped him to alleviate the pressure for a while, even though that ring would also eventually be destroyed after fending off an endless pressure for any deal of time.

After Tommy had sat back down, James looked over the remaining 4 participants of this meeting. Exsue, Kelly, Harvy and Cassidy. Finally, he looked to Cassidy and took out a folder. “Cassidy, I’m giving you a mission as well. Yours will be harder than everyone else’s combined and...”

“No.” Cassidy quickly interrupted.

James sat stunned for a moment then scowled slightly. “You don’t even know what the mission is and your already going to reject it?”

Cassidy raised her head to the roof proudly and pouted slightly, looking all the while the incarnation of cuteness. “I don’t wanna.”

James’ eyebrow started twitching wildly. He’d interreacted enough with Cassidy to know her personality by now. Unfortunately, he needed her for this mission to be a success and as such, he had no choice but to acquiesce.

“Fine, what is it?”

Cassidy glanced over at James from the corner of her eye as a devilish smile spread on her lips. “You have to give me ‘it’.”

“Denied.”

James didn’t even need to consider. He knew what ‘it’ was and immediately rejected. Although no one else in the room knew what ‘it’ was, they knew that it must be something significant if James wasn’t even going to consider discussing it. They all watched stunned, as James took back the folder he was about to hand to her. It then suddenly burst into flames and disintegrated into ashes.

James then looked over to Kelly and started to outline the task he’d set for her. Cassidy, seeing James so resolutely denying her could only give a ‘tsk’. She then waved her hand, and everyone in the room suddenly found a needle stuck in their neck.

Cassidy then cutely looked at James with big adorable eyes and spoke. “Harder than everyone else combined? But Guild Master, I don’t know if I’m ready to take a mission on my own yet.”

All of a sudden, it was like time had rewound to just before the moment she had said ‘no’. Apart from her, everyone had completely forgotten that brief moment.

James just smiled evilly as he looked over at Cassidy. He then opened the palm of his hand and let the needle which was supposed to have struck him in the neck drop onto the table with a ‘tink’. Cassidy wasn’t surprised. Apart from her, the only other person who knew about her power was James.

She didn’t know how he’d discovered her power, but after they all broke through into the True Spirit Realm and she’d stolen another kiss from him, he suddenly showed up at her room and took her off to a secret training room somewhere in the city.

He then made her stay there and practice needle skills for days on end. By the end, her hands were filled with cuts and pricks, and she could barely move her fingers. For those few days, she tried numerous times to make James forget that he was supposed to be training her in needles, only to discover that he would suddenly smile like the devil and her training would just become even harsher.

By the end, she knew that the Guildmaster had become aware of her spirit power and had found some way to nullify it. Needless to say, he taught her to pour her spirit energy into the needles so as to act as a poison, causing anyone they touched to suddenly forget back a set amount of time.

She couldn’t help but cutely pout, seeing James revealing her needle.

James then continued on as if this whole spectacle had never happened. “No need to worry Cass.” He continued as he pulled another folder out from under the table and slid it over to Cassidy. Seeing him produce another folder as if he’d expected this to happen the whole time, Cassidy could only pout cutely, meanwhile cursing and throwing a fit in her spirit realm.

“Although your mission will be the most difficult, you will be taking a guardian with you.” James then nodded to Exsue and handed her a folder. Before she had a chance to deny this mission and claim she only wanted to stay here at James’ side, James put a hand on her head like patting a dog.

“Don’t worry Exsue, you will definitely be generously rewarded for this mission.”

Exsue visibly crooned and rubbed her head into his hand like a cat trying to create more contact. Because James hardly ever showed her any attention of affection, she was especially weak to his devious methods like this.

She could only comply.

James then looked at Kelly. “Kelly, I know you don’t like being given orders and especially don’t enjoy doing anything that might be considered work, as such, you can do whatever you want. I don’t know if you’re interested, but we have an alchemy master joining us soon. If you like, you can join Norman and I in training, or you can remain in the lab and continue on your own little projects.”

Kelly gave a silent nod from her slouched half asleep position. As James said, if he gave her a task to accomplish, that would be like giving her work, which by her very nature she would avoid putting any effort or thought into. When she could freely do what she wanted she would gladly do stuff, even if most the time it were destructive or pointless. After all, the idle hands are the devil’s tools and who had more idle hands than sloth?

James then looked at Harvy. “Harvy, you are going to remain here. You will be either in the university’s flight program or at the graveyard.”

“Yes, my Dark Liege.” Replied Harvy promptly.

Finished giving out his instructions, James left. Everyone quickly then began preparing for their missions. Even though James hadn’t given any instructions to Kelly, he knew how to get her to do work. He just needed to make it not look like work. As such, everyone had instructions in their mission folder to visit her and complain about this or that which would make their mission easier.

The fact that most of the things they would need developed by her were rather interesting or destructive would naturally draw Kelly’s attention. Although she may be sloth, that was only in regards to anything she hated doing. Although she was incredibly lazy and tired, she loved to build things. Idle devil hands and all that.

-Tech City Catacombs-

The Tech City Catacombs were actually a relic of the past Gau City. Although almost everything from the old city was destroyed and rebuilt, the catacombs were left mostly intact. This was because Jasmine faced a great deal of resistance when she decided to try and destroy it. Not from the people who lived in the city, but rather from the residence of the catacombs themselves.

The first few levels of the catacombs, apart from the reeking of dead bodies and endless hordes of rats, nothing was out of ordinary, and these levels got stripped bare and rebuilt to accommodate untold amounts of corpses. In fact, the first 8 levels were rebuilt to fit damn near every citizen of the entire empire. That’s millions of resting places.

However, down beyond the eighth level was the Crypt. From what information he’d gathered, James knew that the Crypt descended even deeper into the earth and was filled with the corpses and dead ancients from long ago.

The problem was that most of these levels were filled with beings that could only be called undead. Ghouls, ghosts, zombies. All the usual characters. James had a few theories on what exactly these creatures were but wasn’t too worried about taking some back for an autopsy just now.

Back when Jasmine tried to renovate, she tried to have the undead purged but discovered that the horde was almost endless. After the renovations to the top layers, she promptly forgot all about the lower levels, deciding that those walking corpses could just stay down there. As far as she could tell, they had no intentions of climbing up to the surface to start trouble, so she never mentioned it to James.

Now, however, James had been trying to think of ways to help his companions increase their prowess and cultivation. Due to that, he asked about the cemetery and was informed about this place. Learning that it was filled with zombies, James held nothing back in berating Jasmine for this oversight.

As such, James and Harvy found themselves standing at the bottom of the eighth level staring at a massive 40-meter tall iron door filled with various inscriptions of brave warriors fighting monsters and invaders.

It looked very much out of place, because behind the duo was a huge clean stone chamber that looked very new and shiny and was lit by modern lights. Meanwhile, the ancient door looked like it was dragged straight out of some Dwarvish mine from Mordor.

James walked forward and knocked on the door a few times. “Clunk Clunk Clunk.” Rang out in the eighth level. James then tried pushing on the door only to find it swung open easily and without any resistance.

The moment the door opened, it revealed an old worn stone staircase leading down into pitch blackness. An ominous black mist poured out from beyond the door. James didn’t even need to scry to tell that this was a manifestation of death spirit energy. After scrying, he confirmed that all this death energy was free energy and not the refined energy of some creature.

He then looked over to Harvy. “Well? What do you think?”

Harvy moved forward and stood in the mist. After a moment his own death aura spread out like a mist from his body and then rapidly cycled back into him like waves. Before the wave returned, he’d already released more energy which floated out and mingled with the free energy coming back once more in a great wave.

Harvy nodded and pulled all his energy back in. “It is perfect Master. This Crypt will be perfect for cultivating my death spirit energy.”

James nodded slightly. “Good. Go cultivate for a while, just make sure not to let any undead out. In three months when the war of the worlds comes, I expect you to be the master of the first level of this crypt. From what Jasmine told me, there are many powerful creatures deep in here. I don’t expect you to take over the entire crypt right now, especially considering there are probably some ancient undead creatures living here that have existed for millennia.”

Harvy nodded, and then without further words strolled down into the crypt. James then very quickly closed the door tightly behind him while talking to Jasmine in his spirit realm.

“Jasmine, set up some stronger defences at this door. I don’t want anything walking out of here that isn’t Harvy.”

With that done, James turned and left.

As Harvy descended slowly into the crypt, he felt, for the first time in a long time, some sense of excitement. His master had giving him everything, and now even sought out such a miraculous place for him to cultivate.

He truly loved his master. The Dark Overlord took a great deal of care for him to supply a place so perfect for his cultivation.

Here, deep within the earth, surrounded by such thick death aura, he could cultivate both his understanding and power over death, as well as his affinity to the earth and the connection between the two.

After nearly 10 minutes of descending, Harvy entered into a dark corridor that branched off into tens of other corridors. Filling this corridor were hordes of slowly shambling corpses that meandered about aimlessly. It was pitch black but that had never worried Harvy.

Through his affinity with death and earth, he’d long since developed an inner eye. Although this wasn’t to the same degree as James’ Scrying, which revealed everything, Harvy could see a great deal more than others.

The moment he stepped onto the bottom step, the zombie-like corpses sensed the tiny piece of flickering life force still remaining in his body and started turning towards him. Harvy simply waved his hand, and a compact rectangular steel device flicked out of his sleeves into his hand.

With another wave of the hand, the rectangle flicked out and took the shape of a great big scythe. This was the Hand of Death. It was created by James in the forge and contained the strongly focused free energy of a Blood Lotus. These flowers generally only grew on battlefields littered with corpses and blood.

The most interesting part of these flowers was that they absorbed the thick death energy left over from destructive battles and huge amounts of death. By using this to craft Harvy’s folding scythe, James managed to imbue it with a very strange property. Anything it cut off would not just die, but very quickly disintegrate into dust and return to the earth.

Harvy truly loved his Master. With a simple stride forward he moved into the crowded corridors of the crypt and began a slaughter as he slowly operated his external breathing technique that he’d just displayed in front of James.

-James’ Meditation Room-

James sat in his meditation room in the guild. As he sat in meditation, he was having a discussion with Jasmine in his spirit realm. On a floating asteroid within his spirit realm, James’ True Spirit, Jasmine’s spirit and Gold James all sat enjoying some tea.

Jasmine took a sip and then began the discussion. “Everyone has begun their preparations to leave for their missions. It seems everyone is quite excited to be going out of the city for a while.”

James nodded his head as he placed down his cup. “I’m not surprised, I too wish to escape this damnable city. Being a cultivator on the martial path, I need to leave and gather experience of the world as well. However, I am also aware that the things I can learn here and now are the most important and I will carry these skills with me to the precipice of this world.”

Gold James patted his chest proudly and bragged.Hah, knowledge is the true power of the world. I should tell you both, I have a perfect memory and have never forgotten anything I learn. You should let me take control to learn alchemy.~

James quirked an eyebrow at him oddly. “You do realise, you can’t brag in front of me. Being the same person, everything I learn you will naturally learn as well. I can confirm that our memory has vastly improved, but it still isn’t perfect.”

Jasmine smiled to herself as the two bickered between each other. This was quite a common scene in their Spirit Realm. Although the two bickered endlessly and fought constantly, it was like a single person having an inner monologue. She couldn’t help but giggle.

James finally stopped bickering with himself and decided to return to his original reason for sitting down here. He needed to lay out his future plans and discuss the path they would be moving forward. Originally he’d hoped to get the Spirit Jade out of the way earlier, but it had now somehow turned into a long-term investment, and he’d even somehow ended up with an alchemy master.

“First off, the War of the Worlds is in three months. That is my most pressing priority. If all goes well, a few months after that the 3 nations will already be at war with each other. How’s the factory going?”

Jasmine seemed to space out for a moment then nodded. “No problems. The factory is now operating at maximum efficiency. By the time the War of the Worlds is over we should have enough stockpiled to equip the entire Yori Empire. However, by that time our reserves will be dry as a bone, and the resources on the market in Yori will most likely be in severe flux due to our huge purchases.”

James cupped his chin and pondered for a short time. Finally, he focused his mind, and a piece of white floor space rose up like a great big rectangle in front of them. With a wave of the hand, the floor began changing colours. He then smiled to himself.

After some more focused thought, the big rectangular wall then started shaking and suddenly an image appeared on it. Jasmine, being the more adept with the quantum particle communication, suddenly widened her eyes as she looked at the screen in front of her.

On the screen was the interface used for communicating between com cubes. After some consideration, Jasmine finally realised what James had done. Looking at James with some shock, she couldn’t help but ask. “Did you just jack into the com network with your spirit realm?”

James smiled then shook his head. “Not with my spirit realm, more like with my subconscious. After you had taught me how you interpret the code the spirit particles operate on, I started to ponder on why it was that you had such an easy time of it while I found it so incredibly difficult.

“After a while, it struck me that this had been second nature to you since your inception. Not a conscious level of thought but rather a subconscious level of thought. I then realised my mistake in trying to consciously understand the code and interpret data from it. Instead, I decided to let my subconscious do what it does best, which is all the heavy lifting, while I continued doing what I do best, which is interacting.

“To achieve that goal, I had this thought, that is, I could create a means to interact in this world. Then, my subconscious just does all the communicating for me.”

James then glanced at Gold James who appeared completely unaffected. Being looked at, Gold James just shrugged his shoulders.Don’t look at me. We already agreed that I’m most likely not your subconscious but a split consciousness.~

James let out a sigh. He’d really, really hoped that Gold James had just been a figment of his subconscious imagination this whole time and the massive strain he put on his mind communicating on the network would affect him in some way.

Forgetting about such troubles, James then waved his hand at the screen again and the contact list cycled through until it landed on Lucas. Within a matter of moments, Lucas’ face appeared on the screen. To his great surprise, what he saw nearly made him fall out of his chair.

On the screen Lucas saw, was a reflection of the trio sitting in someone’s spirit realm enjoying tea. He almost couldn’t comprehend just what he was looking at. James didn’t really care if other people saw his spirit realm, which is why he allowed it to appear that way. In the end, he was basically untouchable on this continent now, and what was someone going to do even if they did know how bizarre his spirit realm was?

Gold James gave Lucas a wave to grab his attention and began speaking.Lucas, my good buddy. Your Yansho merchants guild, is it somehow connected to any bigger merchant powers?~

Lucas, after taking a few minutes to digest this strange scene, couldn’t help but look at the shadowy True Spirit of James. “James, is this your spirit realm? It’s ... beyond anything I’ve ever imagined of anyone’s spirit realm ... and ... it appears you have ... Guests?”

James just waved his hand as if it was nothing. “Never mind the small stuff Lucas. So like I asked, do you have a parent guild or sect or something that runs merchant operations all over the continent?”

Lucas couldn’t help but start thinking James had gone mad. ‘What’s he mean ‘like I asked’, it was clearly that gold guy who asked.’

After that thought had finished, he decided that business came first. He leant back in his chair and nodded. “We do. Yansho Merchant Guild is just a branch of the Profit Sect. They’re based in Nahtiro like all the major sects and guilds and are one of the 5 most powerful sects on the continent. There’s almost nothing they can’t get their hands on.”

Jasmine then piped up. “Excellent, I’ll send you a list of things we need, if you can, contact your parent sect and try to get us the best prices they can from the entire continent. We’ll handle the transport of these goods.”

Lucas, smelling the potential for a great deal, started to hum and haw. “I’m not sure it will be that easy Miss Jasmine. The Profit Sect generally only deal with large customers and influential backgrounds. Although you’ve come a long way from the small guild you were before, they probably won’t move to trade with you without more incentive.”

James cupped his chin and started thinking. After a bit, Gold James stood up from his spot and crushed his teacup into dust.Good! Very good then! You tell them, they help us with this matter, or we will expand our interests into major trading and take over the markets of this entire shitty little rock!~

With that said, Gold James then waved his hand through the air and caused the screen to shatter and fall back down into the lake below until it sunk to the bottom and merged into the endless white floor.

James quirked an eyebrow and then came to realise a huge drawback on doing business through his spirit realm. Gold James was incredibly proud and arrogant. For Lucas to belittle his guild and state that they weren’t of an influential enough background set off his pride. In Gold James’ mind, all he heard was; “Your guild’s shit and not worth the time.”

James then smiled bitterly to himself while Gold James started throwing a fit and smashing boulders into dust with lightning only for them to reform moments later.

Jasmine also let out a light sigh.

-Yansho Merchant Guild HQ-

Lucas stared at his com cube, stunned. After a moment, he smiled bitterly. He should have known better. Doing business with James was already incredibly difficult because the man was too astute in some things. Although the Yansho merchants guild had managed to pull the wool over them now and then and make some huge profits, James, Jasmine and especially Jessy, generally forced them down to the absolute bare bones of profit they could make.

He also knew better to try and do business like this when there was a third, unknown party, sitting right next to James. Based on the fact he could say such things and act in such a way, that gold man clearly held quite a bit of influence in the Brotherhood.

After cursing his luck at having run into such a troublesome fellow, he pulled out a sound talisman and called his Senior Brother in the Profit Sect.

-Nahtiro Island, Freedom City- Profit Sect -

Seated in his meditation room, a scrawny big nosed man suddenly quirked his eyebrow then reached into his robe and withdrew a sound talisman that was glowing. After pouring some spirit energy into the talisman, the talisman’s array patterns swirled and twisted until the circles on it realigned in a specific way.

Moments later, Lucas’ voice came out of the talisman. “Senior Brother Feng. It’s Lucas. I might have created a problem for us.”

Feng creased his brow. “Oh? What kind of problem is so big it could affect the Profit Sect from that tiny little Empire you’re in?”

“Well, about that Senior Brother ... You remember that Guild I mentioned?”

Feng scratched his chin for a moment then stood up to go make some tea. “The Black Brothers or something? Sure. They have some technology you believe the sect would be very interested in purchasing. I haven’t brought it up to Master yet though. Why? Has something changed?”

“About that ... they asked me to contact the Sect in the hopes Profit Sect could help them with some business.”

Feng’s brow creased again as he placed the talisman down on a little bench and sat to steep some tea. “Don’t bother with such trivial places. Just tell them that we only deal with large transactions, and some little guild out in the backwaters is hardly worth our time.”

Feng heard Lucas groan slightly. “Nnggg ... I had a feeling you’d say that Senior Brother, and I very much said the same thing. Unfortunately, they have said that we can deal with this matter for them, or they would begin expanding and take over every market on the continent. You’ve yet to meet these people. When they say such a thing, they will generally follow through. The leader of this guild ... he can be absolutely ruthless.”

Feng poured out his tea, remaining entirely unconcerned. “Heheh. Little Junior Brother, you’ve spent too long out in the muck and shit of the countryside. You seem to have forgotten just how powerful our sect is. If this little ant can bite the toe of our sect, we would welcome it so that we know which little ant we need to be stepping on.”

“Sigh... very well senior brother. Be sure to take my warning to heart though. Do not blame this Junior when you discover the pig is actually a tiger in disguise.

With that said, the connection broke and the talisman on the table burned into ash. Feng creased his brows at his Junior Brothers words. He and Lucas had been apprenticed to the same master for nearly 60 years. He knew that his Junior Brother would not needlessly worry over this if it was a trivial matter.

With that in mind, he clicked his fingers together. As if having always been kneeling there, a man clothed in green with his face covered suddenly appeared nearby. “My Lord, do you want this piddling guild eliminated?”

After another moment’s thought, Feng nodded. “Yes, destroy them. But bring me these flying carriages they have invented. Master will be most displeased if we give up such an important artefact and the method to create it. With such a thing, our control over resources and trade on Atsunari will become unbreakable.”

This said, the green ninja once again disappeared like a gentle breeze, as quickly as he’d come.

-James’ Spirit Realm-

James sat at the table pondering on what to do. Suddenly, his eyebrow tweaked. He just received a message from Lucas informing him that; ‘Unfortunately, the Profit Sect has declined the invitation to do business, but if there’s anything I can do to assist in acquiring the resources they need, the Yansho Merchant’s will help as best they can.’

Gold James immediately perked up when James received this message. Being the same person, naturally this would not escape his notice.Hahaha! Foolish! They dare to test me! Jasmine, prepare to begin a new operation. Codename, ‘All your base are belong to us!’.~

Jasmine could only let out a sigh. Very quickly, an operation to start taking over markets all over the continent began. James could only smile wryly. With Gold James so insistent on this course of action, he could only join in and let it happen.

-3 weeks-

Over the next few weeks, markets all over the continent started to fluctuate wildly. Resources were being traded through the Dark Brotherhood at an astronomical rate. With the assistance of Jasmine, a number of rockets were launched from Tech City, the next day, every major marketplace in every city suddenly had a handful of strange boxes suddenly land in the middle of them.

If a person approached one of these boxes, it would scan them and then drop a little cube. People, out of curiosity, started to take these boxes. They would then pour a little spirit energy into it, and suddenly a screen would appear in front of them explaining that they had just connected to the Dark Brotherhood’s Continental Markets.

This little box was truly devious. Each dispensary only had about 100 boxes. This meant that only a few thousand of these boxes existed. Once people discovered their purpose, a bloodbath engulfed the continent.

That was because this little box provided a person with the means to get anything they needed at the lowest possible prices. They could select almost any resource, in any market in the entire continent, and this little box promised to deliver. At first, there was scepticism. But after trying it, people would suddenly have a man rock up at their doorstep, usually within the day, on a magic flying board.

He would then have them stamp their seal on a delivery docket and hand over whatever goods they’d ordered after payment. A few people got greedy and tried to rob the delivery man only to later be engulfed in a furious explosion. These people were recorded and shown on the little black box to help set an example.

Gold James had invented FedEx. Not only that, but he’d also invented internet shopping. Suddenly everyone was salivating over getting their hand on one of these devices. What they didn’t realise, was that these boxes also sucked up information like a sponge.

The AI in the guild HQ was in control of the Continental Markets and needed an upgrade just to handle all the information pouring into it. With this information, the Dark Brotherhood suddenly had a means to determine the market prices for the entire continent. Every businessman and trader suddenly became connected to a huge network that connected everything.

All of a sudden, people that lived and breathed this business, whether it was trading, transporting, creating or buying these goods were rushing towards Tech City. People focused on transport were rushing to join the guild. The flying boards that Guild Members used were absolutely remarkable.

Hell, they could carry nearly a tonne of goods with the board, even though that would slow them down severely, this method of travel was still faster and safer than going on the roads where bandits and creatures often roamed.

Traders needed this box! They rushed to tech city to try and get their hands on a box. If they didn’t have this device, then trading and selling goods would become incredibly difficult. They would essentially be cut out of the market. At least if they have it, they can stockpile certain goods and sell to places they were in need.

Creators wanted this box so they could track their competitors and also determine how they would price their goods.

Suddenly, markets all over the continent began to flux wildly as people dropped or raised the prices of goods. By the second week, the Dark Brotherhood had a huge influx of potential guild members. To limit the dregs, James organised a trial for new entrants into the guild for the next week.

In addition to this, the guild started selling more Market Boxes at exorbitant prices to anyone who came for them. For these three weeks and weeks beyond, Tech City had another huge inrush of visitors.

During this time, James spent most of his time focused on training. After the system had been thought up and deployed, there wasn’t much for him to do apart from wait.

Every second day he would go to the Spire and climb as high as he possibly could. He was currently still stuck on the 30th floor. However, he discovered that the spirit pressure created from the spire arrays didn’t just help to strengthen his body and increase his cultivation rate, it also helped him to increase and control his own pressure.

In the spire’s endless pressure, James tried to constantly maintain his own pressure to combat against it. By doing this, he discovered that his control and quantity of pressure rapidly improved. Unfortunately, as much as his control increased, it didn’t matter how small he reduced its range it remained at 40m/s of pressure.

However, he was still ecstatic with his progress. By the end of the 3 weeks, he could control his pressure field to the point that it was only a meter or two from his body. He learnt this skill by necessity in order to reduce the amount of wasted energy from projecting over a larger area. Regardless of that, he still kept forging higher into the tower in the hopes of tempering it to the point he could cover only his body with it.

By that point, he hoped, it would become a powerful armour that could protect him from harm. Not only that, he wouldn’t even have to bother learning a flight martial skill or trying to develop one because he could just use his own soul pressure to fly himself around. Mind you, it still required a great deal of energy to achieve any form of prolonged flight.

If he calculated correctly, then he would need nearly 900 newtons per second just to eliminate gravity. He guessed he was at nearly 50,000 newtons as his maximum ‘soul energy’. That means he could remain weightless in normal gravity for almost a minute. That didn’t include moving his body in other directions and fighting against wind resistance.

In addition to training his soul energy and control, he also spent time training martial skills in the arena. Primarily he worked on his Fleet Feet. He named this skill as such because he eventually wanted to be so fast that no one would ever get more than a fleeting glance at him when he came and went.

To test his skills, he would often go to the arena and challenge Palace Realm cultivators. He rarely won a match if he didn’t take out his scimitar, usually having to withdraw because he couldn’t maintain the amount of spirit energy he needed to output to fight with them, but at the same time that never mattered to him. He only wanted to train his skills and cultivators in the same realm had long since no longer been a match for him.

His Fleet Feet skill used 4 different types of energy simultaneously. Firstly, he used wind energy to reduce wind resistance and to make his body lighter. It also helped to increase his reaction times along with his lightning element and soul energy, which at the speeds he generally moved at was incredibly important.

The second energy was obviously lightning. This increased his ability to quickly process his surroundings and made the world and everything else to seem to be slowing down somewhat. It also sped up his movements, especially in straight lines and instantaneous changes in direction.

The third was fire energy. The explosive nature of fire energy helped improve his speed and direction changes. It also allowed him to almost stop on a dime by employing its explosive force to slow his body. Unfortunately, the nature he was using these energies in put a huge strain on his body and probably the only reason he didn’t take damage from it was because his body was being constantly tempered by his Hands of Time breathing technique.

Lastly was his Soul Energy. He used this to help limit the effects on his body from using these three energies simultaneously, and also to increase his perception speed further. Not only this, but his scrying also increased his perception of the world. Although not the perception speed, rather he could know everything in his surroundings and alter his travel path accordingly.

The other skills he worked on were simple things like manifesting wind blades, throwing lightning or creating a water whip. Although these things sound simple, they are only simple in comparison to his Fleet Feet skill because they didn’t use such a complex manner of employing their energies.

To most other practitioners, just these simpler martial techniques were difficult to master.

Whenever he had some spare time or was meditating, he would spend time processing all the information on spirit materials and cultivation techniques that Jasmine could force into his head.

While James had been busy training himself and causing a huge uproar all over the continent with his continental trade, his subordinates were all out busily creating trouble.

In the nation of Soel, a great famine seemed to fall onto the continent. At first, it seemed to only be some of the outlying villages. All their crops began to die and a strange disease spread through the livestock culling creatures bread for eating.

Soon this strange phenomenon spread. Stories began to crop up everywhere of the Ghost of Famine. Deep in the night, many peasants and farmers claimed to have seen a strange shadow of a woman shrouded in a pervasive green mist walking through their towns. In a matter of days, the crops and livestock would die.

The lower classes began to grow restless, and soon hunger embraced the nation. To further increase the troubles of Soel, a man known as the Red Barron began to pop up all over the place. At first, no one thought much of this man. He was just a very fat man that everyone slightly hated because he would eat so much while the town was in a state of panic over their lack of foodstuffs.

The problem started when his gluttonous nature soon became contagious and the residents of these towns would, even if unwilling, begin feasting on all their stockpiled food and gorge themselves full.

The nobility and upper-class were especially susceptible, and every town that was visited would be stricken with a wild need to fulfil their hungry, needy bellies. Being a nation governed by their religion, many people started complaining to the church that they must have done something to upset the mighty sun gods.

They would then start hearing rumours of how churches were stockpiling huge hordes of food only to devour them all themselves. Solaris the 22nd, Who was the current Pope of the Order of the Sun’s, issued orders to investigate this matter in the hopes of finding out exactly what was going on in his nation.

Over in southern nation of Hastoel, a different kind of calamity was befalling them. Hastoel and the northern nation of Baquerro often had many ties through marriage. Being a powerful nation structured on commercialism, the families of Baquerro often married their young daughters into powerful aristocratic families of the southern nation of Hastoel.

This provided them with a constant source of information about the goings on of the south nation and also allowed them to foster a good relationship. Of course, being a commercialist nation, they had no problems marrying their daughters off to the Soel nation either. It was all a way to build a network for trade and profit to them.

Hastoel, on the other hand, was a Feudalist Aristocracy and governed by a council of noble families. The inner politics of Hastoel were incredibly messy and vicious. Over these three weeks, something no one ever had imagined started to happen. Adultery!

Being a nation governed by how people viewed each other in public, adultery was a big no-no. Making it worse, all the adulterers were high-class nobles in the inner circle of the major political powers in the nation.

They all claimed the same story. They would meet a single woman adorned in red, a beautiful goddess descended from the heavenly realm. This woman would then tease and beg and eventually, pull them into bed, only to moments later be caught by their arranged wives from the northern nation of Baquerro.

Normally, this situation wasn’t too strange, what was strange was that even though their wives didn’t seem too afflicted at the time, they would suddenly begin to be enraged beyond reason. In these 3 weeks, all of these wives had met a handsome god like Adonis who would counsel them on their worries and discuss their inner anger.

He would start every conversation with, “Young Lady, are you angry?” whenever this happened, these noble ladies would suddenly feel a sudden rush of wrath for their cheating husbands and release all their pent up anger with the man, only to discover that their rage had only suddenly increased 100 fold. Naturally, this then created a scene where they would publicly renounce their husband or confront him.

As these rumours spread about, and other noble households used it as fuel to attack each other politically, further rumours started to spread among the populace about all sorts of dirty secrets these nobles had. No one was certain where they came from, but all it took was some thinking or speculation to piece together clues that made these rumours seem true.

Great waves started forming in the Hastoel nation due to these events.

Up in the North, everything seemed quiet. Apart from a few daughters that had already left their husbands coming home and complaining to their doting fathers, everything else seemed fine.

-Tech City Spire-

Today was the day in which James decided to weed out the wheat from the chaff. He announced last week, due to the huge influx of people begging to join the guild, as well as the need for people to complete guild missions, that the Dark Brotherhood would be doing an intake.

What he didn’t expect, was that half the city showed up to join his guild. Almost all the residents were once commoners with no way to take a step into the cultivating world. Thanks to the Brotherhood supplying cultivation methods to the public for almost nothing, everyone had a chance to become a cultivator.

To add to this, hundreds of these applicants were from the arenas in the spirit district or the university district and longed to join the guild that had the means to create such marvellous training and learning grounds. They all thought that if the guild had the power and resources to create these places for the public, surely they reserved even better stuff strictly for members.

Naturally, they were absolutely correct.

Among the thousands of applicants begging to join the guild, there were no fewer number of infiltrators.

Due to the constant expansion of the guild, Gary, the acting Guild Master, had structured levels to the guild. Similar to mission levels, guild members now carried a guild seal with a star. The number and colour of their star reflected the part and level of the guild they were a part of.

At the top, and not needing any stars because Gary could never enforce them on them even if he tried, was the Brotherhoods Core, the 6 sins, 5 ghosts and of course the sole knight. Next was himself, at 1 Black Star. This showed he was acting in the stead of the Guild Master.

Next on the list was his acting vice guild master, who was actually someone everyone should be familiar with. Henry McCord, the smuggler of Star City. James had no idea how Gary had ever met this fellow, or what possessed him to put him into such a position of power, but he had kept a close eye on the pair since their inception and discovered McCord to be a perfect fit.

As Vice Guildmaster, he became incredibly possessive of the Brotherhood and their secrets. Although his character was more to be desired, he would never let himself be blindsided, and because he was now basically running the guild, he’d become absolutely ruthless in his protection of it.

McCord was adorned with 1 white star.

The next in rank was 2 stars. Generally, only people who had accomplished quite a bit for the guild and had a suitable level of power enjoyed such a status. This was also the first division in the structure of the guild. 2 star members have the right to create their own hall in the guild to pursue their own goals.

Among the 2 star members, black stars were a hall master and white stars were their vice master. At the moment, the only people sitting in this position were Elder Grace from the Gau Clan, who was running the Sword Hall and focused on martial fanatics that only cared about combat.

The young lady who helped invent the conversion arrays which Skay and James once announced as a winner of the science fair at the University. She was now delegated to take charge of that project and also started the Hall of Mysteries in an effort to attract intelligent minds to explore the mysteries of science, arrays and everything. She referred to herself as ‘This Mind’, and so everyone just called her Brain.

The next in line was Elder Song. Although he wasn’t the best forge master, James had invited him to join the guild and take on this role. In fact, the Gau Clan and Brotherhood had long since become inseparable, and the Gau Clan was well and truly engulfed by the Brotherhood. Although they maintained their independence and could act separately of the Guild, they weren’t able to give out things like cultivation techniques and martial techniques that were developed by the guild to each other or others.

It was well established that even the Gau Clan would seek no respite from the Brotherhood’s merciless assassins if they broke their oath to the guild and tried to give out guild property to others. This meant that anyone in the clan who wanted to take advantage of these things from the guild would have to officially join it.

Returning from that digression, Song was in charge of the Hall of Forging. It goes without saying that they shared an incredibly close relationship with the Hall of Mysteries.

The AI that basically ran everything in the guild and city was also somehow a member. It was essentially a place filler for the latest addition of the latest Hall, which was the Commerce Hall. Until a suitably impressive member of the Guild stepped up to this position, the AI would continue to run things and simply give out jobs on the job board for deliveries and pickups.

The final 2 star member was shrouded in mystery. They used a strange martial technique that allowed them to shield their face and body in mist and so their identity was unknown to everyone except the Guild Master Gary, and the Core Brotherhood. This person, whoever they were, ran the final Hall, referred to only as the Blood Gallery.

James met this person only recently, and he was a truly astounding assassin. Even Jasmine and the AI of the guild hadn’t been able to track him properly, and he was the closest person to ever sneak close enough to James to make an attempt on his life.

This man was actually the green robed ninja that was sent to kill James and destroy his guild 3 weeks prior. How he failed in his attempt on James, and why he was now a hall master, were both known only to himself, James and Jasmine.

Needless to say, he was a master of assassination, subterfuge and all things truly dark and shady. Amusingly the person who handled that side of the guild was McCord, who didn’t even know this man’s identity or backstory.

Regardless, the man took in all the guild members who were inclined to that way of life through a brutal and vicious testing process.

Proceeding on, stars then increased in numbers up to 9 stars, which was the lowest level of guild member. Since James had expected to leave Tech City, he’d made arrangements to create another guild seal.

The process of which, to share the same status as the seal that was a part of Jasmine’s being, was a great deal more complicated than he’d expected. Luckily for him, Jasmine was able to devise a series of arrays that allowed the two seals to be linked together as if one.

That allowed Gary to make oaths for the guild and use the seal of the guild while Jasmine could remain with James and travel. It also allowed him to keep track of the people in the guild and know their status intuitively.

Not that it mattered too much seeing as everyone received the implant and were constantly monitored by the AI and received certain death if they tried to betray secrets of the guild.

With the star system, it allowed Gary to limit what certain levels of the guild could access in the guild. For example, everyone started out at 9 stars and then had to work their way up to the top. All sorts of methods existed to advance in the Guild, from combat and assassinations to developing unique and interesting science projects or showing remarkable talents in forging.

At the Spire within the centre of the Spirit District, James stood next to Gary overseeing the huge crowd of uncountable people that arrived to join the guild. Standing behind him were the 4 Hall Masters as well as McCord.

As James surveyed the growing crowd, he couldn’t help but grin. Finally, at about midday, he realised the crowds weren’t slowing down. Seeing, even more, people still coming, James got the shits with waiting. With Jasmines help, he had some drone move around the city and project his face all over the place as he addressed everyone.

“Hello, everyone! I’m sure, if you don’t recognise me, you can at least guess who I am. Today is the intake for the Brotherhood but I’m surprised to see that the city is filled with cultivators hoping for a chance at this opportunity and if I wait for you to all gather here I’ll be waiting forever. As such, you all have a few choices to enter the Guild.”

James then looked over at his hall masters who had organised tests for prospective members. First, Grace stood forward and addressed the drone floating around in front of her. “I am Hall Master Grace of the Combat Hall. If you wish to join the combat hall or do not wish to join any hall and simply wish to join the guild as a free member with no affiliation to a hall, then your task is simple. You must reach the 12th floor of the spire by midday tomorrow.”

She then stepped back allowing Brain to step forwards. “Obviously, strength isn’t the only way to join our guild as This Mind can attest to. At the university district, This Mind will be holding some basic tests to assess your mental faculties and knowledge. If you wish to join the Hall of Mysteries, or equally wish to join as a free member, then This Mind asks you to meet at the University’s main discussion podium before the end of the day.”

Song then stepped forwards. “I am Song of the Hall of Forging, I will be testing on knowledge and skill in the art of forging. Meet me at the Gau Clan’s Hall of forging in the Central District.”

The screen flickered, and the guild’s seal appeared on the screen. “I am the AI. Commerce Hall seeks members interested in delivery, business and trade. Members seeking admission through this avenue are to meet at the commercial districts North Market Square. Anyone who seeks to join the cities guard forces are to meet the Generals at the southern city gate.”

Lastly was a figure clouded entirely in mist. “Assassins, Spy’s and Infiltrators are to meet at the entrance to the Endless Forest Checkpoint.”

With this short announcement made, James simply left to return to whatever it was he did. Gary scratched his face as if he was confused and had no idea what exactly was going on and the 4 Hall Masters separated to go and do their own assessments.