The list of the potential lay in front of me. There were 2 restaurants and 3 gangs. Looking through the lacking information on the 2 shop owners, I mark them for closer examination. The gangs are the problem. A normal restaurant usually don’t have any backer, but gangs might be a bit different.

The three gangs are called ‚black mantis‘ ‚dark gang‘ and ‚white gang‘. The latter two are at war with each other. Apparently since quit a while. The ‚black mantis‘ is seemingly a neutral gang.

Huh, not much information, not even about their leaders. Guess that leaves me with barely anything. At least the information about the two restaurants are somewhat accurate.

Leaving my room I head towards the arcane hall, hopefully I can find Nelton guy around. Asking him only about the three gang might seem suspicious. The price for information like this should be cheaper.

++++++++++++++

At one of the corners of the arcane hall, I spot the guy I was searching for.

„hey Nelton, you have some time?“ I ask him.

„Sure, what do you need? I can guarantee the best prices around“ He said.

„Can you get me some information’s about the gangs in the city? You know sometimes you need some sheep’s for experimental purposes.“ I said, while trying to mislead him somewhat. Not exactly, I do need some people to try out the ritual from the parchment.

„Sure, 2 contribution points for a simple one, and 4 for a more detailed version. A lot of people use them for their experiment, not like anyone would miss them“ he said in a hushed tone.

„I want the more detailed version, can you also snoop around a bit for mantel grass and sool stone? I need them for an experiment. There is no stock in the tower“ I said. He looks a bit strange at me. Might be that soul stone is something few use. Mantel grass is somewhat easier to get. It grows near big places of death.

„Sure, I will hear around a bit. 1 point“ he said.

With an aching heart, I pay the man 5 points and then move back to my room.

I busy myself by making magic scrolls and other stuff. Some for my daily quota and a couple to replenish the ones I used yesterday.

+++++++++++++++++

3 days later.

The number of points I have been close to zero all this time, thus I began selling some of the scrolls I make for points. Most of them go for 1-2 points, but each concealment scroll goes for 3-4 points. With this amount of points, I began to prepare a large number of soul seeds for my future organization. Controlling all of them through enslavement is necessary. At least at the start.

The lower guys can go without, as long as I pay them some crumbs, they make whatever I say. The higher-ups of the gangs are in comparison smarter, the need to be controlled.

The information from Nelton is pretty accurate. The whole city has 5 districts.

1. West district, living district.:

a. Dark gang

i. Enemy’s with White gang

ii. Used to be the same gang

iii. Deals mainly in extortion and loans

b. White gang

i. The same as dark gang

c. Black mantis

i. Neutral gang

ii. Has no backer

iii. Deals in abduction and extortion

2. East district, noble district.:

a. White rose

i. Deals mainly in prostitution and slavery

ii. Backed by nobles

3. North district, artisan district.

a. The Builders

i. Protection money

4. South district, commercial and entertainment district

a. The Rippers

i. They deal in anything

ii. Very ruthless and dangerous

iii. Surprisingly there is a warning about them in Neltons information sheet

5. Central district

a. The tower

My goal is to take over of the ‚black mantis‘. It is a medium-sized gang as is ruling the west district together with and dark gang. I can use them and sell weapons to both, profit while weakening them at the same time, then I can clear out the benefits, enslave the leaders and voila, my influence tripled.

The leader of ‚black mantis‘ is called surprisingly black mantis. The man has 3 trusted aids and another 8 ringleaders. The rest are just henchman.

That means, that I need 12 seeds. I want the keep the one left, just in case.

So I began the hard work of making the seeds. That took me about 4 other days. The amount of blood needed for one seed is not a lot, but after 3 seeds, I would get dizzy. After calculating a bit, I concluded, that I could make 6 seeds a day tops. I didn’t do it, because it isn’t worth it. I still have some obligations and work to do so, I decide for 3 a day.

++++++++++++++

The day before the operation ‚Seeding the world‘ began, I went to the library again to get another spell booklet.

I discovered a very dust heavy booklet on one of the bookshelves. The spell turned out to be an arcane bolt. This spell is a spell only wizard with arcane affinity able to engrave on their soul, what caught my interest is that the bolt had the same colour as the crystal at the aptitude test. Maybe my affinity if arcane? The test is a bit expensive, but the results are more than worth it.

The engraving process was smooth. So smooth that it was completely unexpected. The lines flowed into my soul like never before, the easy of memorizing it was incredibly fast. Normally it took me between 3-12 hours to memorize a spell formula. This time it took only 40 minutes.

Every apprentice would scoff at the time and call me a liar. Luckily I don’t give a damn what others think of me and prepared 3 additional scrolls for myself.

Before going t sleep, I made sure that everything is ready. I will have to wake up quite early. an Otherwise efficiency would go down.

Laying everything out on the table, I checked one last time and went to sleep.