By the time he was done breathing out tens of thousands of credits worth of aether, she was pretty sure he had some kind of backing. When he kept going to the point that he had already raised the average concentration of aether on this decaying planet, she started to wonder which old monsters was banking this idiot with their allotment.

The idea that someone stole a dungeon from the system was simply so ridiculous that she did not even consider it for a second. But then he started to tell his story.

It was a known fact that dungeon masters were monsters that managed take over their birth place, generally after a dungeon formed and was left alone for long enough for a few monster waves to have left it, but what if a person spawned inside a dungeon and they started to destroy it's foundations in a way that left it's basic intelligence no option but to accept whatever contract it was offered, meaning it'd become a summon living inside the summoner's soul realm… And the Aether spring that the system used to raise the dungeon would go with it because it had not been recollected after making the construct self sufficient.

Raising a hand, Vee noted that Aki, who had long since asked for introductions by opening up with his name, stopped talking despite still not looking at her.

"First of all, turn around and look at my face, this will be important." She said, the young man doing as told with his eyes barely wondering from her own for but a moment. Considering she was considered a great beauty by her people even before her ascension, though that mostly had to do with her pathways and inscribed runes and boobs, that was quite impressive considering how she could turn the heads of even humanoids not interested in females. “Now, what do you intend to accomplish by telling me all of this?”

“I will be direct.” He nodded before making several hand gestures and sending her a message which quickly shocked her. “Please make me your disciple.” The message read like this.

Please peruse the related statistics.

Available paths:

Elementalist (0/???)

Blood warlock (0/250)

Weather warlock (0/250)

Magical sight I (0/50)

Magus (0/500)

Mind mage (0/250)

Mana sponge (0/500)

Grand scholar (0/500)

Spiritual refinement I (0/???)

Warlock (0/500)

Magister (0/1000)

Space mage (0/500)

Time mage (0/500)

Precocious spellweaver (0/500)

Spell researcher (0/500)

Spell master (0/1000)

Completed paths:

Genius mage (100/100)

Battle mage (60/60)

Young spellweaver (100/100)

Fire mage (50/50)

Wind mage (50/50)

Water mage (50/50)

Scholar (20/20)

Blood mage (100/100)

Planetary hope (1000/1000)

Shadow mage (50/50)

Light mage (50/50)

Founder (1000/1000)

Lord of carnage (1000/1000)

Arcane progenitor of the end (5000/5000)

Arcane empowerment (375/375)

Goliath hunter (2500/2500)

Vital progenitor of genesis (5000/5000)

Arcane III (1000/1000)

Related modifiers:

+16 Free points per level.

+2 to all mental stats per level.

+2 to all physical stats per level.

+1 mental stat point per level.

Due to the power of your partner, you gain additional 4 free stats per Level.

+350% experience gained.

Skill acquisition is 40% easier.

+55% damage.

+5% damage per level difference.

+155% skill growth.

All regeneration multiplied by 1.45x.

Mana multiplied by 1.59x.

Mana regeneration multiplied by 1.59x.

All mana using skills are twenty percent more powerful.

All mana costs are reduced by a fifth.

Thought speed and reaction increased by a fifth.

All forms of detection are improved by a fifth of their capacity.

All forms of reflexes are improved by a fifth of their capacity.

All muscles have their resistance increased by a fifth.

A fifth of the intelligence score also contributes to mana regeneration.

A fifth of the willpower score also contributes to spell power.

A fifth of the focus score now also contributes to spell stability.

A fifth of the control score also contributes to thought speed.

A fifth of the wisdom score now also contributes to your mana pool.

+10% Learning rate.

+60% spell efficiency.

Skills related to mana receive twice as much XP.

“You son of a… This is ridiculous." She cursed, slowly inching back to the theory that this was some kind of hidden scion of some weird old monster with complicated circumstances or something else equaly dumb. “You’ve gotten this far supposedly on your own, why would you even think of looking for a master?” As her eyebrows twitched, he shrugged.

“I need a public backing in the Nexus high society if i want to not be immediately eliminated or enslaved, adding to that is the fact that you are clearly the superior and far older mage, while i have no access to most knowledge outside of the basics, and i don’t think i will be getting a skill at four hundred or so for a long time despite the availability of said knowledge were i to subordinate myself to others, and also, it is not like becoming your student would mean being your eternal subordinate as far as i can see from your personality.” He immediately replied.

Which was honestly quite irritating since she knew he was right on all accounts.

“And why would I even consider taking a nameless heretic as my disciple?” She asked with twitching eyebrows and a hint of irritation in her voice.

“Out of boredom, to provoke those who will be extremely prickly about your actions, to create another relationship with someone you may eventually see as family and equal, to have someone to clean up after you on truly personal matters, plus the added advantage of a nearly limitless supply of aether.” He emotionlessly listed.

“Yet none of your images even relate to mine except for the pride and curiosity in them. This is highly unorthodox even for me.” She sighed. Taking him as a disciple was actually possible for her, nevermind a great investment considering how much she’d be able to splurge on her image through the years by having him by her side.

“With the sheer amount of stats I possess it is a negligible effort to learn fully focused spellwork, there is no need to worry about me not understanding meaning, emotion, story or purpose.” He refuted, again making her wonder about his story despite her senses telling her he believed his words, despite also claiming to understand the incorporation of primordial energy concepts into spell work.

Honestly this was giving her a headache.

“You know what? Let’s make this easier. What level is your Arcanum skill and which grade?” After a moment of silence, she decided to ask.

“Blue grade, four levels from three thirty.”

“Great arcane affinity.”

“Fused with my other affinity skills through my image, Cyan grade at two oh four.”

“Domain?”

“Still producing a framework for reference. The first part is a Cyan grade spell at level two seventeen.”

“Expected completion time?”

“However long it takes for me to produce a mobile soul suppression array and an army array that can connect souls well enough to hold the level of meaning I intend to build with the government I intend to create. The heart and offensive parts are already prepared, but I do not have examples to draw from nor a form of experimentation that would not be catastrophic in case of failure.”

“Do you like men?”

“I prefer them big, bearded, with strong arms and a healthy, protective personality.”

“How do you deal with political situations and events?”

“Throw someone else on the job and look menancily beautiful while pretending to understand everything the idiots are fantasising about. Smile harder if they look worried or constipated.”

“Your views on the Nexus.”

“A business opportunity I intend to milk for benefits.”

“To whom are your loyalties.”

“Myself first, those I love and their wants second, my responsibilities third.”

“....You are quite shameless aren’t you?” Vee had wide open eyes. This was honestly impressive, the boy would fit right in with her inner circle. Well, there were still two things she didn’t know though. “Just two more than. I can’t believe i need to ask this one actually, but you clearly have something good going for you there if you’re able to hide it from a hunting report. Tell me about your class.”

“I don’t have one.” He rapidly replied with a hint of doubt. She was about to call the charade off there and then because of that, as something like witholding basic information on your class from your actual master was considered incredibly disrespectfull and stupid, but due to him likely following her line of thinking, something highly strange happened.

He projected his soul outwards.

It had six clumps of tentacles sprouting outwards from the ovoid shaped polygon with constantly changing faces and edges, most marked by one runic frame work or another from the system modifiers, several opaque surfaces all around the crystalline semi-liquid anima seemingly reading the flows of energy surrounding outside of it, three distinguishable hues of essence colored the almost solid insides with a vibrance even she considered ridiculous, around a hundred skill fractals floating inside with varying degrees of completeness, complexity and care, an illusory tree between the edge of life and death in the middle of it all, a chrysalis for a universe to be born, it’s darkening roots floating all around as if in search of something despite the seemly endless depth of the roaring aether currents right beneath it’s base, but it’s crown… it burned with something even she could not understand. Foreign. Other. Something she didn't even fathom should be in an image, nor could she imagine how she was seeing it not instantly destroy the flimsy thing it’d latched onto.

Yet, despite it’s abnormally large size, there was no central pillar of guidance. No class.

Vee felt she understood why the system sent her a bit better now.

………..

Aki had honestly been expecting some kind of deadly trial to pass through a system technicality or something along those lines, but no, after seeing his soul Vee had directly pressed a few buttons at high speed and his heretic path was suddenly gone, declaring him her disciple before vanishing.

This development had been unexpected even to him really.

A few siege grade spells, formerly unused understandings of dominance and indomitability, a newfound potency to his soul through his inflated stats… They'd have been useless.

There'd have been no twenty minutes last showdown, no fighting back death through his preparations and magic nor even landing a hit on his opponent in the hopes that they had little defense.

While it was very likely that voiding the pink haired buxom's head would cause some damage, it wouldn't have killed her, meaning that the use of actual desolation would be needed for someone of his power to actually affect someone at least a step and a half above himself.

While some people might consider such a feat as world changing and mind breaking, it was a useless excuse to him, as it would either make him fall into a coma for life or change his personality entirely if his soul did recover, both of which were options he considered worse than death, meaning he would never use them if not to save someone else.

Now, this was obviously a good thing, his tribulation was averted and there was nothing else he could do to kill himself. His fear and indignation with the destiny presented to him had been so great that he'd not even considered running a game of cat and mouse. Doing that would probably end up with him

Yet both his emotions and logical mind could not help but agree that his very being was massively dissatisfied at this result.

His soul was already overinflated, so he couldn't force himself to improve or even exert much power without it later backfiring right? So instead of patiently waiting in front of the offending obelisk that remained to taunt him with it's promise of a better baseline for himself, he could just make his image better, right? Power, stability and potential all in one.

[I am fine, but a little pissed. Going to do a power up, prepare for changes and warn Ames.]

Sending the message, his bloodshot eyes closed, the area exploded with Aether once more.