“Ok. First things first, as the new owner of this tower, I declare that we will be having some sweeping changes here.” Kyrion stood on a stage built from the corpses of those who had tried to resist him. Various fiends, monsters, and lost souls made up the macabre monument of slaughter.

The remaining creatures looked up to him with a resolute expression. “Yes lord!”

Kyrion felt his eye twitch. “First things first. Noncombatants come forth.”

A swarm of small blob creatures bounded forward in a hurry. They were a variety of different colors and shapes. Following them were a series of two to three-foot-tall rabbits, all walking upright on their hind legs. The motions felt unnatural, yet they did so with a disturbing ease.

The last to join was a humanoid male about six feet tall with large goat hooves for feet, stubby red horns, and a rather portly male frame. In their left hand was an abacus, while in his right was a scale measuring scale.

Kyrion looked at the blobs. “You will be dubbed the jelly race. Your duties will range from cleaning the various floors and keeping the first through third floors running smoothly. If you see an enemy do not engage directly. Instead lead them through the traps that I will be having built shortly.”

Kyrion looked at the rabbits and scowled. The only good rabbit was a stewed rabbit.

“At least your rabbits aren’t carnivorous.” The voice behind his prosthetic eye stated.

“They tried to eat me. I was in a stew pot getting seasoned. Hence all rabbits should be stewed insead.”

“You sure those were rabbits? I seem to recall goblins doing that.” The voice asked.

“No. No. I believe it has happened twice so far.” Kyrion scowled. “Well, I did recruit the goblins afterward, so…” Kyrion refocused on the rabbits, who were now quite worried for some odd reason.

“Lord. Please, if you must eat us. Only eat the males. Otherwise the food supply would run out quickly.” Said one of the male rabbit leaders who hurriedly approached.

Kyrion’s face broke. These rabbits were sentient, albeit disturbing to look at. He wouldn’t kill a sentient that hadn’t harmed anyone, and he’d feel guilty for eating them. As they hadn’t tried to eat him first this time around. “You are now the Lepora species; from now on, you will assist in trap-making and running the various businesses I intend to introduce to the tower.”

The Lapora looked about in confusion as soul force traveled through the tower and caused them to glow in a golden light. As the light faded, the Lapora grew two feet, appearing mostly humanoids with rabbit ears. Eight out of ten Lapora were male, meaning the remaining were probably female. It was hard to tell with bodies made from soul force.

Kyrion looked at the strange giant creature and smiled. “You look like a merchant. What’s your name.”

“Accountant actually. I have done the paperwork for multiple companies before getting sent to this tower. Name is Detrair, the Accountant.”

“Who sent you here?”

“Assassins probably. Why? I don’t know.”

“Who did you serve?’

“I was a follower of Icaron, but in terms of position, I was a freelancer.”

“Icaron. I see.” The moons were other planets. How curious.

“Could you balance the books with the currency I will soon put into place?”

“Will this be Fiat currency or something actually valuable?”

Kyrion concentrated, and a small condensed blue coin-shaped object materialized in his hands.

“This will be one soul coin. The cost of living will be one of these a day after I manage to build up a supply. That includes food, housing, and amenities. When I can get the factory working the Lapora will begin mass coin production. They do now have opposable thumbs afterall. Well they didn’t before…”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Next up, I want the remainder of you to line up in order of power for me, strongest to the right and weakest to my left.”

The monsters did have some variation in power within their species, with some alpha’s, as Kyrion dubbed them, managing to outpower slightly stronger races. Six Alpha were selected to be floor guardians for floors 4-7, 9, and 10 of the fourteen other monster species. The boss of floor 8 Abbadon couldn’t leave their floor for some reason. Kyrion wasn’t going to go up and check as of yet. While he had to rescue the priestess, a fight now could cost him a boss, and he needed to think about his plan of attack.

Kyrion sat on his throne of soul force, using the power around him to form various homes, buildings, and soul-force-gathering factories throughout the many floors. Mana-gathering runes in this world pull in soul force when altered slightly. Through this, he could pull ambient energy from outside the tower. The coining would come later when he figured out mass production.

“Lord!” One of Kyrion’s faithful servants. Kyrion snorted before covering his nose. How did he snort when he didn’t have lungs?

“Lord!” The servant interrupted Kyrion’s careful focus, and one of the houses he was forming from soul force shattered, the debris covering a wandering Lapora.

Kyrion looked down and sighed. “Can you please not distract me while I’m building? Someone was just crushed by rubble. What was so important?”

“Someone is trying to enter the tower. They said that they know you.”

“Is it Volain or Gamodren?”

“Neither Lord.”

“They said that they called you here.”

“Oh no.” Kyrion’s body moved through the area faster than human eyes could track, echoes of his path following behind him as he moved towards the main door with an exertion of his will.

“So my son-in-law finally decides to grace me with his presence.” A deep purple-haired man stood at the entrance; his silver armor glistened in swirling spiral patterns that seemed to move across it.

“Are you Lin’s father?” Kyrion raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t tell me you’re cheating on my daughter in her absence.”

Kyion could smell the cheer emanating from this man. “You’re playing with me.”

“And you catch on quick. Can you guess why I’m here?”

“A new entity that doesn’t know or care about the rules has obtained a property in your neighborhood. Are you with the Tower Owners Association? Is my tower up to code?”

The man laughed briefly before stifling it. “Boy, have I missed you; all we had was that sociopathic git. Nice, but a bit too depressing with his logic.”

“What are you going on about?” Kyrion scowled.

“The sixteenth of your soul.”

“It’s just supposed to be eight.”

“And you aren’t supposed to be at 2 and a half out of eight before reaching the expert tier.”

“Ah. I have felt empty since my little brother left my body.”

“Little brother? Oh I guess that’s an apt description. Being that he is still in incubation.” The man looked off to the side as though looking at a timer and scowling.

“Go on. What is the evil side doing here?”

“Not evil. Sociopathic.”

“Listen, I inherited a good dose of vindictiveness. I know that adding a sociopath to my nature will probably make me quite evil.”

“I chose the wrong word. Was never a good study. Or a student for that matter. We kind of just did whatever we could for power back then. So simple. What is the word for someone who does things to get a job using sensibill…reason. Imala, why is your language tough on my tongue?”

“I never noticed. So, he’s my logic and reasoning. What am I, then?

“The heart probably. You have managed to reign them in but I’m sure you’ve noticed that you’re mostly emotional. Hence why someone had to monitor the chemicals in your brain to prevent an incident prior to your arrival here.”

“Emotion without restraint can be dangerous.”

Kyrion recalled the time when he broke Midas’ shoulder over words. His rage surpassed the cage his emotions were kept in. Before that, when Tiffany was taken, it was his rage that drove him to fight that fake Leon nearly alone, a ranking expert’s spirit. Even earlier, during the forest trial, when his friends were in danger, his emotions traveled through his body and fed dangerous levels of mana into the forest along with intent. His habit of breaking bones when people did something absurdly stupid and hazardous. When he saved Eden by turning that humanoid creature into a paste. The only time recently he wasn’t driven by emotion involved not killing those slavers himself. He wanted to do it himself, but something had stopped them. It wasn’t his place to pass judgment on them. It was not his revenge to take, and yet…

“You’ve been staring into space for quite a bit.”

“Huh?” Kyrion blinked rapidly.

“You’re overthinking which is probably a side effect of being on the same plane as your other shard. He also left me a message to give to you. Find the house near the lake and you will find me. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“Right…” Kyrion added that to the bottom of his list. He was a busy man with responsibilities, after all. Kyrion turned to see a Lepora climbing out of some rubble completely unharmed.

“Tch.” Kyrion clicked his tongue as he got back to work.