-Robert Fayn-

It was weird seeing Reagan Road in a low level SteelStar: well, a fancy rare model, likely an outer-alter mana or quinta marker using an inner mana in their formula, with some obvious expensive attachments and some subtle upgrades from mandalas. I would say he was lying if it wasn’t for the fact he mentioned he had a budget Grand Key that allowed him to suppress his tier artificially so all the mana he drew in and passively circulated wouldn’t accidentally fry his proxy body, even went as far as converting some of it into connectivity. Probably helped he has high tech suped up proxy pods and gear consoles to boost that up to eleven, or the fact he definitely had over a thousand total mandalas and likely around half of them still uninscribed and ready to be used.

“When I heard there was a new Enigma in Miriam Port Slums. I wasn’t expecting it to be a Flasaporium Enigma, let alone yours,” commented Reagan with a subdued laugh. “Should be an interesting place to see another one of your resorts sprout up in.”

“Yeah it would be an interesting place for a resor- Wait, did you say slums?” I stuttered out as I processed the information; did the Sins of the SteelStar’s Game System pull a fast one on me?

“Oh ho ho, don’t be so discouraged, while the Mirim Port Slums is called a slum, it is also host to many exotic travelers and incredibly wealthy denizens. You should see the aerium suites, quite resplendent.” 

“That is sort of reassuring.”

“So Mr. Road, why are you here right. Another one of your vacations I’ve heard about?” inquired Sous as he inspected the stupidly powerful blackzone manager.

“Yes and no. I recently reached rank 5 of this account, so I am enjoying myself with leveling this starry night system cast SteelStar and observing my lovely Mata making some deals with the game god residing over this solar system,” explained Reagan, casually pointing up to the sky. On one hand, starry night system cast explained the deep metallic blue with specks of lights of his SteelStar, and on the other hand, holy shit he actually had people working with the game gods, the literal gods of the game systems.

“Mata? That’s one of your underling blackzone managers right?” I foolishly asked, only to have Sous answer instead of Reagan, 

“One of his system assistants, although if the rumours are true, she is not only a blackzone manager but also a high enlightened.”

“Yes, the rumours are true, all three of my system assistants, Mata, Ignis, and Fulgur, are all magi-sentients and pinnacles of mages. Through and through blackzone managers and high enlightened. My lovely Mata is in charge of a rather large artificial Rare Game here in this Digital Realm, we are simply just counting the days until it becomes a natural blackzone,” followed up Reagen with a chuckle. Okay this is like seriously overwhelming, I mentally muttered to myself as I tried to process everything: I knew the guy was legendary tier, almost mythic tier, but he was talking about having multiple magi-sentient system assistant who weren’t just pinnacles of mages but ran their own artificial blackzones that were big enough that metaverse would likely upgrade them into natural ones. I’m starting to see where Sous is getting the idea to become magi-sentient from…

“I would love to see her Rare Game sometime.”

“Feel free to swing at any time, it is called Comata Paramata. It has plenty of Variantal Interconnections and conquests into local system lairs, not to mention Interconnections to Ignae Automata and expansions to both the artificial world clusters I oversee. You are welcome to come anytime also, Robert.”

“Marvelous. I can only think of the amount of exotic seasoning and spices available there. And all the unique recipes and dishes being used.” 

“Stop sucking up to him, Sous,” I commented with a sigh: I could practically feel his admiration toward Reagan over our connection and it was starting to get grating. Was he starting to get emotional now all of the sudden cause he was in a proxy body? “Anyway, I don’t see why not. It’s been awhile since I’ve explored Rimmulus Prime and Sous needs to get used to fighting as an actual person.”

Pleased with my decision, the blackzone manager quickly went to plotting us a route to walk to his system assistant’s Rare Game. It was both nice and a bit weird how casual all of this was, but I wasn’t going to complain; this was a nice side of Reagan to see, not having to worry about his oppressive manalogical aura or him being a loan shark. Not to mention this was a good chance to see how some of the rarer models worked ability wise.

Kind of surprising to think that Reagan has only turned rank 5 with his account, I thought to myself as the three of us made our way through Miriam Port Slums. Looking around I could see he was talking about, it was obvious there was a huge economic disparity going on with the juxtaposition of bumbling gritty slums and giant lattice-like skyscrapers dotting the skyline.

“Is rank 5 not high?” asked Sous over our mental link as he tried to weave through the crowd, unable to help but get snagged a few times cause of his SteelStar’s wire hoops.

“I mean, sort of? It means he is at least level 321 when you combine all his SteelStar’s levels, but there are famous VoxView streamers and players who are like rank 7 and higher.”

“Could it be cause he has so many different Digital Realms and other systems he works with?”

“Probably…” I mentally replied as I watched Reagan effortlessly move through the crowd despite the large floating battery packs following behind him. The guy was definitely an experienced system caster, especially when it came to the Game System. Internally sighing and relaxing a bit, I went back to just enjoying the sights and thinking about all the stuff that was going on. I got a bunch of new areas here in Sins of the SteelStars, including an Interconnection to a new ally that was probably handling entire nations and worlds like Reagan was despite probably being a few tiers lower than him. Mita and Ras were handling some stuff with the Glyirian nobles and government that was probably going to net us a new area and maybe even a new underling blackzone manager. Louella was settling in nicely and getting us on the Goltinium Guild’s good side. And then there was that stuff with my doppelgänger, Robby, that Mita was hung up apart. Pausing for a second and mulling it over, I decided to ask Reagan what he knew.

“So Reagan… did you know about my doppelgänger?”

“Your doppelgänger?” he nonchalantly replied back.

“Yeah, my alt-rhi or whatever. Robby, runs Cheesecake Emporos-Museum, apparently has connections to your place and Johari Vogt’s.”

“Oh… Robby Fayn Beta, I never thought he was your alt-rhi, but it does fit now that I think about it.”

“So you know about him?”

“Vaguely, I never met him in person. But I know he is a valuable asset for Ignae Automata in maintaining relations with other very powerful blackzones, including a handful of Grands.” A valuable asset?

“How so…” I pressed, kind of worried about what I was about to hear.

“Diplomacy and checks and balances. If you were thinking about something barbaric like keeping him as a hostage, you are sorely mistaken. To put it simply, if you would consider your own Enigma as a crossroad between places for the purpose of pleasure and relaxation, as evident by your resorts, Robby’s is a crossroad for the purpose of a business and logistics, allowing myself and others to access various lucrative locations.” 

“So he is safe?” astutely pressed Sous as we turned a corner to a slightly less crowded street that led out of the public Hidden City.

“Yes, even if his current afflictions, he is safe. And if what Johari has been gossipping about amongst the scions of Starport Cyber is true. Your Enigma is about to provide him with an impressive boon, courtesy of that spellman you acquired as an underling.”

“I’m surprised to think someone like Johari would be speaking about us in circles that involve someone as powerful as you.”

“That young man is an eccentric one, obsessed with vitality and vigor despite having a high enough tier to not have to worry about it for decades if not a century or two. That and gossip, and Robert and his alt-rhi’s Enigmas are making waves, small waves, but waves nonetheless for Johari to be excited for,” explained Reagan before stopping and motioning the threshold of a blackzone we’ve just arrived at, practically right outside of Miriam Port Slums. “But let’s not talk about that right now. As much as I would enjoy helping you and your other self, we came here to enjoy Mata’s Rare Game. So how about we enjoy ourselves for now?”

Nodding, I decided to drop the topic and made Sous drop it with a quick mental command: we had enough on our plate with weathering out Borolio and I didn’t feel like getting bogged down about the heavy political shit my doppelgänger was apparently dealing with right now. Well, at least not right now when I barely had any idea on what was going on except for secondhand information; Mita was handling the stuff anyway with the help of Louella from the looks of it.

Making our way into the Rare Game, I could instantly see that the place belonged to one of Reagan’s system assistants: all the high Technologia technic and lunar stylings had Reagan Road written all over it. Although outside of that and the influence from Rimmulus Prime, there was a surprising undertone of fantasy clockwork. The ambient mana around here even had a sort of whimsical digital feel to it, strong enough that I could understand why Reagan joked about counting the days to this place becoming a natural blackzone: everything was so manalogically vibrant. A quick question to our impromptu guide revealed the reason to that, besides all the Interconnections Comata Paramata had to both Ignae Automata and system lairs all over the place, the Rare Games has areas all over not only Rimmulus Prime but the Spiralem solar system.

Didn’t take us too long for the three of us to find our first set of monsters, a group of levitating bright red ceramic robots with a lot of floating panels and pieces of clockworks that Reagan called glazed sundailers. The second I saw one of the sundailer’s floating hands light up a ball of elemental radiance tinged with some sort of quinta marker, I shifted into a fighting stance and threw up a Crash Barrier.

Sous, trying to be proactive this time, followed up with an attempted use of Jacking Wires; only to suddenly freeze up when his wires latched onto one of the sundailers. Shit, did he just bite off more than he can chew? I internally yelped before going to throw down some Crash Barriers around his SteelStar. At least he was keeping the body-jacked sundailer from moving, but he was a sitting duck while doing it.

“The woes of having a desire of relations model. Such hard limitations and drawbacks,” noted Reagan casually as he went to deploy his SteelStar’s own ability.

“You’re telling me,” I shot back, feeling a shift in the ambient and mana started to trinkle in from the World Kernels. Getting a feel of mana as Reagan conjured up starry motes of lights, I realized he wasn’t just using some Game System-altered World Kernels-typed mana but a straight up blend of World Kernels-typed mana and Game System markers. Holy shit, how advanced is the magics behind that ability? I thought to myself as I felt the subtle pull of the system cast being used as one of Reagen’s SteelStar’s floating internal reserves battery packs suddenly lost a bunch of vibrance and energy.

With high pitched panging noises, the motes of light shot toward the sundailers, moving them down one by one. Before I knew it, the fight was over and we were raking in experience as Reagan was suddenly dragging me and Sous around to find more sundailers and their various variations. It wasn’t much longer until Sous was able to properly control a sundailer whenever he managed to use Jacking Wires on one of them, probably from a mixture of leveling up and experience.

“Now then, I think I’ve made a decision,” commented Reagan out of the blue before fights with the sundailers.

“For what?...” I asked, caught off guard by his shift in tone: I thought we had decided to drop the whole my doppelgänger thing for now?

“I want you to make an expansion in an artificial world cluster I oversee, Starport Cyber. I will provide the frontier core for it.”

“Is this another loan thing?”

“No, consider it goodwill and investment toward the future. I want to see if you can help your alt-rhi out and Starport Cyber would be a good neutral ground for the two of you to meet on. That and if I suggest elsewhere, I have a feeling Johari would try to get involved.”

“So you are just going to give me a free dungeon core.”

“You did pay off your loan markedably fast despite your circumstances. And with your current circumstances and Johari’s tendencies, you would likely end up with an expansion into those artificially stabilized lesser worlds sooner or later,” answered the blackzone manager calmly as he titled his head up to look at the artificial moon housing the Spiralem solar system’s Game God.

“And you’d rather just do it now?”

“Yes, precisely.”

“Where would this expansion be exactly on this world of yours?” asked Sous, already completely interested in the prospect of a new area. I mean I was interested also, but still confused on why the decision came about so fast… it honestly felt like that were some ulterior motives. But then again… it’s not like I could exactly refuse a guy like Reagan Road and it didn’t feel like he was trying to pull one over on me like he did with the loan before.

“Once I do the paperwork and procure the resources, your Enigma’s expansion naturally would be next to Cheesecake Emporos-Museum’s Phase into Starport Cyber.”

“W-Wait seriously? I know he is technically me, but I still haven’t met him yet.” I half-shouted half-stammered out: how the hell was I supposed to tell an alt-rhi doppelgänger of myself that I was just going to casually be his neighbor in an artificial world cluster of all places?

“Very much so, and I do have one small request for you for when the expansion is made. Could you make a resort in it?” Oh my god… of course he would ask that, I mentally moaned to myself as I felt myself come to a grinding halt. On one hand, new area to a lucrative artificially stabilized world, on the other hand, I would have to deal with my alt-rhi and god knows whatever he has going on, and on the other other hand, at least I know one of Reagan’s ulterior motives for this. Yeah… Yeah, this is going to be interesting…