-Ras Von Leoia-

Esarathon’s V12 Star Streaker was something else, despite looking like a sports car on the outside, the inside of closer to that a spatially-expanded sleipnirsine: his application of advanced space and Advanced Cartographic Cast was clean, which was appropriate for a spellman-made Grand Ascension with an anachronistic school  in its mandala formula: something that apparently everyone in the Goltinium Spellman Nine had, all being primarily passive ones so they never had to bother to talk about them. And not only did it easily fit the seven of us, Esarathon was able to cut down the one and a half hour drive to forty five minutes. It’s been a while since I’ve been a Babel, I noted to myself as we neared the northern stretch of the Endless Strip: I didn’t get many excuses to head back to the Hollylignu Babel and Capita Sweets even with the occasional lulls in activity in our Enigma and I haven’t had the chance to explore either of Las Vegas’s Babels while dealing with the resort union. The number of blackzone managers our Enigma had was growing, but it still wasn’t to the point where I could delegate my jobs to the same degree as Robert did. I really do need to speed up the process of convincing Robert to let me make Terrin into an underling blackzone manager under me.

“Making Terrin into an underling blackzone manager? Sounds like a good idea if you ask me,” suddenly commented Robert from the back of my head, causing me to jump a bit.

“Could you please not read my thoughts?” I asked Robert, staring at his unmoving body nervously: there went all my careful planning to make Terrin into one of us as appealing as possible.

“Sorry, force of habit still. Not easy separating conscious and subconscious stuff...” nonchalantly apologized Robert as he wanted to patch in the others through their spirit contracts with him.

“Anyway, you don’t mind if I make Terrin an underling blackzone manager?”

“Honestly no, the more the merrier, just make sure to budget it with Mita.”

“Of course you would force this on me,” sighed Mita, already pulling out a ledger. Scribbling some stuff down, he asked me, “You thinking about finishing your degree?”

“The thought did cross my mind, it’s been over a year now since I take a leave of absence from Noiria,” I answered, glancing over to Louella next to the divider between the back and the front of V12 Star Streaker: she wasn’t just an underling blackzone manager but also a spellman and she was still studying at the Goltinium Guild’s spellman campus. Not to mention if I were to continue studying at Nioria it would be easier to figure out the logistics for an expansion in Glyirian for universities to build annex campuses on… of course we had no eta for when we could make more expansions on the Glyirian side of Historie Pastoria Sweets. “I’m honestly surprised the two of you are so okay with this, I already have Neo Draceld Z as an underling blackzone manager.”

“You don’t treat her like one though,” pointed out Robert casually before continuing, “Besides it be weird if you didn’t finish your degree.”

“Haha! He is right! I know your uncle would be pleased to find out you were working toward your degree again and secured Terrin’s a spot amongst the Enigma’s blackzone managers!” laughed Editon from his personal space as I worked out the logistics of turning my half-brother in my second underling blackzone manager with Robert, Mita, and Louella. Unsurprisingly enough, we would have to likely wait a month or two since a good portion of our dungeon-mana reserves and money were being put into the new secondary core and turning Harper and Alexander into a singular sentient contracted existence-blackzone manager; that and we were still dealing with multiple contracts.

Wrapping around the Babel and the trio of World Bridges that surrounded it, I was once again greeted to the sites of a skyline covers in glamours and wide scale glyphs, but this time around I was greeted with the sight of the glyphs warding off the foul looking green, yellow, and grey plague clouds of Borolio. The amount of money and mana that went into those glyphs on a regular basis must be staggering: cooling enchantments, weather manipulation, even ambient mana manipulation and minor wellbeing enchantments to allow trapped subraces and speciale locale-based race category races to stay longer without worrying about their health at much. If I remember correctly, Louella had us source some of the inscriptions for the Sweet Tooth’s Medicinal Io-Weatherstones from these glyphs, I noted to myself, thinking about the Iogem Glyphs and Meteorological Glyphs using racial sub-features we developed for the witched-trapped of our Enigma and how well they were holding up in our trial runners.

“You sure you don’t want to help Robert and the others get assets?” asked Louella to her housemate as we got out of the Grand Ascension-made sports car onto the welcoming gargantuan open northern entrance of the Cesire Babel. Even standing in close proximity to three spellman and Robert, I could feel the swirl of manas and manalogical compounds from the Leylines: the source of mana brought closer to the primary physical layer of reality by the presence of the awe-inspiring omnistructure granted permanence and power by the metaverse itself.

“That would be fun, but Astrid and I have to be chaperone for the new students arriving today,” answered Esarathon from the driver set. “I’d rather not get in trouble with the campus faculty, and besides this is good internal PR for us plus an easy source of cred. We’re going to need to start building it back up sooner or later.”

“PR doesn’t pay for itself…” followed up Astrid with a soft nod. 

“Well it is the 12th, and you two already did sign up for it. I shouldn’t hold you two back,” replied Louella with an understanding look on her face before turning around to the rest of us and saying, “It seems it will be just me helping you make system slot’s connections with the El’Vega hub’s Asset System.”

“Do we need to secure any offerings?” I asked the spellman noblewoman, watching Ulra start to wheel Robert into the Babel out of the corner of my eye. I’d rather not have a repeat of the giant sugar crystal primary spirit halo…

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of your primary spirit halo, the system assistant of War Gods’ Market said its a valuable ingredient type if you only bothered cultivating it,” half-teased half-chastised Pattissoria from the back of my head. “You need to work on using the systems the Enigma has access to more. You still haven’t made a Sins of the SteelStar account.”

“I haven’t gotten around to it, I haven’t even greater gamed Gold Roads to Kingdoria for a while now. Plus I don’t want to deal with that primary spirit halo anytime soon.”

“No offerings are needed like the Halo System, although since the Asset System sees mana, magics, money, and value as interchangeable things, I had Mita prepare a million dollars for each of you to invest in the acquisition of your assets,” explained Louella, opening up her personal subdimension just enough to reveal three suitcases, likely full of cash, to us as we walked through the Babel’s entrance.

“Wait, a million USD for each of us?!” I shouted, catching a few glances from ongoers as I realized just how much we were about to spend. Looking over at Mita, I saw him grimly nod in confirmation. I knew magic and things of value were fluid in the eye of the Asset System, but this was overkill: we could be buying powerful facsimiles, even legacies, phantasma, and herit crests for a million dollar, or go all the way a buy a Trascendation or the formula for a stratum 3 multi-system slot or Grand Magus-grade mandala.

“The more you invest to start, the rarer the skills and abilities you are likely to get and more of the system slot’s connection’s maximum weight is filled to start. I spent a million dollars to get Tomyris-Osyris-Anayris and it was incredibly worth it. Gilbert’s asset, Ea, is both a legacy and a herit crest because he spent five million instead and got two facsimiles because of it. Money truly is power here.” Well that explained why that blonde jewelry covered spellman that was apart of Louella’s house was so arrogant: he had enough money to become five different types of pinnacles of mages, he was almost on par with Robert in that aspect, although definitely above him in terms of power level and tier.

As much as I wanted to make a fuss about the money we were spending, I was a noble, even if only a noble grata, and our Enigma wasn’t want for money with how well the resorts were doing. That and we were already intermingling with people who were living proof that paying upfront for good assets rather than training and growing them was a smarter tactic with Louella along with her housemates and a majority of the Goltinium Guild pinnacles of mages we’ve seen so far. Relinquishing myself to the fact we were about to spend roughly two months of resort revenue on our assets, I went enjoying the Cesire Babel.

Like most other Babels, externally it was five kilometers high, and while it was only a kilometer wide, the Cesire Babel’s internal spatial compression was much more pronounced: easily boasting over 300% compression horizontally. And unlike the Hollylignu Babel with its tree-like aesthetic, this one has a brutalist concrete architecture that was only marginally covered up by the glitz and glamour of the Endless Strip. The high ceilings and sectional compressions are interesting, I thought to myself as we passed another area with even stronger spatial compression: the difference between the Hollylignu Babel with its open center and the Cesire Babel with its thick layers were like night and day despite both being public Babels.

Arriving at SIEB, system investment & exchange bureau, I couldn’t help but think about how gaudy it looked in comparison to the tropical-style temples of halos back in Alihi’a’Pounga. The five story building was made completely out of precious metals and semi-precious gemstones: a wide variety of different extra-periodic compounds and enchantments made it hard enough to think just much money it would take to replicate the architecture. Walking inside, we were greeted by an expansive and clean cut lobby made mostly of marble and granite along with some of the materials used in the exterior with many alcoves and hallways.

“Such professionalism! They could easily give our entity staff a run for their money,” softly roared Editon in approval as I watched Louella go through the paces of dealing with one of the receptionist children of the locale. Within minutes, we were being led down a hallway toward one of the high spender exchange rooms. With each gentle curve, I could feel the ambient mana of the building become more intense and while Louella, myself, and the children of the locale silently leading us were fine, Mita, Ulra, and even Robert were obviously feeling out of place.

“Now then, who wants to go first?” inquired Louella, standing in front of what looked like a giant enchanted cross between an ATM and a teller booth operated by an automaton flanked by countless hard light screens.

“I’ll go first,” telepathically replied Robert as he mentally nudged me to summon him. Obliging, I felt the signature strain of his summoning as a replica of him appeared with his mask and mask-covered vest. Taking a suitcase from Louella, he muttered, “Let’s just get this over with, I hate how this place feels…”

As soon as he placed the suitcase on the quasi-teller’s counter, it disappeared in fractalling symbols and was replaced by a series of small screens. Watching him finish the forms, I suddenly felt a tug on my system slots. What in the name of the saintesses? I thought to myself in shock, almost blocking the external influence before realizing it was coming through my spirit contract with Robert.

“What the hell did you just do Robert?” asked Mita as the tugging got stronger, forming multiple connections and also inscribing three of my mandalas.

“Ummm… I think I just hit us a jackpot, a mirroring synthesis attunement is a jackpot right?...” he replied after an awkward pause. Feeling the formation of the spirit that was obviously shared between the three of us, all I could think was, Jackpot might be an understatement.