Chapter 32: Meeting Artimus

-Guild Branch-

The Tech City Guild Branch, that was somehow being managed and run by ex-Lackey 1, now Overseer Gary, was far more impressive than in the past. It was a 30 story building right next to the biggest plaza in town, which also happened to be the Monolith plaza.

It remained mostly empty but was manned 24/7 and still posted Jobs that needed doing. Most of the cultivators that lived in the shadowy side of the city got their jobs here. The entire third floor was just 4 walls of job boards all in different colours. They now had white, grey, black and red. Each board had different levels of missions moving from the standard ‘do something to help someone out mission’ to the ‘kill that person to help someone out missions’.

Although the nature of jobs here was no secret to the rest of the city, no one complained. For starters, the Brotherhood would take money for pretty much any job. Which meant the jobs the other guilds or clans didn’t want to do themselves, they would pay the Brotherhood to do for them.

Almost every guild had tried to hire the Brotherhood for some shady business. This meant the Brotherhood had dirt on just about everyone. The last thing was, the Brotherhood owned the damn city and was probably even more powerful now than the Katsu Sect. Hell, the only reason they weren’t running the whole region was because they hadn’t asked for it.

As James sauntered into the Guild, he was stopped by some young fresh faced reception girls who seemed to think he’d come to register to join. The older reception girl almost fell on her face when she saw the other girls talking to the Guildmaster like he was some dreg off the street looking to join the hottest guild in the empire.

After a thorough dressing down of her juniors, she escorted James to the 2nd floor which was now the Guilds bar and lounge. James often forgot that although it was only 3 months in this world, it had actually been 6 months in earth time. He now realised he didn’t visit the city branch near often enough.

After being seated on a very comfy sofa, James handed a mission for the receptionist to take to the Overseer. James had somewhat forgotten his game of giving Gary weird tasks to complete and only remembered it when he left the lab this morning.

He decided if he was stopping by anyway, he might as well give Gary a new job. As he waited for Rex to show up, he ordered some hard liquor from the waitress that hurried over. Just as he was about to crack the bottle, Rex sat down across from him and took off his bamboo hat revealing his handsome and refined features.

He had a strong jaw and sharp green eyes that seemed to catch everything in their gaze. His golden hair hung down over his shoulders and looked so soft James was convinced he must wash it with unicorn tears.

Without any fanfare or introductions, Rex jumped straight into the heart of the matter. “James, I’m not sure if you realise, but you’ve stirred up a shitstorm of trouble with your stunt in Hanso City. You’re probably aware, but Lachlan Hanso is missing, and nearly 80% of his Clan was annihilated in a single night!”

James gave him a confused look and quirked his head to the side. “Oh? What stunt in Hanso City? Pity about that Hanso fellow though. I’m sure he had a lot of friends that will dearly miss him.”

Rex gave a baffled look and then snatched the bottle of scotch James had just started pouring. “Who do you think you’re fooling James? No one in the entire Empire will believe that you had nothing to do with this. An exact description of your flying death machine was recited by half the city and only hours before it happened you called every major faction in the empire together to buy out the man’s accounts.”

James then sat back with his half full glass of scotch and took a sip. After rolling it around on his tongue for a second, he swallowed it down and then looked up at the ceiling like he was mulling something over. “You know, you’re right Rex. I never even considered that until you mentioned it. Now that someone has killed that Hanso fellow I no longer need to sell those accounts. I can just close them.”

Rex looked like he couldn’t believe his ears. “What ‘someone’?! It was you! Stop trying to hide it! You even asked me about the repercussions right before you went off and did it!”

James just smiled and sipped on his scotch some more. “Well ... let’s say hypothetically that I did massacre the Hanso Clan last night. What’s the problem? The Hanso region is full of other clans and sects that can fill their role. I didn’t damage any property that generated resources or income for the Empire, and civilian casualties were minimal. You told me all of this just yesterday.”

Rex was now shaking. Either from rage at his continued denials of responsibility or the shock that it actually was this little true spirit cultivator that just wiped one of the most powerful clans in the Empire off the map in a few short hours.

“James, I didn’t actually think you had the capability to do it! I thought you were just blustering for Hanso’s sake.”

“Oh Rex, I don’t know if I do have such capabilities. After all, this is a hypothetical conversation and has no basis in reality. However, as a man of my word, I probably would have eventually made a move against Hanso if someone else hadn’t stepped in. I don’t speak empty threats after all.”

Rex was shaking so much the bottle in his hand shattered and stained his white robes with dark splotches. He looked like he was having a fit and couldn’t decide whether to start laughing insanely or screaming in a fury. After what seemed like nearly a minute, he took a deep breath and calmed himself down. Then his sharp eagle like eyes trained onto James.

“You’re an excellent liar James. I pride myself on being able to see through people, but it’s quite difficult to tell if you’re trying to be funny or actually serious. Well regardless, let’s say that hypothetically it was you who killed Hanso. Everyone in the Empire is going to want to know how a group of true spirit realm cultivators, not even numbering in the hundreds, managed to decimate a powerful clan with a tower realm expert and multiple Palace Realm experts and thousands of branch clans and disciples.

“Not only are the powers in the Empire going to want to know this, the powers out in the three great nations are going to want to know as well. You would have drawn the attention of every pair of eyes and ears in half the continent with such a stunt. People are already talking about your stunt of killing that tower realm mole in the Quarry expedition. That can be brushed off mostly because everyone wanted to claim credit for that. But all of a sudden Hanso, who you publicly had a falling out with, disappears 2 days later?”

James cupped his chin in thought after Rex gave him a hypothetical assessment. His mind was spinning furiously trying to work out what to do. After a while, he grinned. “Only been a month and I’m already jumping into the next pond. Well then Rex, if all of this is as you say, I doubt you’re looking for me just to fulfil your curiosity.”

Rex gave a wry smile and sat back onto the sofa. “You’re right. I didn’t come looking for you to assure my curiosity because I already knew it was you. I came here because I heard your Guild takes on any mission. I want you to kill my competition for the throne.”

James’ face remained neutral, and he leant forward and placed his glass down on the table. “Your competition? I’m assuming you must be talking about the first and second princes?”

Rex just gave a nod of the head.

“So what’s in it for us? You’ve come here and given me this ... warning, I suppose, and now you want me to race off and complete another high profile job?”

Rex gave another nod. “You get two things. The first will be my oath to protect your guild with all the resources of the Empire I’ll have at my disposal and the second is claiming ownership of such a high-profile job. If you are able to kill off two highly secured Palace Realm targets in the capital city, then even the three great nations will have to recognise your reach and power and will be forced to reconsider before trying to pressure you.”

James stood up and beckoned for Rex to follow him. After a short trip in the elevator, they arrived on the roof of the guild. As they looked around, they saw the rest of the city towering up around them and moving out in every direction.

James paced around the rooftop with his arms behind his back while looking down at the monolith plaza. “Rex, I want neither the fame of the kill or your promise. My guild operates with one rule. Money is king. I personally have a few more rules, but this principle remains constant for my guild. We don’t take credit for our work. In fact, apart from the guild, no one knows who completes what jobs. All they know is that someone in my guild can get their job done.

“Furthermore Rex, by the time you have the power and influence of your father, I will already be beyond the limits of your Empire’s ability to protect. By that time, it’ll be you coming to my guild looking for protection. That makes your promise worthless I’m afraid. You need to offer me something else for this job.”

Rex wasn’t born yesterday and immediately realised there was something specific James wanted, then he suddenly realised that James didn’t deny the possibility of being able to kill off his older brothers. Seeing he may actually have a chance at the throne, Rex decided to lay down all his cards.

“What is it that you want then? At the rate your guild is growing financially, mere gold isn’t on your radar anymore. That means, for a job of this calibre, you must want something else. A rare resource perhaps? If it’s within my means, I’ll pay any price to kill those two bastards!”

When he said that, his hand was clenched so hard blood was dripping to the ground from his fingernails digging in. Seeing this, James put on a coy smile and then his gaze returned to the monolith.

“I want two things. One for each brother. The first is all the information the imperial clan has on array patterns. The second is a spirit beast of at least the Palace Realm or better with lightning affinity. I don’t need you to capture the beast. Instead just locate one at Palace Realm or better and I’ll do the rest.”

Rex’s face split into a huge shit eating grin. “Excellent. I can agree to both of those requests. I’m assuming from your wording that you want the beast alive. I won’t try and guess why, but I can tell you right now that I know where you can find a beast in the Tower Realm with a lightning affinity. Also, as the third prince, I have some responsibilities. It just so happens that artefact and array construction in the imperial clan both fall under my purview.”

Hearing this, James then spun back and eyed Rex for a moment. He was suspicious that the man had agreed far too quickly, but if he was trying to entrap James, there was no way for him to protect himself. “Fine. We have an accord.”

-The Lab-

With his conspiratorial meeting done, James returned to the lab. With Jasmine’s drones now flitting all over the Empire like bees, James had a huge amount of incoming data. Processing everything sent back by her drones even gave Jasmine a hard time occasionally. At least she insisted that was the case and repeatedly encouraged James to build her at least another 50 spirit computers. She’d even started throwing out new designs trying to incorporate arrays instead of hard circuits.

After a few hours of Jasmine searching about with her drones, the locations of the two older brothers had been discovered and they’d begun tracking their locations constantly.

While Jasmine was busy doing that, James had her set up a conference call with everyone that had a cube minus Rex. After a few chaotic minutes of everyone asking a billion questions in a single breath, James calmed everyone down.

“Everyone calm down. Now I should start by saying due to the untimely destruction of the Hanso Clan, we won’t be selling off their account of 33,000 gold and that account will instead be closed under the guidelines outlined in the contract under the note regarding the inability to claim on the account.

“The other 5 accounts will still be closed. I’ll be happy to discuss those terms with the three factions that made a joint bid earlier. Now that business is cleared away, let me say that I can neither confirm or deny the Dark Brotherhoods involvement in the sudden disappearance of Lachlan Hanso and the assault on Hanso City.”

Finished with his short statement, another barrage of questions was fired from the powers holding accounts with the Brotherhood. James just waited there while drinking tea as they all tried to outdo each other screaming at their communication cubes.

After a good 5 minutes, people started to realise James wouldn’t be saying anything more on the matter of the Hanso Clan and they quietened down a bit. James felt like a politician training news reporters to show some respect. He then suddenly had a terrible idea.

He filed that idea away and then turned his attention back to his clients. “Well then, it’s only been a day since we last had a conference call like this. Hopefully, nothing big will happen in the near future, until we meet again for the Auction in 5 weeks’ time.”

James then closed the communication channel and had Jasmine start preparing a new project. While that was happening, he called his Ghosts over to the lab. When Alecksa assembled her team, it appeared Junior was still resting from his injuries.

James then started filling the four present members in on their next mission. He didn’t give them specifics of how or when to kill them and only told them to start trying to infiltrate places frequented by the two princes.

Once they left, he called Skay and then the mad duo started a new joint project. They created nearly a hundred spirit bombs with altering methods and designs. When they were ready, James took the Gunship out to the Endless Forest. Before they went and decimated the forest with their 4 megaton spirit bombs, James had them land in the city.

He then made some calls and started moving around some responsibilities. He sent Fatty out to oversee the Black-Iron mine now that all the greenhouse structures in Tech City were being managed by Jasmine and the previously unemployed mortals.

He left Jasmine doing her normal thing, which was rooting every dick in the city and being the main point of contact for business between the Guild and their clients. Amusingly about the only person in the city she hadn’t seduced into her bed was Lucas.

Exsue and Harvy remained in the Gunship. To try and develop new pilots, James had a similar system to the pilot array in the gunship built at the University. It was designed to act as a test and practice chamber. It could replicate the flight systems of everything they currently had and then some things they didn’t have but planned to build eventually.

Getting into the flight program was a little difficult, though. It required a person to have completed basic at the University, which pretty much no one had been able to achieve yet.

James then assigned Goliath to the Security head position. He was tasked with finding and training some trustworthy individuals that could take on the position of General of the Guard for both Star City and Tech City.

Once he’d accomplished that and set down training regimes, Goliath would then return to being the Goliath of Wrath and running missions with James.

That only left Skay, who somehow managed to keep himself amused locked away in that lab all day. James had him working on some side projects for him while he was down their building God knows what.

When he’d finished, he walked out of the city to a little grotto that had grown nearby to Star City. It looked fantastical in nature and had a bubbling brook and beautiful green grass with tall overhanging oaks and a little clear pond with a small waterfall streaming into it.

As James walked into the grotto, a little group of playing forest hoppers all perked up and then scurried off into the underbrush. James let out a sigh and then went and sat down cross-legged on a rock near the pond. He then looked around for a second, and after seeing no one nearby, he spoke into the forest.

“Alright you wooden bitch, let’s talk.”

After this short sentence, a nearby tree trunk started to deform and bend until, after a few moments, a lady with skin as soft as the petals of a flower and smelling of the forest in spring came walking out. She was completely naked as she walked out and her hair was long and green with flowers braided through it. After she stepped out, her clear sky blue eyes trained in on James.

“James, it’s good to see you. The clearing of that disgusting vermin seems to be progressing very slowly. Is there no way to speed it up?”