Once the negotiations were concluded, the governor wanted to see me. Alone.

He watched me over his steepled fingers for a long while. I just took a seat in the finely cushioned chair and dangled my feet while I thought about artificing.

“I have never been cornered so aggressively by a five year old,” the governor said.

“Yeah, Danek is fun like that,” I said.

“And he is in your employ. That means you are even more, if I might say so, fun like that.”

I shrugged. “I have my moments.”

“Your negotiator and I agreed that if you manage to secure our power during the tournament, we will give you passage on a trading vessel to Baros. You will there be given an audience with a representative of the main family for potential employment.

Well, that sounded exactly what I wanted. Way to go Danek. I’d iron out that employment stuff when it was time to cross that bridge.

“That sounds good,” I said. “But that covers only half of the arrangement.”

“Quite,” the governor said. “That is why you are here.”

I nodded and let him continue.

“It seems you gave my daughter a run in the dueling ring?”

“She is the best fighter I’ve faced. I enjoy fighting her.”

“She is exceedingly talented. I have hopes she has a future on the main continent. Serving as a common guard on tier 1, she would be richer there than I could ever dream.”

“She said Ranok came from the main continent.”

“Yes. Merely an attack dog. A cousin of a cousin that was suitably dispensable to put here. But very powerful. If you wish to journey to Baros, he will be your first taste of how powerful people from there are. My daughter is much weaker than Ranok.”

“I know. I saw Ranok fight.”

“Will you be able to beat him?”

“If given enough resources to improve, yes.”

The governor nodded and spread his hands. “Now we are talking. What do you need?”

I pondered. A few new spells wouldn’t hurt, but having under three weeks before the tournament, that wasn’t enough to master a new spell, especially since I was still working on the barrier. Increasing my Skills would take too long as well.

What I needed was raw power. I needed to cultivate Arcane Body Art.

“Mana. Lots of it. Tens of thousands of units.”

The governor raised an eyebrow. “Why would you need so much?”

I shrugged. There was a tense silence between us. I didn’t have time for this, so I broke it.

“Do you want my help or not? Do you have other options?”

The governor steepled his fingers. “I suppose I do not. But we do not have that much refined mana. Especially not since the Belator started competing for it in the market.”

“So this isn’t going to work out?”

“Not so hasty…” the governor said. “There is a way but it is risky and expensive.”

I could really do without this guy’s dramatic pauses, so I just waited until he continued.

“I heard what happened with the raptors. This you might not know, but Awakened beasts are very valuable. They have monster cores.”

I perked up. I had heard of them. Elder Piraka said they were used to create refined mana.

“I’ve heard of them.”

“Yes,” the governor said. “The stronger the mana in an area, the stronger the mana beasts grow. They feed on lesser beasts and seek mana dense areas to grow. Usually they Awaken by being the apex predator of their territory.”

“And they have a monster core inside them?”

“Indeed,” the governor said. “Monster cores are extremely valuable, even tier 0 cores. Rich in mana. Only a few such beasts would be enough to cover your estimate.”

“That sounds very promising. But I sense a but coming?”

“Well they are very dangerous, and with Belator activity increased in the city, I cannot spare my best men to help you. Normally these beasts are killed by hunting parties consisting of ten Warriors with Evolved Classes. I do not know if you have the equipment to refine the monster cores.”

I doubted I needed to do anything to refine the monster cores. I had Mana Absorption that was literally a Skill designed for something like this. I would have to refine the mana anyway to create the purified frequency with Mana Transmutation.

“Okay,” I said. “I think I have all the relevant information. Don’t talk for a moment. I need to think.”

“I— you! Hmph… fine.”

It was hard to hide my excitement, but I had to keep a good poker face, since I was negotiating. But this just sounded like too much fun! Venturing into the jungle to hunt magical beasts? Sign me the hell up yesterday.

The jungle would be thicker with mana, which meant easier spellcasting. I would also get to let loose with my magic, without worrying about hurting anyone. And if the monster cores were truly dense enough with mana, I could improve my cultivation. I didn’t know if it would take one beast or ten, but if I improved enough, I would surely be able to beat Ranok.

“How many beasts can we reasonably hunt within two weeks?”

“I can employ six warriors and equip them for you. The rest is up to you. There is luck involved in tracking them, and the value of the monster core varies. That could mean two Awakened beasts or five.”

“They seemed rather aggressive,” I said. “Surely they will seek us out.”

The governor laughed. “Yes, surely. If you walk into the jungle, you will face them. You will be overwhelmed, run ragged, and die. And if you are too careful, they will escape, as happened with your encounter.”

“That’s alright. I don’t mind a good scrap. And I’m not letting my prey escape again.”

The governor chuckled. “Confident.”

I liked my chances here. Not only did I have Mana Sight to track beasts if they were hiding, I was also a beacon of mana myself. If the beasts liked eating mana, they would probably be pretty interested in me.

“Normally the hunting expeditions fund themselves by additionally killing normal beasts. We have younger boys running the materials back to the city. They will attack you often and offer you no benefit. What say you to that?”

“Don’t worry about that, I have a countermeasure to that.”

“Interesting,” the governor said. “So it is true then. You have some Perk.”

I shrugged. “Who knows, there are so many rumors about me these days.”

The governor laughed and slapped the table. “I like you, Luka. I believe you will succeed in this venture of ours. In addition to the six Warriors, I will also give you a Hunter to track them.”

“All of this will cost you,” I said.

“Of course,” the governor said. “But if I do not bet on you, my reign is lost. So tell you what. You keep the cores, I keep the beast materials.”

Damn it… I needed to do this without Danek… What would Danek say in a situation like this…

“No,” I said. “You will keep the materials until the costs of the expedition are covered. Then we split fifty fifty.”

“Hmph,” the governor said and gave me the side eye. “Very well. But with the added condition that you will take my daughter with you to gain experience as well. And you will make sure she is protected.”

I scowled. “She will be in the way.”

“She is as powerful as any of the six warriors I will give you.”

I considered it. She was pretty annoying, but on the other hand, I could ask her all kinds of questions about Baros and magical artifacts while we had downtime.

“Fine,” I said. “We leave in a few days. I don’t want to waste any time. Get your people ready.”

Happy with our successful negotiations we returned to the harbor market. Immediately upon arriving, I could sense something was wrong. There was a lot of commotion around our stall, and the crowd around it was uneasy.

We pushed through the crowd and found Danek’s stall was a wreck.

Broken vials, a trashed stall, ripped canopy, the works. Danek’s helper boys were sniffling and huddling up in a corner.

“No!” Danek cried out. “What happened?”

The four young boys sniffled and tried to talk, but were making no sense.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Are you hurt?”

“Not badly,” one of them said and shook his head.

“Where is Alik?”

One of the boys pointed toward the remains of the stall.

“Alik tried to stop them,” he whispered.

I looked around and saw my friend lying motionless beneath the broken canopy.

I went and checked his pulse. Thankfully he was alive and didn’t look like he was bleeding from six places. Just unconscious and breathing shallowly.

At this point I was pretty angry. I didn’t know who or why, but I wanted to break something. I would not allow anyone to hurt my friends.

I talked to one of the on-lookers and promised him a few coins if he could fetch a healer to Alik. Hopefully it wouldn’t take long. 

Then I turned to look at the damned mess again.

Danek was holding back a cry. I couldn’t blame a five year old for having his hopes and dreams dashed like this.

I looked at one of Danek’s sniffling helpers.

“Who did this?”

“Bad men. Big men,” one of the boys said.

“Where did they go?”

The boy pointed at a trading ship. There was a row of seamen playing dice between two stalls. One of them noticed me looking and grinned at me. He was wearing a leather vest with no shirt underneath and a red bandana.

“You sure it was them?” I asked.

“Yes,” the boy said and sniffed. “Ask anyone. They just watched.”

Interesting. Why had no one objected? Not even the guards.

I walked over towards the dice game. The guy who had grinned at me gave me an amused look.

He stood up and crossed his arms. “What do you want, kid?”

“An explanation,” I said.

“We know nothing about nothing.”

“There are several witnesses,” I said. “The guards will have your asses.”

The guy I was addressing snorted. “Ain’t nobody going to tattle a thing. We are Belator’s men.”

Well, that explained it. News seemed to travel fast around these parts. Well, I was already tangled into these House politics now. I looked around if there was anywhere I could press where it hurt. In for a penny, and all that. I needed to make sure this didn’t happen again.

Oh, that’s a good target.

“Yeah?” I asked. “You happen to know why my friend’s business was wrecked by… someone.”

“Maybe you people shouldn’t have stuck your nose in House Belator’s business,” one of the sailors said.

“Shut up, Neb,” the bandana guy said and smacked him.

I nodded. “So that’s what this is? Sending a message?”

The thug scowled at me. “And what if it is? You sided with Salakin. But their rule is done. They can’t help you.”

“Right,” I said. “So you’re Belator’s men. This ship here. It’s a Belator ship and you’re the crew?”

“What of it?”

“Nothing,” I said and shrugged. “Just checking…”

“Hey Reff,” one of the dicing sailors said. “Why you even talking to this kid?”

“Isn’t that the sorcerer?” another one asked. “The one they call Little God?”

“So what if he is,” Reff said and crossed his arms. “I heard he doesn’t even have a Class.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” I said. “Just one question. Would you be willing to settle this by giving back the money I assume you stole, and compensating for the damages?”

The thugs looked at each other and burst into laughter. They screeched and hooted like hyenas and clapped each other on their backs.

“Oh man. This kid is great. What a joker!”

“It wasn’t a joke,” I said. “I’m only going to ask once. Please compensate us and do not bother us again.”

“Get lost, kid,” Reff said. “Before I get angry.”

Well, at least I asked. I didn’t want to escalate, but these guys were bullies and bullies only listened to one language. If you didn’t answer bullying, you were asking for more. 

So I fired off a Water Bullet. I had been preparing it during the whole conversation, and I had made sure it was extra juicy.

It smashed through the ship’s hull like a cannonball, exploding wood and water everywhere on the dock. The ship rocked and the gangplank fell into the water and the ship started to slowly drink water from the hole and sink.

“The ship!” Reff cried.

“Nononono!”

“What have you done, you stupid kid?”

I gave them a hard look. “I gave you a chance to settle this.”

“Benny, Seele, Neb. Go plug the hole!” Reff shouted. “NOW!”

“How?”

“I don’t know! FIGURE IT OUT!”

A few merchants screamed and ran away from the dock.

Someone shouted for the harbor guards.

One of the neighboring sailors who had been observing the exchange started laughing so hard he nearly fell off his ship.

The Belator men weren't laughing anymore.

Reff gave me a murderous look and unsheathed his falchion with a swift movement. Two other thugs remained, and they followed suit.

Shing.

“Now you’ve done it, you little rat,” Reff growled. “We tried playing nice. Sending you a message. And you just wouldn’t listen. Well, now you’ll pay…”

I didn’t want a deathmatch, but I prepared a spell nonetheless. I already had a pretty strong barrier on anyway. However, before I could launch a spell at them, something moved between us in a flash, and then there was a cry of pain.

“Aaagh! My hand!”

Reff fell on his knees and held a stump of his wrist. The falchion and his hand scattered on the cobbled stone.

The shirtless and muscular form of Ranok of House Belator loomed over me. His greatsword rested easily on his shoulder as he looked down at me with a disdainful expression.

Damn, he was fast.

Also, what the hell? I'd been planning to throw the guy into the harbor, not cut his hand off.

These noble house young masters didn’t play.

“Reff,” the boy said with a calm voice. “Give the boy back his money and compensate for damage. And see that you do not escalate further. Now get out of my sight and go fix the damn ship.”

“Yes, young master!”

“Ranok,” I said and nodded. “This stall-trashing business all your work?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” the boy said in a cold voice. “I am simply educating my overeager underlings.”

I looked at the bloody hand on the dock.

“You could have just given me my shit back instead of all this hassle.”

“Hmph,” the boy said. “You didn’t even react to me intervening. Why are you talking to me like an equal?”

“I guess we don’t know who is equal to who before the tournament.”

“You’re a funny little sorcerer.”

I couldn’t help but to naturally watch him with my Mana Sight on. As expected he released that magical cloud of his. I was so excited to watch it up close. I watched with rapt attention as the cloud hit my barrier. I was pretty delighted to see that it didn’t penetrate. That meant I could study it closer. And now that I had my new Perk Arcane Deconstruction, I could see some very interesting details about the spell formula. It was emanating from some kind of an artifact, that was clear. Now that I had studied them with Veena, and understood how rich people used them, I knew what I was looking at. I wondered if I could replicate the formula with Spellcrafting. It looked complicated, so I took some mental notes of the structure of mana. Then I reluctantly turned my attention back to Ranok who raised an eyebrow.

We stared each other down, but he was clearly expecting me to be affected by his magic. I really wanted to. I wanted to know how it affected me and what kind of spell he was using. But now was not the time, so I just gave him a thin smile. He scoffed.

“Fine, you have some skills. More than I would expect for someone from a tier 0 island.”

“Are we good?” I asked. “Or do I have to destroy more of your property?”

“I'll see that your friend's business is left alone… for now,” Ranok said.

“Good,” I said. “Then we are done. Good luck in the tournament.”

I turned to leave. After I took a few steps, he spoke again.

“Be safe in the jungle. I heard it is dangerous during these unstable times.”

Ominous. News sure did travel fast. It couldn’t have been thirty minutes after we had our private conversation with the governor. I should probably tell him his office was bugged or he had a spy or something. Nah, I should tell Danek, so he can squeeze something out of it. Either way, the message Ranok was sending was clear.

I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “I’ll be sure to be on the lookout for an ambush. From the beasts, of course.”

Ranok gave me a dark smile. “Of course.”