Chapter 185

Fujoka Shansakun, Patriarch of the Shansakun family, was probably compensating for something. His office had a disgusting amount of decorations made from precious metals and gemstones, everything from a mask made of beaten gold with rubies for eyes on the wall to a small jade statue of something that looked like an elephant to Luke, at least if an elephant had a trunk long enough to scratch its own ass. A set of pens cast in silver sat on one side of his desk next to an ink pot made of some type of crystal. Even the desk itself with made of some deep brown wood sanded, varnished, and polished to a shine.

In contrast, Fujoka himself was maybe five two, almost completely bald, and so thin and scrawny that Luke honestly wondered if he’d been afflicted by some wasting disease that had eaten away his health. He had liver spots on his head and skin textured like paper. His clothes, thick robes richly dyed in shades of crimson, dark purple, and gold, hung heavily off his frame, as though they’d been made for a man twice his size.

Only his eyes showed any form of vitality, and in them Luke saw a shrewd, calculating man, one who had clear priorities and a willingness to sacrifice anyone and anything on the altar of those goals. Luke knew he wasn’t the best at reading people, but Fujoka made him feel entirely like a piece of meat being weighed for its value.

“Take that mask off,” Fujoka snapped at Hakiro. “I’ve told you a thousand times not to wear that in my presence.”

“Apologies, sir.”

Hakiro removed the mask and moved to put it in a pocket, only to remember that he was wearing the too-small clothes Zea had picked up for him. He let his hand fall to his side, the mask still held in it. Luke saw with some surprise that the other man’s eyes were both foggy and unfocused, almost like he wasn’t using them to see, like he couldn’t use them at all.

That explained how Hakiro had developed his [Tapestry of the World] skill so high. That skill was a combination of three lesser sensory enhancement skills for hearing, smell, and touch, all of which would have taken over 500 AP to max out before they could be merged into an advanced skill. It would have taken the first 35 levels worth of gains to buy it all outright, and even then, that would only have put [Tapestry of the World]at rank 1. Hakiro had it at rank 5.

Fujoka gave his great nephew a sniff that practically dripped with disdain. “Who are these people you’ve invited into my home? More scholars for my niece to question?”

“No, Patriarch,” Hakiro said. He glanced at Luke, then added, “This man claims to have the SysAdmin bloodline.”

“Impossible,” Fujoka said flatly.

“I believe him, Patriarch.”

“I don’t care what an idiot like you believes. Just because he managed to trick some branch line battle fodder doesn’t mean I’m going to let him run whatever scam he’s trying to pull.”

“Wow, so you’re kind of a dick, huh?” Luke said.

Fujoka just gave him a withering look before switching from Consortium Standard to what Luke assumed was Eledarn. It was coming up often enough that he was starting to consider it a worthwhile investment to pick up the language.

“You’re such a smooth talker,” Zea whispered to Luke. “Maybe let the other guy do the negotiating before you get us killed.”

The two easterners were speaking rapidly, or rather, Fujoka was scolding him and Hakiro was taking the abuse with a series of, “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” responses. Considering anyone in the room, even Zea, could have reached out and snapped Fujoka like a twig, it was particularly galling.

“Level 26,” Luke said loudly, interrupting Fujoka mid-tirade.

“What?”

“59,826 XP. 6 unspent AP. Strength at 5, agility at 7, stamina at 14, perception at 20.”

Fujoka’s face paled, then flushed an angry red. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“You said it was impossible for me to have the SysAdmin bloodline,” Luke told him. “I’m proving you wrong.”

“Preposterous. I don’t know where you got your information from, but it’s not from some fictional bloodline some foreigner supposedly had centuries ago.”

“Oooh, don’t let Aunt Valera here you say that,” Hakiro said.

“Enough out of you,” Fujoka snapped. “The day I need my niece’s opinion on how to run my family is the day I pass the title on to my son.”

“Is that a fact?” a new voice said from outside the room. The door opened to reveal a woman in her late forties whose hair was piled up into a bun just as large as her head and held in place with at least a dozen golden pins. Despite that, the whole bun swayed dangerously, threatening to spill out with each step she took as she entered Fujoka’s office.

“If I wanted your opinion on these foreigners, I would have sent someone for you,” Fujoka told her. “I would appreciate if you didn’t barge in here like you own the place. You don’t. I do.”

“And I would appreciate if you didn’t try to cut me out on matters that so obviously concern me,” she snapped back. “Just because you don’t care about our family’s history doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same. Don’t think I won’t report you to the Council of Elders if you to pull this on me again.”

“This would only concern you if this kid actually was the descendent of William Wyrmsbane, and since he’s a myth anyway, it’s impossible. Even if he does have the SysAdmin bloodline, that’s not proof of any connection.”

“I think the Council might disagree,” Valera told him. “Why don’t we schedule an emergency meeting and find out?”

“There’s no need to bother them with something this trivial.”

“It doesn’t seem trivial to me. Or are you going to tell me it’s a coincidence that this young man was able to rattle off your numbers.”

“Information can be bought. Any decent conman knows that.”

“Can you do it again?” Valera asked, turning to Luke.

“Read someone’s status? I can read everyone’s status,” Luke told her.

“A claim we should be able to easily verify,” Valera said. “We’ll just pick a handful of people, verify some information beforehand, and have you confirm it. What else can you do?”

“I can turn off the XP presence people have. I think you call it an aura here? I can do it for anyone, as long as they let me.”

“Fascinating,” Valera said. “Do it to me.”

With a shrug, Luke used [Remote Access] to connect to Valera’s system and then toggled her XP presence with [XP Mask]. She gasped and looked around in shock. After a few seconds, Luke used [XP Mask]a second time to reset her back to normal.

“Sorry, I should have mentioned that it also prevents you from feeling anyone else’s XP,” he told her.

“Yes, it’s… it was a bit of a surprise. Quite alright though.”

Hakiro said, “He says he has a bloodline skill that will let him reset XP Madness. He needs a few more levels to build up the AP to take the skill, but he’s willing to use it for our family if we let him see his father’s stuff and help him gain the levels he needs.”

Fujiko wasn’t good at hiding his feelings, something Luke thought the guy running a large family probably should have been able to do. There had to be a lot of politics involved in it, especially if there were a bunch of other old people who could countermand his orders. Plus there would no doubt be interactions with the city itself. The family obviously had a lot of money and Luke was guessing all the land as their compound encompassed within the city walls could not have come cheap.

It was easy to tell what was going through his mind at that moment. Luke didn’t know the particulars, but the man was obviously in the throes of pure, unadulterated greed. Something about that proposal had sparked an idea in Fujiko, and he couldn’t have been more obvious if he started rubbing his hands together and laughing manically.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s say I believe you about your bloodline. How long will you need before you can restore some of our less stable-minded warriors to fighting condition?”

“However long it takes me to get from level 43 to 46,” Luke said.

“That’s a lot of XP,” Fujiko told him. “I’d have to get out the charts, but if I recall correctly, somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000.”

Luke shrugged. “125 AP. That’s what it takes to get there. If you want me to reset anyone back to level 1, that’s another 50 AP and they have to agree to it.”

He decided to leave unsaid that for another 200 AP, he could add [Inflict Status] to the mix and forcefully reset people to level 1. Fujiko struck him at the kind of person who would be unscrupulous about abusing something like that. It was better for everyone if it didn’t become general knowledge that it was even an option I the first place.

“Would it cost you anything to use this skill once you acquire it?” Fujiko asked.

“Not as far as I know. None of my other bloodline skills have any restrictions like that.”

“And you could use it as many times as you want?”

“Yeah.”

The Patriarch of the Shansakun family grinned wickedly and said, “I think we can come to an agreement.”

“Fantastic,” Luke said. “In that case, let me introduce you to my manager. She handles all negotiations on behalf.”

Zea stepped forward, a grin of her own to match the old man’s on her lips.

* * *

Luke might have felt bad for Fujiko by the time everything was over if the man hadn’t been such a colossal dick bag about things at the beginning. Since they were trading a unique, priceless service, Zea had hammered him with that fact repeatedly.

She wanted supplies, workshops, maps, language lessons, lodging for both of them, the services of an armorer, a wood worker, and a blacksmith. It wasn’t that any individual thing was all that great of a demand, but she had a lot of them. Luke just sat back and smiled while she extracted concession after concession from Patriarch Fujiko.

By the time negotiations were over, he was in a nasty mood, but Zea had gotten nearly everything she’d demanded. Valera had long since gotten bored with the process and left partway through, only stopping to mutter something to Hakiro on her way out. Luke shot him a questioning glance, but he just shook his head and said, “Later.”

Once they were back out into the garden courtyard, Hakiro let out a low laugh and said, “You’re vicious. I don’t think I’ve seen Patriarch Shansakun raked over the coals that hard in my entire life.”

“Thanks,” Zea said, taking Hakiro’s words as a compliment.

“Someone should be back with your belongings in the next hour or so,” Hakiro said. “In the meantime, you have another appointment.”

“Let me guess, Valera?” Luke said.

“As you might imagine, she’s excited to meet you. She’s always loved the old stories.”

“Might as well head there next,” Luke said. “But after that, I’d like a bath and a bed.”

“It’s a bit early for that.”

Luke shrugged. “Killing giant man-eating hentai demons takes it out of me.”

“What does this word mean?” Hakiro asked.

“Never mind. Something from my world that doesn’t need to become well-known here. It’s just something that’s associated with monsters that have lots of tentacles.”

Hakiro blinked at that. “You… You have enough problems with tentacled monsters that they have their own terminology?”

“Just… no, never mind. Come on, which way are we going?”