Chapter 68: Rich, Rich Logan

Charlie looked down at his bucket of green beans that had cost him 20,000 KarmaCoin, and then at the 50 individual green bean pods that had cost 2,000 each, his mouth puckered in distain, his eyes furrowed and his face flushed red with anger.

“Happy now?” he spat. Then muttering, “I hate green beans.”

You and me both, asswipe.

Behind him, the other three soldiers stared at their buckets of green beans with queasiness and glazed eyes. They’d yet to recover from Logan slamming their heads against the ground.

Logan grinned and held back a chuckle. He’d taken them for all they were worth! Charlie and the soldiers had managed to clear out the food, leaving only the weapons, clothing, spatial storage bracelets, and corpses.

Pulling up his Build an Empire quest status, Logan held his breath as anticipation thrummed through his belly.

[Build an Empire! Craft ten lodestone access points and sell 100 items within 48 hours.]

[Quest Progress: 65% complete. 20.5 hours remaining.]

Yes! Logan fist pumped the air and bounced on his feet. Although it didn’t tell him that he’d satisfied the 100-item requirement, there was only one way his quest progress had jumped from 8% to 65% in half an hour. He was well on his way.

Hell, technically, he could craft the remaining lodestone access points here and he’d satisfy the quest, but that wasn’t a winning strategy. It would be short sighted, since although he’d satisfy the quest, it wouldn’t help him build an empire and raise KarmaCoin.

Feeling his mouth grow dry, Logan pulled up his stat sheet and examined his KarmaCoin.

Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]

Rank: 2 out of 5,981,912,952

Level: 162  

Class: [Epic] Fabled Creation

Grade: E6 

Species: Human    

Skills:   

·       Idiot’s Paradox Lv. 29

·       Idiot’s Inspect Lv. 10 (capped)

·       Deepwater Explorer Lv. 3

·       Regenerate Lv. 16

·       Mimicry Armour Lv. 3

·       Undead Stamina

·       Foresight

·       Lodestone Creationist Lv. 1

·       Liche Devourer Lv. 1

·       Life Fabricator Lv. 3

·       Threshold Shift        

Titles: Eager Beaver; Mass Murderer; Audacious Corpse; Run Until You Drop; Malicious Meat Sack; Forerunner

XP Progress: 300,000/324,000

Karma: 3,600/3,600

Intelligence: 600

Constitution: 75

Strength: 365

Agility: 381

Dexterity: 302

Endurance: 683

Perception: 141

Wisdom: 587  

Luck: 105     

Free Attribute Points: 5

KarmaCoin: 812,600

Holy shit! Holy shit! His KarmaCoin total had jumped to over 800,000! He was rich! Rich!

And holy crap, even as he studied his stat sheet, as he watched, the total changed! The KarmaCoin was inching up!

[KarmaCoin: 812,600]

[KarmaCoin: 815,300]

Someone back in the Okanagan must have bought an item. Beaming from ear to ear, Logan dissolved his facemask, his eyes faraway as he thought of the possibilities. Now that he’d eliminated the risk of the food kill penalty, he could rove around the world, throwing everything but the kitchen sink into his spatial collar, and then add it to his market. Hell, why limit himself? Another person’s trash could be someone else’s treasure.

Not to mention that although the Build an Empire Quest required him to craft ten lodestone access points, it didn’t mean that he had to stop there. He could use [Threshold Shift] to portal all over the place, fixing a lodestone in every major city.

But…

Logan scrubbed his fingers over his stubble. He couldn’t get ahead of himself, going so crazy with greed that he forgot the bigger picture. Building an empire was well and good, but not if Lara and the kids ended up dead in less than a year. The threat of the purge was ever present, and if he failed his Save Humanity Quest billions would die.

The Save Humanity Quest was a priority.

On top of that, although he was getting closer to wrapping up his dueling priorities, by finishing the Build an Empire Quest, he hadn’t forgotten that in less than six days, the System would send him off to a shitty knight’s ‘Integration Tournament.’ Despite Pied telling him that the System warped time there (a week in the tournament was one day here), being forced to divert his attention to a tournament that he viewed as irrelevant was beyond annoying.

And yet, he had all that crap to deal with, but excitement continued to thrum through his belly. There was no wiping away his satisfaction when he stared at that increasing KarmaCoin tally. Finally, finally, he’d triumphed financially. Logan was well on his way to becoming a financial powerhouse.

And there was such a thing as too much misery and having a pessimistic view of life. He’d been dealt a shitty hand. All of humanity had. The Integration had been nothing but heartache, killing, and pain up until now. Didn’t he deserve to bask in positivity? He knew he had a tendency to be too serious, to be too focused on external factors and to rage at the world. His girlfriend had given him an earful about it the last time they’d talked.

For once, Logan could give himself allowances. If he received pleasure from seeing himself grow rich, then so be it.

But there was one thing he could do to increase that profit margin.

“Voss,” he said, giving the man a look. “Keep an eye on them for me, will you?”

Voss had been peering up at the tree, his eyes wide, but at Logan’s words, his gaze snapped to Logan. He nodded. The soldiers were so injured that they wouldn’t give Voss any trouble, but Charlie was a threat. Even injured, Voss was no match for him.

Logan approached his lodestone, climbing over the immense tree roots exploding through the asphalt, the scent of sap and earth wafting past his nose.

The canopy at the top was no normal canopy. Logan had created a monster, carbon sucking tree, which meant that it blocked the sun and cast him in shadow. Even better, he was convinced that the air felt cleaner: filtered, healthy. It was as if he’d stepped into an old growth forest that created its own weather. Step away from the forest and move away from the towering trees, and you’d find the weather five degrees hotter, the mist gone, the air crisp.

He rested his hand against the lodestone, the metal feeling cool to the touch.

[Private market owner recognized! Would you like to add items to your private market?]

Logan toggled through the options until he navigated to the lending details. Pulling up the loan percentages, Logan reverted them back into interest that accumulated daily, switching it to 5% for regular items like clothes and 10% for the rarer weapons. If someone was desperate for a shirt, he didn’t need to charge them an arm and a leg, but weapons were a different story. For all he knew, the people who ended up buying them might turn into enemies.

Logan didn’t know these people, and once he left, there would be no controlling who bought items. Better to raise the price as much as he could—a high price, but not a price that was unreasonable. With the loan, it might look hefty, but if he attracted people who wanted to get into the one percent, he had to assume that they’d earn KarmaCoin eventually. That meant they could pay off the loan quicker.

As long as he crafted his lodestone access points in high traffic, high populated areas, he had the opportunity to raise a massive fortune.

Scratching his stubble, Logan examined the items inside of the market one more time and then hesitated over the last option.

Auction buying.

He hadn’t bothered setting it up yet, but unless something unforeseen happened, he’d craft the remaining lodestones in the next few hours. That gave him a unique opportunity. He had to assume a ton of people would check out the market en masse. He could create scarcity, which created desirability. By now, he’d learned that there was no way to remove an item once he’d already added it to the market, so his twenty spatial storage devices he’d grabbed from Pied’s Kingdom would remain.

And yet…

With a grin, Logan jacked up the price of each to 1,000,000 KarmCoin, and then took the lowest quality version, an F grade bracelet, and toggled on the auction buying option.

Logan selected a time limit of 48 hours with a reserve price of 2,000 KarmaCoin. He doubted that many people would have anywhere close to 1,000,000 KarmaCoin, so it would make the spatial storage device appear priceless. Instead of putting an arbitrary price like 50,000 KarmaCoin on each spatial storage device, an auction would create excitement, letting him sell them at the highest price possible. Better yet, it gave him the option to auction the other higher quality spatial storage devices at a later date.

Logan dropped his hand from the lodestone and then turned around before climbing off the massive protruding roots and back to the ground.

Charlie had kicked over his bucket of green beans. They’d scattered on the ground and were filthy with dirt. Asshole. Logan hated green beans too, but that didn’t mean he’d treat a viable food source like it was mud on the bottom of his shoes. Logan hissed out a breath. Looking at Charlie was bringing his mood down, and his stomach sloshed as he glanced from him to Voss, and from the soldiers to Voss.

If he left without taking care of Charlie, there was no way Voss would survive long. Charlie outclassed him, and he had no illusions that Logan had managed to kill all his supporters. With a group that large, numbering in the thousands, they had to need more than a dozen soldiers. If Charlie were the leader of this group while Damsel was away, as soon as Logan left, he’d kill Voss, gather his supporters, and then take control of the complex, reverting it back to the same fighting party despicable tactics as before.

In addition, Damsel was out there, and once her skill limit reset, she’d return.

Fuck.

Well, at least he could give them a fighting chance to put together something they could be proud of, a sense of community, of pride. That might just be enough to create a movement. If he could do that, Damsel could return all she wanted, but if they didn’t want her, what could she do?

Thinking about Damsel brought his attention to the stinging pain in his leg. He’d pulled out the shard of metal and thrown it inside of his spatial collar, but it had done damage, damage that was slow to heal even with [Regenerate]. If he didn’t want to constantly walk around at the same time as sticking himself with shards of metal, he needed to shore up his constitution attribute so that he could reduce his vulnerability to mind attacks.

Making a snap decision, Logan allocated his free attribute points:

[Constitution: 72]

[Constitution: 73+]

[Constitution: 76]

His [Forerunner] title gave him a 5% static boost to all his attributes. 76 multiplied by 5 percent gave him 4 extra attributes, which meant that his constitution attribute ended up at 80. So far, the 5% boost hadn’t been too advantageous, but he could see it helping as he continued to raise the stat.

Such a minor change didn’t change his worldview or open his eyes like upgrading his wisdom or intelligence attributes, but he could already feel a slight lessening in the persistent ache in his thigh. That, together with [Regenerate], should clear it up in no time.

“Oi! Are you finished navel grazing, mate?”

Logan’s eyes snapped to Charlie. Blood trickled down his neck and chest, soaking his shirt so much that he looked as if he’d stepped off the set of a horror movie. His face had grown pale again, his eyes bloodshot, but he was way too aggressive for Logan’s liking. Too aggressive, too bullish. No, this man would never give up the fight, convinced that his viewpoint was right, and God forbid anyone else who had an opinion. If Logan didn’t do something, he would as good as condemn Voss to death.

Logan removed his sword from his spatial storage device, the weapon glinting with a faint blue light. His mouth in a grim line, Logan strode towards Charlie with a quiver in his stomach.

If he did this, it would be a big step. He’d killed the other soldiers because they’d attacked him; he’d sucked the lifeforce from the three other soldiers to grow the monster tree, but Logan was about to act as the judge, jury, and executioner. Was the man deserving of death? Could he justify it if Logan cut him down unarmed?

Well, he could look at it in a different way. Could he justify it to Lara?

She was no-nonsense, a lawyer, down to earth, and once you lost her good opinion, you lost it forever. If Logan put himself in Lara’s shoes and judged his own actions, he would give himself a pass. Charlie was unarmed, true, but together with Damsel, he’d killed countless innocent people. People like Lachlan.

Logan licked his lips and flared his nostrils. The rage that had exploded out of his belly during the fight with the soldiers surged anew. Just thinking of Lachlan made him want to kill those soldiers all over again. And if Damsel wasn’t here, Charlie was the next best thing.

Charlie took in Logan’s sword and his expression. He paled, taking a step back as if in spite of himself. “So that’s how it is, huh, mate? Not even going to give me a weapon so I can defend myself?”

“Did you give the other people weapons before you killed them? How many, mate? How many people did you kill under false pretences? Tricking them into participating in a fight that was rigged all along?”

Charlie sneered. “So if a few died, so what! Look what we created! Shelter for the young and old. If the price for their protection is a few weaklings who weren’t worth the air they breathed, then I tell you what, I’ll sleep soundly. Sleep soundly any day of the week!”

Logan flexed his fingers on the handle of his sword. “You’re despicable.”

Charlie snorted, before his gaze grew faraway and his expression hallowed. “I was only trying to survive. If you want to blame anyone, blame the System. If it hadn’t given out triple XP for killing other people, do you think things would be as bad as they are right now? Either we did it, or someone else would. I have people relying on me, and I needed to advance to protect them so I could help them into the one percent. Mate, I can’t believe you’re judging me—you! Someone who must be a high ranker. There’s only one way you advanced that high. Don’t tell me you didn’t do your own killing!”

“There are plenty of monsters out there,” said Logan. “There are other ways to level up. The System created an incentive for killing other people, fine. I’ll give you that. But it didn’t mean that you had to take it.”

Logan paused, hesitating. For a second, he debated giving Charlie a chance to say that he’d never kill defenceless people again, but what would stop him from lying? Logan wasn’t that naïve. Although brutal, the Integration had shown people’s true colors. Charlie might say that he’d go on the straight path. He might even believe it himself. But as soon as Damsel returned, that newfound resolution would disappear, and Voss would be in the crossfire.

Charlie’s gaze was desperate as he glanced around as if searching for escape. “You can’t—”

Enough was enough. Logan raised his sword. Charlie’s eyes widened in alarm, and he made a motion as if to slap his hands together to deploy his percussion sound skill, but Logan was too fast. Growling, Logan kicked off with his backfoot, fainting right, while going to the left as he swung for Charlie’s neck.

Ding!

[You have defeated Charlie Nguyen! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

[You have leveled up!]

Logan didn’t register the level up notification. He looked down at Charlie’s body with a pinched mouth, a tightness in his chest. Charlie’s death had been justified, but Logan didn’t like how things had gone down. Even worse, he had three other soldiers next to Voss who couldn’t be trusted. They weren’t as high leveled as Charlie, and Voss might be capable of putting them down, if necessary, but he couldn’t deny that they were a threat.

But they looked pathetic. Glazed eyes, cupping their wounded heads, their hands trembling. Logan didn’t want to kill them.

If only there was more than Voss here, a group that could band together to keep the soldiers in line, a group that could keep anyone else in line who had loyalty to Damsel. The problem was that everyone had dispersed when the soldiers started firing, and he doubted he could coax them out now.

We will help, came a whisper.

Logan blinked, darting his gaze around, first looking to Voss and then for a civilian. Anyone. But Voss gave him a blank look, and there was no one within whispering distance. Logan felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise, and trepidation swirled through his stomach. A whispering voice reminded him of Damsel and her mental manipulation skill. Had she returned?

Logan turned slowly, opening his senses and deploying [Life Fabricator] so he could scan for a hidden presence. Voss and the three soldiers pinged with bright, flaring auras; the insects scurrying through the dirt underneath the asphalt hummed, their auras tiny pinpricks, whereas his tree had an aura that dwarfed everything else like a supernova.

We will help, came a louder voice, but it was still a faint whisper on the air, as if someone had crooned into his ear on the way past. Alarmed, Logan raised his sword, turning around and getting ready to swing.

No one.

He looked at Voss. “Did you just…?”

Voss gave him a puzzled look. “Just what?”

“I…” Logan turned back to his tree.

At the bottom of the tree against the trunk, something moved. The size of Logan, the same width, the same height. It was as if a shadow had turned solid and detached itself from a wall.

But this was no shadow.

Oh, hell no.

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