Greed God chapter 142

March 16th 2016 Gemworld 11:00 AM EDT

Gioto  took a second to process what had happened. When he did though, he  didn't freak out or anything. He just kind of blinked at me and then  looked off into the distance consideringly. "How powerful could you make  me?" His voice wasn't exactly excited, but he sounded surprisingly  calm. I once again marveled at Opal and how it seemed to really bring  out the ambition in its citizens. It was easy to shrug off, but I was  just so used to people from the US.

People in from back  home were raised to prize freedom and individuality above basically  everything. It was a decent system, and it worked out for me personally,  but I knew it wasn't the same everywhere. Even on earth plenty of  modern countries prized familial or societal obligation over individual  growth. In feudal societies, you usually saw a big premium on fealty and  obedience, but Opal's culture had a subfocus on ambition and power,  which made sense given the guy at the top of that pyramid.

If  you turned a modern American into a bound thrall, they would freak the  fuck out, but honestly the amount of power people like Gioto didn't have  made the change essentially meaningless to him. He'd basically been a  slave already, I just signed my name on the line. I preferred dealing  with this kind of thing to the other way around. So, as a reward for not  making me listen to a bunch of whiny bullshit, I just told him the  truth. "I can make you as strong as Lord Opal someday. In the short term  I could push you up to Viscount within a few months, and to Earl a few  months after that."

I could do it faster if I wanted,  but I saw no reason to share that. I had a bunch of needy women to  upgrade, Gioto and the other men in my employ could wait their turns. I  wasn't giving up excited thank you sex from increasingly powerful girls.  Especially not Sindara. The thought of ruining some D ranked Opal pussy  made my mouth go dry. I really needed to upgrade some of my other girls  with fun enhancements that made sex feel better. It wasn't something  I'd considered, but given how much fun my new Opal slut was, it would be  a seriously fun process testing them out.

Regardless,  Gioto apparently thought the bare minimum I was willing to do for him  because he was my minion was amazing, because his eyes went wide with  shock, and he threw himself to the ground, kowtowing in front of me. It  was novel, but I didn't really enjoy men debasing themselves, so I gave  him a minute to get it out of his system before saying. "You may rise."  He did, springing back up to his feet like a wet cat that had touched a  light socket, back ramrod straight as he stared at me fervently.

Wow,  upward mobility in this town must have sucked worse than I thought. I  took out a bottle of pills and passed them over, giving him the same  speech as I'd given Sindara, though without the assurances, before  finally telling him how to go about it. "Listen. I want you to use these  to advance your position in the Shadow Lords. Make a name for yourself.  Make it seem like these are a huge asset you discovered at great  personal cost. The better you can make yourself look, the easier it'll  be to lead them around, and the more useful you are. Understood?"

"Yes,  my lord." He said, bowing his head. "I am to infiltrate as deeply as  possible. Might I ask what brilliant scheme you've concocted? If it  isn't too bold. It would behoove me to understand my mission before  embarking on it, so that I might make sure my every action aligns with  your interests." His voice was sincere and heartfelt, and I raised an  eyebrow at him, impressed.

I'd heard a lot of shameless  asskissing in my life, but that was some top notch brown nosing even by  corporate standards. "Damn, Gioto. I see your value now. You talk a  good game." I meant it too. He was obviously bullshitting. The bloodline  would make him more disposed to obedience and the Brand would force him  to obey, but there was no fucking way he was this under my thrall. He  was just a master liar when it came to being a toady. Luckily, that was  exactly what I needed, so it worked out fine.

He  lowered his head in a second bow. "Of course, my lord." I caught a  subtle smirk on his lips and couldn't help but grin. He was a sarcastic  little shit too. That was kind of entertaining. He took the pills,  staring at them longingly, but he put them away without trying to take  one. Which was good, because unlike Sindy I had no long term use for  this kid, if he decided to fuck himself up permanently for a slight  power boost now it was none of my damn business. Even if it would be the  stupidest choice he could make.

I stood up to leave.  "Alright. You have your orders. I'll be having you tracked. Disobey and  I'll order your heart to stop beating and let you suffocate to death  gasping for air that wouldn't do any good." I didn't know if I could do  that actually, but it seemed legit. Plus I liked the way it sounded.

His  face went pale, which was kind of funny to watch with the whole striped  complexion thing. "Of course, my lord. You can count on me." He didn't  bother to see me out. I contacted Zee with the lightning phone, letting  her know where Gioto's house was and that I needed the kid watched, and  then I headed for my next destination, finally deciding to scope out The  Empty Door. It was time to see what the strongest criminal in the city  looked like.

This time, I had to be careful on the  approach, however. I'd need to scope out the various people in the gang  to find someone that would work best, rather than counting on the pills  to do the heavy lifting. The Empty Door was an elite group, which meant  they would be more cohesive and much more structured. It would be  possible to use an internal element to introduce a variable like the  pills, but I'd have to choose the right point of ingress or the whole  thing would backfire.

Cherry had done plenty of  research for me, but in this case I was going to need to case the place  myself. With Zee scrying Gioto, I had to be more selective anyway,  because I wouldn't have anyone to track my next convert to make sure I'd  made the right call on this. It was annoying, but redundancies, while  useful, weren't necessary. If you didn't have someone to monitor the  response after you made a move, you just needed to make sure it was the  right move before you made it.

I headed for the  district that Cherry had found out housed The Empty Door. She'd been  pretty clear that without her Hand of Glory powers, she probably  couldn't have even found the place. The entrance was exceptionally well  hidden, and the traffic was much lower, plus people didn't shoot their  mouths off. The entrance was located in a small house tucked into the  back corner of the district, hidden in the basement where no one would  find it. A section of brick wall that could be pushed aside to open a  passage.

Since there was no legitimate reason for me to  get in there, and I would definitely be noticed if I tried, I posted up  in the house across the street on the top floor and began the process  of casing the building. I watched the house closely, noting each person  who entered, which direction they came from, their mood, manner of  dress, interactions with each other, length of time they stayed,  reaction to their time down there, etc. I tracked a myriad of factors,  memorizing them all and cataloguing them for future reference without  missing a single detail.

As much as fucking and  violence was an amusing way to advance my goals, sometimes there was no  substitute for patience. Information was needed, and while shortcuts  like Cherry's powers were convenient, there was often no substitute for  making your own deductions about a situation and forming your responses  based on careful study. The research done up to now was perfectly  serviceable for the other two gangs, because there were obvious gaps to  take advantage of.

This next part would require careful  observation and annoying amounts of time to come into effect. Not an  infinite amount, I was on a clock after introducing the pills to the  other two factions, but it wasn't too pressing. It would take time for  my new minions to convince their gang leaders to take advantage of the  new opportunity and make best use of the swell of reputation that came  from it.

Hell, Gioto might not even manage, he could  get killing the attempt. Not that it mattered. With Sindara already  making her move, that would just mean that the Shadow Lords would be  crushed without a fight, making it easier to draw The Empty Door into  the fight to prevent the Bone Barons from expanding to threaten them.

So  I settled in. I felt a bit jittery, having noticed an uptick in my  restlessness after my upgrade, and I took this chance to force myself to  slow down. I sat in meditation, forcing my heartbeat to slow, my body  to relax. This wasn't my usual thing, I'd never been the meditating  type, though I'd learned it from my dad as a kid, but it was important  for me to handle this change.

I  was a hedonist at heart, when I was hungry, I ate, when I was horny, I  fucked. It was important to indulge in the things you most wanted,  because if you didn't what was the point of even being alive. That said,  there was a difference between indulgence and loss of control. Choosing  to give in to lust or hunger were not the same as being forced to give  in, and for someone like me, self control was an important aspect of how  I operated in the world.

This  new change to my body was flooding me with energy, and that was pushing  me to action. Having that possibility was fine, and was a benefit if  anything. But I needed to be able to ignore it, to retain stillness and  exercise patience. Haste makes waste in so many matters, and the ability  to sit and wait was an integral part of success in plenty of  situations.

So  I sat, and kept my eyes open and catalogued the people coming and  going, and I waited. I forced my heart to slow, and my muscles to relax  and my mind to clear of anything but the task at hand. I forced myself  to focus on my senses, to bury myself in observation, and I engraved  every single movement and sight into my brain as I watched, letting the  time flow over me like a river parting around a stone. I lost myself in  my task and let myself blend into the world around me, forcing myself to  achieve stillness.

At  first my body itched to move, my mind would revolt after a few minutes,  trying to shift to another topic. Lust, violence, greed. I enjoyed  those things, but this wasn't the time for them. I could partake later.  So I forced myself back into that placid state. Once, twice, a dozen  times, returning to calm until my mind accepted it and stopped trying to  rebel. The entire time I gathered data, catalogued faces and forms, and  waited for a breakthrough that would let me find my in. I would find  the weakness I needed. It was only a matter of time.