In a luxurious inn room in Aethelgard, a man was sifting through a stack of papers, savoring the sensation.
Accustomed to handling documents electronically, Isaac Vance felt as if he had been transported back a few centuries by having to deal with them this way.
The feeling was strange; while the process was more methodical and had a certain charm, the extreme inefficiency of it was driving him crazy.
"Damn, I could handle this at least ten times faster if I could use the scanning features of my ocular device here... now I’m forced to read every tiny detail in a flowery and inefficient language, just because the nobles here feel that the more difficult something is written, the more prestigious the author of that text is..." Isaac sighed as he finished reading the fourth line of the explanation for an article that could be described in fewer than 10 words.
And to make matters worse, he also had to imitate that writing style, even making his own text even more complex than that of the nobles of this world to show just how noble and erudite he was to these people, so as not to be looked down upon.
[... I propose, for the delight of this court and for the posterity of knowledge, that prospecting no longer be an exercise in brute force, but an act of optical-geometric discernment. Through the observation of microfractures caused by tectonic stress, details that escape the common eye but reveal themselves to the refined observer, it is possible to induce a deliberate molecular separation...]
In the middle of his writing, a knock sounded at the door, rousing Isaac from his work.
"Come in," he said in a cold voice.
--CREEEAK
The door creaked, and through it entered the same woman Isaac had reprimanded a few hours earlier, still with her voluptuous and aesthetically pleasing figure; his gaze lingered for a few more seconds on every part of that body before finally rising to her face and meeting the woman’s eyes.
Martha didn’t react to it; already accustomed to dealing with her boss’s stares, she knew that to keep the position she held, certain concessions had to be made, and becoming a model for his gaze was the main one.
Despite her talent and dedication, Martha knew that what set her apart from the other people he hired at Vila Novato was her physique. And after meeting him in person, and also getting to know his real-life secretary, she saw that the woman’s body was almost a carbon copy of her own, making clear young master Isaac Vance’s preference for "MILFs."
Being treated that way nearly destroyed Martha’s pride, but the astronomical salary she received from the Vance Group completely made up for it, so little by little she was becoming more numb to it and coping better with the situation.
Pretending not to notice his lecherous gaze on her body, Martha spoke. "Our soldiers are already close to reaching Level 12, young master. With their leveling likely to be completed in two hours, that will be the best time for us to begin your leveling. However, Lord Randolph Whitfield requests your presence at his mansion at that same time. What would you like to do?"
Because he had to deal with the tedious bureaucracy involving humans in this world, Isaac didn’t have much time to spend killing monsters to level up.
Just as he shouldn’t assign anyone to deal with humans, since he knew how important first impressions were when dealing with people, if he had someone interact with the nobles, the prestige gained from his ideas and leadership would largely be shared with that person.
If it were someone he trusted, like his closest staff in the real world, Isaac wouldn’t worry, but the people around him were hired in his Vila Novata, so there was no one worthy of that much trust.
On the other hand, he also couldn’t let his level fall behind; even if he wasn’t the most powerful in the Guild, he couldn’t be weak enough for that to mean a major vulnerability.
The solution he found for this was to have his soldiers go off and kill monsters on their own while he dealt with the nobles; then, once they leveled up, they would use that increased strength to take Isaac out hunting and let him claim most of the experience by eliminating weaker monsters.
Each soldier would hunt a monster and bring it to Isaac, who would kill the monster and split the experience exclusively with that soldier; then another soldier would bring another monster that Isaac would kill and receive half of that monster’s experience, while that soldier would receive only half of the experience from that single creature.
That way, with 4 soldiers hunting, each would receive X experience per monster, while Isaac would receive 4X that experience, allowing him to reach their level much faster than if he were leveling up alone.
Sure, this slightly slowed down the soldiers’ leveling speed, but for Isaac, that wasn’t very important. These soldiers weren’t the special forces mercenaries he’d trained in the real world to act as the true vanguard warriors in Elysium; those would be Isaac’s warriors to advance through Elysium.
The soldiers he had now were just veterans he’d hired in the Novice Village to do power leveling for him.
Why were the elite soldiers still in the Novice Villages while random veterans Isaac had hired had already managed to level up so quickly?
Because that was their job.
Those men were supposed to thoroughly scour every Novice Village they were in, searching for opportunities to improve their Classes and Races through the hidden opportunities of that place, while the soldiers with Isaac only had the job of leveling up as quickly as possible.
"Very well, Martha, confirm with Lord Randolph Whitfield that I’ll be at his mansion; I believe my ideas for increasing the profitability of his shops have piqued that fat pig’s interest." Isaac mocked the nobleman without a shred of remorse.
Martha didn’t mind her boss’s comment either and nodded, turning and leaving the room while swaying her hips from side to side.
Watching that beautiful ass dancing in front of him, Isaac smiled again, proud to have found such a helpful and delicious woman in his newbie village.
Even though Martha’s technical skill level as an assistant was still far below Harriet’s, his assistant in the real world, Martha had the advantage of being a new toy. Being a beautiful new eye candy already made up for her inexperience.
’That inexperience actually makes this even more interesting.’ He thought contentedly as he returned to his desk and continued filling out those tedious papers.
Thinking of ’Lord Randolph Whitfield,’ Isaac took on a cold expression. ’I hope your greed doesn’t render my investment in you useless.’
To gain enough prestige to be able to form his Guild in Aethelgard, Isaac was working hard to bring lucrative and innovative ideas to these nobles.
Sure, he intended to recoup all that investment in the future through various means, but for now, in a moment as helpless as the one he was in, Isaac could only accept it and deal with it as best he could.
-xXx-
While one Vance was struggling with paperwork and unnecessarily flowery language, another Vance was currently battling a group of small Level 9 and Level 10 magical Stone Golems.
The Level 10 Golem, with its imposing mass of granite and pulsating runes, came to an abrupt halt in the middle of a downward swing.
Lohan’s mini-clones had infiltrated the Golem’s expansion cracks and injected the [Neuro-Paralyzing Toxin] saturated with Mana directly into the monster’s Mana "nerves," disrupting the rock’s cohesion.
"Now, Lisa! The weak spot between the third and fourth vertebrae! Use the [Ice Spike] imbued with fire!" Lohan commanded via mental link, causing the heat from his [Natural Energy Core] to flow into the fox.
Lisa didn’t waste the opening.
Using the [Gravitational Anchor] provided by Lohan’s mass to stabilize her jump, she shot forward like a white-red blur.
In midair, Lohan materialized a spike of compressed ice, which Lisa instantly enveloped with the blinding glow of her [Spiritual Fire].
Despite the incompatibility of the elements, with Spiritual Fire rapidly melting Lohan’s ice, the attack was so fast that it had no effect whatsoever.
The impact was perfectly precise!
The ice stake penetrated the fissure opened by the clones and, upon encountering the extreme heat of the flames, caused a violent molecular expansion within the creature.
-- CRACK! --
The granite titan exploded from the inside out, transforming into a shower of inert gravel and magical dust.
Lohan quickly gathered his biomass fragments through [Partial Division], feeling the energy return to his reservoir via [Bio-Synthetic Mana Circulation] while [Memory Resonance] captured the enemy’s final mineral echoes.
[Experience: +450]
As silence returned to the rocky clearing where they stood, Lohan purred contentedly on Lisa’s back.
"Our efficiency and coordination are improving so much!" he said excitedly.
Lisa smiled too, very pleased with how their fighting style are developing.