—

  “Look, you have to tell us these things before they happen.”

  “This one’s not on me! I had no idea that Gamielle was going to terrorize The Realm. Damn she really does take up after her father. Wait, that’s a good one, I need to remember that for later.”

  Ryan was reading realmnet responses to the disaster and it was not a pretty sight. Realmers were throwing accusations at Earth and Earthers were throwing accusations at the adventurers. Funnily enough the only person caught on camera was the StallQueen.

  She was still yelling on public realmnet. The verified realmnet section unavailable to her after mugging adventurers one too many times.

  –

  “Alright let’s go over your insane plan one more time.”

  Ryan put his head back over the chair.

  “We’ve already talked about this, the worst I’ll have to deal with is a hex or two. Then run away. The Witch Tyrant is the one looking over the tournament, even if it was another Tyrant, the chance of them killing me is low considering they know I’m the final key or whatever.”

  Seffara crinkled her nose at the mention of such a crappy heroic prophecy.

  “The worst that could happen is a dragonslayer taking their time to get brownie points by putting you down.”

  “Which again, won’t happen as long as she knows I’m there. She’ll know what I’m doing and will stop dragonslayers from pasting me. Pinkie will also be there.”

  Milock decided to chip in. His friend sounded uncharacteristically thoughtful.

  “You’re putting a lot of trust in Pinkie not to screw you over. Are you sure she’s trustworthy?”

  Ryan dismissed the thought. “I believe her when she says she’s stronger than everyone else besides the Tyrants. That’s a massive gap in capability. Only a handful of dragonslayers ever show up to the fourther tourney anyway. No blacklisted dragonslayer will show up with the Witch Tyrant hosting.”

  This wasn’t the first argument they had over this. They had heard his plan and thought Ryan was out of his mind. But that wasn’t anything new. It was when he explained things further that they started to understand where he was coming from. They had clearly taken some time to discuss this while he’d been in The Realm.

  Seffara took another approach.

  “Let’s say your plan goes the way you want it to, I’m still not convinced you can beat everyone there. You’re underestimating fourthers. You’re good, but many of them have been consolidating there for years. [Mages] that have finished a course in the Institute. [Warriors] that have been honing their skills and finding new melds. There’s a few [Rogues] with dragonshit Epics already. There’s so many variables that the winners are rarely predictable. You run the risk of revealing all your cards for a single title and a single letter grade.”

  The fourth realm had more adventurers than any other realm grade. It was where adventurers stopped and accumulated achievements so they could get a rarer class evolution. It was where adventurers that weren’t confident in beating the royalty of the fifth Trial would stop.

  Amongst that number were the crazies, the handful had done enough to obtain an Epic. One of those would always win the tournament and gain a title. Raising their achievements to a guaranteed S grade for the fourth realm. Many of those would have had practice with their Epics for years. Seffara wasn’t wrong to be doubtful that even Ryan with his Epic would fail to win there.

  Ryan grinned. .

  “That’s also another point, I’ll be at my peak with an audience. Gamielle said that I’m probably the strongest third realm she’s ever seen. I do this right and the [Strongest under the Fifth Realm] title will be mine.”

  Seffara eyed his arm dubiously. The [Knight] heroine instinctively distrusting of the arm of a tyrant.

  “I don’t believe it, let’s see that arm.”

  “No.”

  Seffara raised an eyebrow. “No?”

  Ryan was still a little defensive after Larix had completely disrupted his own energy channels. “I’m kinda keeping–”

  Seffara cared little about his feelings. The [Knight] appeared at his side, his arm jerking back to avoid her at all costs. Of course it was futile. She was still Seffara the Sapphire. She grabbed his arm and lifted it in the air, taking him up with her.

  “Huh, definitely a realm 5 speed. It still won’t be enough to win, and feels pretty weak for a realm five.”

  Ryan snatched his arm away from her.

  “That’s because I don’t have access to my intimidation Epic on Earth. Trust me, I’ve seen past tournaments too. I know where I stand, it won’t be close. Especially if I get another Epic on top.”

  It wasn’t an idle boast. Larix was definitely stronger than the average sixth realm. Even if Ryan challenged all the fourthers at once there was a good chance he’d win. Especially if the whole world was watching him dominate.

  Barry finally decided to chime in.

  “So, you come in, try to humble yourself in front of the Witch Tyrant then demand a battle royal with everyone then get out? Did you think about how that would go? What it would do to her reputation?”

  Ryan paused. “She doesn’t care about her reputation, what’s more important is…” he trailed off realizing how stupid it sounded. “Okay I’m fully expecting a hex or two but I think she’ll still let me fight. You’ve got to see it too, pushing the tournament up like this and hosting it herself. There’s no way she’s not expecting me to show up.”

  “I think if you’re half as strong as you say you are then there’s no point in the tournament at all.”

  And here was Barry with the most excellent point. In a sense, there really wasn’t a need for him to show up to the tournament. If Ryan really was the strongest, then he could just ambush whoever had won later, or just delve deeper than anyone had ever done in the cataclysm depths of Sector Four.

  “Alright, fine. Other than trying to keep the snowball going I just want to participate in the tournament. I grew up watching every one of these. Are you happy now, Barry?”

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  The orc grunted. “At least it's honest. You also haven’t answered my other question. You know things are going to go wrong right?”

  “Yeah I know. But since when has anything ever gone right? At least here I’m doing what I want to do.”

  They continued to debate after that. It didn’t last for too much longer. After all, this was the second discussion they had about this and they seemed to understand that his mind was already made up. They moved onto better topics. For him, anyway.

  “So… I made ten million dollars. I’m just not sure how to declare it and keep it.”

  Milock blinked. “You did?”

  Ryan took his time to explain parts of his bet with the Obsidian Sect’s leader. He had kept the part about the cultivators a secret from them but had just explained that he had kicked the ass of the energy teacher that had taught him.

  His friend wasn’t as excited as he expected him to be. Milock just took out a handwritten book and flipped to a page with a tag on it. His friend was so oddly organized and prepared for this.

  “Okay, well if it’s actually not connected to Artigan’s account in any way, then the best way to do it is through Seffara’s name.”

  “Like hell you’re going to use my name to launder money.”

  Milock shook his head at Seffara.

  “It won’t be laundering if it’s coming from the accounts of the [Secretary], which is normally the case for most transactions by the Tyrants. You already have multiple realmcoin accounts under your name, just make another account and say it was marked for a charity that caught your eye. In the worst case, you can just say you’re not sure where the money comes from because you normally have people coming up to you to donate money to your charities.”

  Seffara blinked. “I do have people who do that. How do you know that?”

  It was Milock’s turn to look confused.

  “Your Sapphire Star charities are completely public. I know they basically run themselves now, but do you really not know anything about your day to day running of your charities?"

  “It was set up decades ago. I’m retired.”

  Seffara looked down at Milock challengingly, as if daring him to call her something uncharitable. Milock just shrugged.

  “They’ve been running on their own and you can just set up another account for this. You probably won’t even get pushback even if things did go wrong. Just tell them you weren’t paying attention over such a small amount of money.”

  The heroine crossed her arms, frowning at Milock. “You’re awfully prepared with all of this.”

  Milock shrugged. “I've been researching this for a while. A blank check like this is going to be so much easier than anything else I was thinking of doing for Artigan’s account. Basically, you can just set up the account with Ryan as the one managing it while he’s working for you on the farm. Again, you can just make it look like you wanted to pay back Ryan for saving Barry’s life.”

  Barry snorted. “I didn’t get saved, idiot ran into the bullets on his own.”

  Ryan ignored the stupid orc. He gave his friend a huge hug.

  “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Did I ever tell you that you’re my best friend?”

  Milock grunted in pain. “You can do that by not hugging so tightly.”

  Ryan let go. Then started repeating his dance of victory around the dining table.

  “I’M RICH!”

  Seffara plucked him celebration as he went past her. She turned him around so that she was looking at him. His hopes started to die with how she shook her head.

  “I never said yes, you idiot.”

  “Oh, come on, Seff, we’re practically friends, buddies. Think about how many realm shattering secrets I’ve told you.”

  “Yeah, secrets that make me lose sleep and keep me away from my husband.”

  Ryan opened his mouth. Seffara flicked him on the forehead. Hard.

  “You make some sort of joke about infidelity and I swear I’m going to throw you out the window. Then charge you for it.”

  Ryan’s teeth clacked shut. Then he gave her a big grin and hugged her. Her cold enchanted armor feeling like the most comfortable thing in existence.

  “Aww, thank you for agreeing.”

  “I never said I’d agree.”

  Seffara still looked like she needed to be convinced. Ryan’s mind moved faster than it had ever done before. Thinking ahead. Seffara didn’t care about money, she didn’t care about much actually. What she did care about? Her friend and ex-teammate, Barry.

  “I made a promise to give Barry a million dollars, whenever I’d be able to. He can finally move out of the shitty place he’s living in.”

  Ryan had agreed to pay the old orc ten million by the time he hit realm eight. A million whenever he could afford it. At first it had been a ridiculous price, but now that he’d trained with Seffara herself? Ten million seemed completely fair, a steal even.

  Seffara turned to Barry, and he just gave a confirming shrug. She raised an eyebrow, Barry just shook his head in exasperation. The two old friends communicated with just body language as Seffara scoffed. Then she turned back to the [Rogue] she had dangling by the scruff of his neck.

  “Don’t forget, each time you’ve used my jet, it’s fifty realmco--fifty thousand. If you include that Clara girl’s usage, you’ve used it five times.”

  “What?! You can’t charge me after the fact.”

  “Who says I can’t? I also got fined for running with my truck at high speed, twice. You also damaged my warehouse, that Aviela table you broke, the containers we used for your training, the hill you smashed apart.”

  “Half of those are your fault! And I fixed that hill!”

  “Those seeds are expensive. Want me to start charging for my hourly costs?”

  Ryan started spluttering. “You’re the devil! You’re worse than Gamielle!”

  “You have some screwed up priorities if you think you’ve made something of yourself just because you made money.”

  “Fine, whatever! We’ll put all of that as one million, is that fair?!”

  Ryan was yelling at Seffara, shocked by the fact that the heroine be such a scrooge to a poor—not so poor [Rogue] like him.

  “For now, I’ll have to keep a better tally from now on.”

  Milock came in with the finisher.

  “You still have to pay taxes. Well, Seffara’s going to have to declare it as a gift under special Realm circumstances, which will incur her standard income tax rate.”

  “What? How much is that?”

  “Thirty-seven percent of the ten million, Seffara’s earning at the highest tax bracket.”

  “THIRTY-SEVEN PERCENT!?”

  Ryan collapsed onto the floor, he started muttering to himself while rocking back and forth.

  “Okay, one step at a time, five million dollars. I can still work with that. That’s a nice car, my parent’s house back and more to spare. Good-for-nothing country that throws all its money at The Realm, good-for-nothing mentors all trying to mooch off my hard-earned money.”

  Seffara put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Welcome to being an adult.”

  –

  [Return to The Realm]

  “Hey Larix? Could I get the details for the realmcoin transfer?”

  Gamielle floated on over. “Ryan, I got you a nice deal for a spatial bag, only fifty thousand realmcoin for the whole thing. I’ll take your first ten thousand as collateral, and you can get me the rest later.”

  He ignored her as he looked at Larix. The Sect Leader looked distinctly uncomfortable with the way Gamielle was smiling at them. Ryan narrowed his eyes.

  “You’re not planning on going back on the deal, are you?”

  Gamielle threw up her hands. “Okay, you drive a hard deal. Twenty-five thousand realmcoin for my spatial bag. Trust me, you won’t need anything more after you take it. It’s an Epic tier artifact!”

  Larix coughed as he turned away from Gamielle’s smiling look. “That is certainly a good deal. I’d consider taking the offer.”

  Ryan’s mind raced ahead. He turned to Larix who looked shiftily at Gamielle.

  “Hey, your deal is with me, don’t worry about her. I can take Gamielle’s deal later, but I want the promised coins in an untraceable account now.”

  Ryan was being distinctly careful with how he worded things after the debacle with Ella. Larix shifted uncomfortably.

  “Well… you see, Lady Gamielle has distinctly reminded me that technically all of Obsidian Sect’s funding comes from her. While I do have funds of my own, I am also in technicality, deeply in debt to Lady Gamielle.”

  “”

  Gamielle just looked at her nails, a small smile on the face of the daughter of a Tyrant.

  “Well, would you look at that, the price for the bag just went up to thirty thousand realmcoins.”

  “Why are you trying to keep me poor?”

  “Who says I’m trying to keep you poor? This is also an avenue of battle, Ryan. Larix has to pay his prior creditors before he pays his new ones. You just didn’t check how solvent they were when you made the bet.”

  Ryan crossed his arms. He took his time with this, his desperate [Rogue] mind moving ahead. Sick and tired of being poor, his brain worked harder than it ever did. All his past experience told him to pause and take his time instead of getting wound up. Gamielle was trying to play her game and was prepared. He wasn’t, he just closed his eyes.

  A minute went by, Ryan opened his eyes to a grinning Gamielle. He spoke with deliberation.

  “You’re more than just a creditor of the Obsidian Sect. Your word goes around here, you might as well be the owner of it and thus owe the debt yourself.”

  “Ah, but this was a personal wager—”

  “One that you approved of–furthermore, when was the last time you actually collected on Larix’s debt? Did you have any intention of collecting or do you just plan on reneging on every deal made by ‘little Larry’?”

  Gamielle smirked, almost impressed. “Oh ho, someone’s come a long way since their first steps in The Realm.”

  “You could say that I’ve picked up a few things after having to deal with old monsters.”

  Gamielle waggled a finger. “But you forget one thing, little Ryan. I am the daughter of a Tyrant. You don’t have the power to force my hand, in the end, I can simply tell you no, that’s not how it works. I am not the owner of the Obsidian Sect and Larix cannot pay you back until he pays me.”

  She smiled with the entitlement of a petty nepotistic cheat. Unfortunately for her, Ryan had truly come far since the first encounter with the Manager.

  He came down with his hammer.

  “Fair enough, I just hope you’re happy with Larix over there being guilty that he couldn’t pay off a wager. I heard personal guilt does great things to your cultivation.”

  Gamielle froze as she took the words in. The [Mage] turned to Larix and realized Ryan’s words were true and blinked. She blinked a few more times and then looked into space. Shellshocked.

  “I… did I just lose? No, that can’t be right. Nononono, that can’t happen, not to him. ”

  Ryan dismissed the title notification just to spend more time memorizing this moment. Oh sure, he’d managed to pull one up on her, tricked her and made Gamielle want to pull her hair out, but those were cheap wins. Insults, jabs and fun.

  This? This was one where he’d actually managed to beat her. She had come prepared, expecting to win and he’d put her in a corner and knocked her out.

  .

  And Ryan had done just that. Gamielle had revealed her cards and Ryan had checkmated her. She met his eyes, then looked down at the ground, just staring, unable to process what had just happened. Then she disappeared.

  “Huh, she runs away the same way her mother does.”

  This time it was Larix’s turn to be horrified.

  Sniff, our boy's grown so much since his first encounter with GamielleWant to see how much more he's grown? is 23 chapters ahead!

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