Three days later and Arthur was back in his clan hall, eyes half-closed and meditating. The last battle for the second platform had been a non-battle, the group stumbling upon the replenishing portal area half a day after another team had gone through it. They had taken the mark anyway, choosing to teleport back and turn to the Tower administrative center with the myriad items they had collected to complete some quests.
Arthur could still feel the chime of Tower notifications in his head, so numerous were the quests they'd finished.
And on and on. Of course, with all those quests came the piddly contribution point rewards, but he didn't even get to savour those. They all just went straight into the money pit that was his armour. The debt kept decreasing, though, which was good—and the armour was even already made. It just was being held till he could actually pay off his debt.
The good news was that he was close. Another run and he figured he'd be done. He might even be done now if he was willing to take a loan out, but he figured he owed enough people things that doing so was a bad idea. At least for now. Like most Asians, he had an instinctive dislike for debt, for owing others large amounts of money.
Oh, he knew there were things like leveraging and taking out loans to make your money work for you. Ways to be rich and grow richer without actually owning anything, or whatever the latest guru was talking about. Of course, most of those idiots preyed on individuals richer and more fortunate than him. But he'd hung out, at bars and nightclubs and the occasional house party, to overhear those conversations.
Never mind the endless streams of videos showcasing their amazing lives... Or what was supposed to be their lives.
No one, of course, talked about what happened when you failed. Or how much of those lives were lies. Doing 4:00am deliveries to people halfway up a mountain where they were waiting, carefully, with a dozen other “influencers,” all for the right lighting. Sweaty and hot and grumpy, just to get a few videos. Or finding these beautiful and luxurious rooms were only clean in that one angle; clothing and discarded waste were everywhere else.
Of course, he'd also made a few extra tips helping pack up bundles of dirty food and taking it downstairs, doing garbage runs when he didn't need to. Mostly because it offended his sense of good order.
Lives were rarely as interesting or good as it seemed through a crystal screen.
Case in point, being the Clan Head of the Benevolent Durians.
"We need to finish up more copies of these rules and post them up," Mel said, head bent over the piece of paper where she was copying down the ruleset they had agreed upon. It was rather simple, not even ten points long so far, and most of it started with conceptual rules like “Hang together and support one another” and “No stealing, blackmail, or anything that'll get you put in jail in the real world.” There were also more specific or pragmatic rules like “Clan techniques and cultivation methods are secret.”
Penalties and the other sections weren't listed there, though a small book of recommended penalties was being created. They'd started most of this on the first floor with Amah Si, borrowing much of the Thorned Lotuses own ruleset to begin with and then elaborating on them further for the Durians.
Always with the belief that anything that was truly valuable was going to become public. Arthur figured they were leaking information like a sieve, what with the lack of controls of who was coming in or what they were saying. Which was the really important things were secrets, information only passed on to a small number.
And even then, the things Arthur didn't want others to know, he just didn't speak of. Like his Traits, like his speculation on how Aspects and Traits might improve further.
"I know. And I know you don't like me adding to this, but if Casey's right..."
"She isn't sure."
"No, but it won't hurt if we get more people working on actually learning the Accelerated Healing techniques," Arthur said. "If the Tower considers it a percentage number, then the time to do it is now. Before we grow too big."
"What if it's a fixed number?" Mel challenged. "What if we need like, fifty people with Accelerated Healing Grade II?"
"Then we're arsed, but at least the ones with the upgrade are doing better," Arthur said.
"Won't hurt," Uswah muttered, poring over the technique document that Arthur had written out. He'd even gone and spent more money to get it replicated and improved, so that they had a Tower-enabled document for both Uswah and Boss Kim to read. Together, the pair could work on upgrading their techniques.
"And you're sure I'll be able to buy the upgrades when you upgrade?" Kim asked, once again.
"Not sure, but pretty confident," Arthur said. "I recall it being possible. I just need to break in and through, and learn it further before the rest of you can purchase it. Or, you know, enough of you upgrade the rest of the way."
Kim frowned but turned away, focusing once more on the document. Arthur breathed a little sigh of relief when she turned back, for she had been less than impressed when he'd explained what he had learnt. Having her hope of getting her eye healed and finally leaving the place snatched away so soon after had nearly cost him his eye. At that thought, he reached out and touched his left eyelid, imagining that he could feel the knife that had nearly gone into it.
If not for Jan...
He shuddered but then pushed it away, suppressing his emotions before he broke the pull of energy from the beast stone he still clutched in his other hand. Learning to draw or refine energy while moving or talking would save him time. He was doing it carefully, only where he knew he could stop at a moment's notice and he didn't have to risk backlash.
Because doing it anywhere else but in the clan hall would be insane.
"I'll get it done. We could have this copied, maybe see if we can have a runner push it to the first floor before we leave?" Mel said, tentatively. "Be expensive but the Chins..."
"Maybe." Arthur rubbed his temple. "Though, we might not need it."
"Clan unlocks?" Mel muttered, softly.
"Yeah, at the end of this Tower climb, I think."
"Then...." Mel nodded after a moment, dropping the topic. No need to explain not wanting to take on more debts, not right now. They were too young, too small, but desperately needing to grow.
The Durians. Arthur forced himself not to sigh, to scream. It never felt like they had enough time, and so he took shortcuts, tried dangerous things like cultivating while talking or reading over the documentation of the other techniques that he was supposed to study. Even if he had not the time or money to buy them.
A dangerous thought was bubbling up, one that he had briefly considered and then discarded. But sometimes, when he felt the need to squeeze more time out, even when he was refining and training one of his other techniques, well, he considered it.
What would happen if he tried to cultivate Tower energy from the surroundings and refined energy from monster cores at the same time?