Chapter 74

By this point, the magic tablet was a cultural phenomenon – everyone used it. The network had expanded greatly over the past few years. No longer was it just the auction house, mercenary guild, and a few other pages. Nowadays, the Communications Office regulated the network, and if you wanted a page of your own, they had to approve it.

As a result, there were now hundreds of pages you could visit. There was a page called National News that updated you on current events, a forum named Textit where people could interact, and a place where businesses could post ads.

When Keith woke up the next morning, his first thought was to go to Textit for information. The forum was massive, with hundreds of divided sections and subsections, making it a chaotic mess. Keith kept scrolling until he found a section called ‘Housing Market.’ Delighted, he looked at its subsections and found one titled Realtors. Opening it up, he saw posts from realtors advertising their businesses and looking for clients.

“Huh,” Keith muttered as he lay in bed.

One of the realtors had written a post on what to expect when purchasing a house, which Keith found informative. Even so, upon learning it was a long process that involved a lot of paperwork, Keith wished he could have someone do it for him.

Keith sat up at the thought.

Instead of finding a house, butler, cook, etc., on his own, why couldn’t he hire a personal assistant and pass off all that annoying stuff to them? Keith had the money to afford it, so why not?

Keith paused.

It wasn’t like he could hire a random person off the street. No, they had to be trustworthy and knowledgeable—someone with Keith’s best interests in mind. Keith immediately thought of all the people he knew when he suddenly shook. Uh, it seems he only knew a few people.

Keith remembered Umbra. He knew they served the Guardian's families and that Adeiv was his liaison with them. Keith respected Adeiv – he was smart, experienced, well-connected, morally upstanding, and had a super cool innate gift to boot. Yet, there was just something about having other people serve Keith that left him deeply uncomfortable.

Sighing, Keith was just about to move on when he recalled his dealings with Hoid. Considering for a moment, Keith sent Adeiv a message. Hey, would you be interested in becoming my personal assistant? And I’m asking you as Adeiv Strinde, a private citizen. Not as a member of Umbra.

Not even half an hour later, Adeiv responded. What duties would I have as your personal assistant? Keep in mind my responsibilities with Umbra leave me with very little time. And the price wouldn’t be low.

Keith’s eyes lit up. Money isn’t an issue. Right now, I need to find a house, a butler, and a cook.

It took a few moments for Adeiv to reply. Well, those tasks don’t require hiring a personal assistant. Once I accomplish those things, what then?

Keith was stumped. He thought for a minute before sending another message. Okay – how about this: including tasks like before, if I have anything I want to buy or sell, I’ll leave it for you to handle.

Adeiv stated a price, Hm. In that case, I want a 5% commission on items I trade for you.

Keith sucked in a breath and sent, That’s expensive!

Adeiv replied, I’m worth it.

As Keith struggled to come up with an appropriate response, Adeiv asked, What’s the timeframe for the tasks you mentioned earlier?

Keith was relieved and replied, I need everything done within two weeks.

Okay. I’m free two days from now in the afternoon. Are you in New Hope? I’ll come to you so we can talk specifics. Adeiv said.

After Keith sent over his address, the conversation ended.

For the rest of the day, Keith browsed the network for a few hours before beginning his daily meditation session, a routine he started the day after the bee hive raid. At the start, he just wanted to keep the memory of that peculiar state fresh in his mind, so he decided to spend an hour forcibly remembering that moment. However, when he was halfway through the first session, Keith made a surprising discovery – he found that a blue strand would randomly flash in his mind.

What did that mean? The common consensus was that nobody could control mana. It was something the System governed. A person willed a skill to activate, and the System did the rest. Simple as that. But now, Keith suspected it was possible to control mana.

At this point, it had been around 15 days since Keith began meditating, and he could now maintain five strands in his mind for around thirty seconds. More importantly, Keith could vaguely feel their location in his body. Sometimes, when he opened his eyes after a meditation session, he saw a notification screen trying to appear.

While Keith knew he was progressing, he felt it was too slow. It took him over two weeks to only feel five strands in his body, which he figured were five points of mana. Yet, Keith had almost 300,000 points of mana. At his current speed, who knew how long it would take before something happened.

Fortunately, Keith came up with an idea - he could replicate the past.

Just like during the bee hive raid, Keith thought he could consume millions of mana to force a connection with it. In this regard, Keith was lucky to have the Collection Grimoire. Without it, he’d need to wait until he was level 950+ to have a mana pool of several million.

Two days later, Adeiv and Keith met up at a local restaurant, where they worked out the details of their relationship should Adeiv become Keith’s personal assistant. Adeiv was very serious throughout the whole discussion, maintaining a professional attitude and demeanor. Finally, after Adeiv had a good idea of his responsibilities, the two signed a legal contract.

Before Adeiv left, he asked, “Is there anything else you want me to handle besides finding a house, chef, and butler?”

Keith nodded and handed over a lengthy list.

Written down were a bunch of items totaling a billion gold. Keith planned to purchase items from the Grandsky Realm to get enough Collection Points for Mana Battery. Additionally, Keith needed to resupply his Grimoire with Mana Gathering Arrays. If he wanted to stock up several million points of mana again, he’d need to invest a considerable amount.

Adeiv perused the list with a raised eyebrow. He said, “Mana Gathering Arrays have flooded the market since array masters began experimenting on how to produce ancient grade arrays. They’re about 30% cheaper than normal. How many do you need?”

Keith recalled that mythic grade Mana Gathering Arrays produced 1,000 points of mana a minute. Before he answered, he asked, “Are there ancient grade arrays yet? How much do they gather?”

“Yes, a few,” Adeiv affirmed. “They produce five times as much mana compared to mythic grade Mana Gathering Arrays, but they're twenty times as expensive.”

Keith sucked in a breath. “Forget it. I need 20 mythic grade ones.”

“Got it. Give me a few days. Anything else?” Adeiv said.

Keith shook his head. “Not that I can think of.”

After that, Adeiv left.

Three days later, Keith acquired 20 mythic grade Mana Gathering Arrays and over half a billion gold worth of items to stuff in his Collection Grimoire. After suffering another round of sensory overload, Keith purchased Mana Battery. The next day, the new Mana Gathering Arrays collected around 30 million points of mana.

With enough mana stocked up, Keith returned to the Innate Dimension, flew into the sky, and tried all sorts of acrobatic moves in the air. Now that he was out in the wild, it was the first time he used the Flight skill so freely. There was something liberating about freeing yourself from gravity.

After some time, Keith landed at a secluded location far from civilization.

He was ready to begin the test.