As I said last time, now that I’m actually a permanent noble in both Ruiso Kingdom and The Crystal Empire, I actually began accepting invitations to different parties across the places. 

I mean, it isn’t like it was difficult for me to get to them, and making a nice little something to give to the host was something we would do as a warmup before we work on something actually important. And still that something would be a family treasure to whichever family would receive it.

And if all else fails, I can always just give people a smartphone and a projector so that they can set up their own movie studio.

… Also, plenty of nobles have been wanting a Factory VR pod in their own house. And they are willing to pay a lot for them. So I made a leasing program for them like I did the airships, and it turns out the pods are much more popular than the airships. Probably because a VR pod is much cheaper.

So I’ve been busy installing Factory VR stations in different noble manors. The ones they have use a mana transfer stone that draws power from HomeBase, just so I don’t have to plant mana flowers everywhere. And with some secret tech we added to the stones, they break themselves if you try to remove them from the VR pod. And since the pods are leased, breaking or damaging one means you pay for it, and as I went over during the preliminaries for the D-wheel tournament, that can get expensive quickly.

I’ve also gotten new business contacts, and since HomeBase has access to a ton of rare materials, my income has kind of exploded. … okay, my legitimate income has. If we consider all the Upstart Goblins, the business stuff only brings in about 35% of what my cheaty cards make per day.

Still, that amount of money is something else and now I actually have to worry about doing my taxes correctly. So I had to acquire a few experts, who don’t need to know about Upstart Goblins. 

With the contacts I have in both the Empire and the Kingdoms that didn’t take long. And since I’m technically a dungeon based noble, my taxes are paid directly to the King in Ruiso Kingdom, so thankfully that saves me some money. Not that it really matters.

And in the Empire I’m a noble directly under the Crystalline family, so the same is true there. Actually Hiro almost gave tax exemptions to my businesses, but I refused. I know there will be money coming to me and admittedly I have no idea what to do with all of it, so I better pay at least some taxes so that people who know where to use it get to use it.

Last, I got some tax books from both the Kingdoms and the Empire. I used the info I got from them to establish a small tax squad in the Factory. My monsters can easily check the taxes for an entire Kingdom in an afternoon, so that way they can help catch tax fraud. 

I mean I won’t be acting on it, but I did offer the service for free for the Kingdoms and the Empire. All it costs them is the fact that I have access to all of their tax information.

And the people of this world don’t understand just how powerful that info can be. Hiro does somewhat get it, but even he seems to be underestimating just how much I now know about the Empire.

Now I just need to somehow get my hands on their government spendings and I’ll have the entire Empire figured out. Admittedly it would be very simple with some espionage, but I’d rather do it ‘legally’. 

… Actually why the quotation marks, I got the data legally. They literally handed it over to me.

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But now to something a bit more exciting. Because as I was training my Demonic skills with Hope, she seemed a bit off. A bit more down than usual.

So I asked her about it and she told me that some strange demons had begun appearing in the demon world. The problem is that they aren’t natural born demons and the demons have no clue what to do with them.

Sadly Hope didn’t know anything more about these false demons. She had never even seen one. But still, it got me interested. I know of a group that is making spirit demon hybrids, so maybe they are now trying to make artificial demons that they can maybe do something in the demon world with them.

I asked Hope if it would be allowed for me to come visit the demon world, just so I could see the false demons myself, but she couldn’t give me permission. She may have risen in rank thanks to her contract with me, but she is still a low level demon.

So I sent Hope back to the demon world with a few extra miasma stones in the hopes that she will come back with a permission for my entry. Well, not just mine. I won’t be heading there alone.

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It didn’t take long for Hope to get us the permission, as the next day when I summoned her, she told us that we had been given permission to enter the demon world. 

So I teleported both myself and Hope to the Dragon’s coast, because while I’ve learned quite a bit about Soul Magic, I still can’t just transfer my soul to a different realm. Except the Factory, but that is my own realm so it doesn’t count.

And yes, that does mean that I’m taking Janina with me. Or to be more accurate Janina is taking me with her. She can just follow Hope’s soul to the demon world and that way we will both get there. 

I did consider taking one of the other girls with me, but the demon realm might be dangerous and we might not be able to use all of our skills there. And I’m the only one of us who has the Miasma Resistance skill. And Miasma Control. And the Cambion race. There are a bunch of reasons it has to be me and Janina.

So I left my soul in Janina’s hands, and the two of us followed Hope to the demon world.

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The time it took to get to the demon world felt both short and long at the same time. Which is strange since when we went to the spirit world, it was fast. Not an instant, but more like just felt like a quick nap. Like close your eyes, let your mind drift for a few seconds, and then you are there.

This time was similar, but also not. More like sleeping through a two hour car ride.

I asked Janina about it and she told me the reason was twofold. First, this was the first time she has ever come to the demon world, thus she doesn’t know the path like she does to the spirit world. And two, my improved magic skills with both Soul and Time Magic are affecting how I see world transfers. 

The demon world itself was nothing like I expected. It was … normal. No crazy saturated colors like in the spirit world, no lava rivers or otherwise extreme temperatures like some legends would have you believe, and no eternal darkness or anything like that.

Just a normal looking city with houses and [people] demons walking about. We were on the outskirts of the city, standing in what looked to be a park of some kind, which was built on a small hill allowing us to have a good view of the city. There was a walking path leading from the park to the city, but it looked like it had grown over a bit, as if it hadn’t been used much, or at least not used lately.

There were a few differences I did notice when comparing this world to the regular one. 

One, there was a dark smog looming over the entire city. And I know what I said. No eternal darkness. But this isn’t it, it is just a smog, like a city that has a lot of factories that burn coal during low pressure, with the factory smoke having been left floating and not rising up.

Turning on Miasma Vision, I quickly realized that the smog was actually miasma. I suppose it makes sense, the demons live off of it. But why do they need to trade favors and stuff for it if it is this common in their world?

Second, there was no visible sun. And I don’t mean we couldn’t see the sky, as we could, there just was no single sun. Instead what gave this realm light was tons of quite bright stars in the sky. But it was still definitely different from the regular world.

As I was looking around, I realized that we were missing someone.

“... Janina.” I said to get the dragon’s attention. She had appeared in this world in her humanoid form, likely to avoid the demons attacking her on sight. “Where’s Hope?” I asked.

“Not too far.” She answered. “I did my best following her, but I lost her when I assisted in materializing our bodies. But she should be somewhere in the city.”

“... so we need to just go search for her in a city filled with demons. Great.” I said, mostly to myself.

“You can always summon her.” Janina reminded me.

“Oh, right.” I said, as I almost smacked myself on the forehead. 

I then used Summoning Magic to call for Hope, but as I tried, I felt that something was wrong. I still kept doing it until the skill failed.

“... okay. Well, it didn’t work.” I told Janina. 

“I noticed. Your skill probably isn’t designed to work with the mix of mana and miasma this world has.”

“Yeah.” I accepted her reasoning. “The mana and miasma mix here feels about 70% miasma to 30% mana. And the overall saturation is like … 30%?” 

“Quite close to that.” Janina agreed. “Run through your skills and see what doesn’t work. We don’t want any surprises.”

“Yeah, I will.”

I quickly did as asked, and most of my skills worked. I didn’t test some like Summoning Magic and Spirit Summoning since those are a bit risky.

Pack Opener worked just fine and I still had a connection to the Factory so it should work as well, but I didn’t enter it. Storage was also working perfectly well. Manamorphic Body on the other hand kept failing and took a ton of mana to try to use so I stopped using it. I need to report that it doesn’t work well in low mana environments when I go back.

Magic worked but it felt different and my mana recovery was slower than usual. Physical skills were the same, but my Demonic skills felt supercharged. 

My status on the other hand wasn’t quite working right. It showed my skills correctly, but when it came to showing my HP and Mana, it was bugging out. I couldn’t see Agunan’s HP or Mana either, as if I couldn’t reach him.

Spoiler

Name: Brian WoodRace: One without a Race - Spiritual / Heterochromic / Summoner / User or Rare Skills / Cambion ✯Level: 319  HP: 3x,00o/33,990 Mana: y5h22/45,280 Strength: 13,705 Defense: 22,665 Magic: 17,850 

Unique-Racial Skills 

Spoiler

One of Every Race LV.9 (unique-racial)  - Multi-Armed LV.5 (racial)  - Jack of All Trades LV.8 (racial)  - Sword Master LV.5 (racial)  - Sorcerer’s Determination LV.6 (racial)   - Draconic Body LV.14 (racial)  - Draconic Magic LV.14 (racial)  - Demonic Might LV.5 (racial)  - Demonic Magic LV.5 (racial)  - True Blood Magic LV.9 (racial)  - Vampiric Body Modification LV.9 (racial)   - Unchained LV.10 (racial)  - Alpha LV.10 (racial)   - Enhanced Vision LV.13 (racial)  - Enhanced Hearing LV.13 (racial)  - Enhanced Olfactory LV.13 (racial)   - Tough Claws LV.14 (racial)  - Rending Claws LV.8 (racial)  - Hardened Scales LV.40 (racial)  - Shining Wings LV.10 (racial)   - Regeneration LV.40 (racial)  - Thermal Fluctuation Resistance LV.40 (racial)   - Ink Making LV.3 (racial)  - Poison Making LV.8 (racial)  - Web Making LV.8 (racial)   - Gallop LV.7 (racial)  - Marvelous Swimming LV.14 (racial)  - Winged Flight LV.16 (racial)   - Advanced Summoning Magic LV.14 (racial)  - Spirit Magic LV.17 (racial)  - Prism-Ice Magic LV.8 (racial)  - Metal Magic LV.7 (racial)  - Instant Meal (Racial)  - Instant Kitchen (Racial)

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Unique Skills 

Spoiler

Pack Opener LV.10 (unique)Different Dimension Factory LV.24 (unique) Storage LV.14 (unique)Stardust Control LV.2 (unique) Manamorphic Body LV.N/A (prototype)

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Extra Skills 

Spoiler

Limit Break LV.3 (extra) Overpowering Aura LV.5 (extra) Soul Magic LV.7 (extra) Spiritual Space Magic LV.16 (extra) Spiritual Time Magic LV.12 (extra) Gravity Magic LV.5 (extra) Mana Vision LV.21 (extra) Miasma Vision LV.14 (extra) Telekinesis LV.17 (extra) Magical Arms LV.14 (extra) Mana Flight LV.18 (extra) Restraining Sword Barrage LV.10 (extra) Dark Chain LV.10 (extra) Summoner’s Unity LV.14 (extra) Beast Union LV.12 (extra) Tamer’s Paradise LV.40 (extra) 

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Spoiler

Mental Visual Designing (extra)Dungeon Founder (extra)Summon Time Spirit (extra)Summon Space Spirit (extra)Summon Light Spirit (extra) Summon Dark Spirit (extra)Summon Water Spirit (extra)Summon Earth Spirit (extra)Summon Fire Spirit (extra)Summon Wind Spirit (extra) Summon Nature Spirit (extra)Summon Beast Spirit (extra)Health Conscious (extra)

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Normal Skills 

Spoiler

Sword Technique LV.13Whip Technique LV.7 Bow Technique LV.7 Unarmed Combat Technique LV.7 Shield Technique LV.7  Mana Blade LV.7 Flickering Step LV.14Strength Boost LV.10 Defense Boost LV.40 Fire Resistance LV.40 Poison Resistance LV.40  Advanced Mana Control LV.33 Fast Mana Recovery LV.40 Quick Cast LV.22 Instant Cast LV.16  Miasma Control LV.10 Miasma Resistance LV.40  Taming LV.8  Mining LV.10 Designing LV.23 Blacksmithing LV.10 Crafting LV.22 Enchanting LV.14  Cooking LV.15 Service LV.8 Dancing LV.5 Sexual Technique LV.8 Pleasuring Technique LV.13 

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Titles

Spoiler

Dragon Life Dedication (Greater True Fire Dragon)Dragon KingLachros’ BlessingIris’ BlessingEosther’s Blessing  Nyx’s Blessing  Thalassa’s Blessing Gaia’s Blessing Ninatia’s Blessing  Pan’s BlessingCailie’s Blessing (Wind Spirits Blessing (Greater)) Nature Spirits Blessing (Greater)Friend of the Spirits  Skill Maker SS-Rank Summoner Legendary Weapon Maker Lifesaver The Sky isn’t a LimitSage (Sage’s tower)  High-Leveled Individual Sacred Smith (Smorog)Blood Sucker (racial)Gender Fluid  Half-Demon (racial) Language Comprehension (humanoid) (beast) (draconic)Baron of Ruiso Kingdom Baron of Crystal Empire Slave MasterSlaves: Rhianna

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“Well, since I can’t summon Hope, I guess we either need to wait until she finds us, or head into the city ourselves to find her.” I told Janina.