Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 513: The Professor’s World

Chapter 513: The Professor’s World

The large, nearly tilted multi-level complex building where the Sea Scribe restaurant was holed up entered Dasha’s view. The stairs were clotted with people. Buildings like the Complex Demonic Red were both commercial, personal, and common. The very first level was filled with garages for carriages and tamed monsters and beasts. The smell alone of the garages and pens were vomit-inducing for foreigners.

The Complex Demonic Red was owned by a group of powerful demons who were said to be familiars of Alloces, a Duke Demon in Solomon’s Lesser Key.

Dasha planned to kill them one day and take full control of the building. For now, he had to bend to their whims.

"Fourth floor and a fresh view of everything below. Excellent, is it not? This belonged to a gambler buuut he passed away last week."

This familiar was an imp, red in skin tone and redder with his grinning teeth. His feet never touched the floor, his tiny fat body floating about in zips.

"The price, please?"

"Thirty gold coins a month, good sir!"

The wife of Mr. Jongyeol gasped. The daughters understood the expenses too.

"Done."

"Ooh, payment now or later? Remember, our offices are on the tippy-top rooftops and interest and late fees build up fast—"

"Here you are." A pouch of a hundred gold coins was hurled. The imp caught it and went gold-eyed.

"Yessss! Excellent! Thank you for business, good sir! I am glad Kuranosuke recommended you! Do you gamble often? Are you like our previous tenant?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then I hope fortune keeps coming your way, friend!"

The imp snapped his fingers, created a hole in the ceiling, and zipped out. The hole reformed and Dasha could sense him fleeing and climbing through the levels of the building to get to the rooftop.

"T-t-this is all ours...?" Mrs. Sunja asked, her arms wrapped around both daughters. This place they were brought to was expensive. The imp hadn’t bothered to take away the previous tenant’s furniture, painting, and everything in between. The gambler was extravagant.

Dasha planned to slowly ease them here and send them furniture every day. To make them remember each of his gifts. To make them remember he was not merely an execution but a saviour.

’This works too, I suppose.’

"Go on," Dasha said. "Open the refrigerator."

"R-refridge...? What?"

"The cooler." Dasha pointed to clarify. "Take anything you need to eat."

They were deathly afraid of him and listened. Only through listening, they saw more food than they had ever seen in any stall in the world. The gambler, again, was quite extravagant. He collected expensive wine bottles and kept rare dragon meat on the regular. Dasha actually cocked his head upon seeing it. To find dragon meat here of all places was a surprise.

They did not know what to eat. They could not choose.

"I will choose for you if you cannot." Dasha walked over and they scrambled out of the bow. The refrigerator was old-school with four openable sections and half as tall as Dasha himself. He pulled out a bucket of milk, chicken breast, and short ribs.

"I will teach you how to make it," said Dasha. "I will give you everything you need to survive this world."

They had no choice but to listen and watch and eat. The man who killed their father, the man who brought misery, suddenly bringing them joy like no other.

"It’s good?" he asked.

It was so good in fact that it made them cry.

Follow the rules.

Follow the Professor.

Do not disobey.

Do not end up like your father.

They understood. Perhaps not fully but soon. Their instincts understood he was the solution. The mind would too in time.

***

Weak or old, this applied to everyone. His spy network was gaining power by the day and his eyes stretched further and further.

"I understand smoke bombs but flash bombs...? What a ridiculous concept."

"Yes, Old Rocco. I was told to come here to detail our progress and what we need. We have found a couple neighborhoods interested in bulk orders."

Old Rocco stared at his guest, a half-demon with a curled beard. "You wish for..."

"We have stretched our factory thin. We need a new location. The Professor told me you will help us search."

"The Professor told you?" Old Rocco’s sudden raised voice brought a pause. "Fine. Give me the list."

The bearded man left after some additional talk. Old Rocco questioned his motives and who the inventor of this "flash bomb" was. The bearded man spoke of the Professor, an investor and an inventor. Old Rocco grasped what was happening. Dasha Pang sat at what seemed to be an unoccupied table and desk, invisible and undetectable.

"Are you here, Professor? I will do as you planned. I will spread your little invention around."

Dasha did not bother to reply. Old Rocco did not know he was here. He would not give the courtesy of letting him know he was correct.

"Damn it," Old Rocco murmured. Hands locked, his legs trembled under the table. This was his office, his space. He didn’t know if the Professor was watching. He never knew. But his heart ached and his soul creaked. "This is coming too close to the heavens."

Bombs of various varieties were made, sold to merchants who chose to sell them here or travel up to the heavens to sell to players and natural born warriors alike. This was a world of fantasy and magic. The more advanced the technology, the better for people to be able to use them to traverse the dungeons up in the north or conquer through the Dark Tower. The more money Dasha would ultimately make.

’If my calculations are correct, I should be earning approximately four thousand gold every week. In a month, that would be over ten thousand gold coins. For the Heavenly Games, that translates to thirty million points.’

Unfortunately, gold coins were not very liquid in the Underground. In the heavens, oh sure, there were banks to make transactions for gold to points easy. But here? No, everybody operated on points. The economies of the Underground and the heavens were connected but not the same type.

’The Dark Sectors has a couple underground banks but I don’t trust them. Not like I would the Imperial Bank of Umar. That place is reliable. Black markets are not.’

Going to an official bank WAS an option, if not for the fact that it would take too much time. The Dark Tower did allow players to return to their personal dimension, that much was okay. But the return clause was not so simple. The teleportation System that players were gifted did NOT include the Underground as a spawn point. More to the point, the time it took to get from the heavens to the Underground was a little under a week. It was no short journey, it was long and it was inevitable.

Dasha had to stay here. He had to.

’For now, I have reached the pinnacle of political influence given my current power. Any more and I risk too much.’

To go to the Dark Tower or to gain more Territory would risk incurring the wrath of Sorcerers on the same level as the Red Sorcerer. Dasha did not believe he had the strength to rival such people yet. Warriors more skilled and powerful than Igor the Skilled existed. The goddesses, for example.

The days were ticking.

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