In the next few days, Lance ordered the new members of Valhalla to take a few of those small gangs. He had chosen those that didn't have any powerful backers or secret backgrounds. The new members were eager to show their skills before their new boss eliminated all of those gangs in one only swoop, giving Lance's group more territory.
Lance had an overall knowledge of what he had to do so that he could have the necessary means to overtake more powerful gangs. Even before coming to BlackCrime City he had read many books and heard many rumors on what was the main routes of profit in the city. He knew that as the group got bigger he wouldn't be able to tack all of those branches so he had got a few loyal people that could run them for him. Those people then would give him only the key information and await new orders.
That was the main reason for Lance to create the Blood Council. Bodvar and Groath had already arrived at Valhalla's headquarters and began to build some of the things that Lance wanted and also began to recruit other blacksmith, engineers, artisans, and other job-related people into loyal workers for Lance marking the birth of the R&D Department. Lance was waiting for the return of Brul, Sophia, and Trist so that he could begin the formation of the Military Division. From heir the last letter they would come to the city shortly after he took over the Green Bunker Gang.
......................
While Lance was in his room writing a letter he heard a knock on the door. After he put down the quill, he looked towards the source of the noise. Lina walked inside the room and bowed, "Master, I have some good news."
Lance nodded and gestured for her to continue.
"Brul, Trist, and Sophia have already arrived at gates of the city and are coming directly to here."
Lance tapped his fingers on the desk while he thought about that. He knew that even with all the new recruits he couldn't take over all the lower regions of the city. He needed some few loyal generals that would lead those military operations while the others would be spying on the other gangs and groups so that they wouldn't dare to force their way.
Since he arrived at the city he always felt that the way that things were going was too easy, so he had to prepare for some kind of unpredictable event. He took out a paper from one of his drawers and handed it to Lina, "Go to them and deliver this to them. Say that they have to complete this first and only then can they come here."
Lina bowed once again and headed outside of the room. Lance sighed when he heard the door close and walked towards one of the shelves filled with books. He gazed at the numerous books on them and touched one in particular. '112 ways for a flower to bloom', that was the title of the book.
He knew that if one looked at the various books some of them would attract their attention like 'Forbidden Magic: Rituals and Sacrifices', 'Magical Formations and Ingredients', and some other relevant and interesting titles. Those were some of the traps the Lance had created personally to prevent possible enemies to find his secrets.
After picking up the book and switched all those books with strange titles in a specific order, the whole shelf moved like a door, revealing a descending staircase. Lance walked down the stairs while behind him the shelf turned back to normal with the missing book one again in its original position.
The staircase leads to an underground division that only the dwarves had knowledge about and even they would only know that existed an underground division and didn't know how to get access to it or what was it destined for.
The division was big enough to house about one thousand people and with spare space a was divided into two different spaces. The largest one had many devices that made one remember all those sci-fi movies were al the rooms were filled with all kinds of scientific devices. Lance after making the dwarves build some of the most irrelevant pieces and he had built the core one he had piece together this lab. He had devised a way for Earth's science and this world's magic to be used together and with it, he manages to create a lot of devices that used mana instead of electricity.
On the smaller space, the only thing that was dere was a box-like device and a floor filled with runes. This pace was the thing that Lance spent most of his time since he took over the Green Bunker Gang's headquarters. He really didn't care about the territorial take over as he knew that sooner or later all the city would be his, but the value of the thing in this room was almost the same has ten BlackCrime Cities combined.
He walked inside this room and closed the door. The door once closed it began to lit up with many magical runes that were meant to prevent anyone from entering it while he was inside. Although he wouldn't admit it to anyone he was still a bit paranoid and if someone manages to destroy all his troops he would have at least some kind of panic room where he could remain safely.
He walked to the device and turned some of the buttons and levers. When he found out that the energy reading and calculations were correct, he smiled and walked to the center of the room where there were was the only spot in the room without any runes. In that spot, he looked at the runes finding out that there weren't any mistakes and said, "Initiate 'Project Liberty'."
At his words, the whole room brightens up as the runes began to fill up with mana. Lance felt like the pressure that was sealing his mana to the Apprentice level be released. For the first time since arriving at this barren land, he felt like he was in control.
After a while and the lights on the runes dimmed to maintain a constant output of mana, he smiled and spoke, " CAT are you there?"
[Yes, master Lance.]
A robotic voice suddenly sounded across the room making a smile appear at Lance's face. This was the other part that he had tried to accomplish since he reborn in this world: CAT's rebirth and the true beginning of his plans.
"Good! With this, the plan can truly begin."