He stopped hesitating and grabbed the topmost contract. It was the one concerning the company and it was just as she had told him. There were also some details concerning profit distribution, which were split evenly between them. After making sure that there was nothing problematic in the contract, at least nothing he was able to find, he signed it.
He then took the next one, which was the one between him and her. It was just as they had talked about before. On Sunday he could freely enter this villa and she had to act as his slave. There was only an additional paragraph that stated that she could delay this for up to three months if she was busy with something important, which he found reasonable.
He signed this contract as well and then picked up the final one. This was the one he knew the least about. It contained the details of the contract between him, the guard, whose name was Jenny Falk and Miss. Lucia.
According to the contract, Jenny Falk would become his slave and Miss. Lucia would provide for her daily necessities. In exchange, he would take Jenny into the given class locked dungeon, where she would clear as many floors as possible. He would gain 10% of the drops except for the boss drops with the rest going to Miss. Lucia. He would have to take her into the dungeon on at least six days a week for the first two months and for at least three days a week after.
There was also an option to stop this if Miss. Lucia demanded so. He was sure that this was in case they didn't need the rewards from the dungeon anymore or he could make something better.
Besides that, he would also waiver some rights he would normally have over Jenny. First of was the Right of Command, which meant that he wouldn't be able to give her any commands even though she was his slave. Then there was the Right of Trade, which meant that he couldn't sell her. And finally the Right of Live and Death, which meant that he couldn't decide over her life or death. Normally the owner of a slave could kill her through the system since she was just seen as an object belonging to him.
In fact, although he had waived those rights that didn't mean that there were no loopholes, the biggest might just be the fact that she was seen as an object, he could do anything with and thus no laws and rules would have to be obeyed and he would be free to do anything to her, that he was capable of doing.
Besides that, it was also written in the contract that she would guard him. Something that was surly in it so that he didn't mess up and get himself killed before they could make use of him. Miss. Lucia would even pay for accommodations for her, making it completely free to keep her around.
Seeing that there was no problem with the contract he signed it as well. At exactly the moment he finished his signature, the stare full of killing intent from behind vanished. This made him sure that it had been something that Miss. Lucia planned as a way to make him request the guard. He had completely fallen into her trap. Not that he had a problem with it.
<< You have gained Jenny Falk as a slave.
Name: Jenny Falk
Age: 25
Cultivation: 3-Line
Class: Warrior (Lvl. 3), Swordswoman (Lvl. 5)
Skills: ...
>>
Together with the prompt showing that the woman was now his slave, a new menu option appeared in his mind besides his status screen and his skill interface. This menu option was designed for the management of his slaves, with currently only Jenny Falk appearing in it. There he could also see that he had waived the three rights.
"Great, now that this is done, I'll give you the gifts and then you can go and get started.", Miss. Lucia smiled before pulling some items out of thin air.
The first thing was three books stacked on top of each other. This was then followed by a bank card and a ring.
She pushed the books towards him first. "Here take them. They will give you a good starting point."
Ivan took the first one and read the title which was printed prominently with golden letters on the black book cover. 'The start to body refining.'
After reading it he exhaled a large breath. He had seen it before on the network. Being worth around 2.5k CP it wasn't cheap. But it was one of the best freely available skill books to start body refining and thus cultivation.
He didn't hesitate to open it and was greeted by the prompt.
<< You have opened the skill book 'The start to body refining'. Do you want to transfer the knowledge into your brain and thus acquiring the skill 'Basic Body Refining'? >>
This was how skill books worked. They contained all the knowledge required for the skill. After opening them it was possible to use the System to transfer the knowledge, thus acquiring the skill without the need to learn the knowledge by yourself.
He pressed 'Yes' and felt the knowledge pour into him. It was the basics of Soul Points and how to use them to strengthen the body. Together with the knowledge the skill also appeared on his status screen as well as the information about cultivation which was now 0-points.
The cultivation depended on the amount of energy as well as its purity, that was available to him. He could use this energy to cast active skills either for combat or crafting. Until now he had only been able to use the passive effects of his skills, which had limited him heavily. Now with the 'Basic Body Refining' skill, he would be able to increase his energy pool and thus use the active skills as well, drastically improving his capabilities.
A body refining skill was something every starting adventure needed. It would allow them to reach the cultivation of 9-points before they had to change to a higher leveled skill. Thus the adventure guild would provide every new member with a free body refining skill. But the one they provided was much worse than the one Miss. Lucia had just given him.
The conversion of Soul Points to cultivation was much better and the energy he would have would be of a higher grade, which would improve the effects of all skills. Now he had to earn Soul Points and level up his cultivation.
There were multiple ways of earning Soul Points but the most common were: Slaying foes, crafting items, and finishing quests. Those activities and many others would add Soul Points to a pool, which could then be used to improve one's cultivation.
Ivan wondered how large his Soul Point Pool was since this was an important point in his further training. Since the pool could only store a certain number of Soul Points any more than the maximum would be lost. A large part of the talent someone had was the size of the Soul Point Pool.
Take for example someone with a pool size of 50. At the beginning where activities would only provide ~1 Soul Point he would have to, for example, slay around 40 to 50 foes to fill his pool. Then he would have to spend at least five minutes to cast the body refining skill to empty the pool, before continuing.
But in later stages when the foes got stronger and the quests harder. The items crafted more complex and difficult. Then they would also provide more Soul Points. Of course, the requirements for the next cultivation level would increase as well so everything balanced out somehow, with each cultivation level becoming harder to reach. But the problem was that there would be a point where even a few foes slain would completely fill the pool. And the cultivation skills would always require at least five minutes of cast time.
This already made the problem clear but it was even worse later on or with quests, which generally gave more Soul Points than slaying foes. Here the amount gotten would soon exceed the size of the pool and thus every exceeding point would be lost, making them very ineffective.
Thus a large Soul Point Pool was a must. Sadly there was no way to find out how large the pool was. It could only slowly be seen when one would get stronger and got to the limit. Also, items that could increase the capacity of the pool were rare, thus making the initial capacity all the more important.
Although there was no way to find out the capacity of the pool it could be observed that a main class would have a larger effect on the pool than a side class. Thus Ivan with his two main classes should have a sizable pool.
Together with the good quality of the 'Basic Body Refining' skill, increasing his cultivation should go well.
Ivan didn't yet thank Miss. Lucia but decided to first look at the other gifts. Grabbing the next book, he checked out its title as well. As the one before it too was a skill book, the 'Basics of Potions', which could teach the skill of potion brewing. This was an entry-level skill for crafting potions and elixirs. Those were consumables in the form of a fluid, which could have many different effects. Potions would have short time effects while elixirs would have permanent effects.
Examples for potions would be healing potions, which could in their basic form heal surface wounds and in their higher forms could even heal inner wounds. There were even rumors that those of a high enough level could reanimate the dead.
<< You have opened the skill book 'Basics of Potions'. Do you want to transfer the knowledge into your brain and thus acquiring the skill 'Basic Potion Crafting'? >>
Of course, he agreed and soon the knowledge flowed into his brain. Not only did it contain information about a large number of different herbs but also about the usage of flames to extract the medical effects and combine them to craft different sets of potions. Something that went well with his 'Summon Flames' skill. Although until now it only gave him a better understanding of flames, which was its passive effect this was still very useful, not only for smithing but also for crafting potions. Later when he had enough energy, he would be able to use energy in combination with the skill to summon a perfectly customized flame, which would make potion brewing so much easier and better.
There was still a third book left and he picked it up as well. It was titled 'Introduction to runes and their usage'. With it too being a skill book the prompt appeared again.
<< You have opened the skill book 'Introduction to runes and their usage'. Do you want to transfer the knowledge into your brain and thus acquiring the skill 'Basic Runescribing'? >>
He agreed again and his brain was flooded with the knowledge pertaining to runes and the way to use them to improve items or set up formations.
"Thank you so much.", he sincerely thanked Miss. Lucia for the gift. Not only were those skill books valuable but they were also just what he needed. They would enable him to truly start a company since he had something to attract adventures.
"No problem, take a look at the other things.", she waved away his thanks. To her, the amount spent on these books was absolutely negligible.
Ivan didn't insist and took a closer look at the two remaining items. He didn't need much time to check the bank card, which had 1000CP on it, which would help him get started. For him, it was a big sum, since it was five times the amount he had been able to save until now. But it wasn't a sum that would make a huge change in his development, making it a fitting amount for a gift.
The last item was the thing he was most interested in. Although the ring was a simple ring made out of copper he knew that it wouldn't be something that simple. He already had a guess, when he first saw it but didn't want to get his hope up until he was sure that he was right.
To his joy, his guess proved correct. When he picked up the ring and took a closer look at it, the information about it popped up.
<< Low-Grade Storage Ring Lvl. 1 (Upgradable)
Space: 2m³
Remark: Because of the combination of your available classes, this item has additional information about being upgradable. Upgrading requires a skill level of 3 in forging and level 2 in rune scribing. A list of the required materials can be found below.
...
>>
Storage rings were a superior but rarer variant of the storage bags, each adventurer desired. The space that it provided, could be filled with items irrelevant to their weight. Making it the best method of moving the items needed on quests or dungeons explorations.
But because of its expensive materials, they were expensive. The cheaper variant which was the storage bags were too expensive for low-level adventures but could be afforded by those of a slightly higher rank. They could be opened by anyone and were the size of a normal backpack. Thus while it was great to carry things around, they had to be removed in many situations.
Storage rings, which were crafted with higher capacity were more comfortable since they could be put on the finger and with just a single thought the item could be taken out. Of course, they were also much more expensive and rare, since the materials and skills required to craft them was higher.
Ivan didn't hesitate and put the ring onto his finger. Since it was an ownerless one, he had to accept a prompt and it was bound to him. Now the only way for someone else to get access to its content was either for him to give permission or for him to die.
Now that he had accepted the ring as his own, he could feel a mental connection with it and with just a slight movement of his mind he could see the space it contained. While it was currently empty he would surely fill it up soon with all kinds of useful items. After all, it wasn't that big.
He once again wanted to express his thanks to Miss. Lucia, but seeing her expression, he decided not to.
She was sitting there relaxedly, drinking tea, while waiting for him to finish checking out her gifts. Now that he had finished, she put down the cup and took out another set of documents.
"These are the documents for the company. You just have to fill in the name and sign it. Then the System will create the company and give you access to the company funds. The System will also take care of basic bookkeeping. Í would recommend you to only sign it after you have prepared everything and you want to truly start because there is a monthly fee for having a registered company.", she told him. "You can do that whenever you want but I hope you will not take more than a year to do so."
Ivan took the documents and put them into his new storage ring. There would be enough time to check them later. With that, the last thing was out of the way and Ivan thought it was time to leave. He had made plans for today and although they had already been delayed, he should be able to do the main things he had planned for today.
He stood up and told Miss. Lucia. "If there is nothing else, then I'll leave. There are still some things I have to do today."
She nodded, "That's everything. Just wait for Jenny to finish and then the two of you can leave."
It seemed that because she was supposed to guard him, she would leave together with him. When she had become his slave, there had been no information that he has gotten anything she owned, so he guessed that she had transferred everything beforehand. But since Miss. Lucia was supposed to provide basic necessities he guessed that collecting them was what she was currently doing.
As if it had been planned, Miss. Lucia had just finished her sentence when Jenny, whom he hadn't even realized that she had left the room, reentered the room. Instead of her military uniform, she was now wearing simple jeans and a T-Shirt, making her look much more approachable. Ivan couldn't help but admit that she was very good looking. Not like Miss. Lucia, who looked very sexy, but in a strong energetic way. The T-Shirt showed off her muscular arms, which although looking well trained didn't do so in an offensive way but more in a way that appealed to him.
She didn't have any back bag or any kind of bag with her at all. Instead, Ivan could spot the same ring on her hand, that he was wearing as well.
Jenny saw his eyes lingering on the ring and she explained, "This is Miss. Lucia's ring. She is lending it to me to use."
It was a clever move. Since it was still Miss. Lucia's ring, he wouldn't be able to take it away from her. He wasn't even able to access its content since the right hasn't been given to him but to Jenny. He hadn't known that there was such a way to circumvent the rule that everything the slave owned would also belong to the master.
Of course in normal cases, the master would just be able to order the slave to offer everything to him, so it wouldn't work. But in their case, it worked well.
"I guess that it contains everything you need?", he asked her, not minding their little trick.
"Yes."
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