Reaching a rundown wooden house, Shade quickly unlatched the door to see Ryan and what must be his long-lost sister Milf standing, holding each other, his sister in tears.
'That's my sister!' Shade grinned, the empty space in his heart now filled. Shade had never seen such a beautiful girl before in his life. She was perfect to the extent that she didn't exist. He had been waiting for this moment for what seemed to be all his life.
Shade had grown up alone on an isolated island for centuries until The Old Man came along. He hadn't even known how long it took for The Old Man to find him or what he looked like, but when they met, The Old Man decided that this boy with half-broken eyes would become one of his slaves.
The Old Man was able to run a King-Tier kingdom, not because of his own strength, but because of how strong he made his subordinates. The Old Man's specialty allowed him to multiply the speed of growth of those who swore eternal loyalty to him by several times their usual rate.
Added up over millions of years, this turned even mediocre cultivators into superpowers.
This wasn't limited only to people though. Some animals had been turned into creatures capable of doing things that would've normally seemed impossible if witnessed. That's why The Old Man was obsessed with gaining power over the egg.
He secretly still held onto hope after all these years that he might be the one to bond with the egg. His ego couldn't take the thought of having someone else bond with it first.
The moment the Old Man died and left Shade free, he knew where he needed to go first--back home to his family.
"You must be Shade," Milf said, holding back her tears.
Shade gave a slight nod as a tear ran down his face too.
The Old Man was cruel. For millions of years, The Old Man allowed Shade to know of Milf's existence, but although they were so geographically close, The Old Man refused to let them near each other.
The Old Man thrived off the pain of others. He tortured people not for the sake of strength but for pleasure. In his mind, he wanted nothing less than to bring everyone under the rule of Xygar so that he could create a utopia filled with slaves to worship him.
"What happened?" Ryan asked as he released Milf from his arms and walked closer to Shade.
"The Old Man is dead," Shade answered with a dry voice.
Ryan opened his eyes wide at this new piece of information and slowly looked around in confusion before turning behind him to look at Milf. "Well, I'll leave you two alone."
Milf shook her head from side to side and sniffled softly, the tears flowing more freely now that she had finally seen Shade again. "I need to say something."
"I meant what I said, I want you to become our new Master. All of our new masters," she said, indicating to Shade and the village around her.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm E-Rank," Ryan said, scratching his head awkwardly.
"That doesn't necessarily matter," Shade said, interjecting. "My sister is right. We don't exactly have a place to go. We need someone to take us in. And someone with your future talents is exactly who we should be looking for to hedge our bets on."
Ryan pondered for a moment before asking, "How did The Old Man ensure loyalty?"
"He did it through a Heavenly item called 'Contract of eternity'. It costs 4500 Heavenly Credits per contract, but for the price, it can enslave anyone up to King-Tier or a clan if they don't have anyone above God-Tier."
"How exactly strong are you?" Ryan asked, curiously.
"Strength in the Multiverse isn't what you would expect," Shade replied, hesitating. "The higher in cultivation one gets, the less it is about personally fighting, and more about controlling others to fight."
"I think in all my years, I've seen a total of five fights of anyone above King-Tier, and when they happen, crowds from across the Multiverse come to watch."
Ryan was even more intrigued by this revelation. But before he could ask any more questions, he heard a knock at the door. "Ryan?" a small voice asked, as Hannah peered through the doorway.
After Hannah locked eyes with Ryan she squealed and jumped on him, starting to meow as she rubbed herself against Ryan's chest.
'Did I just hear a grown woman meow?' Ryan thought, finding the sound not too annoying.
Patting Hannah on the head he asked, "What's the matter?"
"I thought I lost mew," Hannah cried, rubbing her fluffy ears against Ryan's neck.
Tingling from the fluffiness, Ryan was only pulled out of his reverie by Shade's cough.
"Hannah, I think you came here to ask Ryan something, not to... uh... I don't even want to know what you're doing," Shade said, shivering as he looked at the catwoman's vicious glare.
Hannah smiled, seeing she had quelled Shade's attempt at cockblocking her. "Ryan, you wouldn't abandon a clan full of kittens, would you?" she asked, her lower lip beginning to quiver.
Ryan's eyebrow twitch as he looked to Shade for help but was rejected when he saw Shade had suddenly started to have an unhealthy fascination with the ceiling.
"Look, I don't have any Heavenly Credits to buy the contracts we need," Ryan said, putting his hands up in mock surrender.
"I would, but..."
"Actually, you do," Shade said, seemingly over his ceiling fetish. "I don't know how much of the inheritance you've received, but if you've even passed floor two on the tower of monsters, you'll have enough HCs to buy a contract."
Ryan abruptly shut his mouth and turned to his heavenly screen.
[Congratulations on completing your third task.]
[Gain 106,892 Heavenly Credits]
[Maximum spendable Heavenly Credits by a lettered cultivator is 10,000 total]
"That's it?" Ryan thought out loud. 'Dang, what a letdown.'
'I'll I got was a stupid egg and a bit of cash. Hm, I have two problems and two avenues I can take. I have to defeat the human empire, and I have to cure my corrosion.'
'If I throw the egg at my soul corrosion, will it boil?'
'Or maybe if I throw the egg into the human empire, they will go as crazy as The Old Man and kill themselves?'
"Don't be too hasty to judge," Shade said. "Heavenly Credits are the most valuable resource in the Multiverse as they can be used to buy everything but the rarest of resources."
"One can never have enough Heavenly Credits and even the big 7's don't throw away Heavenly Credits willy-nilly."
"So how much is one worth? You just said a contract was worth 4500, they can't be that valuable."
Shade chuckled. "The contract is one of the most expensive things The Old Man owned. In fact, besides the egg, it was. The rest of his power he kept in Heavenly Credits in case he found something he could use to claim the egg one day."
"I'd say his entire stash was worth somewhere above 150,000 Heavenly Credits, which would be enough to buy an E-Ranked Planet," Shade continued.
'Hm... a planet does sound nice,' Ryan thought.
"Anyway, we're getting off-topic," Shade said, waving his hand. "We would love to join you in your world and are willing to sign the same contracts as we did with The Old Man."
"However, your world has yet to be connected to the Multiverse and we are not allowed within its borders," Shade said with a sigh.
"What about an independent space?" Ryan said after a moment of hesitation.
Shade, Milf, and Hannah all looked at Ryan with an expression of hope. "Does that mean you'll take us?" Hannah asked, rubbing herself against Ryan more fervently.
"If you sign the contracts... yes."
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