The Young Master in the Shadows

“This way young master!” The old woman in skimpy clothes guided Axel through the luxurious brothel’s corridors.

“This place is very gaudy…” he couldn’t help but comment, noticing the expensive paintings on the walls.

“Of course… The Golden Brothel is the best in the city,” the woman said proudly.

Axel nodded. Thankfully Mike told him about his place telling him it was perfect to keep Victor’s ‘image’, if not he would have had to do it SOLO tonight.

“We are finally here!” the old woman reached a certain door. “Young master, I hope the girl will be to your liking, as promised we got you a new one!” she said, opening the door and stepping back.

Axel nodded as he stepped in feeling nervous. Although he had lived two lives, to tell the truth, he had never attended such a place before and didn’t know what to expect!

That’s why he requested a virgin, afraid that he might expose his ignorance in front of a more experienced girl!

“Welcome young master!” The girl inside who was dressed in some very skimpy maid clothes, shook a little as she bowed down as soon as he stepped in.

He couldn’t help but swallow, noticing her ‘ample’ chest.

She stood up, revealing her beautiful face as she nervously bit her lip and then gasped as soon as she noticed his face, his reaction was the same!

“GLORIA FLICK?”

“VICTOR, FUCKING, WHITE?”

"Impossible..." He stepped back in shock. Wasn’t this GLORIA FLICK. Although not a very famous journalist, she had a lot of fans in certain circles in his past life? She made thousands of people fall in love with her on TV, especially the way she exposed many of the dark secrets surrounding many of the world's elites thanks to her daring and innovative investigation methods! Most didn’t watch her for that though…

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” he couldn’t help but ask as his eyes automatically focused on her barely covered breasts, could it be that Gloria Flick had some very dark history? No wonder she always went after the corrupt elites!

“BASTARD! HOW DARE YOU ASK! ISN’T IT ALL BECAUSE OF YOU?” she exploded angrily pointing at him.

“ME? What did I do?” he was taken aback before remembering that he was impersonating Victor.

“WHAT DID YOU DO? PLAYING DUMB NOW? WEREN’T YOU THE ONE WHO ISSUED A BAN ON ME! THEN MADE ME LOSE MY LICENSE AND MADE NOT EVEN PORN WEBSITES DARE TO LET ME STREAM THERE? FORCING ME TO HAVE TO WORK HERE TO PAY MY DEBTS THAT YOU MADE ME INCUR THANKS TO ALL THE LAWSUITS YOU AND YOUR BITCH MARGRET FILED AGAINST ME?!” she replied angrily shaking as she bit her lip.

“Ah…. I did?” He had no idea. That girl Margret was really scary! If not for Alice saving his life, he might have ended up like this girl. Just the thought of it sent shivers down his spine.

“... BASTED! CAN YOU STOP MAKING FUN OF ME!” she spat, her eyes tearing up. Ever since she got in contact with this guy her life was in a downward spiral.

“I….” he sighed.” I see… Look, I am sorry…” he said, realizing that he could say nothing else.

“Like hell, I will forgive you!” she spat as she covered her chest with her hand.

He sighed as his mind raced, remembering his father’s command that he must avoid trouble and keep his cover. “Well…. I am telling the truth… I… I was just angry back then and didn’t expect things to go this bad to you…” he said after some thinking. “How about this… As a form of apology I will pay all your debts and help you remove your ban…” he said. Gloria was one of his idols in the past, and he couldn’t bear the idea of her working in such a place.

“You would really do that?” she asked with a frown, feeling a little taken aback. The Victor she knew was a very arrogant guy, but he also felt a little whimsical.

“Yes!” he said.

“What do you want in return?” she asked directly. Nothing was free in this world!

“What do I want? Look, I am not that kind of a guy, I don’t….”

“I know, I surrender!” she interrupted him, untying the ribbon that held her revealing maid dress together and letting it drop to the ground to reveal her voluptuous body. “Let’s fucking do it!”

“Ah….” Axel was taken aback. The girl completely misunderstood him.

“What? Do you want me to do all the work too?” she spat.

“Ok… Let’s do it…” He finally said after he swallowed. He wouldn’t really be a man if he were to refuse her! No wait… He was going to be a real man tonight!

Hooray!

***

At the same time in a very gloomy cauldron, Victor was having a problem.

The bookcases looked very tempting, but unfortunately upon inspecting the books, Victor discovered a big problem.

He couldn’t read most of them. Each one of them was written in a totally different language that he couldn’t tell anything about.

It was like whoever collected those things knew how important they were, but couldn’t understand them either.

Finally, after reaching the 9th bookcase, Victor found a few documents and books that he could read. The first few were about the history of this world containing a huge rolled-up map.

In it, he could see 3 continents surrounded by a sea, completely different from the current one. How old was this?

Grabbing a few documents he set them on the desk and began to flip through them.

Those papers were written long ago when a few foreign races entered this world after their own world was destroyed. Each of the races was led by their own lord who guided them to safety in a new world.

The Humans were guided by the Storm Lord, Nimera.

The Elves were guided by the Sun Lord, Tarosa

The Beastkin were guided by the Thorns Lord, Rosa

The Dragonkin were guided by the Dragon Lord, Orjicastricalmocos

The Goblins And Ogres were guided by the Poison Lord, Yazal

Victor paused at this … The Sunlord he knew was called Zendo, not Tarosa? Wait… Where did he hear that name before? Ah right, it was when he used his Akashic skill on the Slave of the Sun Bloodline Restriction that all sun elves had… It was its creator's name!

So… Zendo was not the original Sun lord after all? This was very intriguing.

Victor paused for a moment, then returned to reading the paper in hand.

The five lords together, seemed to have fought this world's original barbaric inhabitants who refused to let them settle here, then after winning and ‘Liberating’ this world, they united creating the Worlds Kings’ Council!

Could it be that of the original 5, only the storm lord remeind? Was that why she had the table and the books?

Victor pondered as he read the next few pages that contained the condition of the agreement between the lords. It was the standard stuff about not stepping into each other’s areas and maintaining the peace.

Nothing Interesting, just dividing the cake!

Victor slowly flipped to the next page, then involuntarily paused.

His pupils contracted as he saw a painting of five people sitting around a familiar round table.

He could easily recognize one of the people in it. A young man with deep dark eyes.

“Hiss…” he gasped in shock. Wasn’t that the same Poison lord guy he saw through Rita’s eyes on his family's island! The damn Same guy!

How could it be… That guy came from here?

He quickly flipped to the map and began to follow the document to figure things out.

The Continent he was in now, was divided between the Sun lord, and the storm. The other two, one was divided between the Beauty Lord Rosa and The poison lord while the other was ruled solely by the Dragonlord!

Whatever happened back then, must have led to a complete reshuffle with all the races migrating to the central kingdom! And that poison lord must have somehow found a way out to Trilaria.

Unfortunately, Victor who began to flip through the rest of the papers in his hand couldn’t find anything of interest regarding that. They must have been very old!

Taking a look at the rest of the bookcase he found the same kind of things… All treaties between the lords on how to split this world, so After a quick flip through them, Victor switched to the 10th bookcase…

There he found a few readable books, the ones he was really looking for!.

The first one was an old book bound in a golden metal plated cover and written in an old Dragonish that he could barely read. Thankfully this language barely changes from one world to another. Dragons were some very traditional creatures.

Despite the name of the book being. MEDITATIONS ON THE SYSTEM AND CONCEPTS. Inside it, there was only an old tattered collection of papers of someone who was clearly studying some older books and taking notes. Some of them were severely damaged, but thankfully some of them were in good condition.

After an entire hour of being totally engrossed in translating it, Victor laid back and looked aimlessly at the cloudless cauldron sky.

His eyes were totally unfocused as if he had just smoked some kind of supreme weed having his mind fucked a few times in the process.

“So that’s how it is…” he said in a lost voice. He really knew nothing despite having all the clues. Although the book didn’t explain in depth, the data in it was enough to make him realize many things…

“No wonder…” he said. So it was all about the concepts…

At first, he couldn't wrap his mind around this, but after reading this book he finally got it, some of the missing segments of knowledge that connect everything together!

As Rosette told him before, Concepts were really just a manifestation of certain ideas or phenomena taking physical form. Like the collection of information needed to make the phenomena appear.

Sparks by themselves were like highly concentrated Concepts, making them take a physical form. They usually had the tendency to radiate the concept they had to the world around them, slowly changing it!

It really sounded crazy, a concept taking a physical form, but apparently, that's the way it was!

The thing Rosette didn’t know was that the usage of concepts was not something that only lords could do, everyone could use a concept if he had the right tool as they could be implemented into magical tools and weapons.

What really struck Victor hard was the fact that he had been using those all this time! The moment he became a player he gained that ability!

Yes, The system skills themselves were just a bunch of concepts, being managed by the system!

“A Skill is an image of a concept… “ he said to himself as he flicked his hand making a fireball appear before he inspected it.

He always wondered how it was possible for a player to create fireballs and use magic despite it being impossible according to the world rules.

The answer according to the book was that the system itself was some kind of supreme autonomous higher being that collected Concepts and Sparks to manage them…

When one became a player, the system would have access to all of his knowledge and skills as concepts.

By collecting millions upon millions of the said concept, the system would no longer be limited to the understanding of one person of a certain subject, but it would own the amalgamation of all the images and concepts that all the players had about it!

And an amalgamation of concepts was what was called a spark!

Yes, the system was using the players to collectively create the sparks and then to use those to empower the said Players back by giving them shared access to those powers as Classes and Skills!

For example, The concept of the Fireball must have been something that was born in a different world where magic was a thing. And by making a connection with the system and acquiring the skill book that was in a way a key to the connection, Victor was able to gain access to this skill, to this Concept!

Thinking about this made Victor finally understand many crucial things, like why someone who knew how to play piano would get a piano playing skill.

It was all the system, harvesting his concept and giving it back to him in the form of a skill after combining it with the knowledge of other Piano players!

This also explained why people who had a certain nature or experience tended to have a class that corresponded to it. According to the book, the system would usually thrive to enhance the concepts he had, so he would give people the skills and Classes that had the highest probability of growing up with them!

All of those were a great revelation to him, allowing him to finally understand a part of how the system worked!

He had also figured out why he didn’t get that skill to get girls to cry on his chest. It was most likely the system didn’t have the concept of that yet!

The book also had a page discussing the origin of the system itself arguing that it might be a very high concept by itself or some image of a collection of sparks! But in the end, the author didn’t seem to have any evidence.

What caught Victor’s attention was one sentence handwritten in cursive elvish at the end of the book…

THE SYSTEM SEEMS TO SEEK CONTROL, AND THIS IS EVIDENT BY ITS AGENTS. IF YOU WANT TO SEEK MORE INFO, PROCEED WITH CAUTION! THOSE GUYS ARE A PAIN IN THE DRAGON'S ASS!

Taking a deep breath after digesting what he had just read, Victor frowned. The system as far as he knew was not sentient… Did it have a sentient agent?

What did that even mean? He had never even come close to such knowledge before and it made him feel a little agitated.

He tried to search the papers again for any explanations of the system, but he could find nothing.

Sighing, he decided to look at another book that caught his attention. Its title was THE ROYAL ELVES GUIDE TO BE A LORD. This was what he probably needed!

Feeling intrigued Victor began to read through it immediately. The language was a little archaic, but thanks to a certain Elven princess, he could also read this.

The first few pages were dedicated to praising the elves' superiority over the other races, like all elven books.

The next page after that was a warning that only elves should read it or else!

He flipped the page.

He quickly dispelled the curse using a talisman that he already had in hand before flipping the page to finally reach the juicy stuff describing what lords were!

It was mostly very similar to what Rosette told him.

Lords were higher sentient creatures that could utilize the Images and Concepts to display supernatural powers. The more the said lord understood this concept, the more powerful he or she would become.

The rest was completely different from the shallow knowledge that Rosette knew. The book had a deeper explanation of many things.

First was how one could become a lord!

This got Victor very interested!

There were simply Three known methods!

The first was to become an embodiment of a concept. Just become the spark itself!

The book’s example was of a man sleeping all the time, making himself slowly become the concept of sleeping itself then growing to be a spark before finally becoming the Lord of Sleep.

This method was 100% theoretical as no one ever managed to do it according to the author!

The second method was to NATURALLY integrate a spark into his own body.

According to the book, this was a very dangerous thing, as the one who was to integrate the Spark had to be at least 50% compatible with it or have a way to allow it to change his body to be compatible using a suitable technique.

If one were to force it, it would lead to either the destruction of the Spark or to the death of the attempt!

According to the author, only 4 people in the entire elven history managed to do this as it had many drawbacks including being affected by the bad aspects of the concept and becoming a target to other lords!

Victor frowned, not sure what that meant.

The Last method was to use supernatural power as a medium to force the integration with a spark!

This was what 99% of the people who became lords used.

And according to all known records, all of them were using the same Supernatural power called The System!

By offering the Spark to the system, the system would naturally grant the player a LORD designation, allowing him to virtually be a lord while handling the containment of the said Spark.

This method also had the benefit of allowing the Lord to quantify his status and level using the system interface. Else it was a very hard progress that depended on the lord’s understanding of himself!

Victor squinted his eyes, this was a little different from what that Storm lord told Rosette. Maybe that woman was not a good thing after all…

Thinking back to what he knew, Victor also remembered the Eternal Spark that integrated with Alpha.

It was not a system thing as the system displayed nothing, so his guess was that it must have been the second method.

So the reason it didn’t work on him and only responded to Alpha was this Compatibility thing?

Wait, now that he remembered, the Spark itself was hidden in Alpha’s heart, to begin with, maybe throughout the years it changed Alpha’s body, allowing it to be more compatible with it somehow! Maybe it’s something else…

He frowned. At least this gave him an idea why Alpha had no system indication about the said Spark.

He quickly flipped the page.

LORDS GROTH

Lords grew stronger by collecting sparks and then connecting them through their understanding!

The sparks should contain compatible images of the same Concept or build up to a grand image called an Affinity.

For example, A Sun Lord would be able to collect additional Sparks of Light, and Heat to empower himself instead of collecting other Sun sparks that are usually very rare!

The book also warned us to be extremely careful of collecting conflicting Sparks, it might cause an explosion!

Wow, that example was very specific! Victor raised one eyebrow. Could this Sun thing be a thing common to the Elves?

Maybe…

After that was Sparks Types.

TOTAL SPARKS, MAJOR SPARKS, MINOR SPARKS, PARTIAL SPARKS

Sparks naturally grow from Partial sparks to Total sparks the more perfect their concepts and images become.

There was also an explanation of another type called a Faded spark That caught Victor's attention. He had that Demon-Faded spark after all!

According to the book, this faded spark, was a spark that had its concept extracted by some method or technique, leaving it only a shell that needed to be filled in and fixed by making it collect its concepts.

Fixing a Faded spark was far easier than creating a spark from scratch as it would do most of the work and it was only needed to leave it in a suitable environment for a long time!

"So... That's why that guy left it to be buried by demons..." Victor said. He finally realized that the Faded spark he got from the sun temple was left there to be filled in!

He slowly flipped the page.

Next was LORDS RANKS

• A lord with one or more disjointed sparks is called a Singularity Lord, they are very weak, barely able to display the concept he has, and mostly using his powers like system skills.

Many of them might not even realize their own powers!

• A lord with at least two connected sparks is called a TRUE Lord. At this level the lord is in the level of a very high system Class holder, being able to utilize his concept using many different skills and connect them to create more powerful versions.
• A lord with at least three connected Sparks is called a TRIANGLE Lord. They are very powerful and comparable to legendary creatures. They are able to display their concept to create a domain that traps others with it, they can also allow their concept to engulf and weaken other concepts.
• A lord with at least four Connected Spark connected is called a SOVEREIGN. They can rule an entire world using their power alone!
• A lord with at least five Connected sparks is called an EMPEROR. They can control multiple worlds with ease.

Victor felt his mouth go dry as he read this.

All the lords he encountered until now were Triangle lords. Third rank… If Alpha was really a lord, she would be a Singularity Lord, the weakest kind!

He flipped the page.

ATTAINING SPARKS

• FIND A PLACE WHERE A CONCEPT IS CONCENTRATED. THERE IS A TINY CHANCE A SPARK MIGHT BE BORN
• KILL PEOPLE WHO HOLD A SPECIFIC CONCEPT, IF THEY HAVE A SYSTEM SEARCH FOR THOSE WHO HAVE AN AVATAR, DESCENDANT, OR DISCIPLE. YOU WILL NEED ABOUT 10~20 OF THEM TO COLLECT ONE SPARK. DEPENDS ON COMPATIBILITY.
• KILL A NATURAL LORD, HE WOULD DROP ALL OF HIS SPARKS (THIS WILL NOT WORK ON SYSTEM LORDS AS THEIR SPARK ARE VIRTUAL)
• THE COLLECTION METHOD: FIND A FEW DISCIPLES, GIVE THEM A PART OF YOUR POWER, AND MAKE THEM MEDITATE TO GROW IT UP THINKING THAT THEY MIGHT BECOME LORDS SOMEDAY THEN SACRIFICE THEM ALL TO THE SYSTEM THAT WILL RETURN PART OF THE CONCEPTS TO YOU AS YOU ARE THEIR MASTER! ( THE BENEFIT OF THIS METHOD IS THAT YOU WOULD BE USING YOUR OWN SPARK AS A SEED FOR THE NEW SPARK, ALLOWING MAXIMUM COMPATIBILITY!)

“Hsss….” Victor gasped reading this. Rosette was in danger! That bitch storm lord was only using her!

This changed everything about what he planned to do.

It seemed like he needed to make a new backup plan to smuggle his family out of this place!