Chapter Thirty Five

"Let me out of here, you assholes!"

"Will she ever shut up?" Selena rubbed at her temples. The girl that followed Rukil had been banging on the walls of her prison for nearly two days. The house shook when she used an earth based ability to try and separate a wall from the room, and many other attempts at escaping, all that resulted in failure.

"Probably not." Rukil took a drag from his smoke, blowing it up in the air as he lay down on the couch. "She's been a bit of a short fuse for a while now, this is just making her blow." He chuckled, then he stared up at the smoke cloud. "She wasn't always like this though."

"So maybe it's time for us to figure out what happened." Jason walked in from the hallway. He wore his blue jeans, but was toweling off his bare chest from a shower.

"Looks like someone's been hitting the gym. Those punching bags have to be punching back." Rukil swung his legs over and sat up, putting the smoke out in an ash tray, then putting the whole thing in his inventory.

Jason's body was not what it once was. Where he had an athletic yet lazy build before, it was as if his muscles were carved from granite now. "Yeah, we're almost ready to start now." He looked at Selena who nodded her head. She didn't seem all that surprised at his gains. He had been going hard at the dungeons for weeks now, gaining every extra stat he could. When he added all the extra stat points he had saved, he would equal a late one hundred leveler.

"And what exactly is the plan, anyway?" Rukil asked.

"I've been wondering the same thing." An annoyed Steve walked in the other entrance to the living room. "We've been here for a month now. While I'm impressed by your increase in power, I bet you'd only fare well enough against the lowest ranks in the guild. What do you plan to do?"

"Nothing much." Jason smirked. "I'm just going to start at the weakest link and work my way up the chain." When no one responded, he continued. "We know that the Blood Pact has members all over the world. We also know where most of their strongholds are now, thanks to Rukil."

"Most is a bit of an overstatement." Rukil raised his hand. "I was the lowest of the low, remember?" He lit another smoke.

Jason raised an eyebrow. 'Would it be possible for a leveler to die of lung cancer?' He thought. 'If so, would he just come back to die of lung cancer again, or would he be cured of it?'

"Hey!" Rukil snapped his fingers a few times. "Stop spacing out on me." Jason brought his gaze to the man, then he continued. "Anyway, I know what to look for and who to look for. We had meetings from time to time, so I might be able to pick them out in a crowd, but we are talking about a lot of outposts."

"What's the purpose of the outposts?" Jason asked. He had been wondering this for a while. He knew that they were mostly for recruiting, which Rukil confirmed. But apparently they were also financial reserves.

"I don't know if you know this, but there's actually a financial cap in a bank account."

"Yeah, it's at ten billion." Steve said.

"You really have been around the block a few times." Rukil raised an eyebrow. "But yeah, it's at ten billion. That includes guild reserves. So what happens when you and all of your friends reach the cap? You create a guild, then fill it until it also reaches the cap. After that, you can't increase any further. So, you take some money out and invest it." His eyes lit up at this. "I saw the inside of one of these outposts before. They are lavish mansions. They bring new recruits there to show them what their futures looked like if they served faithfully."

"So, all the outposts are decked out mansions?" Jason was intrigued.

"Yeah, but not just that." Rukil smiled. "They only invest in all things physical. Remember when gold hit an all time high last year?" Everyone looked at him blankly.

"Last year, I was in a void, so no." Selena said.

"Well, it went up because a decent amount of the gold reserves were purchased by the guild. But it's not just gold. I saw them open a vault in the mansion when I visited. It was crammed full with gold ingots, magical weapons and jewelry."

"So, if we beat the outpost members..." Jason smiled.

"Then we can begin a financial catastrophe for the Blood Pact. And with so many outposts, they won't know which ones we will hit."

"If all the extra wealth they've amassed isn't exactly currency, what would stop them from just putting it all in their inventory, or in instanced housing?" Jason asked.

"Currency is what you think it is. If it holds monetary value, the system recognizes it for what it is. That's why the corporation has to have physical locations outside of Mage's Academy. There's only so much they can cheat."

"So the best way to beat them is to financially cripple them?

"I doubt that'd be possible." Jason looked at Selena. "All of the assets within the outposts are extra funds they can't keep in the bank. At most, we can fill our reserves in order to fight on the same playing field. Maybe even bring some levelers to our side when we begin our own expansion."

"And he gets it!" Rukil drummed his fingers on an imaginary drum. "I knew I chose to stay here for a reason."

"So, where's the first place to start?"

"Where's a place so miserable, no one would ever want to go?" Rukil took another puff of his smoke, blowing a cloud up into the air.

"My guess is Antarctica." Jason said. "If most levelers can survive the elements like we can, then I'd have an outpost made up somewhere that the world couldn't see."

"That's pretty accurate." Rukil brought out a map and put it on the coffee table. He pointed towards Antarctica. "More specifically, Cape Denison."

"Those insane bastards." Steve muttered under his breath.

"Right you are, my very old new friend." He pointed at the northernmost point of Antarctica. "The stronghold is fifty feet under the earth, the entrance should be close to the huts."

"Huts?" Jason asked.

"You came up with Antarctica, but you know nothing about it." Rukil sighed. "Anyway, the huts were occupied in 1911 to 1914 by a Geologist and explorer. I won't go into the details, look it up if you're interested. But long story short, they recorded the area unlivable and mapped out as much of the ice caverns as they could. So the Blood Pact used their research to find the furthest cavern they reached, then they carved it out wide enough to fit a mansion inside."

"For someone who was new to the Pact, you are pretty knowledgeable." Selena walked around the room and crouched next to the map, looking where Rukil was pointing.

"Yeah well," Rukil scratched the back of his head. "I wasn't that strong in the guild, so instead I did my research. They have most of the outposts listed in their libraries, so I just read about them." He folded up the map and put it back into his inventory. "So far as I learned, the Blood Pact set up shop in every dangerous location in the world."

"Because no one would be able to find an immortal organization within dangerous territories." Steve whistled. "I'm actually impressed." He had been around a thousand years, checking any largely populated areas, but never did he think of checking the most dangerous ones. Not because he was afraid of them, but because they were mostly barren. "They must be either underground, or somehow cloaked."

"Well, get brave too." Jason clapped Rukil on the shoulder. "Because we will be hitting each and every one of them, until our banks are full, and we find Selena's father."

The workings of a plan began as Jason did exactly what Rukil had suggested. He took out his phone and began researching everything he could about Cape Denison.

"We'll need to hold off the levelers long enough for someone to search the dungeons in the basement of each stronghold. Someone else will be in charge of getting the resources. It'll be a quick in and out mission, followed by at least two weeks of rest, outside time, before we go to the next one." Jason said as he checked over some last minute details. "If anyone believes this is too dangerous, you have my permission to stay back."

All of his friends stood and looked at him. He knew he had their complete support. "Then I guess we have a plan." a half smirk played on his lips." We leave tomorrow."