I shrugged. "I just got up, remember? Did you all sleep in as long as me?"

"No, but we didn't get out of bed until just before breakfast," Jane said with a mischievous glance at Tomas, who flashed a smile in return.

Ruby shook her head. "I traded with a few of the other crafters this morning. Everyone is off to a slow start, still celebrating. The streets feel like it's Carnival, but lots of people are wondering when the next migration will start."

"I plan to visit the council soon, but first I have something very important to do."

"What?" she asked.

Nigel peeked up over the edge of the table from where he'd been napping on his chair. "Give me more steaks?"

"You just ate enough to feed a small country."

"There's always room for steak."

"Later. No, I have a couple of vaults to check out."

"Vaults?" Ruby asked. Tomas and Jane shifted closer, and even Steve blinked out of his menus to see what I was talking about.

"I didn't have time to explain about the insanity I ran into facing the Grindstone Dungeon boss. We got so distracted by Ed's broken class, then dealing with Burns's team getting captured, fighting Noctarus, and everything."

"So tell us," Tomas urged.

I did, and as I spoke about Velexis, the tier-3 demon boss who also possessed the body of Sixel, the tier-4 elf princess sword gladiator champion boss, I found an opening to explain some things I'd had to keep secret up until that point. I couldn't explain about Cyrus's experiment with me or my tier-1 upgrade specifically, but I could finally elaborate more about higher tiers and what I'd learned about the elven and demon factions.

We'd covered some of the same info with our discussion with Cyrus about those Ironwood planks I'd won from the giant Colossus. Ruby and Steve especially understood a bit about how different planets had different tiers, each 10 times stronger than the last.

Finally, Tomas exclaimed, "This is amazing! I never imagined dungeon bosses might come from other worlds too."

"Yeah, and Noctarus and Alpha came from the same planet. Those ships returned home when they teleported through the black moon."

"I thought Cyrus was just being all symbolic or something," Steve said.

Ruby laughed. "Actually, I didn't understand everything we saw either. Why would Noctarus and Alpha and their people come from another world to be bosses?"

"The rewards, of course." I explained how bosses were drawn from factions across the multiverse and agreed to limit their power down to Arasha's tier-0 like us. In exchange, they and their supporting organizations gained big rewards, including the ability to access higher-tiered areas of Arasha after the game concluded. There, they could level up adventuring parties and win unique treasures that could potentially change their entire financial positions.

"You learned all that from Velexis?" Ruby asked, frowning. "She must have had the most epic monologue of all time."

Cyrus interrupted. "Lucas asks good questions, so I explained some of this for him. Now that he's shared it with you, I have to warn you not to spread this information too far or too wide over the next 2 weeks. Most people don't need to know it yet, and you could earn some negative consequences if you talk too freely."

"Why?" Tomas asked. "How does this information hurt us? It's fascinating. Now that we're part of the multiverse, shouldn't we understand more about what the multiverse really is?"

"Yes, and you will, but all in good time. You don't toss a 6-month-old baby a t-bone steak and a knife and tell him to have fun. They're not ready for it. Most baby humans need to be nurtured a step at a time too."

"So why tell Lucas?" Jane responded.

"Because Lucas has a habit of running into situations before anyone else," Cyrus chuckled.

"And this is my team. We've already covered some of it, but the entire team needs to understand so they can keep up."

Cyrus sighed deeply. "Fine. Tell them about the things we discussed about the multiverse, but you know the line you can't cross."

"Of course."

"What did he—" Ruby started to ask, but Steve made a sharp cutting gesture across his own mouth and she got the point.

So I continued, explaining how some worlds spawned monsters, other lower-tiered worlds were pillaged for resources and suffered like Earth would if we failed. Higher-tiered worlds prospered.

"Have any idea how many tiers there are?" Ruby asked, shifting her chair closer and scooping up Nigel to pet him while we talked.

"Not yet. I suspect there are more than 5 since Velexis was tier-3 and Sixel tier-4. Their worlds sounded decent, but I didn't get the sense they were the top-tiered."

I pulled out the 24 paintings I'd snagged from the entrance hallway to Velexis's giant quarters. While they all marveled over the images of alien worlds and giant combat arenas, I related my tale of meeting Velexis, then dueling Sixel, then finally killing Velexis after defeating Sixel.

"That's crazy," Jane exclaimed. "Even getting their powers suppressed down to tier-0 like you, they were so much higher leveled. Plus they must have had advantages from all that experience from other worlds."

"It was tough, and she would have definitely killed me if I hadn't gotten that Alpha title that boosted my stats so high." I couldn't specifically tell them I had already evolved to tier-1, but I could drop some hints. "I was already stronger than anyone else, so Cyrus allowed them to adjust their strength to match mine."

"That would have made them even stronger," Ruby exclaimed.

Steve's eyes narrowed and he glanced from me to the ceiling a couple times before speaking. "So they had already agreed to limit their power down to tier-0 to become bosses with levels already much higher than yours, but they got permission to adjust their power levels to match yours."

I nodded. "It made it a lot harder."

Ruby looked from me to Steve, but it was Jane who figured it out next. Her eyes widened and she started to blurt something until Steve shook his head, nodding upward and hissed, "Lines he can't cross."

Thankfully Cyrus didn't say anything about my totally-not-subtle process of revealing things to them. If I didn't say it out loud, could he punish us? Hopefully he was too invested in the experiment with me to react with extreme violence.

"So yeah, once they adjusted their power levels, we fought."

"And they were still like 50 levels higher than you?" Tomas exclaimed.

He too looked like he'd figured it out. Ruby's frown suddenly evaporated and she gasped, eyes wide as understanding struck. She'd gotten that boost to her Constitution equal to 10% of mine, so she knew better than anyone how insanely high my stats were compared to theirs.

Now they knew. Or at least, they suspected the truth. Knowing they knew was like a great weight lifted from my heart. Now things would make sense for them, and hopefully I could find ways to impart more about evolving to tier-1 and help them prepare for a better evolution when they got close to level 80 or so. Hopefully they could get there before we faced Marisara up on stage 4.

I continued. "Without my Alpha title boost, she would have killed me in a heartbeat. Even so, it was crazy tough. I barely survived."

It felt good to relate the tale of how I'd pushed myself to the limits and won only by a bit of trickery at the end.

"You nearly died," Ruby breathed, reaching out to place her warm hand over mine.

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"It was close. Then Velexis appeared, and she was pissed!"

After explaining how I defeated the demon, I showed them her terrifying scythe with its soul-sucking power. They all recoiled from it.

"You went through all that, and then had to go straight from there to deal with Noctarus?" Tomas asked. "How did you not just keel over from exhaustion?"

"Why do you think I slept until noon?"

"Noon of the same day!" Ruby interjected. "I would have slept for a week."

"We don't have a week." Rubbing my hands together, I added, "I survived, and to the victor go the spoils."

When I explained about how I got the two vaults from the women, then assigned them to open in my basement, Ruby said, "But you don't have a basement, do you?"

"Not yet."

"Wait, you can't access your new vaults?" Steve exclaimed, looking horrified. "That's the worst trick I've ever heard of."

"Like I said, not yet. That doesn't mean not ever." I took out the scroll with the 3 free base camp upgrades. "Jeeves, can you help me out here?"

My portly butler appeared instantly. "Of course, sir."

I waved the paper. "I need to upgrade the castle with a basement and a way to get down there and access my 2 new vaults."

"Very clever of you, sir," Jeeves said as a big, glowing menu appeared in the air next to him. It flashed several times, text flickering as he moved through menus too fast for me to read. "It appears you will only need 2 of the upgrades to complete your request. What would you like to do with your remaining upgrade?"

"Can we verify the vaults are there first?"

"Excellent point, sir." The menu flashed and disappeared and my scroll changed to show 2 of 3 upgrades spent. "If you will follow me."

Jeeves left the room with all of us hot on his polished heels. Ruby clutched my hand. "I can't wait to see vaults from higher-tiered bosses!"

"I think even you've outdone yourself this time," Steve added. Then he added in a rush, "Hold on! We need to finish our bet before you stuff your inventory with vaults full of treasure."

Oh, yeah. I'd totally forgotten about the bet about which of us would gather more loot.

"Did you get an upgraded inventory?" Ruby asked.

"Sure did," Steve grinned.

"What upgraded inventory?" Tomas asked.

"I got an upgrade making my inventory grid 50 x 50."

"And now I got the same upgrade," Steve chortled.

"I want a bigger inventory," Jane exclaimed.

"Talk to the man," Steve said with a shrug, pointing up.

"I definitely will," she promised.

"I visited the store this morning, but did not sell anything until we compare loot piles," Steve said.

I grimaced. "I actually didn't get tons of stuff, despite all the crazy death battles I fought last night. Those vaults will probably end up being the majority of the physical loot."

I'd gotten tons of mana crystals and some really good stuff, but quality over quantity wouldn't help me win the bet. I did get a ton from the Colossus, but I'd been having Jeeves regularly sell off my loot over the past few days. If Steve had been holding onto all of his, he could have stockpiled a lot.

"Then this is definitely the time to call the bet due," Steve said.

"When's the last time you sold stuff?" Ruby objected.

"Doesn't matter. The bet never set a time limit or insisted we had to sell at the same time," Steve said.

"He's right." This was not looking good. I honestly didn't care who won the bet, except for the fact that the winner got a kiss from Ruby. She and I had reached a good place in our relationship, agreeing to keep things light for now. I loved our easy companionship, but still hated to miss a kiss, even if it was just a fun, meaningless one from the stupid bet.

"So, let's see the loot," Jane urged.

Steve returned to the long table, which was already spotless. Jeeves had cleared away breakfast in an instant. Steve started dumping loot onto the table and the pile grew and then grew some more until it filled the entire table. The huge pile was a mishmash of tons of stuff, including random furniture and junk that looked like it came from the goblin cave in the Grindstone dungeon. Also, tons of zombie breastplates and weapons, along with empty bottles and casks and crates that looked like they came from Sam's tavern.

Ruby stared, Jane shook her head, and Tomas laughed. "That's the biggest pile of junk I've seen since crash-landing on this planet."

Steve shrugged, tossing a final dented tin cup onto the top of the pile. "We never bet who could end up with the best loot, just the most loot."

"You picked up everything, didn't you?" Ruby accused.

"Absolutely. Even sent some clones to scour the battlefield after Noctarus sailed away last night."

I couldn't help laughing. His pile rivaled the huge piles of loot I'd unloaded on Sythrak the first time we visited the store. I'd accumulated all of that over days of constant hunting. Steve's pile was like he'd walked around like a living vacuum. Foolish, maybe, but it worked.

"I don't have nearly as much loot to sell. I think you win."

Ruby shrugged and gave me an apologetic smile. "Always check the fine print, eh?"

Steve clapped his hands together loudly, laughing. "Ha! I beat Lucas at his own game!"

"Yeah, I bet you can sell the entire pile for at least 1 tier-0 mana crystal."

"If I'm lucky," he said with a grin, then turned to Ruby and threw his arms out wide. "Come on prize!"

She rolled her eyes. "Good thing Susan's not around to see how excited you are to get a kiss from another woman."

Tomas and Jane laugh as Ruby took a deep breath and marched up to Steve, her expression resolute. "The sacrifices I make in the name of fun."

"Hey!" Steve objected.

She winked and said, "Congratulations, Steve. You win."

She leaned forward to kiss his cheek, but he suddenly recoiled, pushing her back and said, "On second thought, I cede the contest. Lucas, you win."

"What?" Ruby exclaimed as the rest of us laughed.

It was Steve's turn to wink. "The look on your face is priceless, Ruby. No offense, but a kiss from you would be like a kiss from my sister. I just wanted to mess with you. Go kiss the guy you've been hungry to kiss for days."

"Hey, we have an arrangement," she protested, flushing a little.

Steve gave her a serious look. "As if you haven't dreamed of this moment when you can kiss Lucas while still pretending you only want to be friends."

"You'll never change."

He chuckled. "Of course not. This is too much fun. Now skedaddle."

"Nicely played," Jane said.

Steve's smile widened. "Want to help me pick up all this mess?"

"That's on you," she said.

Steve sighed. "Jeeves? Think you can take all this to Sythrak and see if he'll offer anything for it?"

Jeeves appeared. "It is more likely he will require you to pay a disposal fee, but I will inquire for you."

"Leverage all that good will he's got for Lucas," Steve suggested.

"Hey, that's not nice," I objected. I didn't want to put Sythrak's enthusiasm at risk. He was giving us great deals.

Steve made a dismissive gesture. "Once you drop off 2 vaults full of loot on his doorstep, he'll forgive this little chore."

"I will apprise him of the imminent arrival of better items," Jeeves promised, then disappeared, along with all the loot, leaving the table spotless.

Ruby crossed to me, leaned in, and gave me a chaste little peck on the cheek. "Congratulations, mighty looter. You win."

"Your enthusiasm is totally motivating," I responded, keeping it light, despite a noted acceleration to my heart rate. I pushed it aside. Not yet the time for that.

"That's it?" Tomas blurted.

"Like she said, we've got an arrangement."

Part of me would have loved a good, long kiss, but not with that audience, and not yet. Two more weeks and we'd save Earth. Then we'd have time to figure things out. "Jeeves? How do we get into that basement."

Jeeves appeared and gestured us toward the hallway leading toward the front of the castle. I expected to find a new closet or something, with stairs down, but instead we climbed to my master suite. There a new door had appeared in one wall. Steve chuckled the entire way.

"Your digs are sweet," Jane breathed, looking around in wonder. "Why haven't you showed it off before?"

"No time. I've got 4 more smaller suites up here too. Check out the tub."

When she peeked into the bathroom, she grinned. "You've got to let me and Tomas borrow this."

"Not now," Steve said, rolling his eyes. "Vaults, remember?"

"How does an upstairs door lead down to the basement?" Ruby asked as Jeeves paused in front of the door.

"A convenience feature, my lady. Normal physical spaces are easily rearranged inside spatially-adjusted structures such as this."

"Makes sense," I said, although it really didn't. Sure, the castle was many times bigger on the inside, but up and down had seemed pretty consistent with the real world until now.

Jeeves pushed open the door to reveal a well-lit staircase 8 feet wide descending a short flight to a high-ceilinged stone chamber that should have been sitting pretty much in the same place as the living room. We descended to find a plain room as large as half the downstairs.

"So we're below the castle now?" Steve asked, tapping the walls to see if they were really solid stone.

"If that is how you wish to think of it," Jeeves said.

I didn't care. I was too focused on the two huge shiny steel vault doors facing each other across the room, one embedded in each side wall. Small golden plaques hung on the stone over each door. One read "Sixel Elaris", the other "Velexis Shadrael."

"Sweeeet," I breathed as I headed for Velexis's vault.

Jeeves surprised me by stepping in front of me and holding up one hand. "Pardon me, sir. If I may, there are two matters that require your attention prior to opening the vaults."

"Really?" Did I have to sign off the upgrade or something?

"The first may be delayed if you wish. It is the matter of the final upgrade. Once you chose your first two upgrades, the final upgrade must be chosen within 10 minutes or it will expire."

"I never noticed that."

"As is fitting the lord of this castle. Such mundane matters are mine to deal with."

"Well, we proved we have access to the vaults."

I thought for a moment, and Jeeves helped by bringing up the big menu again, showing the list of all possible upgrades. I scanned them and made my choice.

"Upgrade the castle defensive roof battery."

"Very good, sir."

"Can you add a ship's wheel to the roof too? Either get one from the store or use one from the ships I have in those bottles."

"Excellent choice, sir."

"Why?" Ruby asked. "A ship's wheel? This is a castle, not a ship."

"Call it a memorial to this stage."

"Fitting," Steve said with a shrug. "Now can we get on with the vaults?"

Jeeves said, "That leads to the second item that requires your attention, my lord. If you will allow it, Sythrak urgently requests that you allow him to come and speak with you here immediately."

"Sythrak?" The Krysanthimus lizard man was my personal sales representative at the system store. With my tier-5 VIP access, I rated far better rates along with a personal sales rep.

He was very helpful and I suspected I'd made him a lot of money, but coming to the castle was a first for him. Honestly, Jeeves did more of the transactions with him than I did now. How badly had Steve's pile of trash offended him?

"Yes, sir. I just received a communique from him. He wishes to discuss the vaults before you open them. His message stated the matter is quite urgent."

"So you did tell him that we'd be cracking open the vaults soon?"

"Indeed, sir."

Had that been a good idea? I couldn't imagine any issues from the store over high-quality loot.

I shrugged. "Now I'm curious. Jeeves, please invite Sythrak to join us at his earliest convenience."

"Very good, sir."

I turned back to the vaults and rubbed my hands together. Marching up to the smooth, shining metal door I added, "It won't matter if we take just a peek."

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