Filling The Gaps

Edrick had grown tired of the cycle of depravity he had put in place, it was nice at first, but this had all quickly reminded him of why the greater portion of his career had not been made up of ceaseless repetitions, Anoteros was a thrill seeker, thriving off the fear, the disgust his actions caused.

It was why he had made-up false identities to taunt the authorities with, but even then, sticking to a predetermined script and imagined personality quickly became stale, diversity was a must, confrontation, purposefully exposing himself to failure and elements of uncertainty that had on many occasions nearly brought him down in the past.

Forming connections and destroying them after years, moulding adversaries- Nemeses for himself, but unfortunately, Edrick Lucien Anoteros had been a creature above his fellow men and none could really hold up that role without him actively allowing for it, and this was excessively boring, contrivance, when those he targeted gave up or crumbled rapidly.

He wasn't preying on them for sustenance, it was sport and like an athlete without peers, Edrick always stood on top.

This was one of the reasons why he had been so eager to bear witness to the afterlife, having already pushed the limits in the old world, hungry for a new challenge, something different.

Irandelle must have been well aware of it, no matter how sketchy, a dead Edrick would not care much for the details, be it lakes of brimstones and or a whole new world, anything that could break the monotony was welcome.

Like a little child, Anoteros had recreated his early days, back in that hidden little mines, during that childhood frolic, during which he would lure many to that forsaken, comfortable place, mostly those he found attractive in some way of course, he had been at the height of hormones after all.

In this world however, the women did not feel particularly different, at least those that were available showed no distinctive traits, the most fun that was to be had with them was putting his new body to use and learning about it, the acts themselves of a pretty poor quality.

Tormenting Linmin in more obscure manners was also nothing too unusual, and the servant was much too agreeable from the get-go, that was only interesting when the target had begun as an opposing force, but the yellow-haired man had the advantage of being useful at least.

Everyone loved useful people, especially those that were so submissive.

As such, he eventually stopped requesting for deliveries to be made, instead focusing on learning how to properly read and write the language, speaking was alright as Zixuan had at least known that, but the miscreant had skipped on knowledge alongside everything else.

Books and other written manuscripts were not all that common in this technologically deprived world, which was understandable, if anyone was told that lobbing fireballs and sword fights at mach three were possible by doing some energy-nonsense, few would bother with mechanics and purely scientific work.

Researching the thousands of different supernatural forces and methods in existence took priority.

His days rythmed by learning, eating, training and going down into the little town he was the lord of to taunt the families of the goods he had received, after all, he still wanted to get boons from his system and Linmin had to be put to work instead of constantly used to this end.

The people here were emaciated, often times rather small due to malnutrition, pathetic was a good word to describe them, they were useful to be taken advantage of, but truly, they did not bring in a penny through taxes, which Edrick had risen, or rather, he had added nonsensical taxes to push them all to making outrageously specific changes.

Such as a tax based on the number of windows they possessed for those with a home, which predictably led to them blocking all of their windows and living in the dark, he had never bothered to earn himself a high position of power in his past life, and indeed, spitting in the face of commoners was very much a hilarious activity.

This little stunt had earned him quite a few of those intel-to-inhale in fact, it seemed like being a corrupt lord that financially abused his population was worse than one who physically did so, or perhaps it was the quantity affected, but it was funnier to think that the first option was true.

Smiling with satisfaction as he thought of his deeds, he was seeing much progress in his studies to become literate, it wasn't too difficult for him, he had lived in many countries and had learned the languages, truly incredible how many people would feel like you were a great person just for learning to arrange sounds like them.

There were quite a few tongues on the continent, but this one was the most widespread, the Nimeri it was called, very blocky and probably allergic to curves, it didn't require much dexterity, way too much punctuation though.

Keeping his door open, Linmin slipped into the room after a small knock.

"I am sorry, My Lord- I was unable to procure any cultivation manuals or anything similar" he stated after moving right next to Anoteros.

"You're a brave soul, you know that?" Edrick didn't even need to rise from his seat to put his hand on Linmin's head, if wanted, he could just clutch the entirety of it and probably pop it like a rotten watermelon, or maybe not, since his servant seemed a little combat knowledgeable.

"Thanks, My Lord"

"Say, have you practised cultivation? I can't seem to remember ever asking"

"No Sir, I am only trained in a single battle art and some simple swordsmanship!" still with his lord's atrociously big hand over his head and face, he responded without a single tremble.

"I see, what is that battle art?" although cultivation was the most famous method around, it was but one method to acquire greater power in a sea of countless ones.

Battle arts were also rather popular, in essence, it was just, read about a series of instructions, learn to perform them and boom, special effects once you perform that series, in its barest form, it could allow one to perform extraordinary acts without any costs, but in practice, since it wasn't the dominant thing around, there weren't any masters and everyone just passed around the same techniques that may or may not have been created by ancient amateurs from times during which battle arts were more popular, and thus, the conditions and actions could grow rather steep for the arts that were actually impressive.

"It's pretty simple, if I spin my blade thrice counterclockwise, whilst standing still in front of an opponent, I get one use of an illusion that makes it look like I swung when I didn't… Ah, but that single use expire after five minutes"

"Mmh, show me"

Removing his hands, but making sure to drag his fingers across Linmin's face for maximum discomfort, he stood up, Edrick had been making practises but was absolutely not used to moving fast and fighting with this new body, whilst superior to his old one, the physical differences were drastic, so although he could probably knock someone out with a well-aimed punch, the surgical precision and expertise was not quite there.

"Certainly, but only a demonstration right?"

"No, you have to slash me"

"But-"

"If you don't…" he pointed to the bed.

"As you wish, My Lord"