The room is left with just ten new B-Class hunters standing in a line, and the Regional Directors stare at the empty spot where Emrie and I just left.
Brutus, the Regional Director of the Vice Region, is the first to break the silence.
"Is this a joke? He may have come in first place in this year's ranking, but to become a Regional Director at such a young age? What kind of demand is this?"
More whispers fill the room.
"Wouldn't he just be happy with the opportunity to become an A-Class hunter? That position is given out once a decade at most, and he's throwing away a priceless position!"
"A backwater Region brat gets a taste of power and thinks he is owed the world..."
"Unacceptable, that position should have been offered to a Vice or Veridian applicant in the first place..."
The insults and whispers are silenced by Mr. Freeman's next words.
I materialize onto the transport platform beneath the guildhall in the Crimson City with the Lich King by my side and immediately un-summon him.
Due to the sacrifice of his remains and the contract of the ritual, I feel his presence in my shadow. At any time, I can reactivate my Dark Magic, and he will appear in the same exact condition as before.
I plan on utilizing his knowledge as a Divine Beast in the near future, but I have a few more pressing matters to attend to.
Once I make my way out of the bunker and into the guildhall, I change my appearance to that of an unrecognizable ordinary citizen.
The workers who see me come out of the bunker know that only authorized personnel in my close circle have access to those crystals, and I make sure to alert my nearest body double on duty that I've made it back in one piece.
I do a scan of the city and am happy to see Bri is just one floor above me in a brand-new office inside the guildhall. She's started doing blood-bonded imbuements and special orders for wealthy clients and Crimson Army members.
My body doubles power-leveled her far past level 2000 in the Labyrinth while I was gone, upgrading her craftsmanship skill to mythic grade. While her mana control is not up to par with the level she's grown to, that isn't necessary in this line of work.
Instead of checking on her or any of my teammates, I head straight to the canyon of dungeons to catch up on lost time from the month that I've been gone.
While my doubles have been able to farm new dungeons and acquire new skills for me, they don't have the capabilities to produce skill orbs. Just in case any of these unique dungeons in the Talton Region or Sector 3 break soon, I want to stock up while I can.
Zipping through dungeon after dungeon, making orb copies of these new skills takes about an hour of my time. In the process, I visit other dungeons with more common skills like body hardening, swordsmanship, dagger mastery, and all of the elemental skills to make a small stockpile for a new business venture idea that's been floating around in the back of my mind.
It is a simple process to use my lifesteal skill and activate my mythic grade absorption perk while channeling soul energy into the activation to create an orb. As the process is rather repetitive, I begin to go down my list of new skills to test them now that I have the time and open space to do so.
I open my status to look over the ten newly acquired skills.
[Imbuement][Mythic Grade]
[Barrier Creation][Mythic Grade]
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[Flight][Mythic Grade]
[Area Buff][Mythic Grade]
[Mind Palace][Mythic Grade]
[Astral Spears][Mythic Grade]
[Flash Step][Mythic Grade]
[Call of The Void][Mythic Grade]
[Crystal Creation][Mythic Grade]
[Heavy Hand][Mythic Grade]
A few of them are self-explanatory. [Flash Step] is a movement speed buff that works in short bursts, granting up to 255% speed and agility similar to extreme speed.
I stop the turtle with a single finger against its forehead, draining its HP with lifesteal while it flails around, then take its skill orb.
Next, I summon a new body double that already knows exactly what to do.
I give it all of the excess common and elemental skill orbs that I've farmed today, and it uses one of my transport crystals to head back to see Bri in her new 2nd floor workshop at the guildhall.
Meanwhile, I crush a teleport crystal to Valor City, looking forward to seeing my teammates who saved our growing empire from destruction while I was gone.