Riveting Night appeared in Vita City-State with a group of beauties. All the men and women currently using the Portal Center here stopped to enjoy this sight.
There was Zaine, the s.e.xy devil that made one's hormones rage, Roma the exotic gypsy whose body looked supple and flexible, Hikari the princess-like angel who was the most beautiful of them all - since they couldn't see Eva - and three other women who most NPCs here had never seen before.
However, many players gasped when they saw these three women. NPCs may not know them, but how could they not? These three were popular pro gamers who had hundreds of males watching their streams at all times.
The Three Pinnacles of Darkrow! Darkrow may not be on the level of Umbra, which was a household name, but it was the difference between a powerful nouveau riche and an ancient business family.
For them to be with Riveting Night and Draco's well-known women… could it be?!
Once the thought entered their minds, it was like electricity shocking them. That Draco fellow had captured these three babes to be added to his enviable harem? The whole Three Pinnacles?
Holy Shit!
These women had countless male fans who sent them gifts and love letters every day, and many more dropped their hard-earned salary onto them during their streams to show their love.
If they were to find out, wouldn't they crucify Draco brutally?
However, Riveting Night took her group away, so these aimless people could only speculate idly for a while before moving on with their own tasks.
Soon, Riveting Night's group reached the Guild Hall of Vita City-State. It was a given that one would be built here as well, as they couldn't let everyone into the Aether Hall and they couldn't have everyone go to Cario City all the time.
This one was Rank 4, which was the highest tier of building that Vita City-State could support organically at this stage. Once it rose to a Kingdom, it could naturally break the limit and soar higher.
Riveting Night led the three ladies to the registration counter and the serf players of Umbra who managed this task quickly added their names to the guild roster as core members.
After these received their emblems and whatnot, Riveting Night silently brought them to the Aether Hall. Under her guidance, they were led to the administrative office where Sublime lived and worked.
When the Three Pinnacles saw Sublime, their eyes lit up, especially Hera. Sublime also stopped her work and came to hug her three friends happily.
They sat down and began chatting about various matters, so Riveting Night decided to bid them farewell as she and her group had different tasks to handle.
"What's the plan now, Eldest Sis?" Roma asked curiously, gently carrying a sleeping Rosella.
"Since Draco is not here, I have to finally put some groundwork down. I skipped that for reasons you know and understand, but I can't continue to do so anymore." Riveting Night answered.
The three beauties shared a look and nodded. They understood what Riveting Night meant and why she skipped her duties, as they could certainly relate.
But exactly what duty did she want to perform right now?
"Are we going to fight?" Hikari asked quizzically.
"Not really fight, but establish. Follow me and I'll show you more." Riveting Night clarified, pulling her hood down.
"For this, I'll need the help of you three. Your abilities will help me streamline the process perfectly." Eva said seriously.
Zaine smiled languidly. "Worry not, Eva. With us here, your goals will be realized."
Eva nodded. She then led the group down into the bowels of the Aether Hall. Despite being extremely curious as to what she wanted to do, they also followed quietly.
As such, they were brought into a spare room in the Aether Hall that had never been purposefully allocated. In fact, it was a really small room compared to the others, just barely enough to be an office.
The room was in a blank state, and this made Eva pleased. She then clapped her hands, which summoned her target, Vitae. The Aetheric Avatar bowed to her regally and inquired upon her will.
"Please help me refurbish this room according to my instructions." Eva requested.
"Your will is my command, Empress." Vitae answered.
After that, Eva began having him spawn chairs, tables, and a strange screen on the wall of the room. It began to resemble a mixture of an office and lounge, almost like the Commission Room of the Guild Hall.
After the furnishing was done, Eva finally activated her Tradeskill that was of utmost importance but had seen very little use due to her lack of motivation in Draco's presence.
Intelligence!
｢Intelligence – Epic Tradeskill
Effect: Learn how to create a perfect intelligence network that can never be detected and covers the entire world.｣
Immediately as she activated it, Eva was brought into a unique realm. Just like when Draco first activated Tactics, Eva was shown a blank space that had nothing except endless whiteness.
An orb slowly bobbed over to her, and it looked similar to Sofia and Satine, only that its body was yellow and its lens was purple, unlike Sofia who was black and red while Satine was green and blue.
"Greetings, Director. I am the Special Tool for Evaluation, Verification, Estimation, and Neo-Espionage. You can call me Steven. How can I assist you?"
With Draco already telling her about how his own Epic Tradeskill(s) worked, Eva was able to re-design her Personal Office into a pattern that mirrored the one outside.
Once she had finished the aesthetic aspects of the Personal Office, she then sat at the desk and questioned Steven on the workings of the Tradeskill.
"Director, the Personal Office exists to allow you to build and control your own intelligence network that spans across the world. It cannot directly manifest such facilities, but pave the way for you to do so easily based on your own scope of knowledge."
Eva nodded. She had guessed that Tactics and Intelligence were similar in many aspects. Both required input to work, and did not manifest effects directly in the real world, but allowed one to control the situation like a computer… or a god.
A giant screen appeared before Eva, showing the map of the world based on her available memories. She noticed that this map was up to date, which was natural, as she had researched the world's map in this life.
(Author's Note: Available memories in this situation is referring to those that are present when she plays the game. The AI can but will not read her out-of-game memories due to their current relationship. Also, it simply cannot read the previous timeline's memories unless Draco and Eva share it orally.)
The world was demarcated zone by zone, kingdom by kingdom. Even the sea zones were not spared, and so too were all other misc zones that were not found in the traditional maps.
Each zone was marked as a 'sector' on the map, and each of them had numbers attached. So for example, Vita City-State was marked as Sector-0001. The zones near it were Sector-0002, Sector-0003 and so on, up to the edge of the known world, which was Sector-9341.
Interestingly, Sector-0101 and beyond were marked as grey. Sector-0002 to Sector-0100 were marked as red and Sector-0001 was marked as yellow.
"Each sector is a zone where a department can be installed. You must find a suitable candidate with the requisite skills to manage that department while they slowly establish a network within the sector." Steven slowly explained.
"The color code for each of them represents your progress in developing your organization's network in each sector. Red means that no progress has been made. Yellow indicates that only a percentage of the foundation has been put down."
"Green means that the foundation is solid, and the network is expanding. Blue means the network is complete and functional."
"Gray means that at your current Tradeskill Rank, you cannot manage more sectors that carry this number. At the Amateur Rank, you can only manage 100 sectors."
Eva nodded silently. "So, why is this sector currently yellow?"
"That is because you have only completed one of the two foundational processes. To get a zone from gray to red requires you to increase your Tradeskill Rank. To get a zone from red to yellow requires you to complete one of the two foundational processes."
"To get a zone from yellow to green requires you to complete both foundational processes. To get a zone from green to blue requires the completion of all additional processes."
Eva listened to Steven's explanation quietly. As he spoke, the screen changed to reflect the matter he was speaking about. Currently, it showed two things, one was the icon of a building and the other was the icon of a person.
"The foundational processes are the implementation of a department and the appointment of a qualified head."
"This requires you to obtain construction rights in each sector to build the department, as well as a local resident of the sector who has the appropriate skills to manage the department in terms of resources, information gathering, agent training, and espionage."
"As for the additional processes, they are varied. Once the department head is appointed and they are recognized by the Personal Office, they will receive a list of tasks to complete in order to get things up and running. These tasks vary depending on the skills of the department head as well as their locational circ.u.mstances."
Eva frowned. It sounded simple, but it was difficult. Really, really difficult.
She needed to obtain construction rights to each zone, but how could that be easy? Even with her Herald's badge making her an Empress, it was just to bully others and act as a deterrence.
What Empire does she have? Where is her army? None of that was present. It was impossible to try bullying or manhandling her, but she could not bully or manhandle everyone else.
Weaker kingdoms would bend, but empires like Godmar or the Continental Councils would ignore her. Weren't they also of the same Rank or higher?
Not to mention, some areas were unclaimed Field Zones. To claim the right to build on them required a formal process and once she did that, Vita would be forcibly expanded beyond what they could control.
Just this one City-State that could expand at will was still being developed upon, much less of she added new Field Zones. Other powers who resented Draco, like those Rank 7 ones or Voila, could send their underlings to destroy everything she builds there and seize the zones.
However, Eva smirked when she remembered something Umbra had acquired after upgrading Vita City-State.
｢Frontiersmen – Special Rank (Umbra only)
All locations encountered by the owner are added to the shared map of Umbra and can be conquered by your members without the need for reputation with the owner, as long as a Settlement Building Token is present.｣
This would allow her to skip all the troublesome processed and construct a department in each sector silently. A department did not need to be in a settlement, it could be a building in between trees for all that mattered, so she wouldn't need a Settlement Building Token for this.
As for the appointment of different heads, Eva once again smiled. If one was hoping to get NPCs to perform these tasks it would be very difficult, with players? Too easy.
She just had to gather everyone with an assassin/rogue/thief class and give them certain Tradeskill books for free, like Tracking, Management, Negotiation, etc.
This was the advantage of being a player over an NPC. Of course, she wouldn't put untrustworthy or incompetent louts there. She had many candidates to fill in these spots.
Thinking like this, Eva left the Personal Office briefly, sending a message to all her viable candidates to gather at the Rank 7 Guild Hall, except one.