In Flamefair, one of the dukedoms of kingdom Kethen was an imposing milky white building built with marble stones. The building was located near the avenue that led to Flamefair duke Avon's villa. From the street, a set of paved stairs led up to a set of burnished golden doors. The doors were flanked by an elf in a uniform of scarlet and gold. This was the entrance to the Grand Spire Bank Flamefair branch. Before leaving for Akilan Realm, he had to deposit a percentage of his wealth. By doing so, he would get a paycube which was similar to a credit card on earth. Since he agreed to become the leader of the Thusian Alchemy Guild, Calvin insisted he open an account in Grand Spire Bank so they could transfer his monthly payment without any delay.
"Nice" Michael nodded in approval looking at the bank before him. This building could not scream 'wealthy' any louder. The stairs led into a small entrance hall and another set of doors. The door frame and the handles were made of pure gold. He chose not to stare at the elves at the door because he did not want to be seen as a noob who had never seen an elf in his life before.
Through these doors, also flanked with elves, was a vast marble hall with long counters stretching along its length with doors leading off to the vault passageways with around a hundred elves and dwarves sitting at them. The vaults extended for miles under the city and were accessible through rough stone, complex and interconnected passageways by means of magic pushcarts that were operated by dwarves. Rumor had that a dragon a lurk in the depths of each branch as additional security devices.
"Lord Ghost" Just after passing through the door, he was called by a youngster wearing sky blue robes. He was fanning himself with a matching blue fan and when he saw Ghost, he grinned ear to ear which seemed pretty forced.
"You must be the one Calvin sent" Michael shook the youngster's hand,
"It's an honor to meet you Lord Ghost, I am Liang Li"
"Lead the way, Li" said Michael as the youngster walked towards an elf sitting on the far end counter in the hall. He heard about elves being innately beautiful but when he saw the girl before him, he realized beautiful was an understatement. Her skin was sparkling smooth, the golden hair looked as though each strand of hair was made of gold.
"Mister Li, Lord Ghost. Please be seated" the elf said with a heartwarming smile,
"You know me?" asked Ghost in doubt.
The elf nodded, "it's our task to learn about potential clients Lord Ghost"
"Cool"
"Now Lord Ghost, Mister Li. How can I be of assistance?"
Michael looked at the name board on the table before her. The name 'Vanya Valric' was written on the board in beautiful calligraphy.
"Miss Valric. You said it's your task to learn about your potential clients. So I assume you know about my two businesses"
The elf nodded once again as Michael continued,
"Until now im dealing without pay cubes but it's not- how do you say, professional and convenient" Michael was just saying this for the sake of conversation. The bank took pride in keeping the contents stored in their vaults safe and secure. However, security was not a concern to Michael as he stored his gold coins in system storage which was the most secure place he could think of.
The reason Michael decided to open an account was because of Calvin and for the ease of transferring coins. To this day, when he purchases something for a hundred thousand gold coins, for example, he had to give a hundred thousand gold coins physically. That meant, stacks made of gold coins so high would appear and the seller or the owner had to count the coins. This process was tedious. If he had pay cubes, on the other hand, he could just transfer the gold coins in his Grand Spire bank account to another account easily in a few seconds.
"To be honest Lord Ghost, I don't know how you managed until now without a paycube. It's a must for a business with a caliber like yours. You have made the right choice by coming here. I would suggest you open a VIP account rather than a normal account, Lord Ghost" the elf suggested,
"Let me explain the key benefits, Lord Ghost. Transferring funds in your account from one continent to another will be done within a day. If you wish to transfer items such as artifacts, paintings etcetera etcetera, we will handle the security so you can be at ease. Another benefit that you would be interested in more is our tax reduction"
"What is that?" asked Michael,
"Currently, if your monthly income is more than 10million, you will have to pay tax to each kingdom your revenue flows through. 40% of your income will go to paying taxes. But if you are a VIP account holder in our bank, your income will be directed to your grand spire account and your taxes will be reduced to 30%. You will save 10% and Lord Ghost, that's not a small percentage "
The last part got him. He hated paying taxes and filling the bellies of nobles in each kingdom. If Gaya was here, she would have jumped the gun and said okay right away after hearing the elf. His current monthly income was somewhere between 12- 14 million including his 2 million monthly paycheck from Thusian Alchemy Guild.
"Miss Valric. I heard how secure your bank is"
"But you want to see how secure" the elf cut Michael's sentence.
"It'll be better if I show you instead of explaining Lord Ghost. Shall we?" the elf stood up, gesturing at Michael and Li to follow her.
"Great" Michael was kinda excited. As the elf turned around to lead them to the vaults, he took out a Spyder from his system storage and willed it to be on his chest, sending feeds to Azazel.
At the end of the brightly lit hall was a golden door. The two elves flanking the door opened it to let Valric, Michael, and Li through.
In contrast to the grand marble of the entryway and the main hall, on the other side of the door, the passageways to the vaults were stone and dimly lit with flaming torches. After following Valric for a few minutes, they came to a slop where Michael saw coiling train tracks.
"Levetus" a golden cart materialized on the tracks after she uttered the word. The trio climbed onto the cart one by one and when they were settled, Valric just flicked her wrist and the cart began to run automatically.
"Whoa" Li seemed a little queasy when the cart began to accelerate significantly. The cart was taking them deep beneath the surface through the maze of twisting passages. Michael tried to get a look at their surroundings but in addition to the cart's speed, the vast, complex interconnected series of tracks prevented him from doing so.
After almost fifteen minutes of cart riding, the cart came to a halt in front of a giant door made of dark metal. The door stood at least 30meters in height and 20 meters wide.
"This is the first security measure, Lord Ghost. This door is built to withstand any magical spells cast no matter who cast the spell"
Valric sounded proud. She then placed her hand on the door and said,
"Obenta"
The ground vibrated as the door slowly creaked open. While it was opening, Michael asked,
"What if someone else said the same word. Will the door still open?"
Valric smiled, almost seeming amused by the question.
"The door has runes on it which analyze the voices of Grand Spire workers in real-time Lord Ghost. Plus, the passcode changes every minute which only the authorized personnel know"
Michael took a mental note,
"Miss Valric. How does this door open, runes?" Li asked,
"No runes Master Li, raw physical strength"
"What do you mean by that?" Li couldn't help questioning,
"Giants Master Li. Only the strongest giants can open this door from inside. As for the location of the giants and the door mechanism, it is kept as a top-secret"
When the door completely creaked open, they were welcomed by an endless dimly lit hall with thousands of mini vortexes. These deep-sea blue vortexes were hovering in the air and the sheer number of them startled Michael.
"This is the second security measure, Lord Ghost. When you open your account, a mini pocket dimension and the entryway to that dimension will be created here. Each portal is assigned a number. Only the handler of that account number could enter the portal. Every portal you see here is protected by several powerful runes and arrays. If anyone tried, not that they could come this far, they will be burnt to a crisp"
"What if this handler tried to get his hands on the items?" asked Michael,
"The handler could access the dimension but he or she won't know the coordinates of the place where the bank keeps your items. Every dimension is near inhabitable Lord Ghost. No one can survive there for more than an hour. So if you don't know where to look for the items, odds are you're dead. After knowing the coordinates by contacting us and passing the verification tests, the handler will be given the coordinates. The vault at the coordinates is impenetrable even by an immortal. When the client requested an item to be taken out of the vault, the bank will hand over the handler a special rune. After reaching the coordinates, the vault will ask for the passcode which will be given to the handler from our security branch after another series of verification processes"
By the minute, she was impressing Michael. Somehow these verifications sounded like intriguing death traps. On top of everything, Michael felt like he's been watched by several entities.
"The handler then places the rune on the vault. The rune will teleport the item directly to a secure place. The rune will change every three hours so duplicating is not an option. After that, the bank will give the coordinates of the place to the client. The client has the option to pick up the item or to be delivered to the preferred location. We will take the required items from the client when opening a new account"
The elf explained everything patiently.
"Of course, this is just the gist of it. Some parts of the security are only shared with those with high clearance levels. You can rest assured Lord Ghost, there are no other secure places like Grandspire in this world"
Michael was truly surprised. He could not think of a single weak point in the security system and what she told him until now seemed like only half of the security. It was evident that behind the scenes, there were more security measures in place. Therefore, robbing this place was nothing but suicide. Michael hoped he won't have to steal from Grandspire in the future.
At this time, he did not know fate had another thing in store for him.