Book 1: Chapter 23

Aqua A few hours pass as I lie here letting the antibiotics fully activate. And during this time the wound that was infected in the first place begins to heal. Leaving me in less pain by the minute. On top of that, the broken collarbone has healed enough now that the bones are actually back inside of my chest again with scabbing covering the wound. Meaning it’s healed over enough that it’s not hurting anywhere near as badly. Back when the bone was directly outside of my body and constantly being irritated by the water, that was almost as painful as the infection. And it’s not something I want to experience again. Eventually though, I finally get up and begin dealing with the matters I was putting off until after I finished healing. Even though I haven’t finished healing yet. Starting with checking out my other sponsorships. The Sponsorship System works in a rather limited way. There is a set of things that can be sponsored, and sponsors can only pick between those options. They can’t send just anything to the Pioneer. Like guns for example. Whether regular guns or magically enhanced guns. After all, those would be unfair in a newly initialized world. So the System blocks all guns from entering those worlds unless that level of technology was already on said worlds. And from the sight of those options being grayed out, those options are in fact not available on Oceana. Which makes sense considering that Oceana is a world covered mostly in water. Not to mention the fact that guns wouldn’t exactly work all that well down here anyways. Considering the fact that I’m underwater. So it wouldn’t help much even if I was sponsored with guns. Although there is one option to send anything the user wants within restrictions that isn’t one of the listed sponsorships, but that option costs a fortune. So it’s almost never used. Outsiders usually don’t care enough to spend a fortune that big just to sponsor a Pioneer after all. Anyway, I begin looking through the different sponsorships I’ve been given. Which number quite a few. For one, there’s food. One of the things I need the most right now since my supply was already very stretched thanks to me stretching it out longer than the food was supposed to last. Then there’s water, a set of waterproof clothes that I should be able to change into before putting my armor over so that I’m not always going around in a soaked hoodie and other garments under my armor, and even some bandages. Not that I can see myself really using the bandages much. They’re waterproof at least though. So there’s that. Everything I accept from the Sponsorship System immediately gets locked, making it so no one can sponsor me that same item for a set period of time depending on the item in question. The food seems to be a daily sponsorship thing, and so is the water. But the clothes are a weekly thing. There are also some things that are level-locked in terms of sponsorships. Making it so that people can only sponsor me with them when I’m a certain level and meet the requirements of the sponsorship in question. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. But even after seeing dozens of different sponsorships, one of them in particular catches my eye rather strongly. It’s a ring. A storage ring. And just the sight of it makes a grin spread across my face. Because storage rings are rings infused with the latest time-space technology mixed with magic to condense objects in space and store them inside of a magic crystal. Without the original weight of the objects. The fact that someone sponsored me something this expensive... Storage rings are already extremely expensive in the Alliance, but sponsoring one to a Pioneer is even more expensive. So expensive that I have to wonder what’s going on in the head of the sponsor. Or at least, I wonder that before I see who said sponsor is. Rhettfelt Hydrignis. The CEO of Star Pioneer Agency and the person who damn near leads the entertainment industry’s representation side. If the man dislikes an entertainer in the industry, that entertainer is pretty much dead when it comes to the industry. But on top of this, he’s a Bloodliner. One of the Hydra Bloodline. My eyes narrow a little as I notice a checked box on the corner of the sponsorship, which means that accepting this sponsorship comes with conditions. Two of them in particular. The conditions are to meet with him right after accepting the sponsorship. And to sign with their agency under a Bloodliner Contract. Oh. Right. I honestly forgot that Bloodliners are treated a little differently in society than most people. Like they’re half a step above the top social and economic class of the Alliance. It’s not really much, but they’re given a bit more protection in contracts than other people. Better protection in society in general. And there are even some laws centered around the protection of Bloodliners making even the slightest bit of unfairness in treatment regardless of how it came about to be finable. The protection is where it stops though. They don’t get any actual additional money in contracts or anything like that. And if the condition for the storage ring is to sign a Bloodliner Contract with the best talent agency for Pioneers in the entire Alliance, I don’t see any problems. So I accept the rest of the things across sponsorships that I want – excluding a few that also require me to meet the sponsor – before heading over to the safe place I found at the top of the cavern last night. Where I quickly dig a bit to expand, following which I place a small barrier device I got from a sponsorship. One connected to the Broadcast System. The device will warn me the moment something living or undead touches the barrier, allowing me to return the instant something goes wrong. After finishing setting things up, even if the little safe place I have is still only about a meter and a half deep into the wall, I go ahead and accept the storage ring. And before the circle that appears beneath me finishes sending my System Phantom over to the sponsor, I place all the stuff I got from sponsorships into the storage ring. Then a bright flash of light shines from the circle beneath me and I find myself blinking. And when I finish blinking, my surroundings are completely different. They’re that of some sort of large meeting room with a long table and several people seated at the table. With various screens on the walls showing me and my different battles on them. I look around while the people in the room look me over. Only for my gaze to finally lock onto the man at the end of the table. Rhettfelt. My eyes narrow a little as I take in the man’s appearance. With the man himself clearly doing the same thing to me. Rhettfelt Hydrignis has slit glowing crimson eyes like a lizard, with vibrant long red hair with the occasional black highlights, and he’s wearing a strange outfit. One that looks kind of like a mix between a business suit and armor for battle. Which is also red and black in color. My eyes move to his face to find the corner of his lips twitching upwards in the start of a smile. Then I glance at the others in the room to find them all to be people from the company, based on the IDs hanging around their necks. “Shall we get started, Aqua Fallen?” Rhettfelt asks without wasting any time. And I just go ahead and nod my head. “Very well.” He pushes a packet of papers that were in front of him, making the thing move across the table. But it doesn’t just stop when he stops his hand and pulls his hand back. Instead the packet continues smoothly moving across the table until it reaches the end I’m at. “Look through it and tell me your opinion.” I glance between him and the packet for a moment before reaching down and grabbing it. Then I slowly and carefully read through the packet. Looking at every single detail of what is obviously a contract. Silence fills the meeting hall as I slowly flip through the packet. Eventually I finish looking through it and turn my gaze directly towards the CEO as I state, “There are some revisions I’d like made to it.” The other people in the room look surprised – likely by the fact that I’m actually making a suggestion instead of just signing it – and the CEO himself starts to smile. “Very well,” Rhettfelt says while waving his hand. “State your mind.” I take a deep breath before beginning to negotiate as best as I can.