Chapter 4: Mastermind
"What are you doing now try-hard?" Zatouji grumbled while I played with my phone again instead of going home.
"Gaming the mission board for fun and profit." I grinned at the man and showed him the missions on my device, "Isekai Genie hit me with three Grand Missions to finish before I can exit my homeworld outside of doing missions like this."
The first: Veni, Vidi, Vici. The mission regarding my status as a scion of a disgraced noble house out to restore the Ducal family. I needed to work my way back up the noble rankings from Baron all the way to King. Each rank had a territory, wealth, and population requirement, but had no need of recognition from an established peerage system.
The second: With a Velvet Glove. This mission required me to become the king of mid sized kingdom within a year and rule it as a benevolent king for a year. It came with optional objectives such as to rule for a thousand years and to make a cultural impact that will remain till the kingdom ends, save a million lives, get worshiped as a god. Very long term missions with incredibly powerful rewards.
The third: Uplifting. The first two missions were a part of a theme being 'Look, we really aren't that evil.' The third mission revealed the context of my enforced benevolence. The endlessly renewing resources provided to the various contractors of The Company have to come from somewhere, and they come specifically from Type 2 Civilizations established and managed by company contractors. This mission gave me a thousand years to produce a civilization capable of utilizing all the resources on the planet and further harvesting resources from the sun.
"Standard Farm-world set up." Zatouji shrugged.
"Yeah, but check this out. I grinned as I selected three more missions in addition to those Isekai Genie foisted on me.
Form a New Faction, Become the Leader of a New Faction, And Vini, Viti, Vici. The first two have the objective in the name, the second requires me to get a stronghold in my new world with some optional objectives.
"Gonna clear a lot of points with all that overlap." Zatouji patted me on the back, "Good for you kid."
"Thanks." I grinned, "But I also realized that I can clear nearly all my objectives by taking the Mastermind Heritage."
"Are you for real right now?" the man asked with a stunned look on his stupid face, "You aren't going to be a dragon?"
"No, man. I'm not going to spend a lot of points to unlock some dragon transformations that are weaker than my human body. Then I'd have to do a lot of bullshit boring work to clear my missions that take no benefit from all those points spent."
"Chills, bro. Like eighty percent of Contractors become dragons as soon as they can afford too." the man nodded in respect, "Way to rise above."
"Alright, let's go!" I grinned as I purchased the first perk of the Mastermind Heritage.
Eccentric Wealth generated an estate in any world I had unlocked, meaning I had access to outside of mission transportation. This estate would generate daily renewable resources for me scaling to my Tier of power, including money. Since I'm rocking an 8th Tier with buffs and I am in a specific medieval fantasy setting, I received the deed to a family fortress locked up with magic containing resources of a kind with The Great Tomb of Nazarick and other player guilds halls. Even if it didn't directly provide me with divine rank gear, if I ever figured out how to craft it I'd never need to leave home to make it happen.
More importantly I spent 20 points and gained 200 due to clearing objectives from my VVV missions, for establishing a stronghold, and buying a castle. Then I purchased Artist's Lair for twenty more points that buys the lands around my Estate. This netted me 50 points for buying a territory and 200 for controlling my surroundings.
Zatouji's face looked like he sucked a lemon as I gamed the system, spending money to make money.
Next I picked up Libertine Service for 20 points, a perk that generates Minions and Lackies for my base. Just a handful every week, but for a hefty 200 point investment into the Expanded Recruitment Method I can generate many more. Minions are skilled workers, farm and ranch hands, carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors and the like. No master craftsman but good journeymen. Libertine Service also generates low skilled laborers called Lackeys. Basically losers on demand, but somebody has to dig ditches and shovel shit.
Expanded Recruitment quickly tried to determine how it would capture new recruits for me, but with my No Loyalty Intensity restriction, none of the Company binding methods would work with me as the source and so the system defaulted to the No Binding write in option to which I filled in: Recruit refugees, the poor, the sick, the starving, the homeless, and any in need of salvation in this harsh world. I metaphorically pat myself on the back hard enough to break my arm for being such a good boy… not. I needed to save a million lives in order to get 50 points and now that objective passive background AFK farming.
Since I had such a surplus of points I purchased Fighting Flowers, an offshoot of Libertine Service that generates combat minions called Mooks, as well as automatically building me a barracks and training ground for them. Mooks are trained soldiers, and are capable bodyguards and police officers so long as they aren't required to go head to head with anyone at 4th tier power or up.
Another cheap option is Constorting Associates for 20 points, which generates scholars, researchers, and inventors called Functionaries, and appropriate facilities for their work within my base that restocks daily with resources scaled to my power level. Due to my setting my researchers and inventors tend to be mages and alchemists, and you won't see me complaining about that. I have absolutely no desire to dedicate my life to figuring out the complex systems at play in this world. I built myself as a warrior for a reason. Cowabunga and Unga Bunga for life. May all my foes feel every ounce of these hands.
Thoughts and Prayers generates Cultists who worship me, helping me complete two objectives in the future for the Velvet Glove mission: one to start a religion where 90 percent of the worshippers actually believe I'm a god for 200 points, and the other to start a rumor of a prophecy foretelling my rise as the Good King of the world for 10 points.
The Lieutenants for another 50 points generate competent leaders for all my groups. Foremen, leadmen, and master craftsmen for the Minions, Battlemasters for the Mooks, High Priests for my Cultists, Secretaries and Mad Scientists for my Functionaries. It can even generate SpyMasters to turn my Lackeys into an honest to goodness spy network. You know how in shitty uplift fics the Isekai protagonist just waives his hand and all of a sudden these medieval hicks are suddenly generating concrete and organizing Roman Legions and international intelligence agencies? For fifty points that fantasy is my reality; and to think, I could have spent a 175 points and become a dragon that is a Tier below me in strength, but then I'd be another lily livered normie contractor and would never use my dragon transformation outside of my own pocket dimension lest I attract attention to myself.
Hehehe! Victory for the Chad Mastermind over the Virgin Dragon.
I want to believe I wasn't always this smug, and that it is the training packages my Mastermind purchases give me so that I can play the part, but I'd be lying. The Isekai Genie probably picked me knowing exactly how smart I am, and that I'd be able to game the system for power despite The Company's sudden lack of generosity. My mind has always moved sideways when encountered with a problem, as moving around an issue or learning how someone else already dealt with it is way easier than slamming my head into it until I figure it out myself. Sometimes you need to walk away from a problem and come back when you're level 100.
Monster of the Week for 100 points generated one Elite 5th Tier unit a week non-scaling with Expanded Recruitment Method - either a super soldier or a 'powerful' beast - with a max of five unit capacity who cannot work together on assignments. A minor inconvenience considering in a handful of weeks I'll have more elite subordinates than the Emperor of Baharuth and the King Of Re-Estize.
For another 50 I picked up Enter the Dragon, which causes my base to generate one 6th Tier champion who will be able to work together with me flawlessly. This process will take time, but by the end of the month I will have the perfect right hand man or woman for my operation. Likely woman considering the nature of my employers.
For 45 points I picked up Sick Ride, which generated a grand stable for my fortress and populated it with a large herd of horses and many advanced carriages and wagons. Not super great, but it also made spaces for the familiars I intended to keep and taught me how to care for and maintain all of them at top performance making me a dashing dragon handler and the hunky stable boy all in one.
Strange Toolbox for 125 points filled my base with the remnants of secret societies, archives of ancient cults, the strange truth behind superstitions, defunct military research groups, and mothballed inventions. I had hidden histories and the secrets of ancient conspiracies, as well as wacky gadgets, exotic materials, and esoteric rituals. The wonders of Yggdrasil stored in my basement, though not all of it is well understood or easy to use.
Exit Strategies for 100 points made me a master of surviving, the kind of Mastermind that always has an escape tunnel, getaway ride, or body double ready to evade danger. Methods so elaborate and sophisticated they may as well be prescience. I can drive my enemies mad with hatred by escaping any time they lose sight of me.
The purchase of Exemption from Death for 100 points finally ended my glorious spending spree on Heritage options, ensuring that if someone actually manages the improbable and kills me despite my Giga-Chadness and incredible capacity to frustrate any attempt on my life, I don't die, and instead resurrect on a new base on a new world a year and a day after my demise. With some purchases and a little progress on that new world I'll be able to head back and take my revenge.
Not that I expect to die considering the raw amount of talents and defenses these Heritage purchases grant as Freebies. Mastermind not only paid for itself, but it almost completely filled out my Talents and Defenses tabs.
I basically won, and now just have to keep it all from being destroyed by Nazarick, and any other players that may show up in the next thousand years.
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Author's Note: This chapter was getting unwieldy, so I carved out the Mastermind Info Dump and made it its own chapter.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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