While tallying up the gains from this million-person evacuation operation, Anthony first sorted through all the miscellaneous items one by one.
Some things were genuinely useless. Take, for instance, the fact that the Cyberpunk world's Affinity Bond level had hit rank 10.
Under normal circumstances, Anthony might have been overjoyed. But at this point, pure fishing-for-cash had lost much of its appeal. These days, Anthony fished mostly hoping to reel up some interesting little gadgets. If you handed him a rank-10 Affinity Bond for a city, he'd absolutely be thrilled.
But Cyberpunk — a world whose only real value was money — was starting to feel a little redundant now that he had other income streams.
Still, it wasn't a big deal. The real highlight of this haul was yet to come.
With that thought, Anthony opened his mission panel.
[You have received the mission reward: 50,000 points, and one single-use Ability Targeted Modification Permit.]
Fifty thousand points. Honestly, small change at this point. For someone who'd already been through the experience of having a genuinely fat wallet, the thrill just wasn't quite there anymore. Not nothing, but not much — just a nice little bonus at the end.
The real prize of this run was that Ability Modification Permit listed right after.
It could reshape one ability into a form better suited to its user — and that, Anthony was quite certain, was the actual reward this mission had been worth doing for. Something that couldn't necessarily be obtained even by spending points.
And as for what he was going to do with that Permit, Anthony had already had a rough plan in mind for a while now.
The Reanimation Jutsu.
There was no higher-return use for this Permit than the Reanimation Jutsu. After all, the timeline over in Konoha was probably still fairly early — the Reanimation Jutsu wasn't bad per se, it was just that in its current state, it was basically unusable.
Which made this Modification Permit all the more critical.
Who knows — maybe after one good modification, the resurrection problem for his whole group chat would be solved in one shot? It was a bit of a pipe dream, maybe, but Anthony figured a man had to have some dreams.
And the only thing standing between Anthony and his plan being complete was the Reanimation Jutsu itself.
In short: urgent. He needed to find a chance to visit the Naruto world as soon as possible.
While these thoughts turned over in his mind, Anthony reached into his pocket and fished out a deep-blue soul crystal. He gazed at the dim, faded soul inside it and turned it over thoughtfully for a moment.
Then he strolled over to the Angler's Throne's secondary berth, lifted the lid of the tank — which happened to look exactly like a toilet seat — and peered inside.
"Kill me… kill me… kill me…"
The moment the lid came off, Muzan's voice drifted out — thin as a spider's thread, saturated with what felt like infinite, festering resentment — and nearly made Anthony jump.
Wow. Already at this stage? That was fast.
Buddy really does have a fragile psyche.
Anthony snapped a few screenshots on the group chat first, then considered for a moment before speaking up with what he felt was a perfectly reasonable tone of comfort:
"Relax, Muzan. It's just a little overtime, that's all. You don't need to carry so much resentment about it."
You call that overtime?!
Muzan's soul, wreathed in the endless burning behind the tank lid, forced its eyes open — but in the very next instant, the sheer overwhelming exhaustion that permeated every part of him made him give up entirely, and he simply slid back down.
He could only curse in silence.
"Don't worry, isn't this me bringing you a cellmate — ah, I mean, a colleague?"
Anthony noticed Muzan didn't seem to react much and assumed his words of comfort were working, so he pressed on cheerfully — then, with a deft motion, grabbed the Adam Hammer sitting nearby and hurled it down into the tank with considerable force.
When Muzan came back to his senses, all he saw was a streak of blue light flashing past — and then, eyes wide with horror, he watched as the Adam Hammer, suspended by the Angler's Throne's secondary berth life-support system, slowly, slowly opened its soul-eyes beside him.
You absolute— THIS is what you called a colleague?!
"Get along nicely, you two. Enjoy the overtime together."
Anthony gave a breezy wave, snapped the lid back on, and chose to selectively ignore the screaming now emanating from inside the tank. He shook his head with the air of a man reflecting on his own magnanimous character.
Keeping daily tabs on employee wellbeing — looks like that needs to go on the schedule too. Hm. He really was a good boss.
He then casually posted the screenshots and short clips he'd taken to the group chat and tagged Yoriichi.
[The Demon King's Strictest Father: Yes, yes, exactly — that's exactly the way to hit it!]
[Frieren the Warrior of Sinful Passing: Honestly though — does this thing actually look… fine to you?]
[AAA City Ghost Girl: What are you thinking, the fact that it's still drawing breath at all means whoever's treating it is a hack.]
[AAA City Ghost Girl: And now it's got a cellmate. Hard to say whether that's lucky or unlucky for this poor thing going forward.]
[Let Night City Burn: Real talk, what I actually want to know is — how many more times is the prize pool in that tank going to keep stacking up?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Still talking trash, still talking trash — speaking of which, aren't you supposed to be on a date with Lucy right now? How do you have time to post in the chat?]
[Frieren the Warrior of Sinful Passing: Oh, a date? I'd better head out then.]
[Let Night City Burn: Uh — got a little distracted. I'm out.]
[Konoha's Yellow Flash: Ahh, a date — what a wonderfully nostalgic word, so full of the colors of youth.]
Anthony closed the group chat and got back to counting up the rest of his haul.
Now for the real centrepiece of this whole search-raid-extraction operation.
Every single item pried out of Arasaka Tower!
This included a massive volume of cyberware, equipment, and high-tech products — plus a scattering of miscellaneous smaller items, a full set of Adam Hammer cyberware, and finally, most importantly:
The [Arasaka Compendium]!
After tallying everything that needed counting and recycling everything that needed recycling, Anthony arrived at his current total point balance:
Adding in the 50,000 points from the mission reward, he had 240,000 points in total.
The slightly lower-than-ideal figure came down to two factors: the two of them had been too slow clearing the map, and the River Styx's earlier slam had smashed away a fair number of points that could have been his.
But even staring down at what was objectively a small fortune, Anthony's expression couldn't help but drift toward mild distress.
"Only two hundred and forty thousand points — why does it always feel like it's gone before I've even spent it?"
He murmured this to himself, face painted with genuine bafflement.
It really wasn't so long ago — barely a month and a half — that he'd been splitting single points in two, scraping by on a few hundred a day. That life still felt vivid.
So why was it that now, with two hundred and forty thousand points sitting in his account, it still felt like they'd evaporate the moment he touched them?
Where does all my money even go?!
A wave of helpless exhaustion washed over him — not dramatic, just the sober result of doing the math.
Because when he actually sat down and ran the numbers, he discovered that he genuinely did have that many places where the points needed to go.
Upgrading the Forge Core · River Styx alone had devoured fifty thousand points in one gulp, and after the upgrade, the newly unlocked Artificer blueprints ate through another enormous pile in short order.
Then there were a few Soul Strength ability tree nodes to tap, a couple of Artificer devices to forge — and somehow, the money was just gone.
Am I really burning through points this fast now?
And for reasons he couldn't quite name, Anthony felt a creeping unease settle in beneath all of it.
Specifically: there was a real chance that even 240,000 points wasn't going to be enough.
But in the end, Anthony rubbed his temples, sighed, and opened up his Soul Strength ability tree, pressing his hand to it.
Whatever. What needed to be spent had to be spent.
Points sitting in an account unwasted served no purpose. And relying on raids like this for income wasn't sustainable long-term anyway.
He needed to find a way to scale up his passive point income — something like the Shrine of Sacrifice, a system that could generate points automatically.
It looked like getting the River Styx's automated production facilities onto the agenda was becoming a real priority. Once the Naruto world trip was done, he'd need to start seriously working on that side of things.
These thoughts flickered through Anthony's mind as he pressed his palm to the glowing orb.
[50,000 points consumed.]
[Arasaka Compendium data core used.]
[Forge Core · River Styx upgrade conditions met. Artificer Rank upgraded to Lv. 2.]
In an instant, the [Arasaka Compendium] dissolved and merged seamlessly into every corner of the River Styx.
Behind Anthony, the Origin Furnace roared to life, Soul Flames blazing, wrapping the entire River Styx in a cocoon of brilliant fire.
Within the core of the Forge Core, vast torrents of soul energy surged and crested in swelling waves — as though something was being born inside them.
Then the Forge Core's deck began to expand outward. Lucy and David, who had been strolling across it, watched in startled silence as the deck spread before their eyes — nearly instantaneously growing to several times its original size.
Even its depth was stretching, deepening.
Anthony himself felt as though he had slipped once again into that strange, transcendent sensation — as if the Forge Core before him were an extension of his own limbs, every change happening across it feeding back to him directly.
First: the total area of the Forge Core had quadrupled.
The already broad deck had grown vast — it was genuinely starting to look like a land-going carrier of some kind. And beneath the surface, a complete underground space had been carved out, matching the deck's length and width, with a depth of dozens of meters.
When the roar of the Soul Forge finally faded, the group chat notifications appeared before Anthony at last.
[Forge Core · River Styx has advanced to Level 2.]
[Additional Forge Core upgrade-series blueprints have been unlocked.]
[Higher-tier Artificer's Body series blueprints have been unlocked.]
[Ship-Borne AI Entity on the Forge Core has completed initial data configuration.]
Anthony looked over the list of notifications scrolling across the group chat screen and considered for a moment before going through them one by one.
The Ship-Borne AI Entity was more or less what he'd expected. He gave it a quick skim and confirmed the situation.
In short: it would cost money.
Right now it was basically a dimwitted AI capable of piloting the River Styx on his behalf. Getting it to anything resembling genuine higher intelligence was a condition tied to further upgrades of the River Styx. At that point, the Ship-Borne AI Entity would also gain a physical form — but Anthony took one look at the price tag and confirmed, immediately, that this was not something present-him could afford.
A hundred and fifty thousand points for one Ship-Borne AI Entity. He'd sleep on that one.
As for the Forge Core's upgrade blueprints, Anthony skimmed through them and found that most were genuinely useful.
Mostly infrastructure: building quarters on the River Styx, setting up soul-energy-powered recovery stations, automated piping and components — all fairly comprehensive. The one mildly frustrating gap was that there were no production facilities anywhere in the list.
It was a full set of production-line support equipment — except, somehow, the production line itself was missing.
Fine. Having something is better than nothing. The production line problem can wait — I'll figure that out separately later.
Still, the more he looked at this infrastructure package, the more familiar it felt.
Let me get this straight — is the next step seriously me going out to find glowing ore deposits and then slapping mining rigs down on them?
Anthony cleared his head and moved on to the last item: the newly unlocked Artificer's Body blueprints.
Unsurprisingly, these were upgraded versions of the Earth Series and Stellar River Series — David's next enhancement path now had something to work with… wait.
Hold on a second.
What's this?
Anthony stared at the new blueprint unlocked at the very bottom of the Artificer's Body list, and for a moment, his mind went blank.
[Artificer's Body · Pluto Series]
[Prerequisite: 20 Soul Strength]
[Description: A masterwork crafted by the Artificer for companions who have fully transcended into pure soul-forms. Its unified design and extraordinary capabilities and growth ceiling are still revered among Artificers to this day as the pinnacle of their craft.]
[Effect: This Artificer's Body exists as a single unique item. The Artificer's soul may merge with Pluto, substantially amplifying their own Soul Strength.]
[Additionally, the Soul Strength provided by Pluto feeds back directly into the Artificer's own creations, equivalently boosting the strength of all crafted works.]
[Blueprint Unlock Cost: 10,000 points.]
[Forge Cost: 120,000 points.]
[Current Soul Strength: 4.]
Anthony stared at the Artificer's Body · Pluto Series entry, read it once, then read it again.
He looked into his own eyes and confirmed: yes. This was exactly the stat-stick he'd been dreaming of.
And he couldn't equip it.
It felt exactly like watching the person you loved walk off with some blond stranger — Anthony's eyes, fixed on that blueprint, practically started glowing green with envy.
He checked his current Soul Strength against the requirement and saw he was nowhere close. Then he flipped open another ability tree branch and immediately discovered another headache.
Damn it — points were running short again.
The 240,000 points he'd just gotten his hands on, barely had time to warm up, were already looking insufficient after spending 50,000.
On the Soul Strength side, Anthony did technically have a route. The Soul of Solidity tree had a whole stack of spiritual applications he hadn't unlocked yet — if he put enough points in, reaching 20 Soul Strength was definitely doable.
But the problem was that the Soul of Solidity's spiritual applications levelled very differently from the Soul of Spirit's!
Soul of Spirit was a one-time purchase. Soul of Solidity ran on an upgrade model.
Running a rough estimate, Anthony figured getting his Soul Strength to 20 would probably cost at least another hundred thousand points, give or take.
And building Pluto on top of that was another 130,000 points.
Add it all together, and his remaining funds were uncomfortably tight — especially since he also needed to set aside a reserve for the upcoming Naruto world trip to secure the Reanimation Jutsu, as a buffer against the unexpected.
After sitting with it for a long moment, Anthony closed his eyes.
There was no way around it. Time to get back to work and earn more money.
Rich as he was, he still wasn't at financial freedom. Which meant the next step was finding something in the Naruto world to shake down for coins.
With that settled, Anthony opened his eyes cheerfully and sent a message into the group chat.
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: @Konoha's Yellow Flash — are you free right now?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: If you are, I'm about ready to head over.]
[Konoha's Yellow Flash: ?]
[Konoha's Yellow Flash: Hold on — already? That fast?]
____
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