The day passed by without anything of further significance happening. Alex kept track of how quickly Simon officially established the Wonder Guild and gathered a solid number of people around him. Within the day, it rivaled the number of people in Felicia's Thieves' Guild. He could tell that the man had been preparing to set up his own force for a long time now and only needed a catalyst point to propel him forward. The Infinity Stone mission served as the perfect thing to push him forward.
The man had naked ambition and seemed intent on getting a hold of both power and authority in Apex City. Alex was still considering whether he wanted to curb the man's enthusiasm or leave it be when a portal opened up in his bedroom where Wanda was sleeping on his side.
A slender woman stepped out of the portal. Dressed in the very same suit that she had worn when going in yesterday, she looked almost exactly the same, yet her presence and aura had completely shifted to portray the sheer power that she currently held.
When her eyes fell on Alex and Wanda's naked forms right in front of her, her eyes immediately lowered to his bulge under the blanket as she licked her lips.
"Do you need me to service you, master?" She asked immediately.
"Unless you want to spend the next year in the Gaia Penitentiary, go for it," Alex said with a smile. "That would be the only way for my wife to let you live."
Felicia immediately shuddered as if recalling something horribly unpleasant and recoiled, taking a step back.
"I overstepped. I'm sorry," she got down on her knees and lowered her head. "Please punish me, Master."
"It's all good," Alex said. "Remember Simon?"
Felicia looked up with a confused expression, unable to recall the man. It was understandable. After all, she'd only heard the name once before, and a whole year had passed since then.
"The guy who collected the third Infinity Stone," Alex clarified. "It seems he's got quite a bit of ambition. I want you to curb him and bring him under control. We talked about setting up this guild system to allow people to form smaller groups, right? You will serve as the overarching manager for all these guilds. Everything you've suggested to me about setting up guild-based perks, collective rewards, and more is going to be under your purview as the head of the Guild management committee. Can you handle it?"
"You can count on me, Master," Felicia smiled. "I'll take care of him before morning so that you can announce your plans tomorrow."
"Good girl," Alex nodded. "Go on."
Felicia let out a shuddering breath with hints of excitement after hearing Alex's praise and immediately teleported away. Within a year, she had transformed into someone he could actually rely on. Not only had she helped him pilot the progression system for Chaos magic, but she had even helped him set up a fourth level while solidifying the limits of each level. Everyone started at the stage of ‹Uninitiated›, where they were purely siphoning off the energy of the Source of Chaos. From there, there were two methods of progression. One was a natural progression that relied on giving the Source of Chaos their faith, and it would slowly increase the limit of Chaos energy that a person could access. The second method was relying on Chaos Authority, which would directly propel their limits forward regardless of how much feedback they provided to the Source of Chaos.
The first level was called ‹Initiate›, at which level the person could be considered self-sustaining. The hourly feedback that someone on this level gave to the Source of Chaos had to be enough to propel the Source's growth such that the increment in its production would offset them using their powers for one hour.
For a clearer example, if the Source of Chaos could be considered to generate a hundred units of Chaos energy every hour. If a person's energy capacity was one unit and their feedback increased the generation capability of the Source by one unit every hour, then this person would be considered an ‹Initiate›. In an ideal scenario where no one used any energy and only required the bare minimum sustenance, a single Initiate could allow the Source of Chaos to sustain ten new uninitiated people every hour. For an Initiate to grow, their max energy capacity would increase in parallel to their feedback to the Source of Chaos.
The second stage required a person to truly be faithful toward the Source of Chaos, wherein they were given the title of ‹Chaos Priest›. Alex had fully gone into the Theology direction with this Chaos Magic system and was fully leaning into it. A priest provided a hundred times the faith feedback of an Initiate and possessed a hundred times the energy capacity, but that wasn't their defining trait. A priest could generate their own Chaos energy, albeit very minute traces of it. As they progressed forward, their energy generation would slowly improve such that their daily generation could match their full capacity.
The third stage was titled ‹Archon›, where the practitioner accepted a mutation to their heart so that it could serve as their energy generation medium. At this stage, their capacity and feedback were once again a hundred times that of a Priest, and their rate of energy generation could allow them to fill their reserves to full within an hour.
While both ‹Priests› and ‹Archons› could generate their own energy, they weren't cut off from the Source of Chaos. Under dire circumstances, they could freely pull upon the Source to support their energy generation, though that also had strict limits unlike Wanda or Alex, who could pull as much energy as they wanted. The main limitation of these two stages was that if their reserves were full, their energy generation would simply pause, with no way to share their excess energy with anyone else.
All this changed at the fourth stage of ‹Cardinal›. The capacity and feedback of a cardinal was naturally a hundred times greater than that of an Archon, and their energy generation significantly exceeded their own needs. At this stage, they could make someone their direct subordinate and allow that person to pull upon their excess energy whenever required. The best part was that this connection was still facilitated by the Source of Chaos and required both parties to have faith in it. This meant that the Source of Chaos would continue to reap the benefits from Cardinals even if they had their own forces.
Naturally, Felicia was currently a ‹Cardinal›, and Alex expected that the leaders of every guild would reach the stage of a Cardinal since they would already have the authority of the Avatar of Chaos, allowing them to connect newcomers to the Source. When that stage became a little more common, he would push Felicia higher to the fifth stage of ‹Pope›. Though Alex hadn't yet figured out what that stage would exactly entail.
As he thought about how he was going to introduce this progression system to the populace, a part of his attention went to Felicia. With newfound confidence after a year of training, she went in with a blatant provocation and challenged the man to a duel at the Colosseum, with the wager being the disbanding of the loser's guild. Her confidence mostly came from her training. While he'd spent plenty of time fulfilling his kinks of having two versions of Felicia Hardy serving him, Alex also spent a significant amount of time actually training her in the use of her abilities, which made her realize just how overpowered her probability manipulation could be with the right control and creativity.
Let's see how you handle Wonder Man, Fel… If he decides to reveal his full capabilities, you're in for quite a painful battle ahead of you.
"Hey, Wanda," Alex shook the naked woman beside him. "Do you want to see a fun fight?"
"No, they're always boring and dumb…" She mumbled, shifting her position and turning her back to him before pulling the blanket up to her neck and curling up.
"This one's going to be fun," Alex said. "Chaos energy will only augment their innate abilities. Come on."
Before Wanda could voice any protests, Alex pulled her up in his arms as clothes appeared on both their bodies and teleported to the Colosseum.
…
At the moment, the stands were filled with the most people since the day that Apex City was established. Naturally, though, they still felt empty considering the sheer scale of the structure, as the stands could easily seat millions.
In the arena, the battle had already started as Felicia casually stood in her place with her arms crossed, directly causing every spell that Simon tried to cast to fail.
"If this is all you have, it's useless," she said apathetically, almost seeming bored. "You will never beat me with just this much skill."
The man maintained his calm and continued attempting to form spells, only to continue failing entirely. No matter the method he went with, whether it be incantations or magic circles, it was useless. While his ability to cast magic through two different schools was astounding, it ultimately failed in front of Felicia's ability.
"It won't work, Simon. Any spell that is aimed at me will fail unless I actively allow it. You should just give up and join my guild."
Her declaration immediately aroused curious murmurs from the crowd as they saw Felicia effortlessly leave her opponent helpless. Since all of them had, at least, started to dabble in magic, they could naturally understand and process what was going on in the battle.
As for Simon, his face was a mask of grim determination after hearing her words, as he ceased his fruitless attempts at casting magic. Inwardly, though, he was in deep contemplation as he took a breath.
Felicia, confident in her victory, made no move, simply waiting for the man to declare his surrender. After all that she'd gone through and experienced over the past year, she believed that some arrogance was warranted. She even took a moment to shift her eyes to the side, noticing Alex and Wanda sitting on their respective thrones, looking as regal and authoritative as ever.
The moment she looked back at Simon, her eyes widened in a panic as she saw him appear right in front of her, his fist pulled back, poised to punch her.
***
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