Rain licked the windows when Cass stepped into the morning. The sky was a dull sheet of grey, but his mood ran bright. He had completed the first pillar. Finance was no longer a threshold to climb but a staircase he owned.
'Culture next. If money builds the walls, art decides who feels at home inside them.'
Breakfast in the dining room felt warmer than usual. Elaine wore the pendant from yesterday, fingers brushing it like it might fade. Thomas read the paper with the focus of a man who now believed his opinions mattered again. Cass let the quiet pride in the room settle before he spoke.
"Tonight I am hosting a dinner," Cass said. "Artists. Critics. Patrons. The kind of people who spend more time describing than building. We will make them feel they have discovered something. They will leave believing they have joined something."
Elaine set her fork down. "You want us there."
"I want you at the head of the table," Cass said. "You will not speak often. You will smile and make them realise dignity is genetic."
Thomas chuckled. "You are terrifying."
"No," Cass said. "I am persuasive."
He kissed Elaine's cheek, clapped Thomas's shoulder, and left them laughing softly.
By mid-morning, he was at the rehearsal hall with Rowena. The piano still gleamed from yesterday's delivery, its lid catching pale light. Rowena sat with a score spread open, hair tucked back. She looked up when he entered.
"It sounded like it was waiting for me," she said again.
"Good," Cass said. "He played his part."
She played a phrase and stopped. "I do not know if I am ready."
"You are beyond ready," Cass said. "But the stage does not ask. It demands. That is why I am building it for you."
Her lips curved, but her eyes held fear. He sat beside her, hands brushing the keys in a chord that filled the silence.
"You will perform at Wigmore," he said. "And before that, you will charm a house full of critics tonight. They will eat, they will drink, they will hear you play one piece. Then they will write as if they discovered you. Let them. I will own the pen while you own the sound."
Rowena laughed nervously. "You make it sound easy."
"It is easy when you have already won," Cass said.
She leaned her head against his shoulder for a heartbeat. "I hate that you make me believe you."
"Then I am doing it right," he said.
Afternoon found him in the city again. At the opera house, he met the artistic director, a sharp woman named Darlene Shaw. She had the kind of handshake that warned people not to waste her time.
"You are young to be meddling here," she said.
"I am not meddling," Cass said. "I am investing. I will underwrite your spring season. In exchange, you will introduce my guest tonight as a pianist the city must hear."
Shaw raised an eyebrow. "That is not how I operate."
"It is today," Cass said.
She studied him, then exhaled through her nose. "Your reputation is already loud. If I say yes, I will have to believe you are not wasting me."
"You will not regret it," Cass said.
Her lips twitched, almost a smile. "If she is mediocre, I will tell the room she was yours."
"She will not be," Cass said. "And you will tell the room she belongs to the future."
[Mini Quest Complete: Secure Cultural Introduction]
[Reward: £5,000,000 cultural fund. Skill Upgrade: Influence Lv.4.]
Evening drew its curtains early. The mansion glowed as staff prepared the dinner. Long tables gleamed with crystal. Flowers spilt colour in vases. The concert grand waited at the far end of the hall, polished like a mirror.
Elaine and Thomas descended in quiet elegance. Cass kissed his mother's hand and nodded approval at his father's tailored jacket.
"You look like you belong," Cass said.
"We do," Thomas said simply.
Guests began to arrive. Critics with notebooks hidden in their eyes. Patrons who measured importance by the weight of their watches. Artists who wanted to be fed as much as they wanted to be seen.
Cass greeted each with the ease of a man introducing himself to tenants of his own house. He let them feel chosen by his attention, then turned away before they could wear it out.
At dinner, he gave the first toast.
"To the city," Cass said. "To the voices that make it worth living in. Tonight you are not critics or patrons. You are witnesses. And the only debt a witness owes is honesty."
Glasses lifted. Murmurs spread. The food came, rich but not ostentatious. Elaine's smile held the table steady. Thomas's calm added ballast.
Rowena entered during dessert. She wore a dress the colour of midnight, simple and exact. The room stilled. Even critics forget to look bored when beauty walks in.
Cass stood and offered his hand. She took it, trembling only slightly, and let him lead her to the piano. She sat, closed her eyes, and began.
The sound filled the hall like a tide, rising and rolling, carrying the listeners whether they wished to go or not. It was not perfect. It was alive. And that mattered more.
When she stopped, the silence broke into applause that refused to stop. Some stood. Some wrote furiously. All were changed.
Rowena bowed once, cheeks flushed. When her eyes found him, Cass only raised his glass. The gesture carried more weight than words.
Darlene Shaw raised her glass. "Wigmore will be full," she said. "I will see to it."
Rowena covered her mouth, eyes wet, then lowered her hand and smiled like someone who had just stolen the future from fate.
[Quest Complete: First Cultural Strike]
[Reward: £15,000,000 cultural credit. Perk: Artistic Halo.]
[Artistic Halo: Performances you sponsor or host gain heightened critical reception and media amplification.]
Cass felt the system thread into the air around the table. Every smile lingered longer. Every compliment carried further. The halo had settled, and the room would remember it.
As the night wound down, Cass guided the guests to the foyer. They left with words of discovery on their tongues, already crafting the narratives they would publish.
When the last carriage pulled away, Elaine touched his arm.
"You changed her life tonight," she said.
"I only opened the door," Cass said. "She walked through."
Rowena stood by the piano, fingers still resting on the keys as if reluctant to let go. She looked at him with gratitude so fierce it hurt.
"You are impossible," she whispered.
"I am inevitable," Cass said.
Later, in the study, he opened the Hidden Ledger. Sienna's envy blazed hotter, stoked by reports that Rowena had been hailed as a new star. Trent's bitterness crawled higher, fed by whispers that Cass had bought critics as easily as lunches.
Cass added a new name to a fresh page.
Darlene Shaw. Valuable. Will need to test loyalty. Keep close but watch.
He closed the book. The system stirred again, calm and certain.
[Pillar Progress: Culture – Stage One Complete]
[Bonus: System reserves enhanced. Preparations for Tier Evolution are accumulating.]
Cass leaned back, the house humming with afterglow. Finance was conquered. Culture was bending. Power waited, patient but inevitable.
'Two pillars stand. The third will fall. And when it does, England will not just know my name. It will need it.'