A week passed before I was called on by Shaw to be formally introduced to the rest of the club.
In that week, I had been training with my improved body, getting used to my supersoldier strength. On top of that, thanks to the innate martial potential of the Hanma clan, I had seen massive improvements in my usage of Dead Bone Pulse.
Now, I finally had access to a proper ranged attack, being able to shoot out pieces of my reinforced bones as high-speed bullets.
Back to the matter at hand, I looked out of the window of the car I was being driven in. My 'debut' was to be held at an entirely different location from where I had previously met Shaw.
This time, it was an actual mansion, somewhere far away from the city of New York. Just looking at it from the outside, I could say with confidence that it screamed 'old money'.
As I stepped out of the car, I made my way to the entrance of the mansion. At the door stood two men, who, upon seeing me, immediately bowed whilst nodding for me to enter.
The mansion opened into a massive reception space filled with people who looked like they belonged on the cover of Forbes. I had only been in this world for a few months, but even I could recognise a few of them as big shots: politicians, CEOs, and other such influential people.
More importantly, most of them read as civilians to me. Powerful, wealthy, and influential civilians, but civilians nonetheless.
The ones that actually concerned me were the mutants. With my Sharingan active behind a pair of contact lenses, I could easily tell by the way they carried themselves. When in a room like this, even a billionaire would feel some amount of nervousness, but that wasn't the case for people who knew they could clear out the whole room in seconds.
Not even a minute passed before Shaw appeared in front of me. He had probably been watching the door, waiting for my arrival.
"Black Knight." He was visibly satisfied as he spoke my new title. "Come, there are people who are very eager to meet you."
He immediately began walking forward, not giving me any time to return his greetings. I followed absentmindedly as I looked around the massive room adorned with various Renaissance paintings and marble busts.
Whilst following him, I felt a strange tick at the side of my head, like someone was trying to touch my brain directly.
Looking across the room, I saw Emma Frost staring at me with a focused expression.
'Did she not learn her lesson?'
I emitted a slight burst of Conqueror's Haki towards her, a magnitude less than what I had used against her a while ago, just enough to ward her off.
The result was instant; Frost immediately flinched and took a step back whilst her icy cold expression dropped for a moment.
[+500 FP]
Even that was enough to give me several hundred fear points.
'Maybe it would be a good idea to just lock her in a box and use my Haki on her all day?'
I looked at Shaw's back as he walked in front of me; he had no idea of the interaction that had just occurred.
He continued to lead me through the room, stopping at intervals to introduce me to people who I quite frankly didn't care to meet.
A senator, a defence contractor, a few financiers, bankers, and all of those kinds of people.
Despite my lack of interest, I smiled, shook their hands, and spoke some meaningless words.
Shaw introduced me not by name, but by title: The Black Knight, a new addition to the Inner Circle, whilst adding precisely zero further elaboration.
As expected, the title held weight. As soon as people heard who I was, their expressions shifted from polite disinterest to something cautious, as if they were being tested in some way.
The fear they experienced was far from outright terror, but it was still enough to register on my system. Every person I spoke to felt unease.
[+620 FP]
It wasn't bad at all for what essentially boiled down to ten minutes of handshaking.
That number would also rise by itself as the people I was introduced to spoke to their own circles about the new young Black Knight they had just met.
Eventually, Shaw finally came to the main course. We approached a cluster of people at the far end of the room, a group I had noted even from a distance.
They were all mutants, or at the very least, they all seemed to be 'enhanced' individuals.