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  The pair of engineers looking over the former Chrome Prophet and current Red Hare had gone reasonably well. My one-time horse had mostly behaved himself, only knocking the siblings around once when they had done some sort of computer thing and accessed what I guess was acting as Red’s mind. He hadn’t liked that very much and had knocked the pair over with an aggressive flick of his back wheel.

  Other than that incident, the now mechanical mount had liked both the attention and the idea that these two, who were obviously impressed by him, would work to make him even faster and stronger. Just as I had assured Red, this was simply the new version of when I had hired special horse experts to give him the best possible diet and most in-depth grooming. For the nearly two decades that Red Hare carried me into battle, the horse had considered himself a king, and having servants take care of his needs was a big part of what a king did.

  They had given me a list of specific oils and parts that I should seek out for Red’s new form, and even made a few adjustments so that the various pieces of machinery that he had pulled into himself upon inhabiting the howler bike wouldn’t cause issues going forward.

  I had thanked the siblings profusely and promised them that I would come to their aid if they ever needed it, and owed them multiple favors they could call upon at any time. To my own surprise, I actually meant it. I might have a history of not treating my allies with the most loyalty, but the siblings had gone so far out of their way to treat me as family that I truly felt I owed them. That might not seem like much to you, but to me it was a strange and new sensation.

  All throughout my life, people have done things to serve me, and why would they not? I am stronger than they, so naturally those around me would do things to make me happy, either in the hopes of using my power for their own ends or simply because it is the right and natural order of things. I have never felt something like gratitude for such actions.

  Ji-Ho and Ha-Rin were different in a way that left me confused and uncomfortable. Obviously, I was stronger than they were; I am Lu Bu, but that seemed to have almost no bearing on their actions at all. It made me wonder if perhaps there had been times in my life before where I had looked upon the actions of others through unclear eyes. Was it possible that Liu Bei had simply wanted to be my friend when he claimed as much?

  ‘Pah!’ It didn’t matter now, and it hadn’t truly mattered then. Whatever the case, I was feeling strange and new sensations that I would have to learn to navigate, just as I was coming to understand this new world I found myself in. So I had expressed my gratitude towards the siblings and asked them about what was happening back in Clan Irons territory.

  After that, they had left. I concluded that I was almost ready to move on to the next phase of my plan. Now, you might be thinking to yourself that I hadn’t mentioned a plan to you a single time up to this point, and while that is technically true, if you use your brain, I am confident you could figure it out. It wasn’t by any stretch a convoluted plan, and by looking at my situation, anyone who knows me even a little can predict what my next few moves would be.

  Obviously, I had no intention of hiding from my daughter forever. If any of you have a daughter, can you picture yourself running from her in fear? No, of course not, what I needed was to cow the Irons Clan and force Linqi to bow her head in submission to me. I have a lot of faith in her abilities, of course I do, but she still remains my daughter. I watched as she learned to walk, learned to talk, taught her how to fight, how to ride, and to shoot. She was going to get a big reminder that her place was at my side and beneath me, if only by a little bit.

  If I could defeat Linqi and subsume control of her clan, not only would I end the threat posed by her, but perhaps even more importantly, it would move me a lot closer to my goal of putting together an army with which to face Cao Cao before he became aware of my existence in the lower city. You might think I was being paranoid. Afterall, why would the CEO of a large and powerful corporation that dwelled on the highest of Sky Tiers care what was happening this far beneath him, let alone have access to that sort of information?

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  Well, to that I say you do not understand the man who ordered my death. Cao Cao was known as the King of Ambition, as the Hero of Chaos. This is a man for whom jealousy and paranoia are as natural as breathing, who would fight, lie, steal, and betray everyone and anything if it meant he could hold onto the power he accrued. Not to mention the things he would do to get or grow that power. So I was utterly certain he had eyes and ears in the lower city, always watching and hunting for even the slightest threat to his position.

  I have rambled for long enough, and I am sure by now you realise I intended to seek more levels as quickly as I could, gain access to my future sub-class and whatever benefits it bestowed, and then begin a one-man war of conquest to seize control of what my daughter had built.

  While Red Hare meant that I could traverse up and down the hunting grounds at greater speeds than ever before, I quickly noticed an issue with my plan to fill my soul expansion gauge and gain level as fast as I possibly could. The scout drones were uniformly level five and not giving me XP with the kind of speed I wanted. If there were an overwhelming abundance of the drones it would be fine, but the nexus assembly that created them only seemed to spit out five to ten of them a day, and it wasn’t like I was the only person hunting the metal beasts.

  Diaochan assured me that if the drones were left alive for a few weeks, they would grow in level and be worth more XP for me when I slew them. That would be all well and good except that I didn’t have that kind of time on my side and wasn’t the only one competing to kill the drones. This hunting ground was in the middle of Clan Yantra territory, and while I was confident in my ability to defeat the groups from the clan that frequently ventured into the block where I made my camp, I had no desire to make additional enemies right now, and especially not ones that had a pact in place with the warriors belonging to my daughter.

  So what options did I have left? Obviously, I continued to hunt, now with the Red Hare, with me and the pair of us needed practice to recover the level of teamwork we once possessed, and chasing the various scout drones through the crumbling hallways of the block was a perfect way to do that. On top of this, Dioachan advised me that when people hit a wall when it came to expedient Soul Expansion, they tended to focus on raising their so-called stats in the meantime. As both a Paradox incursion and also Lu Bu, my physical abilities were already higher than most, and had a greater level of potential for my level than the majority of other people who are level three. If it wasn’t going to be possible to reach level four any time soon, then I concluded it was time I reached that potential.

  Ordering Diaochan to design a series of exercise methods for me using what I had available, I began what she referred to as a ‘workout regime’ to reach higher stats as quickly as possible. Sadly, working out simply isn’t the same as physical cultivation. Yes, I could do things to grow my strength,reflexes, and stamina, but it wasn’t the same. Back on the world I had come from, I could do things like make war on beast-men, leap from cliffs, or dive to the bottom of a pool of magma to strengthen my body rapidly. Here, I just had to stick to mundanities, like lifting heavy things, running, or making my way through obstacle courses plotted out by my A.I.

  After a week of hunting with Red, and following Diaochan’s instructions, I had only increased my physical stats by one point across the board, and that simply wasn’t good enough.

  [ Lu Bu

  Legendary Warlord

  Lvl:3

  Might: 69/180

  ?Alacrity: 68/180

  ?Durability: 64/180

  ?Cunning:31/180

  ?Acumen: 16/180

  ?Quintessence: 14/180

  Soul Expansion Gauge: 442/1125 ]

  My mental stats had also grown ever so slightly, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to face my daughter before her contacts or clansmen found me at this rate.

  “Diaochan,” I said on the morning of the seventh day after beginning her regimen. “I know this world has cybernetics, and I am beginning to consider making use of them like Ha-Rin does, but before I take such a step, I need to know, what is the equivalent of an elixir or body-strengthening pill in this world?”