Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

He had the Absolute Upgrade System so he could even upgrade the cheapest metal to something capable of killing a god.

’At least I can... I haven’t tried upgrading them past Tier 3.’ Silas thought.

He honestly didn’t have a reason for that but what if he didn’t start with cheap Earth metal?

What if he walked into an unmapped Secret Realm, bypassed the scions, and looted pre-cataclysmic ancient artifacts?

If he took a sword forged from a forgotten thousand-year-old mythic alloy and pumped three hundred UP directly into its core... the resulting weapon wouldn’t just be high-tier...

It would be apocalyptic!

The structural foundation of ancient Sovereign Realm loot would allow his cheat system to bypass its usual safety limits entirely.

It was a massive risk but the payout could single-handedly elevate his girls from heavy infantry into an unstoppable god-killing army.

”When is the raid?” Silas asked, his golden-ringed eyes tracking the neon lights bleeding across the wet glass. ”And how many Lords are dropping in?”

”Three days from now,” Elora answered promptly with a brief flash of satisfaction crossing her sharp features.

She had hooked him.

”And it won’t just be our cohort... It was actually a deep-sector orbital scanner operated by another city’s administration that originally discovered the anomaly. They leaked the coordinates so a lot of good Lords from rival districts will be there... The competition will be quite crazy.”

She tapped the control yoke, bringing the supercar to a smooth hovering halt at a red light.

”On the third day, I will come pick you up,” Elora instructed, outlining the plan. ”I’ll drive you to the staging ground. We won’t be using a standard Association portal room as we have to enter the Sovereign Realm to get to the anomaly through a Crack.”

Silas let out a long sigh.

He scrubbed a hand down his face, feeling the exhaustion finally catching up to him.

”A Crack,” Silas muttered dryly. ”Perfect.”

A Crack was exactly what the name implied.

It wasn’t a clean runic archway maintained by the Lord Association.

It was a literal tear in the fabric of reality.

It was a space where the dimensional boundary between Earth and the Sovereign Realm had completely fractured and bleeding raw mana into the mortal world.

Lords and even regular unawakened people could use a Crack to physically walk into the Sovereign Realm without needing to engage their Lord System interface or use the Ascend tab.

Because they were so highly unstable and prone to spitting out rogue monsters, the military usually locked them down with artillery batteries.

Using one as a backdoor staging ground for a Secret Realm raid meant Elora’s father was pulling some massive political strings to bypass standard Association oversight.

It was dangerous snd it was exactly the kind of chaotic environment where Silas thrived.

Or wanted to thrive on at least.

”Fine,” Silas agreed, looking over at her. ”I’m in.”

Elora actually smiled.

It wasn’t her usual cold smirk but rather, it was a bright stunning smile that entirely transformed her icy features, making her look incredibly beautiful under the dim dashboard lights.

”Very good,” Elora said with her voice dropping into a softer sound. ”I will forgive you for talking so vulgarly about my body in those messages, Graves.”

Silas stared at her for a second with the embarrassment briefly rearing its ugly head again before he ruthlessly shoved it back down.

”Thank you,” Silas muttered, crossing his arms and looking away.

The supercar smoothly turned down a wide commercial boulevard and began slowing down.

Through the heavy rain, a massive towering structure loomed into view.

It was a venue of the Lord Association Building, though Silas noted immediately that it wasn’t the primary headquarters he had gone to last time.

This building was sleeker, reinforced with black steel, and surrounded by a wide well-lit plaza.

That didn’t matter.

The Association’s internal network was linked.

He could buy his supplies and get a blood test for Lia at any official branch.

Elora pulled the matte-black vehicle directly up to the designated drop-off zone with the heavy mag-tires hissing against the wet pavement as the car settled into a hover.

”We’re here,” Elora announced, tapping the console to unlock the passenger door.

Silas reached for the handle.

He grabbed Lia, who was still wearing the massive, formless dark t-shirt over her dirty clothes, and prepared to step out into the rain.

Elora kept her hands on the yokes.

She bit her lower lip quite a bit with her icy blue eyes flicking over his broad shoulders and the sharp line of his jaw.

Her internal calculations were changing again.

’If I got closer to him through a relationship...’ Elora thought, the cold logic of her upbringing driving her actions. ’I could perhaps make him reveal what his territory is on his own... If he falls for me, like most guys in the Academy usually do, he’ll start spilling his secrets to impress me. I can bypass the entire investigation phase. Perhaps I can make the Blessed Land my pawn quite quicker if the Lord thinks he’s protecting his girlfriend.’

Elora Verinda did not understand the concept of love.

Not in the way the cheap Earth television dramas portrayed it that had grand romantic gestures and selfless sacrifice...

All her father, the City Lord, had ever taught her was that power was the only currency that mattered.

Affection was a tool and desire was leverage.

You had to use absolutely everything at your disposal to get what you wanted, and that was all there was to it.

Silas Graves was a valuable dangerous asset and she was perfectly willing to use herself as the bait to put a leash on him.

”Graves. Hold on,” Elora called out with her voice sounding slightly breathless.

Silas paused, the gull-wing door half open.

The cold rain blew into the warm cabin as be looked back at her.

A deliberate perfectly executed red flush appeared on Elora’s pale cheeks.

She looked down at her hands, playing the role of the shy flustered noble to perfection.

”If perhaps...” Elora said softly, her icy blue eyes looking up at him through her lashes. ”After the raid, you truly are interested in me, Graves... then perhaps we could go on a date.”

Silas completely froze.

Before he could even process the words, let alone formulate a reply, Elora’s hand slammed down on the console.

The passenger door automatically hissed shut the second Silas stepped out onto the curb.

The heavy mana-engine roared to life, violently displacing the rainwater around the chassis.

She didn’t wait for an answer.

She floored the accelerator, the black supercar tearing off down the commercial boulevard and disappearing into the city traffic.

Silas stood on the wet pavement with the cold rain soaking into his dark trench coat.

He stared at the empty space where the car had just been.

”Thank you,” Silas muttered to the empty street, utterly and completely baffled by the whiplash of the last few minutes.

Standing next to him, shivering slightly in the freezing rain, Lia violently tugged on the sleeve of his heavy coat.

”She is super weird,” Lia complained loudly, wiping the rainwater out of her eyes. ”Can we go inside now? I’m freezing, and my ribs still hurt!”

Silas shook his head, snapping out of his confusion. ”Right. Let’s go.”

He threw a heavy arm around Lia’s small shoulders, shielding her from the worst of the downpour, and walked toward the towering entrance of the LAB venue.

The wide sweeping stone stairs leading up to the double.glass doors were flanked by four heavily armed Association guards.

They were wearing thick gray armor laced with weather-absorption runes, and they carried heavy energy rifles strapped to their chests.

Their job was to screen the massive influx of Awakened Lords, ensuring that rival guild disputes didn’t spill over into the commercial lobby.

As Silas approached the steps, the guards immediately stepped forward, raising their hands to block his path.

They saw a tall man in a wet trench coat, dragging a dirty unawakened street rat in an oversized shirt.

He didn’t look like a corporate scion... He didn’t have a guild emblem stitched to his chest either!

”Halt. State your business and present your—” the lead guard barked with his hand resting on the grip of his rifle.

Silas didn’t stop walking. He didn’t even slow down.

He simply narrowed his golden-ringed blue eyes and let a microscopic fraction of his Mythic Gold Core pressure leak out of his chest.

It wasn’t an attack.

It was just the suffocating weight of an predator asserting its dominance over a lesser species.

The air around Silas instantly dropped ten degrees.

The raindrops falling within a three-foot radius of his shoulders seemed to physically slow down, repelled by the dense mana bleeding off his skin.

The four guards froze.

The words died in the lead guard’s throat.

His pupils contracted in terror.

His Awakened instincts, honed by years of guarding the Association doors, screamed at him with clarity.

’If you touch this man, you will die before your body hits the floor.’

The guards didn’t say another word.

They immediately stepped backward, lowering their hands and parting like the Red Sea to let him pass.

Silas walked right between them, keeping his hand securely on Lia’s shoulder, and pushed open the heavy glass doors.

They stepped into the massive, sprawling ground reception floor of the LAB.

The contrast between the cold dark street and the interior of the building was always so different.

The lobby was colossal, featuring high-vaulted ceilings, polished white marble floors, and massive, scrolling holographic terminals displaying fluctuating market prices for beast cores and raw alloys.

The room was packed. Everywhere Silas looked, there were Awakened Lords moving around and conducting business.

Some were fully decked out in heavy blood-stained mythril armor, returning from deep-sector anomaly clears.

Others were wealthy scions wearing tailored suits, casually dropping hundreds of thousands of credits at the alchemy kiosks.

The air was thick with the chaotic, overlapping hum of a hundred different mana signatures.

Silas ignored the crowd.

He led Lia straight across the marble floor, bypassing the crowded trading desks, and walked up to one of the free receptionists at the primary administrative counter.

The receptionist was a young dressed woman wearing the standard gray Association uniform.

She looked exhausted, clearly at the end of a grueling shift dealing with arrogant entitled academy rookies.

”Welcome to the Lord Association,” she recited mechanically, not even looking up from her glowing terminal screen. ”Please present your Lord ID for verification before requesting any commercial or logistical services.”

Silas reached into the inner pocket of his trench coat.

He pulled out the heavy, metallic card and slid it smoothly across the polished counter.

The receptionist picked it up and slotted it into the scanner mounted on her desk.

The terminal beeped.

Her eyes which had been half-closed with boredom suddenly went completely wide.

She stared at the glowing blue text on her screen, reading the data file twice to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

[Name: Silas Graves.]

[Status: Active Lord.]

[Core Grade: Excellent-Grade Blue Core.]

[Clearance Level: High-Priority.]

In the vast, populated hierarchy of the Awakened society,

Blue Cores were incredibly rare.

They were the elite strikers with the individuals who were practically guaranteed to secure high-tier territories and massive wealth.

The Association treated them like royalty, desperate to keep them happy so they wouldn’t defect to independent

off-the-grid guilds.

The receptionist instantly stood up straighter, smoothing out the wrinkles in her uniform.

She looked up from the screen, fully intending to offer a rehearsed respectful corporate greeting.

But when her eyes finally landed on the man standing across the counter, the words got stuck in her throat.

She had expected a pompous flashy academy scion.

Instead, she was looking at a towering, broad-shouldered Lord with striking defined features and intense golden-ringed blue eyes.

The dark wet trench coat clung to his heavy musculature, and he radiated confidence.

She felt a sudden unprofessional flush of heat hit her cheeks.

”I...” the receptionist stammered, completely losing her train of thought as she stared at his jawline.

Silas didn’t have the patience to deal with corporate fawning.

He had a shopping list to complete, a ten-year-old street thief to rehabilitate, and a Secret Realm raid to prepare for.

”Before we start with what I want to do,” Silas interrupted her smoothly with his deep voice easily cutting through the ambient noise of the crowded lobby. ”Do you perhaps offer services for injections or blood tests here?”