Ronan sat there for a while trying to decide on the alignment. Conquest or knowledge spoke to him the most. Protection somewhat appealed, but it wasn't his main goal.

For a while now he'd sort of been moving forward on autopilot. Not being able to die was a great boon, but it did remove a lot of the usual motivation and passion of life. What was there to strive for when he had all the time in the world?

He wanted to make sure his sister was safe, that he could defend his home from the supposed invaders, but what did that even mean? There was no need to do so in any particular iteration. Even if he did accomplish it, dying would just mean returning to the beginning of the tutorial with all of his progress erased, saved for that which empowered him.

That wasn't to say he was feeling depressed or he didn't enjoy the way he was moving through the integration and everything that came with it, but this was the first time in a while that he'd been forced to really consider what he wanted to accomplish beyond the superficial and short-term.

Ultimately, no matter how many avenues he went down, most of his goals came down to a few simple truths.

Ronan wanted to make sure his sister was alive and figure out if he could somehow share his gift with her—if she wasn't experiencing a similar thing already, that is.

Ronan wanted to get as strong as he possibly could, even going beyond the limitations of the system so that he could one day overpower the damned thing.

Ronan wanted to make sure that no one in this entire damned universe, multiverse, whatever the hell they were in, could fuck with his planet.

And if there was one thing he had learned about the system, it was that you couldn't just wait for good things to happen to you. You had to go out there and earn them. Most of the time, by punching people, monsters, or stuff.

You have selected the following details for your faction!

Name: Chronos

Alignment: Conquest

Member Limitations: Must be invited/accepted by the faction leader or relevant authorities; must not cause damage to any property belonging to the faction or sectors controlled by the faction; must not wilfully harm sapient beings for personal enjoyment.

Reading over the system's interpretation of his choices, Ronan felt confident in them. He accepted, and was now the proud owner of a shiny new faction. It felt good, for more than one reason.

Mostly for the fact that he had reaffirmed what he wanted to do and how he was going to do it. The faction was a secondary bonus.

When he opened the pillar menu again, it now listed that it was claimed by the Chronos faction. Not only that, but on his map a purple area had appeared around the pillar, slowly spreading outwards. Focusing, it informed him that the purple area was the territory controlled by his faction.

That was an interesting piece of information to acquire. It meant that despite him claiming the pillar of this sector for himself and his faction, the faction did not immediately gain control of the territory. That wasn't the same for him as a knight, as he could control and manage the entire sector from the moment he claimed the pillar.

It was a strange separation of jurisdiction, but the system probably had a good reason for it. Or a bullshit reason. One never knew when it came to the system. It could just as easily be fucking with him as enforcing a legitimate codex of rules.

Pulling up the faction menu again, Ronan wanted to see if it gave him any more information about the alignment. He mainly wanted to know if it was purely superficial—some kind of multiversal gang war—or if there were actual benefits or demerits to each alignment.

[Faction - Chronos]

Tier: N

Alignment: Conquest +

Leader: Ronan Steele

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Members: 1/25

Member Limitations: Must be invited/accepted by the faction leader or relevant authorities; must not cause damage to any property belonging to the faction or sectors controlled by the faction; must not wilfully harm sapient beings for personal enjoyment.

Controlled Sectors: 1 (46592)

Wealth: 0 Faction Credits

[Faction Store]

[Faction Quests]

[Faction Altar]

[Faction Gate]

There was so much to explore that Ronan was struck with choice paralysis. However, his initial task had been to find out about the alignment, so that was what he did. The plus sign beside it indicated there was more to be discovered, as was the case with his heritage and stat fruits.

[Faction - Chronos]

[Alignment]

[Primary Alignment]

Conquest: Faction members purge pillar claims 10% faster and are able to conquer unclaimed pillars 15% faster. Exponential claim bonus for having multiple faction members in the pillar zone is 50% greater than usual. Members of this faction restore X points of every resource they possess per minute, where X is the number of pillars controlled by this faction.

Right now Ronan didn't have much use for the benefits, but he was sure he would in future. It also gave him clues about how the next phase of the integration and all the phases hereafter would go.

He had faced a native boss monster to claim his sector, but there were others under siege by invading aliens. When the 'region' opened up, he had no doubt that the factions in control of each pillar would be going to war to conquer and dominate one another.

The faction store was currently empty. The faction wealth was also at 0 faction credits. Ronan had no idea what the conversion rate was to normal credits, but even if he had ten thousand they wouldn't help him with an empty store.

The quests menu was equally empty. There was nothing that the system wanted him and his faction to do right now. Exciting stuff.

In fact, the only area of the faction menu that actually gave him the option to do something was the altar.

[Faction - Chronos]

[Altar]

The altar has never been used before. The first offering will receive a greatly multiplied reward.

What will you sacrifice at the Altar?

While the wording of the question was ominous, the actual function was far less scary. There were empty slots beneath it, reminiscent of the inventory. There was also a counter with 2 sets of numbers, indicating that Ronan could either sacrifice his credits or his items. Possibly both.

He had plenty of useless items and more credits than he knew what to do with. He didn't want to give up too much of his hard earned wealth, but the trash items wouldn't impact his inventory value by a large amount. He was simply curious to know what the faction altar did.

Putting in five weapons and five accessories that he couldn't equip anymore, Ronan filled up all of the available slots. Apparently the altar wasn't a rubbish bin and wouldn't take all of his worthless items. As for credits, he threw in a bronze credit and 500 copper credits for good measure. Then, he sacrificed the lot.

Unlike with the myriad skills tome or endless treasury tokens, there were no flashy effects or annoying noises. The items and credits simply vanished, as though they never existed. About three seconds later, he heard a soft splash; a stone dropped into a pond.

Your sacrifice has been accepted!

+0.0006 Faction Credits

+Writ of Recruitment (Common)

+Blueprint - Crafter's Hall (Common)

+Blueprint - Cultivation Chamber (Common)

That is a shocking exchange rate. What the hell, system? Ronan was baffled by the awful conversion to faction credits. Based on the rough value of what he'd offered, it totalled around 3 bronze credits. Assuming a bonus because it was the first offering, as the altar had mentioned, that meant a single faction credit was worth roughly 10,000 bronze credits!

After a few seconds of grumbling, he realised it made sense. If a faction had a large number of people all offering their wealth, it was only a matter of time before they accumulated enough to earn a whole faction credit. It was also likely that the store would open up once the faction tiered up or earned enough credits.

As for the quests, Ronan suspected they would be another method to earn credits or other faction-related rewards. In any case, the meagre amount of faction credits was the least interesting of his four rewards.

The writ of recruitment did as it said on the tin. He consumed it immediately, expanding the maximum number of people that could be in the faction from 25 to 35.

As for the blueprints, they weren't directly related to the faction, but rather the sector. In the construction menu of the pillar, that had previously been empty, there were now two options available to Ronan. The crafter's hall and the cultivation chamber.

Unfortunately, they were both prohibitively expensive. He could afford the credit cost of building them, but as he wouldn't get as much use out of them during this iteration as he wanted to, there was no point in doing so. In his next iteration, when he no longer had such a gap between his current credit multiplier and his potential, he would consider it. Assuming he even kept the blueprints…

Having used the altar and figured out what it did, he didn't see a use in making more offerings right now. Instead, he moved on to the final option in the faction menu.

The Faction Gate.

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