Hao Zhang's face twitched with brief annoyance, and he turned quickly away.

'Jinxiao! You will watch over him,' Hao called out, gesturing to one of the Cultivators. It was the younger woman, whose eyes widened with horror.

'M-me? But, young master, surely—'

'Surely you will not let me down? Good. See to him.' As he passed by the woman, he paused to lean closer, lowering his voice. Probably he thought Nicolai couldn't hear him, but the Cultivator underestimated him. His BIS allowed him to give his hearing a directional component alongside increased general sensitivity.

'We can't stop him taking part in the Inheritance,' Hao murmured, 'so we might as well make use of him. See what you can find out about this robed individual he speaks of. If a Cultivator gave him that Blade, I want to know. Gain his trust. That shouldn't be difficult, hmm?' Hao's eyes flicked meaningfully to her chest, and the cleavage on display. 'Simply pull that down a little.' He chuckled. 'If you do well, perhaps you can be forgiven for Han.' He gave a perfunctory nod and turned away.

'Yes, young master. Of course.' Jingxiao's face screwed up with irritation and annoyance as she glared at Hao's retreated back, and in direct opposition to the man's words she hiked her robe up a little higher. She cast a look around that took in the other three. They smirked at her, clearly very glad not to be the ones stuck with the shit job. She sneered at them, then stepped over to Nicolai.

'Hello,' he said. 'Are you my friend?'

'Sure.' She was a fragile looking thing, tiny nose and slender cheekbones, but the glower she gave him suggested a significantly less fragile mental state. 'It looks like I'll be helping you.' She sighed.

She was obviously on the Tier 2's shitlist for something she'd done. He didn't think it had anything to do with recent events, it was something from before. Could he use that? Maybe. Was he going to? Probably not. Nicolai wasn't sure how far he wanted to go down this route. For now he just wanted to observe and see what would happen. His act at least meant they regarded him with significantly less wariness. If it became possible for him to simply kill them all, he'd rather just do that rather than attempt some twisty con.

Although, this Inheritance wasn't quite what he'd hoped for in that regard—before entering, he'd thought he might have some options to kill them without combat or "hostile acts." But there were no environmental hazards that he could see, and if they were to simply play some kind of board game it was very unlikely he'd be able to find a way to dupe them into getting themselves killed.

His Mask had been squirming on his face for a little while now, but Nicolai kept it in a tight grasp. These people were obviously enemies, and so the best thing to do was kill them all. It made him recall the group, who had knocked him on the head and tied him up, but still he'd ended up not killing them.

But that had been different. They'd been weak; no true threat. These people were dangerous… and had many things that he wanted. He could feel it from all of them, the rippling Aura buzz of Symbiotes, Oma crystals, Imbued.

He'd needed one of the group to take his band off, and so he'd had reason to not kill. Then he'd become a Cultivator, and developed the Mask, and it had grown increasingly complicated.

Nicolai was glad he hadn't killed them (except for Karl, but Karl had needed to die). But he was very happy that at last his time with them was over. Even Jo and Beth. It had been an… interesting experience, and there had been benefits. But toward the end it had also grown cloying. On his own he didn't have to worry about the various complex and confusing longer-term needs of people.

He'd not killed them and had even been somewhat human, therefore he was a slightly Better Man and was doing well. Case closed.

He intended to avoid spending too much time with people who he'd decided not to kill, from now on. He didn't want to risk his Mask growing too attached, and he also needed to ensure its influence was kept in balance. He had to maintain Control.

The words in the book had held quite a bit of useful information about the Inheritance. As he had been keeping up his act, that information had been digitised from the pictures he'd taken and he'd begun to go through it. They would be playing something that resembled a sort of board game. Each of them would hold an area of influence on the table, one they should work to expand. The size of their influence and holdings at the end of the game would determine their rewards.

The twist of this was that it all worked via refinement and Symbiote management. The book said that the table was a small world, one full of Symbiotes and Natural Resources.

The Cultivators were all clustering around it, now, peering down. Nicolai's hanger-on looked like she wanted to be doing the same.

'What's on the table?' he prompted her.

'Shall we go see?' she said brightly, giving him the kind of overly-bright thin-lipped smile one might give to a particularly stupid and sticky child. 'Come on.' She set off for it, and Nicolai followed dutifully after.

The Cultivators were happy to ignore him as they investigated the table, chattering. Nicolai looked it over carefully while pointing to irrelevant parts of it and asking nonsensical questions of his increasingly irritated minder. The Tier 2 was watching him, so he did his best to keep up the act.

When looked at more closely, the table was composed of many hexagonal tiles. The divisions were quite easy to miss as overall it was quite seamless, but they were there. When one took this in mind, it became possible to notice how each tile had some different resources on it.

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Strange plants, pools of liquid, deposits of Oma crystals, groups of bugs, and, quite commonly, Symbiotes.

These were Symbiotes moving in a situation that seemed natural. They were collecting food for themselves, nibbling on the plants or in some cases hunting the bugs—and one another.

Only the outskirts of the table could they be seen, as after a few tiles inward a mist began to rise, and it clustered thick in the centre of the table. One of the Cultivators had attempted to blow the mist away, but the only effect had been to give himself a red face.

There was some kind of invisible barrier covering the table. No one could reach through it, not even the Tier 2.

The Cultivators had quickly began to focus intently on the Symbiotes which were visible, and also the resources around them.

However, they were talking very quietly and well away from Nicolai, the result of the Tier 2 warning them to do so. Most seemed convinced Nicolai was a moron, but they obeyed the Tier 2 regardless.

He could guess at what they were saying, though lip-reading wasn't possible since he didn't speak their language.

They would be discussing the resources available around each starting point, and the Symbiotes.

The book had made it clear. They were to expand through this game by seizing Symbiotes. Each of them would start with three Symbiotes, which served very basic functions. One Scout, one Gatherer, and one Defender.

By gathering resources, the Cultivators could create more Symbiotes; or send their Symbiotes out to fight others, beat them and seize control of them. That was the basic idea, anyway. But they could also sidegrade or upgrade their starting Symbiotes.

The book had explained that when the game ended, which would occur three days after it started, their rewards would be quite literally decided by the state of the game.

For each type of Symbiote they controlled within the game, they would be gifted a single one of that Symbiote. This meant it didn't matter if you had ten of a Symbiote or one; you would receive a single Symbiote as reward either way.

But the big rewards were the rarer Symbiotes. The majority of the Symbiotes within the game were very weak, and would be used as pawns. Mixed amongst these were a few rarer Symbiotes which were the true rewards. Seizing them was the purpose of the competition. Of those rarer Symbiotes, there would only be one. If killed, these would respawn after some time.

That said, even the pawn-type Symbiotes weren't all bad. Some of them could be useful, especially for refinement purposes. Nicolai immediately desired to get himself at least one of everything, but he knew it would not be so simple.

In truth, he had quite a pessimistic outlook toward his chances in this competition. It was only natural that all the Cultivators would work together, and seek to remove him quickly. On top of that, he could see that each of them was familiar with the basic idea of it.

Some of them had allowed their voices to go a little higher than they should've, and he'd caught some words.

'This is basically a control and refinement test, those who have the most skill at managing Symbiotes, and at refining them, will find it the easiest…'

That was the most pertinent sentence he'd heard. Nicolai had done little Symbiote refining, and he did not know how his managing skills compared to these others. These Cultivators were much more familiar with how all of this worked than him and others from Earth. It was possible they had been learning about and using Symbiotes since childhood.

He didn't think his chances were abyssmal; he had learned quite a bit from Kleos and the Memory Tomes. He recognised the majority of the Symbiotes and resources visible on the edges of the table. He had a little experience with refining. Still, he didn't think it would be enough. It was unlikely he would be able to win the big rewards.

That was why his true plan did not revolve around seizing victory within this little game.

When the game ended, he and the others would leave this place and combat would once more be possible. At that moment, he hoped to turn the tables. Previously, it had not been easy for him to fight them. He had killed a few, but only because they had underestimated the anti-material rifle. Now aware of it, he knew they would continue to employ their previous strategy, the big shield had been very effective. If he hadn't found this Inheritance, he would likely already be dead.

Nicolai did not have any way to deal with the Tier 2's infection Symbiote. As soon as that was used and infected his system, he would once more be in a bad position. In terms of Cultivation, these guys had him significantly outgunned. Plus, they had worked out how to deal with his guns and bombs.

He was also unused to fighting such opponents; against comparatively strong individuals from Earth, using Earth tech, Nicolai would expect to do significantly better. He knew everything there was to know about such tech, being able to disable weapons and equipment via precise shots, and able to keep himself safe by understanding the ranges and timing when he would be in the most danger from specific Earth weaponry.

But when it came to Symbiotes and Cultivation, he lacked the same keen understanding. The way these Cultivators employed shields and their group strategies was not something he had ever encountered before. He had no answer to their strategies.

Or at least, he didn't have any immediate answer. He had learned that lasers could pass through at least some of these Cultivation shields. Unfortunately, he had no laser weaponry; even if he'd thought to purchase one before leaving the castle, he simply hadn't had the funds for the cheapest available to him. However, there was one other counter he knew of, one which was supposedly designed with the purpose of dealing with shields, and which was available to him.

An Artifact Blade. Kleos had told him it was one of the purposes of such an item, as a counter to shield. Powered properly such a weapon would go straight through a shield of a comparable level.

The blade on his back held that function. The problem was that he could not power it himself. He needed Tier 3 Oma. Fortunately, it contained a storage of that energy, enough to be used a few times. But then the next problem: he wasn't able to access that storage, wasn't able to actually command the Blade. This, at least, was not an insurmountable problem. If he could dominate the undead soul in the Lotus Blossom Soul Trap, he would be able to activate the sword.

That would be his true aim, in the time he spent here. By the time he left this Inheritance, he intended to be capable of utilising the sword. If he managed that, then his second fight with these people would go very, very differently.

The Tier 2 had positioned himself by one of the starting points. Nicolai took careful note of the position the Tier 2 chose, as the man had clearly put much thought into the choosing.

Each of the starting points had slightly different resources.

The Tier's 2 had more Red Grass, which was key in both building and feeding many basic Symbiotes.

The others were quickly making their choices, and Nicolai saw that there was a pecking order amongst them, as they had brief arguments before one would make a choice.

Nicolai strode forward and laid claim to a starting point. This was one he'd identified as middling; not great, not bad.

Those left were quick to grab the remaining points around the table, and the game began.

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