Kyle had submerged himself in a river and used coordinated nanoswarms to clean the armor deeply. Finally, the silvery gray and Prussian blue highlights of the armor were visible again.

  Reentering the city was simple. He pulled out the small bronze plate that demonstrated his adventurers guild membership, and with a simple magical scan, he was in.

  He had both the spleen in a large leather sack, and a bunch of jewels in the storage compartments of his armor.

  One building dominated the skyline of Altrai. The Mages Collegium-a huge, 7 story tower in the crafters district of the city near the trade entrances.

  Walking through the streets had already been a widely known spectacle thanks to the armor, but holding a leather sack that smelled incredibly strongly of blood did his profile no favors.

  The mages college was surrounded by contracted crafters and a smaller set of walls to keep thieves out. At the small gate entering the compound, a man in muted orange robes wearing what looked like a plumed colonial helmet blocked his way. A few supernaturally muscular guards in thick plate armor with glowing spears backed him.

  “State your business. What… What in the blazes is in that sack?” Kyle deadpanned, “Dragon spleen.”

  He had rapidly been taken to meet with the head Proctor of the college branch. The interior passed by in a flash, but it seemed like a library mixed with a chemical storage unit.

  The top floor was actually still more storage space, but a corner had been reserved for an office. Inside, a rather bare room with a few unhung paintings leaning on the floor held a desk.

  The man sitting at the desk was as spartan as his room-a square jawline, hard eyes, and a receding hairline. He was dressed in red robes, with a comfortable looking winter sleeping cap on his head.

  “I won’t ask you where you got that, as it’s already been proven as authentic. We’re willing to buy it for 17,000 gold Deacons, and any services or favors we can provide. Anything… you have no idea of the political value of this.”

  Kyle considered the proposition. “I want some identification done. Also information on the local area, and access to any maps you have.”

  The man’s dark face seemed to light up momentarily. “You have no idea what you're doing for my career. The Imperial Magisar will surely promote me now, and get me out of this backwater hellhole.”

  Kyle was led back down the stairs to an open floor with a large plinth. On it, he placed the gems he had acquired from the horde. After a moment, a mage standing off to the side called out. “These are truly immaculate. Each one is worth almost 500 Deacons!”

  Kyle looked back at the Proctor. He had another request he had been thinking about.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  After a moment, he asked, “Got any spatial storage of any kind? I’ll take anything at this point.”

  The proctor gave him a strange look. “Why, yes, we actually have a bag we recently produced at the enchanting array here. It’s rather low quality compared to goods from Cusson or the capital, only 30 times the space as its base shape. We’ll gladly give it to you.”

  Kyle walked away from that encounter, finally with a good storage unit.

  ————

  Now moving through the streets more leisurely, he noticed the cultists Bariyon had mentioned to him earlier. Men and women in embroidered robes, preaching on corners or rooting through alleyway trash heaps.

  They universally looked gaunt and wide-eyed, slightly deranged in the more extreme cases. Their robes were damp with sweat and dirt. They looked like they had been usually well cared for, but had suddenly been treated poorly.

  Kyle felt nothing but disgust for them. To let yourself sink so low… I would rather die. Faith brings nothing but pain. Killing that dragon might come back to bite me if these ‘mana flows’ stay disturbed for too long.

  Kyle adamantly turned up his nose whenever he saw them. Someday, when his industrial armies steamrolled the region, he would exterminate any he found properly.

  There was little else for him to do in the city. What could an early medieval frontier city even offer to him anyways? He would just make another run to the hoard, grab some more jewels, and sell them to the Collegium.

  The Collegium was actually holding his money in trust. They had the capital to act as a bit of a bank. His own profile was actually too low to interact with the Waggoners guild in any meaningful way, so as a favor to him, the college was handling it with the gold he provided.

  The Waggoners guild wouldn’t trust his word as a foreign individual, but the reputation and wealth of the Imperial Confederation of Magicians Guilds, Colleges, and Academies (ICMGCA) were both large and steadfast.

  A few people were interested in meeting him. A representative from a place called Elnomaga-a sort of breeding ground for magical talent deeper into the empire's windswept plains.

  An empire which he now knew was actually called Veskaya. It was huge-3 times the size of pre-war Russia. However, most of that land was even less useful than Siberia- endless plains with few resources, and lots of monsters to prevent settlement anyways.

  Nearby empires included the Continental Union, a confederation of nations far to the east, and Cascetta, a huge empire ruled by a race of bugmen who incorporated other races into their empire.

  Kyle mused about his soon-to-be holdings. Kyle could just imagine it-rows of steam engines, vulcanization and other chemical processes, even synthetic fertilizers.

  And what he imagined?

  It was beautiful.

  ————

  Many organizations had tracked or at least noticed Kyle’s entry into Lindus. Seers, the Warden Engines, various particularly powerful beings across the planet-all knew of him.

  The Baltigers, the Carckathic cults, even the Karvosokth in their sunken cities all noticed.

  But none knew of the danger he posed. Of the change he could bring. The only ones who had an inkling were the high elves in Muevidor due to their advanced fateweaving magics. They were too far to intervene in the slowly approaching train wreck they saw coming in the threads. Tens of thousands of miles away, too far even for teleportation arrays. The arrays were down anyway due to the Lamarcian civil war nearby.

  And so, Kyle operated mostly unimpaired-and would continue to do so until it was too late.