"Do you seriously have a private elevator?" Noah asked, as he and Lilith stepped in. Or rather, she slid in, he stepped.

  "Don't you also think it's too much?" Marcel shot back at him with another question. "Wait until you see the view," he said, staring at the glass back wall that now only showed a fancy brick wall. As he said this, the elevator doors closed, and the thing started moving up. "This entire building is used by the companies owned by the Khan Family. Some idiot thought it was a great idea to have the elevator go through like this……" he said, as the view of people working on cubicles was seen from the elevator.

  "Oh, wow……" Noah was in awe, watching the people do their work dilligently as the elevator rose through the floors. Floor after floor, different kinds of people did different kinds of things, one occasionally throwing a glance at them as the elevator rose.

  'Someone probably wanted to be revered as a god or something, what a taste,' Lilith's caustic remark almost made Noah laugh, but he held it in, as he heard Marcel complain.

  "All those people are working under me, they already know my face. Why would I even want to have them stare at me as I ascend to heaven in a fucking elevator that only I can use? Uncle had some very strange taste when it came to these things……' He shook his head, "Back to the topic that actually matters. Under Grandfather, the Khan Family grew a lot, and he eventualy got too immersed in his own grandiosity. Corruption and crime thrived under him, without him ever noticing, even though everyone else could. In the end, uncle took over in his own greed. However, I managed to find proof of his crimes against the family and get things back on track……"

  Noah looked at Marcel's troubled expression and decided to give him a helping hand, "It must be tough, having to take those decisions on the fly."

  "You bet…… But I couldn't let everything my grandfather build get lost just because of him. It took a huge deal of power and effort to move from Eyrin towards the capital with the main forces. This is still our main building for now, but I'll make the Khan Family even more influential than it was under my grandfather, and build a more organized and larger Headquarters in the capital in the upcoming years. The aim is to eventually move to another system," Marcel said with conviction, letting his dreams shine through. But after Noah had seen that woman from the XXXX Family, things didn't look as promissing on that last part.

  "It is a wild dream. The other systems are nothing more than a legend to me, I've never even as much as met a person from another planet," Noah told him, turning away from the window. and looking at his friend.

  "You have. That woman, who leads the XXXX Family, she's not from this world. Rather, she was sent here because this world was weaker than her original one, to prove herself to her own Family," Marcel took a step towards the back glass, putting his hand against it. "It really makes one wonder whether we, B Ranked Blessed, are even something relevant in the grand scheme of things, you know. For this world, we are amazing, but even compared to my grandfather, we are all just specs of dust." Despite not being able to see his face, Noah could feel and understand Marcel's doubts from his words. "But when you beat Mason, it reminded me of something my grandfather had once told me; That we should never stop to strive for greatness. You went in there and showed me that those people who I was facing as equals were nothing more than pebbles in my path, and that I needed to take action. Because of it, I moved to become the Head in my uncle's place, found about all those crimes and all the money that got embezzled, and even managed to secure myself as the Head even though I was actually weaker than my uncle. Also, getting my hands on another B Ranked Blessed that would take them out like that was a great use of my connections with the XXXX Family, though that cost me a lot of my personal funds—Wait, look, this is the view I wanted to show you," Marcel called him out, turning around. Noah stared at the beautiful scenery as he saw the top of the ceiling of the building were the people worked in get away below them.

  "Isn't it gorgeous? Our Eyrin……" Marcel said, looking through the glass while taking a step back and standing next to Noah. "That city in the distance is the capital, it's over 200 miles away from here. I travel so much between the two that I often forget how far that actually is."

  "Wait, is this the tower?!" Noah asked, surprised at how tall they actually were, to be able to see that far. The Tower was the tallest building in Eyrin, a massive skyscraper in the outskirts of the town almost two full blocks' worth away from the building he got in as the Main Building.

  "Yeah. All the buildings on that block belong to the Family," Marcel confirmed, taking his eyes off the glass wall and staring at Noah. "We're here, we should start the actual negotiation before long. He said, as the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened to a large office space that spanned the entire floor, although the floor itself was small, as it was on the tip of the building.

  'Noah, was this whole Family deal that important? I had no idea it was that strong of a thing, I thought those nine were just regional powers,' Lilith told him, surprised. The fact that the arena was so close to his hometown was something Noah thought was related to the sphere of influence of the Families, but it seemed now that it was a misunderstanding on his part.

  'Yeah…… I guess they are a lot more than I took them for. After this negotiation we can pry a little,' he told Lilith, as he and the snake took their place on a sofa, in front of a small center table. Across from it, Marcel took his seat on an equal sofa, but narrower, and close to an armchair from width alone, though a pretty wide one.

  "Now," Marcel called Noah out, picking two glasses from within the armrest of his sofa and handing one out to Noah. "We should have a toast, for all we accomplished together in this short of a time," he smiled broadly, lifting the armrest of the other side to show a small build-in fridge, and taking a bottle of champaigne from it. Noah recognized it, it was one of the most expensive bottles in the entire world.

  "Isn't this going a bit far? To open such an expensive bottle with just me……" Noah asked, since this bottle should cost over a hundred thousand dollars on its own.

  "Stop being so overly humble, it doesn't suit you at all. We are toasting for my election as the life-long position of the Head of the Khan Family, and it's all thanks to you. This Family is worth hundreds of billions as of today, but it was way more valuable when my grandfather was looking over it. You need to understand the sheer size of the things you have done, Noah," Marcel said while filling his glass and Noah's. He raised his cup and put it halfway between the two, making Noah strike it with his own.

  "Cheers," Noah said, before taking a swig, and the smooth and bubbly drink flowing smoothly down his throat to the point that, by the time he noticed it, he'd already emptied his glass. "Oh, this really is something," Noah acknowledged, seeing Marcel nod after finishing his own glass.

  "There's a reason I brought you all the way here for this conversation." Noah raised his eyebrow listening to how Marcel had chosen his words. Something told him there was some kind of trick behind what he would say next. "Actually, I would like to offer the position as the vice-president of the Khan Conglomerate, the company under the Khan Family which owns this building." Noah was struck by an incredible sense of oddity as he heard those words, almost as if there was something incredibly wrong about them, even though he couldn't guess why.

  'Noah, you shouldn't take that.' But before he could even wrap his head around the idea, Lilith cane to him with a serious warning. Her voice also didn't show any signs of her usual lightheartedness, which raised Noah's alertness by another level.

  He raised his glass, and saw Marcel fill it up, taking a sip before responding the awaiting man, "Marcel, I am very thankful for everything you have given me the opportunity to. For inviting me to the Family, and giving me the means to achieve some of my highest goals," Noah smiled, and noticed Marcel smile at him too, taking note of the wory as his eyes angled differently than his general expression. "However, there's things I must do, and things that do not suit me. And taking such an executive position in a company of all things is definitely of those things that doesn't suit me," he said, before finishing his glass off with a single swig, and placing it on the table in front. Noah leaned back against the sofa, and started petting the snake resting on his lap, staring at Marcel waiting for his response.

  "I'm relieved," Marcel said, filling his glass, and taking a swig that emptied it in a single second…… "I was afraid you would've accepted that."