-Genesis-

It had been a while since my oldest brother had gone missing. At first there weren't any major waves caused by his disappearance, but after many different search parties and other efforts came back with nothing, things started to become chaotic. At first I didn't really care about it, but recently others have started to involve me in their efforts to claim the head of house position.

Thoughts swirled around my multiple minds as I woke up in my bed. Thoughts on what I was going to do, and how I could deal with everything my siblings were scheming. It had all been a bit overwhelming, but thankfully Radiant had offered to help me.

I had always thought he was a bit strange, but after recent events I had come to understand that maybe he wasn't as strange as he could've been.

I was surprised when he had offered to help me with my sibling problems, since he didn't usually offer to help first, but I wasn't going to reject his offer.

We had agreed to meet up later, after he had time to think up some solutions to my problems. And last night we fulfilled that promise and met again.

The first thing he did was to transfer a list of things to keep in mind for my situation, before then talking more in depth about each of the points.

And this was his 'list to deal with troublesome trouble':

Establish Boundaries Early

Maintain Transparency, and Redirect Conflict

Limit Involvement in Sensitive Discussions, While also Staying Diplomatic in Communication

Protect Personal Interests, and Remain Focused on Your Own Goals

Utilize External Advisors

Prepare for Changing Alliances

Monitor Your Own Safety

I recalled what Radiant had said last night after he had finished going over each of the points on the list.

"This isn't a comprehensive guide or anything. Just remember that the last point about monitoring your own safety is the highest priority. I don't think you'll face any danger, but it's always good to keep an eye out for things like that, especially during a conflict for power."

I sat up in my bed, opened my eyes and smiled slightly, but then my smile faded as I thought about what I had to deal with today.

I had been basically running away from my problems lately, since I had wanted to stay away from all of the chaos. However, Radiant had advised me quite intensely against doing that. He had emphasized the second half of point four: Remain Focused on Your Own Goals.

"If there's a storm around your boat, what do you do?"

"Uh, well I guess I would throw down an anchor?"

Radiant had sighed, "Indeed, that's what most people would think to do. You can think of throwing down an anchor as protecting your personal interests." He then raised a finger, "But if you know the storm isn't going to go away anytime soon, then you can only anchor down for so long. Eventually you're boat is going to continue to take on water and become too much to handle. If you know the storm isn't going away anytime soon, then you're going to have to keep moving and hopefully make your own way out of the storm. It might be dangerous, but it'll get you out of the storm sooner than just anchoring down will. However, you must have clear and focused goals to guide you, because the waves and winds will be trying to send you wherever they want you to go."

He always had a way with words, and yet at the same time his people skills didn't seem to be at the same level. Maybe he hadn't had much experience like that in prison?

I got out of my bed, and went about getting ready for the day with the help of a few servants. I was a bit different than almost all of my other siblings, since I didn't have any slave servants. It used to not really matter to me, but after some point I started to think of slavery as repulsive. Maybe it's because of Radiant… Now that I think about it, although he never outright preached his views on many things, his views must've rubbed off on me after spending so much time together. I can see how him being imprisoned since he was a child would lead to him hating things like slavery. At least he won't have to deal with that sort of thing as much with him being so close to the border with Liqua…

After I got ready I went to my office that I had been using ever since I had officially become a vassal. Technically I was still blood related to the Rothalls, but without the bloodline Talent I wasn't entitled to many of the things those with the bloodline Talent were.

So I got a simple office located within the main building, which also allowed me to keep staying in my room in the main building as well.

I ate breakfast as usual, and then got down to business. Closing my eyes I entered The Archives with all of my minds, determined to build up my own backup plan for emergency situations.

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Arriving in the grand hall of The Archives, I had many copy bodies split off from me, and had my individual minds split off and inhabit the different clone bodies. Thus I began searching for a person I had recently been talking to within The Archives. He was a strange person that had come to me not long before I had learned of my brother's disappearance, and had been trying to get me to cooperate with him.

He offered fairly standard stuff in exchange for information on my family situation. I of course didn't agree to selling out my family information, but even so he hadn't given up.

However, today was going to be different. Today I was going to accept the man's deal and give him some information about my different siblings that were being the most annoying and forceful in their attempts to get me to join their side.

Normally I wouldn't even think about doing something like selling out my family, but desperate times called for desperate measures; and I was indeed somewhat desperate, though it was more like I was desperate to avoid falling into any traps my siblings might have set up for me.

There were only about three more years before my father's term as head of the family would end, and after that there was no guarantee that I would keep my position as a vassal. So if I wanted to secure my future I needed to make sure that my more threatening siblings had a harder time obtaining that position.

My father had been in the position since he was about forty-three years old, so he was coming up on being eighty this year, meaning he was about to become middle aged, at least for those wealthy enough to afford life extension and top notch healthcare; though a two hundred year lifespan was more common than one would expect prices from such life changing treatments would allow, but that was off topic. This meant that my father was probably going through a midlife crisis, since he had been neglecting most family matters in favor of things that might help him through the challenges he was about to face.

It was no secret within the upper echelons of society that immortality was entirely possible to achieve, but it was also known that the various different methods to do so weren't easy in the slightest.

This meant that my father, although he favored me, wouldn't be of much help to me. With him so focused on the goal of achieving immortality, I was left to fend for myself against my sibling's plots and machinations until my father's forty year term limit was up.

Today I was going to push through my previous indecision on whether or not I should increase my power. I had been worried that if I started increasing my power too rapidly it would draw too much attention from my siblings, even before my oldest brother went missing. But Radiant had convinced me that only those who weren't worth bothering could remain neutral, either because they were too strong or because they were too weak. I obviously wasn't too weak, so the only option was to increase my strength to the point where it wouldn't be worth it to force me to change my neutral stance.

The first step of my plan was to hinder my most troublesome siblings through the targeted use of information leaks, but this was only a stopgap measure. If I really wanted to change the stakes, then I would need to increase my personal power.

As I walked through The Archives I thought about my most concrete way to immediately boost my personal power, and that was to rush my purchase of personalized golems. It was something that had been years in the making already, with experimentation and tests taking longer than initially expected. However, all of the initial complications were out of the way now, and all that were a few minor details and the final construction.

The golems were going to be the vessels for my many minds that were currently trapped inside my one and only body, at least outside of The Archives.

Normally golems meant for the task of housing and utilizing an extra mind wouldn't be too complicated to produce, however my Talent [Collective Self] gave me more than just some extra minds. What [Collective Self] created were more like complete virtual copies of myself, with all the minutiae that came along with it. In essence, this meant that instead of golems that connected just a mind to the golem's body, I needed golems that would allow the complete integration of my virtual copies.

Fortunately this didn't mean that I needed exact golem copies of my body though, if that were the case I would've just had some clones of myself made. Clones would work obviously, but they came with their own problems I didn't want to deal with. Things like deterioration when not in use, and inconvenient resource upkeep like food and bathrooms. Golems were so much simpler to deal with, but they presented many startup challenges I didn't initially expect. But, in the end, I had chosen golems despite the challenges, and it was finally time to capitalize on all of the progress I had built up over the years.

My future, which had started to look dim and dreary, had started to brighten up after Radiant had helped out. I probably wouldn't have ever opened up to him about the challenges I was facing on my own, but he had offered to help me first. It was a personal problem and I knew it, but he had taken the initiative and helped me without making it awkward or embarrassing, which gave me a warm feeling in my heart.

Although my golem plans had already been long in the making, Radiant's advice had led me to the decision to rush the end of the project. Technically all that was required at this point was money, but it required a lot of it. If I kept slowly funneling money to the project like I had been before, I would probably have the golems finished in about three years right in time for the change of head. However, I was now hesitatingly ready to dig into my cash reserves.

Just think of it as an up front investment, Genesis.

I shook my head, Of course you would say that number 3. But I guess you are right.

Thankfully my financial capital was staggering compared to my siblings. Radiant's initial and ongoing advice when it came to investing had definitely paid off over the years.

But after this investment my fluid cash reserves would pretty much dry up. And considering the fact that making the golems had already required me to keep extracting my Mana Cells over the years, my Mana Cell cultivation was way behind what it should've been. So not only were my cash reserves low, but my Mana Cells were also running low; but thankfully regenerating my Mana Cells was as fast as it could currently be.

Regenerating Mana Cells took just as much time as it did to split Mana Cells, which meant that every Mana Cell I extracted delayed my cultivation and progress. So, after my last Rank up, I haven't Tiered up my Mana Cells at all, allowing me to regenerate my Mana Cells as fast as possible, but also stalling my progress.

After my golem project was complete, it would almost be like I was starting from the bottom in terms of resources, but I was certain that I could bounce back up in no time. After all, if I could have ten more of me running around, then it stood to reason that I'd be able to get ten times more done, right?

At least, that's what I hoped.

In any case it would allow me to complete my next Tribulation at ease, and that was all I really hoped for.

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