Chapter 910
Chapter 910
Another two weeks passed, and throughout that time, Anton maintained the same daily routine.
He slept for only three hours each day, usually going to bed around four in the morning and waking up at seven.
By the time he opened his door, Paul and Eric were almost always waiting for him.
The three of them would head to one of the restaurants in the Noble Section for breakfast before returning to Anton's suite.
Afterward, they spent around four hours inside the world of Diablo II.
Paul and Eric continued leveling their non-ladder multiplayer characters—the Barbarian and the Amazon—while Anton focused on his Ladder Barbarian.
About an hour before noon, they stopped to have lunch.
After eating, they returned to Anton's suite and continued exploring the world of Sanctuary.
In the afternoon, Anton limited their gaming session to another four hours despite Paul's and Eric's frequent complaints.
He still wanted some variety in his daily life.
He refused to let his Diablo System consume all of his time and still enjoyed spending time with his friends aboard the ship.
Whenever everyone gathered together, they usually spent their evenings eating, watching movies, television shows, or anime. They would rent one of the empty halls aboard the ship and transform it into their own private theater.
Anton had introduced his friends to the wonderful world of anime and television series.
Whenever possible, he deliberately chose shows he had never watched before so that he could experience them together with everyone else.
Before introducing anime, he first explained the concept to them.
They already had a rough idea after watching the Disney and Pixar animated films Anton had previously provided to the ship. Those films were shown to the passengers in one of the ship's large halls, which had been converted into a cinema.
Anton remembered his father's reaction.
According to Anders, Romina had been furious.
The cinema had become the family's most profitable business, and she believed Anton shouldn't have licensed their movies to the ship in exchange for nothing more than covering his daily expenses during the voyage.
Anton had simply shrugged.
He asked Anders to tell Romina that what was done was done.
Besides, the ship's license to screen the films would last only for the duration of the voyage.
Once the journey ended, every magical recording containing the movies would automatically be destroyed, exactly as specified in the magically binding contract Anton had signed with the ship's management.
Romina eventually calmed down after Anton pointed out another perspective.
The ship carried only around ten thousand passengers, and most of them intended to settle permanently in Izmorta.
That relatively small audience would have little impact on the family's cinema business.
If anything, the voyage served as free advertising.
Should the family ever decide to open cinemas in Izmorta, many former passengers would already be familiar with their films and would likely spread word of how entertaining they were.
Anders had laughed at that.
Even after the portal network eventually connected Izmorta, it would probably be quite some time before the family expanded that far.
Romina's immediate goal was to establish a cinema in New Drennor.
Afterward, she planned to expand throughout the kingdoms of the Gale Continent before even considering opening locations in Izmorta.
Anton smiled as he remembered how much the family's movie collection had grown over the years.
He had been supplying Romina with films for quite some time.
Luna once told him that Romina guarded the family's movie vault—where all the magical recording devices containing the films were stored—as though it were her greatest treasure.
In truth, Anton suspected that nearly every member of the family, with the possible exceptions of Anders and Anna, regarded the movie vault as the most valuable room in Rose Manor.
The thought always made him laugh.
Romina already possessed everything she needed to expand the cinema business.
The only thing she lacked was trained personnel, something that could be developed over time.
Because Anders and Anton allowed her complete freedom regarding the cinema business, her talents as a businesswoman had flourished.
She had also begun training Luna—and, by extension, Kirk—to eventually take over the family's commercial enterprises.
Luna even mentioned that Alfred showed little interest in becoming either a wizard or a dungeon-delving warrior.
Instead, he spent most of his time watching movies and anime.
Because of that, Romina believed she could eventually convince him to manage the family's entertainment businesses, particularly the cinemas and the Cosplay Convention.
Some of Anton's friends eventually noticed that Paul and Eric had changed.
When asked about it, the two merely replied that they had been feeling stronger lately.
In reality, they truly had become significantly more powerful.
The benefits granted by Anton's Diablo II System were extraordinary.
Anton had already accepted that, once the voyage ended, Paul and Eric would most likely beg him not to revoke their access to the system.
By the end of those two weeks, Anton had successfully raised his Ladder Barbarian to the maximum level.
As before, twenty percent of the Barbarian's primary attributes transferred to his real body.
He immediately felt another noticeable increase in his physical strength.
He also transferred another Grand Charm from the game into reality.
This time, he chose the Chilling Grand Charm of Life.
With that accomplished, it was finally time for the family's monthly meeting.
During the meeting, Anders thanked Anton for the large number of Tomes of Town Portal he had sent to the family.
"Since transporting items through the portal chest doesn't cost me anything, I might as well make full use of it," Anton replied.
Using the portal chest was one of the privileges Anton had earned by supplying Ormunda with portal scrolls and granting the ship the rights to screen his movies.
Anders explained that once Oakswood officially became a city, he intended to use the portal scrolls to transform it into one of Rendindura's major trading centers.
"How's Sonya's leveling going?" Anton asked.
"At first, I had to persuade her quite firmly," Anders admitted. "She disliked fighting monsters up close. But once she reached a high enough level to rely on the Paladin's ranged abilities instead, she started enjoying it."
"What truly excites her, though, are the Paladin's healing auras."
Anders went on to explain that Sonya had opened a free clinic in Oakswood.
She was the settlement's only healer.
The clinic operated only from morning until noon, four days each week, yet that was more than enough.
The Prayer Aura she had acquired through the Paladin class was so powerful that she could treat an enormous number of patients in only a few hours.
Unfortunately, her sudden transformation into an incredibly gifted healer had also attracted suspicion.
Because she had begun looking noticeably younger, some villagers accused her of being a witch.
The only reasons they didn't openly persecute her were that Anders had become extremely powerful and that Sonya never accepted payment for her healing services.
Anders admitted he had grown tired of the villagers' constant suspicion.
He believed much of it stemmed from the fact that Sonya wasn't originally from Oakswood but had arrived there years earlier as a refugee seeking sanctuary.
Eventually, Anders stepped in and spread a different explanation.
He told everyone that Sonya had been personally instructed by powerful Ormundan wizards after he obtained a rare class scroll from a deep, high-level dungeon in Ormunda and gifted it to her.
The story proved believable enough to satisfy most of the villagers.