It turned out that Dan didn't even need to worry about such things. The guards waved him through after he explained that he was an explorer who had run into a rough time in the tunnels, thus explaining his lack of equipment. The explanation seemed common enough that the guards didn't even think twice and let him into the city while expressing their condolences. Dan was shocked that the guards hadn't even questioned it, but he imagined the planet had to be young, and the influences of aberration had yet to show their hideous colors.

  Once inside the city, the work truly began. The guards had been D rank, and many people inside the city were also of similar rank. This definitely placed the area as a low-risk area, at least to himself. However, Dan still needed more information and began the process of extracting said information.

  At first, he spent weeks learning the routine of the city.

  Which areas were the worst and filled with societies unwanted? How did the economy work? How attentive were the guards? What was the extent of the world's magic? How was the city ruled? Where exactly was he in the grand scheme of things? At least planet-wise.

  Dan found that in his search for answers, society had mostly stayed the same. The strong ruled like always, except now they had the power to back their rule. There was corruption, but not to the level Dan expected due to magical contracts. However, just like back on Earth, corruption worked like it always did, with money.

  In this world, Dan found that money came in the form of rare mana-infused ore. The higher the level of mana infused within the ore, the more valuable it was. The type of ore also added value, with something like a chunk of mythical-infused ore being the equivalent of 1000 iron-infused chunks, even if they both had the same mana levels.

  From an economic perspective, the infused ores could be used to make weapons and armor, which were the layers of metal that the soldiers wore. Thanks to that, the ores had value since they provided actual benefits.

  Looking into magic, Dan learned that the world was less advanced than he originally gave it credit for. Sure, they had lots of enchantments, but the level of those enchantments rarely passed D rank in power. And through his snooping, Dan did learn that the city of Bakkabuz was on the outer edge of the kingdom that ruled it, which put it at the bottom of the magical forefront.

  The ruling classes were a power-based system, with those at higher ranks at the top. As for the actual chains of commands, Dan finally learned what he had initially wondered about. Kingdoms were ruled by the strong, which meant that in this current era of the world, the King was a B ranker. Then he put C rankers in charge of running his cities, with the top officials of said cities usually being C rankers themselves. That had been enlightening for Dan since he now knew he needed to watch out for C rankers. However, it wasn't as big of a problem for his current city since the leaders of this particular city were all on the lower end of the C Rank ladder.

  Feeling much more comfortable with moving around and doing things, Dan began to implement his plans. He needed aberrations to consume and more knowledge of the universe. Dan knew it would take some time to gain the information he wanted, but he had plenty of time.

  The last thing he wanted was to spend another thousand years, or however long he had spent traveling in space before running into another planet. So, the best idea was to build up on this planet, learn, and grow as much as he could before heading out if things got too dangerous.

  Dan was mainly looking for spatial magic that could take him to another world since he couldn’t use such magic himself, at least without getting attached to an Eldritch God.

  Dan’s plan was straightforward in theory but would be a pain to execute. He wanted to build up some sort of organization to help him scour the world for aberrations he could consume. At the same time, he wanted to have a magic research institution to help him devise ways to travel between planets. Both would, of course, also act as shields for him in case others came poking about.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The first thing Dan needed to get his plans moving was currency. At first, Dan’s human sensibilities came in hard, wanting him to work and make an honest living. However, having spent years doing just that, Dan would not repeat it all over again. Thus, it wasn’t long before Dan ran through the city and took control of any underground activities. He essentially wiped them out of existence and took all their goods, which were quite a lot.

  Dan did leave many alive, though under his direct control via mind control, illusions of a mysterious new leader, or threat of death. The idea was that he needed his people to make sure the crime that happened was known to him so he could remove any other upcoming crime lords. Dan wanted to take control of the city, and starting from the ground up was always best. Funnily enough, his disdain for using mind control wasn’t as strong when dealing with criminals, and that was how he crossed over the line. And once the line had been crossed, it got easier every time.

  With all his money, Dan’s next step was to build something he could use to gather information. Naturally, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to own a guild. It was surprising the planet didn’t have a proper explorer’s guild or something akin to it, but Dan was about to start his own.

  Dan went with something simple like The Explorer’s Guild. They would be the first out on the frontiers exploring the underground places of the planet. Dan knew it would take a long time to get the guild moving correctly, but one thing he had was time. As for what the guild actually did well, they would map out the planet, but more importantly, they would note things of interest, such as monsters, ores, plants, and other locations. Then, he would sell the information to those who wanted it. Of course, it all was just a ruse for Dan to get notified when some weird mind stuff was happening so he could investigate it himself and hopefully take out other aberrations.

  It didn’t take long for the guild to lift off the ground. After all, there were many desperate folks out there who were willing to risk everything for money. And since all they had to do was go out and explore, why wouldn’t they? It's not like they had to fight stuff.

  The explorers only had to survive since Dan had found that the world already had nice little magical items that would scan their surroundings and slowly build an internal map. The only reason why no one had used them yet to do what Dan was doing was that they were lazy and happy with the status quo. More importantly, no one wanted to pay others to go out and explore for no real reason. They did do it occasionally, but it was with a purpose in mind, not just for the sake of exploring.

  Still, the Explorer’s Guild didn’t start too great. Mainly because Dan didn’t know what the hell he was doing. There also weren’t too many incentives to go and explore, and only the truly desperate took the job. This changed as the years passed, and not as many members were torn apart by monsters. It also helped that Dan offered incentives for those who found new things. You find a new untapped ore vein; you gain a percentage of what is mined. Oh, you found a new type of monster, then you gain a few extra chunks of ore for it, even more for additional information about said monster. Naturally, Dan also expanded what the Explorer’s Guild did after some time. He started hiring miners to mine the ore veins, and then he had to hire guards to protect the miners.

  Years passed, and the Explorer’s Guild grew from a small organization in this one city at the edges of the kingdom to a place one could find in every major city. As the organization grew, so did the profits, with the kingdom purchasing the maps of the surroundings for strategic purposes. While warriors bought the locations where certain monsters had been found. Of course, the ores were the most profitable out of everything since the guild found lots of infused ore.

  In Dan’s opinion, the best part was that the guild was barely corrupt, which came about from his ability to read into the other top executives' minds and extract any secrets. The only problem was that Dan hadn’t found many aberrations with the guild. And the ones he had found were D rank at most. Dan’s question was whether it was just a problem of scope. After all, the guild only covered a small portion of the planet. However, Dan was worried about expanding too far since it would take things out of his control.

  After around three decades of growth, Dan wasn’t technically the sole leader of the guild. He had-had to step down and eventually fake his death when rumors of the King wanting to meet him spread. Since he hadn’t named an heir to the guild, Dan killed another executive and took their place to avoid future problems. Still, he was only one creature, and if the guild spread worldwide, he would lose his current control. He also couldn’t mind control other executives since they all moved around the highest level of power, which meant a powerful C ranker might notice.

  So, with few other options, Dan decided to branch out into two things.

  First, he needed to create the magical research guild to help find ways to travel between planets.

  Secondly, and most importantly, Dan had to create a cult.