The Jester of Apocalypse

The first thing Neave did after leaving Marven and the gang alone was run off to get a few things done. He took a quick detour to eliminate some snakes to gather a few of the nicer monster cores.

Many vendors were bidding for snake cores, mainly because of how unique the powers inside were. Neave planned on gathering enough to sell for a large dimension ring. Whenever he gained a new ring, he would put the old one inside the new one.

Naturally, having an infinite chain of dimension rings within dimension rings was impossible. When one placed a dimension ring inside of another dimension ring, that would transfer all of the contents of the first to the second, and the ring itself would just float in there inertly until taken back out.

Which meant that Neave lost all of his dimension rings.

It wasn’t long until he gathered well over a hundred cores. Rather than selling all of them, he separated only seventeen or so.

He subtly rounded these up just enough that the transparent spirit didn’t stand out but sufficient to multiply their value exponentially.

Among the ones he left for himself, quite a few had peculiar powers he wanted to potentially acquire. There was one among them that interested him greatly.

Avatar.

It was a relatively weak variation of the power the dragon had displayed with the puppets. But there were a few peculiar details about it that the dragon's power either didn’t possess or the dragon didn’t utilize them.

This ability held a pseudo-pocket dimension where the power would store the avatar. This meant that Neave could potentially alter the avatar itself. He could equip them with powerful gear or even directly modify them if he had those puppets.

But he wouldn’t take the power, not quite yet.

His first order of business was donning the Bob disguise again and visiting his good friend Kalen.

Upon arriving on the top of the tower, Neave found a small crowd of cultivators already bidding for the merchant's attention. Many of them scoffed upon seeing Neave, or rather, Bob.

“What the hell is this fatass doing here?” One of the cultivators present called out.

Kalen winced, hoping the man left it at that.

Neave looked over to this man and laughed merrily.

“What is this small man speaking? Is he stupid!? Hahahaha.”

The haughty cultivator did not take the provocation lightly. He stepped up to Neave threateningly, clearly attempting to intimidate him. This didn’t last very long as Neave grabbed his head and squeezed it so hard the man’s skull almost shattered.

The others cleared the way for ‘Bob,’ and he made his transaction with the apologetic Kalen.

Neave traded the seventeen cores for a dimension ring with massive capacity and a whole load of supplies for his experiments. It was far less material than he had gained from either of his prior purchases, totaling only a bit over fifty million platinum coins, but that was still mighty impressive.

After he was done with the selling, he transformed into his worm form and went to his underground laboratory. The precious stone lining the walls and the high-quality equipment entered his new dimension ring.

Neave spent the next few days slaughtering monsters away from the empire's capital.

There were more important things to do. There were things he needed to do. But the most important thing for him was to not think about those.

He needed not to think about anything.

***

Over the course of a few days after the rift opened, Marven sold their plot of land for an impressive two billion and three-hundred million platinum coins. He spent around one billion four-hundred million on a far bigger plot of land this time, although it was only about twice the size of the Zearthorn sect’s courtyard. This was still four square kilometers, and if used correctly, more than enough space for a long time. 

After searching, he found Gabrias, lost among the crowds and waiting anxiously.

Their new plot of land was in an impoverished part of the capital, a few districts from where the rift opened. Just far away enough not to be affected by the economic boost the rift would bring.

Marven was well aware that money wouldn’t be a problem for them. Neave was gone for some reason, but he put faith into him returning eventually.

This time, Marven spent tremendous amounts of money on their new building. The land he purchased already had a building, but it was old and dilapidated, although less than the one on the last parcel they bought.

Many competent workers were hired this time around. Marven spent well over fifty million coins on labor. This didn’t seem like much compared to the cost of buying the land, but it was still a lot.

The old building was disassembled, whatever materials could be reused were separated from the trash, and the construction of the new building began.

Marven and Gabrias were once again very hands-on with the construction, although Marven didn’t need to do so this time. But he wanted to. He had to get his mind off certain things.

Hunter still hadn’t regained consciousness. He was hot to the touch and mumbling deliriously. A part of Marven, the cowardly part the rest of Marven despised with a burning passion, felt relieved that he hadn’t woken up yet.

Harel was also helping with the construction. She was generally acting weird and distracted. Marven asked her time and time again whether something was wrong, but Harel dismissed him.

Even Gabrias could tell that she had something weighing on her mind.

The construction of the new sect was finished in days. The building took up only a quarter of the space for now, and they had placed it somewhat to the corner of the plot of land. Marven wanted to leave as much space for a decent-sized courtyard.

The building had four floors, each for a different purpose. The fourth floor was where they would place the library. It would be segmented, as was common practice for sect libraries, but this time it wouldn’t have a general knowledge area. It would only be separated into two rooms, one for basic manuals and the other for more advanced stuff.

Marven commissioned a scholar from a nearby library to duplicate a lot of the books he had. He also purchased many basic manuals for all sorts of purposes.

As was common practice, he forged a spirit oath with the scholar so that there would be no plagiarising of the books Marven considered unique.

He didn’t have the Zearthorn-style books duplicated. He didn’t even really know why. He could edit them and change the basic forms so nobody could recognize it as the Zearthorn style, but he felt this still wouldn’t be sufficient.

It wasn’t just that he didn’t want the style to be recognized. He also didn’t want to use it anymore. It was an incredible waste to discard the centuries of work he had put into developing it, but the idea of using it simply brought him too much pain.

Not all was lost, however. He was rather high-rank now, so creating new techniques wasn’t the most challenging thing in the world.

Could he create a better style altogether after consulting Neave?

Marven had to laugh at himself for having these thoughts. It was rather pitiable that he put more faith in his son's knowledge than in his own. But it also made sense. Neave was a genius that would define the very fate of this entire realm. What was a bit of his pride compared to this undeniable fact?

The rest of the floors were separated for all kinds of purposes.

Temporary storage for things that had to be on display, such as armories and plants that couldn’t be stored in dimension rings.

Rooms for individual members of the sect, mess halls, kitchens, toilets, specialized training chambers, meeting halls, bigger private rooms for potential elders and high-ranking disciples, and so on.

Shortly after the sect had been finished, Neave appeared and wordlessly burrowed into the ground.

Marven would have to put developing the style on hold for now.

***

It didn’t take long for Neave to have another laboratory. This time it was much larger. He created four rooms, one dedicated to golem construction, another to alchemy, and the third to forging. The fourth room was a large reinforced chamber that would be used for testing his experiments.

After decorating everything and ensuring it was all in place, he took a moment to rest.

The moment quickly turned to hours. He couldn’t move. Neave was out of things to distract him. Now it was finally time to face the issue at hand.

What the fuck is manipulating my mind?

Neave had long ago come to terms with his being a little kooky, but insanity was one thing. Mind manipulation was another.

Insane thoughts were still his, no matter how irrational they may sometimes be. It was still himself who made those conclusions and decisions, he who forged those opinions and thoughts.

Getting his mind manipulated, however, was something he could never come to terms with.

Perhaps he… ÞÞÞÞ

He screamed. Neave grabbed his hair and pulled it out of his scalp.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” It was that same feeling again. He was about to have a thought, not of his own.

How often did this…

He paused. Was that the same feeling again? He couldn’t tell. He felt a distinct foreignness to some thoughts now. Perhaps due to his perception spirit power? But what about before he acquired it?

For how long had he been having his mind manipulated? Since he left the loop?

No… Before he left it?

He combed over every thought and every decision he had made since he left the loop. He questioned his motives behind everything he did back then. Would he have chosen to slaughter the elders? Or was that a byproduct of the manipulation?

Would he have made the idiotic decisions that had him chased down like a dog, or was that also a consequence of being led down a specific path? He remembered the moments before he encountered Marven and Harel.

Demons.

Demons everywhere.

But those weren’t demons. Those were people. How close was he back then to indiscriminately slaughtering innocents?

Neave went through all of his thoughts rapidly, especially with the help of his enhanced cognitive abilities—which meant that he had days to agonizingly overthink every single thing about everything.

Neave sat in the corner of his underground laboratory, blood pooling around him. Every time he thought he felt the mind manipulation, he punished himself. He would exterminate the foreign influence, no matter what it took. But soon enough, every single thought he had felt like it came from someone else.

And every single thought he had…

Had to be punished.