章 50: The Ritual
"By your will." Everyone bowed to Klein and left as he had made his wish to end the meeting known after explaining to them the 'experiment' he wanted to be done.
Then, he casually stood up and walked over to Max's chair and observed it. Previously he had been able to observe the symbols behind Ms. Justice's and Mr. Hanged-man's chairs, but Mr. Death's chair was hidden behind Audrey, and for some reason it was turned slightly, facing him, hiding the back of the chair from him.
He had found this odd, so he decided to investigate. However, when he reached the back of the chair, he realised that there was no symbol present. Instead, there was only a shallow crack along the centre of the chair, but it was not deep enough to actually affect the stability of the chair.
Klein frowned at this. The entire castle should have been something he came up with in his mind out of the blue, and he should have complete control over it. Why did a crack appear without him wanting it to?
Raising his hand, Klein pointed at the chair and Grey Fog surged into it, to fill up the gap, and it worked. But only for an instant. The filled-up crack rapidly appeared again, with the fog that had condensed into the material for the chair being converted into a black tar-like substance and falling to the ground.
Max's Spirituality felt considerable danger from it and his pupil's constricted.
Thinking fast, he leapt back a bit before using the grey fog to try and throw this substance out of the castle. But no matter how much fog he tried to use to move it, he could not get it to move an inch. In fact, it was also slowly absorbing the grey fog, though its size was not changing, and it only remained on the ground of the castle, without actually affecting it, sitting right behind Mr. Death's chair that was slightly angled towards him.
After a while, Klein realised that as long as the Grey Fog was inactive, the black substance would not absorb any of it, and decided to investigate this more thoroughly once he had more mysticism knowledge. Perhaps he could also ask Old Neil about this… indirectly of course.
Max turned to his own chair and began observing it, still vigilant of the four black drops that reminded him of a villain from a certain Western comic-book and cartoon superhero.
…
Max opened his eyes and found himself back in his hotel room. Unexpectedly, this meeting went on for a lot longer than the previous ones, and it also significantly improved the digestion of his potion. Clearly, influencing Audrey, Alger, and Klein was now further improving his efficiency of digesting the potion.
Max paused for a moment as he set his silver hair once again from the mess it was before to a more refined look.
'What exactly does influencing entail? Should I just be interacting with them, or should I be doing something more…'
Suddenly, he felt his Spirituality faintly react to his latter thought and fell into more detailed contemplation.
After half an hour of thinking, Max finally came to the final conclusion. Interacting with Beyonders was sufficient to grind away at the potion, but the amount of time it would take was long. Furthermore, even if he almost completely digested the potion, this method would not allow him to actually take the final step and digest the potion.
Still, he felt using this method would be sufficient to take him almost till the end. For the last step, he would actively have to change the final decision of a Beyonder to fully digest the potion, or something similar.
Either way, he had a stable grindable situation, why would he opt for something far more dangerous but faster when he had a considerable amount of time and his speed was sufficient for his goals? He was not like some people who were never satisfied and would constantly put themselves and others in insane and rather avoidable danger for potential gains that would not out way the risks they had taken.
Sighing, Max went to the bathroom and placed the various ritualistic materials that were needed. Four candles were placed in a square, before a loaf of brown bread was placed in one corner while a bowl of soup was placed in the other, followed by another loaf of bread and finally another bowl of soup.
Taking out a silver knife, Max created a wall of spirituality before lighting the four candles. After following a few more steps, Max began to chant.
"The Fool that does not belong to this era"
"The mysterious ruler above the grey fog"
"The King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck"
"I pray for your help"
"I pray for…" Max paused there for a moment before shrugging and stopping the entire ritual.
He turned his attention to his own reflection in the mirror of the bathroom. His silver hair fell down to his shoulder and had been neatly maintained at that length.
Normally, he would keep it tied when he went out. His facial features had matured considerably, to the point he looked like a 19-year-old young man despite only being 16. This was partly due to the potion's effects on his body, and partly due to his own body maturing rapidly as he entered puberty.
The scar that ran across his eye had also faded slightly, mainly due to the slight recovery from his transmigration and the potion he had had, gradually adjusting his body to its prime. Still, it was quite visible, and together with his blood-red eyes, made most women uncomfortable and their general conversations were just formalities and rather short unless they were for business.
Putting away all the items, Max exited the bathroom, only to notice Ademisaul, who had been leaning on the door this entire time, had now lost his balance and was falling towards him uncontrollably.
Max simply dodged to the side and let the kid fall onto the bathroom floor.
"Since you are awake, let us begin today's lessons!" The spirituality wall he had created also muffled most of the words he spoke earlier, so Max was not worried about the kid finding out about the ritual. He must have just seen Max bring over all the items and wondered what Max was doing in there.
…
An hour later, Max left the hotel and headed towards a certain location. Waling past street after street Max slowly entered a more affluent part of Tingen, until he came across a particular storefront. Compared with the other stores around it, this one did not have a glass front that felt welcoming and open to customers. Instead, it was an opaque wall that reminded Max of a prison, with no paint or colour on it.
The door was also a steel one with a sort of sliding mechanism on the inside to open a small peephole.
*Clang**Clang*
Max used his knuckles to knock on the solid metal door before waiting for a long time. Soon enough, clacking sounds emerged from the door, similar to multiple small pieces of metal hitting against each other in an orderly fashion.
Finally, the door opened and an incredibly frail-looking old man. At least, that was what Max noticed when he first saw him. However, a few seconds longer of observing the man who had opened the door for him revealed something surprising. Despite his diminutive stature, the old man had a lot of muscle hidden under his baggy clothes, visible from his incredibly toned forearms and calves, which were visible since he was wearing shorts.
Max took off his top hat and gestured it to the old man a little before putting it back on and speaking.
"Hello there. I am here to sign up for the hand-to-hand combat, and knife techniques classes. Is there an availability, perchance?"
The old Man's eyes almost immediately lit up upon hearing that, but his expression did not change as he gestured for Max to enter the training hall.
The inside was just as plain as the outside, with no paint on the wall or decorations of any kind. The entire room was divided into three areas, with an open and empty area in the middle, most likely for sparring. One of the areas had wooden dummies and sandbags to practice on, one of them weighted equipment of various kinds, and the last area was also an empty area like the centre, but with a lot of mattresses spread onto the ground.
Max turned his attention to the old man who began to speak as soon as their eyes met.
"Tell me, young man, do you have money?"
"Why, of course good sir!" Max grinned since money was something he definitely did not lack at the moment, causing a hideous smile to appear on the old man as well.
クリエイターの想い 
Shadow_Magus
Shadow_Magus Chapter length: 1497 words
A normal chapter with a normal length. HOpe everyone is liking the interactions with the cannon characters, as well as my own OC characters. I hope to have a split between the two, focussing sometimes on one while other times on the other so there is never 'too much' of any character other than Max.
Comment your thoughts and comment your ideas. Add the novel to your library and give stones please.
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット