Unfortunately, it took a lot longer than I initially assumed to get the Cultist robes fixed and crafted. Carmine even found herself being forced to ask Liliam to give her a hand since sewing up the whole thing turned out to be quite a tedious and time-consuming endeavor, even when the skilled dwarf lady moved as fast as a modern sewing machine all on her own.

While they were busy with that, I also told Fungus to inquire around the Buddhist Temple to see if any of the smaller-bodied Guardsmen had any suit of chainmail that they could spare since I wasn’t stupid enough to go into enemy territory unarmored or weaponless, and a set of Chainmail could be worn beneath the Cultist robes. That applied to Mr. Vacant as well, so I told Fung to scour the Temple’s available armory for anything useful that might fit the Hollow as well.

Fungus came down from the Temple half an hour later after I messaged him while carrying a bunch of armor pieces in his ring, as all of the resting Guardsmen had happily volunteered their own armor articles when they had heard that I was in need of some metal protection for an “undercover” mission.

Yet, when he retrieved the chainmail pieces, he also pulled out “The Smoocher’s Cleavage” Golden Bikini set and handed the damn thing to me while grinning like a fool.

"FUCK! Damn you, Fungus, you got me again!"

Since my own safety was paramount, I simply couldn’t refuse to wear the damn thing just because it looked ridiculous as the “uniformly-spread across the body” armor bonus aura that the damn thing brought to the table was simply too good to ignore.

"Next time I'm going to need some armor, I will make sure to ask Carmine to craft a full set for me, instead of having to loan pieces from the Guardsmen!" I thought to myself.

Unfortunately, having her create a custom-made chainmail for me RIGHT NOW was out of the question, since crafting a Chainmail was an even more tedious endeavor than stitching up a robe from scratch.

It took almost an entire day of continuous work for Carmine to get a single Chainmail armor done, even with her enhanced smithing speed that allowed her to move as fast as lightning.

And that was only IF she had the prerequisite materials already at hand, like the chain-link steel wire which was a pain in the ass to create in the first place.

Most of the time, it took a couple of days only to make the base wire out of steel ingots by using a system of metal rolls, and then another one to cut and stitch the chain-links together even when Carmine was moving so incredibly fast that she was stitching up to 3 of the chain-links together in under-a-second, including the welding process.

Considering that a whole suit of Chainmail was usually composed of 25000 to up to 50000+ individual chain-links depending on the size and complexity of the mesh, it’s no wonder that it took so long to make a single one of them, even with Carmine’s uncanny machine-like speed and precision.

In truth, compared with Earth’s medieval times, where a Chainmail suit like the ones we were using would have required many crafters to work for many weeks (if not entire months) to create just a single armor piece, we were already beating the record by a fairly large amount. But then again, the Earth smiths did not have any System-augmented muscles or precision like Carmine had, so it was an unfair comparison.

After the robes were completed, I put on the damn Golden Bikini armor which seemed to fit itself around my body perfectly as it’s automatic size adjustment feature did its job, and then I equipped some comfortable woolen shirt and leggings on top.

The loaned chainmail came above those, and Carmine had also been forced to perform some minor adjustments on the chain-links before the whole thing fit my body perfectly. The damn armor piece was heavier than I expected, but it was still within the acceptable range.

I also put on some steel-plate bracers around my forearms and some steel shin protectors over the pair of heavy leather boots that I had equipped, just in case I had to block some direct weapon hits with my limbs.

On top of all of the armors then came my freshly-made Cultist robe, and Carmine had been smart enough to make the thing big enough to accommodate even the presence of the Chainmail underneath the whole setup.

The Cultist robe was made out of normal materials that had been dyed charcoal-black, but it also had an intricate pattern of blood-red colored lace strings that ran across the entire length of the body and then gathered towards the center of the robe near where the heart could be found, constructing a rather large swirly red circle that was then “bleeding” a drop of blood down towards the earth.

Of course, the whole design was made out of dyed red string so it looked pretty shoddy from a graphics design standpoint, but that certain image was the overall motif of all of the Cultist robes and probably the official “flag” or “company logo” of the Blood Brotherhood as well.

After I was fully-equipped, I also told the others to dress Mr. Vacant up in a similar fashion, so he also got the “Chainmail beneath the robes” treatment. While Carmine was adjusting the Chainmail on his body and Liliam was making his former robes slightly larger to accommodate for the new armor piece, I took the time to teach the Hollow most of the Blood Cultists’ hand signs that I could remember by forcing him to memorize them by heart while mirror-copying me.

As I began to dig through the memories of the former Cultist, I realized that I could now recall more than 60% of all of his whole existence, with the remaining still-foggy pieces being his deepest ones near his childhood.

Of course, since the dude had not joined the Cult until he had been a grownup who had already been through a lot of bad shit in his life, I could basically say that I now remembered nearly 100% of his entire life as a Blood Cultist, with all of the good and the bad occurrences which came attached to that.

Those memories included all of the secret passwords, meeting places, hand signs, and names of the co-conspirators affiliated with the Cult, therefore I now had to pre-program my Zombie-Hollow to use the aforementioned gestures and passwords when I told it to.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

In the end, I forced Mr. Vacant to remember about 15 hand gestures and 20 pass-phrases which I then pre-labeled in the party chat, gestures he would instantly perform when “activated” by me via remote whispering. Fortunately, the artificial soul seemed to be smart enough to remember such instructions perfectly, at least for the moment.

Once we were both ready, I unloaded my spatial ring of any-and-all nonessential things and kept only the stuff that could be used during a combat situation like my bow and arrows, potions, regen pills, tear-inducing pepper-dust sprays, and incendiary jars of oil or alcohol.

Yeah, maybe I was over-preparing, but I wanted to cover all of my bases, just in case shit hit the fan for some unknown reason.

By now, it was already 3 AM in the night and darkness loomed all over the world, with only the stars and the moons above providing some minor lighting.

But then again, this was also probably the most opportune time for a Cultist to be prowling about, so I did not think that popping up unannounced at the cave entrance at such an inconvenient hour would be that surprising for the people residing within.

After another quick checkup, I loaded myself with a bunch of small daggers, one in my boot, one on my belt, and one in my cleavage. Once I was ready, I hopped on Lingfeng's sword, then we all flew towards the cave entrance.

Lew had also been forced to carry Mr. Vacant and the Troll had been frowning all the way to up the cave entrance as he had put up with the Hollow’s presence. Apparently, such a living-dead creature was disturbing the Troll’s sensitivities on a subconscious level, given his Angel-aligned nature.

Once we reached our destination, we both jumped down from the swords a few hundred meters away from the cave entrance, and after checking with our scouts that the way was clear and nobody had gone in-and-out of the cave while we had been gone, I decided to put on my best acting face, and “return to my blood-brothers”.

While advancing towards the perimeter near the cave entrance which was lit up by the torches within, I suddenly heard a voice speaking out from nowhere.

"Who goes there? This is a dangerous area, stranger! Monsters have been sighted roaming around, so if you’re someone from the scheduled hunting team, then state your designated password. If not, turn back and leave this place. It’s not safe for any normal people!"

I immediately made Mr. Vacant take a step ahead and then groan a response.

"UUgghh...Fuck...you...Zhen...There is no...uuughh...password."

"Shit! Xue-Ye, is that you man? What happened to your team? You all vanished into thin air!" A small middle-aged bald man immediately uncloaked himself from stealth while climbing down from atop of a rocky outcrop, then lowered his crossbow.

This time around, a large tattoo spelling “Rem best Grill” seemed to be painted on top of the dude’s head instead of a ship’s anchor, so I recognized this guy as Zhen-Ji, the twin brother of the other thief, Shen-Ji.

"Had...uggh...Bad luck. All...brothers...dead. Got smashed...uuuugh...very...bad. Got neck….slashed...uuurgh...hit head really bad."

Bringing up a torch near Mr. Vacant’s face, the thief could only shudder.

"Holy...fuck, man, you look like shit! Come in! The Boss will want to hear everything that happened! And that scar on the neck? How’d you survive that?"

"My Apprentice...uuugh...saved me."

"Apprentice? I didn’t know you had…"

I immediately stuck my head out from behind Mr. Vacant’s frame.

"Fuck! Who are you?" Zhen raised back his crossbow.

"H...hello. I'm Master's Alchemy apprentice, Shi-San. I mean...erm... Xue-Ye’s apprentice. Master Xue-Ye always kept me out of harm’s way, but when he came back from the Temple, he was really messed up so I learned about everything he was up to when he was sneaking away in the night. Master told me everything about you guys and about Mother Earth's cruelty."

"Aw…so a young sister also knows the Truth." The thief lowered his crossbow. "Then your Master must have also told you about the initiation rites."

"The Blood Oath? Yes, he did. I have already undergone the procedure."

"You know that we’ll have to verify that, right?"

"Yes, no problem. We can do that right away if you want."

"Ugh...sure. Wait here for a couple of minutes, I'll go fetch someone that can verify your identity."

Immediately, the thief rushed into the cave system and began yelling some muffled stuff at his teammates. After a few minutes, he brought back a mage-looking lady with a pair of round spectacles that was holding a blood-red orb and a bunch of other muscly-looking men with menacing large weapons that seemed to be her bodyguards.

"Yeesh, Xue-Ye, man, you look like you got run over by a whole herd of bovines. Are you alright?" One of the bodyguards flinched while he caught sight of Mr. Vacant

"No...uggh...I’m...not. Got hit bad...uuugh...in the head. Makes...me...sluggish. Can’t...uuggh...speak...well."

"Fuck...no kidding!"

"Alright, girl, if you have truly taken the Blood Oath, then touch the orb and it will react to you." The spectacled lady said after fiddling with the base of the red orb for a while. "If not, then...don’t blame us for what might happen next."

Upon hearing that, Mr. Vacant immediately stretched out a hand like he was shielding me. Of course, he only did that because I had told him to do so.

"It’s alright, Master. No need to be afraid of our brothers and sisters! "I stretched out my hand boldly and then touched the orb with confidence.

Immediately, the whole thing lit up like a Christmas tree, and many swirls of red lights could now be seen from within.

"T...this...how could it be? You...the orb...the TRUTH within you! Incredible! So strong!"

"So, I take it that I passed the test?" I innocently fluttered my eyelashes.

"Oh...yes...definitely...more than passed, I’d have to say." The spectacled lady kept staring at the large red swirls within the orb that had yet to fade away. "The orb confirms the presence of the Blood Oath on your spirit-root, and of many contributions to the Brotherhood. Also, the TRUTH level within you is extraordinary! I have never seen such a violent reaction! You must have found out some terrible secrets about the Mother System indeed, haven’t you?"

"Oh...where do I even begin, Sister. It’s a long story, so we should all go inside. It’s going to take a while for me to explain everything."

"Yes...of course, right away. Come in. GUYS! LOWER THE WEAPONS ALREADY! SAFE! SAFE! FRIENDLY TARGET!"

Of course, I had passed that orb test only because I indeed had a Blood Oath on “my” spirit root, except that it was located on the transplanted branch that I had stolen from the old Cultist.

And since the Blood Oath was always based on the Individual who swore on his True Name and on his Life that he would not betray or cause harm to the Brotherhood in any intentional way, it didn’t do anything to me because my name wasn’t Xue-Yi and the original Xue-Yi was DEAD already, so the life-binding oath wasn’t able to do jackshit to anyone since it had already been upheld to the end by the old Cultist before he had kicked the bucket under my watch, leaving me free and able to screw-over the Brotherhood as much as I pleased.

But of course, these Cultists did not need to know that, now did they?