"This will do the trick." A shadow in the dark gemstone shifted and a couple of long spikes that were about to pull back into the ground quickly reemerged. Karl had quickly deduced that the spikes used some kind of a spring-based mechanism and the spring would not be pulled back if he refused to supply his mana, leaving the trap not functional.
As long as someone did not stumble in the dark and fall onto an already fully extended rows of spikes.
The traps seemed to need his mana to be conjured and some of it to operate as well later, their consumption depending on the exact mechanism of the traps. Extending spikes seemed to consume mana only briefly when drawn, which was very convenient, giving him the ability to have many active at the same time. However, he had to be more cautious with them.
The last accident was still in front of his eyes, but like this, he should be able to prevent most of unwanted casualties.
Karl had never expected any ordinary people to reach all the way down in his maze in the first place, as many tunnels were fully flooded and there was no ventilation, but desperation had clearly gave some of them enough courage to overcome these obstacles.
While thinking about the courage of the people outside, Karl could hear yet another panting sound from afar and cursed under his breath.
"No, this is too strange. Seems like someone is chasing them." He realized that it was extremely unusual that people were hurling themselves into his dark, flooded tunnels that could very well be a home to some nasty monster that the world of cultivators had in abundance.
"I need more direct control for this kind of situation." He looked around and thought about how to improve his setup before the next arrivals reached the end of the tunnel.
"Runnin to your brother boy? He will not save you." A voice suddenly echoed through the darkness and verified Karl's suspicions.
"Huh, here I come, destined to become a cliche savior." Even as a stone, Karl felt an urge to smirk helplessly. "I just need to keep his brother's death a secret I guess."
Before he could think more about it, his skeleton picked up the body next to it and threw it down into a submerged shaft that was the dead end of the tunnel, the next layer of his maze he had not managed to dug out yet. His summon turned its skull at the sword it held in its hand right after, clicking its jaw twice.
"You?! Agh, alright. What about the trap? There is no time!" Karl was stupefied, but had no time to think further about the incident, because he had yet to choose his next trap and he had little time to spare.
He quickly summoned a slime he had seen before and used it to unceremoniously wipe out the blood on his trap's spikes while simultaneously browsing his trap options, searching for a more suitable contraption for his next opponent.
"Nothing fits well the situation, but If the boy really is smaller, I can do it like this." He used the same trap as before, but this time he placed it onto the ceiling. Verifying the length of the spikes, they stopped roughly at the level of his skeleton's nose.
"That should be the right height." Karl imputed his mana into the trap and the spikes slid up into the ceiling, hidden in their tiny holes. The skeleton wielding a sword then simply walked a few steps back and got down on the ground, pretending to be dead.
A strategy that should work given its background.
"The eyes! I have to cover the eyes somehow!" Karl remembered to obstruct the mildly glowing blue eyes with a few flat stones, ready for his next encounter.
He did not need to wait long before shouts reached his position, reverberating the stale air around him.
"At this point I will be extremely rough with you, brat. You really had to run all the way here!" Multiple angry shouts were gradually nearing the end of the tunnel that ended in a ninety degree turn, which was supposed to be the beginning of the next level of the maze. However, Karl had never finished it, because too much water had been leaking in and it had resulted in a deep well, the deepest point of his maze.
The person that was the target of the shout was not responding, only a high pitch groans and panting giving away the fact that he was nearing the edge of the well. Karl was preparing to spring his trap soon, when he realized there was a problem.
"I cannot see a damn thing here!" It surprised him, because he had seen the holes in the ceiling just a moment ago. When he began searching for the cause of the unexpected total darkness that was not as absolute before, his attention was brought to a small pile of glowing stones. The stones on the top of his skeleton's face.
"Of course!" He wanted to slap his head with something when he understood the problem. He had covered his skeleton's eyes to make it look truly dead, but the blue glow of its eyes was the only light illuminating the deep underground. It was not much, but it was clearly noticeable at the depth they were.
"I do not want to reveal myself, but I will not see when to spring the trap if I keep the skeleton hidden!" While his mind was twisted in the unexpected conundrum, more shouts came, much closer than before, followed by a loud splash.
"You little shit! I will skin your dick alive!" A hysterical roar came from below and something was telling Karl that it was not the boy.
"But who knows, different world, different culture." A useless thought flashed through Karl's brain before he fully realized that his plan had clearly fell into pieces.
Again.
His mind scrambled quickly to action as to prove his undying genius and he executed the first alternative that came to him during such a stressful moment.
"Seiza!" He barked and the skeleton exploded from its lying position in a shower of stones and dim, blue light, assuming a position that Karl had not expected to see.
"Blasted!" Karl along with everyone else, except for the guy that was taking an unexpected bath, were staring in horror at a skeleton with glowing blue eyes, sitting in seiza like a thousand years old samurai warrior. He wanted to correct himself, as this was definitely not the position he had in mind when he hastily ordered his minion, but it was too late to do anything about it.
"Who cares, let's fake it until we make it." Karl planned to make it look like some old cultivator was here doing his secluded meditation to scare the intruders off, but he was not sure if that idea would work anymore.
"Is it a dead cultivator?"
"What a strange position, it has to be."
"His Mojo has to do with pain or something, what an uncomfortable stance."
In the next second, Karl had been reminded that the people in front of him had closer to grave robbers and thieves, than to orderly citizens of the realm, because they threw themselves forward while trying to hold back each other.
"Does he have a ring? It is mine!"
"I take his weapon!"
To Karl's surprise, the bandits began to brawl on the ground, which obviously prevented him from using his elaborate trap on the ceiling. The only one standing was the boy who watched the two men brawling to win the spoils of the presumed cultivator that had meditated himself to death.
Yet only up to a point, because the innocent looking boy chose to kick the two fighting men at the right moment, sending one of them flying down the tunnel with a splash.
"There are now three down in the water, what a party." Karl thought inappropriately and finally saw his moment.
The last standing man had been surprised by the kick, but the force was not big enough to send him tumbling over the edge of the ledge and he was quickly heading towards the unfortunate boy that was slowly walking back from him.
"It is now just you and me brat, prepare to die." The man picked up a dagger from the ground and straightened threateningly, intending to send it though the unfortunate teenager's throat, but that exact posing was his last action, meaning he had finally reached the optimal height for Karl's trap.
"Fire!" Karl shouted a mental command and a set of steel spikes descended though the thief's brain, his body slamming into the ground a moment later.
"Hey, throw us a rope! It is too slippery!" Only desperate shouts of the two remaining bandits were disturbing the tense moment when the boy turned to the skeleton, wary of its apparent unnatural glow.
However, the next second he had surprisingly ignored it and bent over the tunnel's edge, trying to look at the two swimming bandits. He was studying the surface for a while and his face went through a series of expressions until it remained stoic.
"She is not here, but I have clearly told her to hide in the tunnel! Wrong place, her disguise is not good enough to be wandering in a war zone!" He quickly lost interest in the two bandits and turned around, running in the direction of the surface. The most startled entity here was Karl, who could not wrap his mind around what the teenage boy did.
"She?! And more importantly . .. just what?! He has completely ignored my badass skeleton! It was moving, has blue glowing eyes and is sitting in seiza!" Karl did not understand how the boy could have simply walked away. His thoughts still churning, numerous scenarios materialized in front of his eyes.
"Wait, what if it is normal in the city? Are there undead servants there? Golems? Do people make their eyes glow and shine just to look cool?" There were many questions left unanswered in his head and he felt his urge to visit the city on the surface to ignite again.
Until he remembered the lava waterfall.
"No! No city! At least until there are more news." The skeleton began to pace back and forth, unconsciously ordered by its master to do so, but the pacing was interrupted by loud shouts, almost as if the drowning thieves were almost on their last legs.
"Help! Pete! Throw us rope!"
"Move your ass man! This is not funny anymore!"
"Annoying low lives. And what's with the local names?" The difference in names was really jarring, but he just might have been on the border of two regions or something. Karl growled to himself and the blue eyes of his skeleton pulsed slightly when a wave of mana passed though the tunnel and a mass of living rock assembled above the water and swiftly fell down. A skeletal hand extended above the dark well with one eye peeking over the edge to provide a cone of blue light. The blue hue above the water surface illuminated only bubbles with no limbs or heads to be seen.
"Huh, good riddance." Karl moved back into his dark corner and tried to find his lost enthusiasm for dungeon building, but the incident was too disruptive.
He could see a future where he was able to build a huge underground kingdom for himself full of traps, but he did not see the point in constructing anything of that sort. He did not need traps if he just wanted to rot down under the earth in peace. If he dug a tunnel long enough, no one would bother to go all the way to simply find nothing much at the end. He could make it so long that everyone gave up or even died of thirst before its end. Even if it would mean the ultimate safety, it would become the ultimate boredom as well.
"No, hiding in endless tunnels does not signify power and is downright pathetic. But does it even matter when I feel this empty?" He began to awaken to his existence as an artificial entity and could not put a finger on what was wrong with him, but something definitely was. He was still himself, but his perspective was askew, like he was drunk or high all the time.
He was almost certain that he might be buried in a ruin for centuries and did not mind the time much, he had just killed people and although he had thought that he felt pity for them, in fact, he did not. He saw people passing out right next to him, but all he felt was the echo of the emotions he once had. But it was just that, an echo. A distant memory of a transmigrated soul.
At the same time there were new urges, new instincts. He remembered how thrilled he had felt during his maze construction work, or when he controlled his minions. He was going through his little existential crisis to the point he had not noticed anything until a hand grabbed him and tore him out from the skeletal hand.
"I have not seen wrong, I might need you later." A dark silhouette of the boy from before grabbed him rudely, directly out of the hand of his skeleton that still sat in seiza on the ground. "Strange, the tendons of the skeleton must be still completely alright, or it was just stuck because of some undead goo, disgusting."
Thanks to his lack of attention and a disturbed mental state, Karl could only stare at the daring youth that dared to steal him from the hand of his own minion. He had no words.
"Huh, that blue light is convenient." The youth turned back after he had made two steps forward, walked back, grabbed the skeleton's neck and to Karl's horror, smashed it against a nearby stone. The skull fell off the crushed neck easily and the youth grabbed it victoriously. He began to use it as a flash light while whistling an annoying tune.
Karl had absolutely no words.
Naturally, the eyes stopped glowing shortly and the head turned into dust when the summoned skeleton lost its integrity. The teen just frowned at his hand full of dust and continued through the dark tunnels with two curses on his lips for every step he made.
"I feel so tired. Can I go to sleep?" Karl complained, but the steps of his bearer trudged uncompromisingly forward.
* * * *
Karl Gulden woke to the storm thundering above his head with an occasional droplet staining his surface with wet moisture. Given that he could not corrode, it was probably alright. Well, the blade could, but he frankly did not care about that part of him too much. He might not have slept in its true sense, but the numb feeling that made the time fly by felt quite close, except he felt the same as before, there was no refreshing feeling that the true sleep provided him when he was still a human.
"We are so proud that the ancestral blade of your kin had been found, mister. . ." A lanky figure appeared in Karl's vision with the background of tall graves.
"Hold your breath, you only care for the finder's fee of my wife and I could not care less about that junk when my son is missing." Somewhat familiar purple figure talked to the man in black clothes, obviously not caring much about their interaction, trying to just get it out of the way and leave.
"O-Of course." The clerk stammered, as he was used to a more professional behavior of the mourners. The man who was pacing back and forth in front of him was everything but professional.
"Lilgendrienbombiel, what a pest, you put it here to make your guests tumble over them and turn into customers. Whatever, I have duties to attend to." The man growled while handing the clerk the gold, his legs vandalizing the graveyard's flower garden in the meantime.
"We thank you for your patronage, have a nice day."
"As you should, that is my hard earned gold there." The man said hastily his last sentence and left, not bothering to follow the path, making his own through the flowers.
Despite the rude behavior the clerk was happy, because he had accidentally managed to find the original sword that someone had surprisingly flung on top of the mausoleum's roof. That meant that he had just received the finder's fee for finding a sword that had not even originally been there, which meant he had now a sword extra that could be discretely sold.
"Uh, too much work. With the recent attack, there is too many bodies as of late. People just can't stop dying! How troublesome." He complained while putting one of the swords under his cloak to turn it into money later and left the other inserted in the sheath of a gaudy statue of a man. He did not get the people that planned all the decorations, it was very clear that the grabby hands of some visitors might feel the itch and borrow them forever.
Karl wanted to see the clerk leaving, remaining in the heavy atmosphere of the graveyard mausoleum, but he had unfortunately been the one the clerk had selected to sell and he very soon saw the clerk's garment from its other side.
"Right, I am illegal goods again, so here we go!" He hoped that he would not be an object of shady deals for much longer and some real owner would show up and actually revealed the city for him.
It was a long way from which Karl had seen nothing but the bending fabric of the clerk's undergarments, luckily he could not see it very clearly in the darkness. However, as every day a new dawn came, in the same way the clerk's garments unfolded and revealed him to a face of an old man in an oriental suit who immediately took him closer to look at him, meaning at the black gem embedded in the sword.
"Intriguing." The suit who appeared to be some kind of an artificer kept turning him back and forth before he continued in his evaluation.
"The blade is not worth much, but I will take it for the gem. It will fit well into one of my new works. I won't even need to cut it, it will spare me some time." The man nodded with satisfaction along with the clerk, who was certainly imagining the sum he would receive as payment.
But only for a moment.
"What are you waiting for? You can go." The artificer said and the clerk's jaw dropped.
"Do you think I will pay you for a cheap item robbed from some grave? I know where you work." He looked at the shady official with contempt.
"But it is not from a grave! This is an insult!" The clerk began to protest, but the suit just gestured at him with his hand to get out and his attention shifted back to Karl. Surprisingly, the clerk did not argue anymore and simply turned around and left what looked like the artificer's office.
The finder's fee was probably enough to satisfy his greed, as he had not searched for the sword personally anyway. It had been simply brought to him by some teenage boy, who recognized the artwork and wanted to get at least a few silver coins for the broken sword. Much less than the finder's fee was, but no one needed to know that little detail.
"Wait, is he going to really extract me from the sword?!" Karl felt like a women who was about to be raped, or at least he guessed this was how they had to feel.
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"What if my powers actually come from the blade and I will be left powerless embedded in some . . in some nasty bauble!" All kinds of worries were plaguing his mind while the artificer was outside the room until he returned and placed an ornate silver circlet next to him. Naturally, he did not know it was silver, but he imagined that was the color of a polished silver. After all, Karl had not been a rich man and he had never seen any larger volumes of polished gold or silver.
Immediately, he thought that the circlet was not bad and he would finally be able to look at the outside world from the top, not hidden under the garments of whatever thief just managed to nab him.
"Heeello dear! Will you marry me? I, Karl Gulden, take you, shiny, probably silver circlet, for my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until another stingy artificer do us part." He stared at the circlet in awe until a gruff voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Let's get to it!" He said and Karl's wordless desperate shout failed to reach anyone, just as always.
"Use protection!"
* * * *
In the end, it was not as painful as Karl had imagined, probably because he seemed to be simply unable to experience pain. The man handled him with extreme care, in order not to ruin his work and he was already a cut gem. There was no need to improve his gleaming curves. He was slick and beautiful, unlike when he was still alive.
"Thank all the gods that this circlet is not actually sentient." Karl was reassured when he attempted to communicate with the circlet, but received no response. He nearly cracked in half when he imagined to be stuck forever to someone with not even a second of privacy. He had to say that he liked how he looked. The circlet was not too thick with just the right amount of engravings, nor overly unwieldy or pretentious like a king's crown. Just the thing he imagined an elvish pop star would have on his head.
"Lazy reincarnation office worker, I wanted to be an elvish pop star, but now I will only be the circlet on his head!" He suppressed his anger and tried to evoke positive thoughts to reach a positive feedback loop. Just how every cheap personal coach book would advise.
"That's it! Just some wrapping now and this lovely piece is prepared." The artificer looked at him with pride, an action that induced in Karl an urge to vomit right into his beaming face if he could, and wrapped him into a piece of expensive looking cloth. Veiled in darkness again, he had no choice but to wait for the customer.
However, he was lifted the next second and carried to the customer instead, unfortunately he was again unable see anything from the city due to the tight wrapping around him.
It was infuriating! One would think that to see the city was really a simple goal, but it was something that kept eluding him time and time again.
They went on foot for a considerable while until the movement stopped and after a series of simple actions and greetings, the polished Karl in his new circlet form was finally revealed to the world and more importantly, the world to him.
He was in a room that could be described as the throne room of a king that went bankrupt ten times over. There was some sort of a wooden throne, but not really and a row of what clearly wanted to be a row of columns that led to it, but there seemed to be not enough room to induce the intended effect. Basically, it was a strange room with a big chair and a few columns that were not even made of stone, but wood.
There were four people in the room. The artificer who was presenting him to the others like he was some sort of a divine artifact, one guard that was really mediocre, looking like he ate too much during lunchtime and a pair of tall men with short black hair that looked almost the same, but one was significantly younger. The older one had a very similar circlet to Karl sitting on his head, although with a red gem and it was made of gold. Or rather just gilded if Karl considered the overall state of affairs in the room.
"Farther, but this is some stinky, gaudy jewelry! I wanted a helmet to my armor!" The young man left an immediate positive impression on Karl.
"Be quiet and put it on. You are not a knight, but the Young Lord Riven of Orlov!" A measured voice answered the youngster that in Karl's opinion did not look like he knew much about the world.
"More like Raven than Riven, black hair, black eyes. They would look better with blue eyes, not that I am into men or something." Karl ranted, used to the fact that no one ever heard him. He was slowly developing a habit of talking to himself.
"A boring merchant lord!" The Young Lord continued nitpicking and the face of the man with the golden circlet turned sour.
"Not another world, or you are taking care of manure in the stables." He clearly knew where to strike to get the youngster in line.
"Not the manure again!" The youngster's temper visibly cooled down and he sheepishly took up the circlet and placed it on his head.
"By the way, is it even worth anything? This is steel right?" The Young Lord Riven of Orlov took the circlet off his head and began knocking against the table's edge with it.
Naturally, Karl enjoyed the jerking movement pattern very much.
"So it is not a helmet, but it is no jewelry either." The Young Lord Riven shook his head and the eyebrows of his father twitched.
"Manure!" Lord Rivel barked and his son quickly put the circlet back onto his head.
"Thank you for you gift father, it is beautiful." The young man bowed to his father with flawlessly pretended seriousness.
"You, are, welcome." The father answered and his son left the room even before his last word left his mouth. "I pray that he grows up soon, or I will murder him."
Karl was unable to see how the situation continued to unfold or how much was the artificer paid, because he was being carried through the corridor on the head of the Youn Lord Riven of Orlov who was dressed in a leather armor and was heading in the direction of daylight. When he exited the building, Karl could see a courtyard that housed stables, a warehouse and a simple shooting range for bowmen in between.
He was inside a small fort, but his time for observation was limited, as the youth aimed directly for the stables without wasting any time.
"Joan should be at their farm now." He mumbled and pulled himself into a saddle of one of the horses in a hurry.
"Go, time waits for no one!" He urged the horse that shot out of the fort's gate and a sight of farms all around them was revealed to Karl. He observed the people toil and greet the rider when they were too close to pretend not to see him.
"So he is some kind of a farmer lord." Karl talked to himself as always but noticed that the Young Lord Riven looked around in panic and made his horse stop.
"Good joke, but you can come out now!" Riven's eyes ended up staring at a nearby bush. The horse was standing there for a time, before Riven decided to ignore the disruption and continued in his journey.
Karl was stupefied. Was it possible that the youngster could hear him?
"Am I really so desperate for her that I start to hear things?" His bearer wondered and Karl struggled to hold back his thoughts, but how hard it was to hold back all thoughts? He had not managed to silence his mind for more than a minute.
"Maybe there is a way around it and I can kind of lower my thoughts? This will need practice." Karl was tiptoeing with his thoughts, afraid to be heard again. Maybe he had just imagined it and there really had been something in the bushes.
The horse passed the farmlands and ran into a small forest behind them. Coincidentally, it was not far from the pond Karl had missed during his maze digging adventure. The incident seemed to be forgotten and Karl could feel secure again. However, the horse abruptly stopped as soon as they got deeper into the forest and the youngster's expression was dead serious.
"Enough of this, show yourself!" Karl had thought that he had solver the problem, yet for some reason, the youth could still hear him.
"We are in the forest, if you want to attack me or talk to me away from our men, now is the time!" The Young Lord waited, his whole body tense.
"Are you a remnant of the cult, still loitering around after the attack? Or are you a greedy clan rat that thinks that people with no clan or talent can possess no wealth or titles?" Despite being unable to see anyone, he slowly drew his sword and his eyes were darting left and right. This was not the first time Riven had an incident. Although this time, the perpetrator seemed to be very cautious.
"A sneaky one aren't we? Then stay in the shadows and do not bother me again!" The tense youth sat on his horse, alone in a small clearing that provided some light in the otherwise dense forest.
"Just stop shouting already, brat, I can hear you well." Karl was at his wit's end, it was obvious that the Young Lord would find him out sooner or later if he was able to somehow hear his thoughts. Not thinking aloud anything was too taxing to do it all the time, unrealistic in the long run.
"If you want to talk to me, then show yourself, or are you afraid?" Riven tried to provoke him to reveal his position, not knowing that Karl had been sitting on top of his head all the time. Yet the poor Karl had other problems to care about. He was already about to burst, withholding all his thoughts and decided to use what he dubbed the saturation approach for a change.
"Dad's slippers in television watching hair doing depraved things that even Harry wouldn't do with his broom and cigars meaning improvisation in his last days of Hawkfarts. He has to cover his wizardry origin using slippers that are very old and profound, a classic approach. Yes, a classic approach would do the trick, as I cannot show the evil wizards my pinky. Knowing the pinky might attract the waterfall closer to damp my socks, hot and wet socks are bad." Karl hastily thought about his plans combined with any random thing that came to his mind to confuse the listener.
"A mind attack! Stop! We are close to my territory, I can call my guards!" The youth clutched his head in panic, probably thinking that some vengeful cultivator was attempting to fry his brain.
"Ehm, I am sorry for the test, but it had to be done, I needed to find out if you are resistant enough to mind attacks. I must protect my identity against those above." Karl began to spin his story, intending to aim for the classic grandpa approach that should work in a solid cultivation world.
Even though he was finally beginning to manage thinking in a way to prevent Riven from hearing him, the cat was already out of the bag. He barely knew the youth and could not trust him and he needed a way to justify his stray thoughts occasionally leaking somehow. Of course, he could have chosen the approach of killing the compromised people, but that way he would become a cursed item, because anyone who would put him on their head would be killed after some time. That was not the best survival strategy.
Naturally, the safest approach was the infinite tunnel style, but he felt that he would stoop too low if he tried to do something as pathetic.
"A piece of my soul resides in the black gem on your forehead. I have been wounded in a great battle and escaped into this shabby artifact." Karl was staring intensely down on the Young Lord's face to gouge if his story had not gone over the top.
"I need to restore my power and rebirth. In exchange for your occasional help, I am ready to bestow my help onto you and my wisdom." Karl continued sagely, but a feeling of dread was slowly poisoning his soul since the moment he had uttered the last word he definitely, absolutely should not have said.
When the youth was still unable to find anyone else around them, he naively dropped off his horse and assumed the know-how position.
At least Karl thought that was the name of the pose, he was not very proficient in various positions' names. He remembered that in all Chinese novels there were two main poses, the flower position and the know-how position that was used for subservience.
"Guide me Elder! I have already completed the Mojo Condensation Stage, please show me some pointers!" The Young Lord begged
"Uhuh, you do seem sincere." Karl Gulden chuckled haughtily. "So what is the stage you are at now?"
"The next stage after the Mojo Condensation Stage!" The young man immediately revealed.
"That is?" Karl insisted while not daring to think about anything else. He could not believe he had already forgotten the stages of cultivation.
"The Mojo Purification Stage of course! I am not that dumb, Esteemed Elder." The Young Lord Riven of Orlov was eagerly listening, hoping to strengthen himself during the rare occasion.
"I see, there is no need to test you further. Look, it is easy you just." Karl fell silent, trying to produce some painful thoughts, but it did not seem to translate to anything meaningful.
"Elder, are you alright?" The know-howing person lifted his head with concern.
"My. It is my wound. I need to rest, young one. I will tell you soon." Karl transmitted his final thought and then began thinking about the most disgusting horror movies he could remember. It was probably useless, but a professional scammer never ignores the details.
"Of course, Elder. How can I contact you?" The Young Lord Riven asked, but did not receive any answer.
"I have my personal tutor now, that is great!" There was a glint of happiness in Riven's eyes, it looked like he had managed to balance out the advantages the people in the clans and sects had over him. "I will overtake them all now, I will show them all!"
He was imagining himself trampling over everyone who had laughed at him while they were attending their sects and academies, keeping secrets to stay in power and to prevent young talents from turning into competition.
"I am really in a good mood now, let's hurry and meet with Joan." The teenage Lord said and Karl only hoped that the activity with Joan was not what he thought it was, or that his owner would have at least some sort of decency to take him off.
The Young Lord mounted the horse again and soon reached one of the farms that surprisingly had a familiar well in front of its barn. At least the pesky dog was not around. Karl hoped it was dead, but he could not think too much about it in case the empty brain under him heard his thoughts.
"Your Majesty, you have arrived with your big horse!" A woman ran out playfully from the barn and slapped the Lord's horse ass vigorously.
"Hey, you have missed." Riven jiggled like an idiot and Karl had an urge to roll his eyes.
"The next one will be for you!" The girl laughed and the young gentleman proceeded to grab the farm girl where no gentleman should and slid off the horse. Picking the girl up, he entered the barn and then their contacts began to intensify and escalate.
"UGhghghh! The wound!" In desperation, Karl began to groan, not wanting to see what he had been about to witness.
"Oh, right. Sorry about this, Esteemed One." Riven, half caught in the act simply grabbed his circlet from the top of his head and threw it into a barrel that the cattle apparently used to drink from. With a splash, Karl sunk to the bottom, stupefied again by the manner of the local youths.
"And I really always thought that it was because of the smart phones." His prejudices shattered completely as he continued to lie at the bottom of the water barrel while the two young people did their thing. After a while, a cow came closer and began to drink, not minding what the young people were doing next to it or the silvery circlet at the bottom of the barrel. "Just wait for your first Mojo Purification training session, just you wait."
* * * *
"To sum it up, the Thunder God Sect is destroyed and will no longer protect this region from the wilderness. You have effectively become a border region and you are now a Border Lord. At the same time, the city's forces had suffered severe losses at the hands of The Cult of Mezzaiel and they will no longer be able to provide you with any men to help secure your lands."
Karl rested on young Riven's head while listening to a man in a black oriental suit with familiar green hair tied to a braid, but his suit was much more expensive compared to the one he had seen on the artificer before. There was six people sitting around a table that had been brought into the shabby throne room from before. Surprisingly, the room was much cleaner this time, maybe the head maid had bad conscience, or the people seated around the table were not exactly nobodies.
"This is a disaster, mister Lei Gon! I do not have the forces of a Border Lord! How am I supposed to hold the wild creatures back? I will be barely able to suppress bandits and rogue sects that might target our people at their most vulnerable! Were the casualties really that bad? How is The Immortal?" Lord Riven's face was grim, riddled with worry. He wore leather armor that was reinforced with steel plates at certain places. It looked shiny and new, never witnessing the heat of battle. He had not worn it the last time Karl had seen him, his guess was that he had put it on to look like a competent military commander. However, from how he behaved, it was clear that his military experience was only limited to small skirmishes and policing the bandits along the road.
"The Immortal is well, he had fended of the demon, Mezzaiel, with ease and is now recuperating in case of a follow up attack. We have also launched a thorough investigation into the traitorous sabotages that happened again during the attack."
"The sabotages are really unheard of, two times in the row! Two times! Are the barriers useless now, or will they finally work during the next attack? Some even say that the war between the colors had contributed to this situation and a colorless future might be a welcomed change." The third speaker was dressed in an expensive red coat with golden knobs, a matching red beret sitting on his gray hair. If not for his expensive clothes, the man would resemble a mouse a little.
"You say it as if you had some specific replacement in mind, Lord Kert of Zura. Please humor me, who should be the one replacing the Gon clan?" The man with green hair said leisurely, but there was poison dripping from his words.
"I think those rumors are too radical." The Lord smiled innocently.
"And I think that it is time to talk specifics." Another man said in a dull voice, dressed in a worn grey uniform adorned with with many golden stripes and a tightly fitting leather armor worn over it. It was very similar to the one Lord Riven was wearing, but this one bore many sings of conflict.
"Am I really needed for the detailed debate, colonel Lorain?" Lord Kert looked like he wanted to leave the room, the sooner the better.
"Of course, because you are paying for it." Lei Gon showed a brilliant fake smile.
"What? That is unthinkable!" Lord Kert of Zura leaned closer to the table, as if intending to turn the meeting into a brawl.
"That was not a question, Lord Kert. Lord Riven will bear the pressure of becoming the new Border Lord, but the farmlands are not wealthy enough to provide the necessary resources. Your mines should ease the burden of your fellow Lord." The city official in the oriental suit was not intimidated at all by Lord Kert and began to dictate his terms to the furious Lord who was clearly not used to taking orders from anyone.
"The city should bear the most of the cost. Originally, it was the Thunder God Sect that protected that part of the border!" Lord Kert countered, clearly unwilling to pay even a penny from his own pocket.
"The other option is to provide half of the soldiers needed. Fully armed and trained of course." Lei Gon said dryly while staring into the Lord's eyes. "Or I can tell The Immortal that you are not satisfied, you can talk directly to him then."
Karl swore he could hear teeth gnashing before Lord Kert of Zura finally answered.
"All right, how much is it?" He asked and Lei Gon, who was clearly some very influential city official nodded in the direction of the colonel.
The rest of the meeting consisted of estimated numbers of soldiers needed to defend particular parts of Lord Riven's territory, wild life's activity, fluctuations in dangerous beasts of the region, estimated losses of life and training facilities necessary. The cost of armor and weapons, fortifications and the time schedule that accounted for poor state of the recently sieged city's economy. When the meeting ended, Karl could not but notice the long face of Lord Kert who was leaving much poorer then he had been just an hour ago and the grave face of Lord Riven who was supposed to do the actual fighting.
The only one with proud, self-important posture was his stupid young disciple who was clearly ecstatic that he had been allowed to attend the important meeting of Lords due to his future direct involvement in the matter, as he was the Border Lord's son.
A silent man with green hair in a traditional sect outfit was the only one who had not spoken the whole time and Karl guessed that he was probably the city official's bodyguard or confidant. Maybe both.
"It is so thrilling, with your power and wisdom Elder, I will score a lot of merits in the future skirmishes." The Young Lord Riven von Orlov said with a smirk and Karl had an urge to strangle him.
"Of course, but my wounds are severe. You will be the one doing most of the work, boy." Karl tried to cool his temper, not forgetting that he still owed him a payback for the barn.
"I will stand tall against my adversaries Elder, now just reveal to me the secret methods to complete the Mojo Purification Stage!" He said with confidence, even though they were still in the corridor.
"First enter your room, by the way, what is your Mojo?" Karl could not believe he was really attempting to pull off a Grandpa move with the state of his knowledge.
"When I showed my ability in the city, they have told me it is called Clarity. Honestly, I was quite lucky, I had been still missing a crucial Idol when I have simply walked along the city wall and an enlightenment came when I have been staring at the wall." Riven was shaking his head, obviously still surprised by his sudden progress.
"Clarity you say. Wait, wasn't my . . .What have I done." Karl wanted to murder himself. He remembered that his hawk had stained the wall with its blood the other day and it had that exact attribute. Based on the attribute's name, it might even be the reason Riven was able to hear him. What else was Clarity supposed to do?
He had indirectly created his own problem!
"Is something the matter, Esteemed Elder?" The question hung in the air, while the Young Lord entered his room and closed the door.
"No nothing at all, Clarity is perfect. Just spectacular." Karl organized his thoughts, opened the lexicon of lies inside his head and prepared for his first lesson in Mojo Cultivation.
"First of all tell me what abilities you gained during your first stage and then the second stage. I need to personalize your training routine." Karl thought his loud confident thoughts,
"Well, the first stage was really boring. I have gained more strength, speed and my body is more durable. It all came gradually during the Mojo Condensation Stage.and when I found my final Idol at the wall, I was able to manifest my ability. I went to the city and they said that it belongs to the Clarity attribute."
"How much your strength and speed increased? Be specific." Karl wanted to get as much information as he could while he was still not exposed as a fraud.
"About doubled? Now that i think about it, it is probably only strength, because I can move and act faster because of my increased strength. My body is a lot tougher and heals better, but an ordinary sharp sword can cut me no problem. It is only logical, even The Immortal is that way." The youth said and Karl had to do a mental exercise not to leak his shock out. He could not believe that The Immortal was actually that weak. Was young Riven delusional or Immortals here really sucked?
"What role does The Immortal play for this city again? I have long left this realm and have forgotten how it works down here." Karl dared to probe for some information and surprisingly, the Young Lord was quite helpful this time.
"It is the norm here. With False Immortality, you gain Domain that is really badass, but it is nothing compared to a True Immortal. After reaching The Immortal Stage, not only your body does not age anymore, but you gain this strange ability. It is like some sort of a soul pressure or something, you can simply push everyone out of their bodies just by applying this pressure, instantly killing everything around you that does not have the soul anchored in some way. Only strong False Immortals and above can withstand it. Death Domain they call it and its range is in kilometers. Every large force needs to have an Immortal who can negate enemy's Death Domain, or it is simply instant death for all ordinary people." The eyes of the Young Lord Riven shone when he talked about the powers of an Immortal, clearly seeing himself at that stage with the help of his newly found miraculous grandpa who had clearly been many stages above a simple Immortal.
"I see, I see. Back to your ability. What can you do?" Karl thought that asking anymore would be suspicious and focused on the task in front of him. Based on the description, he wondered if he could withstand this Death Domain. His soul had a special anchor after all.
"It is quite boring actually. It is just Clarity. I hoped for Fire, Water, Earth, Metal or something like that. Clarity is nothing much." The Young Lord ranted about the uselessness of his ability. until Karl had to cough discretely.
"Ah, sure. I can see through basic illusions, learn better, understand languages that I have barely heard about and that sort of thing. My dad says that I can be a great scholar, but that is really lame." Riven shook his head with trepidation.
Karl stared at Riven with the eyes of a hawk, here was his moment. How to act as a professional cultivator, leaving young Riven in awe while ensuring that his bullshitmastery would never be found out? He needed to make his lies so outrageous that no one would even begin to suspect him!
"Despair not my disciple! Continue the mundane path of cultivation, while I teach you the path of Heavenly Cultivation and as of today, you will become a rare dual cultivator!" Karl watched as Riven's eyes grew wide.
Naturally, the best lie was the one people desperately wanted to be true. So simple.