Laura had been anticipating their return for sometime now.

It is already past noon. Many of those who went to the awakening ceremony had already returned some time ago. There were many who failed and a few who succeeded.

She finally couldn't hold back her worries and decided to inquire with one of the familiar faces among the young adults who just returned. From them she learned that the young man accompanying her daughter had caused a huge ruckus at the beginning and he was taken to the nearest guild along with her daughter who was adamant to follow him.

Her heart sank after hearing this as she assumed the worst case scenario. She hurriedly asked them for more details but all of a sudden a familiar voice had called her from behind.

Laura looked back and was relieved to see her daughter heading to her from a distance. She noticed that Karla had a strange expression on her face. She also hurriedly went towards her and asked,

"Karla, why are you so late? Where's Blue? Did he really cause a ruckus there?"

Karla smiled at her bitterly and looked around to see that other young adults and their families had been gathering around them, unsurprisingly they were also curious. But the matter was very personal so she replied,

"Mom, let's go home first. I will explain there."

Then without waiting for her reply she walked ahead with heavy steps. Laura was very shocked at her behavior. She just couldn't help thinking that the worst had happened and Blue was now…

She tried not to think about such things and bitterly held back the tears that threatened to spill out. Karla suddenly stopped at her track and looked back at her with a helpless smile as she said,

"Stop thinking in such a negative way. Nothing bad happened to him. Sigh… mom let's go already."

This time she grabbed her hand and walked briskly as she couldn't wait to tell her the startling event she witnessed.

As Laura was being led forward she finally noticed that Karla's hair had been slowly turning silvery from the brown and the transformation was still happening at the moment.

"You awakened!?"

She asked with a little tremble in her voice. Her heart was filled with joy. Today had truly been an emotional rollercoaster for her.

"Obviously."

Karla replied with a smirk as she glanced at her.

°°°°

Blue watched with a calm expression as Laura went back to the previous serene expression in her sleep.

He then brought out a broken mirror that had its surface shattered in such a way that it seemed someone had punched it. Along with it he brought out a heart that seemed made of wood and plants, a piece of gold bar that had its surface undulating as if it was made of liquid gold, a piece of iron ingot that was literally burning in an illusory yellow flame.

He placed the mirror by window as the moonlight reflected on it and fell on her. He then put the wooden heart on top of the iron ingot as if to let the illusory yellow flame burn it. There was a profound reaction as the wooden heart suddenly sprouted vines that latched onto the iron ingot. The heart started beating on its own while the iron ingot shrunk in size as the vines were absorbing it. The heart then started burning with an illusory yellow flame when the iron ingot disappeared.

He then squeezed the gold bar on top of the burning heart and the undulating surface burst like a water balloon as the now liquid gold dripped on the burning heart. Another profound change occurred as the previous wooden heart got coated in gold and the illusory yellow flame seemed to harden the gold on its surface before completely disappearing.

Blue now held a golden heart on his palm.

He walked to the mirror and held the golden heart in front of it. The mirror reflected the heart and the surface started turning golden as the heart started shrinking just like when it absorbed the iron ingot and completely disappeared. The entire mirror's surface had become golden. As the moonlight still reflected on its surface and fell on Laura with no interruption her body started glowing in the light of gold.

She appeared as if the sun had descended.

The glow finally dimmed and stopped after half an hour. She now had countermeasures against mind reading.

Back in the Abyss, reading the mind of your peers was close to impossible as the amount of countermeasures that circulated among the abyss spawn race about this specific field was enormous. At best one could bully an ignorant newbie or someone that was ridiculously weakened by meeting some kind of accident thus losing their means.

So the countermeasure Blue prepared for Laura and Karla as well as the one he used on himself was something he never got to use back in his past life because of circumstances.

The countermeasure was relatively complex but had a high potential to be kept being used in the future as it compliments well with his new plan for this life. If someone read his mind regardless of just the surface thought or complete entirety of it, their reading wouldn't be interrupted in any way.

That would be suspicious given his current strength so instead the mind reader would get to read bunch of filtered thoughts that painted his current thought process in a positive light that catered to the reader's expectation without undermining his own interests later in the future and the core personality on the filter thoughts were set as someone with an iron will that inclined towards righteousness that shone like the golden sun.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The wooden heart he used was called Lush Husk, a common alchemical ingredient used for various purposes back in the Abyss. It had the power to absorb metals and replicate properties of that metal with a 100% accuracy.

The golden bar and the iron ingot were called respectively Flowing Gold and Blazing Iron, relatively rare resources but of course he had plenty of them. These had a peculiar synergy. When it was absorbed by Lush Husk in the order of Blazing Iron and then Flowing Gold the heart could produce illusions that made whoever saw the heart's holder as a righteous individual who fought against any evil they came across with a strong determination thus making the viewer feel like befriending the holder quickly.

With such a enigmatic power Blue chose to use it with the broken mirror that he called Mind Reflector, a item he found in a fortuitous encounter, that had the effect of making anything that was reflected on its surface with the property that corresponds to a mindset be permanently projected on the mind of the individual the reflection fell on to. The activation condition being that the mirror had to also reflect along the starlight of any glowing star body.

Tonight he naturally chose the moonlight to activate it. The mirror would have made Laura's mindset and thought process similar to Lush Husk's property permanently but because that heart only produces illusion the "permanent" here also turned into an illusion that could make the viewer which was the "mind reader" only read along those filtered thoughts akin to illusions.

This method was accidentally discovered by him during one of his alchemical experiments that ended in failure, but who would have thought that the insignificant discovery would turn into such a boon for his new life. A righteous individual and an abyss spawn just doesn't match in any possible way thus it didn't make him much happy at that time. Now that he was a human it was a whole different matter.

Now the most difficult weakness was left.

The four elements related troubles that could turn even the most meticulous mastermind into a jumping clown. When Blue first learned about the elements and its many usage methods, the rare instances where his scheme failed or when he got put into a life-or-death situation out of nowhere, became clear to him.

From that point on all of his plan had either centered around the elements or concluded contingency against it. There was never a single moment when he ever underestimated it.

So to completely remove any weaknesses that may arise because of it in his new life he had to guard only one thing.

The soul.

Indeed, one might think that just because there were four elements there also had to be four more countermeasures against it. This was a very naive way of thinking. Because of having a high comprehension of aether thanks to being a top powerhouse in his past he didn't need to pander to his opponent's particular elemental affinity means but instead could guard the very thing that the four elements had to come in contact with no matter what method was used against him.

That was of course the soul which all things possessed in the Endless Void. Not only living beings but plants, rocks, mountains, seas, planets, galaxies everything had a soul or a similar core or will present in them which the four elements needed to influence through.

Flow of time that progresses, inhabiting space that nurtures, going through fate that dictates and possession of luck that offsets. These were all in the end interconnected and linked to the soul, core or will of the entity.

Blue had to guard the link which was the soul of himself, or at the moment Laura's, so that when any four elemental methods were used against him the immediate effect could be halted before it affected him and he had the choice to nullify it, permit it, modify it and do many other things to his heart's desire after being alerted of it.

Laura obviously couldn't do such a thing and neither could he at his current state but who was he? A rich abyss spawn turned a human with his entire life's fortune strapped on him.

Thus Blue took out an item that could solve the trouble. A book with a fountain pen attached to its side. The book had a tattered green cover but the fountain pen on the side looked brand new as if straight out of the factory.

The name of these two items were actually combined into one by himself. He had collected it on the grotto-hell he was born in.

He called it "Primordial Auditor".

It had all the previously mentioned required powers within it to counter the four elements and a bit more. However such a good thing naturally came at a terrifying cost.

He took the pen and went to Laura's side. He then opened her right palm.

Stab!

Ruthlessly stabbed the pen on it. Her body jolted from pain and her face had an expression of agony but she still didn't wake up. He then drew the blood inside the fountain pen as if drawing ink and finally pulled it out. He fed her another failed Healing Potion and the puncture hole on the palm healed at a rapid pace.

With the blood as the ink he now began his writing. He opened the book and inside there were no pages to be seen but only squirming flesh that had pus trickling from it. The outside appearance of it being a book was naturally a pretense of this item as its true face could be seen once it opened.

He began to write on the squirming flesh with the language of abyss spawn, the void words. When he got to this world the language would have been a problem if not for the fact that void words were such a language that the listener would naturally hear according to the speaker's intention of speech while the reader could naturally read what the writer intended to express.

He obviously learned the local language later. He was suspicious about certain facts like, he hadn't got any information of such a language in the past when he invaded player-related territories. He thus had an ominous conclusion which he quickly discarded lest it became his reality as that would be too tragic.

As he wrote on the squirming flesh the flesh trembled constantly and made hurtful growls as if writing on it was akin to tormenting itself. He looked at the content he wrote for one final confirmation before closing it and putting it back inside. The contents were,

"Account of Laura. Race of mortal humans. Age of 43. Effective till account name scratched. Payment of 0.5% lifespan per year. Linked to the account of Blue. Linked account privilege is four elements foreign aether detection alerting the account of Blue. Services are four elements foreign aether effect halting. End."

He had to write in such a peculiar manner or the book wouldn't understand what he was trying to convey. He also had an account and his available services were naturally more than what was written on Laura's. Effect halting, alerting, linked accounts control, nullification, modification, backlashing, effect reversal and reverse tracking services were written by him. The payment he had to pay was as high as 4% lifespan per year. Each service takes 0.5% lifespan from the account per year and he had eight of them, the maximum amount that this item could provide.

If he didn't increase his strength quickly enough to outgrow the need for this item then he might just die young inexplicably. He only planned to give Laura and Karla the halting service on their account as anything after that could be decided by him on the situation.

With this he was done with Laura and only Karla was left. He swiftly cleaned up any traces of his presence left in the room and exited. He went to Karla's room who was already done with the first two weaknesses. He then spent some more time and finished up the matter completely.

After mending the six weaknesses now, he needed to focus on three priorities.