I breathed in and out steadily while looking into the large mirror hanging over my chair. The energy was muted in the anti-curse box. The large mirror was good, but not very accurate. The blur was too much for the most part. I was just looking for any large disturbances, since I had gone without a restoration the last four days. It was great for just laying there and focusing only on the energy in the mirror without other thoughts.

That allowed me to try and spot any deviations or disturbances in my energy. I had used the curse effects in my hand, feet, and gut as a baseline. Clarissa had set up scanners at every entrance to the city and two people were caught with weird energy patterns. When soldiers tried to take them into custody they blew themselves up.

I smiled at the thought of the Astrologer getting more and more desperate. We were slowly pushing him into a corner. Already the new safety procedures were being sent to the other governors. A few soldiers would be invested with the Sense stat to scan people entering or leaving the city. While a large investment to give them about 2,000 stat points in Sense, stopping any more attacks was key.

Another city hadn’t been wiped yet either. Which was good to know that what the Astrologer had done, most likely had limitations. My personal guess was puppetry like the Ritualist had done in the final battle. Have people kill each other then kill themselves. You could wipe out large swathes of the city at the same time.

The Aura stat continued to gain popularity as it was rumored to provide defense against the attacks. At least that was what the soldiers told me when I took my breaks. In all, support had only increased for Clarissa and me according to her. Detractors that were too vocal were assigned the worst and most difficult grinding spots, or sent off to The Abyss, a city to the far west next to the Rift. A large line of void zones stretching the North and South on the West side of the Dragon Empire.

The last holdout cities were being seized and Clarissa had informed me she had invested in a small elite team to begin killing and murdering the grinders for the city of First Seoul, with the goal of slowly wearing it down and turning it into a blood path. They were warned that the Avatar would probably spot them, but putting pressure on her and her abilities was never a bad thing.

As for the Protector, he was still being useless and would be called back on Day 1,000 regardless of his progress. If he killed the Astrologer by then, he would live. If he failed, he was dead. Being ambitious but not producing results was a mortal sin. He was soon about to catch a fatal case of melting.

I brought up the smaller mirror, I was channeling energy into and held it up, scanning my head in more detail. I had spotted something at the very back of my brain. Consulting with Doctor Katz had revealed that was the cerebellum, which controlled movement, balance, equilibrium, and posture. The perfect part of a brain that was always in use, hard to spot, and would disable me.

It was one thing to realize there was an issue and another to extract the tumor. Doctor Katz had said that a surgery would be incredibly risky. If I suffered brain damage, would I be able to think enough to get a restoration, which would but the tumor back into place.

So, the only option I had was to find a way to remove the tumor’s curse damage without being able to really see the back of my head even with a mirror. That was why hair stylists used two mirrors to show someone the back of their head. The blur would be too much. Even now, it was a struggle. One step closer to a solution, two steps backwards.

Years, it took the Divine Empress years to solve this exact problem. While I felt I could think my way through it faster, I was struggling to come up with good ideas. Doctor Katz, point blank refused brain surgery on me. The risk was just too high.

The exact location was most likely tucked up under my brain stem at the base of my brain. A very hard to reach location safely. I set the small mirror down at my side. My most recent request would be completed soon. A total sensory deprivation tank.

I needed to be able to feel the energy. The anti-curse box was useful, but it hadn’t gone far enough. Various liquids, temperatures, and other features were being worked out by Director Katz’s research team. I gave him the title of Doctor when I went to him for medical advice, and Director when I needed help of his research and development department.

At least the rest of the curse damage was on complete lock down and I could maintain the flow of energy while in the anti-curse box. Outside the box, it was too hard. At least I shouldn’t be having another tumor baby anytime soon. If I saw the Astrologer again, I would call him my son.

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Wait, would that make me the father-in-law of the Divine Empress since they had a kid together? And would it make me his technical grandfather. I hadn’t brought these questions up to Clarissa yet. I was saving for them when she looked stress to make her laugh and lighten the mood.

Probably after the next move the Astrologer did to cause trouble. The tricky part on his end was getting to me. I had noted that the soldiers guarding Clarissa and I had boost in their stats recently. She was clearly investing in our protection.

I was still taking my share and putting it into my health insurance plan. It was back up to 390 million points and growing steadily. That was only enough for around 1,200 stat points or so. With the 65,000 I already had. It wasn’t enough to risk my health insurance. I was never risking my health insurance ever again. After being disabled for long periods of time, it was the absolute worst thing to not have points to heal myself up.

Once I hit a billion and a half points, then I would spend a billion on buying stats. That would only be enough for 3,000 stat points. The increment in cost by 5 points each stat point was a real killer the more I got. I planned to put them all into the Sense stat.

But that would take time, since the cities were only at around 15% productivity at the moment and the number was slowly increasing. I would have loved to plot out the path until I had so many points, but my time was better spent trying to feel my energy.

I was testing this out with my little toe. The least risky appendage to test things on. I carefully poked the energy, felt a spike of pain in my body and the energy wobbled, but slowly resumed its basic structure. Just getting the poke down had taken days of constant effort.

It was incredibly hard. It was like trying to bite through your own skin. There was a natural aversion to poking my energy that my mind was resistant towards. I went to my other little toe and focused. I poked the energy within it and winced.

I needed to put so much mental pressure behind what I wanted. It was frustrating and slow. But I waited until my energy settled in both my feet and tried again, focusing in a slightly different way and observing the effects. What I needed was a way to probe my energy safely and purge the curse damage for the tumor out of my head.

While it would still physically be there, it should slowly go away in time. But unlike everywhere else in my body, the energy centered around my brain was constantly in flux. I couldn’t just focus on a solution like I had with the other curse damage.

I needed a way to define the boundaries of the tumor, knowledge of what should be there and how the energy should behave, and a way to implement a solution while having my energy shift as it should. All of this without hurting my brain or causing a disturbance of any kind. I felt like a caveman who was trying to figure out brain surgery.

While I had confidence in myself and figuring things out, this would neither be quick or easy. I had to mentally give the Divine Empress serious credit for figuring this out. I wish I had asked her at the base of the tower while we were chatting. I was kicking myself for not thinking of that.

I had been focused on killing her and was stressed out at the time after being chased. Still, it was a lost opportunity for any kind of clue of how to deal with this kind of thing. The Astrologer was now at the very top of my list. He was officially ahead of where the Divine Empress had been.

At least she just wanted to beat me up and turn me into furniture. She would have kept my mind intact to let me know how much I was suffering. The Astrologer was messing with my head and there was no good way to counter what he had done.

After this was over, I was going to invest into the Aura stat as well to make sure my brain was nice and safe. Wear two helmets and a full body suit of armor. Since it was my head, I couldn’t just rip it off either. I wanted to go the surgical route, but if Doctor Katz was refusing, I didn’t trust anyone else nearly enough.

I poked my little toe again, trying to be gentler. I didn’t succeed. There were two chimes and I frowned. That meant there was urgent news I needed to speak to Clarissa about. I put the mirror aside. She hadn’t done that since the anti-curse box had been set up. Even with the bombings and the disappearance of a city.

The only reason was the Astrologer had made a direct move and I may be needed to counter him. I quickly left the room, rubbing my eyes to get used to the light. My soldiers quickly formed up around me without a word as I quickly made my way to Clarissa’s office. The reason we spoke there, were the security protections she had attempted to implement to prevent anyone from listening in.

While she was unsure how well they worked, any progress against the Avatar and her abilities was welcome. I entered the office and quickly sat down. “A messenger just reached us. The Protector has managed to kill the Astrologer and recover his corpse. He is resting in Neo Brasilia before returning tomorrow. The corpse is being preserved as well for transport and inspection,” Clarissa said.

“Any word on what the corpse was like? Was it a small child?”

“No, a full human.” I considered the situation. That made no sense. Unless the Astrologer was rapidly able to grow his body. I was missing something here. This was clearly a trap. I just didn’t see what it could be. It was too obvious. It was clear the Astrologer had killed the Protector and replaced him. Altering the Protectors corpse, probably a bomb or something.

“Go to full alert, or red alert. This is a trap. After the Protector arrives lockdown the city. Have the corpse moved to an isolated location, with bombs. Blow it up, don’t even inspect it. Have all the soldiers briefed and ready to deploy to support me. The Protector has been replaced by the Astrologer. To what end, I don’t know. But I will probably be disabled at the start of the fighting.”

“Let me call in the Captains, we can make a full plan then,” Clarissa said and rang a bell to call messengers to summon the required soldiers.