The next day. Artelia District. Warehouse.
Adryan counted the minutes until everyone arrived to their special place in the warehouse.
His companion sat a few meters away, calmly reading a book. Her gaze focused on the pages that passed by at a steady pace.
He only had a cup of coffee in his left hand, while in his right hand, a few small fireballs danced calmly.
The sound of heavy footsteps reached his ears, along with the sensation of his threads breaking.
Clenching his fist and extinguishing the fireballs, he drank what was left of his coffee and placed the cup in a safe place where it would not break.
The door to the room was opened with a loud bang! And a massive woman with green eyes entered.
As soon as her eyes fell on him, a big toothy smile formed on her face.
"Boss!"
Accustomed to this, Adryan didn't even fight it.
He just got up from his seat and relaxed his body. The next moment, the woman's huge arms had him in a spine-crushing embrace.
Patting the woman's back in appreciation, he laughed a little at the situation.
"I missed you too, Sasha. How have you been?"
"Azshara isn't as much fun as Backlund but at least I don't have to worry about a surprise attack." Laughing a little, the big woman lowered her boss.
Pugilist Shasha hadn't changed much. Her hair was still that orangey-blonde and her bright green eyes were as bright as ever.
Her new name in Lenburg was Frida Curie. A name of which the woman was very proud.
Taking the name of one of the most outstanding female soldiers in the history of the Feynapotter Kindong during the Battle of the Violated Oath. Sasha hoped that taking such a woman as inspiration would help her to digest her potion better.
She hadn't done much in the weeks she had been in Azshara. Her job was relatively normal: a librarian.
This job gave her free time to perform in the odd bar in the more remote villages in the Oldeah district.
And it seemed to be working; she was a little taller than the last time Adryan saw her.
Looking at the woman's side, at the little girl, Adryan smiled a little and ruffle the curly brown hair with his left hand.
"And how have you been? How about your new powers?"
Grey eyes looked back at him, a small smile on the girl's freckled face.
"They're not as incredible as I thought. But being able to analyze people so easily has its advantages. Who suspects that they are being scrutinized by a child?"
Jerry's appearance had not changed at all. As an East Borough child, her documents were not the best, more of a formality than a true birth record. Add to that the fact that no one was left to look for her if she disappeared. In the eyes of the world, Jerry Catnuss no longer existed.
Her new identity as Tammy Mouse was more real than the previous one. To keep her education up to date, she was now studying at a school in the Helikon district.
A courtesy of the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom that would not allow a single child to be uneducated.
Giving her head a final pat, Adryan placed a hand on his waist and asked.
"And your classes? How is your language study going? History? You're not having any problems, are you?"
The smile on the young girl's face broke and she just growled in frustration.
"Do I really have to attend? I'm already a Beyonder! Why do I have to participate in boring classes?!"
Adryan's smile faded with a sigh. Before the girl could react, he grabbed her cheek with two fingers and squeezed with a little force, twisting as he squeezed.
Grandma's technique!
"Ow!" Slamming his hand down, Jerry pouted at him.
"Don't mess with your teachers." Adryan reprimanded with a gentle but stern voice.
"Just because you're a Beyonder doesn't make you more of than a normal person. In many ways, they are much more blessed than us."
Puffing out her cheeks, the girl rubbed her red cheek and lowered her head slightly. "Yes, sir."
"Come on, boss! Don't be so hard on the little one. Classes are boring." Sasha leaped to the child's defense, her back straight and proud.
Adryan stared at the giant without expression. Slowly, his left hand rose towards her cheek.
The giant's confidence and righteousness immediately broke.
But knowing that she could not abandon her younger companion, she turned around, quickly grabbed the girl, and placed her on her shoulder.
"Run!!"
"E-ey! Put me down, Miss Sasha!"
"..." Flora watched everything with a slight twitch of eyebrow. "I'm not even going to say anything anymore."
Adryan nodded in agreement.
There were times when he didn't quite understand the giant himself.
...
A while later and after promising not to use 'that move' on her, Sasha and Jerry calmed down.
The blonde looked at Flora curiously.
"So you're one of the new team members, huh?" Pausing for a few seconds, Sasha smiled broadly.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Sasha Strauss. A Sequence 8 Pugilist. I hope we get along." She finished saying, extending her hand towards her.
Flora looked at the giant for about 7 seconds in silence, finally extended her hand and responded to the handshake.
"... Flora Jacob. Prometheus of Sequence 6."
"Sequence 6?!" Somewhat surprised, Sasha looked at her in amazement. "You seem only a little older than me and already such a high sequence. You have my respect, Miss Flora."
"Pff-"
Ignoring the beating of her brow and refusing to look at the redhead, Flora just nodded to the giant. "Thank you, Miss Sasha. But I'm sure it won't be long until you are Sequence 6 too."
The smile on the giant's face shone even brighter.
"Ha! May the God of Combat hear your words."
Giving a little stronger squeeze at the end, Sasha finally let her go and it was now the turn of the youngest of the group.
Little Jerry looked with her head slightly tilted at Flora, her crystalline eyes looking deeply at the woman.
After a few seconds, Jerry blinked and came out of Spectator State.
Her gray eyes clashed with the gray of the white-haired woman.
After a few seconds, she said, "I've never met anyone with the same eye color as me..."
At her words, Flora smiled proudly.
Bending down to the girl, she whispered in her ear, "That's because only special people have them. Those born with gray eyes are destined to achieve great things."
Jerry looked at her sideways without showing much reaction before the corners of her lips lifted.
"Then I have to try hard to make sense of them, don't I?"
"Of course." Straightening up, Flora looked down at the girl. "When have great things been achieved with mediocrity?"
"..." Jerry fell back into silence again, but a smile adorned her lips.
Closing her eyes, the little girl grasped the edges of her tunic and bowed slightly.
"Jerry Catnus. Spectator of Sequence 9. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Flora."
'Oh?' Letting the corners of her lips rise in satisfaction, Flora also grasped the edges of her tunic and bowed gently.
"A pleasure."
After the greetings, Sasha turned to the redhead and said, "Boss, you said you'd introduce us to another member. Where is he?"
"Opera is bringing him. They shouldn't take long." Adryan said calmly as he began to move the chairs and tables aside.
Sasha started to help him do that.
"Could you tell us what he's like? From what I understand, his mental state is a bit special."
She knew that the new member was Half-Monster and that led to certain mental problems. She had never come across anything like it in her life, so she didn't know what to expect.
"He's a young guy with black hair and eyes of the same color. When we found him, he was a bit skinny and tired, but I'm sure the treatment from Opera helped him with that," Adryan replied calmly as he leaned the last chair against the wall.
"That's what he looks like. As for his personality, his tastes, or his fears, I'd be lying if I told you.
"The boy has been out of his mind all his life. I couldn't tell you if he even has a personality apart from the state brought on by being born Half-Beyonder."
At the mention of halves, Jerry jumped at attention and walked over to his side.
"Is he like me?"
"Yes and no. Compared to you, he's the short end of the stick." Adryan said honestly as he took some tools out of the boxes and placed them on one of the tables.
"In what sense?" Jerry asked curiously.
This time, Flora entered. "He hears and sees things he shouldn't. His intuition is so high that it gives him horrible visions of the future and what may happen to him.
"It's not through sheer luck that he has reached adolescence. That kind of unfortunate people die from strange causes at a very early age."
"Is someone like that going to join us? Boss, is that a good idea?" Sasha asked, watching as the man finished setting up the still.
"Once he is a complete monster, all his mental problems will disappear and his intuition will stabilize." Finishing preparing everything, he finally turned to look at them.
"Why do you think I called you here?"
Somewhat taken aback by the question, Sasha was about to answer immediately that it was for the introduction of new members when she stopped.
If it was to introduce a new member, why were only they called? Shouldn't he have called the rest of the team?
Also, why had he made so much room by moving the tables?
Why did they need so much space if they were only going to introduce-
Noticing this problem, she frowned and, after a few moments, replied.
"Is it to control the boy?"
"Mhm. That's right." Adryan nodded. "Just because drinking the potion cures him of his madness doesn't mean there can't be accidents in the process.
"The chance that he'll lose control and turn into a monster isn't as low as I'd like, and since he'd be an out-of-control monster, it's best to deal with him in numbers.
"So that if luck causes one of us to fail to deal with it immediately, the other can deal with the results that may follow."
"..." Sasha looked at a silent Jerry who was looking at the floor before returning her attention to her boss.
"Is it a good idea to bring Jerry for this? She's just a child."
"A child who decided to enter the Beyonder World. The faster she desensitizes herself to this the better."
"... Understood."
Observing how gloomy she had become, Adryan sighed and approached Sasha. Raising a hand, he smacked her forehead with some force, bringing her out of her stupor.
"Don't be so pessimistic, Sasha. While the possibility of him losing control is high, I'm sure the boy will be fine.
"He's lucky. And with the pathway focusing on luck, that's cheating right from the start." Smiling amusedly, Adryan turned away.
"I'll explain things better once Opera and the boy arrive. Until then, relax a little."
'If the boss is so calm, it must be all right...' Rubbing her forehead painfully, Sasha nodded, more relaxed, her worries much less.
It wasn't long after that short explanation that Opera arrived. Taking Ademisaul by the hand, he looked much healthier and cleaner.
"Sorry, I'm late. This guy here didn't want to eat his vegetables." The red-eyed woman laughed softly.
"Whistle. Good job, Opera. I almost didn't recognize him." Adryan looked the young man up and down, nodding in appreciation.
The boy's pale cheeks had puffed up and taken on a healthy pink color. The dark circles under his eyes had disappeared and he walked with more energy.
Although he was still muttering strange and unintelligible things, the Ademisaul of now was much better than the one who had entered her flower shop two weeks ago.
'That is the Mother's pathway for you. In a way, we humans are also plants that need care and nourishment to flourish...' Finishing the analysis, the redhead smiled at the black-haired woman.
"I hope he didn't cause any problems."
Laughing softly, she waved her hand in dismissal, "Not at all! He behaved very well with me and even helped me a little at the flower shop."
Letting go of the young man's hand, Opera let him move around the room but never took her eyes off him.
"Of course, I had to stop him from biting a sunflower or two, but it only happened three times. He was such a sweetheart..."
"I'm sure he thinks you're his mom." Flora joined the conversation as she watched the Half-Monster looking lost at Sasha, who started chatting to him.
"Excuse me?"
"The boy's mental state is fluctuating, so his intuition acts more like his consciousness. It's likely that his intuition decided that you were safe, so the boy stayed calm."
"That... explains a few things..." Mumbling a little dazed, Opera looked at the boy and rethink every interaction she had with him.
"I didn't think he saw me like that."
"Once he becomes a monster, that might change. It's an influence of sensitive intuition without control. Once he can control it, that should change."
A little absent, the woman nodded lost. The sudden class left her stunned.
Recovering after a few seconds, Opera remembered what she had come for and looked somewhat embarrassed at the woman in front of her.
She was supposed to introduce herself to the new member of the team and solve Ademisaul's mental problem. It had slipped her mind.
So, redeeming herself, the woman bowed slightly.
"Excuse me, Miss. I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Opera, the Planter from Sequence 9. It's a pleasure to meet you."
The white-haired woman stared at her and slightly nodded, "Flora Jacob, Prometheus of Sequence 6. Current guard of that guy." She finished by pointing at the redhead who had taken Ademisaul with him to the table he had prepared.
Having been raised and grown up in East Borought, Opera could say that she could easily detect hostility in people's words.
For that reason, she couldn't help but feel somewhat confused by the woman's last words. For a moment, it seemed that that instinct was triggered, but she didn't feel any hostility.
Ignoring that, Opera smiled gently at Flora, "I hope we get along."
...
"Ready to come to your senses?" Adryan asked with a simple smile.
Ademisaul did not reply; he just stared at him with vacant eyes.
The corners of Adryan's lips trembled slightly. "Just... just wait a moment."
Grabbing a briefcase that he had placed next to the table, Adryan opened it and began to take out all the ingredients to prepare the Monster potion.
He had already taken them out of the City of Calamities several hours ago so that they could breathe.
With Ademisaul's keen intuition, the redhead was sure that taking out the ingredients here would kill the boy and if the ingredients were not cleansed of the aura of the sefira, problems could arise.
After thoroughly cleaning the pot and making sure that the boy would not try to eat the ingredients when he wasn't looking, Adryan began to prepare the potion.
Five acorns from the East, 4 grams of silver, 10 milliliters of methane...
Calmly, the redhead reached out and, using his threads, cut some of Ademisaul's hair and grabbed it. After counting seven, he threw the hair into the pot.
Once that was done, he put on some gloves and picked up a metal vial. Adryan opened it and poured it into the pot
A shiny, heavy liquid with a silvery-white metallic color fell from the vial. This was Southern Mercury, and all its contents fell into the pot, which was 100 grams.
As soon as the shiny liquid touched all the other ingredients in the pot, they melted and fused into a blackish-gray liquid.
Looking at the result, Adryan grabbed one of his container vests and opened it, using his threads to pull the last main ingredient out.
Through his invisible threads, the entire head of a Pink Mamba was thrown into the pot.
There was a swirl inside, and the snake's head soon melted. After a few seconds, the liquid in the potchanged from a dark gray to bright silver, looking like liquid mercury.
The Monster Potion was ready!
Pouring the entire contents into a cup, Adryan took out his mirror and, after a short divination, confirmed the potion's success. He turned to the boy.
The glove in his left hand went from a simple black to an alice blue that emitted an aura of tranquility. At the same time, he tapped his palm twice.
"Ademisaul. Until I tell you, you will ignore every voice, sound, and whisper that is not my voice. You will ignore everything around you and focus on me and only me, nothing else.
"Also, you will follow my instructions until I snap my fingers. Is that clear?" The redhead spoke in a soft, calm voice and examined the young man's aura.
Blinking slightly, the young man's lost black eyes came into focus and centered on his face.
The man's voice cleared the fog in his mind and once again, the whispers that had tortured him all his life seemed to fall silent.
Enjoying this strange state for a few seconds, he nodded roughly.
"Yes, sir..."
Observing the boy's change, Adryan whispered wisely in his heart.
'Beware of the Spectator...'
Without a doubt, in Ademisaul's state of mind, if he drank the potion he would lose control because of the ravings he would hear and he would either become a monster or die.
Luckily for the boy, Adryan had many ways of dealing with them, one of which was the glove in his left hand.
This was one of the abilities of the five souls Creeping Hunger had grazed - the Sequence 7 Psychiatrist's Psychological Cue!
This ability allowed him to cue a target through specific methods, words, and a medium, allowing them to abide by his arrangements without realizing it.
Adryan did not use this ability because he already had it as a Conspirator, being much more effective as it was not a power, making it difficult to detect.
But, in cases like Ademisaul's, it was much better to use the psychiatrist's power for that very reason.
Being a Conspirator, his voice met all the requirements to apply a Cue without his target realizing it.
For the duration of the boy's promotion, Adryan would implant Cues so that nothing would interrupt or cause problems.
The redhead nodded in satisfaction and, confirming that everything was ready, handed the potion to the young man.
"Drink this. Ignore the taste and drink it all. Don't drink it so quickly that you choke, just enough to finish it in a few sips."
Ademisaul nodded again. Without doubting his actions, he raised the vial to his mouth and did exactly what he was asked.
In a few sips, the cup was emptied.
Immediately, he experienced an intense headache and a strange shiver that felt like worms under his skin.
"Ignore those sensations. Focus on me and my voice." Adryan repeated, his voice never leaving the calmness of before.
The panic that almost overwhelmed Ademisaul calmed down almost entirely and he focused again on the man.
"Take deep, slow breaths. Close your eyes and empty your mind. Don't think about anything. Just focus on my voice and no other. Only on mine..."
Constantly applying Cues to maintain Ademisaul's state, they continued like this until the boy's aura finally stabilized.
Now, it was a faint silvery-white color. Moving within itself like a circular river.
Nodding to this, Adryan turned off his spiritual vision and smiled at the young man whose eyes were closed.
Raising his right hand, the redhead snapped his fingers.
Snap!
With the signal given, all the cues applied to Ademisaul disappeared. And his eyes opened.
His black eyes were no longer lost and did not seem to be seeing things that should not be seen. They had become much deeper and more focused.
Blinking in surprise, Ademisual raised his hand and placed it on his ears, trying to hear something.
"Hello?" Unsure, he said something and after confirming that he was not suddenly deaf, his eyebrows rose in shock.
Tears began to fall from his eyes and a smile from ear to ear formed on his face.
With extreme gratitude, the young man looked at everyone present and, in a choked voice, said, "I-I can't hear them anymore!"
For as long as he could remember, the voices and visions that had tormented him all his life had finally fallen away.
Smiling at the boy, Adryan tapped his head and ruffled his hair.
"Congratulations. You're a complete Monster now."
Wiping away tears with the sleeve of his robe, the young man nodded tremblingly and, without thinking, embraced the tall man in front of him with all his might.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Rolling his eyes but with a smile, Adryan returned the hug a little.
"There, there, it's okay."
Extremely pleased with what she saw, Flora couldn't help but laugh a little and teased with a mischievous voice.
"Fufu. What did I tell you, Princess? You're quite a mom~"
Adryan just stared at the woman with a flat face. "Seriously, now?"
"Awww," Sasha, who had seen everything, couldn't help but exclaim tenderly.
That everything had gone well and that the boy hadn't lost control relieved her of a weight she didn't want to bear.
"Sniff." Opera said nothing; she just wiped the tears from her eyes with a handkerchief.
"So that's one of the abilities I'll have later on?" Jerry murmured in amazement at what she had seen.
When she had advanced to Spectator, Mr. Kenway had explained to her about her path and the abilities she would gain as she climbed the Sequences.
This was the first time she had seen one of them.
'That's one of the abilities of the Sequence 7 Psychiatrist, isn't it?'
She hadn't been so concerned about what Mr. Kenway had said.
She had complete faith that he would not let that happen, so she was curious about how he would do it.