Max had felt his potion being digested a bit even while he was doing nothing, which had made him come to the realisation that something must have happened with Klein, Audrey or Alger. From what he could remember, the only important thing happening was Klein killing the rather forgettable side character Beyonder.
He had already put this event at the back of his mind after realising what might have happened and returned to his schedule. It would not be too long before the final Act of the Volume would begin and he would get his chance to advance to Sequence 8.
July 23rd, 1349 of the Fifth Epoch
It was a Monday afternoon and Max was relaxing on the sofa in his new hotel. It was slightly better than the previous one, but still nothing too excellent in terms of the quality of the room, furniture, or service.
Currently, he was thinking about something very important.
Max had confirmed a few things through the Amalgamation of All. Compared to Klein, he had almost complete control over the Sefirot, most likely because he had fused with Unity instead of having Unity being sucked out of the Sefirot and sealed away by outside forces like it was in Klein's case.
What he had confirmed was the fact that he could receive prayers and faith from his followers through the Amalgamation of All. Naturally, he had taught moth Ademisaul and Tom about the symbol of Unity, which was coincidentally the same as the Amalgamation of All, and not his real appearance since that might affect his actual behaviour.
The Sefirot could act as a conduit and battery, allowing him to have followers in his faith, creating a lot of possible anchors for him without him actually having reached the Sequence where he can normally accept the faith of other intellectual beings.
He also successfully confirmed that he was able to bring in people into his Amalgamation of All in projections, possibly to create something similar to the Tarot Club. Except, he did not have any limit on the number of people he could bring in, after all, the Sefirot Klein was using was technically stolen property.
Perhaps he could make it less exclusive and bring in people from all different areas of the world and simply create a platform for the exchange of information and goods. Why even limit himself to this planet? After all, his plan was to find a way off Earth and build an empire on some other planet that had intelligent life but not as many horrendous beings as those on Earth.
But that was a plan for a future time. For now, Max was thinking about which Pathway to give Tom. Ademisaul was already stuck with the Half-Monster potion, so he would have to follow it through to the end. From what he remembered, the Monster, also known as the Wheel of Fortune Pathway was the only one that did not have a substitute pathway.
Max thought back to all the various pathway formulae and rituals he knew of from the novel and quickly assembled them into a chart in his mind. He had basically all of the formulae and rituals and even the acting methods for the Fool pathways thanks to Klein.
But putting Tom on this path might not be the smartest of ideas, especially considering he would need Klein to become the Lord of the Mysteries in order to unseal the other Sefirot. As such, even if he remained the Lord of Mysteries for only a short period of time, it would give him almost complete control over Tom, and that was not something he wished to see. He could use this pathway for someone he did not have too much hope for in the future, just to make them a decent Sequence 7 or 6.
Then came the visionary pathway, which he had the complete formulae for almost all the Sequences except 6, 3, 1 and 0. Even for those, he had an incomplete formula. However, the Angel whose name should be spoken was involved in this, and being the reincarnation of a super old monster, Max would rather avoid confrontation with him. At least for now.
Then came the Sun pathway, which was very suitable since he had the formulae from Sequence 9 all the way through to Sequence 4. Having a Sequence 4 subordinate was something very useful, and important to any organisation. But perhaps finding the ingredients for this potion in the Loen Kingdom might be a little difficult. Finding it in the Intis Republic, where the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun is present, would be even harder unless Tom joined their ranks.
Plus, having a God at the top of your Sequence would definitely mean they would basically have control over you, and at the very least could influence you in many ways, the worst situation being them forcing you to lose control.
Next came the Red Priest. This one Max had to potion formula till Sequence 5, not 4, but there was no True God holding up the advancement for someone in this Pathway. Only a very angry schizophrenic King of Angels.
The last option was the Demoness pathway, but that was not only corrupted to some extent, Max also did not have the Sequence 9 of the pathway, and he would rather leave this for a female employee., just for the sake of not leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
For the rest of the Pathways, Max had too little in terms of formulae, and would rather not throw a potentially core member of his organisation into them without being able to guarantee the potion formulae for higher sequences.
Sighing in his mind, Max made his decision but did not act on it. Instead, he leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes. It was time for another Tarot Club meeting.
…
In the Majestic palace above the grey fog, sat a long mottled bronze table with 22 high-back chairs around it, and one seat of honour at one end, where Klein was present. He had his entire body enveloped in thick fog and was trying his best to come off as a super powerful being to Alger, Audrey and Max.
Klein observed the various emotions of unease and worry in Ms. Justice, but his attention was more focused on the fact that he simply could not see Max's emotions. They were covered in a deep blackness that even the powers of the grey fog could not help him see through.
The person in question; Max, was still a little lost in his thoughts about the pathway he would give to Tom.
The random items that he would often inject with the wisps of black mist from the Amalgamation of All had already found their way to a few Beyonders, and just like Klein, Max had already found that they were automatically represented in the form of white droplets, gradually drifting with the liquid blackness.
'I should make a representative projection like the Sefirah Castle, to allow the others to normally sit and have a conversation, rather than being drenched in liquid blackness, or crushed by the pressure in the deeper parts of the Sefirot, where the blackness turns into a semi-solid state.'
"Honourable Mr. Fool, Mr. Hanged Man, and Mr. Death, I would like to ask a question. What can a pet with Beyonder powers do for its owner? In other words, how useful is it?"
Just as she said her piece, the room slipped into a lulled silence, before Max burst out laughing at Audrey, for the second time since they had met each other in the Tarot Club. This caused her already embarrassed expression to deepen as she just wanted to find a hole to bury herself in right now.
"Ha… Well, your pet survived the spectator potion? That is good. Ha… Well, you can tell it to do odd jobs for you or spy on others. After all, nobody would be on guard against a pet, unless they happen to be a parrot or worse, a cat!" Max said before bursting into another fit of laughter at the little girl's expense.
Alger coughed and decided to step in. He gave a more detailed version of Max's idea, and Audrey just thanked him before turning to Mr. Fool to change the topic.
"Mr. Fool, I found another page of Emperor Roselle's diary."
"Great, you have repaid what you owed," Klein replied in a good mood.
Next, Klein proceeded to reach through the page, constantly being shocked by the information that should not have been too hard to guess from the various clues. I mean, in a world that has been stuck in the era of steam-powered machinery, it should have been easy to guess that either oil did not exist, or someone was purposefully preventing its discovery.
"You can start your discussion now."
"I'd like to know if there is a potion named Tribunal or a kind of Beyonder that can go through wooden doors or make locks ineffective," Audrey asked after letting out a breath of relief.
"I can give this information to you. But you must investigate if the King of Loen has any intention of taking revenge against the Feysac Empire, or launching a new war on the East Coast of Balam within this year or before June of next year." Alger said promptly.
"No problem, but it will take time. But I think the value of this request is more than the value of my two questions." Audrey replied as a smile formed on her lips.
"When you confirm the answer, I'll provide you with compensation depending on the situation," Alger replied, seemingly prepared for this case.
"The Beyonder that can go through wooden doors and foil locks would probably be Sequence 9 Apprentice. The secret organisation; Theosophy Order has its formula."
Alger went on to talk about it also being the Sequence 9 Arbiter, and a bunch f background information that was not important but he just threw it in there as he always did.
'Why does Alger like talking so much?' Max wondered in his mind.
"I have no more questions," Audrey said. This time around, Klein had not brought up the shroud of grey fog to isolate Max from the conversation since he assumed knowledge of the names of a few Sequence 9 potions was something that someone like Mr. Death would definitely have.
And this was not missed by Audrey and Alger, who secretively shot speculative gazes at Max, but the latter was completely unbothered.
"Honourable Mr. Fool, I'd like to ask if the True Creator's Holy Residence that the Aurora Order advocates is the legendary Forsaken Land of the Gods?"
'Forsaken Land of the Gods? I have only seen that term once in Roselle's diary... It might be in the secret dockets of the Nighthawks, but it isn't something I know of currently... How do you want me to answer?' Klein nearly twitched the corner of his lips.
He considered it for a while then he replied in a calm tone, "This is not something you should know now."
"Please forgive me for overstepping my boundaries." Alger lowered his head and replied, a little afraid in his mind.
"Keke, don't be so formal. If Mr. Fool wanted us dead we would already be dead. Just keep the meeting moving without taking up too much time. Alright. It is now my turn. Mr. Fool, I would like to use one of my favours now. I would like you to send one of your followers to find the potion formula for the Sequence 9 Monster potion. I know I already asked the members to find it, but clearly, everyone is busy with their own things. Mr. Hanged Man is busy sailing the sea in some random corner of the map, while Ms. Justice is too busy grooming her Beyonder pet. There is no time limit, but the faster you can source it, the better. I will also be willing to pay the cost of acquiring the formula."
Klein did not respond, but Max just nodded at him and then turned to the other two members who had their heads a little lower than before, clearly in shame. For some reason, the two of them felt like they were being admonished by their parents, despite Alger not having done anything wrong and was actually just doing his job. What was there to be ashamed about in that?
"As the two of you know, I have already found two items, so I will be removing them from the list. Please try and find these items soon."
Then Audrey asked if she could join another Beyonder organisation while being part of the Tarot Club, and Klein simply allowed it, telling her to keep the club a secret. Then Audrey asked about bringing in new members, and Klein tried to act all mysterious with a few one-liners.
'Ooohhh~ Mr. Big bad and scary Fool, what will you do if I start spreading your name to all Beyonders everywhere?' the thought suddenly popped into Max's mind before vanishing. However, he frowned.
'Something is wrong.'