July 30th, 1349 of the Fifth Epoch
In the opulent palace above the grey fog, Klein sat at the seat of honour with one hand supporting his head and the other wrapped around the edge of the mottled bronze table.
"Mr. Fool, I was unable to gather any of Emperor Roselles Diary pages." Ms. Justice said in a slightly dejected tone. Alger also nodded along with Audrey as he too did not have any of the not-so-late Emperor's diary pages.
'It seems that the resources of the Tarot Club are gradually running out… perhaps I should focus a little more on bringing in other members soon. That way, I will gain another source of the diary.' Klein thought to himself, without actually changing his expression or posture much.
"H- However!" Audrey suddenly began as she looked up at the Fool with determined yet slightly anxious eyes.
"I have just met a 2 Beyonders. I should be able to integrate into their circle soon enough, and once that happens… I should be able to… maybe get some of Emperor Roselle's Diary pages."
Audrey continued, which caused Klein to perk up in his mind. However, he maintained his posture with a mysterious air about him, and just slightly nodded at Audrey, who heaved a sigh of relief at Mr. Fool's acknowledgement.
At this moment, Max spoke up.
"I would like to add a few more items to my list of items. Some of these items are Beyonders items. So please make sure you trust your channel before asking for these ingredients, as searching for Beyonder ingredients can lead to various unpleasant outcomes."
Of course, these were mainly the potion ingredients for the Red-Priest pathway. And naturally, he had completely mixed up the orders, while also adding in a lot of other random stuff, and Beyonder ingredients from other pathways, to throw off anyone trying to know what exactly he was searching for.
Klein nodded and Max happily added a note with the new materials on it.
A few seconds of silence later, Alger decided it was finally his turn to speak in the transactions period of the Tarot Club.
'Based on my observation, the time of each Tarot Club meeting had been divided into three sections as an unspoken rule. The first two sometimes overlapped, and involved handing over pages of Emperor Roselle's Diary to Mr. Fool, and making transactions with each other and Mr. Fool,' Alger thought to himself.
'The third part of the Tarot Club involved just exchanging news and information with each other that they gained from their sources and were willing to give out the information for free, well, in a sense, they would also gain information from the other Tarot Club members so it was not for free. After all, Mr. Fool was rather stuck-up on his system of equivalent exchange.'
"I have procured 2 items from your list, however not only were they not easy to get, but I am also currently still out at sea and unable to send them to you."
"That is alright. I will give sufficient extra payment for your efforts, but you should leave that to me. I think you should not forget the information I had given to you two in exchange for being able to put up the task of collecting my items. I do hope you leave it to me to decide on the amount of excess payment I am willing to give based on the service and my mood." Max said with a nonchalant smile on his face, one that sent a slight shiver down Alger's spine.
'What Sequence is he at?' Alger mused inwardly while nodding to Max.
The meeting proceeded smoothly with nothing much of significance actually happening and ended on a high note as the group exchanged some information about the goings-on around each of them.
…
Returning to his own body, Max quickly followed Samuel's instructions and entered the Amalgamation of All where he received the hidden memories and frowned, cleansing his mind of all external influences, before having his memories removed once more and returning back to his body, oblivious of the changes that were happening.
Then, he went to the training hall and repeated the same training he had been receiving since he came to Tingen, returning home with a sore body.
The next few days played out just the same and even the Tarot Club had nothing interesting happen. Other than the fact that Klein received the two ingredients Alger had spoken about, and coincidentally they were both considerably important ingredients for his Sequence 6 and Sequence 5 potions, he added a few pounds extra for the payment and sent it over to the location where Alger always received money and items from Ms. Justice. This time though, he would personally accept the money since he had also returned to shore.
What did happen was that after the 6th Tarot Club meeting, Max attended the 7th and 8th meetings as well, and as soon as he returned to his body from his 8th meeting, he felt something click inside his body and mind, and he knew instinctively that he had fully digested the potion.
This was an absolutely record speed, if one considered from when he had actually begun acting, and not from the time when he had his potion. Max felt his entire body fall in line with himself, as though he was in his peak state of being, and immediately entered the amalgamation of all, cleansing himself of outside influence and then thinking about stuff he would prefer not to think about out in the open.
'I really need to build up my church. But doing it here is stupid. My best option would be to go to another planet and secure believers from there. I better not bring along even a single Beyonder item since that could cause other Beyonders, or worse, those above the Gods to find my planet.'
'But first, I need to figure out how to leave this planet. Even if for only a while, or only as a ghost or something similar.'
Mark had already tried using the key on many doors since he got the Sequence 3: Wanderer's Partial Beyonder Characteristic, which was in the form of a bronze key that looked like it had been cast aside for millennia.
Pushing it into the door of his bathroom, Max twisted the key in a motion to unlock it, despite the door being already unlocked, before he pulled open the door. In a swift motion, not only did he fully open the door but also pulled out his Wanderer's Key.
This was the naming system he had decided to come up with. Just the name of the sequence the item came from, and what the item was. A simple and crude naming method, but one that worked. As such, he ended up naming his Beyonder Sword the Black Knight's Sword, as it was an item from the Hanged-Man's pathway at Sequence 4: Black Knight.
Anyways, immediately Max walked through the door, but did not close it behind him. Looking on either side, Max saw what could only be described as a wooden house with medieval architecture. There was also a window leading to the outside, which showed that it was night-time, despite it being afternoon in Loen.
In the room, there was a wooden shelf to the right, with a considerable amount of rather mouldy bread, and a few onions. The rest of the shelf was empty, and considerably dusty as though it had not been cleaned for quite some time.
To the left was a mattress made of some rough and course material, very unwelcoming of a place. Especially for Samuel's 21st century soul, and even to an extent to Max himself.
Max closed the door behind him and then closed his eyes and connected with the amalgamation of All. Unlike his normal connection to it, this time around Max's mind did not go through the sluggish are that he assumed was the Spirit World, and instead just travelled through an incredibly vast distance of emptiness, taking a good 30 seconds before connecting with what would normally take him only one second to reach, and that too was because of the area around the earth that slowed down his connection, which he assumed was the Spirit world, but in reality it could also be the barrier set up by the someone who made everything…
Max had been trying to be more careful of even thinking of certain beings, this one being one of them.
'Anyways, one thing is for certain. This is a new world!' Max clenched his fist while inside the Amalgamation of All in joy as his plan had succeeded. He was in a new world, a world that was hopefully untainted by corruption and Beyonders. Clearly, there was intelligent life here, and based on the signs, it was likely human. And the best part was that they appeared to be in the middle ages of technology. The perfect time to be spreading religion to people.
[AN: Please reply to this to give your response. Do you want to see more of this new world, or do you want to see mc do everything in the background as we focus on Ademisaul and Tom, perhaps even some other characters? Note: I am not good at the latter and I would rather just have a mix, but more focussing on the former. Still, it is your choice, as I have only written a single extra chapter which can be reformatted to suit either of the two pathways. But note, mc will be staying here for quite some time.]
Current score: Max- 6 Earth- 1 Mix- 4