The Jester of Apocalypse

Sateron lay sprawled out on the ground. He could hear nothing but the distant clings of glass shrubs and see nothing but the murky darkness of the sky above.

He wanted to lash out. Anger overflowed in his body, and he wanted revenge, retribution for what had been done to him. His creator, the ‘Great God’ mad with power, had been everything he truly had.

Without him, he had nothing. Nothing at all.

It wasn’t long until thoughts of taking his own life sparked in his mind. It wouldn’t be easy. Death didn’t come lightly to those in the subdivinity stage, even when they truly desired it.

However, he didn’t really want to die. He wanted to live. Now, his chance of getting a shot at life was wasted. Gone, like any light that had once been in this wretched realm. It was a question of whether it had ever existed in the first place.

He couldn’t stop his mind from drifting to the horrifying human Astrador wanted him to kill.

Neave. What a strange creature he was.

Sateron had loads of information injected directly into his mind. Knowledge of the world at large, of the free, infinite realms that expanded throughout the universe. Of so many notable individuals and even many ordinary ones.

None of them were even remotely as strange as that muscular child.

Part of him wondered whether he would be happier if he had never known about green pastures and lush forests. If he had never known of expansive seas and blue skies.

Which begged the question. Why did those humans willingly enter this realm? Perhaps to them, this realm was as fantastical as the outside was to him. Or maybe they didn’t care, given that nothing truly stopped them from leaving whenever they wanted—like prisoners with the keys to their freedom, they were comfortable staying in the cell as long as they wanted.

The shifting of the murky clouds above mesmerized him, and he lost himself in their idle, uncaring dance.

What to think? What to do?

Existence was such a painful thing. All was void of joy and hope, yet he still craved living. That was simply irrational. It would perhaps be best to end himself, after all.

But… how?

Food wouldn’t be a problem. Anyone at the subdivinity stage could survive indefinitely without it. Water would become a problem eventually, but not a lethal one, and not after a long, long time.

He closed his eyes contemplatively and confirmed it. No matter how far he dug, he couldn’t find a true desire for death. So… was he choosing to live?

Yes. Tentatively, at least.

If he was already choosing to live, to remain here, he shouldn’t be musing about such foolish stuff anyway. Gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, he got up. ＲΑℕΟᛒÊＳ

"Well then… if I’m staying here… I suppose I could look for something to do."

***

Several bear-like reptile mutants rushed at the slime avatar, and Neave swung his tentacles. The creatures were torn apart and blown up from the inside in seconds.

The slimy avatar slithered into one of the bodies, possessing it by spreading the tentacles through the creature's veins, and he fought the other monsters by manipulating one of the corpses.

It was a wildly inefficient strategy, as he couldn’t muster even a fraction of the creature's strength. Still, it was hardcore as fuck, and he could easily imagine it being an incredible scare tactic back in the real world.

Eventually, the creatures were torn apart, and he processed their bodies into slime feed.

The slime could eat things on its own, and its digestion had improved drastically. His energy manipulation skills allowed him to manually purge the slime’s body of impurities, and while it was slower and less efficient than just using his own blood, it served him well enough for combat purposes.

Out of combat, however, it was best to feed the slime quality stuff and not the toxic-qi-riddled flesh of dead monsters.

He was happy with the slime, and nothing immediately came to his mind regarding improving the creature. He wanted to experiment further and begin the construction of the second combat avatar, but he had to delay this for now.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it, but none of the monsters he had created yet felt good enough. Neave wanted something extraordinary, like this slime. It was a creation that felt right and played a peculiar, distinct role.

Its perception was excellent, and it was perfect for handling large numbers of weaker opponents. He wanted all his avatars to play a certain function, a specific role. They had to be something special; otherwise, the value of creating them and the utility of wasting attention on controlling them would drop.

He had briefly tested manipulating five temporary avatars simultaneously, which was crazy difficult. Neave had to manually swap attention between the five at insane speeds, rapidly leaving him disoriented and nauseated.

Even with much practice, manipulating seven avatars in combat wouldn’t be easy. And it would only be worth doing if there was a point in having seven to begin with.

If he just had seven avatars that fulfilled the same function, he would be better off focusing on only two than wasting his attention on using all of them at once.

There was no shortage of ideas for what to do, but it could wait for now. There was something essential he had to do first.

***

He appeared in the main chamber, finding Harel in the middle of a hardcore exercise session. Nobody else was to be seen.

"Yo, Harel!"

She lifted the barbell and returned it to the rack with a clang, and she turned to face Neave,."Oh! Why are you here?"

"… I never said I would be disappearing, did I?"

"Hmmm… you didn’t?" She asked with a squint.

"I’m pretty sure that I didn’t,” he confirmed with a nod. “Either way, where are the others?"

Harel shrugged. "I don’t know. Everyone is kind of off doing their own thing."

"Uh-huh… I see. Well, I’ll be around here for a while, so you feel free to do your own thing."

She nodded at him and returned to doing exercise.

Neave hopped outside for a bit and rushed to a nearby cave in search of more of that metal. Once he gathered quite a bit, he returned to the main chamber, dropping a ton of it on the ground.

She perked up, momentarily pausing her workout to walk over to him and see what he was doing. "What are you doing?" She asked.

Neave turned around with a grin. "I’ll be making golems."

"What!?” She asked, confused. “You know how to make golems?"

"I know much of the theory,” he said, remembering the hardcore cramming session he had done at the library.

"And you’re confident you can use it in practice?” She asked with some suspicion in her voice.

Neave rolled his eyes. “Look, just because I was being negligent in my work on that arena doesn’t mean that I’m wrong often, or ever for that matter. If I say I’m gonna do it, I know how. That’s a rule with few exceptions.”

“Okay, damn,” she said, backing away a bit. “I was just asking, mister wise guy. Golems are notoriously difficult to create. But hey, if you’re confident.”

His eye twitched. As he organized his materials, Harel hovered slightly behind him, glancing over his shoulder.

“Ok, what do you want?” He asked her.

She shifted awkwardly a bit and asked, "Can I watch?"

"Sure,” he confirmed with a squint. “I don’t mind. You want to try learning something?"

"Not necessarily,” she said, and then, with a cheeky grin, she added, “But I might make a suggestion or two."

He grinned and shook his head.

Golem creation.

It was a massive discipline, and its potential was truly immense. The power of golems was limited, naturally, but they had many unique advantages.

The first was numbers. You could use as many as you could make, really, as long as you could create proper command inscriptions. Next, they didn’t require food and could stand guard somewhere indefinitely.

And finally, destroying them was a severe challenge. They were slower and weaker than cultivators, naturally, but metal constructs could, unsurprisingly, take a punch.

Neave took a deep breath.

Harel stared at him in confusion as he focused. "What are you doing now?"

"I don’t really have all the materials I need, unfortunately,” he said, finding it strangely pleasant to have someone to share his thought process with. “I’m trying to think of alternatives…” he said, groaning a bit. “Or perhaps a way to find those materials anyway."

"What do you need?"

"Tons of shit." Neave sighed. "Certain types of crystals are needed if I want to engrave certain functions, and I need higher-tier metals. The first won’t be a massive problem, as I can mostly replace them with glass from the glass shrubs. The second one, however…"

"I see…” She nodded. “You did mention once that this realm had only mundane materials."

"Yeah… Technically, the glass shrub glass isn’t fully mundane. It is only quasi-mundane. It is in the same rung as ordinary monster hides or bones. Essentially, it's a mundane material, but the remnant spirit inside it allows it to surpass the value of its rank."

"Couldn’t you breed monsters and use their body parts?"

Neave shook his head and knocked on the obsidian tiles on the floor. "You may have noticed that I use obsidian for these tiles. not glass.” Then, he turned to face her. “Have you ever wondered why?"

"Not… really. I thought it was because the glass shrub would get angry at you."

Neave snickered at that. "No, that’s not why. It’s because I have to purge the material of any remnant spirit before I can use alchemy techniques on it. The glass from the glass shrubs isn’t ordinary, even without the remnant spirit, but it's more fragile than the obsidian."

"Wait,” she said, “why didn’t you use obsidian for Marven’s weapon, then?"

"The glass is purer and numerous times more conductive to the power I placed in it."

Harel nodded. "I see. So, what are you gonna do?"

"Whelp…” he started, sighing. “There is no way to simulate the optimal effect for standard practice." He then turned to her with a smirk. "But that doesn’t mean I have to go by standard practice."

***

Neave decided to make the golems in the main chamber for a simple reason. It wasn’t that dangerous, at least not when compared to what he had been doing prior, and spending time here would at least let the others know he was alive.

Truth be told, he was hoping to find Dukean here. Partly because he was the only one who stood any chance of being helpful and somewhat because Neave simply liked Dukean.

Talking to him was always fun, and regardless of his young age, the kid had some profound things to say.

He also had a way of asking questions that provoked the mind and extracted value.

Harel, on the other hand, was likely the single worst person he could have encountered here. Perhaps Hunter would have been worse, but he would at least stay quiet.

Not only was she unhelpful, but she was actively a nuisance.

While the way Dukeana asked questions was thought-provoking, the way she asked questions was just provocative. Many times, he felt the urge to smack her on the head.

The only reason why he didn’t tell her to piss off was because her stupidity fueled his spite, and he worked extra hard just to make sure she knew how little she was contributing to this project.

The moment he started with the first step of the process, he immediately encountered a massive advantage he had.

The golem core, the primary energy unit, was usually created by making a round metal ball with a quasi-spirit inside.

The main problem with this step, at least usually, was that tons of work had to be done to prevent the core from doing random shit and to ensure the object's interference didn’t hinder the golem’s function.

He could melt an empty spirit core and make it perfectly round, completely voiding both problems.

The quasi-spirit’s function in the core was to produce energy. The bigger the monster core used was, the more power the golem core could generate.

This was the second significant advantage he had. He could easily create a room-sized ball of spirit and use it as the core.

That was as far as the advantages went. Now for the problems.

First, golem core inscriptions and the theory behind them were planned around the inefficiencies. He could somewhat piece together a functional set of inscriptions if he just went with all the ‘if the core doesn’t have this exact problem’ methods, but that wouldn’t be as straightforward as just putting them together.

This nearly made him want to simply use a monster core, but that had an entirely different set of problems he was even less likely to solve.

His second problem was the lack of high-rank metal at his disposal. This was a critical issue. Alchemy couldn’t compensate for low-rank metals. If that were possible, he could probably turn plain iron into diamond-rank material.

There was the sword he had thrown away, but that was neither metal nor was it enough material to begin with.

High-rank metal was necessary because he had to construct a set of veins that would act as a power conduit. Lower-ranked veins simply couldn’t transfer enough power, and mundane metals were abysmal at this task.

There were a few other problems he had to tackle, and a lot of experimentation would be required.

And then, a miracle happened.

“Hey, Neave,” Harel started, and he was already itching to scream. “If you don’t have high-ranked metals, why don’t you just use a bunch of cores instead?”

“Oh, hehehe, a bunch of—!” He paused. Then, he slowly turned to her.

Indeed. Nothing was stopping him from doing that.