Chapter 42: Beginnings of a Conspiracy

James walked into his guild master office and sat down at his round table. Already seated and waiting for him was his other 5 sins, the 5 Ghosts and what he was referring to as a knight in his own mind. He felt a profound sense of happiness as he surveyed his people.

The sins were the foundations of the brotherhood. Goliath of Wrath, Jessy of Lust, Exsue of Envy, Fatty of Gluttony, Kelly of Sloth and himself, James of Pride. Unfortunately, they’d lost their greed thanks to the strange deviation of his and Jasmine’s spirit realms, which meant there was presently an empty seat at the table.

The Ghosts were naturally, Alecksa of the Patient Famine, Cash of Apathy, Junior of Suspicion, Tommy of Discipline and lastly Cassidy of the Deceptive Memories.

Lastly was his only current Knight and his most loyal subordinate, Death ... also known as Harvey.

All of the people gathered here in this room were elites amongst their peers. They had yet to match up against anyone apart from each other, in the same realm, that could threaten their superiority.

James felt a perverse sense of pride at having ‘created’ these monsters amongst their generation. As he gazed at them, he organised his thoughts and finally let a sinister smile slip.

“In 3 months we will be holding the War of the Worlds tournament. Because we have agreed to represent the Yori Empire, I will be entering as one of their contestants. Also, we have some pending jobs.

“Firstly, the Spirit Jade will now be a long term goal. Instead of applying to apprentice under Tantsu this year, I will wait 4 years and attempt it then.

“Secondly is the Spatial Stone. We can move to recover some more of this now, but I would rather we wait until the War of the Worlds is over. I originally intended for us to leave Tech City immediately and only return occasionally, but it seems I’m going to be stuck here a little longer until I’ve successfully accumulated a better knowledge base and skill in both forging and alchemy.

“That said, you all will be starting some rather specific jobs for me. Fatty and Alecksa, you two shall be working in concert in the West. The nation of Soel is a religious nation that worships the three suns. Your task will be simple. Go there and cultivate your Famine and Gluttony.

“After some time considering it, I’ve discovered something interesting in regards to our Abstract elements. This will concern all of you, even Harvy who only has a Rare element. For those of us who have Scrying, you too have no doubt noticed this anomaly. Abstract elements don’t usually appear in nature. At any given time, the surroundings are filled with primal spirit energy and free spirit energy.

“Most free energy is created when primal energy interacts with something in the world and is created from the reaction. The earth generates a feeble amount of free earth-based spirit energy, the wind generates tiny amounts of wind energy, etcetera. Free energy serves two purposes.

“The first is how it interacts with a person’s refined spirit energy. This usually allows us to more easily influence matter and energy in the world. For example, if I use a martial technique to try and alter the earth nearby to create a wall, the free earth energy is what I am actually influencing and it, in turn, will allow me to raise an earth wall from the ground.

“In the case of materialising spirit energy, for example creating water out of thin air, or creating a blade made of wind, this is when we don’t rely on the interaction between our energy and free energy, and directly create matter using our refined energy. This requires a tremendous amount of spirit energy but also allows us to create matter that reflects the properties of our spirit energy and not just the nearby free energy.

“The problem with this is that it requires a great deal of control and spirit energy, and it also slowly loses its form. Naturally, the more spirit energy you use to create something, the longer it will exist and the stronger it will be.

“The second point is the matter of free energy’s influence on cultivation. After some testing, I’ve discovered that free energy is a great boon to cultivators. Your spirit realm can easily absorb copious quantities of free energy that aligns with your own elements. This means that being in a place that has a large saturation of free energy similar to your own will speed up your cultivation speed tremendously.

“At the same time, it also allows you to study the free energy and further increase your experience and affinity with it. This in turn, greatly increases your control over your refined spirit energy. Phew.”

Finished his little speech, James looked at the faces of his guild members. Some showed recognition and others showed surprise. A few showed confusion and one or two showed a lack of interest. James expected as much, but he went through the trouble of explaining this to them both to help him order his thoughts on the matter and in the hopes it would help some of them with their cultivation.

Seeing that at least some of them understood his explanation, he continued on.

“The reason I’ve mentioned this is because Abstract elements don’t appear in nature. They only appear on people. This means that if you want to increase your cultivation speed in an abstract element with free energy, then you will need to find people who are giving off this free element.

“In the case of Fatty and Alecksa, both your elements align. Fatty, explain how exactly you cultivate.”

Fatty nodded and stood up with a serious expression on his face. Everyone was curious as to how exactly he cultivates. Fatty took a breath as if he was going to go into a long deep contemplative explanation only to simply say; “I get hungry and then eat stuff.”

Everyone nearly fell out of their chairs, and James’ eyebrow started to furiously twitch. “What about a breathing technique, have you bothered to develop one yet?”

Fatty gave another nod. “When I breathe in, all the primal spirit energy nearby get absorbed. When I breathe out its just air.”

James put his face in his palms and felt deep regret at having had picked Fatty to start this discussion. He then looked at Alecksa with some hope in his eyes and nodded for her to explain her cultivation practices.

Alecksa stood as Fatty sat back down and then began to explain. “My cultivation is in three elements and as such requires a little more effort. In a sense, I’m worse off than the rest of you because I actually have two abstract elements. Famine and Patience. We thought that famine would be considered a rare element at first, but after thinking on Guild Master’s explanation, I’m now certain it’s also abstract.

“For Famine, I carry around a box enchanted with hunger arrays that keep me in a perpetual state of hunger. This has helped me to better understand, control and speed up the cultivation of Famine. It also allows me to temper my patience. Similarly, anything that requires patience helps to fuel my cultivation. Even now, as all of you exert patience sitting here, I can feel my cultivation speed jumping up.

“My last element is water, and I generally cultivate that through my breathing technique. For the moment I haven’t created one as suitable as Guild Master’s star point breathing, so that is all I use.”

Alecksa then sat down, and everyone returned their eyes onto James. James felt slightly better hearing that Alecksa at least put some thought and effort into her cultivation, as opposed to Fatty. He then nodded his head after thinking for a moment.

“Well, I suggest that both of you start thinking of methods to create a breathing technique that will resonate with your elements. The breathing technique doesn’t just increase your ability to draw in spirit energy, but also increases your bodies attributes and allows you to generate more power or control in martial techniques.”

James threw out two folders to the duo showing their respective tasks. “Well, I suggest that both of you consider methods to generate your own personal breathing techniques. Also, you should consider and practice some new martial techniques that are personalised to your elements.

“Right now, I know that Fatty doesn’t have any techniques at all, and relies entirely on his strange body. Alecksa, you also mostly only rely on releasing your element wildly into the surroundings, you should consider creating some martial techniques to focus your talents.”

James then looked around again and took out two new folders. He threw one over to Jessy and the other to Goliath. “You two will also be working together on this assignment. You will take the 3 dark brothers from the ghosts. Tommy, you will follow their advice, but ultimately you are in charge of you three brothers. In addition, you will have another mission, but ultimately I want you to assist these two in their task.”

James then threw another folder over to Tommy, who sat between his other two brothers. He knew they didn’t particularly like the idea of splitting up from their siblings, but they would eventually have to learn to act independently of each other.

James then glanced at the 5 people and considered for a moment. He then pointed at Goliath and asked; “Goliath, would you mind describing your method of cultivation to us?”

Goliath nodded and stood up. His tall, muscled figure loomed over the table like a war god, and his serious, stern expression gave everyone the impression he was a fearsome and disciplined soldier.

“My cultivation is in fire, earth and wrath. My breathing technique is unique in that my fire energy doesn’t run through my meridians but instead is focused like a solitude raging flame encompassing my heart. My earth runs through my meridians similar to an upside down pyramid and focuses on increasing upper body strength and reinforcing my centre of gravity.

“Lastly, like my fire element, my wrath energy doesn’t run through my meridians but instead is infused into my blood. With every beat of my heart, my fire energy heats my blood into lava and aggravates the wrath energy infused within. When I am prepared to unleash my spirit energy, my heart beats faster, and the flames burn hotter until the wrath energy can’t be contained any longer, at that point, it fills every part of my body like a great surge of anger.”

“Within my spirit realm, my earth element is a great mountain, stable and unshakable. On the top of my mountain is an earthen altar within which is my ever burning flame, engulfed within that is a blood orb of my wrath which is constantly being refined and envelopes my True Spirit. At the moment, this structure is the most helpful for my cultivation but also somewhat unstable and difficult to maintain. When I eventually reach palace realm, this will be the structure of my palace.”

Goliath then gave another nod and sat down. James was surprised that Goliath had already begun structuring his palace, even though they’d all only recently stepped into the True Spirit Realm and had at minimum a few years or more until they reached the point they would face their three tribulations.

James considered for a moment whether he should restructure his own spirit realm to reflect how he wanted his spirit palace to look. After another thought, he decided to wait. He had quite a few more energies that he would need to structure together to resonate properly with his soul.

At last James glanced over to Jessy. Seeing everyone’s gazes focus onto her, Jessy couldn’t stop herself from blushing. Finally, after the silent pressure of everyone’s curious stares built up for a moment, Jessy humphed and stood up with and angry glare at James.

“As you all know, my aspect is lust, and I also have wind and water. My breathing technique is still the star point technique because without as many elements it’s difficult to operate the hands of time properly and feels uncomfortable for me.

“I discovered the link between cultivating an abstract element and experiencing the aspect it represents back when James told me that it would be the only way to increase my control over it. As such I ... ahem, well, have lots of sex and create various sexual fantasies while I meditate. This increases my cultivation speed rapidly.

“I’ve also discovered that when I ... erm ... have sex with strong cultivators and release my energy into their bodies it returns to me with huge amounts of excess lust energy. During sex, I can rapidly increase my cultivation through this method...”

Jessy then paused for a long moment with an awkward facial expression as she thought back to her times experimenting with this method of cultivation. “Unfortunately, this often comes at the expense of my partner’s cultivation. If I use this method on someone who has a weak willpower, it could even suck their entire cultivation from their body to fuel mine.

“In my spirit realm, my True Spirit sits in a cloud of pink mist. In the centre of this cloud is a pink flame which tempers my True Spirit. Although it greatly increases my sexual frustrations, this method raises my cultivation speed faster and increases my ability to visualise fantasies. Around this cloud is a constant gentle green breeze and beyond that is a stream of water which orbits my True Soul like a circle. It has characteristics of highly pressurised water and spins in and endless circle.”

Jessy finally sat down with a blushing face while everyone else stared at her with incredulity. Especially those other 3 from earth. James couldn’t help staring at her in shock. ‘Isn’t she a succubus? Does she not suck the life force out of people she fucks? Holy crap! I’ve actually created a demon.’

Finally, he shook this thought off and glanced over to the three brothers of the ghost team. Tommy stood up at this glance and bowed to everyone. “Seniors, we three junior all have similar methods of cultivation for a darkness attribute. It’s easiest to cultivate in the cold dark of night, and we each operate the star point breathing technique. Cash cultivates his apathy by just not giving a shit. Junior cultivates best in the underground black markets where everyone is deeply suspicious of everyone.

“I cultivate my discipline through patient cultivation and quiet introspection. As the only one of us with a normal element, my cultivation is fastest because the earth element helps me to temper my heart and mind as an immovable rock.”

Tommy then sat down with a straight back and continued to listen to the conversation at the table. As one of the youngest members of the Dark Brotherhood council, he greatly relished this chance to interact with his senior brothers and sisters. Although they didn’t meet often, but he acknowledged each of the sins as incredibly powerful seniors.

In fact, it wasn’t just the three brothers. Alecksa and Cassidy both acknowledged these 6 sins as powerful seniors. Even with their strange talents, they could feel the bizarre level of power they gave off. Although none of them could scry, the instinctively knew that the sins each had incredibly powerful willpowers.

Even after James had found them and explained how soul pressure worked and told them it was a reflection of their willpower and their ability to influence the world around them. Even after they’d spent countless amounts of effort training their willpower and spirit pressure, they could still feel that they weren’t a match for these 6 seniors.

Actually, the one they were most instinctively afraid of wasn’t even one of the sins. Although James had tempered his willpower the most, and Exsue was simply unreadable, Harvy was actually the most frightening. It wasn’t a case of his spirit pressure being more powerful or well controlled than James’, but that the nature of his spirit pressure was simply ruthless and unyielding. Like the cold hand of death, it just kept coming no matter how much you ran.

It was as if Harvy didn’t have a limit to the amount of spirit pressure he could release. Although he was limited in his control and power, his spirit pressure was endless in quantity and could exude from him endlessly.

Although this was just a sense, like intuition, it still left them most afraid of him out of everyone.

They, of course, weren’t the only ones aware of this oddity. James too had talked with Harvy and experienced his endless spirit pressure and the strange clammy cold feeling it gave him when it was acting on him.

Probably the only certainty he felt in defeating Harvy came in the fact that Harvy’s pressure was still quite weak and he had trouble controlling it. Also, he had the Pressure Diverter which helped him to alleviate the pressure for a while, even though that ring would also eventually be destroyed after fending off an endless pressure for any deal of time.

After Tommy had sat back down, James looked over the remaining 4 participants of this meeting. Exsue, Kelly, Harvy and Cassidy. Finally, he looked to Cassidy and took out a folder. “Cassidy, I’m giving you a mission as well. Yours will be harder than everyone else’s combined and...”

“No.” Cassidy quickly interrupted.

James sat stunned for a moment then scowled slightly. “You don’t even know what the mission is and your already going to reject it?”

Cassidy raised her head to the roof proudly and pouted slightly, looking all the while the incarnation of cuteness. “I don’t wanna.”

James’ eyebrow started twitching wildly. He’d interreacted enough with Cassidy to know her personality by now. Unfortunately, he needed her for this mission to be a success and as such, he had no choice but to acquiesce.

“Fine, what is it?”

Cassidy glanced over at James from the corner of her eye as a devilish smile spread on her lips. “You have to give me ‘it’.”

“Denied.”

James didn’t even need to consider. He knew what ‘it’ was and immediately rejected. Although no one else in the room knew what ‘it’ was, they knew that it must be something significant if James wasn’t even going to consider discussing it. They all watched stunned, as James took back the folder he was about to hand to her. It then suddenly burst into flames and disintegrated into ashes.

James then looked over to Kelly and started to outline the task he’d set for her. Cassidy, seeing James so resolutely denying her could only give a ‘tsk’. She then waved her hand, and everyone in the room suddenly found a needle stuck in their neck.

Cassidy then cutely looked at James with big adorable eyes and spoke. “Harder than everyone else combined? But Guild Master, I don’t know if I’m ready to take a mission on my own yet.”

All of a sudden, it was like time had rewound to just before the moment she had said ‘no’. Apart from her, everyone had completely forgotten that brief moment.

James just smiled evilly as he looked over at Cassidy. He then opened the palm of his hand and let the needle which was supposed to have struck him in the neck drop onto the table with a ‘tink’. Cassidy wasn’t surprised. Apart from her, the only other person who knew about her power was James.

She didn’t know how he’d discovered her power, but after they all broke through into the True Spirit Realm and she’d stolen another kiss from him, he suddenly showed up at her room and took her off to a secret training room somewhere in the city.

He then made her stay there and practice needle skills for days on end. By the end, her hands were filled with cuts and pricks, and she could barely move her fingers. For those few days, she tried numerous times to make James forget that he was supposed to be training her in needles, only to discover that he would suddenly smile like the devil and her training would just become even harsher.

By the end, she knew that the Guildmaster had become aware of her spirit power and had found some way to nullify it. Needless to say, he taught her to pour her spirit energy into the needles so as to act as a poison, causing anyone they touched to suddenly forget back a set amount of time.

She couldn’t help but cutely pout, seeing James revealing her needle.

James then continued on as if this whole spectacle had never happened. “No need to worry Cass.” He continued as he pulled another folder out from under the table and slid it over to Cassidy. Seeing him produce another folder as if he’d expected this to happen the whole time, Cassidy could only pout cutely, meanwhile cursing and throwing a fit in her spirit realm.

“Although your mission will be the most difficult, you will be taking a guardian with you.” James then nodded to Exsue and handed her a folder. Before she had a chance to deny this mission and claim she only wanted to stay here at James’ side, James put a hand on her head like patting a dog.

“Don’t worry Exsue, you will definitely be generously rewarded for this mission.”

Exsue visibly crooned and rubbed her head into his hand like a cat trying to create more contact. Because James hardly ever showed her any attention of affection, she was especially weak to his devious methods like this.

She could only comply.

James then looked at Kelly. “Kelly, I know you don’t like being given orders and especially don’t enjoy doing anything that might be considered work, as such, you can do whatever you want. I don’t know if you’re interested, but we have an alchemy master joining us soon. If you like, you can join Norman and I in training, or you can remain in the lab and continue on your own little projects.”

Kelly gave a silent nod from her slouched half asleep position. As James said, if he gave her a task to accomplish, that would be like giving her work, which by her very nature she would avoid putting any effort or thought into. When she could freely do what she wanted she would gladly do stuff, even if most the time it were destructive or pointless. After all, the idle hands are the devil’s tools and who had more idle hands than sloth?

James then looked at Harvy. “Harvy, you are going to remain here. You will be either in the university’s flight program or at the graveyard.”

“Yes, my Dark Liege.” Replied Harvy promptly.

Finished giving out his instructions, James left. Everyone quickly then began preparing for their missions. Even though James hadn’t given any instructions to Kelly, he knew how to get her to do work. He just needed to make it not look like work. As such, everyone had instructions in their mission folder to visit her and complain about this or that which would make their mission easier.

The fact that most of the things they would need developed by her were rather interesting or destructive would naturally draw Kelly’s attention. Although she may be sloth, that was only in regards to anything she hated doing. Although she was incredibly lazy and tired, she loved to build things. Idle devil hands and all that.

-Tech City Catacombs-

The Tech City Catacombs were actually a relic of the past Gau City. Although almost everything from the old city was destroyed and rebuilt, the catacombs were left mostly intact. This was because Jasmine faced a great deal of resistance when she decided to try and destroy it. Not from the people who lived in the city, but rather from the residence of the catacombs themselves.

The first few levels of the catacombs, apart from the reeking of dead bodies and endless hordes of rats, nothing was out of ordinary, and these levels got stripped bare and rebuilt to accommodate untold amounts of corpses. In fact, the first 8 levels were rebuilt to fit damn near every citizen of the entire empire. That’s millions of resting places.

However, down beyond the eighth level was the Crypt. From what information he’d gathered, James knew that the Crypt descended even deeper into the earth and was filled with the corpses and dead ancients from long ago.

The problem was that most of these levels were filled with beings that could only be called undead. Ghouls, ghosts, zombies. All the usual characters. James had a few theories on what exactly these creatures were but wasn’t too worried about taking some back for an autopsy just now.

Back when Jasmine tried to renovate, she tried to have the undead purged but discovered that the horde was almost endless. After the renovations to the top layers, she promptly forgot all about the lower levels, deciding that those walking corpses could just stay down there. As far as she could tell, they had no intentions of climbing up to the surface to start trouble, so she never mentioned it to James.

Now, however, James had been trying to think of ways to help his companions increase their prowess and cultivation. Due to that, he asked about the cemetery and was informed about this place. Learning that it was filled with zombies, James held nothing back in berating Jasmine for this oversight.

As such, James and Harvy found themselves standing at the bottom of the eighth level staring at a massive 40-meter tall iron door filled with various inscriptions of brave warriors fighting monsters and invaders.

It looked very much out of place, because behind the duo was a huge clean stone chamber that looked very new and shiny and was lit by modern lights. Meanwhile, the ancient door looked like it was dragged straight out of some Dwarvish mine from Mordor.

James walked forward and knocked on the door a few times. “Clunk Clunk Clunk.” Rang out in the eighth level. James then tried pushing on the door only to find it swung open easily and without any resistance.

The moment the door opened, it revealed an old worn stone staircase leading down into pitch blackness. An ominous black mist poured out from beyond the door. James didn’t even need to scry to tell that this was a manifestation of death spirit energy. After scrying, he confirmed that all this death energy was free energy and not the refined energy of some creature.

He then looked over to Harvy. “Well? What do you think?”

Harvy moved forward and stood in the mist. After a moment his own death aura spread out like a mist from his body and then rapidly cycled back into him like waves. Before the wave returned, he’d already released more energy which floated out and mingled with the free energy coming back once more in a great wave.

Harvy nodded and pulled all his energy back in. “It is perfect Master. This Crypt will be perfect for cultivating my death spirit energy.”

James nodded slightly. “Good. Go cultivate for a while, just make sure not to let any undead out. In three months when the war of the worlds comes, I expect you to be the master of the first level of this crypt. From what Jasmine told me, there are many powerful creatures deep in here. I don’t expect you to take over the entire crypt right now, especially considering there are probably some ancient undead creatures living here that have existed for millennia.”

Harvy nodded, and then without further words strolled down into the crypt. James then very quickly closed the door tightly behind him while talking to Jasmine in his spirit realm.

“Jasmine, set up some stronger defences at this door. I don’t want anything walking out of here that isn’t Harvy.”

With that done, James turned and left.

As Harvy descended slowly into the crypt, he felt, for the first time in a long time, some sense of excitement. His master had giving him everything, and now even sought out such a miraculous place for him to cultivate.

He truly loved his master. The Dark Overlord took a great deal of care for him to supply a place so perfect for his cultivation.

Here, deep within the earth, surrounded by such thick death aura, he could cultivate both his understanding and power over death, as well as his affinity to the earth and the connection between the two.

After nearly 10 minutes of descending, Harvy entered into a dark corridor that branched off into tens of other corridors. Filling this corridor were hordes of slowly shambling corpses that meandered about aimlessly. It was pitch black but that had never worried Harvy.

Through his affinity with death and earth, he’d long since developed an inner eye. Although this wasn’t to the same degree as James’ Scrying, which revealed everything, Harvy could see a great deal more than others.

The moment he stepped onto the bottom step, the zombie-like corpses sensed the tiny piece of flickering life force still remaining in his body and started turning towards him. Harvy simply waved his hand, and a compact rectangular steel device flicked out of his sleeves into his hand.

With another wave of the hand, the rectangle flicked out and took the shape of a great big scythe. This was the Hand of Death. It was created by James in the forge and contained the strongly focused free energy of a Blood Lotus. These flowers generally only grew on battlefields littered with corpses and blood.

The most interesting part of these flowers was that they absorbed the thick death energy left over from destructive battles and huge amounts of death. By using this to craft Harvy’s folding scythe, James managed to imbue it with a very strange property. Anything it cut off would not just die, but very quickly disintegrate into dust and return to the earth.

Harvy truly loved his Master. With a simple stride forward he moved into the crowded corridors of the crypt and began a slaughter as he slowly operated his external breathing technique that he’d just displayed in front of James.