19 Mission

Sitting on his big leather sofa, Ethan started to think about all the information he received today.

'After today, there's only five Sequence 8 formulas I don't yet possess; Sequence 8, Clown, Trickmaster, Lunatic, Beast Tamer, and Archaeologist.'

'I also possess the formulas for Sequence 7, Nightmare, Spirit Medium, Weapons Master, and Interrogator.' As Ethan thought about the formulas he now had in his possession, he started walking towards his room upstairs.

'Other than that, I've also received a huge amount of historical knowledge from different families, mysticism rules, ritualistic spells, and many more after taking the Mystery Pryer potion and seeing that infinite moor.' As he walked to his room, Ethan picked up his silver dagger inside his clothes.

He entered the room, picked up a pair of glasses he had previously bought, and quickly proceeded to the bathroom.

Standing on the cold marble floor, Ethan constructed a wall of spirituality. After that, he quickly cut his pulse and let his blood flow to the ground in determining patterns, always repeating the process while his wound quickly healed.

After a few minutes, he stopped and looked at the ritualistic symbols he drew on the ground.

Putting the pair of silver rimmed glasses in the middle of the circle full of symbols, Ethan started saying in ancient Hermes, "The blood that flows by my orders shall be received;

"As the maker of this circle my will must be conceived;

"I!

"I order in my name!

"May this object be given the sealings I require!"

After finishing his words, Ethan's spirituality was quickly drained by the circle. The wind flowed around him with great strength and he heard many indistinct voices from different locations.

After some time, the blood that formed the ritualistic symbols flowed up to the pair of silver rimmed glasses. Writing innumerable different runes and arcane symbols on the lenses and body of the glasses.

Passed a few minutes, Ethan was finally able to pick the glasses once more.

They were now rimmed with a dark-red colored silver and the lenses were even more reflexive.

Putting on the glasses, Ethan's 'Eyes of Mystery Prying' were blocked completely. While his constant spiritual perception was partially obstructed, it was not shut off completely, Ethan would still see glimpses of the future and have his danger premonition from his powers as a Monster.

The good thing is that he wouldn't be too burdened if he were to see indescribable things anymore.

As Ethan walked back to his bed, he took another bath and clothed himself in a new full black attire consisting of a tail suit, vest, trousers, boots, and gloves. He had stolen this one, along with three others, after returning to Backlund.

As Ethan sat on his room's single sofa, he closed his eyes and started sleeping to regain his spirituality.

…

Monday afternoon, Tarot Club's gathering.

The Fool brought all the members for their gathering once more. As soon as the red light ceased enveloping her, Audrey stood up and observed the other members with the side of her eyes.

Seeing as there were no new members today, she greeted The Fool directly, "Good Afternoon, Mr. Fool~!"

Everyone bowed to the honorary seat at the end of the long, mottled bronze table and sat down once more.

As Ethan observed the other members, he realized he didn't have his glasses on. However, the grayish white fog still restricted his gaze from discerning the others' characteristics.

'What a pity. If I could perceive their appearances, it would be easier to find ways to gain more of their trust.' Ethan observed the other members for some time and averted his gaze once again.

The Fool received their greetings with a nod and gestured for them to proceed with the gathering.

Ethan, however, quickly noticed that the tall kid, The Sun, seemed to be a bit restless.

The Justice lady also seemed to have noticed it, as she quickly asked, "Why do you seem so worried?"

Ethan then heard The Sun proceed to tell them about his acts of pretending to be initially losing control, so as to not participate in some kind of dangerous expedition, which led him to be sent to 'the spire' for treatment.

He then asked if the mystical item in the spire could detect his participation in the Tarot Club, receiving an ambiguous, but still positive answer from The Fool.

'This place seems to be in a completely different dimension, it's improbable just an artifact alone would be able to detect anything amiss…' Ethan couldn't help but think so after having so much mysticism knowledge, but considering even The Fool himself didn't dare say the place was immune from all artifacts, he kept quiet.

The Sun then thought for a second and asked, "Have any of you heard of a person named Amon?"

Hearing this question, Ethan couldn't help but think of the family of 'blasphemers' that could steal the powers from deities. He received this knowledge from looking at the infinite moor from the Mystery Pryer potion.

After The Hanged Man heard this name, he was surprised and asked some questions before introducing some of the knowledge Ethan already knew to the rest of the Tarot Club members, also speaking about the other four great families that founded the Tudor Dynasty.

With the introduction and later advice from The Hanged Man, The Sun relaxed a bit and thanked him with his young and naive look.

As everyone left the topic behind, Ethan decided to say something for the first time today, "I would like to ask you guys to look for some ingredients for me. As long as you have any clues to them, I'll pay you a considerable amount of money."

As the other members looked at him, seemingly waiting for his request, Ethan quickly continued and said, "I need one of the five hearts of a Dark Demonic Serpent and the corpse of a Killer Centipede."

The other members didn't seem to know anything about the ingredients he asked for, so Ethan stopped speaking and kept quiet once more.

As lady Justice asked for another private conversation with The Fool, Ethan soon lost and regained his senses in close succession.

After that, The Magician lady asked the members to keep an eye out for the main ingredients for her Trickmaster potion, receiving an answer from Alger saying he saw one of the ingredients appear in one of his recent gatherings but that it had already passed.

Ethan then saw The Sun say he knew of a place that had Spirit Eaters, but as he didn't have any need for money, he asked for the potion formula of Solar High Priest.

The Magician then looked at him with a fake smile and tried to make him understand that this wasn't an equivalent exchange as the ingredients she wanted would cost only 300 pounds while the formula would cost 800 pounds at least.

Seeing this scene, Ethan would have had the urge to laugh if he still had his humanity completely intact, even then, he couldn't help but have his mind tainted with some amusement.

He soon went on to say, "I have some channels that might have the ingredients you need."

The Magician looked at him with some hesitation before saying, "And what would you want for it…?"

Ethan chuckled for a second and replied with a calm smile, "The Trickmaster potion formula and 250 pounds. If you give me the formula right now, you don't need to pay the extra pounds when I find the ingredients."

His smile was like that of a true devil, full of amusement and influencing flair.

The Magician looked at him with an unfocused gaze for some time before saying, "I'll pay after you find the ingredients…"

She wanted to save some money, but not at the expense of giving her formula so directly for a mere chance.

Ethan nodded with his devilish smile and continued to observe. The Magician once again opened her mouth to say, "Everyone, do you have any good ways of earning money?"

The other members kept quiet, the silence of the ancient palace palpable in the air.

Ethan continued to observe for a few more seconds, and as no one else was saying anything, he proceeded to say, "If you want, I could lend you some money."

For's looked at him with obvious fear and quickly shook her head, "There's no need for that!"

Ethan smiled and went quiet once more waiting for the other members to respond. But no one had anything to say about the topic of how to make more money.

After that, The World also asked for the others to keep a look for some ingredients, while The Hanged Man asked for them to keep an eye out on some person related to the disappearance of colonial slaves. Ethan did not say anything about any of these matters

Soon enough, the Tarot Club's gathering came to an end and Ethan found himself in his living room once more.

'No one seemed to have any reaction about the ingredients I asked for, I'll really have to do that mission for that damned youngster…'

Ethan had returned to the underground market to look for the ingredients of his Sequence 7, Serial Killer potion formula. What he got to know was that the young man from the Alchemist's Hut had already prepared the ingredients for him, but he wanted Ethan to do a mission for him.

'Why does he think I can kill a Sequence 6 Devil? Even if he said he was willing to give me the ingredients before trying, it's too much to kill someone a Sequence higher from your own Pathway…'

The mission the young man wanted Ethan to do was to kill a certain Devil that was running amok on the outskirts of Backlund. He had already killed many of the Alchemist's Hut members and stole quite a lot of ingredients.

However, for anyone else, it would be impossibly difficult to kill a Sequence 6 from their own Pathway, as the person would be able to cancel all their powers and have a suppression effect on them.

While this certainly didn't apply for Ethan, the youngster should not be able to tell Ethan's powers just from mere looks alone.

'Does he have any Sealed artifact, or is he just higher in Sequence than me and has some power to tell I'm capable of completing the task?'

The reason Ethan didn't want to take the mission was that he didn't know how powerful he would truly be when he became a Serial Killer.

So it was impossible to know if he would be able to kill a Sequence 6 from his own Pathway, one he didn't know the powers of.

'I still have the Melee Scholar characteristic and the Listener potion, though. But Listeners are absolutely useless for combat without paying an insane price…'

Going in the direction of the underground market owned by the Aurora Order, Ethan once again passed through the black and red palace and came to the tent owned by the young man from the Alchemist's Hut.

The still masked and hooded teen looked at Ethan, who was using an iron mask and black robe to cover his face and body now, and showed a big smile through his eyes.

"I see you chose to accept my offer!" His voice was as enthusiastic and animated as ever.

Ethan looked at him with his cold eyes and said, "You'll give me the ingredients for Serial Killer and four sets of Sequence 8 potion ingredients."

The young teen looked at Ethan with some seriousness and soon said, "Which ones?"

Ethan gave him a piece of paper containing the necessary ingredients for Light Supplicant, Telepathist, Folk of Rage, and Barbarian. All of them had the expected amounts altered and were in different orders.

"Unhh… Okay, I'll look for these in our storages." The youngster then went to a big chest and picked some items.

They were the main ingredients and supplementary ingredients for the Serial Killer potion and a notary certificate.

"Sign this contract stating that, from this point on, you'll try your best to accomplish the given mission."

Ethan quickly signed the notary certificate and picked his ingredients. As his suitcase was already full, he would be carrying them out in his hands.

"Who's the target?" He asked with a firm and cold tone.

"You can't know. The target has a very strong sense of danger, even if the area is limited in size, it's better for you not to know anything about him. Come here after taking your potion, I'll tell you what to do then."

Ethan looked at him with some level of confusion, but still decided to leave.

He then went back to his house and created a wall of spirituality around his bathroom, using a protection ritualistic spell around the place to prevent anything from happening to it or anyone from entering

He then started concocting the potion by the formula's instructions. When he finished, Ethan looked at the ominous liquid that was redder and darker than blood, putting it in a glass jar.

"I'll finally reach Sequence 7 today." He brought the liquid to his mouth and directly drank it.