88 Mission Preparations

There was still another week before the Juneau Clan's people would make landfall anyway, so there was enough time to plan for the mission to the Polypheme Sect. The upcoming event's severity made Seran seclude himself at the bottom of the Beast Cavern that lay under the Spring Hill. Considering the depth, almost no noise reached him aside from a handful of distant echoes from the Chimera siblings moving around. This made it perfect for him to focus entirely on preparing for the mission.

Seran had several things to do in order to prep for the coming mission. The first of these tasks was creating equipment specialized for killing the fifth space beast's indirectly corrupted mortals. Though he had more than enough power to sustain imbuing his spells on multiple people, making items that would assist him in doing so would be far easier. To make these items, he'd first have to complete the spells.

The items for the first Three Imperial Regalia spell [Yata no Kagami: Enchantment] was designed to be a set of glasses shaped like clear safety glasses. By carefully imbuing the glasses with the spell, they would reveal all of the spectre-like humanoids in the Polypheme Sect lands. To sustain the constant spell effect, Seran made a special battery that would take the place of the glasses' nose bridge. Primarily, it would rely on solar power, as [Yata no Kagami: Enchantment] was based on Amaterasu's power, but it had a backup function where it would run if charged with mana. Once his designs were perfect, in his opinion, he used his Z-band, which had been set to 'Do Not Disturb' mode, to relay them up to his father, who would have someone immediately get to work on it. Only a certain number was needed, having to have them mass-produced was thankfully eliminated.

The next item required a lot more work than the first. Seran had to start off by making a whole new spell, the enchantment he'd planned on making back in his meeting with Emperor Valinor. Based on the second of Amaterasu's Three Imperial Regalia, [Kusanagi no Tsurugi: Enchantment] would imbue each physical attack with solar flame, which appeared to be the bane of the spectral humanoids. It would be stronger and less mana-consuming during the day with the sun in the sky, but weaker and more costly at night. Aside from Seran, it was hard to find someone capable of running the enchantment overnight.

With Johann's help in securing the roster of the Juneau Clan's dispatched force, Seran began designing items for each physical-focused member. Aside from Barnett, who was emergency support, and Seran himself, 31 people would be in the mission. Of the 31, 26 used physical attacks or abilities. Using the information on each of the 26's jobs and combat style, the demigod sketched individual designs for each physical combatant, ranging from gauntlets to a battleaxe, a pair of daggers and even a chain-scythe. Each had to be carefully made so that the battery Seran had created earlier could be seamlessly integrated. When he was satisfied with each weapon sketch, he'd have Zero pass it on just as he did with the glasses.

The next idea Seran had to work on was a large area-based cleansing spell targeting the corrupted spectres. This spell was not meant for him, as he could use the original spell that he derived the enchantment for weaponry from, [Kusanagi no Tsurugi], on as large a scale as he wanted. To make this spell usable for others, he designed it to be an array. With a minimum of four people, more if possible, taking positions around the target area, the array would call a great ray of solar flame to purge its interior area. As it was a focused design aiming only for the corrupted spectres, the areas themselves would remain undamaged beyond their status prior to the array's casting. The greatest downside was that the array was only usable during daytime and could not be used at night at all, as it would drain more mana than any of the casters possibly had.

Seran named this array spell as the third Three Imperial Regalia spell, [Yasakani no Magatama: Array]. A medium was needed to accurately operate the array, leading Seran to have 31 magatamas forged from gold he would infuse with solar flame energy. As long as four of these magatamas were in place, the array could be used. A magic-focused user would be ideal for the arrays but they were limited in number. If not for that, only three users would be needed for the array.

With the spells and item designs out of the way, Seran got around to focusing on himself. In all honesty, he didn't need any new abilities with his abnormal power, but he decided to spend some time making something that would both limit and improve his abilities in certain ways. His idea was to focus only on one particular form of power, like fire or space, and turn himself into a sort of incarnation of that power, akin to a projection or clone of a deity, all while cutting off his connections to other powers. Dubbing his idea's series of abilities as the Avatar Series, Seran got to work designing the Avatar of Amaterasu, which would focus on fire. Several hours passed before he was satisfied with the design, including the effects.

Upon taking the form of the Avatar of Amaterasu, Seran's physical body would be first wreathed in golden flame before fusing with the flame, becoming a person made of fire. A mimicry of Amaterasu's disc of flame would hover behind his head, within which most of his flame power would be concentrated. One would be able to look at Seran, as he would not be glaringly bright, but his eyes were dangerous to stare at, as they were brilliant like the sun. From this point, he would only be able to use flame-related spells or those related to Amaterasu, such as the Three Imperial Regalia spells he had designed.

With this, his capabilities for the upcoming mission would be maximized as best as possible.