37 One year older, one year less to live

June 27th, 1349 of the Fifth Epoch

Currently, Max was on a steam locomotive. The constant fog of Backlund was being left behind as he headed towards the city of universities; Tingen.

Over the past year, Max had successfully achieved one of his goals. And that was to build a successful portfolio of investments in Backlund such that he would not have to worry about money for the predictable future. Through his investments, he was now earning around 300 pounds per month.

This figure included the 75 pounds he made per month just from his 30% in the Dunant's Department Store.

Unfortunately, from these 300 pounds, Max would end up paying almost 70 pounds in taxes, while he would end up paying another 40 pounds to the banks as his monthly instalments for repaying the loans he took from them. This would continue for another 3 years until the loan was repaid. 

Still, Max was sure he would be able to repay the full loan by the end of the year, to remove this expense through his 190 pound profit he made per month. One of the main reasons he had been able to successfully make such a high-earning yield from just around 1500 pounds of bank loans, was due to his method of earning them. 

He first took over a promising business, becoming its majority stakeholder while still leaving enough for the proprietor to make an effort to push the company into success, just like he had done with the Dunant's department store.

Then, he would help it by providing ideas and connections to rapidly grow the business until one of his connections declared some interest in his latest venture. Here, he accepted them, giving them almost all his stake in the company but keeping around 5% to still earn something passively, while accepting not just a considerable sum of money, but also a small stake in his contact's main business; an insignificant 1 or 2 %.

However, with the sum that would be a little more than his original investment into the company, Max had then gone and invested in another potential company and repeated the process.

Unfortunately, he was also not a god, so he ended up failing, but that was only once, and he knew the risk so had only invested around 500 pounds. But this had pushed back his plan of returning the bank loan by half a year.

Ultimately, Max had 5% stakes in around 15 new and growing companies, and around a 1 to 2% stake in another 15 already established and mature companies of his friends that he had made with the help of Mr. Terrance, ultimately resulting in his earning 300 pounds of profit just from the businesses where he has to do nothing other than give some advice every now and then.

The friends he had made were not limited by age or gender, and most definitely not limited to any political faction. In fact, he had made his stance very clear. Just like his ownership in his businesses, he did not care much about the rulers of Backlund or Leon. He did not want to get involved, and would not join or support either of the factions who were involved in the considerably fierce political battle for power of the capital city and the country as a whole.

He had said that he just wanted to enjoy life and did not wish to get involved in the politics of Backlund. He had extensively promised not to give either side any support of preferential treatment and done so specifically in front of people of the other factions to make his stance clear.

'Me? I am just an investor. I invest in companies when they are small, and pull out once someone with sufficient financial and entrepreneurial backing comes along, making a small profit along the way for my risks.' 

This was what he maintained for over a year, and his contacts had slowly understood this and kept him out of their political talks. In fact, Max only spoke to all his contacts he had made thanks to Mr. Terrance for either business and investment or for fun. Though the number of people he spoke to for the latter was considerably fewer than the former. Most of the rich merchants and lower nobility understood Max's ability in recognising potential starlets, while also being able to help them reach that point.

However, due to the fact that Max did not want to participate in politics, which had become what the nobility and rich merchants mainly did other than partying, Max was never pulled into their close circles, and he was perfectly fine with that arrangement.

Well, that was pretty much all for his business side. Other than the fact that he ended up employing a CEO for Dunant's Department Store from one of the suggestions of Mrs. Hall, while Mrs. Dunant agreed to become part of the human resources of the company that had grown to the point that it had 6 stores all over Backlund, and another one planned. However, for this, it had also been holding back 20% of the pure profits for reinvestment without having to dilute the shares of the current owners any further.

Unfortunately, Mac had not made much growth in the aspect of hiring Beyonders, mainly for the reason that he did not wish for the official Beyonder organisation breathing down his neck once they found out who he was.

As not just yet.

What Max had been able to find was something very important to him. He had been able to find all the ingredients for his potion, all of which were currently safely stored in his suitcase, which he had resting on his lap.

In fact, Max had found sufficient materials for two such potions and had kept the second batch at his rented home as a precaution in case something happened to this first batch before the time he could make use of it. Naturally, Max had split up the ingredients and placed them in all corners of his house separately.

'I am not some wannabe assassin who cannot take the necessary precautions.'

Max smiled as he patted the suitcase and returned to observing the passing scenery and retreating grey-green fog. As the train moved away from Backlund, the air gradually cleared up and nature began to return.

Other than the money and Beyonder ingredients, Max had also achieved two important things over the period of nearly 10 months. The first was that he had successfully learned Hermes, and Ancient Hermes to a considerable degree. Learning these two languages was no joke, especially Ancient Hermes. 

Klein coming with the language pre-set into his mind now made sense to Max, else the first two volumes of the novel would have just revolved around him attending different classes to learn the language. Max had taken almost 7 months of learning every day for him to become sufficiently fluent in these languages, and the process was anything but interesting.

As for the second thing he had accomplished, it was that he was finally able to create items which had a trace of the Amalgamation of All within them, just like the mirror that Ms. Justice; Audrey Hall had that contained a trace of the Sefirah Castle, which had allowed Klein to pull her to the castle.

Max had created these items by sacrificing them to himself, injecting a faint amount of the black mist into it, before sacrificing it back. Max had not found a more efficient method of doing this. However, since he had brought them up, he had ensured to instil a small amount of [anti-divination] into the objects, just long enough for their origin and that Max was the first to handle them to be hidden from anyone who tried to search them.

With this method, Max spread these items by throwing some into the nearby river, while also throwing some in the garbage, and finally slipping some into the bags and pants of other people. These items range from simple pens to extravagant silver pendants, to appeal to many ranges of people.

Ultimately, Max hoped for it to activate the Law of Beyonder Characteristic convergence and have a Beyonder activate the item. This was with the hopes of creating a similar organisation to Klein's Tarot Club.

Anyways, right now he was heading towards Tingen for a single reason; to meet Klein and rescue an acquaintance or two if possible. Over this period of time, Max had understood one thing. Only those of the White Tower, Hermit, and Paragon pathways could see that he was actually a Beyonder. No other Beyonder could actually recognise this just by looking at him, and would only see a normal human until he utilised his powers.

He had also exposed himself to great risk by going to Saint Samuel Cathedral; the Evernight Goddess' Headquarters, as well as exposing himself to many of the Beyonders from the Psychology Alchemists, all resulting in no reaction.

Although this did not mean that he would be invisible to a certain goddess and a certain reincarnated perfectionist, Max was sure that he would, at least, not stand out to them like other Beyonders.

This was why he was taking the risk of coming here and the risk of meeting Klein. He was confident in the inability of the already pre-occupied Goddess and Angel to find and locate him too easily. More importantly, his very existence would have changed the original timeline to an extent, especially considering he had done a lot in Backlund, which could affect things across Leon.

Thus, he would have to help Klein become the Lord of Mysteries unless he wanted to remain a Singularity forever, and never actually advance to Unity. After all, Becoming Unity meant he needed samples of each of the Sefirots, including the ones sealed away by the Original Lord of Mysteries in the Western continent.

'Well then… time to throw myself into the plot of the novel, and see what happens.' Max mused as his mouth twitched at the rather absurd effects his involvement would have on the future trajectory of the plot.