Uncertain Influence

While still in the foggy castle, Max immediately closed his eyes and looked inside of him. However, he noticed nothing wrong, which was incredibly strange.

Still, Max suppressed his urge to immediately ask Klein to allow him to leave the meeting immediately and instead stayed for a little longer.

A few minutes later, the meeting ended with Alger and Audrey being both terrified and quite taken aback at the sudden change in the Fool's attitude.

Meanwhile, Max immediately returned to his body in the hotel room and did not waste a single second to connect with the Amalgamation of All and used a few of the solid crystals of blackness to flood his soul with the energy of the Sefirot and purge everything inside.

He was sure that the thought of exposing Klein was definitely not his own, so the first thing he did was to remove all outside influence since a certain King of Angel was possibly the reason for this influence.

Only after he had used all means possible to himself, Max turned his head to Samuel and Unity, who had been floating behind him the entire time, waiting silently.

'Are you two somehow involved in the creation of that thought? Or do you have any idea what it is?'

'Well, It is not part of our sealed memories.' Samuel said with a slightly worried expression.

'Outside influence then,' Max concluded.

'Could be Unity…' Samuel gave a possible explanation.

'No. We are Unity. If there was to be any actual influence… It would have changed us the moment we fused with it. Plus, it was able to affect my thinking while I was inside the Sefirah castle, but cannot affect me once I actively purge it with the energy of the Sefirot,' Max refuted.

'Well, It means it is likely someone at the level of an angel… at least,' Samuel added.

'But since the purging from the Amalgamation of All works, we can just add it as part of the schedule. Daily cleansing of mind-control, brainwashing and random corruption…' Max shrugged internally. There was not much he could do at the moment, considering he did not have any backing from a god, like Klein.

Ultimately, all he needed to do was regularly cleanse his mind and soul, which was not something that would cost him anything more than a few seconds. Plus, the Amalgamation of All was always generating more of the black mist, compressing it into the black liquid, and finally compressing it into the black stones.

'I should really come up with a name for this black energy… Anyways, seal away this conversation as well, and set it to automatically bring it up whenever I come here. Also, remind me to come up here often…' Max told Samuel, who nodded before Mac left the Amalgamation of All and returned to his body.

"Well, time to send Tom and Ademisaul on their first mission to search for the Beyonder ingredients for Tom's potion," Max muttered to himself as he opened the door to the room where the two kids were relaxing.

…

July 26th, 1349 of the Fifth Epoch

"Tell me, Tom, are you prepared for what you are about to face? Are you ready to go down a path filled with thorns, only to read a destination that is far worse, all for the sake of power? Are you prepared to suffer a fate equally bad if not worse than what little Ademisaul had been suffering through before I came to his aid, just to become stronger? Tell me, Tom, are you willing to give up your humanity, for inhumane abilities?" Max asked one more time, making sure that in the future, Tom would never think about Max as the one at fault for pushing him down the path of a Beyonder.

After all, he needed to keep his hands clean of matters like this, since powerful enemies come from the most unlikely of places, and having an aggrieved subordinate is very likely one of them, one that his future competitors like the Gods would exploit without an ounce of hesitation.

"Yes!" Tom said. Naturally, Ademisaul was not here at the moment, for both his physical and mental safety.

Max handed him the newly brewed potion and explained to him the various steps of cogitation to control his Beyonder characteristic, as well as other features shared by all Beyonders. He had long since already explained all of these to both Tom and Ademisaul, but repeating it again before something so important was never an issue.

Tom did not hesitate and gulped down the slightly grainy potion, which was overall rather sweet but had a tinge of saltiness, and some other flavours mixed in. 

A bit of adjustment later, Max grinned at the child and ruffled his hair.

"Welcome to the world of Beyonders, kid. You are now a Sequence 9 Hunter, of the Hunter Pathway."

[Sorry for the short chapter, but I felt it was a good place to end, and the chapters were getting too long whenever the Tarot Club was involved, so I had to compensate with smaller chapters. In exchange next chapter will be Friday 00 webnovel time rather than the normal Monday 00:00 webnovel time.