William’s revelations about Ell’Hakan and the shit he had been up to were quite something. It sure as hell gave Jake some food for thought, and he did end up asking some more clarifying questions, some of which the metal mage could answer and some he could only speculate about.

One of the things Jake was curious about was how long it would take for people to get what was effectively brainwashed after Ell’Hakan took over a planet, something William naturally couldn’t really know as it hadn’t happened yet.

However, he had been on Ell’Hakan’s planet for over a year. During this time, he had constantly been subtly affected, yet he felt nothing from it, making him believe the manipulation was so subtle that any reasonable level of pushback would nullify the effect. True, William did mention thinking that “maybe he isn’t that bad” a few times, but a quick thought that “no, he actually sucks” was enough for him to remain unaffected.

This made William guess that this passive takeover only really worked if there was no disagreement but pure cultural homogeneity. It wasn’t like he could just take over a Pylon, and suddenly everyone loved him. It was a slow, insidious process that only took hold after continual exposure in a highly controlled society.

That’s assuming the goal was to make them worship Ell’Hakan.

William also reminded Jake that Ell’Hakan’s Bloodline wasn’t to make people feel positive emotions toward him. It was to manipulate emotions. It wouldn’t be a far fetch to believe that Ell’Hakan could manipulate the core emotion amplified by the Pylon of Civilization’s or Planetary Pylons to be anything he wanted… such as to amplify faith toward other gods, factions, or individuals.

Ell’Hakan could also not make it about any positive emotions at all. He could make it about the hatred for others. He could slowly spread a creeping feeling that Jake actually sucked, and if further amplified with some good propaganda campaigns, this hatred could quickly spread, especially to those who didn’t really have any opinion of Jake prior, making all the exposure they ever had to him completely negative. Shit this already worked pretty damn well without any Bloodline-powered manipulation.

Honestly, Jake was even beginning to wonder if maybe Ell’Hakan was the one with the most overpowered Bloodline of the two of them… alright, that was a bad joke. Ell’Hakan’s Bloodline probably didn’t even give any Perception.

To clarify, while what Ell’Hakan was doing did seem extremely fucked up… it wasn’t comparable to something like a plague, much less a karmic plague. It still required direct manipulation. It wasn’t something that could spread on its own and get out of control. Comparing it to the Holy Church and their extreme propaganda was far more accurate, as even their indoctrination could sometimes reach such a level where it was borderline impossible to dispel the delusion. Combining both the indoctrination and the Bloodline, though… scary thoughts.

In any case, William had brought back some pretty damn valuable information. There were still a few things that struck him as weird, though.

“I’ve been thinking… why did you even go to his planet in the first place? What made you decide to go? Because, let’s be honest, you don’t seem like the kind to just do this out of the kindness of your heart. I also doubt you are invested in the good of this planet, so what made you do it?” Jake asked a thought that had bothered him for a while.

“Firstly, fuck that guy. I wanted to know if Ell’Hakan knew I was getting fucked over by Eversmile, and unsurprisingly, he did. So that’s one reason. I want revenge, but I’m also fully aware I don’t stand a chance at taking him down myself, so I’m hoping you can do the job,” William said. “Secondly, I was hired to go explore the planet and report back to you about my findings.”

Jake frowned as he looked at Miranda who just shrugged, clearly unaware this had been a thing. So, definitely wasn’t her or anyone from Haven who’d hired him. On the top of his head, he couldn’t figure out who it could even be. Especially not someone who would specifically ask William to report back to Jake.

“Who exactly hired you?” Jake questioned further.

“I don’t know,” William readily admitted. “The one I spoke to was clearly just a go-between of some kind, and I didn’t ask too many questions. All I cared about was that they helped me teleport to the planet and offered information about when Ell’Hakan and others were gone, and some basic intelligence on the planet. Perhaps I was used, true, but I can accept that as I don’t see myself losing anything doing this. Quite the opposite and I seriously doubt the one who hired me has any positive intentions toward Yip’s Chosen.”

“So some mysterious hooded guy just came up to you one day and asked you to go to this other planet for an even more mysterious third party, and you just said yes and rolled with it?” Jake asked, more than a little skeptical.

“It was a hooded woman, but yes, that’s essentially what happened. I did try to track down who may have been behind it all, but no traces anywhere. I did find the corpse of the woman who had been used as a go-between, though, but that’s where the trail went entirely cold, so they know what they’re doing, even hiding their karma,” William said.

“Alright, so it gets worse. Someone who is willing to kill people they worked with prior was behind hiring you, and who is powerful enough to manipulate karma to some extent... and they did this while only telling you to report to me and not anyone else?” Jake said, trying to wrap his mind around everything. “This makes no fucking sense.”

“I am not disagreeing,” William just said. “I’m just the messenger here, and I’ve now delivered my message. I truly didn’t come for anything else, and in truth, I would probably have preferred only reporting to Ms. Wells, but I made a promise to report to you, and as someone walking a Path of karmic magic, it would hurt me quite a lot if I broke such a promise.

“Hm…”

Jake sat there for a few moments as he thought everything through. He didn’t really have any more questions, and he did see that William handed Miranda what was effectively a report of all his observations. Now, this report was originally meant for Jake, but Miranda took it in his place, as she was actually going to read and study it all closely. It appeared that the metal mage had done quite a good job with his scouting mission.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“What are you planning on doing next?” Jake asked William after he was done thinking.

Their conversation had been relatively short, but Jake felt less negative toward the metal mage now than before. Perhaps it was just for the simple reason that this was the first time an encounter had actually been beneficial to Jake. He hadn’t done anything to piss off Jake either but had seemed mellow and a lot more down to earth. Even his ego, which used to be a bit too overinflated, had become pretty reasonable.

Still, Jake wasn’t going to let him be in his good graces after a single encounter, much less trust the guy. Jake knew it could be argued the current William wasn’t even the same person that had been in his Tutorial… but that didn’t mean the thought of repeating their last encounter of the Tutorial didn’t occur to him.

“I’m going to participate in the Prima Guardian event. I missed so many other events because of Eversmile, and I’m not going to miss another. I won’t interfere with the strike team for the boss, but I can at least help on the perimeter to kill a few Primas,” William answered. “After that, I hope the plan is to do what Ms. Wells said and engage with the Prima Guardian Alliance to assist other planets. The difficulty of the Prima Guardian here on Earth will no doubt be the highest of the entire Milky Way, so if we can kill that, we can kill others. That will benefit Earth as we will get partial rewards from other system events while directly acting against Ell’Hakan’s plan.”

“Our plan is indeed to travel and help other planets out after we handled our own, right Jake?” Miranda said, with a look in her eyes that made it very clear he shouldn’t say no. Not that he would have.

“Do you really think I’m gonna miss a chance to fight a bunch of powerful bosses for cool rewards while even fucking over Ell’Hakan’s plans as a bonus?” Jake grinned. “Hell no. Not gonna pass up such a sweet opportunity.”

“Good… now I’m nearly feeling sorry for the poor planets that will have you storm in and just dominate their event and monopolize the rewards,” Miranda shook her head.

“Eh, I’m sure they can live with it if it also means their planet doesn’t get overrun by an army of Primas that kill everything,” Jake shrugged. “Seems like an acceptable trade-off.”

Seeing as the conversation was very much winding down, the metal mage took his chance.

“I think that’s all, so I’ll be off now,” William said as he stood up. “One last thing… if you ever need to go to Ell’Hakan’s homeworld, let me know. I don’t think anyone knows I’ve been there, at least no one that would warn him, so it should be possible to use the same method again. Just be aware it may be a one-way trip, at least with what I can provide.”

“As long as you have the coordinates, that may be all I need when the time comes,” Jake said in a serious tone. “But such a visit would be for after all these Prima Guardian-related matters are finished.”

“Very well,” William said with a nod as he hesitated for a moment before speaking. “And thanks for not killing me on sight, I guess.”

“Don’t give me a reason to,” Jake said in a curt tone. “Better yet, give me reasons not to.”

“I’ll try," William said with a wry smile as he walked toward the exit of the valley. On the way, his form shimmered, and he began to fade away. With his insane Perception, Jake still saw him, but one thing was clear…

He has a stealth skill at least at the same level as Unseen Hunter. Probably, no, definitely, karma-related in some way. Powerful for sure.

This was the final thing with William… he had always been strong. Eversmile had just fucked him over a lot, and now that he was free, it was almost as if he had gotten new wings. Perhaps he was finally doing things for himself and because he wanted to, which had allowed him to grow into his own. In any case, Jake hoped he wouldn’t become a problem because he was strong enough to be.

Now, this isn’t saying Jake couldn’t curb-stomp him into the afterlife, but it did mean he could be a troublesome fellow to hunt down and stomp into the ground mercilessly before he could do a lot of damage.

Jake was still far from trusting him. There was always the thought of what William had done. He had never really faced any “justice” for what he’d done, and Jake knew that William’s actions couldn’t just all be blamed on Eversmile. He had been a damn psycho all on his own before Eversmile got involved.

The thing is, now he was no longer a psychopath in that he literally had his brain fixed physically. Could it be argued this meant William wasn’t even the same person anymore? That he was only acting as he did because something was wrong with him that he was now cured of?

It was all so damn complicated… but it just felt off to kill William now, seeing as he was proving actually useful. Finally, Jake got the feeling that while he was now a heretic, Eversmile was far from done with the young metal mage.

With William gone from the valley, Miranda turned to Jake inquisitively. “What are your thoughts on this entire thing? Do you think all the information he gave is accurate?”

“It’s fishy as hell, but I think the majority is true. At least it all seems both probable and possible and entirely like something Ell’Hakan would be doing,” Jake said with a sigh. “I am a bit bothered by this mysterious person or faction who hired him, though.”

“You aren’t involved, right?” Jake also quickly sent telepathically to the Viper through the power of his divine direct connection.

“Nope, and I don’t even know who it is. I have a few theories, sure, but nothing I wanna share as it’s far from concrete. I will say that I doubt Eversmile is the one pulling the strings on this one, though. It may very well be an interested third party who wants to see Ell’Hakan taken down,” the Viper shared.

“Alright, just wanted to make sure, thanks,” Jake sent back as Miranda spoke.

“Yeah, I don’t wanna make any conclusions either if they are helping or acting against us, but I definitely don’t think they are on the side of Ell’Hakan. That isn’t to say they are on our side, though. It’s entirely possible they just want to use you to get rid of him or stop him from doing something they wish to avoid seeing happen. Though I guess we can assume the enemy of an enemy is a friend in this case, and we have no obligations as no deals have been made with us directly,” Miranda shared her thoughts.

“All very annoying,” Jake sighed loudly. “Why do schemers have to ruin everything? Why couldn’t we just have a nice fight against a big Prima Guardian boss along with its goons and then go home for a nice long alchemy session afterward?”

“You are aware you carry the True Blessing of one of the famously biggest schemers in the multiverse, right?” Miranda asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Everyone has their bad qualities that we as friends seek to overlook,” Jake sighed once more.

“… sometimes, I’m bewildered how you are even the Chosen of the Malefic One, seeing as you seem to be his least faithful follower,” Miranda said in a dry tone.

“We just have a super special relationship,” Jake said with a smile. He didn’t need to add that he thought it was a really sad state of affairs that being friends was considered a super special relationship, as that would come off as perhaps a bit too heretical… which again was super fucking sad.

“I wouldn’t dare argue against that,” Miranda said. “Sometimes I envy the casualness with which you carry yourself, even when interacting with a Primordial. I feel afraid to even talk when I’m with the Verdant Witches.”

“Different strokes for different folks, what can I say?” Jake said. It was just treading old water going over how odd his and the Viper’s relationship was, and Miranda had definitely realized its oddness a very long time ago. If not, Jake should definitely have fired her for lacking Perception.

The two of them sat there for a bit before Miranda got up. “I should return; there are still some last-minute preparations. You should also come soon; nearly everyone has already gathered.”

“I’ll just go with,” Jake said, also getting up as he stretched a bit.

It wasn’t that Jake needed to come for a strategy meeting or anything, as they planned to use the travel time for that while inside Sandy. Still, after the talk with William, Jake didn’t feel in the mood for alchemy but to hunt some Prima Guardian.