The birthday came and went like a flash in the pan. Playing hard was the easy part and now came working hard. Ares had a lot of unfinished business so, the next day, after escaping the bedroom prematurely before Enyo woke up, he returned back to the cultivation room begrudgingly. He would have loved to hang around with Enyo and Bellona and just chat away the morning but the list of things he wanted to get done wasn''t going to get any shorter by itself. Actually, since yesterday, it had gotten longer. Not only did he want to learn to make bubble tea, which he could do with Bellona quickly, but Enyo had asked him to purchase a ''kiss the chef'' apron... A nude apron was in the future, apparently, and Ares wasn''t complaining. If he was going to be distracted from his cultivation woes and boredom, seeing his wife cooking his new favourite meal in a nude apron was definitely the reprieve he would be most excited for. Now of course that would never happen because if Enyo was cooking that would mean she was in the kitchen and not the bedroom. This house was shared and she couldn''t exactly walk around without clothes on. Still, if she wore it in the kitchen then that meant Ares was getting a meal he loved and if it was in the bedroom then standard Enyo stuff that didn''t need to be mentioned. Win win either way and, thus, he really didn''t mind making such a purchase. He didn''t have a ton of stardust right now but a small buy like that was ok.
Really, the biggest issue that had cropped up as of yesterday, was Enyo''s new found pleasure in feeding Ares home cooked meals. Bellona had enjoyed it too but it didn''t make her any more willing to do it on a regular basis than her default stance on the matter which was effectively ''every now and then, if I happen to be making some, then sure whatever''. In contrast, Enyo was in housewife mode right now and Ares didn''t have any clue how to get her out of it. He whole-heartedly loved her dish, really he did, but every single day for lunch and dinner was... Well it was over the top, to put it gently, and downright insane, to put it accurately. Ares decided to put up with it for now but, if push came to shove and there was truly no end in sight, he would have a word with her and try to calm her down. Her obsession with him was part of the driving force behind this and Ares was finally coming across his first repercussion of said obsession.... Which was weird because according to Yulo''s philosophy the title of ''obsession'' didn''t belong to her... Seriously, what on earth was going to happen to Candy in the upcoming years that drove her to that point? Ares couldn''t see her acting like Enyo and, to be fair, she would likely be far more outwardly subdued... But that didn''t mean there wouldn''t be an unhinged beast lying below the surface that trumped even Enyo. If Enyo''s housewife mode was just a tip of the iceberg of her obsession, and it was dwarfed in comparison to Candy... What on earth was in store for Ares when he met up with her again?!
Opting not to think about such matters right now, Ares redirected his attention back to the artifacts in front of him. He was more than half way done with these as of yesterday so finishing them up was his top priority right now... And he also had to work on his Biome Eagle and his Utilitarian... He''d admittedly forgotten about them completely back when he was doing the Black Ice Bane and now he had to play catch up. Once he was done with them though, it was back to the regular old artifacts that were going to be put up for sale. It was quick and easy so getting it out of the way, and having the artifacts available for purchase sooner, was in everyone''s best interest. Ares put his metaphorical axe to the grind and sunk into a hyper focused state for the next three hours and his pace of work was astonishing. No breaks, no loss of focus, just pure, unfiltered, machine-like efficiency. It was so incredible he''d managed to cut the amount of time he thought the artifact matter would take in half! It was basically a state of enlightenment which was actually somewhat annoying. Of all the things he could have had enlightenment on, this menial drudgery was hardly the best use of it. Yes it saved him time but he had enough to begin with... If he could have gotten some enlightenment and entered the proverbial ''zone'' during art creation or weapon training that would have been preferable but, alas, here he was with a pile of top tier artifacts. The sect and everyone in it would be happy at least? Look on the bright side and whatnot...
Ares took a quick ''break'' to go hand this stuff over to Onno who was Ares'' liaison with the people running the artifact stall. It didn''t belong to either him or Onno and was run by the sect but he still got a cut of the earnings so that was fine. The sect had already been running a sort of bargain bin store for artifacts before Ares arrived and that became the base of Ares'' cheap but high quality creations, revamping the reputation of the store from ''cheap and useless crap'' to ''cheap and unbeatable goods''. Everyone else in the sect checked this store on the daily hoping to find the next new item Ares had pumped out and the sect was stoked to give it to them. Onno noticed the improved quality of the artifacts and assured Ares they would sell like hot cakes... Not that they didn''t already anyway. They were auction house quality items being sold for dirt cheap... Well that was Ares just pre-emptively enabling his future sect to become an indomitable and unrelenting force of nature. Ares had made this place his forever home and base of operations until the day he died, in other words the end of eternity, and so everything he was hearing from the sly businessman was good news. As an aside, before leaving and returning home, Ares caught site of Esme sitting on a couch inside Onno''s house and it seemed they''d become a proper couple now. No beating around the bush just good ol'' one plus one equals two.
Back in the cultivation gulag... Ahem... Room, Ares was starting to work on his various treasures. There was no fanfare here as he could just keep shoving his annihilation pressure into them without pause as they would simply stop accepting it when they were full. No focus was required he could just switch off his brain but that was ironically the problem. He was boredddddddddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He had to sit here and fill the treasures up but it was such a lengthy process and he wouldn''t finish for a long while. It''s not like he could tune out and do anything else because it still required the bare minimum attention so he was stuck here, staring at the wall like a damn zombie! As for what he was working on, there was technically only ''one'' treasure he owned, and that was Vargaraad''s lantern. The other treasures, that weren''t personal, included the Nyxian Prowler and the Celestial Prisms, both of which had unique circumstances and classifications attached to them so they were effectively personal treasures to a degree anyway.
The Nyxian Prowler was effective at an equal rate regardless of who used it and the only thing separating it from being a personal treasure or not was the ability to recall it from a distance. Sure that was useful in a variety of situations but, provided Ares never lost it, the relevancy of such an ability was minimal. The only real immediate effect it had not being a personal treasure was that Ares couldn''t use it as a throwing knife unless he was being a massive idiot and in the mood to gift someone an enabler. Then there were the Prisms which sort of fluctuated between personal treasure and not. They acted like it in every way and Ares could reforge them if his eyes were blown to pieces but that was mostly a revenant thing so it didn''t really count. Also, the reason he could wield such a powerful treasure properly was because of Dominus'' presence as he was the previous owner. Honestly, these things could become actual personal treasures tomorrow and Ares would be none the wiser. It was safer to just assume the Prisms were than actually worry about it although Ares would get a definite answer here and now while pressurising them anyway. Treasures couldn''t hold as much pressure as personal treasures so it should be clear to Ares based on how long the Prisms would take to fill up. Them being mythical and having a higher capacity shouldn''t matter because he could always then compare it to something like the Backfire Bindings when he inevitably got onto them. Anyway, by the time he was done with them, he would know for sure... Even if it really made no difference to the ways in which he used it. The Prisms were just ridiculously powerful and Ares wasn''t even sure what kind of benefit he could hope for should it be a personal treasure. They already did everything he needed to and more so really he didn''t care at this point what they were. They could be artifacts and he''d still keep them as a permanent fixture on his face.
Ares'' annihilation pressure came with nothing but upsides for him as it limited the amount of pressure he could put in his treasures. This was a fantastic thing for him as it meant that A; it wouldn''t take as long as three to four days to tidy up any individual treasure and B; it wouldn''t lose out on any power. Annihilation pressure still made a weapon stronger than regular pressure even if there was less of it. To that end, it only took Ares give or take six hours to be done with Vargaraad''s Lantern. It was the weakest treasure he owned, which said a lot considering how infamous this thing was, so that did mean Ares would have to spend a longer time on everything else but that acceptable. It was within his his margin of error when calculating how much time he needed to do all of this and so he had no complaints... Other than being bored out of his skull still. If Ares could pay someone to do this for him he would do so in a heartbeat... Although he was still somewhat broke right now so that wouldn''t have been an option anyway.
Ares had a match to go and attend coming up, the one between the Umbra Wolves and the Legion family, so he figured he could pull of an all-nighter and get one more treasure done before then. Both of them would likely take longer than the Lantern but Ares couldn''t see the Prowler taking up so much time that he wouldn''t finish by the time the match started tomorrow so that was where he put all of his attention. Plus if the Prisms really were personal they would take a considerable amount more time than the Prowler anyway. Ares wasn''t sure how much of a benefit the Prowler would receive but doing this wasn''t worthless at least. Having a powerful dagger in his back pocket meant he had more reasons to whip it out mid fight instead of just using it for access to the darkness pillar. Again, part of the reason Ares hadn''t messed around with other weapons much was A; because he was laughably stronger than everyone else and it was pointless to dunk on amateurs as that wasn''t ''training'' at all, and B; he didn''t have any good artifacts or treasures for other weapon types. He''d allocated some time earlier to imbuing some crappy artifacts with annihilation pressure so that problem was alleviated now, and he could maybe mess around a bit, but it still wasn''t ideal. Still there wasn''t much to do about it. Without stardust he couldn''t buy any and he wasn''t leaving Red Sun until this tournament was over so it''s not like he''d randomly discover anything by wandering through the streets... though he ''sort of'' found a weapon recently in Red Sun, the Bindings. Arguably, the Backfire Bindings could let him brawl with his fists but that just seemed like a stretch right now. They had a clear use and that wasn''t as a pseudo weapon. Maybe when Ares had his revenant form then they''d be considerably more useful in that regard but, right now, with his adept trait weighing him down, Ares decided to stay away from fisticuffs if he could. All of this meant that, other than his trusty Black Ice Bane, the only other weapon he used consistently was the Biome Eagle and even then that was mostly for the art and nothing else. Ares needed some variety damn it! He had Dominus inside him, of all people, and sticking to one or two weapons was lazy and lame... But the tournament was also hampering him. He needed to take it seriously and win so he was stuck between a rock and a hard place... Ares really needed to kick off his adventure to foreign lands and start fighting monsters again, this tournament would be a net positive but it was really dragging on right now.
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Ares took nearly thirteen hours to pressurise the Nyxian Prowler, more than double that of the Lantern, but it wasn''t too shocking-a jump as the treasure was an enabler after all. Such a rare and powerful treasure could obviously handle a heavier load so this was to be expected and it was likely the Celestial Prisms would take even longer than that. God only knows how long the personal treasures were going to take, especially something like the Primordial Blade... But it''s not like Ares was in a rush to get the Blade pressurised as he couldn''t even really use it for much right now to begin with. He could poke someone with it still in its sheath but that would kill a person regardless of whether it was pressurised or not so it was more of a ''do it now so I don''t have to do it later'' kind of deal.
Ares stretched and walked out the room to go make breakfast for everyone who hadn''t already made some themselves. He''d made some stuff and left it in the fridge yesterday so as not to completely abandon his food-grubbing free loaders but whether or not the amount he left was enough to last more than s ingle day was questionable as there were a fair few people living here. Plus if the matriarchs, Ares'' family, Enyo''s family. Charity and Gladius, any of the neighbours, or Sadie popped around then the stock would all but evaporate that much faster. Especially the latter of that list as Sadie was basically a bottomless pit in which food, beer, and plates disappeared into for all eternity. Thankfully Ares had seemingly spooked her so at the very least she wasn''t stealing his plates anymore, that was something!
Everyone ate the breakfast Ares put out before setting off for the coliseum. It had been a while since Ares last visited this place and, actually, today would be the first time he sat in a spectator''s seat. His experience would be far grander than any ordinary ''peasant'' though as he got to relish in the treatment of kings on the top floor thanks to glorious nepotism. His family ties meant he had VIP access. This came with the caveat that he was effectively officially announcing said family ties to the whole world and that was certainly a complicated matter. He''d hung around the Umbra Wolves during the party a while back but that didn''t mean he was necessarily a member of their clan, he could have just had dealings with them. Hell he''d spent time with the Legion family too so it really didn''t mean much of anything. He hadn''t been seen in public with anyone other than the Legion sisters too, which made sense after the declaration of marriage at the party, but any connections to the Umbras were loose at best. That would obviously change today and the writing was going to be plastered on the wall in neon colours for all to see. It would bolster Ares'' reputation big time amongst literally anyone other than the Legion elders in attendance as they''d likely be furious. The ordinary people, and even various influential figures, from Vraizon and Sheryashka would have to navigate around Ares more carefully in the future should they ever come across him. He wasn''t someone without a powerful backing that could be bullied into submission. Of note, the C.O were about to receive a pretty nasty shock in that regard as they assumed Ares had no one other than the Heaven''s Path sect to lean on. Whether this surprise would fully deter them was debatable, and some members might not care, but it would give them pause at the very least.
According to Calla the four seasons would all start showing up now that the two main attractions, as far as clan wars were concerned, were competing against one another. Although they cared a lot about Ares, who was blissfully unaware of the shit show they were going to involve him in, he didn''t much care about them. They were all going to watch the match from whatever hidey hole they were hunkering down in and nobody other than the matriarchs would even be aware of their existence. If Ares wasn''t going to be able to spot them, and if they weren''t going to talk to him for whatever reason, then he would simply ignore them! But they were going to have their eyes on him, that was for sure. The wolf howl from the pagoda made it pretty evident that Ares was no trifling matter and so the Willow clan''s season''s mind was almost guaranteed to be made up right about now. He wouldn''t strike so brazenly when Ares was seated right next to his own mother, as that was a death wish waiting to happen, but when Ares was down in the arena for his next match it was fair game. Of course they''d still wait to check his revenant form first before making any unnecessary and rash decisions but they were more prepared to attack him than to defend him... Which wasn''t saying much as he tended to be a more aggressive person inherently who was quick to lash out. When this season was tame, they were quiet and non-verbal but when things hit the fan they were the stereotypical elven berserker that the race was infamous for spawning.
Julio, Serene, Mako, and the season all had the capacity to go mad with power and were just further proof of this trait being nestled deep within every elf''s psyche. It was a strange phenomenon but one that reared its head constantly and baffled many who studied the race in depth. There wasn''t anything particularly unique about their brain structure so where this propensity for violent outbursts came from nobody knew! It was very real though and it was well known not to anger an elf without good reason. They were usually polite when docile so it''s not like there was any reason to do it either. More often than not, as was a similar case with shades, if you upset them you probably deserved the retribution they would dish out in return. It was to the point where if a shade or elf was attacking someone, anyone who happened across the scene would usually jump in and beat up the opponent before asking for details. It wasn''t always a sure-fire method of deducing who was right or wrong, and some people had gotten it very wrong in the past, but it worked 90% of the time and that was a good enough chance for most people to bank on blindly.
Ares made his way up the floors and eventually found himself in the lap of luxury. The respect he received just by standing in the vicinity of his mother was enormous and, add onto that who he himself was, and they would probably have rolled out the red mat for him had they known he was coming. The fawning, presumably in the hopes of getting in such a person''s good books, was not even remotely subtle and Ares was a tad disturbed by it because it wasn''t just one or two attendants doing this, it was every single person he''d walked by! From the bottom floor all the way to the top, anyone who was working here shot him servile or amorous glances. Granted Enyo and Bellona were quick to fire back with their own glances at anyone sending the latter Ares'' way but it was still very noticeable and made him uncomfortable. It was that same sort of feeling he got when that one disciple in the forging department worshipped him... The worst part was that this was going to become normal in due time and Ares just had to suck it up and get used to it. As much as he wished people would limit themselves to respect and not cross that line, the amount of people who would be willing to prostrate at his feet or throw themselves into a volcano for him were not small. Hell he already had a cult in his name and he''d never even existed in the same area as these people. They didn''t even know what kind of person he was and yet they still went around sacrificing innocents like lambs to the slaughter for his sake so this was not going to be a one off. To that end, having a disguise in the future was going to be a must and Ares had something of a solution planned out. He had no use for such a disguise in Sheryashka though so it likely wouldn''t see any relevance for a good while... Well that wasn''t a certainty but then again nothing in the cultivation world ever was... Unless you were Yulo, then pretty much everything was as foretold but he was a different beast altogether. The number of people who could accurately predict the future to the same extent as him across the entire universe could be counted on one or two hands. Stuck in the sect though he was, this guy was basically the protagonist of his own adventure and he was merely on hiatus right now.
Ares made it to one of the thrones and sat down comfortably on it, immediately feeling right at home like he owned the place. The vantage, the air of superiority the top floor possessed, and the implication of a person setting foot up here all served the boost a person''s ego and Ares was not immune to these effects. Rather he''d fallen for them hook, line, and sinker and took the opportunity to look down at Lex and sneer at the back of his head. Granted that was something Ares wouldn''t have been able to resist doing anyway as he''d no doubt made the guy''s life incredibly difficult as a result of the last stunt he''d pulled off. Speaking of which, apparently the Isasz team, minus the iciclops, had all been summarily executed in the middle of the town. Hans oversaw it and it was a whole event that Ares completely missed, mostly because he was uninterested. Donald had also befallen the same fate and went out screaming like an animal which only served to annoy the onlookers who threw stones at him to shut him up quicker.
As for the iciclops, it had been sent away back to the Isasz region and set free so bully for him? Maybe not so much anyone he would go on to kill but that was nature taking its course. Besides, there was a hefty chance it would just be killed off by a neo-Viking at some point as they were even more territorial than the iciclops and killed anything troublesome on sight. It might be lucky and evade their detection or maybe it would just not reside in their area to begin with. Either way, it was no longer here in Red Sun and had escaped the fate that befell its captors. Lex had made the second cleanest get away of everyone involved but he was under strict surveillance from the C.O and had been monetarily punished hard. He wasn''t as broke as Ares was but it was close and he was going to have to work like a dog for the C.O for a considerable amount of time to repay the debts he now owed. Even after that rebuilding his reputation was going to be a task that took forever and then some. The set back Ares had lumped on his head was ginormous and there was a deep seated hatred he now held towards Ares because of it. Lex happened to turn around and catch Ares sneering at him which most certainly did not help. Still, he wasn''t too fussed as he had his own plan that would deal with the twerp in the coming days. The assassination being planned, the first and not the second that involved the four seasons who were capitalising on the opportunity, wouldn''t exactly get very far if he intervened... But why on earth would he? He could get paid to stand around and watch someone he detested to his core get murdered in broad daylight, in front of his family no less! As that was what he expected to have happen, he ignored Ares'' taunt for the time being as soon, very soon, he would be the one sneering at him!