Back at the sect, Ares had just woken up from his nap. He and Bellona had snoozed away after kicking Enyo out. Enyo wasn''t tired and she only wanted to be in here for other nefarious reasons! They denied her firmly, however, and relaxed in one another''s company. As Bellona left the coliseum before Ye arrived, pretty much immediately after the match ended, she was unaware of the assassination attempts heading Ares'' way and couldn''t inform him beforehand. Maybe if she hadn''t been so eager to spend time with her new husband... Alas, here she was, cuddling. Then again, it''s not like Ares knowing would change anything anyway. He didn''t mind wasting a Canis Stimulant to check on his revenant form and see what kind of firepower he was secretly packing. It would also streamline the matches, making all the remaining ones interesting. His next fight would be the aevysqualls, which was dull, but the assassinations would liven up the party considerably. Then it was Aejaz'' match. Then it was the fundamental showdown. As far as his itinerary was concerned, it was quite a jam packed schedule but that was to be expected what with everything coming to a close. Before all of that, though, the Umbra and Legions would go at it and the winner would face Mako. Five stacked matches meant that, if nothing else, the spectators had a reason to be happy.


    Ares left the bedroom and went to cultivate in the next room over. It had been a while since he last did this but, now that he was brimming with the potential to raise his cultivation, it would be foolish to put off this task. Leaving it for too long could make it harder to gain your hard earned cultivation or even outright lose it in some specific cases. Pointlessly losing his hard work was something Ares wanted to avoid because it, in turn, would make him have to cultivate in this room for even longer just to reach the 8th stage of mental accumulation. Sensory enhancement was right around the corner, thanks to the trailblazers, and he wanted it! His Celestial Prisms had done him a number of favours and combining them with divine sense would be an incredible boost to their already astounding utility. So, although cultivating was a pain in the neck, Ares prepared himself mentally for the slog and got right down to it. He still wanted to visit the elders today after this so the sooner he got it done, the better. He''d planned on visiting them before doing this but that welling feeling of his surging cultivation was annoying and getting it over and done with was like scratching a longstanding itch to satisfaction.


    Over the course of four hours, Ares'' mind wandered at least seven or eight times. It''s not like he had ADHD or anything he just really wasn''t cut out for this kinda thing. The fact that some cultivators could sit around like this for millions of years at a time in the upper realms almost made Ares sick to his stomach. Still, those four hours were enough for him to make all the easy progress he was going to make here and now. The benefits from learning, and using, annihilation enhancement had all dried up, leaving Ares just shy of 8th stage. He was comfortably sitting near the end of 7th which, you guessed it, meant he was going to have to come back to this God forsaken room at some point and finish the deed. An unenviable task but one he didn''t need to do right now. He wanted a break and so of to the technical department he departed!


    Ares made quick visits to all of his neighbours he hadn''t seen in a while first, topping off their supply of Shock Beads as it had been a while since the last time he''d done as such. Also, he still needed to hand Onno supplies for the stall as well as all the runic gear / artifacts he''d created on behalf of the forging and runemancy departments. In return, Onno gave him the earnings of the stall over the course of the last two or so weeks, minus the cut for the employees and so on so forth, which would be enough to tide Ares over for now. He''d been borderline broke before but this small pay-out would allow him to keep buying food for the house and treating his freeloading tenants. Though if push came to shove then Ares would absolutely demand stardust from them! Bellona mooched off her mother and had a decent supply, Aejaz had a considerable amount thanks to his thievery and contracts from Hans, and Sadie who popped around frequently had more than enough stardust for booze so she could damn well give some to Ares if she wanted food! Borrowing money was embarrassing though and Ares didn''t want to stoop that low... God of destruction, legendary revenant, number one pressure wielder in the world, beggar... One of those was not like the others and Ares didn''t want that stain on his record if he could avoid it.


    Actually, now that Ares thought about it for a moment, the financial straits of the people living in the house were more dire than not. Ignoring nepotism from the Legion family, nobody had any stardust or any jobs! Other than Aejaz, everyone was a bum! Well Enyo did work she just never accepted rewards and stubbornly refused to budge on her principles. There were talks about Leo working with the sect but Ares didn''t know anything about it so he was included in this discussion. Appa didn''t even understand the point of stardust. It didn''t eat anything other than Snappas and it didn''t need any of the things a house provided so expecting it to earn stardust was a weird line of thinking Ares didn''t go down. Plus Appa was his daughter and he categorically refused to make such a sweet and innocent thing go do violent cultivation work for no reason. Making his daughter go and earn because Ares, despite his multitude of talents, was broke, was some atrocious fatherly behaviour. Lacy couldn''t leave the sect unattended even if anyone actually wanted her to, which no one did, so that was also out of the question. Bellona was still using her Rhea reserves and was good to go for a long while. Also there was no way in hell she could ever work a customer facing job without beating up at least half the rude customers that came her way... Trixie had just gotten to Red Sun although, to be fair, she could probably sell her gadgetry stuff and make money that way. She was currently sorting out her relationships and Aejaz actually earned enough as is to compensate so, although she planned on earning, she wasn''t currently. Allie''s alchemy was for the sake of practice and cultivating, nothing more. She never sold her pills or Pillies and Zhang typically funded her hobby. She would be one of the top earners in the household if she actually went public but no one wanted that of her as it was a sell out of gargantuan proportions. Knowing what people would think about her hand crafted pills... And the suggestion to sell her Pillies off into essentially slave labour... Aejaz would rightfully throw a fit if anyone suggested it. He was dedicated to his job and he stole with the primary intent of keeping Allie''s alchemy private.


    Then there was Ares who could easily earn the most of everyone with his never-ending tool set... But he was busy! He just didn''t have the time what with his sect errands and the tournament breathing down his neck. Making that bet was his way of raising his funds but even that was a back-ended solution that wouldn''t come into play just yet. It''s just that, in the cultivation world, resources, treasures, and rare skills/techniques were far, FAR more valuable than currency. Unless you stumbled across one of the above and had no use for it, any sane cultivator would cling to such resources and tools for dear life. In fact, many biographies of extraordinary cultivators all start off in the same manner... They were all broke! With their attention divided in a million different, more important, places money typically became secondary... Although there were a few legendary cultivators who''s journeys ended before they even really began because they ran out of stardust to even afford the basics. No home, no food, and no purchasing power led to no sleep, no energy, and no support. It was a vicious cycle some people found themselves trapped in and never escaped from but such was life. There were countless tales of strong, penniless cultivators found dead while clinging to their rarest treasure... If they''d just sold it, there was a good chance they could have found a way out of whatever situation they were in but that was just the high risk high reward style of cultivation that legends gravitated towards. Hell, Ares was doing a variation of that with the fine grind by refusing the 11 month in an attempt to get greater goods. If he keeled over tomorrow, and wasn''t a revenant, he would be remembered in the history books as a greedy fool.


    Anyhow, after chatting with Onno for a spell, Ares headed over to the technical department for real this time. After arriving he poked his head into the disciple area and gave them their Shock Beads, as Lizzy had asked of him long ago, before pathing around to the lizzle''s lair in the back of the building. Ares knocked on the door but had to leap out the way as said door was blasted of its hinges and went flying down the corridor, creating a racket with every bounce...


    "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Lizzy''s scream from inside the room indicated to Ares that she''d just been successful in some capacity when working on a technical or the application of one. Whatever it was seemed effective enough considering it almost flattened Ares on the spot. The velocity of the door just now was no joke and could have caused serious injury to any disciple who happened to be passing by. In that sense, Lizzy was a dangerous woman and the disciples who played around here had to be very careful approaching her room unannounced. This was well understood though as someone had already suffered an injury when they were randomly pierced by a sword that came through a wall as they were walking down a corridor and minding their own business. All Lizzy had to say in response was a slightly apologetic ''oops''. She was used to experimenting by her lonesome, remaining undisturbed for days on end and most techy cultivators seemed to share the mind set. Mako and Trixie also happened to get really into their inventions and detested and kind of unexpected disturbance. When they were focussed on their work, ''anyone who got in the way of that got what they deserved'' was the type of mindset that was prevalent.


    Ares peeped around the corner and had to duck out the way a second time as an Echo went sailing through the spot his head was in previously. Just this series of events told Ares all he needed to know about how much progress Lizzy had made on the Echo-mixed-with-pressure front. At the very least Lizzy herself was very capable of wielding it with splendid form! But therein lied the catch that interested Ares because Lizzy had never been particularly great with Echoes. As she was firing them off rather skilfully right now that must have meant something in the equation had changed and he could guess what based on his last visit. The artifact Lizzy had been working on that enabled anyone to use Echoes via a rune! In exchange for all the latest updates on pressure Echoes, Rud must have given his expertise on the technical and worked alongside Julio and Dabble to make this a reality. Now someone like Lizzy could focus solely on imbuing the technical with pressure without worrying about the efficiency of the base Echo being low due to her own lacking comprehension. Additionally, the reverse was true in that anyone who wasn''t confident in their pressure manipulation could divert more of their brain power to figuring it out without worrying about fudging up the Echo. The fact that Lizzy had been working on this artifact at roughly the same time Ares came to her with the pressure Echo was incredibly good timing as, combined, it was a pretty major leap for the overall strength level of the elders. Mass producing the Echo artifact and perfecting the pressure Echo was a big moment for this sect and Ares had just witnessed it all coming together first hand. Of course being the first witness would have been diminished somewhat if he also became the first victim but thankfully he knew better than to not have his wits about him when visiting Lizzy. This wasn''t his first rodeo with this one-track mind experimenter who''s care for her surroundings was non-existent at the best of times and actively problematic at the worst.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Sensing a ceasefire, Ares snuck into the room and waved hello to Lizzy who was using a magnifying glass on the artifacts that had caused this mess. "I take it things are going well in here?"


    ...


    Lizzy was engrossed in her examination and treated Ares like air... She probably didn''t even know he was in the room that was just how hyper locked-in on the artifact she was right now. There were a few ways of getting around this issue but Ares chose the one that would be most beneficial to Lizzy by firing up his Omniscience and taking a gander at the artifact. The gloves were simple but what Ares really wanted was to eye up the rune she was using, at which point he could just fix any small mistakes she/Julio had made with it. Without Omniscience, optimising such a rune would take a long while so Ares correcting it here and now would wake Lizzy up from her contemplative stupor. Most people would be ecstatic to have created something that works well but until it was perfect Lizzy would never be satisfied.


    Once he had the nitty gritty down to a pat, Ares stepped forth and poked the gloves on the side opposite of the one  Lizzy was staring at. She was taken aback when the runes she was staring at started to ''magically change on their own'' but still didn''t check her surroundings. She felt the need to pay attention to every minute change and make a record of it after. Ares sighed at this as, had she realised it was him doing it, she wouldn''t need to worry about memorising it as she could just ask him instead! She was less a lizard at the moment and more a horse with blinkers... Ares finished and, before Lizzy could scramble to her notebook, Ares lifted the gloves in front of his face and dangled them around for a bit. Even then it took Lizzy a second or two to see the living, breathing, human being, revenant technically, behind them... "Hellooooo? Earth to Lizzy?"


    "Ah? ScAres!" As she was spooked by the ''sudden'' appearance, the first mock-up of a name that came into her head was a mix between ''scary'' and ''Ares''... Ares wasn''t scary! The preposterous nature of the claim led to him feeling indignant but he kept it bottled up and simply sighed while changing the topic.


    "How''s it been going? Knowing you, I''m sure you''ve ironed out the wrinkles of pressure Echoes with Rud already?"


    "Oh yeah, big time successes all around with the Crudster. Kinda cramped my style a bit what with all his constant moaning but we got it done, technical style! Booyah!" Lizzy''s general pep for life was as infectious as ever and Ares couldn''t stay mad at her... Although he still didn''t appreciate being called ScAres!.. Was this what it was like when he called others by silly names too? No wonder it was so effective... "If yer looking for the technical tome, there''s already a buncha them inside the arts library. They''re quite popular now that the elders have spread word so you might struggle to get your paws on one butttttttttttttttt..." Lizzy opened a drawer at her desk and whipped out a tome. "... I kept ya a copy. Wasn''t possible without ya, after all!"


    Ares gratefully received the tome and gave it a once over before putting it in his Primordial Blade for storage. Later, when he went back to cultivating... The thought of which made Ares shiver... He would double down on his time in the room and study the tome as well. "Many thanks. I''m sure Rud is over the moon right now. He had decent pressure mastery to begin with if I''m not mistaken?"


    "Yeah, one of the best in the sect at least. Not top trumps but not down in the dumps. By the way, it was actually him that wrote that there tome. He was the one who took you into consideration. I''ll be honest I kinda forgot, heh! He was thankful. Didn''t say it out loud but that was the feeling I got from him. A rare attitude but he really does like the technical so I''m not surprised. Grumps can be a bit hard to please but what with everything you''ve done for the sect as of late even he can''t help but be a bit of a softie every now and then. Consider this tome proof of that ''cos it''s a lot more respect than a lot of other elders in this sect have ever gotten from him. Rud and his clones are worked to the bone usually so the fact he took some time out to make that tome is kinda wild, actually. Then again, the reason he has more time on his hands is ''cos of all the new elders we''ve been hiring, thanks to you, who can fill in some of the empty spaces in our workforce. I heard a rumour from Zhangstein ''the quick'' that Rud even got a good night''s sleep for the first time in, like, a decade or two. ''Over the moon'' is an understatement, he''s in good ol'' paradise. Also, strength wise, he shot up a fair bit due to his talent with the Echoes. We do a bit of elder ranking every now and then to help dictate who gets how much stardust and Rud did way better than usual. He wasn''t weak before or anything, it''s just that there are a fair few crouching tigers and hidden dragons in headquarters. They''re rarely seen but they pack a punch. Outwardly we promote the idea that Slick is the strongest but, if we include those who skulk about in the darkest pits of paperwork hell in HQ, there are actually a few others worth a shout out... One of em''s kinda creepy though... The way they crawl around on the ceiling and drop in on you... Gives me the shakes every time. They also leave their webs everywhere and if you get caught you have to wait for them to let you out... And pray they don''t take a nibble before they do ''cos they''re venom is kinda annoying; shit makes you hallucinate..."


    "... Crawl?... Webs?... Nibble?... Venom?.............. Spider?"


    "Hm? Yeah, they''re a ''rak''ne'', a spider kin. Why?"


    "..."


    "Ares?"


    "Hm? Oh, no, nothing. No problem. There''s no problem. Why would there be a problem? The fact that there''s a race of spider kin isn''t problematic at all. Quite non-problematic really. Yep... Not a problem..." Ares was stiff as cardboard having learnt that there was human sized spider running around somewhere in the sect... This was not a problem bug spray was going to solve... Plus, if this person was stronger than Slick... Then if he was ever caught... "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Ares shifted out of the room with a single tear in his eyes, leaving a bewildered Lizzy to shrug to herself before continuing on with her experiments. She''d gotten the correct, perfected Echo rune out of Ares and she''d given him the tome so their conversation was effectively ''done'' anyway. Although a proper goodbye would have been nice Ares seemed to be in a rush so she didn''t hold it against him... It was still weird though. Maybe Ares had already met the rak''ne and had an unpleasant first encounter? That would make sense as the rak''ne''s ominous bearing did leave quite the impression. They were alright when you got to know them but randomly spotting them on the ceiling above you, staring into your soul, was definitely ScAres. A real 10/10 fright. In fact, one of the pranks HQ pulled regularly was sending the rak''ne out into the disciple areas during Halloween to spook them out of their wits. HQ was certainly filled to the brim with pencil pushers but the people in charge were all characters in their own right that got bored easily so they were known by the elders as a sort of prank squad. They were a contrast compared to the other elders here and were, up until Ares'' arrival, Rud''s ''MD''; which stood for ''most detested''. Despite being a bit of a paperwork aficionado himself, and despite a great deal of aid being potentially available at HQ, even Rud opted not to visit regularly. Ares had been quite lucky not to run into any of the troublemakers during his last visit but, if ever he returned, he almost definitely wouldn''t be so lucky...


    Over by the forging department, Dabble had heard a strange noise like that of an injured, screaming cat. He leaned out a nearby window and found Ares hiding in a corner mumbling something about how the spider people were going to get him... Dabble closed the window and went back to work. Not his problem! Unfortunately, Julio arrived outside and prodded away at Ares before coming inside with the dejected wee laddie in tow so now, clearly, it was his problem after all! Well whatever, at the very least he had some news to share with him about his experiments so perhaps he could avoid the conversation about these ''spider people'' or whatever. "Ah, laddie, it''s good to see ye again. I heard through teh grapevine ye beat teh pagoda so congrats on that. Over on this here side o'' things I''ve made some headway on that thing you ''n'' I were messing around wit. If ye wanna come downstairs we can ''ave a chat ''bout it?"


    Ares stared at the floor and weakly mumbled, "Don''t wanna... Might be spider people down there..." and now Dabble wasn''t entirely sure what to do about this mess. He believed he could get away with not asking but now it seemed like he had too... Ares was key to experimenting any further with imbuing pressure into artifacts so Dabble leaving him in this state wasn''t conducive to furthering his knowledge and understanding of the field!


    With a grumble, Dabble put his hamemr down on the nearby workbench, hopped off his stool, and walked around to Ares. he looked up at him and folded his arms. "Alright ye pansy, what''s got yer knickers in a twist?"


    "SPIDER PEOPLE, DABBLE! THERE ARE SPIDER PEOPLE ON THE WALLS!"


    "... Da fuck is wrong wit ye?"


    Ares gripped Dabble''s shoulders and rocked him back and forth. "WHY ARE THERE SPIDER PEOPLE? SINCE WHEN? ARE YOU TELLING ME THERE''S BEEN A RAK''NE IN THIS SECT THE WHOLE TIME?"


    "Eh? Rak''ne? Oh, teh one at HQ? What about ''em?"


    "Why am I the only one concerned about this?! Human sized spiders, Dabble. HUMAN SIZED. That is WAY too big for a damnable spider!"


    "Really? I''ve seen way bigger meself... There are a lot of spider monsters out there, some as big as buildings..."


    Thud


    Dabble stared at Ares who fainted dead on the spot at the prospect of 20 - 30ft tall spiders and scratched his beard. "If word gets out that disciples ''n'' elders keep fainting in this sect, there''s gonna be all sorts o'' rumours spreading around about some silly curse..."


    Julio snorted. "Oh please short stuff, the only curse around here is an anti-growth curse, clearly."


    "Alright ye pointy menace, now ye asking for it!" Dabble and Julio got into their usual bickering session with a few violent nudges from time to time as they danced around Ares'' unconscious body. Normally this would be considered a strange sight but the disciples of the forging department were used to squabbles of this nature so they mostly just ignored it. Previously it had just been Dabble and Julio involved but, now that there was a third person, the dynamic had changed slightly and it gave them a slightly different form of amusement. It was like season two of a sitcom in which a new character joined after arriving in the neighbourhood so a few of the disciples even took a break to chew on some popcorn and watch the theatrics. Julio the pointy eared freakshow, Dabble the dwarf, and Ares the ringmaster... Why the forging department devolved into a circus no one knew but Rud, who happened upon this scene, ran away from it immediately and decided to come back when it was less crowded. Ares feared spiders, Rud feared Ares. Everything in life had a natural predator. In a bizarre twist of fate; Julio''s was Dabble, and Dabble''s was Julio, meaning their back and forth antics would basically never end unless someone else got involved. Until Ares woke up again, this was going to remain the status quo for a good while...