Chapter 1687: Inaction vs Action
People often forget that time and events have a tendency to move even without their involvement.
Or to put it another way, everyone’s a side character to someone else’s story.
-A man who once thought himself center of the world.
...
Zhen Liu stared up at the ceiling as his epiphany continued to play out in his head.
To be more precise, he began to imagine what would happen or could happen in the near future if he didn’t intervene on a personal level, or at the very least, sent the kaijin.
It was a whole mess of best case/worst case scenarios.
"I should probably write all this down so I can see it instead of simply letting it stew in my head and letting it fester..."
...Case 1...
Situation: Bronze Bell Kingdom Civil War
Description: Due to the whacky way succession works here, namely developing the ability to innately read minds, several princes and princesses are now vying for the crown. They have all gone out of their way to drum up military support from all over the place and steadfast followers. Unfortunately, some of those followers are a bit overzealous and are trying to help their chosen liege through questionably violent means.
Issue: The aforementioned followers are getting bolder and bolder with their attempts at violence and sabotage to the point of murder and framing.
If ignored: If left unchecked, this cold civil war is going to turn red hot and people I care about, namely my soon-to-be married cousin and my own fiancee, will get hurt or worst. Whatever happens, happens and I may have to bury people I care about. Bellona will either be physically hurt or emotionally hurt that I didn’t at least try to help. My cousin’s wedding day may become a red one.
If addressed: War can be prematurely ended. Depending on the people involved, this would either end with "happily ever after", or an entire bloodline wiped out. Bellona would be happy I helped her escape a date that she had no desire of fulfilling...or she might curse me forever for having no choice but to help her reach that fate. At the very least, Zhen Yue would be able to get married without a hitch.
...Case 2...
Situation: Frosttusk’s tribe from a former life in the Echoing Valley is dealing with some weird aristocratic turned warlord nonsense, and my family is in the middle of it, along with members of Jin Fang’s newly minted court. The cause of conflict seem to center around an heirloom of some kind that’s related to Frosttusk’s past.
If ignored: My family are going to get embroiled in some ancient conflict that could lead to unintended consequences like an ancient evil being awakened or this aforementioned warlord becoming significantly more powerful than they could properly anticipate. Non-zero chance of family members dying, non-zero chance of me losing precious kaijin.
If addressed: Family can be saved if necessary. Unexpected rewards can be earned due to the nature of "protoaether treasures" and the crazy warlord bitch apparently amassing a huge fortune. Most importantly, Frosttusk’s past and trauma and be addressed. The big guy doesn’t talk about it, but...I can always sort of feel it when he talks.
...Case 3...
Situation: The Gallop Brothers
Description: The three horse-like kaijin brothers have stumbled upon evidence that the Shadow Garden, an organization that’s being partially led by a crazy bitch with the power of [Fate], and the Fallen, who are being slowly supplanted by a rogue Kaijin from a bygone era, are forging an alliance. This is bad on multiple levels.
If ignored: This alliance of enemies can form a power front that would make my life a living hell. The number of Grafted warriors will shoot up, and my ass is probably gonna be staring down the barrel of a thousand [Chaos] enhanced warriors. Everyone I know and love will probably die.
If addressed: This shit gets strangled in the cradle before it becomes a problem, and I get to loot everything that isn’t nailed down. Also, Buzza gets the burial he sorely needed or maybe something else? That would be determined when we finally fought one another.
...Now to more pressing matters.
"Okay, that addresses the events I’m made aware of because of the letters..." Zhen Liu muttered as he wrote down the last note. "What about the issues I manifested while here in Dozing Salamander?"
Off the top of his head, Zhen Liu realized that the looming tasks he amassed on his own were... actually not that numerous, just surprisingly continuous.
Or, at the very least, they were actually snowballing into one big problem.
Hell, now that Zhen Liu thought about it, this entire situation started because of how he arrived to the continent and what he did after.
When Zhen Liu first came to the continent, he had made friends with Lythero and agreed to help the prodigal swordmaster in the making on his quest for revenge.
Unfortunately, that quest kind of snowballed into something greater and more absurd due to Zhen Liu’s karmic void.
What started as a personal beef between a single man carrying a scarred legacy and a nobleman who couldn’t give two shits, soon got merged into the megalomaniac machinations of a questionably fallen god. On top of that, the swords Lythero inherited from his masters got broken into pieces because he was busy saving Zhen Liu’s ass.
Aside from this revenge plot, though, there was also the fact that Zhen Liu picked up a mercenary who was apparently raised by a rogue cat-like kaijin from another era.
That particular line could be addressed eventually, in fact, Zhen Liu had a feeling Antonio would find his while assisting with the Smoking Mirror/Lythero Revenge plot.
Either way, Zhen Liu had a feeling he needed to get back on all of this and that required two things.
First, and this could honestly be addressed later, he was going to need more kaijin.
Zhen Liu was initially going to wait until the Doll Twins had fully developed their [Cores] and choose actual names of themselves, but that was taking time that he didn’t really have anymore.
Besides, if he was going to commit to sending them with Blazejudicator to go after the Gallop Brothers, then he was definitely going to need all the kaijin muscle he could make.
"Should I grab the more promising protokaijin among the zakos and evolve them or just make fresh ones?" Zhen Liu thought to himself. "Wait...maybe I should actually get around to promoting the ones that have been apprenticing under the kaijin? Bah, I’ll figure it out later.
The second, and more immediate thing he could address, was fulfilling his promise with Lythero.
The whole reason they came to the Sacred Flame Theocracy, was to secure a bit of the [Sacred Flame], the [Primordial Hearth Flame], so that Zhen Liu could use its power to not just repair Lythero’s swords but to make something even better.
That and he could now use these newly acquired materials and enhancements to actually feed into that first issue.
But for now, Zhen Liu needed to focus on the present.
Namely, what was his plan on how to handle Lythero’s swords issue.
"Part of the reason why Lythero was vulnerable was because he had to physically swap the swords with one another during battle, creating momentary gaps that amounted to obvious weak points. If I could just eliminate the need to do that, then Lythero would definitely become a swordmaster that could cut through the heavens...or at least a bitchy ass shard of a god with a complex."
Technically speaking, Lythero’s problem could be resolved with a high tiered spatial storage treasure that would allow him to swap out weapons on the fly but that introduced a whole other fault point.
Besides, spatial storage treasures were rare for a reason and the kind Lythero needed for his fighting style needed to be instant, not the kind that ripped open a hole in space.
Which is why, Zhen Liu decided to take a page out of one of the animes he grew up with: R@ve M@ster.
"Take seven different swords, somehow combine them into a bad transforming sword that are all anchored around badass base sword...can’t be that hard right?" Zhen Liu told himself.
In reality, creating such a sword required a whole fuckload of rare materials, weird environmental conditions that made everything just right, a complex aether series of aether arrays, and the knowledge of a veteran blacksmith.
Thankfully, the past few weeks of travel had given Zhen Liu precisely that.
He got an ass load of rare materials from the City of Artisans, Serena had promised him use of the [Primordial Hearth Flame], and he himself could jury rig the aether arrays via his understanding of [Chaos].
As for the smithing know-how, he had two sources.
The first was Axer, who would be more than happy to take part in creating such a blade.
The second was the library itself, however...that required some...less than fun actions to fully use.