A few days after returning from the fields of thunder, Max took time to understand the size of his current army and pay off his debt to Angakok.
The matter of paying the blood shaman god back with 12 million units of mana was not a small one, and Max had to pull several strings to acquire enough potions for completing the procedure.
If there was one risk Max was not willing to take ever in his life, it was offending Angakok over petty matters such as mana units.
Somewhere deep down he already knew that not paying back the debt would have very bad consequences for him which he felt best remained unexplored.
Thankfully, he maintained a large army and was known to splurge generously on them, which is why he could obtain the large order of high grade mana potions without garnering suspicion of the legitimate seller channels.
If an individual not belonging to any major group placed such a large order, he/she would undoubtedly be put under major surveillance, hence in a way for Max to obtain it without much questioning it was one of the perks of being a rebel army chief.
On the other hand, Max was pleasantly surprised to know that his army had expanded to 450,000 troops in strength and was expected to hit the 500,000 mark by next 30 - 45 days.
A lot of old Paratus family troops who were initially apprehensive of trying to come back, rushed back once the Paratus capital was taken back by Ravan.
Everyday at least a few hundred showed up, happy to be back home.
Currently Max's strength was sufficient to capture the other two planets under the Kingsman Clan and start choking the Dombivli City trade routes, but he was waiting to formulate a perfect plan before attacking since the enemy might be expecting it.
" Zippo, are you knowledgeable in matters of military strategy? " Max asked his shadow who remained by his side, giving him the creeps 24×7
As usual, Zippo did not reply to Max choosing to remain in his silent shadow state.
This had become a routine for Zippo who had not answered more than two words to Max since becoming his guard.
The two words being ' Yes ' and ' No '
If there was ever a documentary on a man of few words, he would become the perfect candidate.
During this time Max had not slacked off in his training inside the mirror world, as shockingly he had regressed back in his progress once more.
After becoming tier4, his mirror world controlled A.I. clone was also tier4 possessing newfound abilities.
Once again Max felt out of place as he could not last 3 minutes against his own self.
Previously his average had improved till about 11 minutes and dealt 35% damage, but now it had regressed again.
The good thing was that Max was able to practise [ disperse ] again and again, as he grasped the fundamentals of the attack.
Disperse was a move which required him to be quick and precise.
He could disperse an incoming enemy attack with an extremely sharp blade, or his own fingers while coated with energy or sword qi.
The main idea was to hit a mana attack's imperfection and cause the unstable mana combination to crumple.
Mana was not supposed to take form, it was a free flowing river, however, spells, objects, runes, altered it's flow in such a way that it changed characteristics.
If one were to find a flaw in this creation, they could destroy it with much less effort, however, if one could not exactly target this weakness it would prove to be lethal.
Having died 347 times in the mirror world while using disperse, Max was no stranger to using it wrongly.
" Haa- master Kremeth's move is so hard to grasp, also grandpa Drax's clone is unbelievably strong " Max commented as he complained about his strict training to himself, before also consoling himself and getting back to training anyways.
Drax had always made Max feel he was far from his potential and that his enemy was only using strength he was capable of, but what Drax never deliberately told Max was that his enemy was always slightly stronger than Max.
At tier4 Max's strength already rivalled peak tier5, hence his opponent was no longer actually tier4 in strength, but a perfect peak tier5 warrior.
It was only Max who believed the enemy to be the perfect version of himself at the same tier, which was why he pushed himself too hard.
The miracle he performed by killing the dragon was because of this madness training that he did in the mirror world, because while Max did not realise it, he was constantly battling high level existences.
In a way, he was even more talented than the Ancient fire god Agni, and Drax could see that clearly.
Naturally he was never going to mention this topic to Max, not even as a joke or in passing, afraid that he would gain a big ego after listening to it.
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( Meanwhile Severus )
Severus was on a scouting mission inside dombivli city for many weeks now, he had already located the spots where the enemy had hidden anti battleship weapons stored, as he planned to take them all out without anyone noticing when he had the chance.
Severus was not only a sweeper, but also a scientist and a very good one at that.
He had a basic understanding of machines and weapons and could understand how to dismantle them, hence night after night, he caused one or two guards to blackout as he secretly deactivated the air defence mechanism before vanishing without a trace.
" Ho- Ho - Ho, I'm only doing this because I don't want ashes and debris to fall onto the streets I've so painstakingly cleared.
It will be too much hassle to clean it all again, I'd rather not have our army blow up " Severus murmured to himself, as even now his biggest concern was pollution and cleaning.
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/// A/N - Chapter 4/40, that's it for today ///