The revolutionaries of that world were willing to pay several hundred thousand gold coins, and it would’ve allowed Drakan to replenish their food and weapon stocks easily! But the Jamani had come in and taken what belonged to them, and that was what led to the battle between the two groups! Laniz had seriously underestimated the Jamani, and as a result of that, his group was nearly eradicated.
For a while, Laniz just stared down at the map on the table with a faraway look in his eyes as he thought about what the best course of action was. They couldn’t fight the Jamani again since that was suicide, and they couldn’t go looking for another job since the Jamani would just take that from them as well. If it had come to this, then there was only one desperate move they could make.
"I will go and speak to the Overlord."
Everyone turned to Laniz in surprise when they heard this, and many of them began to murmur in surprise as they wondered if Laniz had lost his mind! The Overlord of the domain was the one person that no mercenary should ever plan to meet freely! Mercenaries were all criminals who kept to the old ways, and the Overlord’s job was to kill people like them! The only reason they had been able to meet and talk to Rubik was because they all knew Rubik was crooked, so they could bribe him easily! No one knew anything about this new Overlord, and those who had heard about him said that he was a very straightforward person! There was a chance he was nothing like Rubik, and they could simply be walking into their own graves!
"If we do not strike a deal with the new overlord, we will be wiped out by the Jamani. My father built this group and handed it down to me. I will die before I see it destroyed. Kax, do you still have the artefact I gave to you?"
Laniz turned to another man, and Kax’s eyes widened in surprise before he nodded and placed his hand on the table. A small Spatial Circle opened under Kax’s arm, and Kax reached inside and brought out a glass orb with a white gas swirling inside. Kax handed the orb to Laniz, and Laniz stood to speak to his men.
"Organize the troops and prepare to move while I prepare. I will go speak to the overlord, and if things do not go our way, you will continue without me."
"How do you know the Overlord will listen to you?"
One of the mercenaries at the side spoke up, and Laniz narrowed his eyes.
"I do not, but if we do not try, then this will be the end for us. I have to meet with someone before we head out. Gather the men and have them get ready."
Laniz turned and left the room under the watchful eyes of his men, and Laniz hoped that this desperate gamble would work.
....
[Earth]
After dealing with the immediate issues regarding the Machina attack, Jason had immediately immersed himself in training! Jason spent hours every day training with both his subordinates and Esdath inside the Alternate Dimension. Esdath had chewed Jason out again for the mistake that Jason had made when he was searching through the mind of that Machina earlier, and Jason had weathered the fury of his teacher calmly. Jason knew that Esdath acted like an idiot at times, but when it came to Qi training, Esdath was always serious, and Esdath’s anger was always justified. After getting yelled at, Esdath finally gave Jason a few books to assimilate, and he taught Jason some new Qi techniques that would help him in battle.
’Have you managed to go past ten percent in your resonance yet?’
This was the question that Esdath asked Jason when they were sitting in a meditative state in the Alternate Dimension one day, and Jason frowned and shook his head. Resonance was another aspect of Jason’s power that he had been trying to improve for a long time now, but Jason had been hitting roadblock after roadblock. And the biggest roadblock that was standing in Jason’s way was Jason’s own mortality. Resonance as a skill was something that wasn’t meant to exist. The idea of combining mana and Qi into an entirely different form of power was so outlandish that most people would call you mad for even suggesting it! But Jason had forced himself to do it when he was fighting against Arcticus, and Jason still remembered the excruciating pain that had come over his entire body when he did it!
Ever since then, Jason hadn’t been able to get past a 10% resonance level with this power without his body tearing itself apart! Jason had once tried to force himself to reach 30% resonance, and his liver had literally exploded! That was the last time Jason tried to go too far over his limits! But even though Jason could only use 10%, Jason’s resonance was still one of his most destructive skills! Jason remembered the sheer annihilation that he caused in Merivo’s Paradise when he used 1% of the skill, so using 10% to launch an attack would be devastating! Esdath had told Jason that they would work on trying to get past 10% Resonance when they were done with Qi training, and Jason sighed tiredly as he realised it was going to be another long day!
While Jason was training with Esdath and his subordinates in the Alternate Dimension, Gina and Stella had taken to training against each other. Since Stella had such an abundance of skills, there was always something new that she could use to fight against Gina, and Gina’s ingenuity when using air, as well as her spirit energy, made it difficult for Stella to predict what Gina was going to do next, so the two women were the perfect training partners for each other! Gina and Ulyn were still not fully synchronized, but since the two of them had started working together rather than against each other, there was now a slight boost to Gina’s power from the Spirit Energy she was absorbing from the world! Both Gina and Stella were around TITAN Rank II in strength, but since Gina was a Sage and didn’t have to worry about mana consumption, it was a little difficult for Stella to keep up with everything Gina was throwing at her!
Stella and Gina had taken up a large wilderness region in Texas as their training area. The entire Marc family decided that they would stay with Gina and her family for a few days since Gina was worried that someone would try to attack her parents when she wasn’t around. Mira had closed down the restaurant for now, and since Gina’s family house was so large, there was more than enough space for everyone to stay in! Gina started looking into new locations where her parents could move to since this one had already been compromised, while Mira and Bett were working together to plan the upcoming wedding!
Jason and Gina’s mothers had already been friends for a long time, so the two women didn’t have any trouble working together as they began to plan for Jason and Gina’s wedding! Bett and Mira wanted the wedding to be grand, but Jason and Gina insisted that they wanted a small affair for just family and friends. But everyone knew it would be difficult to have a small wedding since Jason and Gina were both so popular, so they were trying to find a middle ground where they could have a private wedding while also inviting some of the more important world leaders. They all agreed that they needed to have the wedding before Gina’s stomach started showing, so the wedding had to be sometime in the next two months. Thankfully, money wasn’t an issue at all, so Jason just gave his mother his bank card and allowed the women go crazy with the planning.