Orin looked at Lex oddly, but didn’t question the human who could literally walk in dragonfire. If he said his body was weak, then it was weak. As long as he was up for Orin’s crazy plan, then Orin would be up for Lex’s crazy plan.

Being inside the forge during a forging was not like tolerating the heat from a volcano, nor was it like enduring the banging of a hammer. A normal forge would combine the heat, the pressure, the hammering all to create an environment that could not be endured. A normal Earth Immortal might suffer permanent, or at least long lasting injury.

That was for just an ordinary forge, and an ordinary item. Inside the Crystal Volcanic Forge, they would be crafting the Karmic Bead, an enormously powerful item crafted using Dao level ingredients and an immensely powerful concept. It won’t just be the pressure and the heat in there with them, it’ll be all kinds of laws far beyond their capacity to control. It will simply be something they have to tolerate. If Lex wanted to forge his body as well, then specific adjustments would have to be made for the process, and Lex’s own body would have to be prepared for the forging process.

If it were anyone else, Orin would not even ask them to accompany him into the forge, let alone accept a request to forge the body during the process. Lex, however, had a reputation for being the most abnormal person in the Inn, so Orin didn’t even question it. The man was harder to kill than a real deity, so he was sure there wasn’t going to be any issues.

As soon as they agreed, the both of them got to work. Before doing anything, the volcano had to be prepped. That was just the container for the heat source. The anvil and the heating chamber would come next, followed by prepping the ingredients. In this case, Lex happened to be one of the ingredients that needed to be prepped, since his body too was being forged.

What Orin didn’t know was that Lex’s encounter with Kreel had shaken him up. It had been a long time since Lex felt threatened by someone in his own realm.

It was a nice reminder of the fact that there existed beings and races that had been growing their strength for millions of years before him, and despite whatever growth he had experienced, others weren’t sitting around sucking their thumbs either. If he wanted to be the best of the best, he truly, genuinely needed to be absurd. Like, he had fair confidence in fighting against the average Heaven Immortal. But now, that was sounding kind of lame. Now, Lex wanted to be able to face up against a Celestial, and survive.

Unfortunately, as a result of absorbing Dao Mist earlier, he was kind of on a time limit. As soon as the Pineapple could no longer seal his cultivation, he would enter the next realm. So he had only a few years to grow as strong and absurd as possible.

Before Lex had gone to Orin, he had taken the Meditation room for a spin, focusing on his instincts to guide him on what to do. It was something he hadn’t done very seriously in a long time - mainly because Lex realized that his instincts couldn’t account for everything.

While he hadn’t overcome that weakness, he was very satisfied with the results he got. While his instincts gave him no clear answer - they literally couldn’t - Lex formed a vague timeline in his mind of when he should do certain things.

Then, while he was doing that, Lex couldn’t help but ask his instincts if he should ask Giselle out. He only did it for academic purposes, as research for testing the functionality of his instincts. The result was... that his instincts said nothing. They were his instincts after all, and it seemed that he had no romantic instincts at all unless he was pretending to be romantic, in which case he was a proper casanova.

For now, though, all he needed to focus on was the forge. The most important thing was getting rid of the Go board. Since his instincts didn’t react to the Go board at all, it was now more or less confirmed that it was backed by a system, and was the most urgent threat.

So, he worked. He worked for hours, days, weeks, and the time for the auction slowly and steadily came closer.

The Go board didn’t appear again, though that didn’t really bring Lex any sense of confidence. If it were up to Lex, their next confrontation would be their last. However, he knew that it wouldn’t be. The Go board would definitely try to interfere during the forging, Lex was sure of it. He needed to take precautions beforehand.

Just like that, quietly and in preparation, ten months went by uneventfully.

*****

Sir Cedric Bumblethorpe held both the lapel of his purple velvet coat, his fingers nestled in the soft scarf tucked underneath. This was something he did when he was most pleased, and currently, he was definitely most pleased.

"I say, Meyers, it is quite a lovely day."

Meyers, the butler, looked out of the window at the pitch black clouds up above, and the cracking ground below, leading to a portal connected to some kind of hell. Some kind of evil, hellions were climbing out of the holes in the ground, and unholy abominations flew down from the clouds.

"Yes sir, a very fine day," Meyers said, doing his absolute best to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

Sir Cedric Bumlethorpe didn’t mind. He simply looked at the black key in front of him. After months and months of trying, he finally managed to get his hands on it, and now he could finally go to the legendary Obsidian that he had been hearing so many rumors about.

"I’m off for a bit to expand my horizons, Meyers. Keep the museum safe, will you. The local delinquents are trying to get their hands on my treasures again."

"Yes, sir," Meyers said, lifting the gatling gun in his hands a little higher, and walked up to one of the beautiful, arch windows, ready to defend against the invading horde. He did not try to point out that the ’local delinquents’ were only trying to reclaim the treasures that Sir Cedric had ’rescued’ from them for cultural preservation in his museum.

Sir Cerdric, on the other hand, put on his mask, and entered his alternate persona - Nathraval. It was the identity he used to keep his own identity hidden. Once everything was ready, he picked up the black key and crushed it. It was time to see what wonders this mystical land could offer him.