Atlantic Ocean
7:00 AM
Battleship of the House of Night
Klaus sat in the laboratory. It wasn't as grand as his own, but it was manageable. He was genuinely surprised that a ship could house a functioning lab—but he wasn't complaining. His army had been transported, he had a hundred men from the House of Night supporting him, and Driver was somewhere onboard, creating who knew what.
He stared at the screen, watching his subordinates struggle to adapt to the mobile suits Driver had developed. These suits completely enveloped the pilot, protecting them in combat. Not only that—they were crafted from the carcasses of Nightmare Creatures and powered by specially modified cores. Driver truly was a genius when it came to technology. She had given ordinary humans the means to challenge Awakened warriors. That alone was insane.
Still, the mobile suits had limitations. If the ammunition ran out, or if the core—which acted as the engine—was depleted of soul essence, the pilot would be helpless. These cores weren't true Soul Cores, but rather artificial constructs developed by Driver and Lich. They functioned similarly but were designed to absorb soul essence directly from individuals. In short, you could "recharge" the core by killing someone.
Even so, the amount of essence gained through killing wasn't much. A single life offered only a fraction of energy—not enough for a full recharge. That's why Awakened personnel were assigned the task of charging the cores beforehand, ensuring they could be used efficiently in battle.
Overall, Klaus was quite satisfied with Driver's research and looked forward to seeing it in action.
But Driver wasn't the only one making progress.
Klaus had achieved significant advancements in his own experiments as well. Smiling with satisfaction, he took a seat beside the board and started reviewing the papers on his desk. After confirming everything was in order, he sighed and began to wait.
A few minutes later, people began filing into the lab—which, for today, was serving as a classroom.
In Chaos Ascendancy, many of the soldiers were also scholars. Some were former scientists, others students of different fields, and a surprising number were killers with a thirst for knowledge. Naturally, only those interested attended lectures. Some studied sorcery, some focused on combat techniques, poisons, archaeology, Dream Realm history, flora and fauna, Nightmare Creatures biology, and more.
Though Ascendancy was technically a military force, it was more accurately described as a massive research institute—one filled with experimentation, innovation, and the study of arcane subjects. In terms of raw knowledge, Chaos Ascendancy had no equal. Many of its members were referred to as "scholars" because of their profound understanding of highly specific fields.
Take Driver, for example. She had created mobile suits that granted mystical capabilities to ordinary humans. She'd successfully fused soul essence with mobile suits—an achievement that had never been done before. Among spelltech developers, she was unquestionably the most brilliant.
Then there were Tatiana and Miseria, who were studying human emotion and the inner workings of the mind. Their research into both the conscious and subconscious realms was making incredible strides.
Lich and Noah focused on Runic Sorcery and corpse-based biology, with their aspects perfectly suited to their research.
Diego and Isaac, on the other hand, had little interest in academics. Diego was a warrior in the purest sense—always hungry for combat. Isaac cared mostly about money, gambling, and manipulating probabilities.
As for Klaus… he had a hand in everything. From biology to astronomy, sorcery to metaphysics, he dabbled and dissected it all. Thanks to the Wisdom of Uriel, he could handle many subjects at once—even if he wasn't a master of each.
Still, even his mind became overwhelmed at times. That's why he'd asked Miseria to help him create a mind realm—a mental library in his subconsciousness. It functioned on principles similar to a soul sea. And Klaus, having learned how to enter his soul sea unaided while in the Kingdom of Hope, found it easy to replicate the concept and use it regularly.
This hunger for growth and understanding aligned with the domain of the Heart God. Although Klaus hadn't inherited any direct power from that deity, it didn't mean he couldn't learn from Them. The Heart God, after all, governed the realms of the mind and soul—the most mysterious of all divine domains.
Of course, Klaus didn't learn from just one god. He drew wisdom from all of them—adapting each one's ideology and insight into his own evolving worldview. It would've been foolish to waste such opportunities. As the saying goes: work smart, not hard.
He looked over his seated subordinates and nodded. Smiling pleasantly, he stood and lit a cigarette.
"All right, let's begin," he said. "We only have a few days until we reach our destination, so I can spare time for two or three lectures. Today, we're joined not just by you, my dear students, but also by Professor Driver, who will be overseeing my current research. Any questions before we begin?"
A middle-aged woman with dirty-blond hair and sharp blue eyes raised her hand. It was a bit odd to see someone a decade older than Klaus treating him as a professor.
"Why aren't we just bombing their base?"
Klaus's smile twitched with subtle irritation. He maintained his pleasant expression, but it now looked slightly strained.
Of course we can't! What would happen to all that aged wine, huh?!
Not that he'd say that aloud.
"Well," Klaus said, calmly, "it's because we need information about Yggdrasil's main base. If we destroy everything here by accident, we lose any leads that might help us locate their headquarters. We need this branch intact—at least for a while."
The woman frowned, eyeing Klaus's polite posture and forced smile. Something felt... off. But the explanation was logical enough.
She nodded, though still visibly unsure.
Klaus nodded at her, silently sighing in relief.
It would've been embarrassing if they figured out the truth, right?
No one knows I'm an alcoholic, after all. Phew. Attack missed, bitch!
He grinned to himself goofily—until he noticed his subordinates staring at him with weirded-out expressions. Coughing awkwardly, he straightened up and grabbed a marker, turning to the board where he began sketching a human arm.
"All right, let's begin. All the skin you see?" He tapped the diagram. "It's actually dead stuff. The living parts of your skin begin about one millimeter beneath the surface in what I like to call the 'skin industrial complex.'"
He drew a line to separate the living cells from the dead ones and continued.
"Stem cells constantly replicate, producing new skin cells that begin their journey from the inside to the outside. Every new generation pushes the older ones upward. As they mature, these skin cells interlock and produce lamellar bodies—tiny sacs that squirt out fat to form a waterproof layer between them. Then they dry out, commit cellular suicide, and merge into a wall of tightly packed corpses. That's right—up to fifty layers of dead cells cover your body at all times, replaced constantly by newcomers rising to the surface. Every hour, you shed around two hundred million of them."
He turned back to the group, a satisfied smile on his lips.
"Any questions?"
A young man raised his hand. His brown eyes were curious, though slightly confused.
"Professor, I understand what you're trying to say, but I don't get the connection. Your research is clearly about increasing speed of regeneration, yet you're talking about dead cells."
Klaus grinned, then turned back to the board and continued sketching the internal structure of the arm he'd drawn.
"Excellent question. Yes, this is about regeneration—and what I'm about to show you will make the connection very clear."
He tilted his head back toward them and summoned Leviathan—a delicate white blade that gleamed with ethereal light. Without hesitation, Klaus sliced through his own arm. Some of the students winced, but most remained composed as they observed.
Then they saw it.
The wound closed rapidly—muscle, nerves, veins, skin, even bone—all knitting together in seconds. The arm was good as new.
Gasps broke the silence.
Klaus glanced at his fully restored limb, nodding with satisfaction.
But deep down, he knew the truth—one of his Spirit Cores was now completely drained of essence. This wasn't a repeatable trick. Not yet.
"This," he said, lifting his arm, "is what I'm talking about. While stem cells aren't the only regenerative agents in the body, they're a critical part. For us Awakened, healing is fast because of the constant flow of essence in our bodies. What would take months for a mundane human, we recover from in days."
He paused, eyes gleaming with quiet intensity.
"But what if I told you… we can do better? What I just demonstrated involved stimulating my stem cells directly with soul essence to trigger cellular regrowth. Bones, immune cells like T and B cells, neural tissue—everything was force-grown by infusing specific structures with essence. It's incredibly difficult, nearly impossible for most. But it's real."
The students sat in stunned silence, staring at his arm. While Professor Klaus was undeniably eccentric—and a massive weirdo—his experiments always yielded profound results. His innovations were cornerstones of Chaos Ascendancy's development.
Whether it was the savage combat art he dubbed Azarax's style, his violent essence bursts, or his bizzare tools—every single one had been mimicked, adapted, or integrated into their training. Though no one could truly replicate him.
Klaus was, undeniably, a genius—especially when it came to creativity and raw imagination.
But while the students were amazed, Driver frowned. Her dirty-blond hair was tied into a high ponytail, and her deep azure eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Klaus," she said, voice sharp, "you're the only person who can manipulate essence with that level of precision. And while you were performing that trick, I scanned your output. You wasted far too much essence. Even you can't sustain this technique efficiently."
She crossed her arms.
"It's unstable, inefficient, and dangerously resource-draining. I do not approve of this skill being taught to our operatives. They'll fail to perform it, waste energy, and die. The Council will deem this technique forbidden."
Klaus's pleasant expression darkened.
He clenched his jaw as her words echoed in his mind.
Months of research… down the drain? No... it just needs more time. It's inefficient now—but it'll be perfected. It has to be.
But…
Damn it, she's right. Even if I perfect this technique, only I'll be able to use it. The level of essence manipulation required to stimulate cellular activity is just too complex for others to replicate...
"Fine," he muttered. "I understand."