Chapter 121 I'm Sorry, But You No Longer Exist

"Can I at least talk to Pagan before I get it done?" Ghost asked after a moment had passed.

"Hmm, I don't think he came back from his work last night," Lucius replied, realizing that he hadn't seen Pagan when he woke up.

"His work?"

"I had him building some structures for the shrooms to sleep in," he explained.

"Pagan can build now? I'm impressed, I wouldn't have thought that that lazy idiot would be able to carry around all those materials like you do," Ghost commented.

"Carry around materials? As if. The shrooms are the ones carrying them. Also, he isn't building the way I used to, we learned a new method from those creatures," he explained, using Elmando to command two vines to snake toward him from a nearby tree.

"You can control plants?" she asked in awe.

"Indeed," Lucius replied, making the vines snake up Ghost's leg, and wrap around her body.

"I'm going to start researching a means of weaponizing it. Right now it would be more viable to use my claws," he explained, trying to tighten the vines' grip on Ghost but finding that it wasn't strong enough.

"In fact, I might as well give it to you now," he said, before dismissing his command over the vines.

He quickly purchased the Elmando skill from the system shop and gifted it to Ghost.

"The system will explain to you how it works. It shouldn't be too hard. Even Pagan got it within seconds," he said.

Though after a minute had passed, Ghost was still unable to properly use the skill.

"I don't get it. I have to spread out my mind? How do I spread out my mind? What is this?" she asked in frustration.

~Ah, she isn't accustomed to her earth sense yet. That must be why,~ Lucius thought to himself. Though a thought lingered at the back of his head.

What if Pagan was just a prodigy when it came to these kinds of things? After all, Pagan could perform newly created spells just seconds after reading them off the index. And though the system explained how spells worked, he knew that it wasn't as simple as just that.

~We'll see once the others get their cruxes. If the others really can't learn things like this as fast as he can, then it might prove to be a hindrance,~ he thought to himself.

"So are we going to go find Pagan?" she asked, apparently giving up on Elmando for now.

"No. I don't want the shrooms to know of your existence. In fact, I don't want anyone besides those in our council knowing of your existence," he explained.

"Remember when I said you were going to be part of a secret division?" he asked, to which Ghost nodded her head.

"The commune will soon begin growing at a tremendous rate. And though I will try to only have those that I trust evolve, there's no ignoring the fact that some may begin to put their own goals above that of the commune," he began explaining.

"And that's okay, but I need someone to keep an eye on that and make sure it doesn't cause discord. You and the others that will be in the secret division will live for that purpose, and as such your existences will be erased from the commune's record," he said after some thought.

Ghost was silent at this, taking a moment to process it all.

"This is what your name means. To be an apparition, a seemingly dead, not existent being. This is part of the list of things you pledged to do... to make sacrifices for the camp," he added.

He gave Ghost some time to think things over, before walking with her into the main cottage where Alpha and Hannibal were sleeping.

"It'll only take a few days. When you get back, a lot will have changed and I'll need you to be ready," Lucius said, before buying a solis fragment and sending it to her.

***

After checking Ghost's status and making sure she was okay, he left for the shroom camp with the baby arachnid in his hand.

As got to the first camp, or the first pillar as he was calling it, he found that exact replicas of the structure he had created yesterday had been constructed.

This was good and all, however, there were three such structures in this camp, which made Lucius wonder just how many mushrooms had been brought yesterday.

"Oi, you," he called out, noticing what seemed like a guard standing outside one of the structures. It turned drowsily and for a moment it couldn't even process who it was talking to. However, the moment it came to its senses, it bowed, before announcing what sounded like a recitation.

"I greet you Lighted One," it said.

"Yes, yes, I greet you too. Where is Pagan?" Lucius asked.

"Oh, the Lighted One's supreme servant? He is in the eighth pillar, they are yet to complete their structures," the shroom explained.

~Jesus Pagan,~ Lucius sighed inwardly, before calling out his crux. He turned it to its eased mode, and cast spacial solar cleanse in a 6-meter radius, covering every single shroom in the area.

~T-Thank you Lighted One!~ the creature stuttered, bowing multiple times even as Lucius left.

~Well, it will be good practice anyway,~ he thought to himself.

As he passed by every camp he cast a spacial cleanse, taking on the fatigue of the shrooms. And though his mental strength had increased quite a bit since he had first gotten the crux, it was beginning to take a toll... even though he was using the lowered version.

~Okay, that's enough practice for now,~ he thought, realizing that his reserves were almost completely emptied.

By this time the eighth camp was in sight, and Lucius could see Pagan currently morphing their third structure.

"Oh Lighted One," Pagan said, before genuflecting. The shrooms in the area did the same and only got up after Pagan had done so.

"Have you been working all night? You should get some rest," Lucius said, taking over from Pagan.

"Thank you Lighted One. These creatures are at least useful when it comes to gathering resources, so I thought I would take advantage of that," Pagan explained, his speech a little slurred.

"I see," Lucius replied.

~This can't be normal,~he thought to himself. ~How was it possible that Pagan could stay up all night doing this?~

And he was right, it just wasn't physically possible. The fact was that Pagan had passed out several times, and upon waking got back to work all in the name of the Lighted One.

At first, Lucius had thought that this whole 'Lighted One' thing was just a weird gimmick that Pagan was trying to pull off. But now that he thought about it more carefully, there might be something more to him.

~He mentioned something about 'Fae' when I first formed the council. Back then I had been too busy trying to think of ways to fortify the camp to ask about it. But maybe that has something to do with this whole thing he has going on,~ Lucius thought to himself before voicing it.

"Pagan, what are the fae?"