Hearing his boss Mr. Cod's words, the black-haired, brown-eyed Benson first looked over the two men across from him, then asked in confusion:
"Mr. Cod, are you transferring the trading company to these two gentlemen?"
"That's right. I've reached retirement age. What I should be thinking about now isn't business matters, but my retirement plans. Benson, you're my excellent employee. I hope you'll have a better future under Mr. George's management."
Hearing his boss's words, Benson nodded thoughtfully, then smiled and extended his hand to George:
"Hello, Mr. George. I'm Benson Moretti. It's my honor to serve under your leadership."
"Hello, Mr. Benson. I look forward to your future performance."
Seeing the well-spoken, courteous young gentleman extend his hand, George also smiled and reached out, gripping the other's hand firmly.
On the soft sofa, Nimrod set down his red tea and stared at Benson Moretti with curious eyes.
If he wasn't mistaken, this man should be Klein's older brother. He hadn't expected that the import-export trading company he'd acquired would turn out to be the same one where Benson Moretti worked in the original story.
This was a bit too coincidental. Could someone have arranged this...?
After thinking it over, Nimrod dismissed the notion. Given his special nature, unless the Visionary had sufficient understanding of him and personally orchestrated fate, it would be impossible to deceive him.
A mere Author couldn't arrange his destiny - not even Adam could manage that. This was a difference in status and authority.
Actually, these past few days, Nimrod had resigned himself to his rather "bargain-bin" pathway and source essence.
Though he now possessed a Uniqueness, he couldn't utilize it at all. The "Blank" Uniqueness required a Sequence 1 characteristic as a foundation to function. In other words, until he reached Sequence 1, this Uniqueness was as good as useless.
The "Blank" Uniqueness was very special. Its authority and symbolic range were abstract, allowing it to be compatible with extraordinary characteristics from all pathways.
If it absorbed three different Sequence 1 extraordinary characteristics from different pathways, the "Blank" Uniqueness could transform into the Uniqueness of whichever pathway those three Sequence 1 characteristics belonged to.
This meant that after absorbing the "Author," "Worm of Time," and "Mercury Snake" Sequence 1 characteristics, the "Blank" Uniqueness could switch between the Visionary, Error, and Wheel of Fortune Uniqueness at will.
This was just like how the White Tower pathway could simulate other extraordinary pathway abilities, except his pathway's simulation was more comprehensive - it could even simulate the authority of Uniqueness itself.
It was exactly like a bargain store - patch this here, patch that there, ultimately creating his own mismatched pathway.
Choosing extraordinary characteristics that matched his own symbolism was of utmost importance. Although the "Blank" Uniqueness could transform into any pathway's Uniqueness, its essential symbolism and authority had never changed.
His incomplete source essence, still in the process of self-completion and gestating another pathway, could barely produce any influence outside the Mirror World.
His utilization of this source essence could only be like Klein in the original story - temporarily elevating his status above Sefirah Castle to do things like prayers, responses, and creating charms.
He had a premonition that the method for his source essence to complete itself and gestate the other pathway was related to the Mirror World that came with his Mirror King's Palace.
If he could transform the Mirror World from illusion into something sufficiently real, his source essence should be able to complete itself, clearing the path to becoming an Old One.
As for how to transform from illusion to reality, according to Nimrod's calculations, he would still need to utilize anchors. In this world where all things possessed divinity, the cognitive faith of ordinary people - that is, anchors - played a tremendous role.
The phrase "I think, therefore I am" wasn't just words in the world of mysteries. The faith of numerous ordinary people could even influence the state and cognition of Sequence 0 beings themselves.
This power of the mental domain was the most mysterious and hardest to guard against.
This was also why he wanted to obtain "Author" characteristics. Among the five pathways of the omniscient and omnipotent God, White Tower represented omniscience, Sun represented foundation, Tyrant represented matter, Hanged Man represented omnipotence, and Visionary represented the mind, holding dominion over creation.
If he could become an Author, with the Blank Uniqueness transformed into a Visionary Uniqueness, he could initially wield the authority of imagination, creating numerous lives like the island Adam had once imagined to populate his world.
When that time came, he would send the lives he'd imagined into the real world and connect the real world with the Mirror World, allowing ordinary people to freely enter and exit.
For those imagined lives, he could use the Author's ability to arrange their fates, making them interact sufficiently with people from the real world.
Once more and more people entered and exited the Mirror World, and its influence gradually expanded, he could use these ordinary people's cognition to gradually complete his source essence, making his world transform from illusion to reality.
In the end, he would make his Mirror World become a unique world similar to the spirit world or subspace - dependent on the real world yet independent from it.
This method was inspired by the mysterious servant ritual. In the original story, Utopia was a good example - except one involved controlled marionettes while the other involved imagined false lives.
"A world needs at least one planet, no matter how shabby. This is much more troublesome than Klein's single city.
Time, fate, and rules are manageable, but how to handle the world's most basic settings? Should I directly copy novels or comics from my previous life? Or turn it into those virtual reality games?
Urban fantasy or mythological revival?
Beautiful water world or Jurassic dreams?
Uh, I'm thinking too much. Let me first get the Author characteristics. If I can't get them, I'll have to consider going after Bernadette's Pale Emperor characteristics.
Worst case, I'll just make it an undead world."
The more Nimrod thought about it, the more excited he became. He seemed to already see himself punching the Celestial Worthy, kicking God, and flipping over the Mother Goddess with his posterior. His face couldn't help but break into a smug smile, and he couldn't control his laughter.
"Kekeke..." The sinister laughter carried over, making George, Benson, and Cod all feel their scalps tingle as they sucked in cold air.
Seeing that he seemed to have gotten carried away with his fantasies, Nimrod covered his mouth with his fist and coughed, then explained with an embarrassed smile to the three men's awkward expressions:
"Sorry, I thought of something happy. I didn't disturb you, did I?"
"Oh, it's fine, Mr. Nimrod. You can laugh however you want - this is your company," Cod replied in a good mood, indicating he could laugh however he pleased.