"Well, the creator should be a constellation...so it would be insulting if they couldn’t at least do this much?" Ezra comforted himself as such, taking a minute to ease his body.

As the final Nascent-level Madman was vanquished, silence reigns.

The once thunderous barrage of beams and seismic chaos had dulled to mere echoes in the wind.

But his expression remained taut—focused.

His eyes turned toward the distant ridge the fleeing Madman had tried to reach. Something was there.

Ezra’s figure blurs as he takes to a sprint and reappears in a blur of crimson light atop the jagged formation.

Moments later, he finds the opening.

A fractured portion of the mountainside that led into darkness.

He descends.

—--------

The passage was tight and metallic veins webbed across the rocky walls.

Gradually, the temperature dropped, and the scent of scorched metal thickened.

Light sources embedded in the stone flickered as he passed—reactivated perhaps, by his presence.

But to his mild surprise, no resistance came.

No Madmen, no sentry drones, no traps. Nothing.

He walked in silence until he reached the cavern’s end, unveiling the facility hidden beneath the mountains as no element of obstruction lay in his path.

Upon entering, Ezra does a mental survey, noting the manufacturing factory in its familiar black gleam with patches of bright green light glowing at certain sections.

These lights served to indicate it’s currently active state.

Unlike the last factory Ezra had seen and taken, this one...feels different.

Larger. Yes.

He stood before a colossal underground chamber fairly empty with scraps of madmen limbs and heads littering about.

The bright green light reflected silhouettes of mechanical arms moving in rigid coordination as they pieced together an unknown object.

Ezra’s brows drew together.

He hadn’t come here out of curiosity.

The three Nascent Madmen had been his goal, and they were safely inducted into his Sovereign Universe.

But leaving this behind? Allowing the production to continue?

Unwise and blatantly irresponsible.

Whatever the Madmen were trying to defend or reach here clearly had more significance than the previous sites.

And with the factory still humming with activity, there was no telling what could emerge if he left it unchecked.

Besides, Zydrax would surely find it useful.

Brandishing Skyfall, Ezra massages his right shoulder as he walks towards the factory, searching for the various powerlines lined up underground in charge of supplying energy to the factory.

"I should hurry up"

—-----

In surprising fashion, the factory responds in kind.

Sudden clacks and hisses echoed through the chamber as layers of the factory’s walls folded, unveiling numerous mounted cannons.

While individually tiny, the cannon heads numbering more than 100, swivel in his direction, with more than half locking onto him.

On cue, the underground cavern lit up as more than fifty cannons shot out beams of light green simultaneously, leaving Ezra to weave in between rain of attacks like an acrobatic snake.

As the beams dug into the surrounding rock and destroyed, the possibility of the cavern collapsing on itself awakened in Ezra’s mind.

But thanks to <Gatekeeper>, he keeps on his offense.

Following this, the factory abruptly surged with intensity, and little silhouette Ezra could make out, say the mechanical arms moving at much faster speeds.

In the midst of his contemplation, a new madman nascent enters the fray, immediately launching itself towards Ezra.

’Hmm. This has become a bit difficult’

It would seem as such, except just moments later, the madmen throws itself directly at him, allowing him to easily send it into the sovereign universe.

After this, new Madmen began arriving without pause, launching themselves towards Ezra.

A beam scorched the air inches from Ezra’s face.

He ducked, twisted, and sent a retaliatory arc of energy slicing through the first attacker.

The situation would seem dire, if not that Ezra had already seen through these so-called nascent realm madmen.

They were nascent in rank, yes—but rough, inefficient.

Clearly, their creation had been rushed and even their bodies felt unstable.

But while this meant they were far less troublesome than their earlier counterparts, it also means they could easily explode.

Therefore, Ezra couldn’t simply brute force his way through, his attacks needed precision and grace to avoid getting caught in a nasty explosion.

’I take it back, this has become a real pain!’

Ezra raised both hands, his fingers splayed.

Dozens of thin blood lines danced into the air, weaving between beams, metal, and limbs.

He controlled them like strings—piercing processors, lacing into joints, severing weak cores.

Still, it’s not easy.

The beams, though lacking the precision of the original three, flooded the room relentlessly with some occasionally grazing him.

While not lethal to him, it was definitely annoying.

In the end, while trying to ensure the most optimum results, it took Ezra more than a full hour to end things.

In return, none of the unstable madmen blew up, with them all being inducted, and at the end, so was the factory.

With the presence of two or perhaps three more factories to induct, Ezra opted to rest for a bit.

While not physically restrained, main high concentration for over an hour left him mentally exhausted with his energy reserves also at much lower levels.

—-------

After resting, he heads out and repeats his actions twice.

For these, he spends a bit below half an hour by simply concealing himself before reaching the factory and forcefully inducting it into the sovereign universe.

In this case, he had to deal with massive head, body aches and internal wounds afterwards as he finds out that inducting things rooted to a spot comes with its own price.

Regardless, done with things, he activates <Gatekeeper> and returns to the Sovereign Universe.

—----------

Arriving, Ezra teleports to the planet where Zydrax tinkered with the madmen.

Upon arriving, a familiar tone resounds in his mind.

[That took you quite a bit] Zydrax notes in an ambiguous tone,

"They were more stubborn than I anticipated" Ezra replied, sitting on the edge of a floating platform.

[I noticed] Zydrax’s tone was accommodating. [Thank you for your hard work]

"It’s nothing" Ezra waves it off. "Just do your part"

[Sure. I must say though, you brought back more than I’d dared to expect]

"Hmph" he shrugs. "I figured they would be useful" Ezra said, stretching his arms and letting out a breath.

[Good. Now to finish recalibrating your communicator, this shouldn’t take more than ten minutes]

"Alright"

Few minutes later...

[It’s done, you don’t have worry about it anymore]

Nodding, Ezra fires off new commands.

"You should do the same for Frederick, and the rest. I don’t want any loose ends"

[I will see to it]

—--------

Minutes later, he was gone again.

Through the crimson shimmer of <Gatemark>, Ezra returned to the Crux Nebula.

The long distance of travel leaves him groggy, disoriented and slightly convulsing.

Other than that, his body has been fully restored.

Teleporting once more, he arrived just outside the boundaries of the Scarlet Dragon Clan’s territory.

Tomorrow, he will begin setting up the trade network.

Sidal’s list should be close to completion. Frederick would handle the rest.

Three Madmen now resided in his Sovereign Universe, each a miniature war machine with immense destructive capability.

He had barely scratched the surface of their potential, and already his mind was teeming with possibilities: defense and attacking units and perhaps even raw components for mass producing weapons utilizing the same energy beams.

But while easily imagined, actual realisation would prove much more difficult.

For now, he still had to wait to hear from Zydrax to confirm whether or not such ideas could truly be actualized.

’I wonder how far along Frederick and the others are with learning a new language’ he muses. ’Well, Sidal will inform me in due time, so I should just wait’

’Besides, I still have secret realms to explore and plunder. Not to mention, my own strength has also been stagnant recently...well, I intend to only further my cultivation by gathering more followers, but I can definitely work on my energy and elemental control’

Ezra walks to his room pondering many things.

It wasn’t just business that needed preparation.

No matter how quiet he wanted to play it, Ezra knew his meteoric rise during the entrance trials had put a target on his back.

Defeating the top ranked geniuses had not only drawn attention, but also resentment.

And resentment had a way of festering into knives in the dark.

Well, not that he was apprehensive about such a thing.

No matter if another nascent could even best him, they definitely couldn’t kill him.

In regards to his lack of control over his elemental affinities, he had a few ideas, but he had to confirm certain details to ultimately decide which way to go about it.

At this point, he steps into his room

’For the secret realm, I should talk to Yara... and maybe the others as well. Each of them rose to the top for a reason, they could make good allies’

"Whew..." Ezra exhales, collapsing into his bed, "Let’s do this step by step, time is on my side"