Chapter : 689

He pushed himself away from the desk, the legs of his chair scraping harshly against the floorboards. He began to pace the room, his mind a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts. The soldier in him saw a trap. A "certain fate" sounded suspiciously like a well-planned ambush. His enemies, the ghosts from his past, were patient and cunning. Perhaps they knew of his interest in Zakaria and had laid a snare for him. To walk into it would be suicide.

The engineer in him, however, saw the necessity. The Lilith Stones were the key. Without them, his greatest ambitions, his most powerful weapons, would remain nothing more than ink on parchment. To abandon the quest now would be to accept stagnation, to cede the technological advantage, and to doom himself to a long, slow defeat.

And the man, the human being who had lived and died once already, wrestled with the very concept of fate. He had died an old man in a comfortable bed in his first life, a peaceful end to a life of war and innovation. He had been reborn into this world of magic and intrigue. If fate was real, was this all part of its grand design? Was he merely playing out a role that had been written for him long ago?

He stopped his pacing, his eyes falling on the reflection of his own face in the dark glass of the window. He saw the face of a young man, but the eyes were ancient, filled with the weariness of a hundred battles and the fire of a thousand ambitions. He was not the same man who had died on Earth. He was not the same boy who had been a disgrace to his family. He was a new creation, a chimera of past and present, of science and magic. And a chimera did not follow the rules. A chimera made its own.

A slow, cold smile touched his lips. The fear and frustration began to recede, replaced by a familiar, invigorating feeling: defiance.

The System, in its infinite, logical wisdom, had made a critical miscalculation. It had presented him with a warning, intending it to be a deterrent, a signpost of danger. But it had misjudged the core programming of its user. For a man like Major General KM Evan, for a man like Lloyd Ferrum, an unavoidable challenge was not a reason to retreat. It was a reason to advance.

He had been given a gift. The Administrator believed it was keeping the future a secret, but it had actually revealed the most important piece of intelligence he could have asked for. He now knew, with absolute certainty, that his trip to Zakaria was not just a simple procurement mission. It was the next major turning point of his life. It was a place of destiny.

He would not be walking into it blind. He would walk into it prepared. He would sharpen his blades, upgrade his abilities, and marshal his resources. He would treat Zakaria not as a friendly marketplace, but as a hostile battlefield. He would assume every shadow held a knife, every friendly smile was a mask. The warning was not a cage; it was a whetstone on which he would sharpen his own will.

He turned his focus back to the silent, waiting interface in his mind.

“Administrator,” he said, his mental voice calm, steady, and filled with a new, unshakeable resolve. “Your warning is noted and logged. Now, access the System Shop. I have a great deal of money to spend, and it seems I have a date with destiny to prepare for.”

[Acknowledged,] the monotone voice replied, without a hint of surprise. [Displaying System Shop interface. Please make your selection.]

The choice was made. The die was cast. He would walk the path that was laid out for him, not as a pawn of fate, but as a heavily armed and deeply paranoid conqueror, ready to meet whatever destiny awaited him and, if necessary, to break it over his knee.

The study, once a space of frantic creation and then of chilling prophecy, now transformed into an arsenal. The schematics for the Aegis suit were neatly stacked and put away. The maps of Zakaria were rolled and stored. Lloyd Ferrum, seated once more at his desk, was no longer an engineer or a strategist. He was a soldier preparing his kit for a high-risk insertion into hostile territory. His primary weapons in this war were not swords or spirits, but the vast, accumulated capital he had earned through his commercial empire and the brutal grind in his Soul Farm. It was time to go shopping.

Chapter : 690

The System Shop interface bloomed in his mind’s eye, a familiar, comforting sight. It was an ethereal, multi-leveled construct, a "Shopping Tree" of glowing nodes and branching pathways, each one representing a potential upgrade, a new ability, or a powerful artifact. For weeks, he had treated it with a miser’s caution, hoarding his System Coins, saving them for a rainy day. Now, listening to the quiet hum of the interface, he realized a hurricane was on the horizon, and it was time to spend his fortune.

His gaze swept past the upgrade paths for his existing powers. Enhancing his Steel Blood or his spirits was a known quantity, a linear progression of strength. But the warning from the Administrator had changed his calculus. A "certain fate," a "nexus event"—these were not things to be met with simple brute force. They suggested a more complex challenge, a puzzle that might require a new kind of key. His current arsenal was potent but specialized. He had overwhelming destructive power in Iffrit, surgical speed in Fang Fairy, and tactical control in his Steel Blood. But he lacked a crucial element.

He lacked information.

In his life as KM Evan, he had commanded armies and built weapons of mass destruction, but his greatest victories had always been won not on the battlefield, but in the intelligence phase that preceded it. Knowledge was the ultimate force multiplier. The ability to see what your enemy could not, to understand their weaknesses before the first blow was ever struck, was the key to absolute victory. Here, in this world of magic and hidden powers, that principle was even more vital.

He had faced it himself. His cousin Rayan had been defeated not by superior strength, but by the unexpected, perception-shattering power of his Black Ring Eyes. The Curse Knight at the Academy had been a formidable foe, but its true strength lay in its mysterious, life-draining aura—a power that had baffled the Royal Lion Guard because they could not understand its nature.

He needed a tool for analysis. A way to cut through the deceptions, the illusions, and the esoteric abilities of his future opponents. He needed to be able to see the truth of things.

His focused will navigated the Shopping Tree, bypassing the flashy, explosive abilities in the "Elemental Manifestation" branch and the powerful artifacts in the "Armaments" section. He delved deeper, into a more obscure and less-traveled part of the tree, a section labeled [VOID POWER: ACQUISITION].

Here, the System offered something truly rare: the chance to purchase an entirely new, third Void Power. It was an incredibly expensive option, a fundamental rewriting of his own spiritual DNA. The description warned that integrating a new, non-hereditary Void Power was a painful and taxing process. But the potential rewards were immense. It would grant him a versatility that few in this world could even dream of.

He found what he was looking for in a sub-category titled ‘Cognitive and Perceptual Enhancements.’ Most of the abilities were passive—things like ‘Eidetic Memory Engram’ or ‘Accelerated Probability Calculus.’ But one glowed with a soft, clinical, blue-white light that called to the scientist in his soul.

The ability was named [All-Seeing Eye]. The cost was staggering, a price that would consume the vast majority of his current liquid assets. But the description was exactly what he needed.

[Void Power: All-Seeing Eye]

[Rank: F (Upgradeable)]

[Type: Medical / Analytical / Tactical]

[Description: Grants the user a form of enhanced, multi-layered perception. When activated, the user’s eyes can perceive realities beyond the normal spectrum of light. Allows for a detailed, real-time scan of biological and structural entities. Can be used to diagnose illnesses, identify internal injuries, analyze material compositions, and pinpoint structural weaknesses. At higher ranks, can detect the flow of spirit power, identify magical enchantments, and perceive flaws in an opponent’s technique.]

[Warning: Initial activation and prolonged use can cause significant mental strain and sensory overload. User discretion is advised.]

Lloyd’s breath caught in his throat. It was perfect. It was a diagnostic tool, a combat scanner, and a material analyzer all rolled into one. It was an X-ray, an MRI, and a spectral analyzer from his old world, all powered by his own will.

With this power, he could look at a charging knight and not just see the man, but see the hairline fracture in his breastplate from a previous battle. He could look at a powerful mage and see the precise flow of spirit energy through their body, identifying the moment they were about to cast a spell. He could look at a patient and diagnose a hidden sickness without a single invasive test. He could look at the mysterious curse that had killed Pia and, perhaps, have seen the way to dismantle it.