After Rudeus ended his call with the Ghost Rider letting him know that he is in for the hunt of Blackheart, he made his way towards his base through a boom tube. He had some preparations to do to make sure that things don't turn south in the worst-case scenario.

"Hello there," He said to Forge in a joking manner after stepping out of his boom tube.

"Lord Atem. I didn't see you there. The new research topics have kept me busy especially the things that you found at Dracula's castle. There were many complicated mystical artifacts and even some quite advanced World War technologies and weapons developed by Hydra in Dracula's treasury we loo... borrowed." Forge said not getting the joke.

He even made sure to use the word 'borrow' as he knew that the god in front of him didn't like the term 'steal' and didn't want to be called a thief while still being a god. He always made the fact clear that he only borrowed stuff and that too for the 'greater' good but never stole them.

"Where's Selene?" Rudeus asked as he looked around to find his first and most dedicated priestess.

"Oh, the Black Queen is in room no MR2, trying to research the Philosopher's Stone and its secrets. She has been there for the past three days, not even coming out for meals." Forge informed Rudeus.

"Oh, I see. I guess an intervention is required. Fine, you continue your work, I'll go and see what's up with Selene." Rudeus said as he went towards room MR2. The weird name of the room was due to the fact that it was the second room in the facility meant for mystical rituals.

'Maybe I should expand the facility more in a honeycomb-like underground structure like that of the Umbrella headquarters in the Resident Evil movies. I am really tempted to use the Sunstone crystal and make something like the Fortress of Solitude as my main base but unfortunately, I can't.

I have plans for that. The crystal can even take over an entire planet in the comics, so why waste it just making a single building? After all, there is a big moving celestial-like cosmic energy containing bad father planet that I can use it on after all." Rudeus thought as he remembered about the crystal lying in his inventory while walking to where Selene was.

As he entered the ritual room using his divine spirit perk without even knocking, he noticed Selene floating while sitting in a lotus position in the air with an old book in front of her and the rainbow-colored Philosopher's stone floating above the book.

"Good morning master. Forgive me for my absence for the last few days but it seems I had lost myself in magical research once again. After all, I had never thought that I would again get to see something as amazing as the Bloodstone and the Lifeline tablet. This little stone can be said to produce the perfected version of those immortality serums that those Greeks were so obsessed with in my time after they saw me turning immortal." Selene said as she reminisced about her early years.

"First it's evening actually. And second, Lifeline Tablet and Bloodstone? Do I need to know?" Rudeus asked as he looked at Selene with one of his brows raised.

He had heard about the Bloodstone before in his past life. It belonged to a female superhero monster-hunter of Marvel which gave her special powers and immortality. But he had never heard about anything called the Lifeline tablet before.

"Well, the Bloodstone was a piece of mystical meteorite that fell on Earth and was used by monster hunters and sorcerers to increase their powers and abilities. The Lifeline tablet on the other hand is supposed to have different formulas etched on it like that of immortality, evolution, resurrection, and other stuff. It even has a twin opposite the Deathline tablet which deals with poisons and diseases. Although, I have never seen either tablet with my own eyes, just heard the stories and myths.

This particular stone here however seems like it was made by somebody after combining some of the knowledge from the Lifeline tablet and another separate process to achieve immortality, more specifically the process that I came up with and used in ancient Greece by sacrificing an entire city full of people. The person did exactly that but instead of absorbing all the life force into himself risking possible failure since not everyone is like me who can absorb life energy with their meta abilities, they stored it in a crystal through a certain process to make it even more useful and versatile." Selene spoke in slight admiration.

"..." Rudeus didn't say anything as he just stared at Selene's face with a blank expression.

"Look master, I understand how it might sound to you. That I sacrificed an entire city and all its people just to achieve immortality but trust me, I was in a dark place at that time. I really lacked any goal or determination in my life. My wish to achieve immortality had slowly become an obsession because for me that was my only goal. But it's different now. Now my goal is... you." Selene said it like she had just attained enlightenment while staring directly into his eyes.

"I was not judging you. I was just thinking that you are really a very talented sorceress. I should perhaps schedule a meeting between Morgana and you. I am sure you guys will kick it off as the toppers in the field of mysticism." Rudeus joked.

"Truthfully I really do wanna meet her. I am sure that as an individual sorceress, she is way better than me in the field currently although it pains me to admit it. But I think I am not too far behind. I think she can help me with some of my magical theories too. By the way, master what about the sarcophagus you brought from Dracula's castle? I sense a powerful presence from it. Aren't you gonna open it?" Selene asked Rudeus curiously.

"No. I am too occupied by important events right now that require my immediate attention. Plus I need to learn some magic real soon. I can't give my essential time to a royal entitled succubus princess. She had lived in that sarcophagus for multiple centuries, maybe even a few millennia, I am sure she can adjust for a few more months." Rudeus dismissed Selene's worries.

"I see." Selene simply said a single word as she believed in Rudeus and knew that whatever he would do would be for the 'greater' good, his greater good that is.

"Anyways I was here to tell you that I'll be going in a battle against a certain demon prince. Perhaps, you have heard of him. His name is Blackheart, the son of Mephisto. His incarnation on Earth is really weak right now. So I can probably win without many hiccups, especially with my new Ghost Rider friend. But what I wanted to know was if you had anything magical that could help me banish him back to hell or seal him?" Rudues asked her with a serious expression.

He would have asked Morgana but contacting her in Otherworld and then her coming to this dimension would take a lot of time. He didn't have that time since he was gonna battle Blackheart tonight. So he needed some sort of solution urgently right now to get rid of that guy for a long time or maybe even permanently.

"..." Selene couldn't speak as she had to take some time to digest what she heard. But ultimately she didn't comment on anything as she just accepted the fact and moved on.

"Well, Blackheart as far as my knowledge goes isn't your conventional everyday demon. He doesn't even have anything resembling a soul. He is just a concept, specifically the concept of suffering given form, like his father who is more or less the concept of evil, albeit he is on a much much weaker level than his father.

But you are in luck. Because while I was trying to 'reverse engineer' this stone as the kids nowadays call it, although I still haven't succeeded yet, I have figured out the method of absorbing the life force or life energy of beings and storing it in an inanimate object. This won't work on super powerful creatures or beings but against a weakened Blackheart, it's got plenty of chance to work." Selene said as she handed over an amber-colored rock to him.

"I designed that crystal based on the design of this Philosopher's stone to try to actively suck any type of 'living' or sentient mystical energy towards it so that it can be used later like a battery much like how the original stone is used as a battery to store 'life'. But unfortunately, it wasn't powerful enough since life energy or any type of sentient mystical energy in it gets degraded and results in a sort of raw destructive energy. In one word it turns into an unstable bomb." Selene laughed awkwardly.

"Oh cool. That means not only that Blackheart dies but I can also make myself my own personal supernatural demonic bomb if I just manage to trap him into this. But how does it work again?" Rudeus asked in utter amazement.

"Well, Blackheart won't exactly die permanently since I am sure that shrewd demons like him always keep some backups like storing part of his core demonic concept true form in a different dimension like Hell or something. But this will weaken him a lot and maybe even send him into a demonic coma. As for how it will work, I'll teach you the method now. It's actually really quite easy to use once you know its basic concept and principles." Selene began to explain to him about the crystal which took him about two hours to understand and gave him a massive headache.

'Maybe I am not an innate magical genius like those MCs in novels and fanfictions since I took about two hours to understand just how one single fcking magic crystal works. And even then I got a massive headache. I feel like a tenth-grade student once again who doesn't understand a single thing the teacher is saying and is just trying to make sense of which subjects the professor is actually teaching.' Rudeus complained in his mind.

When he was done with receiving his lesson from Selene and had completely understood how this defective crystal worked, it was already night and close to the scheduled time he and Blaze had decided on the meeting.

He would meet him in the Caretaker's cemetery that Blaze had already given him the location of. He first opened a boom tube to a city alley and went to the nearby Starbucks to get a cup of coffee to control his headache before directly opening a boom tube to the cemetery.

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