Chapter 15: The Art of Rest and Ruin
The heavy, soundproofed door of Room 1 clicked shut, sealing away the murmurs of the Rose Hotel lobby.
Mame let out a long, contented exhale. He untied his black silk ribbon, letting his wild hair fall loose, and unspooled his furry tail from beneath his silver sash. He crossed the opulent room, practically collapsing face-first onto the massive, plush mattress.
He didn't immediately begin cycling his soul power or practicing his Ki control. He simply buried his face in the impossibly soft pillows and relaxed.
To the cultivators of the Douluo Continent, this would be seen as a horrific waste of time. Spirit Masters of this era were obsessed with the grind. They believed that every waking second not spent meditating, fighting, or absorbing soul rings was a second lost to their rivals. They treated their bodies like engines that needed to be run at maximum capacity until they inevitably burned out.
But Mame possessed the blood of a Saiyan and the memories of a multiversal mind. He knew the absolute truth taught by the greatest martial arts masters of his past life: Work hard, study well, and eat and sleep plenty. Intense, bone-breaking exercise was only half the equation. The body grew stronger not during the tearing of the muscle, but during the rest that followed. Relaxation, mental decompression, and simply having fun were crucial to stabilizing a Singularity. If he kept his DBZ-style Zenkai Core red-lined constantly without allowing it to cool, his mind would snap long before his body did.
"Rest is training," Mame mumbled into the silk sheets, his eyes drifting shut.
His tail gave one final, lazy twitch before settling onto the mattress. The heavy, oppressive gravity of his aura completely vanished, replaced by the peaceful, even breathing of a boy who didn't have a single care in the world.
He slept for fourteen hours straight.
The Four-Eyed Owl's Hoard
The next morning, Mame was back on the streets of Suotou City, dressed in his practical dark grey and blue robes.
He had consulted the Shadow Ledger's dossier over breakfast. There was one final piece of the original timeline's script that needed to be dismantled before the Shrek entrance exams began. It wasn't a person, or a massive stockpile of metal. It was a single, unassuming rock.
Mame navigated the winding, increasingly narrow streets until he reached a quiet, slightly run-down commercial alley. Tucked away between a failing bakery and a vacant lot was a dusty, poorly lit storefront without a sign.
He pushed the wooden door open. A rusty bell clattered weakly above his head.
The inside of the shop smelled of old parchment, mildew, and cheap incense. The shelves were crammed with an absolute disaster of inventory: rusted swords, chipped porcelain vases, strange pieces of untreated beast bone, and chunks of unrefined ore. It looked like a junkyard that had been swept indoors.
Lounging in a reclining wooden chair behind the counter was a man with a distinctively sharp, square jaw and a pair of thick, crystal-rimmed glasses. He was asleep, his feet propped up on a stack of ledgers.
Flender. The "Four-Eyed Owl" and the famously stingy headmaster of Shrek Academy.
Mame didn't wake him. He simply let his Void Instinct wash over the cluttered room, his pitch-black eyes scanning the thermal and energetic signatures of the junk. Most of it really was just garbage, priced at extortionate rates to scam unwary travelers.
But tucked away on a bottom shelf, covered in a thick layer of dust, was a murky, yellow, translucent crystal about the size of a melon.
Mame walked over and picked it up. To a normal Spirit Master, it looked like a low-grade piece of impure quartz. But as Mame channeled a microscopic fraction of his soul power into his eyes, he saw them: thousands of hair-thin, incredibly dense golden strands coiled tightly within the murky crystal.
The Plate Crystal, Mame smirked. The raw material for the Dragon Beard Needles.
In the original timeline, Tang San would buy this crystal from Flender for practically nothing, break it open, and forge the indestructible golden strands into his most lethal, armor-piercing hidden weapons.
Mame wasn't going to buy it and hide it. That would just alert Tang San that someone was hunting his specific treasures. Mame was going to do something much, much worse.
He was going to leave it right here for Tang San to find.
Mame casually tucked the Plate Crystal under his arm. Then, to completely mask his true objective, he began grabbing random, overpriced junk from the shelves. A rusted breastplate, a cracked compass, three ugly wooden totems, and a bundle of dried, foul-smelling swamp weed.
He walked up to the counter and dumped the massive pile of garbage directly onto Flender's boots.
Flender jolted awake with a squawk, nearly tipping backward in his chair. He pushed his thick glasses up his nose, his eyes immediately locking onto the mountain of junk, and then onto the wealthy-looking boy standing across from him. The legendary greed of the Four-Eyed Owl instantly ignited.
"Ah! A young master with an eye for the esoteric!" Flender grinned, his square jaw stretching into a merchant's smile. "You've selected some of the finest, most ancient relics in my shop! That breastplate alone belonged to a Spirit King from the last century!"
"I doubt it," Mame said flatly. "But I have a large garden estate that needs cheap, eccentric decorations. How much for the lot?"
Flender's eyes gleamed behind his glasses. He did a rapid mental calculation, inflating the price of the literal garbage by a thousand percent. "For a discerning buyer like you? Two hundred gold spirit coins."
It was a ridiculous sum. Mame didn't even blink. He reached into his spatial ring and pulled out two solid gold ingots, slamming them onto the counter.
Flender's breath hitched. He snatched the gold ingots, producing a jeweler's loupe from his pocket to frantically inspect their purity.
While the Owl was completely distracted by the gold, Mame went to work.
He didn't move his hands. He tapped into the void essence of his first ring, folding the spatial dimensions directly inside the murky yellow Plate Crystal resting on the counter. With surgical, multiversal precision, Mame Blinked the indestructible golden strands out of the rock, teleporting them directly into his own spatial ring.
In the exact same microsecond, he replaced them. He deposited a bundle of identical-looking, gold-painted copper wires into the center of the crystal, sealing the murky quartz back around them. Finally, he pulsed a tiny fraction of his third ring's Asura Ki into the copper, super-heating and rapidly cooling the fake strands until their structural integrity was completely compromised.
To the naked eye, the Plate Crystal looked exactly the same. But if Tang San ever tried to forge those golden strands into Dragon Beard Needles, the moment they struck a target, they would shatter into harmless, brittle dust.
"Perfect purity!" Flender crowed, pocketing the ingots with terrifying speed. "The items are yours, young master! No refunds!"
Mame began sweeping the junk into his spatial ring. But as his hand brushed the sabotaged Plate Crystal, he paused, pulling his hand back with a look of feigned disgust.
"Actually," Mame sneered, turning his nose up at the rock. "Upon closer inspection, this crystal is hideous. The murky color will clash terribly with the marble in my courtyard. It looks like solidified urine."
Flender blinked. "But you already paid for it!"
"I don't care," Mame said, waving a dismissive, arrogant hand. "I've lost interest in it. You can keep the ugly rock. Put it back on your shelf. Think of it as a bonus for putting up with my change of heart."
Flender stared at the boy as if an angel of wealth had just descended from the heavens. He got to keep the two gold ingots and he got to put inventory back on the shelf to sell again?
"You are too kind, young master!" Flender beamed, quickly snatching the sabotaged Plate Crystal off the counter before the boy could change his mind. "A true gentleman!"
"Enjoy your profits," Mame smiled.
He turned and walked out of the dusty shop, the rusty bell chiming behind him. As he stepped back into the bright Suotou sunlight, a dark, rumbling chuckle vibrated in his chest.
Tang San's ultimate armor-piercing trump card was gone, replaced by a literal glass cannon. Let the "genius" from another world waste his time forging brittle copper. When the time came, Mame's Iron-Will Armor wouldn't even feel the impact.
"The stage is set," Mame whispered, looking down the street toward the Rose Hotel. "Now, I just have to wait for the actors to arrive."
Leaving the dusty, junk-filled shop of the Four-Eyed Owl behind, Mame stepped back out into the bright Suotou sunlight. He adjusted the collar of his practical dark grey and blue robes—the unremarkable attire of his "Mo" persona—and merged seamlessly with the afternoon foot traffic.
His sabotage of the Plate Crystal was complete, but a Saiyan's body required fuel, and a Singularity required specific catalysts.
For the next few hours, the boy who had just bought the continent's heavy metal supply spent his time acting like a completely ordinary, albeit heavily-appetited, traveler. He visited the sprawling open-air markets, buying up massive quantities of high-grade culinary herbs, dried spirit-beast meats, and dense, calorie-rich breads. A Saiyan metabolism burned through energy like a nuclear reactor, and if he was going to maintain his DBZ-style Zenkai Overdrive in the coming fights, he couldn't afford to run on an empty stomach.
He also purchased several bundles of common, cooling medicinal herbs—ingredients that, when mixed with his stockpiled Ice Essence Pith, would create the perfect cryogenic paste to keep his internal organs from melting when he eventually pushed his Cosmic Origin Core past its limits.
With his spatial ring fully stocked with enough food to feed a small army, Mame navigated his way back to the wealthy district.
In a quiet alley just a block away from the Rose Hotel, he tapped his spatial ring. The dark grey robes vanished, replaced by the shimmering, silver-white silk of the Untouchable Aristocrat. He smoothed out his hair, tucked his tail securely into his sash, and walked out into the street.
When he entered the hotel lobby, the manager practically tripped over himself to bow, greeting "Young Master Bai" with terrifying reverence. Mame gave a polite, dismissive nod and walked straight into Room 1, the heavy lock clicking solidly into place behind him.
The moment the door was secured, the aristocratic posture vanished.
Mame let out a heavy sigh, untying his hair and letting his brown tail drop free. He walked over to the mahogany desk in the corner of the room, pulled out a blank ledger he had purchased earlier, and dipped a quill into a pot of ink.
If he was going to dismantle the plot of this world, he couldn't afford to get his stories mixed up. The factions of the Douluo Continent were paranoid and heavily networked. He needed to compartmentalize his psychological arsenal.
With precise, deliberate strokes, Mame began to physically map out the boundaries of his alternate identities, finalizing the profiles of the masks he would wear to break the era.
The Multiversal Ledger: Operational Personas (Updated)
The Core Directive (Shared Across All Personas): The Rule of the King Beast. Mame absolutely refuses to harm the innocent or exploit the weak. Having been a powerless, starving slum child, he harbors a deep, violent hatred for bullies, slavers, and hypocrites. When confronted with injustice, he will intervene, but the method of his retaliation is strictly dictated by the mask he is wearing at the time.
1. The Everyday Wanderer (Alias: Mo)
The Look: Practical, high-quality dark grey robes with deep blue accents.
Personality Profile: "Mo" is entirely forgettable, suppressing his ego and predator instincts to act like a quiet traveler. He avoids eye contact and speaks only when necessary.
How Mo Enacts Justice: Invisible Intervention. Mo cannot blow his cover by showing superhuman strength. If he sees a mugging or an extortion, he resolves it from the shadows. He might secretly flick a pebble with enough Ki to shatter a thug's kneecap mid-stride, anonymously pay off a desperate family's debt, or leave a pouch of healing herbs on a beggar's lap before vanishing into the crowd. He is a ghost who leaves miracles in his wake.
2. The Untouchable Aristocrat (Alias: Young Master Bai)
The Look: Immaculate, silver-white silk robes, wild hair tied neatly back, tail hidden as a thick sash.
Personality Profile: "Young Master Bai" is a masterpiece of aristocratic arrogance. Impeccably polite but completely dismissive, he weaponizes his bottomless wealth and projects the aura of a heavily guarded noble to force others into submission without ever throwing a punch.
How Bai Enacts Justice: Social and Financial Humiliation. Bai fights injustice with extreme, arrogant privilege. If an arrogant noble is harassing a commoner, Bai will step in and publicly humiliate the noble for lacking "class," using his overwhelming wealth to buy the noble's favorite establishment just to ban them from it. If he sees slavers, he will buy the captives at triple the price, verbally degrade the slavers for selling "damaged goods," and then quietly let the captives go free with a pocket full of gold.
3. The Phantom of Suotou (Alias: Lord Shenyuan)
The Look: Pitch-black canvas, bandaged forearms, featureless black wooden mask. Voice altered by Ki to a metallic rasp.
Personality Profile: "Lord Shenyuan" (The Abyss) is a cold, calculating machine. He operates purely on logic, monopolies, and contracts, acting as an industrial titan who buys up the continent's resources.
How Shenyuan Enacts Justice: Systemic Crushing Weight. The Phantom doesn't care about street-level crime; he targets corrupt institutions. If a guild is exploiting its workers or a corrupt magistrate is bleeding a town dry with taxes, Shenyuan uses his monopolies to choke their supply lines. He will bankrupt a corrupt organization overnight or force them into ironclad, blood-bound contracts that strip their power and distribute their wealth to the workers, all while remaining an unfeeling, faceless CEO of ruin.
4. The Crimson Demon (Alias: Xue Yin)
The Look: Blood-red matte robes, jagged crimson demon half-mask. Voice altered to a metallic resonance.
Personality Profile: "Xue Yin" (Blood Shadow) is a waking nightmare used exclusively for the underworld. He is dramatic, ruthless, and terrifyingly casual about violence, operating on the principle of absolute terror.
How Xue Yin Enacts Justice: Brutal Vigilantism. When the innocent are preyed upon by the criminal underworld, Xue Yin becomes the monster that the monsters fear. If a gang is terrorizing a slum or running a human trafficking ring, Xue Yin doesn't call the authorities. He butchers the gang leaders, shatters their Martial Souls, and hangs them from the rafters to send a bloody message. He ensures the underworld is too terrified of the Crimson Demon to ever touch the weak again.
5. The True Face: Mame (The Apex Hybrid)
The Look: Unbound black-and-purple wild hair, brown monkey tail swaying freely, eyes flashing with the silver light of a Singularity.
Personality Profile: Driven by a primal hunger for battle (Zenkai Overdrive), he views the world with the calculating eyes of a King Beast. He is fiercely loyal to his "pack" (Da Ming, Er Ming, Xiao Wu) and deeply disgusted by the hypocrisy of the human world.
How Mame Enacts Justice: Absolute, Overwhelming Force. When the masks drop, there are no games, no contracts, and no stealth. If someone threatens his pack, or if an injustice is so vile it triggers his King Beast instincts, Mame acts as a natural disaster. He uses his raw multiversal power—Beast Ceros, Destructo-Discs, and Dragon-Ape Force—to physically obliterate the threat from existence.