The call with Rudra gave Max a lot of clarity on some things, however, some important questions remained unanswered.

He could not ask Rudra about the secret to taming the seeds and he could not ask him about the best position to implant the seeds into his body.

He could not ask him about the 'contingency' plan to put in place incase he went insane by consuming the seeds, nor could he talk about the events which occured when Sebastian and Severus touched the seeds only once.

What he did gain was a roadmap to becoming a celestial and all the things he must achieve before ascending and based on a rough estimate, Max felt that it would take him roughly ten years to complete all the tasks that Rudra had assigned him and ascend to the celestial realm.

In ten years time, apart from everything that Rudra had asked him to do, he needed to make sure that Jake could take over the reigns as the next Supreme Lord, that Kremeth could become the next vampire king and that his other kids and family members would be fine even after his ascension.

He needed to create more deterrents for the enemies of the house and groom Kartikeya into the next Strongest Warrior of the universe.

" Hmm, seems like I will become a lot busier from now on…" Max thought as he began organising the information in his head and started to plan the best course of action.

*********

( Meanwhile Kremeth Junior )

Kremeth had been taught the basics of spywork by Jathi himself as he understood the fundamentals of gathering information.

There were three critical components to information gathering, namely - Surveillance, Analysis and Reporting.

Step 1 of gathering information was to locate the enemy and track their movements.

This step was the most important as the success or failure of a mission depended on how well one performed this task.

One may need to infiltrate an organisation to complete this step or rely on their stealth, however, it was important that the target of the information gathering did not find out their motivation.

The second step was analysis, which was equally important to the first step as information without the right context was useless.

Based on one's behaviour, a good spy was to decipher their intentions and motivations without letting their personal bias cloud their better judgement.

'analysis' was probably the hardest step in information gathering and not everyone could perform it well.

The third and final step in this process was reporting, which was to successfully bring back the gathered information to the employer which in this case was none other than his father.

Knowing these basics, and that Felix was linked with the Red Umbrella Group, Kremeth began his investigation by starting to monitor a red umbrella establishment, as he kept a lookout for who entered, who exited and what they carried.

As of now, he had no idea as to which red umbrella establishment Felix was hiding in and without any money to spare he could not employ the Saint Maximus to gather information for him.

All he could do was start from scratch and slowly build his way up, hoping to connect the dots eventually.

***********

( Meanwhile Kartikeya )

Of everyone in the next generation of Rajput's, Kartikeya stood out as a menace and the inheritor of Shakuni's fierceness.

A genuine swordsman and a man driven to become stronger, he picked up fights with opponents way above his weight class and kept pestering them for fights that he could never win.

His recent favourite opponent was none other than the famous knight Augustus, the ruler of the Won Knight Monarchy and the oldest active monarch.

As a man who had not only participated in the dimensional war, but also the chaos war, not only was Augustus extremely experienced and disciplined, but he was a formidable opponent who could not be forced to break a sweat against tier6 weaklings.

Yet, despite the huge gap in power, when the formidable monarch sparred with Kartikeya, he was forced to rest after just three rounds as the young god drove him to the edge of exhaustion and made him question the depth of his stamina.

Like a maniac, Kartikeya kept coming at him again and again and again with the most ferocity that he could muster and he kept up such madness till his arm won't move and his body did not have the slightest energy to spare.

There was no strategy behind his attacks, no method behind his madness, yet, his sheer skill and brilliance was something that Augustus was forced to acknowledge as according to the veteran, Kartikeya had perfected the basics of the sword.

" Why don't you mix it up? A smarter way to fight will be to throw in feints and spells alongside your sword- , I know you're capable of it" Augustus said as he could not understand why Rudra's son did not rely on his strategic prowess but rather fought like a barbarian.

" I'll use strategy for a real fight, but I'll always train without it" Kartikeya replied as he had his intentions completely figured out.

He wished to train like a maniac, fight like all his strategies had failed and he could now only rely on his sheer strength, but when it mattered, he wanted to use his mind too and end a battle as fast as possible.

Only once, when Augustus forced him to, did Kartikeya truly use his brain while fighting and it was that bout where he made the old monarch bleed and lose a tooth as he shaved down 70% of his HP.

As a tier6 warrior, he sent a monarch to the doorstep of death and Augustus felt like he was watching Rudra mature all over again.

" The future of the Rajput's….. it's safe till this maniac is around" Augustus murmured to himself as he understood that once Kartikeya ascended to tier7 or tier8, he would become the undisputed strongest, just like his uncle and father.