1327 Three Plans (1/2)

As for the marionette town, Klein had been thinking about how to build it a long time ago. He had already come up with three plans:

If he eliminated any interference from external factors, his best choice would be somewhere in a certain country of the Northern Continent. He would allow his marionette town to rise up overnight. Furthermore, he would connect it to the surrounding cities through railways, rivers, and roads.

This way, the marionette town would have large numbers of outsiders arriving on a daily basis, and it would create a very strong interaction with the surrounding areas. On the one hand, a town without a city nearby would definitely purchase grain, salt, cloth, ores, sugar, and other daily necessities. On the other hand, it would also produce its own products, which could be sold to neighboring cities, towns, and villages. Under such a situation, merchants, workers, tourists, and other groups would go back and forth frequently. At the same time, they would interact more with the marionette town's residents.

Under the influence of all kinds of interactions between the parties, it wouldn't be long before the town of marionettes could produce a corresponding region in the spirit world. Once the lives of the residents became more detailed and real, Klein could consume the potion to advance to Sequence 1 Attendant of Mysteries.

This would take less than three months.

But the problem was that this approach couldn't be kept confidential.

In the present era, to have a town suddenly pop up was something that couldn't be hidden from people. Soon, there would be civil servants, the police, and reporters coming to investigate. And after that, the interactions between the parties would also make more and more people know and understand the city. This was a problem that couldn't be resolved through illusions unless the town of marionettes didn't interact with the surrounding cities, towns, and villages and had relatively minor interactions. However, that wouldn't meet the requirements of the ritual.

When news of the marionette town spread, Klein would undoubtedly be targeted by Zaratul, Amon's true body, and his other enemies. When the time came, the destruction caused by others would definitely be easier than him protecting it. He could only migrate his marionette town elsewhere. This would cause the interactions generated in the early stages to be for naught, just like what the Dark Demonic Wolf had experienced.

Therefore, Klein had only listed down such a plan, so he basically wouldn't choose it. Unless a certain Visionary was willing to provide help, making all the living beings in the Northern and Southern Continents naturally believe that there was indeed a town there, one that hadn't suddenly appeared.

Considering the influence of various external factors and his Beyonder powers, Klein's best choice was to establish the town on an uninhabited island that deviated from the safe sea route and was sufficiently well-hidden. He would then use Sefirah Castle to give it anti-divination and anti-prophecy properties.

At the same time, Klein would use the ”curtain” to ”Graft” some roads, rivers, and railways to somewhere outside the marionette town, making it a stop for random groups of people during their journeys.

This couldn't be kept completely confidential, but once the ”strange phenomenon” spread and attracted Zaratul's and Amon's attention, Klein could easily remove the original ”Grafting” randomly and switch the ”entrance.”

Under such a strategy, the movement was limited to the entrance, not the marionette town itself. The effects of various interactions in the spirit world could be preserved without being interrupted. The ritual could steadily proceed as planned.

Of course, there was a big problem with this plan. It was that the interaction would be limited and couldn't influence matters at a daily level in all its aspects. In addition, the frequency and intensity of the interaction wouldn't be too high.

If he chose this plan, it meant that Klein had to spend more than half a year or even a year on the ritual.

If he wanted to be safe, forcing every marionette's fate to have a beginning and an end, the ritual would take at least fifty years. However, there was also a way to get around the limitations—once the rest of the ritual's requirements were met, he could deliver a meteorite strike, an earthquake, or a volcano eruption to the town, causing all the marionettes' fates to come to an end in the real world. It was something that happened in real life and was rather reasonable.

In this radical and conservative proposal, Klein had another solution.

It was to replicate a city and make the marionette correspond to the residents of the city and be mapped one-to-one. For evil Miracle Invokers, they could wipe out the original city and use their marionettes to replace its inhabitants. Those who had a kind heart would hide the city and ensure a supply of goods. The reason as to why one didn't convert the target city into marionettes was that it already had a corresponding region in the spirit world. Without being a newly born one, it didn't meet the requirements of the ritual.

With the ”curtain” formed by the Attendant of Mysteries Beyonder characteristic, Klein could make a better choice: ”Graft” a city at a particular stage to his marionette town.

This meant that his town of marionettes had become the dark side of the city. In the corresponding period of time, outsiders would encounter marionettes and not real people. Once that period of time passed, they would leave the town of marionettes and return to the real world to deal with real people.

During the process, Klein would send his marionettes to act as an outsider and maintain interactions with the corresponding real person, allowing the real outsiders to return to the real world without any gaps.

In other words, there were two different lives playing out in the same city at the same time, but no one could notice that. Occasionally, some people would think that some details weren't right, but would find it inexplicable and might just ignore it.

This was rather in line with the characteristic of an Attendant of Mysteries, and it had a certain level of concealment.

Of course, this plan also had its problem. It was to simulate the fate of a marionette to a very high level—almost as similar as a human's. Without its own independence, it would cause the ritual's effects to fail.

Klein tapped the edge of the long mottled table with his fingers and was in a dilemma over the second and third plan.

After a few minutes, he did as his heart willed—cowardice—and chose the second plan. He would rather spend more time than affect the fates of the innocent.