For two years, the faith of tens of thousands had flowed into the Book of Probability, a steady, growing river of power that Nicholas now thought of as his divine treasury.
But he understood that mortal military rank was a different, necessary kind of authority. To operate freely on the global stage that the impending World War II would provide, he needed a promotion, a spectacular and absolute rise that would fast-track him to a position of command.
To get it, he decided to manufacture his own private war, a show for those in the American Government. Yet, his first move was one of pure, practical necessity.
The constant need for illusions and disguises, while manageable, was a potential vulnerability. Consulting the counsel of the fate goddesses bound within his book, they guided his attention to a local solution: a monster named the Kapre.
According to the knowledge the sisters pulled from the threads of local belief, the Kapre was a towering, tree-dwelling, hairy giant, a creature whose domain was over mischief and hiding.
It was the perfect source for an artifact he desperately needed, not just for the immediate future, but for his ultimate endgame.
To deceive the Olympians, especially his mother, Athena, he would need more than simple Mist manipulations and spells.
He needed a shroud woven from an actual authority over concealment, after all, it was only authority that could fight against authority, and he needed something that could hide the true extent of his power from divine sight itself.
Tracking the creature was simple with the book's guidance; its domain was incapable of affecting the book of probability, deprived of faith as it was.
He found it lounging in the high branches of an ancient banyan tree, wreathed in its own pungent cigar smoke.
Nicholas gave it no chance to employ its tricks. He didn't bother with a chant. With a thought, the air around the Kapre solidified, becoming a vice of howling wind that pinned its massive limbs to the tree trunk.
The creature's expression, previously held by boredom, was rapidly replaced by shock. Before it could muster its strength to break free, Nicholas clenched his fist.
The earth beneath the banyan tree erupted, not with fire, but with razor-sharp shards of rock that shot upwards like a cage, tearing into the monster's hide with a sound like splintering oak. The Kapre roared in pain and confusion.
A final, sharp gesture from Nicholas summoned a torrent of water from the saturated, humid air itself, a crushing, focused wave that slammed the stunned and bleeding creature into the mud, utterly subdued. The entire, brutal display of elemental power was driven only by his intent and had taken less than ten seconds.
After all, the monster's capabilities lay elsewhere other than combat, and its concealment authority was entirely neutralised by the book.
Only then, with the elemental fury quieted, did he approach the dazed creature to begin the ritual Circe had taught him.
He stripped its immortal essence, a swirling, smoky energy that smelled of old wood, trickery, and shadow, and bound it into the fabric of his simple cloak, which he had purchased from a local weaver.
The resulting artifact, now finally no longer starving for fuel and constantly powered by the river of faith flowing through him, granted him limited but potent control over the concepts of concealment and mischief.
Wearing it, his secrets were now infinitely safer, his deceptions became more instinctive, and a fundamental layer of obscurity fell over his entire being.
It was the first piece of a suit of armor designed specifically to withstand the gaze of gods.
Cloaked in this new power, he turned to his main objective: earning his promotion. The fate sisters, Karta and Dekla, became his silent strategic council.
Their ancient wisdom, filtered through the Book of Probability, guided his every move. They showed him which disgruntled local leaders to target with his network of priests, and which ambitious, frustrated American officers would be most susceptible to rumours of glory.
His agents, armed with compulsion charms and whispers shaped by this counsel, fanned out.
They met with the locals, not promising victory, but promising opportunity, speaking of weakened American resolve and vulnerable supply caches.
Simultaneously, other agents fed rumours to the American officers of hidden weapons and secret meetings in the hills.
The Book ensured every whisper landed on fertile ground, every misunderstanding festered, and every minor grievance was magnified into a cause for rebellion.
The spark was a staged attack on a remote supply depot, orchestrated by Nicholas's most fanatical followers.
As planned, the local rebellion, now believing the time was right, erupted into a chaotic, disorganised, but violent affair.
The American military command, their perceptions already softened by two years of low-level confusion charms, saw exactly what Nicholas wanted them to see: a sudden, dangerous uprising that threatened American interests.
Then, Nicholas moved to end his own creation. Advised by the sisters, he, as "Aeon," commanded his priests to feed the rebel leaders false intelligence, leading them into ambushes and betrayals.
As Lieutenant Aldridge, he then presented his "brilliant tactical deductions" to his superiors. Leading his men on a series of flawlessly executed counter-insurgency operations, he was always miraculously one step ahead of the rebels.
The finale was a masterstroke of illusion, amplified by his Kapre cloak. He led his battalion to a mountain valley and wove a grand fiction for them.
They witnessed a heroic last stand against a massive, well-armed rebel force. They saw Nicholas charge ahead, a whirlwind of motion and gunfire, single-handedly breaking the enemy's spirit.
In reality, they were shooting at illusory phantoms while Nicholas used a minor earth spell to trip the actual, confused rebels who were present. The Kapre cloak ensured the deception was seamless and absolute.
The aftermath was a whirlwind of commendations shaped by perception-altering magic. The confused, limited rebellion was permanently enshrined in official reports as a major, organised insurrection.
With help from the political machine he created at home and the large-scale confusion magic he performed here, Nicholas finally became Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Aldridge, the "Hero of Clark Field," with a medal on his chest, and more crucially Nick finally had some real power.
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