Gary and Caleb’s charity work continued. Eventually there were too many people for Gary and Caleb alone to handle.

Gary hired a few of the downtrodden, and had them do all of the jobs that formerly belonged to him and Caleb. Eventually they left the food bank to work by themselves. Their only involvement being that they brought the food.

This gave Caleb a lot more time to cultivate. He turned out to have significantly more talent than Gary. In these few short years he’d already made it to the Extreme stage of the Perfect Self realm. However, he had now reached a bottleneck.

He had asked Gary for advice.

Gary said this: "The Dao carves out a path for everyone!" While stroking his chin.

Because he had skipped the later stages of the perfect self realm entirely, so he had no idea how to break through this bottleneck. Despite Gary’s uselessness, Caleb had an idea of what he needed to do to break through his bottleneck. Over the last few years, he had spent so much time shifting through the dreams, and minds of others, that he'd started to feel disconnected from them. He felt like a parasite, and in a way he was. He felt that he ought to dedicate his own time to genuinely helping them. Of course the help he wanted to give them was nothing as simple as a soup kitchen.

Caleb informed Gary that he would be going on a short journey. Gary not really having anything to teach, and worried that he might be asked for more advice, let him go, but not before providing him with two artifacts for safety.

With Caleb now gone Gary decided to gather a small cadre of warriors that he may impart on them the dragonfly clan’s martial art. Gary had decided that the best strategy for him to take over this nation was to create a small group of specialists that would go around agitating the masses, spreading anti-government propaganda, and increasing Gary’s presence. He would maintain their loyalty with the mountain of wealth the heavenly prince had bestowed upon him.

The mage-king had yet to take note of Gary’s activities. He heard of a soup kitchen opening up, but didn't seem to care. He had been searching for the murderer of one of his Dukes that had been out on a mission, but with no witnesses, and an unwillingness to act personally the case seemed doomed. Gary was going to get away with murder! How wonderful.

---

Caleb was making his way out of the kingdom. He was following a lead. On his quest to break through his bottleneck he’d decided to first help those who had once helped him. He remembered that in his youth he had had a friend that always supported him. They served under the same master. They were separated when Caleb was sold for being skinnier, and weaker than the others.

Caleb had been born into debt-slavery. His parents had given him away as collateral. Caleb had gone to an information broker, and used some of the funds Gary had given him. Gary had made sure that Caleb wouldn’t go hungry. After a short wait the broker had told Caleb that his friend now belonged to a duke in the neighboring Tersid Mage-Kingdom. Caleb was making his way through the territory of Duke Duke III Silvertree. As Caleb began crossing the bridge that led out of the kingdom he was stopped by the Silvertree guards. Apparently he had to pay a toll, or he wouldn’t be allowed to leave. He paid the exorbitant toll, and continued crossing the bridge. However he was stopped again.

“Ah, hang on a minute.” A guard said. “Now we’ve got to check your pack make sure you’re not smugglin’ any contraband.”

At this Caleb reacted by running past the guards as fast as he could. Over the course of the few years they had known each other, Gary had managed to impart what little he could. Thus Caleb could now be considered reasonably fast. Nowhere near as fast as Gary, but certainly fast enough to outrun a few guards.

Caleb didn’t want his pack checked, because if the guards saw the artifacts they’d likely steal them, and Caleb would then have to kill them. Caleb didn’t like the idea of killing those who hadn’t done anything particularly evil. ‘Sides being pigs. He wasn’t afraid of killing. If he had been, Gary took that out of him with his general dismissal of human life.

Caleb had seen Gary on multiple occasions killing bandits without a second thought. Mostly when they attacked the villagers nearby, but on some occasions he goes out of his way to clear out bandit camps for fun.

“Uh, master? Are these people not also suffering? Aren’t they also turning to crime because of the exploitation of the mage-king?” Caleb once asked.

Gary gave him a confused look. “True, but these people are actively a threat right now. When we kill the mage-king those of them that are around can repent, and pay for their crimes.”

Gary did not need to say what would happen if they did not repent.

Thanks to him the village was relatively free of criminal activity. The village was also growing in size, as hungry folk from all areas started streaming in as news spread about Gary’s soup kitchen.