Shave off 10 to 50 years of life from all the people on the continent, or drive 10% of the population insane?
This was the choice presented to him, but instead of focusing on these negatives, he read again about the power that was now within his grasp.
Get an army of millions of mages, or use the core of the continent as a weapon?
He knew for a fact that either one would be devastating. Activating the Basilisk"s Breath, Daneel began to think about each of them, in turn.
First up was the army of mages. He had to say that it was enticing, especially as he was ignoring the negatives right now. The main limitation behind the zeal of the citizens to serve and defend their country for their future generations was the natural talent they were born with. True, he had begun the process of improving it by using the food that they had eaten during the celebrations, but if they wanted to be competent mages, then there was a long, long way to go.
He was thinking of things with the image of the army of the Church in his mind. He still remembered those squadrons of Peak Heroes, and if something drastic didn"t change in the condition of the continent soon, then a devastating loss was almost certainly guaranteed.
That was if they fought fairly, which Daneel had no intention to do so, but even though this changed things, all he was hoping for was to eke out a victory.
But would it be enough? Again, this was the question that he was most concerned with, so he had come here to tip the scales in the favor of Angaria as much as possible.
An army of powerful mages would go a long way toward doing that.
Moving onto using the core, Daneel was more apprehensive about this method.
Everyone knew that the core was supposed to be an inaccessible place that contained all the most important Energy reserves of the continent.
It was from this core that surface-level Energy reserves, and even the Energy that permeated the air which was used constantly by all mages came from. If it was disturbed, then there would certainly be consequences which might just destroy Angaria, as he knew it, in the future.
But did this really matter when considering that the other option was complete and thorough extermination of the continent, anyway?
When one weighed things with that in mind, the situation tended to become clear.
He was quite curious about how this elder G.o.dbeast had gone about creating such a plan, especially when the core had only been detected, but never approached, even in the golden age of the Empire. He had only been able to access it using a roundabout method because of his special Path that connected him to the very heart of the continent, and even then, he had not be able to go by himself.
Either way, thinking things through, Daneel realized that… He did not want to choose.
Both of these were incredible weapons that he very much needed in his a.r.s.enal. Instead of just one, he wanted both, but he did not know yet whether that would be possible.
Instead of pondering on this, he turned to the system, to which he had given the task of finding out whether the limitations could be avoided, which was the entire reason behind him only thinking of the positives until now.
[Results of task given: In the case of the second method, system can carry out an extensive testing of the minds of the citizens of host"s present place of residence to identify those who are most likely to be driven insane. This method was most probably not suggested, as it would take years to accomplish even if multiple Heroes set themselves on this task. However, due to the processing power of the system, it is possible to carry out such a scan in very little time.
Results are not conclusive in the case of the first method. Without further study of the methodology being suggested, it is impossible to ascertain whether the drawback can be eliminated. However, similarities have been found between this methodology and the one used by host to turn Heroes into mindless beasts in the past. In that case, no lasting harm was done to the Heroes due to the fact that their bodies were sufficiently tough to endure the extreme stress placed on them. It is possible that the aging of the individuals using the technique could also be due to this, in which case, steps might be able to be taken to prevent it. More data is needed for a definite a.n.a.lysis.]
Oh, sweet, sweet upgrade…
As soon as Daneel got the message, a smile played across his lips, but he hid it quickly.
The matter was settled - he wanted both.
If the system had told him that there was no way at all for the limitations of one of them to be overcome, he would have discarded that method, as there was no way that he wanted to risk either the future of the continent or that of his citizens for the victory, unless it was a last resort.
True, he, himself, had just started to weigh things after comparing them with the alternative, but after seeing the progress of the system again, Daneel had been emboldened with the confidence that even if he didn"t use these methods, he would definitely be able to find a way in which they could win.
Thankfully, it had not come to that - both methods were great, but how was he supposed to get them?
A few seconds after he began thinking about this, an idea came to his mind.
"I propose… A barter."
For a few breaths after he said these words, there was silence in the room, following which he could see the mouth in the floating ball of fire twitch, as it was stopping itself from laughing out loud.