When Daneel woke up, he had such a splitting headache that he could only continue to lie on the ground, clutching his head and waiting, or at least hoping for it to subside before getting up.
His eyes remained closed, as he knew that opening them to let light in would only make it worse.
Right now, it felt as if his head had been dumped in water until just the moment before he would have drowned, and that this had happened so many times that that constant feeling of drowning was always with him.
Of course, he knew that all this was because he had allowed himself to be battered senseless by hundreds of years of memories, even knowing that he would not be able to remember any of it after waking up.
True enough, even trying to think of everything he had seen caused the headache to flare up, resulting in him only catching a few glimpses and flashes of images and words that were all just jumbled into an incomprehensible mishmash of nonsense right now.
Thankfully… he had placed his hopes on something much more reliable.
"System, have you recorded all of the memories?"
[Affirmative. Memories recorded. a.n.a.lysis underway. Due to the sheer volume of the memories, deep a.n.a.lysis is expected to take a prolonged period of time.]
As he heard this, Daneel burst out laughing with happiness, and if anyone could see him now-lying on the floor on his stomach while clutching his head with an expression of extreme joy that was mixed with pain, they would definitely think that the King of Lanthanor had gone mad.
After laughing himself hoa.r.s.e, Daneel finally struggled to reach a wall, which he leaned on as he asked the other all-important question.
"System, replay the announcement that I missed."
Indeed, completely captivated by the third seal, Daneel had ignored this announcement which had sounded in his head as soon as that news about the golden light had reached him.
He had known that they would be there whenever he wanted to go through them, so he had focused on that matter. Now that it had concluded, it was time to view what he had obtained from the system by reaching the threshold of satisfaction level.
Even before, he had seen this coincidence where the threshold of satisfaction level that the Emperor had set down had matched with those that were present in the system. In fact, this had even led him to the absurd idea that the system might be somehow connected to the Emperor, but after talking to the man, Daneel could tell that this was not the case, even though he did not have confirmation.
Of course, now that he had the full memories of the Emperor, that would be answered, but he would have to wait for the a.n.a.lysis to finish.
Also, there was the question of whether his transmigration was also in some way connected to the Emperor, but even this would have to wait until the system was done a.n.a.lyzing those memories.
So, Daneel just sat back and looked forward to finding out how much EXP he had gained through that elaborate and meticulous plan that he had spun against Arnold the Empire spirit.
[Satisfaction Level: 62%
Dissatisfaction Level: 28%
Milestone Reached. 250,000 EXP awarded.
Next Milestone: 80% Satisfaction Level.
Award: 1,250,000 EXP
Total EXP: 482,000 EXP]
YES!
Daneel had already guessed that this would be the case, but hearing it still made him ecstatic.
Also, the trend had continued - with each threshold so far, the reward had increased by five times and the same had happened again, resulting in the award for the 80% satisfaction level, which Daneel don"t even know how he would obtain after having had to go through so much just to barely pa.s.s the 60% threshold, having an award which blew his mind.
The cost for the next upgrade to the system, which would allow it to reach hero level, had already been given to him - it was 1 million EXP, and at the time, it had seemed like an unreachable number. Yet, now, with this award, that didn"t seem so at all.
Also, Daneel knew that there was even more EXP to be earned when the Alliance with the Black Raven Kingdom was finalized. He had used 15,000 EXP to purchase the advanced tool which allowed the system to scan a much larger area around Daneel for satisfaction level, and that was why this had become possible even though the Black Raven Kingdom hadn"t allied with Lanthanor officially yet. Even last time, that step had been essential before the system gave him those oh so sweet achievements.
One last thing which Daneel did reflect upon was that he hadn"t gotten the continuation achievement for "Empire Spirit Reaper".
Yet, Daneel just attributed this to the fact that he had only put Arnold to sleep after destroying half of his consciousness, unlike in the case of the Empire Spirit in the Kingdom of the Elves which had ceased to exist due to his machinations.
So, the next main step that he would have to take was to go back to the Black Raven Kingdom and browbeat that Council into announcing the allowance.
Only, before that… There was one last thing to do here.
Although the headache was still there, Daneel struggled to get up as he had to reach somewhere.
He failed. Even the simple effort of trying to get up hurt too much, but the enticement was too strong. Leaving behind all dignity, Daneel crawled on the floor and reached the center of the room, where the other ultimate award was waiting for him.
The stone pedestal, with all that precious, high-level knowledge.
As soon as Daneel laid a hand on it, he heard Drakos speak in his head.
"Congratulations, Young King! I am truly honored to have found someone like you who - "
"Drakos, no offense, but please cut the c.r.a.p and just give me everything behind the third seal."
A moment of silence followed, after which the Ancient Dragon said, "As you wish."
The tone of the Empire Spirit made Daneel realize that he hadn"t actually thought this through.
So, when another flood of information collided with his consciousness and amplified the pain he was feeling to over 10 times of what it had been before, Daneel screamed out loud before promptly fainting again.
And this time, the last thing he heard was a very subtle chuckle, and if it hadn"t been for what he had noticed in the Ancient Dragon"s tone before, he wouldn"t even have been able to guess that this Empire Spirit, which was supposed to be so innocent, was capable of taking revenge in this way.
…
Meanwhile, Faxul was sitting on his throne in the Black Raven Kingdom, conversing with the members of the Council who were all arguing amongst themselves regarding what they were supposed to do next.
Elanev had finally been allowed to give up the role of acting like Faxul, and he had jokingly said that it was quite addicting. At that time, Faxul had been tempted to say that Daneel"s aim was to make all the members of the Council of Nine Sovereigns rulers of some force of the other, but he refrained himself as it was his friend"s plan to announce.
Just like he had been doing for the last 10 minutes, Faxul continuously tried to reach Daneel, but when each and every communication attempt failed, all he could do was wonder what was up, while trying to not let this opportunity that they had worked so hard for to pa.s.s away from them.
After all, it was always best to strike when the iron was hot, and right now, most of the Council were still bewildered that the connection ceremony had actually happened in the first place.
Yet, already, some of them had started to refute it using dumb arguments such as that the connection ceremony was invalid as a sitting King was already present on the throne.
Faxul had already guessed that there would be such people who did not want an outsider to rule them even though the citizens wanted it - all of these people were those who had been in power for a long time, and had thus gotten used to the old ways.
Even though those ways are constantly changing, they were just not ready to move on, and the only blessing was that there seemed to be enough people who had also recognized the sheer amount of support that Daneel had among the common populace.
Yet, these views could be changed, and although he and Daneel could still force the Alliance onto the Council, it would result in a lot of friction that would only bring problems in the long run.
So, after once again sending a message and receiving no response, Faxul announced, "This meeting is adjourned. Don"t all of you have duties to get to? Instead of using this time to idly think about things which cannot be decided by yourselves anyway, I charge all of you with quieting down each and every segment of the Army and making sure that they know that whatever happened will not repeat. When you"re done with that, I want you to go hold small gatherings in all the major towns where you use your authority to calm down the people, too. Keep doing this until I summon you all again. Got it?"
Ever since the baptism, Faxul had adopted a certain measure of authority that made his orders carry a tone that could not be defied. This thankfully kicked into action right now, as most of the Council nodded in reply before seeing him disappear from his place.
This was a good tactic to delay them, but it would only do that - delay the inevitable.
In the meantime, he had to find Daneel and get him to the Black Raven Kingdom as soon as possible.
After thinking for a bit, he contacted Kellor to find out the last message that had been relayed to the king. On discovering that this was regarding their academy, he was slightly startled, but he proceeded to go to the library where there were so many memories of theirs.
Here, he walked up to the secret room whose formations were still open as Daneel hadn"t bothered to reactivate them after pa.s.sing through as he had been too excited. Still, the system was actively monitoring everything, and it would have stopped any threat. It only allowed Faxul to go through without any resistance after identifying him.
As Faxul finally stepped inside this room and saw the stone pedestal, he realized what it was as he had seen the same kind of object before during their foray into the Ancient Black Raven"s abode.
Yet, the sight of the glorious King of Lanthanor, who would soon be in command of not one, not two, but three Kingdoms in the continent of Angaria, made him want to take out a communication eye and record this so that he could tease his friend using it later.
Realizing that there was no need to hesitate, Faxul did so.
The King was slumped over the pedestal, drooling freely from his mouth which had a lopsided smile on it, as if he was having a very pleasant dream. Occasionally, he would flinch as if that dream was being affected by nightmares, but each and every time, the smile would return.
Done with the recording, Faxul went forward and started to shake Daneel, but receiving no reply, he got a bit worried before deciding to resort to extreme measures as time really was tight.
If he had known that Daneel had actually entered into a dreamland filled with the memories that he had just experienced from the Emperor, he might have hesitated, but he just went ahead and did the thing that Daneel loved to do to others when he had to wake them up - a solid metal hammer came into existence right about the King"s head, before dropping down and making him wake up with a startled expression on his face.
At that moment, the King blurted out something that made Faxul question if something was wrong with his hearing.
"Bleargh! Hero-level! Champion Paths! Bloodlines! 1000 year virgin!"