Daneel was sitting along with his Sovereigns while waiting for the news regarding the meeting.
He had called them all beforehand so that he could directly discuss with them regarding the matter when it became known, and when he heard everything, he couldn"t help but heave another sigh of relief as their actions were actually under his expectations.
He had already expected that the Head would be held up in some manner, and he hadn"t been able to figure out exactly how the Church would accomplish that. Well, now he knew.
Indeed, now, he suspected whether that Hero who had suggested all this was actually acting on the direction of the Church, which was still possible without giving any oath because there was always a grey area in any oath that was made.
For example, the Artifact left behind by the Emperor made it so that every Hero who reached that level would swear an unbreakable oath, even by them, that they would always remain loyal to Angaria, but listening to the Church and doing a few things for them would not mean actually betraying the continent. It could be said that he was just listening to an unidentified third party, and because he could say to himself that this wouldn"t cause any devastating harm for the continent, he could go ahead and do what they said for a few benefits.
Of course, this was all Daneel"s speculation, and as he spelled it out to the Sovereigns, they couldn"t help but be taken aback.
If that was the case, then who could they even trust?
The only consolation in this was that the Heroes wouldn"t be able to do direct things and effect matters in ways that were too harmful, but the problem was that they could still be hoodwinked into taking part in plans which might not have worked without them. This was the perfect example for that, because if this whole thing was being done by the machinations of the Church, then this guy was actually enabling them to carry out the test of theirs by agreeing to block the Head while the Mad Doctor went after Daneel.
As for the seeds, Daneel wasn"t concerned about them at all. By the time he was done, they would be small fry whom he wouldn"t need to care about for even a second, and he might even decide to have his fun with them. After all, he missed the feeling of being able to smash people who were so stupid as to go against him with hammers.
He had already known that he had drawn a lot of attention to himself by becoming the Legacy Disciple of the Fortress of Unyielding Might, but he had imagined that maybe, the top individuals in the Big Four would not be like the typical antagonists in stories who would care about "face" and want to target him just because he had come from the Central Continent and was now rising in the Big Four.
Apparently, he was wrong, but it remained to be seen whether this was the case with all of them, or a select few whom this Hero wanted to exploit.
Still, a decision needed to be made regarding what steps he should take, and so, they began a discussion.
The opinion of most of the Sovereigns was that they shouldn"t meddle too much, because the truth regarding Daneel"s and Rayen"s relations.h.i.+p should not be exposed. Running a risk in this matter would not be worth the attempt to take revenge against the Heroes who were plotting against him, and even though this sounded logical, Daneel didn"t really feel like agreeing with them.
The reason behind this… Was that he had already changed his mindset, and now, he had no intentions of continuously hiding just because their power level was too far beyond his.
His mind had always been his strongest weapon, and now, he had slowly acc.u.mulated enough resources to be able to make an impact even against those in that realm.
Of course, Rayen was one of the primary resources, but if he made a perfect plan, he was confident that he would be able to use the Head, too.
Faxul and Elanev were both strongly supporting him and this, and even though the rest, including Robert, wanted him to exercise caution, Daneel chose this path, and asked them to trust him.
After all, he could understand where they were coming from, but what they didn"t understand was that this retribution against the Heroes of Angaria had been coming ever since he had found out that they had long since changed to not have any loyalty for their continent, and that they were only still not openly betraying the land that had given them birth and going over to the Church to fulfill their greed for power and an even longer lifespan because of the oath that they had sworn to the Head.
He had always wanted to change this, somehow, because it definitely wasn"t an option to go about killing a few to scare the rest. Loyalty that was brought about by force was always something that was fickle, and it could even change in the heat of battle to result in disastrous consequences.
Hence, the goal was to bring about this change through other means, so Daneel decided to use this as an opportunity to experiment.
His main objective was to find out just how these people"s minds worked, because he couldn"t estimate the effect that living for such a long time would have on them. Even though he had the memories of the Emperor, that man had been different, because Daneel had noticed that he had never changed no matter how many centuries he lived. This was because of his iron-like determination to keep striding forward to reach his goal, and this was another thing that Daneel admired him for.
Although he stated this and put it up for discussion, there weren"t many ideas that were productive, and even Daneel knew that this would take some time. Even he had thought about it and hadn"t come up with anything right away, but as the objective was clear, he was confident that there would be something or the other that would definitely pop up before the time was up.
Right now, though, there was still a lot he had to do before the Mad Doctor awakened, so he dismissed the Sovereigns after telling them to keep thinking on it.
Of course, he also took the opportunity to tell Eloise about the system that should be put in place for people like Raul and the previous Grand Court Mage to climb up the ranks and reach their level, and this had made Robert smile and say, "It is good that you recognize this. It is always deplorable if a soldier feels that he can never reach the level of his commander in the Army, as there will never be anything to push him forward and make him give his all."
After the meeting was done, Daneel headed back directly to his quarters, where he sat there and was just about to resume his study on Dragons.
He had gotten many, many insights after s.h.i.+fting into a Dragon"s shape before, and even though it had ended in disaster, Daneel had gotten a clue regarding just where the true essence of a Dragon might lay.
It still remained to be seen whether finding out the essence of what it meant to be a G.o.dbeast would allow him to channel its powers and change into its true form using the Shapes.h.i.+fter"s ability, but first, he had to get that essence, and he was eager to resume that task.
However… The words of Xandar echoed in his mind, and he right away teleported out of the palace, as he couldn"t believe that he had almost forgotten about this crucial thing that he had obtained during his break through.
Of course, he had remembered about the Treasury of the G.o.ds, and he felt like it would be stupid not to check whether there was something there that might help him in what he was doing.
The fact that Xandar, himself, had said that his approach might work was a really good thing, but again, the word "might" had to be highlighted. There was still a chance that he might fail, but he couldn"t, because in this situation, failing might just mean the deaths of hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Lanthanorians.
That was not something that he would allow, no matter what, so he had to succeed.
True, even though no one had even gotten close in so many millennia since the age of the Empire, this did not deter him much, as he had always done things which people said were impossible.
Still, a little help would go a long way, and he hoped to find that in the Treasury. One thing that had stood out was that Xandar had also mentioned "weapons", and although he had done so in a casual manner, Daneel was pretty confident that any weapon that was worthy of being stored in the Treasury would definitely be something that just might change the tide of battle in any important fight.
He would soon be entering the realm of Champions, and this was where weapons would really begin to s.h.i.+ne and show the impact that they could have. In the lesser realms, even though weapons could boost the attack power and defense of Fighters and Majors, it wasn"t very drastic, because there was a level limitation. For example, someone at the Peak Warrior level would only be able to use a Peak Warrior weapon, and this would only be able to boost their attack or defense for a maximum of 10%, at most, and that too only if they practiced with it diligently in order to be able to use it in battle. In many cases, the actual attack techniques of Fighters depended on weapons, and if so, a very high level of proficiency was required to show the advantage.
Still, the whole thing about weapons was very different from what Daneel had expected after reading many stories and watching the movies from Earth, where just possessing a strong one would decide the winner of a battle. He was, of course, referring to the legendary hammer that had become very popular, and others in famous stories which could be likened to treasures that had their own spirituality and consciousness.
Even on Angaria, weapons were said to have consciousness, but Daneel had checked this out beforehand, and had seen that it was simply a gimmick used by trinket manufacturers to put a formation on the weapon to make it seem as if it was responding to a wielder"s thoughts, where in reality, all that was happening was that it was following a clear set of directions which would allow it to detect the situation and act accordingly. At most, this would mean that it would be able to adapt to situations where if a swing was being made, then it would actually move along the direction that it was traveling, and if a clash was happening, then it would be able to change the property of the weapon a little bit to make it harder. Minute things like these made a difference, but again, they didn"t impress Daneel too much, because he could do so much better with spells.
It was different during the age of the Empire, though. The images that Daneel had seen in the memories of the Emperor made him feel excited, but the problem was that most had been destroyed on the Apocalypse, while the ones that survived had all been gobbled up by the Big Four.
These thoughts all accompanied Daneel on his way, and when he finally reached his destination, he couldn"t help but wonder whether he had reached the right place.
There was a grid mapping system used by the Emperor during the age of the Empire, and was using these grids that Xandar had given him the location.
The problem was that he was above the Endless Sea, and no matter where he looked, there were only the waves of the sea to greet him, with no sign whatsoever of a G.o.dly Treasury being hidden here that had the potential to change the fate of the entire continent, itself.