A moment later, Daneel reappeared in his quarters.
In his hands was the last of the Ker Root he had obtained from the Mad Doctor, and because he had used it multiple times since getting it, it was only the size of half of his finger.
Still, he knew that it was one of the most precious things that he had, and that even the Heroes of Angaria treasured this resource and hunted for it diligently. In the past few hundred years, no new Ker Roots had been found, and each and every one that was present was treasured. He knew this from the records that he had seen long back in the G.o.ddess"s Sanctum, and that was also why it was such a crazy thing that the Mad Doctor had been able to obtain one, and even hide it from the eyes of the Heroes.
He wished he could find out exactly how the man had done it, but putting that aside for now, Daneel first sent a few messages.
A few seconds later, a knock was heard on the door, and Daneel made it open to reveal two of his subjects: Faxul and Elanev.
They walked in and waited after nodding at him in greeting, wondering why the King had summoned them.
After thinking for a bit and then looking as if he had decided on something, Daneel opened his mouth and said, "Remember that I told you not to worry about me cutting off my path by choosing the Shapes.h.i.+fter Bloodline? Well, it"s time to show you what I meant. But… I need your help. If something untoward happens, you need to be able to disable me. Do not hesitate to use force. Understand?"
The seriousness in the King"s voice made both Elanev and Faxul frown, but they nodded.
They appreciated that Daneel was trusting them with something so important, and they were proud of their power which was definitely the reason why they had been chosen, instead of the others.
Daneel didn"t want to take any chances. The idea that he had gotten before was a radical one, and although it would complete the puzzle piece of the whole plan he had created to overcome the weakness of the Shapes.h.i.+fter bloodline, it was dangerous.
Innovation always came with risks, and he had already seen just how dangerous trying something new could be in the memory before, where that weapon had been tested.
It was the perfect moment to see whether all of his suppositions were right, so he decided to summarise his thoughts on them after first trying it out, and seeing whether it would work.
Initially, he had actually thought that he would have to go to the rest of the sects in the Big Four to look for clues in their libraries, but he had gotten his clue from the Treasury and that memory anyway. The only problem with this was that if he had found something in those archives, there might have been records of those things being tried before, but now, he was doing it completely without any idea regarding what would happen.
Taking a deep breath, Daneel began.
"Drakos, you mind giving me the tiniest bit of your consciousness? I wouldn"t ask if it wasn"t essential."
Drakos was pretty surprised when he heard this. He had been watching everything silently, and he had actually been excited to see just how the King would do something that those from the age of the Empire had only dreamt of, but never achieved. He had once spoken to the Bloodline holders of the Shapes.h.i.+fter personally, and this had always been their ideal.
He had thought that by giving access to his memories, he had done everything that he could, but clearly, he was wrong.
Still, Drakos had no qualms against this, as all it would cause was a little pain. True, the consciousnesses of Mages were brittle and not as flexible as those of Fighters, which would even regenerate over time. Still, separating a tiny part was not much of an issue, and he did so directly before saying, "It"s ready, Young King. What would you like me to do with it?"
At this moment, Daneel really felt glad that he had gotten the trust of the Ancient Dragon, as he personally knew how excruciating the process was. This was something that didn"t change no matter how much one trained, and the fact that the Dragon had done it right away without asking any questions made his heart feel warm.
Closing his eyes, Daneel said to the system, "Minimise the formation that was used by the King to make the objects in which the Empire Spirits were stored, using this Ker Root as the base."
[Affirmative. Studying formation. Minimizing. Casting formation.]
Daneel"s eyes were closed, and if any mage could see the scene with their elementary vision, they would directly have fainted as the complexity was so far beyond even the realm of Champions that they wouldn"t be able to understand even one little thing.
This formation was one of the most advanced in the Empire, and Daneel could only castrate using the system without understanding anything, just like a student back on Earth mugging up an answer and reproducing it during an exam to score marks.
Drakos felt surprise when he saw what the king was doing, and although he didn"t understand why he was doing it, he held his silence as he knew that he would soon find out.
After Daneel was done, sweat appeared on his brow, as it had been quite tiring.
"Drakos, transfer the piece of consciousness into this."
Drakos directly did so, and after he was done, a faint glow appeared in the Ker Root, and it looked exactly like the one that Daneel had seen in the stone podium of the Black Raven Empire Spirit before he had drained it of energy.
At this point, Daneel had an option. This was the first time that this was being attempted, and he wanted it to be momentous.
Hence, he teleported over the crown that he had taken from the previous King using the system"s control over the entire Palace.
Looking at it and thinking for a bit, Daneel pointed his finger and slowly began changing its shape.
It was a simple circlet of gold that had two peaks in the front and back, with the former being larger than the latter.
Legend had it that had once been imbued with life-saving spells that would be the last line of defense if the King was attacked, but that crown had been lost. This one was made in its shape, but it didn"t have that ability.
Daneel made an indentation that was shaped like a hexagon which had been stretched slightly in the middle appear on the front, and when he was done, he reshaped the Ker Root in his hand to match that shape.
This was as simple as molding clay, as the central part remained the same, and he was only changing the surface.
After this, as both Elanev and Faxul watched on with raised eyebrows as they didn"t understand just what was going on, Daneel affixed that Ker Root to the crown, and then held it in front of him with both of his hands before closing his eyes.
As he was in contact with this mini-podium which held the tiniest part of Drakos"s consciousness inside it, he could feel it, even though it wasn"t large enough to think on its own. All it had was the base instincts of a Dragon, and this… Was actually exactly what he wanted.
Slowly, he began to recall everything that he had understood about Dragons during all of the time that he had spent studying them, and experiencing just how it felt to BE them.
His thoughts kept revolving in haphazard patterns, and it was almost like he was self hypnotizing himself into believing that he was a Dragon.
He kept thinking about the essence that he had identified, as this was the core.
Dragons had always been the tyrants of the continent, taking what they wished from whoever they wished. Sometimes, Dragons would even enter fights that they were supposed to lose, but they would come out victorious if their opponent made the grave mistake of allowing them to continuously increase their own power by destroying more and more things.
Their essence… Was all about "demand".
Unlike others who asked and wished, they liked to take whatever it was they wanted, and this was the same with the power they were given by the Will of the World.
The World would always respond to the will of the creatures, and instead of asking for power, Dragons who demand it by bringing about destruction. This was why it was often that they couldn"t even control the power they got, as it would cross the limit that was present, which would drive them completely crazy and h.e.l.l-bent on destroying everything around them. This would often lead to their death, though, as it could reach a level where their bodies couldn"t even support that much power. The Path of getting stronger, for them, was to prevent this, and to try and harness their anger to do what they wished.
Their arrogance knew no bounds, and they would never bow before any creature, even if it meant that doing so would save their life. That was the reason why they had chosen to be wiped out rather than try to reach a truce even when they understood that they were losing, and if it weren"t for the fact that the Emperor had managed to find a newborn who hadn"t been pulled into their ways, Dragons would have become completely extinct after the war, resulting in a scenario where their Bloodline would never have been pa.s.sed on to humans.
This was an arrogance that was present even in Drakos, even though he wasn"t traditionally someone who follow the ways of his species, and although he didn"t display it too much openly, it occasionally appeared in the form of his remarks in certain situations where Daneel had identified it, but hadn"t thought much of it at the time.
With each second that pa.s.sed, more and more realizations and thoughts regarding the true meaning of what a Dragon represented kept appearing in Daneel"s mind, and although he was just standing there unmoving, Faxul and Elanev slowly started to feel a…pressure begin to weigh down on them.
This was most apparent in Faxul, whose eyebrows went as far up as they could go when he started to feel an instinctive cautiousness that almost bordered on fear from the Bloodline in his body which he had been getting in touch with over these past few months.
What…kind of a creature could cause such a feeling to appear in the majestic Sky-Devouring Black Raven? He had always a.s.sumed that it was at the top of its pack, and that it didn"t need to fear anyone, or anything!
This was directly overturned, though, in the next second.
The King of Lanthanor suddenly opened his eyes, and at the same moment, Faxul took a step back with sweat appearing all over his body, as he felt a threat that he felt might be able to kill him if it wished with a single strike.
Daneel was oblivious to this, though, as his gaze was turned inward, to the essence that had crystallized in his mind.
It represented the sum total of all his insights and thoughts into this magnificent species, and it had acc.u.mulated so much that it was almost like a different consciousness, itself.
This was exactly what he wanted.
A smile tugging at the corners of his lips, he said to the system, "Begin development of "Consciousness Mimic" module based on the parameters I have given. Deploy when ready."
[Affirmative. Seeking pre-requisites. Pre-requisites found to be in order. Beginning development. Using consciousness of species "Dragon" and connection of host with the consciousness made by connecting with its essence as the base. Objective: Create a consciousness that will look like it is the true consciousness of a Dragon, to trick the World. Module developed. Deploying.]
The clue that Daneel had gotten was that consciousness clinging to the parts of a G.o.dbeast was the reason behind those parts being able to exhibit certain properties and abilities that used to belong to the G.o.dbeast when it was love. From this, Daneel had understood that consciousness was tied to power, so if he could simply trick the Will of the World into thinking that the shape he would be Shapes.h.i.+fting into also contained the consciousness of that shape…then there would be nothing stopping him from channeling its true power, which was given by the World in the first place.
He was basically using the tiny piece given by Drakos to make it seem as if it was whole, by using the connection he formed with it through his comprehension to mask his own. It was exactly like he was using an "ID" he had obtained to enter somewhere after disguising his face. The one checking would see the ID, and the face which matched the ID(which was akin to him using the comprehension to connect), before allowing them in regardless of whether they were truly who they claimed to be, or not.
As soon as his thoughts regarding the process came to an end, a tiny Dragon appeared in the transport Ker Root that had been affixed on the crown.
Elanev and Faxul both stared at it with incredulous expressions on their faces, as it was so life-like that it seemed as if it really was a Dragon that had been trapped inside.
This was something that Daneel had asked the system to do, just because he liked the idea.
Raising the crown, he calmly placed it on his head, and it perfectly fit, as if it belonged there.
Only, a second later…
BOOOOMMMM!!!!!
With a loud sound, dust inundated the whole room, and Elanev and Faxul didn"t know what happened. The last thing they saw was the King phasing into the air, almost as if he had become transparent.
When the dust slowly started to settle, though, the first thing that came into their sight was the leg of a beast with s.h.i.+ning emerald scales and claws that had terrifying piercing power.
With horror, both of them slowly raised their eyes to see that the ceiling had a hole now, to accommodate for the gigantic being that had appeared.
It was the same Dragon which they had seen in the Ker Root on the Crown, and it stood 30 feet tall. Its wings were folded at the moment, and as it outstretched them, they were at least double its size. They cut through the surrounding walls like b.u.t.ter to make s.p.a.ce for themselves, and at the same moment, the head of the Dragon bent to fix its eyes on them.
Both of them were frozen, and if they were weaker men, their undergarments would have been soaking wet by now. The vertical slits of the creature caused such an instinctive and visceral fear in them, that they felt like just giving up and entering its mouth to become its prey if it so wished, as it would be futile to even think about going against what it wished.
Thankfully, it broke that gaze a second later, but the creature drew in a deep breath.
Almost as if they could feel what would happen next, Elanev and Faxul leaped to the side, and the long neck of the creature bent back and whipped forward.
At the end of its trajectory, it"s jaw opened wide, and this time, the fire…flew true.