"Let me get this straight," Rose said as she rubbed her forehead between her fingers and her thumb as she wore a disbelieving expression on her face. "You almost died in the 20 Trials of El Dorado, okay, perfectly believable. Having no access to the system would be like going cold turkey after shooting heroin every day for years."

Madison frowned. "No, drugs. Nicer, metaphors."

Daz grinned. He reached over to his glass which was on the table they were sat at and he then took a sip of water as he nodded. "That's right, and yeah, you're only 10. Please don't talk about drugs when possible."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Whatever. So, that happened and then you started getting a violent headache. Perfectly normal considering you were awakening again."

Daz nodded as he looked around. The new recreation room of the keep that they were in was full of wondrous toys and gizmos to fill one's time with and Daz had yet to take the time to really experience any of them. The room was added to help with the management of the staff's stress levels, in truth, but he really had to stop to admire the place for a moment.

Rose snapped her fingers. "Focus. I'm getting to the impossible part now."

Daz replied, "I am focused. I don't need my eyes to listen to you."

Madison nodded. "Blind, people, ears, too."

"Yeah yeah, whatever," Rose said. "Anyway, then you collapsed from an infection, hunger, and your headaches, and when you thought you were going to die you heard a voice telling you to 'Awaken, my son!'?" she asked as she mimicked the voice in a lazily theatric manner.

Daz nodded. "That's right."

Rose still had a look of disbelief on her face. "And you just magically awakened Survivor's Instinct to level-4, Soul Collector to level-2, and Gravital Body to level-1?"

Again, her brother nodded. "Want me to show you?"

"Sure. Why the fu- frick not." She corrected herself after feeling a sharp gaze from both Daz and Madison.

Daz sighed and stood up. "That rotten mouth of yours..." He cracked his neck then said, "I haven't tested it yet but I can feel that I'm able to use Gravital Body. Don't laugh at me if I faceplant though."

"Don't worry, I'll cackle, not laugh," Rose said with a grin across her face. "This is gonna be great."

"Ha-ah..." Daz closed his eyes and tried to imagine when he had controlled his own body after he'd used Crystallisation to turn most of it into a smaller version of Grid.

Slowly but surely his body lifted off of the ground. Sweat furiously poured out from his entire body as he struggled to maintain his concentration. He got about 5-centimetres up before he could feel his internal energy had been pushed to its limits.

He stopped using the esper power then collapsed into his seat, now a sweaty mess. "I don't have much internal energy, I think."

"Yeah, you don't. Even I have more. You'll have to fix that if you want to use it to help our esper citizens to awaken without experiencing too much pain. To be fair though, you're also new to the Gravital Body power," Rose said as she immediately began taking notes on her laptop.

"How exactly do I get more internal energy?" Daz asked. "I'm assuming via using it, but I'd welcome a surprise."

"You're out of luck," Rose replied. "No surprises for you. The primary way to increase Internal Energy is to practice using it via your esper power like you guessed, or, in your case, powers. You can also get it by levelling-up powers but that's far less efficient."

"I see..." Daz stroked his chin as a peculiar look entered his eyes. "Do you think that the voice I heard was... my mother?"

Rose shrugged. "Who knows? Neither of us have ever met her, so even if you described the voice perfectly to me I wouldn't be able to answer that, though it's a pretty safe assumption."

"That begs the question though as to why she bothered leaving... what, a failsafe in me to keep me alive if I ever almost died from awakening?" Daz asked mostly rhetorically. "What was the point of doing that for a son she's never even met before? When did she do it? When I was born?"

Rose frowned. "You ask too many questions and think too hard sometimes. Trust me, it's not healthy. If she's still alive, you'll find out eventually. I can pull some of my resources and time to look into it a bit for you if you'd like, but I really don't think it matters much."

Daz shook his head. "No, that's fine. I am curious though, what's her name? I never cared before, but now... I'm a bit interested."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Helaina Hamilio, though her maiden name is Crowthorne - the family name of the Soul Collector bloodline."

"Crowthorne, huh? Thanks, Rose. You really helped me out there," Daz said.

Madison bobbed her head up and down, jiggling Mr Barrier about. "Mmm, Rose, helpful. Good, girl."

Her cheeks flushed. "You two are so sappy..."

"Only with each other and with you," Daz teased with a grin. "Anyway, did anything special happen while we were away?"

Rose stopped typing and tapped her chin softly. "Nah. Not really. I mean, we're getting closer and closer to completing your goal of uniting four U.S states and I've already discovered all of the champions in the U.S but apart from that, nothing particularly special. You might want to bring out your clones again and maybe go see Lyle? That creep probably has work for you to do."

Daz smiled softly. "Thanks. Can I have a list of those champions?"

Rose shrugged. "Sure. Wait for Lyle to finish his PDF booklet thingy. I'll send it to that when you've got one. In the meantime, I am working on a map that tracks them. I'll let you know when that's done."

'Right, I'd ordered Lyle to make something like that, hadn't I? I'd almost forgot... Considering how many citizens we have now I imagine such a thing would be expensive to mass-produce... Well, I'm sure Lyle will figure something out in that regard,' Daz thought.

The reaper leaned over the table and kissed his sister on the forehead. "By the way, don't forget your birthday, okay?"

Rose averted her eyes as she spat out, "I know. It's in 3-days. C'mon, I'd be the last person to forget anything. By the way, Greg just returned from his month-long mission."

"So much happening all at once... I'll see you later then, Rose," Daz said.

"Right... later," Rose replied as some hesitation filled her expression. "Um, Daz."

"Yeah? Need something?" the reaper asked.

Taking a second to think, Rose shook her head. "Actually, nevermind. It's, uh, not really anything important."

"If you say so." Daz trusted her intelligence.

If whatever she had considered bringing up wasn't actually important, then unimportant it was.

Madison hugged Rose quickly before both she and Daz were shooed away by the embarrassed girl.

"... Yeah. It's better if they don't know. It's better if no one knows..." Rose mumbled under her breath as she controlled her wheelchair to roll away.

"Crowthorne... Crowthorne... It's a good name," Daz muttered as he sat atop his iron throne.

Previously, the throne was made of wood. It was still incredibly ornate and majestic, but the new iron material gave it a feeling of power.

Daz hadn't known this until recently but as a ruler gained more and more land, citizens, and respect, their throne or seat of government would naturally evolve and become grander.

No new effects had been granted to Daz upon sitting on it. He was still only privy to the regal bonus afforded to him by the room itself, but still, the new throne certainly seemed more imposing and kingly.

"Crowthorne, My King?" Lyle asked, having just finished organising and looking over his notes.

Daz shook his head. "It's nothing important, anyway, are you ready now?"

"Ah, of course, My King. To give you a brief summary, the road network project that you commissioned from the builders of Los Angeles and San Diego has been 30% completed. I expect it to be finished in 2 or 3 more weeks," Lyle said.

He glanced at his notes again before saying, "Waterford has been 50% restored and can host upwards of 100,000 citizens. Unfortunately, Sandy claims that he doesn't have the tools, machinery, nor the know-how for constructing skyscrapers, so a lot of the housing space is being used inefficiently. He assures me that he'll have to tear down most of the houses he's building with his team sooner or later. Perhaps My King would like to expend Waterford's taxes and city points to directly purchase some instead?"

Daz's hands felt empty. It was a shame that Madison had left for a shower immediately after their talk with Rose. He wanted to join her, honestly.

"No. I'd rather we built everything by hand. The less we have to rely on the system, the better. In that regard, make arrangements to recover and protect as many farms as possible in California first. I want us to be our own food suppliers again, though if necessary, use the system to acquire tools that don't harm the environment as we did with the lighting and power projects," Daz calmly ordered.

"Of course, My King." Lyle never questioned Daz which was both helpful and a bit of a hindrance, in truth. "Speaking of the lighting and power projects, My King, they are 15% and 10% complete respectively. We only have a little over 100 engineers, so it's taken longer than I'd personally like, but they're still making fine progress."

Daz nodded. "It's okay. We can't afford to rush such important and massive projects."

Lyle nodded. "In regards to everything else, My King... Well, there's a lot of trivial stuff to go over. I don't know if you would rather hear a summary ins-"

Daz raised his palm, interrupting his personal advisor. "No, I have time. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma have already been resummoned and put back to work, so please, do give me every detail."

"Wouldn't that bore you, My King?" Lyle asked in apparent concern.

Daz smiled faintly. "Yes, it will, but what kind of a king skims over important details simply because they don't interest him?"

"An unwise one," Lyle answered with a short bow. "Very well then, first is in regards to the new 'Special Community' - as the citizens have come to call the espers under your command..."

3 full hours later Lyle was finished filling Daz in on everything that he had missed as well as on the topics that had been building up over the last month.

The young monarch was now alone in his throne room save for the keep servants manning the main entrance to the grand hall.

He tapped the silk-covered iron armrest of his throne as he frowned. "Being a king is a lot harder than I first thought it would be."

"As it should be, Your Majesty," Crosius said as he entered the room. A sad look filled his eyes when he gazed upon the iron throne. "I took so long deciding on which throne to buy all of those years ago only for the system to replace it now... Such a shame..."

Regardless of his mumblings, the old man walked up to the bottom of the steps that led to Daz's royal throne and he then bowed humbly. "Being the ruler of a kingdom is no easy feat, Your Majesty. Treating it as such can only lead to ruin. I am incredibly proud of you for handling it as seriously as it should be handled even despite your youth."

Daz nodded. "Yeah, I'm trying. Lyle mentioned that you had a few things to discuss with me too, Crosius."

Crosius could feel the impatience in the air. 'His Majesty must be missing Young Miss Madison... Well, I can't expect perfection from him even if he is an excellent ruler. Love can be both a great boon and a dangerous poison to any person in power...'

He stroked his beard then coughed softly. "Ahem, Your Majesty, most of that which I must inform you of is trivial, however, I also have the reports regarding the strange beasts that have been appearing all over the world these past few weeks."

Daz's interest was immediately piqued. The emergence of these monster-like beasts was most certainly something that had been started by another sovereign-candidate like himself if his conjectures were correct.

Even Rose wasn't able to determine who had made this change to Earth, but regardless, Daz had a lot of his attention focused on this lingering threat.