Satellite

In a panic and without realizing what was happening, he yelled, "Weld, I need to speak- oh, hello, Doctress. May I borrow him for a moment?"

She quickly and unhappily shrunk the mute circle and instantly put on a cheerful face while holding Zeeths arm like she was checking for injuries. "Of course," she said in her usual voice, walking away.

Wistiga said, "how did you survive? That amount of power and your current skill level, shouldn't be possible."

"I think that was me." Ed opened his eyes to look at the two. "When I realized how much it hurt, I drew away from the heat and stored it inside myself. I think it cooled us down enough to barely live."

"Ed, how long were you awake?!" Doctress yelped.

"Just a minute."

'Thank you so much,' Zeeth thought, 'now that Ed gave a reason no one would grill him for one. Not his hundred slimes, not his dragon powers, not his angel and devil, and not White World.

Right after WW helped, he felt all the pain and fatigue vanish.

But Wistiga kept asking, "there was nothing else? You didn't feel anything else drawing away from its power?"

"No."

"Weld, could you come to my office?"

"Absolutely not," Doctress said, "he is an injured student, he just endured being electrocuted. He is not going anywhere."

"Yeah, I can hardly get up," he lied.

"That's fine. I can come back tomorrow."

Once Wistiga left, Doctress closed the curtains between Zeeth and Ed and created the bubble again. This time she calmly asked, "do you really not know? I may have jumped to conclusions."

"What conclusions?"

"Yes, I overlooked your bones. Having that break calmed me down. I am terribly sorry. I shouldn't tell you this but… since I basically revealed it and you could find it elsewhere, I thought you were one of the Aboriginals that the Frost Giant God froze thousands of years ago. But you must promise not to tell anyone or let them know that I told you."

"You know about the Frost Giant God?"

"How do you know? She only told me since I had to thaw so many people before for her."

"It's a long- why did you think I was an Aboriginal?"

"Under your suit, yes I know about the suit, I saw Dragon Scales and features, the exact features that Headmistress warned me about. But their bones are also thousands of years old and contain traces of Aboriginal Mana and yours are all human, if not a bit weak. My apologies, I only thought to check that after Wistiga came. Do you want to explain the scales? I have never even heard of a normal human having scales."

"That's also a long story. But I'm not here to hurt the headmistress or free the Aboriginals."

"Second thing. Your many slimes."

"Dang, you saw those as well?"

"I am a professional doctor. My scanning skill is top-notch. Why say you only have five?"

"I didn't want to share too much," He shrugged. He had so many other secrets he wanted to share but he was sure it would come to hurt him if he did.

Page finally said to Elton, "imagine a dozen humans that can grow to trust you so much that they would risk their lives for you. That's what this group can be if you command them and treat them nicely."

"That… does sound nice. Although, incredibly unethical, haha."

"But what is? Ethics is opinion. In the end, if you can make them like you enough, it will be their choice. But if you put in the right work now, you will be sure to reap the rewards later."

"You're right. I have a plan, but it's going to be a long one and I might need your help."

"Sure. So long as you take command of these twelve and keep them out of our way."

"Alright." The spirits in his bones wiggled about and whispered, "he's emotionally growing! He's taking other humans under his bony wings!"

"Shaddup."

"Oooh, he's getting embarrassed!" They taunted.

Elton stood in front of the dozen and clacked, "you are now under my command." He had the spirits burst from his bones, surrounding them all in an eerie, green glow, and yelled, "I AM YOUR COMMANDER, DIMWITS!! CALL ME SIR!! If you want to meet and work with Zeeth, you work under me first. When you half-ass weaklings are strong enough, you can grace his presence. Right now, I WILL MOLD YOU FROM CRAP INTO GOLD!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!!"

"Who the hell-?!"

Elton stretched out a finger and whipped the boy who spoke and yelled again, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! YES SIR, OR NO SIR!"

"YESSIR!!" They yelled in unison.

"Elton, What are you doing? If you scare them off, they could-"

"If anyone is scared off by this, then they never deserve to meet ANYONE AS STRONG AS ZEETH! If you're scared, you are free to go! Just never come back or see us again, coward!"

The twelve froze where they stood, in fear and confusion. Elton said to Page, 'thanks for the assist. Let's hope this works.'

'Seriously. If they get scared off, they could be the seed to our Revolution. Make sure they either stay. Or die.'

'I know. I'm prepared.'

On this day, the First Commander of Zeeth's army was appointed. Without Zeeth's knowledge.

Page scribbled words onto some paper, folded it into a swan, and sent it flying off. On top was a small, complex circle with a portion of mana trapped in it made to track the owner of the mana, Zeeth.

Meanwhile, Elton and the twelve headed for the village where they could stay and figure out what they could do.

Zeeth, with the help of Doctress, got up from the bed and stretched, along with a large, satisfying yawn.

"Are you sure you're fine?"

"Yes, I am. The scales have probably shrunk back so I'm safe now."

"Fine. Just tell others that you didn't take as much damage as you thought because Ed drew the heat away."

"Okay." He walked out of the room and ran to Wistiga. Something told him that he knew something he shouldn't and he had to contain it as soon as he could.

Just as he was about to burst open the door, Black stopped him, yelling, 'He knows! The recording is showing your past fights.'

'How?!'

'Some new technology I've never seen before, he can somehow see the fights you've had from your perspective.'

'But it won't show me so my suit hasn't been revealed, right?'

'He paused and zoomed into the reflection of one of Yem's water balls. He knows who you are.'

'Shit.' Zeeth burst into the room, causing the screen to shut off and Wistiga to turn around.

"Hello, Weld. I didn't realize you were ready to be moving already."

"Yeah. Ed helped a lot."

"Weld, do you know about the human Karkov? They say he was brainwashed or haunted by a demon parrot. And together, they took the kingdom of Grinkhald."

"Yes, I heard," he lied again. He had to blend in and seem like he knew.

"Do you know anything else about him? Like when he first started?"

'Wasn't he the boy who tried to eat me? You should thank him, he made me realize that humans now are weak. Basically pushed me to work with you.'

'But he now controls a kingdom.'

'By force. He will soon realize why tyrants never survived long enough to do much.'

"He violently removed the king and declared himself the ruler of the land. Anyone who disobeyed was killed but people were free to move." He continued, "so tens of thousands of people moved out for fear of their death or a friend. Our kingdom is only one large forest away, so we experienced a sudden increase of about five thousand people. And do you know someone who fought with such a man, a man who caused so much pain, and had a chance to kill him?"

He wanted to deny it, saying, "No, I'm afraid not."

But if he were to continue acting like he doesn't know, Wistiga might turn to someone else to spill the secrets to. So he created a mana sphere and said, "I know you know who I am. I'm Zeeth. I don't want to stay long or hurt anyone. I'm here for personal matters. If you have an issue with how I dealt with Karkov, you can bring it up to me later."

He raised his hands and leaned back, "I don't want any trouble. I just wanted you to confess who you were on your own. And now I know who I'm dealing with, could you talk to me about your experiences?" He leaned forward again, lacing his hands together, "Like this mana wall, this is a common technique that you seem to have raised to new levels. The patterns are unpredictable and all unique, preventing easier access."

"Is it high level? No one ever mentioned it before."

"Of course not, it's not easy to notice for amateurs and the naked eye. But I have studied techniques all my life instead of just practicing them, this is very unique."

"This was just what my mentor taught me. It was harder to perform and more satisfying to complete so I do it every time. It's normal to me now."

"Can, can you show me the slimes?"

"First, what do you know about Gorn Wilbur?"

"Gorn? Jeez, he was quiet. He didn't like to say much, just talked about how much he hated everything. Complained a lot about school and his dad's work but didn't give any specifics."

"Did he say what he hated?"

"Nope. Just how annoying it all was."

Zeeth heaved a sigh of exhaustion and looked around the room, hopeful for some clue. The entire time, Black was scanning the school for any traces of unusual movement of skin removal yet nothing strange happened. As he looked around, Zeeth saw a strange paper from Black's eye in Wistiga's table. It was a blueprint for what appeared to be a magic windmill. At the core was a magic gem smoothed to a ball and three long attachments around it.

Now that he had been revealed, it didn't matter to him how much Wistiga knew so he asked, "Is that a windmill blueprint?"

"What? What are you…" his voice faded away as he glanced at the desk where the blueprints lay. "You have Transparent Vision?"

"To an extent."

"Why don't you use them more in your fights? You can see the entire battle with that."

"It's hard to remember all my skills and act on all my thoughts when my life is in danger. It's easy to say now but at the moment, my usual thoughts are, survive and hit."

"Right, sorry. I'm a theoretical magician, all my thoughts are on paper. I only look at what is possible, not what is probable. If only we could stop time, huh."

"Yes. If only."

'Gods Number,' he called. He was transported to God and quickly said, "I wanna stop time. How?"

"Freeze all the atoms in the universe at once. For you, basically impossible. For me, easy as pie."

Zeeth hopped out of the talk after ten minutes, annoyed. God wouldn't give him a reasonable method to freeze the space around him so he asked about mana windmills, water mills, and an idea that struck him there, satellites.

When he came back, Wistiga was still pulling out the blueprint when Zeeth asked, "do you want to make a satellite?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Satellite?"

"A thing we toss up into space so that we can transmit mana all over the place. Right now, people share recordings and images by connecting two devices, but what if we could do that long-distance, maybe even around the world, without wires or anything."

"Well, I would say you sound crazy. But I've honestly heard crazier and it still happened so… continue."

"It's an invention someone from my home invented. We basically find a material that can conduct and bounce electricity, throw it into orbit in space and give it enough momentum that the planet's gravity will pull it along forever. We then do the math and from that one object, we can eject mana into the sky and have it bounce off, landing in other areas of the world."

As Wistiga tried to understand it all, the hunters in Darkone Dungeon continued traveling. All of them were on the highest alert. Over the days, they continually cast rejuvenating spells to keep alert so nothing could surprise them. Still having their hearing and vision blocked meant that all they had was their touch.

They didn't have enough sleep, if anyone wanted to sleep, it had to be on everyone else's shoulders as they continued trekking and no one wanted to burden the rest. Although the spells were beginning to lose effectiveness and their potions were running low and marching for days with armor was taking a serious toll.

"Anyone need sleep?" The Empress signed to them.

The message was passed along and every one replied "no". But she knew someone wanted to and to take the pressure off of them, she said she wanted to for an hour. And since she was the lightest, being a woman wielding Black Magic, she was the easiest to carry.

They tossed her onto their shoulders and carried on. It was awkward and hard but she was delighted. Everyone argues but when a push comes to a shove, she's glad that everyone would pitch in without hesitation and help.

As Wistiga wrote down his ideas and possible plans, he asked, "by the way, the monks didn't say, have any of your slimes gained talents yet?"

"The monks are still talking about me?"

"They've actually written down some of the things you did and shared it with everyOne."

"Damn them. Why are they like this?"

'I better get stronger fast and make their info outdated. Then it could benefit me.'

"Maybe it's to keep you in check."

"Maybe. Also, slimes can develop talents?"

"Yeah, Talent is often linked to intelligence. An increase in your intelligence increases theirs as well and if they can process emotions, they can develop talents."

"I don't know yet. How do I tell?"

"Usually, I would recommend the machine as it can read both the chance of talent and current talent. But it's currently going through some modifications so that's not viable."

Mentioning the machine gave him a flashback he forgot, the moment the electricity touched him. The shocking pain was enough to jolt him just thinking about it.

He shook his head and continued, "a satellite needs a power source, preferably solar, a receiver and transmitter, and some way to control itself like a propulsion system."

"Oh, so it's like how teleporters work but taken to a new level."

"How do teleporters work?"

"Jeez, what, are you from Nazure? Haha."

"What?"