Grand Ambition

"Knock knock, professor Minos is here." Minos said jokingly, as he headed into the room, finding Tinka studying seriously by herself.

"Minos!" Tinka said happily, putting her books away.

"Slow down, class is still in session, and as your professor, I think it's about time for a pop quiz." Minos said, taking a seat at the desk.

"Oh? Alright then Mister Professor, quiz me!" Tinka replied with a giggle.

Thinking for a moment, Minos gave Tinka a simple question, and without a doubt, Tinka answered with ease.

Seeing her intelligence, Minos raised a challenge with every question, Tinka beginning to sweat as Minos started hitting her with things beyond her current level.

"Wrong." Minos said, before continuing.

"It seems you failed this pop quiz of mine. That's a real shame, guess I'm going to have to fail you." Minos sighed, as if disappointed with himself as well.

"That's not fair, the questions you asked were too hard!" Tinka said, not used to having her smarts challenged.

"Well I guess I could make things easier, but not for free…" Minos said, his eyebrow raising as his intentions were obvious.

Blushing a little, Tinka immediately realized what Minos was doing, not expecting he'd pull something so filthy in such a place.

But secretly, she also couldn't help but become a little excited, the tabooness making it even more exciting.

"Please Professor, I'll do anything not to fail…" Tinka said, as she headed up to Minos.

"Anything, huh? Well I just so happen to have something in mind." Minos said, before shutting the door behind him and placing a few silencing talisman's on the walls.

…

What happened next went without saying, and it was only after a row throughout the entire class room, tossing desks and chairs aside, did the two finally relax at the main desk, Tinka leaning contently in Minos's arms.

"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot what I came here for." Minos suddenly said, sitting up from his relaxed position.

"Hmm? What is it?" Tinka asked.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'd be heading out for another day to test some things, hopefully this will be the last time."

"Alright, I'll tell the others."

"Well then, I won't bother you anymore. I'm sure you've got a lesson to finish." Minos said, giving Tinka one more kiss before heading off.

Heading back to his cave for a moment, Minos placed a few Signal Talisman's in a secure place before tucking the sibling talisman's into his robe.

Heading back out, Minos entered the Underwood Mountain Range on foot, not bothering to mount his horse this time.

The horse was fast, but compared to his speed as an Inner Heaven Cultivator, it was like a snail, of course it won out in terms of comfort.

Activating his full speed, Minos turned into a flash of light, so fast that a mortal would only see a blur.

Running through the forest, Minos couldn't help but feel a strange sense of freedom, as if the chains that had shackled him for so long had finally been untethered.

Thinking about it, it had been a long time since Minos had really made use of his cultivator abilities, almost feeling like a mortal most times.

Part of this was because of the place he lived, which was completely inhibited by mortals, hence Minos didn't really have much reason to flex his strength.

But it was likely that once he traveled to the Aleph Empire things would be completely different, and by then his abilities as a cultivator would probably be used on the daily.

It had been so long since he had fought someone, or even killed, that he had begun to miss the taste.

Not that he enjoyed killing, but rather, the exhilaration that came with being on the edge of a blade truly made one feel alive in a way Minos couldn't explain.

One step from death, that was when Minos performed his greatest, when he knew that a single mistake would be the end of him, but it had been years since he had felt such a thing.

As the trees flashed by him, Minos thought about all these things, letting out a sigh as he realized this family-life has dulled him somewhat.

But even though he missed those things, his family would always come first, and unless necessary, he wouldn't put his life in danger, not for fear of dying, but rather the fear of leaving his family without him.

He was not the same Minos of a decade ago who had no one and nothing, he was now a family man with all the responsibilities that came with it.

As Minos thought everything through, he had long since already traveled beyond the original 200 kilometers, so he pulled out a Signal Talisman and gave it a test.

As expected, the Signal Talisman worked without fail, so Minos ran out for another 200 kilometers, reaching a total of 400.

Again, Minos tested, but the Signal Talisman still worked fine, so Minos kept heading even further, soon reaching a total of 1000 kilometers from the tribe.

Even at this distance, the Signal Talisman still worked, but as Minos headed forward a bit more, it finally reached its limit, no longer activating beyond a thousand kilometers.

Seeing the result, Minos was extremely satisfied, a full 5x improvement and he only had to spend a single afternoon on the research.

With this new result, Minos initial estimate of 100 signal towers would drop down to only 20, not to mention the signal towers no longer had to be massive eyesores since Minos didn't have to rely on them to send the signal anymore.

In fact, it would be more apt to change the name from signal towers to signal holes, since Minos planned on planting them in the ground to really make them secure.

…

Heading back home, Minos was back before the sun completely set, his tremendous speed making the journey a far faster one than before despite traveling five times as far.

Entering the house, Minos joined the family for a meal before heading back to the cave, finally getting to work on those cures that he promised Ronkus.

Working overtime throughout the night, by the time the sun rose again, Minos had finally created enough serums for the entire tribe.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Minos leaned back into his chair before focusing back on his Signal Talisman research.

While he had managed to figure out how to convert Nux Resonance into 'Mortal' Resonance, he still had the problem of Signal Talisman's being one time use.

Activating his puppets, Minos got to work on his second stage of Signal Talisman research, this time dedicated towards increasing the usage limit of these talismans.

'Signal Talisman Usage Research, Test 01 - The cheap quality of the talisman paper as well as the blood used are big limited factors, so the first direction would simply be to improve these two things.'

'Signal Talisman Usage Research, Test 05 - Usage limit has increased to 8 times, far better then the start, but far from reaching a usable level.'

…

Again, Minos spent an entire day on research, completing hundreds of tests in complete concentration.

Fortunately, on his 138th test, Minos managed to utilize the unique properties of the Evergrow Lizard's blood as well as the talisman paper of a special type of bamboo called 'Sky Reach Bamboo.'

Neither of these materials were especially pricey, but they were unique in that the species they came from all had incredible regeneration abilities.

The Evergrow Lizard could pretty much regrow any lost limbs, meanwhile the Sky Reach Bamboo, much like the name, had incredible growth speeds, capable of growing dozens of inches everyday.

After a myriad of tests, Minos managed to fuse these properties together, creating an incredibly special Signal Talisman that had the ability to 'renew' itself.

Essentially, everytime Minos activated, the Signal Talisman could heal itself back to new, giving it pretty much infinite uses.

Of course, it would still break down after too many uses, but Minos estimated that it could last at least a few years, if not decades, before needing to be replaced.

With that out of the way, Minos finally had everything in place to create the skeletal system required to make his communication system viable.

While at first Minos only intended to use this for his family, as he put more effort into this project, he realized the incredible potential behind it.

As far as he knew, the Alephora Continent didn't have any means of communication over long distances, other than of course high grade talismans or weapons that were only available to the strongest cultivators.

For mortals, the world was pretty much a mystery, and all long distance communications would take months to travel back and forth.

However Minos's creation was not only cheap and easily mass-produced, it also didn't require any cultivation to use, meaning even mortals could communicate with his devices.

If Minos could spread his 'signal holes' across the continent, he could create a communication empire, the amount of revenue that would be generated from such a venture completely unimaginable.

After all, while high-level cultivators might not be very interested in such a thing, mid and low-level cultivators, which made up the vast majority of the cultivation world, absolutely would!