The next morning, Daneel woke up afresh.
He had been cutting down on his sleep recently, because Champions didn't really require as much rest as normal humans. He had been making do with barely 4 hours of sleep, so it felt great to sleep for…
Wait, had it actually been an entire day?
As Daneel looked out of the window to see that it was night time, again, he realized this and got a surprised expression on his face.
He hadn't set an alarm, as even back on Earth, he had always believed that that was the true mark of freedom, and he had just allowed himself to rest as much as needed.
It seemed that he really had been piling on a lot of stress on to himself, because right now, he felt as if his mind had been broken out of the shackles that had been weighing it down without him even realizing it for the longest time.
Rather than shackles, it was more accurate to think of it as fatigue which had engulfed it like a sea and had been about to drown it in its murky depths.
After all, each and every thing that he had had to do and handle for his breakthrough had been very crucial, and throughout all that time, he had been in a very highly alert state.
After that, the case of the murdered seed had instantly sprung on him, and through it all, too, he had needed to be at his best.
It was only now that he finally had an opportunity to just take it easy, and it made a world of difference.
Laughing softly to himself, Daneel freshened himself up and then called for a meeting of the Sovereigns in the sky.
As he looked up at the heavenly bodies which always seemed so unreachable to those on the ground, he allowed his mind to wander, and it invariably went to the things that he should concern himself with the most at the moment.
Chief among them was, of course… The system.
Taking a breath, he said, "System, give me the count of the amount of EXP that I have right now."
[Replying to host. Total EXP: 827,000. EXP to upgrade:1,000,000.]
Almost as if it had read his mind, the system also gave the number that he wanted to reach.
Indeed, right now, as his breakthrough was already done, the system was his chief priority, and the biggest leap of strength that might just propel him to even the leagues of Heroes.
Even though the system only had Champion level complexity right now, it had proven invaluable in all of his pursuits. So, just imagining how things would be if it upgraded made it so that Daneel had to control the drool that almost came on the corner of his lips, and thankfully, there were no Sovereigns present to see this break of the kingly attitude that he was supposed to carry himself with.
He had asked them to come after 15 minutes, thankfully, exactly so that he could settle all of his thoughts in order, and that turned out to be a boon at the moment.
The number that had just been given to him really was something that he had to rejoice about, because it felt as if he was so close. It almost felt like just yesterday when that number of a million had seemed so unreachable, but now, all he needed was just 173,000 more EXP.
'Just'.
The problem was that even now, he couldn't really understand the exact criteria with which the system awarded achievements.
Long ago, itself, it had told him that it had stopped giving him EXP for little things, as that had only been present before when he was weaker so that he could grow in strength and not find himself squashed by someone stronger than him.
There was the option of getting EXP from the Kingdom Management Module, but the satisfaction level that was listed there was too high, and he didn't know how he could target that in a short period of time.
Hence, achievements were the main source of EXP at the moment, and just a day ago, he had been proven wrong regarding them.
He had been hoping that he would obtain at least a little bit of EXP for solving that case, but he had gotten nothing.
As he thought about it now, though, Daneel realized that that was actually wishful thinking, as the system had actually been quite clear on the achievements that it did give.
It counted things which helped him on the path to World Domination, so how could he have imagined that becoming Sherlock Holmes would allow him to make progress on that path?
Shaking his head slowly while mocking himself a bit, Daneel started to think whether there was any way in which he could target EXP.
After spending a little bit of time on this, though, he didn't get any ideas, so he moved on to list the other main things on his plate.
His power was definitely the second most important thing that he wanted to pursue. Ideally, he would have used the incredible training chamber that he had obtained in the Kingdom of Eldinor, but he had an agreement with the Divine Cockroach. She still hadn't broken through, and even though she kept happily dancing around occasionally, it was clear that that was only because of how incredible it must feel to be in an area that had such a high concentration of Energy.
In fact, seeing that happy dance even made Daneel feel a slight bit of envy.
He had no intention of double-crossing the Divine Cockroach, though, because he had also made plans for the future which concerned her. So, for the moment, he would have to use Ker gems, but that was definitely not a long-term solution.
Oh, how he missed the taste of that fish that he had eaten in the Sect of Hedon.
Yes, the best way would be to get more of that fish, so Daneel added this to the list of things that he should do.
Also attached to the second item on his list was his wish to obtain more and more consciousnesses of Godbeasts.
True, he had gotten two very important ones, but there were still others that he wished to obtain. For them, right now, although the Treasuries of the Big Four were closed to him, there was a different Treasury that he could go to.
The Treasury of the Gods.
Yes, that was definitely what he would do soon, and the only reason the Daneel wasn't rushing there right now was that he still felt Lanthanor being scanned repeatedly.
It was a Hero level scan, so he couldn't identify who was the one behind it. It could either be friend or foe, but either way, it was best to lay low and take it slow.
He felt almost like a criminal who was hiding so that his 'heat' could go down, and although it was irritating, Daneel just used that emotion as motivation for himself to march forward on his path and become someone that wouldn't need to fear anyone on Angaria.
The third item was the secret village that Cassandra was searching for, and he planned to soon join her in her search as it really didn't feel good to go about his actions while there was a hidden force operating in the shadows.
It was like an itch on his hands that he couldn't even scratch, and he wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible.
Sadly, he couldn't embark on that, either, for the same reason.
After that came the final two items on his list, which were actually related to each other.
They involved his long-term plans for the Church, as he had no intention whatsoever to sit while twiddling his thumbs and just grow his own power.
That was one item, and the other was finishing his task of obtaining all the data in all the libraries of the Big Four. He had still yet to visit two, and even though his original objective due to which he had set out on that task had already been fulfilled, he had no intention of giving up such a large source of data which would definitely help him in ways that he couldn't even imagine now.
The reason that he was linking these two together was that his hope was that he could use the data that he obtained in those libraries to bring changes in the Central Continent, because if did that, even if anyone asked, he could simply state that he had gotten the ideas from the libraries that he had perused.
With this list made, once again, Daneel felt his mind clear, and it was a wonderful feeling to know which direction to go in, even if he had no idea how exactly he would go about ticking off each item.
Finding himself in a good mood, Daneel began to hum some of his favorite songs from Earth to himself, but suddenly, an idea started forming in his mind.
It would never have begun doing so if he hadn't listed things in this way, and even though it was in its nascent stages, it excited Daneel, and added a glint to his eyes.
Soon, the Sovereigns began to pop into the area one by one, but Eloise saw that the gears in Daneel's mind were turning, which led her to cast a spell of silence over the area where they were so that they wouldn't disturb the King.
After all seven of them arrived, they began talking between themselves while waiting for the meeting to begin, and when it finally did, the first thing that the King said made them all stare at him with taken aback expressions on their faces.
"It's time to turn our Alliance into an Empire."
After a few seconds where his Sovereigns stared at him, Daneel chuckled and decided to elaborate.
"Well, I meant that more figuratively than literally. Until now, even though the Alliance was set up, I couldn't focus too much on it because there were other things I had to do. Besides, my original intention was to get enough satisfaction level so that I could break the last seal, and that had been fulfilled. We implemented many things, and although they all seem to be going well, I feel that it is time to speed them up, and look for ways to turn this large tract of the continent we have to ourselves into a prosperous, united nation."
If I do that, it is highly possible that I will be awarded with an achievement, and I will also get closer to the required satisfaction level for the next reward from the system. Besides, can't I find a way to target the other two forces secretly, too, if I wish, to jack up the satisfaction level further?
As a mischievous smile appeared on the King's face, a slight chill ran up the backs of those present.
They could tell that whatever the King was planning would definitely bring tumultuous changes in the continent, and as one, they felt like thanking their lucky stars that they were with him, and not against him.
Clapping his hands and getting all of their attention again, Daneel said, "All right. Any ideas?"
It was Faxul who replied first.
"Money. You have tons and tons of money, but you can't take any of it out, because you wouldn't be able to explain where you got it from. With money, we can get a lot of things done."
Faxul had hit the nail right on its head, and he even got appreciative nods from Luther and the rest.
Indeed, this was the most direct way, and it was almost as if he had in his vault a large store of 'black' money, which he couldn't take out.
Was there a way where he could legitimately turn it 'white'?
As Daneel continued to think, he recalled one of the biggest scams from Earth that might just be perfect for this situation, and when it came into his mind, his face lit up like that of a child's on Christmas Eve.