Over a week had passed by as Daz spent time with Mu at his humble home.

Most of their time together was used meditating and simply thinking. Every now and then Daz would dismiss and reform Alpha to learn what had happened in his kingdom before sending him back to act as New Earth's king in his absence.

Everyone was aware that the man sat upon the iron throne wasn't actually Daz since he had publicly announced his intentions to train, but as he had such capable clones to fill in his empty role, no one had voiced any complaints. At least, not yet.

Apparently, Greg and his new soldiers had been doing good work securing the perimeter of Fort Home, destroying all the monster groups with no leaders which they happened upon.

As for Daz and Mu, the latter had improved greatly with his mastery of the Ember of Sweeping.

Every time they duelled Daz would try something new to get the better of his fellow reaper only for Mu to gain further insight into the Ember of Sweeping, strengthening both his defense and his attack.

As for Mu's Embers of Suffering, Loneliness, and Fear, they had all made progress, though, like his Ember of Sweeping, they all remained at the Entry-level.

Daz, on the other hand, had yet to earn an Ember. Apparently, it wasn't something you could get easily, which would explain why Mu was only the 17th person to do it on the whole planet in the past 2 - almost 3 - months.

He had meditated for the first couple of days just to really focus in on his mind and think about exactly what Embers he may already have a seed for.

The system wouldn't tell him such a thing since it wasn't the sovereign of the Embers.

Daz had come to the conclusion that he likely had seeds for the Ember of Love, the Ember of Hate, the Ember of Apathy and maybe the Ember of Scooping or Digging.

Of course, all of this was speculative. Neither he nor Mu had any way to confirm if Daz was on the path to earning any of these Embers or if any of the Embers even existed at all.

Due to how battle-intensive Daz felt the coming confrontation with the Truthians was likely to be, he had decided to focus on the Ember of Scooping or Digging out of the 4 theorised ones.

If he wasn't meditating, receiving a report from Alpha or duelling with Mu, then Daz was digging up his friend's perfectly picturesque garden.

Thankfully, Mu cared very little about the aesthetics of his large plot of land in the centre of his flourishing base.

He had simply bought it like this from the system since it was so wide and open, Daz creating hundreds of holes in it every day hardly changed that.

The handful of people that Mu had assigned duties to so that he could more efficiently run Shúzuì had initially gaped in shock at the state of their lord's perfect garden, but upon realising that it was King Daz who was responsible for the abhorrent mess, they calmed their minds and waved it off as one more of the mysterious ruler's quirks.

Little did the two reapers know that a rumour regarding Daz's very odd habit to dig up dirt and ruin perfectly beautiful landscapes had begun making its rounds through the city.

Incidentally, with so much time to think, Daz had already decided what would be the very first thing of his that he would make permanent with El Dorado's help.

The contract between him and Ak and Tek wasn't something he had chosen to make permanent, so he didn't count it as the first instance of him using the feature, really. That was just a formality to get the city and its power to add Stars of Eternity to whatever he wished under his control.

"Are you ready to go, Mu?" Daz asked as he twisted his wrist as he held a magical and rune-covered key, warping space and making the Ridomochi Final Model appear in front of Mu's single-story house.

Nodding, his fellow reaper responded, "Yes. Everything I need is within my ring, Brother. And as you have done, I have made arrangements for others to rule in my stead should we be gone for more than a week."

The two got into the car and Daz began driving it up into the sky promptly. "Great. I really hope their ability to cut off access to the system as well as to suppress esper powers isn't passive or all-inclusive, but it sounds like it will be from what I've heard thus far from Emma and her people."

Mu wore a slight frown on his handsome face. "Indeed. It was a good idea to dispel your clones and Rimmy early. Better the people are prepared for them to be absent than for it to be sudden like when you initially explored El Dorado."

"Not exactly apples to apples, but yeah. Fingers crossed Crusher, Maddy and Fort Sky are big enough deterrents while we're gone," Daz said as he couldn't help but picture the fires surrounding Fort Skip after Timothy Marglow's terroristic attack from almost 2-months ago.

"I am sure they will be. With California under your rule, there are no enemies within at least a several hundred-mile radius of Fort Home. You must learn when it is appropriate to be paranoid," Mu said. "The citizenship tests are more vigorous than ever. You know as well as anyone that spies would have a difficult time entering your lands, let alone enter with the ability to do any harm."

"Yeah, I know," Daz answered. "It's hard to shake off old habits, however. Plus, it never hurts to be worried."

Mu shook his head. "Unfounded worry and worries that will only interfere with your mental state are most certainly harmful worries, Brother."

Daz didn't respond to that.

Mu could clearly tell that it would be many, many more therapy sessions before he could come even close to breaking Daz's untrusting nature.

He didn't sigh, but he did shake his head sadly for a moment before closing his eyes. Further discussion on this point would be without meaning, Mu felt.

On the way to El Dorado, with nothing to do and with Mu silently meditating next to him, Daz decided to look at his status and do some thinking.

It wasn't a long trip to El Dorado but it was still a solid chunk of time that he felt he could better use to ponder over his future growth.

Host's Status Basic Information Name: Daz Species: Reaper Race: Archreaper Age: 20 Sex: Male Class: Crystal Digger Affinity: Lawful Neutral Energies Lifeforce: 100,000/100,000 Death Energy: 90,500/105,000 Worldforce: 17,500/17,500 Stats Strength: [LR] 1,500(2,250) Dexterity: [LR] 2,000(3,000) | Item Boost: +50. Constitution: [Limit Reached!] 3,000(4,500) [+467] Intelligence: 1,483(2,224) [+500] Transparency: [LR] 780(1,170) Agility: [LR] 1,500 Charisma: [LR] 2,000 | Item Boost: +15. Defense: [LR] 2,000 | Item boost: +3,000. Immunity: [Limit Reached!] 2,000 [+252] Soul Power: 42,000 [+13,000] Luck: [LR]1,250 | Item Boost: +375. Justice: 7,680 [+2,340] Corruption: 0 Wisdom: 2,633 | Item Boost: +250. [+500] Regeneration: 1,933 | Item boost: +100. [+500] Mana Sensitivity: 1,474 [+500]

On top of the souls he had absorbed during the mercenary mission with Madison and Master Merit, Daz had gone out a handful of times to clear a few more subjugation missions purely for the purpose of gaining more stats while he was spending time with Mu.

These excursions were rare, quick and mostly used for Daz to apply his thoughts on the Ember of Scooping or Digging in life-or-death combat, but he certainly didn't dislike the progress towards ranking up as a mercenary as well as the merit points he was given as a reward upon each successful mission.

'I've almost reached the stat cap for all of them... Regeneration is less than 100 points away while Mana Sensitivity, Wisdom and Intelligence all have a couple thousand to go. Ignoring Soul Power which is both spendable and has a cap of 2,000,000, I'm very nearly maxed...' Daz began wondering if it would be worthwhile to invest in a few stat fruits.

'System, including my stored merit points and stars, how much money do I have in total?' Daz asked mentally.

Confirmed. The host has a total combined sum of 679,857,066 merit points and 14 merit stars.

"So a bit over 2-billion merit points, more or less," Daz muttered.

Mu still had his eyes closed, but he raised an eyebrow. "Hmm?"

"Ah, nothing. Just speaking to myself," Daz answered. 'People tend to get shocked when I say how much money I have. Best to not disturb Mu's state of mind.'

Mu nodded and returned to what he was doing.

'I definitely have enough money to make myself a god, don't I? I could fill out all of my 55 skill slots with at least SS-rank skills, I could get a bunch of powerful rings and other gear, hell, I could even go around the planet and buy every unoccupied base I came across and still be left with some change, probably,' Daz thought.

He stroked his chin as he furrowed his brows. Something deep within him was screaming at him to abandon such thoughts, as it always did when he considered spending his fortune.

'Why? Why do my instincts think it's critical to my survival to have as much money as possible?' Daz really didn't know the answer to that question.

'Maybe I should try to use Future Vision on this subject? Could I even visualise the future of such a vague scenario?' He pondered over it for a short while before he nodded. 'I'll do that on the way to New York. That's a slightly longer drive, so I'll have the time to recover from using up my internal energy.'

"Ah, King Daz. Welcome back," Sir Albert greeted as soon as Daz and Mu had wandered into the large tent that had been posted up in the middle of El Dorado.

Many seemingly indigenous people roamed the city of gold and they were all 'ooh'ing and 'ahh'ing at the Ridomochi sat outside.

"Nice to see you, Sir Albert," Daz said before he pointed to Mu. "This is Shen Mu, my brother in arms, Mu, this is Sir Albert, the caretaker of El Dorado. He's also in charge of making things permanent."

Tears began welling up in the old man's eyes. "You didn't forget the 'Sir'..."

He quickly put the book he was studying down and stood up before offering his hand to Mu.

The young Chinese man shook it, however, nothing about Sir Albert screamed 'cool' to him, so Mu's interest was very limited in the elderly man.

Daz watched a dark-skinned and very loosely-dressed young woman enter the tent and leave a cup of tea on Sir Albert's desk before she scurried out of the canvas structure.

"These people, who are they and where'd they come from?" Daz asked.

When he had last left the city only Sir Albert, George, and the two mummies Ak and Tek were its inhabitants. Now, upon looking at the city's information page, it showed that the place had over 400 citizens.

"Ah, the Amazonians? They're from several local tribes scattered throughout the whole rainforest," Sir Albert claimed.

He smiled kindly and nodded his head as if he had remembered something. "They were called here by Ak and Tek since they have very thin traces of Aztecan, Incan, Mayan or Muisca blood in their veins. Not enough to become El Dorado's inheritors, of course, but just enough to get strong urges to head here once I had become the place's custodian."

The elderly man picked up his cup of tea and took a savoury sip while he held one of his hands behind his back. "They don't speak a word of English... yet. I'm working on that, both George and I are. They seem to know what to do though when it's appropriate. They make living here quite enjoyable and they're strong enough to hunt the nearby monsters to get research materials."

He knitted his brows in interest. "Strange beasts, those monsters. I wonder where they came from, in truth. Anyhoo, I trust you're here to take advantage of the new moon cycle, yes?"

"I shall have to shamefully agree with your assumption, I'm afraid. If only I had the luxury to come here and visit on my free time," Daz responded with a tone of politeness. "Unfortunately, I have an alliance promise to fulfil."

Sir Albert shook his head. "I know it isn't easy ruling a government. When it gets easy, that's when you know you've failed. Well, that or you've been usurped by a democratic government that tolerates you technically being the ruler like the queen, God rest her soul."

Mu wore a confused look on his face. "She died? I thought she was immortal. That was the rumour, at least..."

"Well, unless her corgis count as weapons, I doubt she'd have been left on Earth," Sir Albert laughed as he made for the entryway of the tent. "Where were we? Ah, right! The Altar of Theft."

"The what?" Daz narrowed his eyes. He didn't like that name, not even slightly.

Sir Albert laughed. "Well, you're taking things from the system and making them yours with force. What is that if not theft? Ak and Tek call it a Shrine of Tezcatlipoca, but just try and tell me that these ancient god names aren't tongue-twisters."

A small smile emerged on Mu's face as he followed the man alongside Daz. "I like him more now. He is a somewhat amusing character, is he not?"

"Being someone who studies very old and very dead stuff for decades is bound to give a man a few quirks," Daz shrugged.