"I was expecting for perhaps half of the theatre to fill, Brother. What a surprise that it is over capacity with people even standing in the aisles," Mu commented as he watched a few units of soldiers desperately trying their best to keep everyone from hurting each other given how many people had shown up.

"This was a guarantee, Mu. Fort Home has over 200,000 citizens. This theatre can hold, at most, about 2,000, maybe 3,000 if push comes to shove. Considering how many bonuses I get to my persuasiveness and natural charm, I fully expected this," Daz replied.

Madison tilted her head to the side. "What, do, people, couldn't, make, it, in, but, outside?"

"We'll just tell them to come tomorrow. The plan is for Mu to hold a 30 to 60-minute showing once every day for the next 2-weeks. The hope is that other people will learn what it is we want them to know so they can take over the showings and let him focus on building his power," Daz said. "Depending on how that goes, we'll either stop or continue the demonstrations with Mu as the lead."

"Rimmy," Rimmy commented softly, earning him a few excited whispers from the crowd.

As a brief moment of silence overtook the 4 of them, Daz noticed a small group of about 70 individuals - mostly children - enter the theatre while being guided by a full 2 units of soldiers.

"Hmm?" Daz raised an eyebrow. "Those kids came? All of them? That's a surprise."

Mu followed his gaze. "Disabled children? Who are they?"

"Espers lacking bloodlines," Daz answered plainly. "Rose and Vanessa are with them too..."

Mu stroked his jawline. "I am deeply looking forward to this intel package you promised in your speech, Brother. This whole business with espers has earned my interest. It's rather cool, is it not?"

"To some extent, I suppose," Daz answered.

At that moment a man wearing the crew uniform of the theatre ran onto the stage and whispered into Daz's ear, "We're good to go whenever you are. Here, your mic, Your Majesty," the man said as he handed a metallic object to Daz then bolted back behind the curtains.

"Rather efficient," Daz commented in passing before he flipped the mic on and then coughed lightly to get everyone's attention.

Not a moment later, all eyes were on him. "Thank you all for coming tonight. I cannot tell you all how proud I am to see such a resoundingly successful turnout to my call for aid."

Daz meant those words from the bottom of his heart and the audience could feel it. It was no secret that their king rarely showed emotions as he flew from one task to the next, never stopping to entertain himself or relax.

Him showing such a... human side certainly worked wonders to grab and hold their attention and bolster their loyalty more so than it fuelled their base curiosity.

"Firstly I would like to invite every person present who owns a variation of the Identification skill, whether weak, strong, obscure or strange, to identify my friend and brother here, Shen Mu. Use the power while thinking of the subject 'Ember'. Beyond that, I cannot explain," Daz instructed.

Mu was a bit startled by the sheer number of notifications he received in that instant. Daz instructed the crowd to wait patiently as this part of the demonstration ensued.

Roughly 10-minutes later, Mu said to Daz, "About 1,300 people."

"It seems that a third of you are now aware of what it is I wish to teach you. I would like to suggest that you all stay and watch Mu's demonstration like the rest of us as the matter is heavily reliant on personal understanding," Daz implored.

Not a single person left, which was a good sign.

Daz nodded and said, "Mu, if you wouldn't mind."

"Of course," Shen Mu nodded.

He took his war scythe out from his wooden dimensional ring and then covered it along with his arms in his Ember of Sweeping. He then began dancing across the stage as he swept the air in two.

"What Mu is doing right now has no relation to the system, and, in fact, any of you can learn to do something similar with the same power source he is tapping into," Daz tried his best to explain without stepping on the system's toes.

"This is not a power exclusive to sweeping, no. It can be applied to, from what I have concurred, any concept. My friend Mu here will be displaying this power for the next 20-minutes and after that, he shall show a handful of less obvious and less attack-based abilities of a similar nature," Daz said.

The crowd was a mix of confused, worried, and excited, not an unexpected result for the reaper.

'It will not happen overnight but with luck, at least a handful of people will grasp what Embers truly are. Hopefully, people who have an interest in fighting. I see Crusher, Ellie, Lyle, Dorian and even Greg in the crowd. There's Vanessa, Rose and all of the esper children too. It would be foolish to get too hopeful, but we will absolutely need every ace we can get our desperate hands on if we want to fight the Truthians and come out of it unscathed,' Daz thought.

Perhaps his desire to win yet another war without casualties was a farfetched one, however, at least it was not one based off of an ignorant trust in his own abilities.

He would stop the spread of the brainwashing cult that threatened to hinder his path to total ownership of Earth and her people or he would die trying along with his people.

'That went better than expected,' Daz thought as he rested atop his throne, alone with his thoughts.

Only the sound of Crosius doing paperwork filled his ears and he found it relaxing. The melodious sound of his quill flitting from parchment to parchment was so... peaceful to Daz's ears.

He did have to wonder why the very medieval head advisor refused to upgrade to modern paper and a proper ink pen, but Daz acknowledged that the man was allowed his quirks, just as he was permitted to have his own.

Daz was currently using his Astral Crystal Control to wiggle the Shimmering Ornate Scooper that was hanging on the wall above his head.

The tool was useless to Hamson so instead of absorbing it into the shovel when he got it after completing the 20 Trials of El Dorado, he chose to treat it like a trophy for his throne room.

As he did that, his mind wandered and thought about what had happened during the demonstration.

After Mu had finished showing off his Ember of Sweeping he had shown the physical representations of his Embers, which scared off about 10% of the crowd, much to Daz's disappointment.

'Thankfully, most people are made of sterner stuff now after what they've gone through these last few months. Every single person who could identify the Embers stayed for the short lecture after Mu was done with the demonstration. With over a thousand people knowing what Embers are, surely a handful of them will earn one of their own,' Daz concluded.

"System, what is the time?" he asked aloud.

Confirmed. The local time is currently 8:42PM.

Daz nodded softly. He got off his iron throne and approached the centre of his audience chamber. Once there, he reached into his Industrial Item Box and pulled out a queen-sized bed. "Now is as good a time as any," he muttered before returning to his throne.

"System, summon Emma Cromwell," Daz requested.

Confirmed. Sending host [Emma Cromwell] a formal summons to become a citizen of [King Daz].

It actually took a few minutes for Daz to get a response, but upon thinking on the matter, that seemed obvious. Emma was likely asleep upon receiving the summons or perhaps she had given her people an early notice that he was now summoning them.

Regardless, he did get a response even if it wasn't as immediate as he would have liked.

The host [Emma Cromwell] has accepted the formal summons to become a citizen of [King Daz]. The total merit balance of the host is now: 291,954,959 [-250].

Thankfully whomever Daz summoned to enter the ranks of his citizens appeared exactly where he was looking. While a somewhat exploitable side-effect of the ability if used maliciously, it allowed Daz to place Emma on the queen-sized bed with no difficulty whatsoever.

"... You took your time," Emma said as she stared at the new roof over her head before closing her eyes. "Comfy mattress."

"I had a feeling you would be fine in the few hours that I chose not to summon you," Daz answered plainly.

At this point, Crosius had wrapped up whatever it was he was doing at his desk and he now stood next to his king, ready to help with whatever he needed.

"... Fair enough," Emma answered before sputtering out an ashy cough, ruining the brand new bedsheets.

"I wonder if that will wash out. It probably will since it's only ash. I'd rather not spend another evening building a large bedframe," Daz commented.

"Why did you build one in the first place?" Emma asked sceptically.

Daz shrugged, which Emma could barely see due to the elevation difference of the two - him on his throne, her below it on a bed. "You never know when you'll be put in a situation where there's no bed around and you need to sleep."

"I thought... reapers didn't need to sleep," Emma noted.

"You're right," Daz answered. "Anyway, I trust everyone else is ready to be summoned?"

"Yeah," Emma replied, not pursuing the bed matter any further since she simply did not care. "I have a list in my pocket of their names, as promised."

"Great." Daz waved his hand, motioning for one of the few servants in the throne room to collect the list.

They did so with great care so as to not disturb Emma's crumbling body. Before long, the list was in Daz's hands. "Well, this will take a few minutes."

Daz had summoned everyone and then arranged for Emma and any other injured persons to be sent to the hospital while the rest were sent to the dungeon ward run by Heather.

He'd told them all to meet him here at the castle tomorrow at noon except for Emma for obvious reasons. Daz had to give them jobs to do, after all.

Right now, he was in the library waiting for Rose to arrive since she'd called him and claimed to want to talk to him about an important matter.

He used the moment of peace that he currently had to see the damage to his merit points summoning those people from New York City had caused.

The total merit balance of the host is now: 291,927,959 [-27,000].

"Heh," Daz chuckled mockingly.

Reika floated off of his halo to stare at him questioningly. 'What's so funny?'

"108 people, 109 if you include Emma. I literally teleported over a hundred people across the entire continent to be my citizens and it only cost me a little over 27,000 merit points. It may as well have been free," Daz mocked. "I don't understand it."

Reika looked confused. 'Don't understand what?'

"The rampant inflation. Why the hell did the system let Big Bo give me such a massive interest rate as well as a loan of 5 merit stars?" Daz asked.

He tapped his finger against the table he was seated at as he added, "It even helped me with both of those cases, giving me quests to avoid being out-witted by that old and powerful monkey. It's like it wants me to successfully deal with whatever was going on in that unclear vision of mine."

'Vision?' Reika tilted her head and held her chin. 'What vision?'

Daz shook his head dismissively. "It's an esper thing. Regardless, the system helps me like in those cases and with what happened to Lyle but it also turns its back on me like during El Dorado's trials. It's like it wants to nurture me but also wants to encourage me to grow on my own. Just what the hell does it want? Can it be trusted or should I never rely on it ever again?"

"Heh," a cynical snort came from behind him. "Trust you to be here brooding instead of doing literally anything else."

Daz sighed. Without looking back he responded, "I'm not brooding, Rose, I'm thinking out loud."

Wheeling her chair to be across from his at the table, she replied, "What's the difference?"

"The mindset," Daz answered. "Anyway, you wanted to talk to me about something, right? I also need to talk to you about a few things, so if we could move past the wit and snark, that'd be great."

Rose shrugged. "Whatever. You can be a real spoilsport at times."