"So yes, I am pretty amazing."

"I can tell. I've only ever been to two places before, the place of my formation and this planet. I can't imagine how exciting it must have been to explore as much of the spectroverse as you have."

"It was never easy, but as a moving city, I do get about a bit."

Daz smiled upon hearing the gems conversing with one another upon his return to the city's central square.

'At least they're getting along nicely. Grid even seems a bit more honest than usual. A nice change,' Daz thought as he found a bench and placed himself upon it.

"Welcome back, Master," Icicle greeting.

GriD hummed softly. "Took you long enough. I thought you weren't ever gonna come back."

Daz's smile turned wry. "I had a disagreement with Avulaway. Anyway, I'm a bit busy with some system stuff. I'm here though if either of you need me."

"Oh, that sounds unideal. A disagreement like the one you had with my former master?" the snowglobe questioned with worry.

Daz shook his head. "She's still alive, so no."

"Ah, that's good," Icicle said before she returned to her conversation with GriD.

The purple pillar obviously couldn't care less. It never spoke to anyone but him anyway. Icicle was the first person it had talked to of its own volition in only God knew how long, Daz thought.

He nodded and then spoke to the system in his mind. 'Show me the title system, please.'

It did as requested and showed him a menu system of sorts.

Owned Titles Available Titles

Daz stroked his chin. 'Well, eligible titles is what I want to look at I suppose, right?'

The system complied with his thought and expanded the menu in that direction.

Available Titles Emotional Mute Abuse Survivor Esper of Earth High King The Youngest Archreaper Devoted Lover Negligent Father Workaholic Trainingaholic Processor Mind Effectively Immortal Spirit Charmer Crystal Charmer

A lot of those titles made him raise a suspicious eyebrow. The Negligent Father one, in particular, gave him cause for concern. Regardless, he wished to inspect each and every one of them more closely.

He thus went through the lot of them, reading their details and prices.

Title: Emotional Mute

As a person who's lived without them for decades, it's far easier for you to subdue your emotions.

Cost: 1 Title Coin

Title: Abuse Survivor

When speaking out against abuse, your words are taken far more seriously due to your storied past with the subject.

Cost: 1 Title Coin

Title: Esper of Earth

Allows you to detect when another esper of Earth is nearby. (They do not need this title for you to be able to detect them.)

Cost: 3 Title Coins

Title: High King

No one will doubt your status as a high king and anyone you meet will intuitively understand that they are in the presence of higher royalty.

Cost: 3 Title Coins

Title: The Youngest Archreaper

As the youngest member of an extremely powerful and rare race of the reaper species, you can intuitively sense in which direction and what distance your Archreaper kin are relative to you.

Cost: 20 Title Coins

Title: Devoted Lover

Your love is unending and loyal above all else. Your partner will become more aptly aware of how deeply you care for them, further cementing the bonds of your love.

Cost: 1 Title Coin

Title: Negligent Father

As a man who is more dedicated to everything else in his life than his daughter-figure, you can more easily strain your relationship with her and not have said relationship suffer in the process. Cost: 1 Title Coin

Title: Workaholic

Makes it harder to get stressed out from overworking.

Cost: 1 Title Coin

Title: Trainingaholic

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Makes your body take far more punishment before the adverse effects of overtraining make themselves apparent.

Cost: 1 Title Coin

Title: Processor Mind

You see everything through a lens of logic. Makes it easier to see the logic in everything around you.

Cost: 3 Title Coins

Title: Effectively Immortal

Many aspects of your power make you very hard to kill. This title boosts those things.

Cost: 1,000 Title Coins

Title: Spirit Charmer

As one loved by spirits, befriending them is made easier.

Cost: 1 Title Coin

Title: Crystal Charmer

As one loved by crystals, befriending them is made easier. It is suggested to find a crystal with sentience before attempting to befriend them.

Cost: 1 Title Coin

'That Negligent Father one irks me. I assume by normal standards its true, hence why I can buy it, but Rose is no normal daughter. She has my full love and attention when she needs it. Like tonight,' he thought as his dinner plans entered his mind.

Honestly, most of the titles didn't seem very useful bar the most expensive ones. He could use The Youngest Archreaper one once the trial ended to avoid or track his kin.

Effectively Immortal sounded incredibly useful but 1,000 title coins was an impossible sum to accrue for him. At least, right now it was.

'Hmm... Honestly, Esper of Earth sounds pretty useful. System, I want that one. I confirm it too,' Daz said mentally.

He then watched as that option was removed from the list and he intuitively knew that he no longer possessed any title coins.

He also had a sense that the only esper for miles around was himself. 'It has a bigger range than I was expecting. Very useful. Can it help me locate tricky espers like Father? His Shift Locking can make him effectively invisible, after all. If this can counter that, it would be a great boon.'

He felt much better now. His scuffle and disagreement with Avulway had left him feeling bitter but this welcome surprise had lifted his spirits somewhat.

Daz joined in the conversation with the two city cores in front of him. Before long, he decided to leave Fort Sky but he made sure to give GriD detailed instruction on what to do and when to do them in preparations for the war.

Of course, he also used up all of the gathered city and merit points as he had planned to.

"Must we leave?" the snowglobe at his waist asked longingly.

Daz nodded as he summoned the Ridomochi Final Model. "We have some work to do to prove our theory to this place's stand-in ruler. To do that work, I need to talk to my sister."

----------------------------------------

"Nice, finally got 100% on this level," Rose said she began breathing a bit heavily.

Her avatar was sweating up a storm too. Scruffy floated down next to her face and licked her cheek encouragingly. "Great job, Rose!"

"Thanks," she answered with a rare smile.

It had taken her months to finally perfect this level on the dance VR game she indulged in. Matters of the mind came easily to her but when it came to physical activities she was the first to admit that she sucked.

Still, she was getting closer and closer to her goal of reaching the top 100 in merit points. It wouldn't be too long now until she discovered the secret behind fixing her legs.

It certainly helped that more and more people were dying. Grim as that was, it did reduce the pool of competition for the top 100.

She wasn't as gung-ho as her brother when it came to trying to save as many people as possible.

She knew from her guesses that humanity could recover with little more than a handful of people if they were given enough space and time.

Of course, her lack of care wouldn't make her assassinate anyone or anything of that kind. She just didn't see every death as a tragedy like her brother did.

'Maybe I won't even need platinum-level system access. Vanessa's been surprisingly helpful with finding new and creative ideas for my guesses to explore. I can feel it. I'm getting super close to finding a cure to my paralysis all on my own,' Rose thought as she closed down the game.

She said her goodbyes to her pet A.I. dog, Scruffy, before logging out of the VR capsule entirely.

Rose then put her focus and attention into her arms as soon as she regained consciousness in the real world. Hoisting herself up and out of the capsule, she controlled her wheelchair mentally to catch her body.

Just as she was about to leave her room to go participate in Daz's ridiculous 'family' dinner, a knocking came from the door.

'Probably Vanessa. Whatever. I can deal with being around her now and I could use a chauffeur.' Still, despite her mental claims, she took a good, long second to prepare herself and fix her hair before finally saying, "It's unlocked. You can come in."

To her surprise, it wasn't the love of her life who had stepped into her room but her big brother.

He frowned. "Why do you look so disappointed to see me?"

She shrugged as she averted her eyes. "N-No reason. Anyway, you're here to bring me to dinner, right? Let's go then."

Daz wore a hesitant expression on his face. "Yes and no. I've got two questions for you as well."

'Of course he does. Man, it's great being appreciated but he could work me a little bit less. I'm still a kid, physically at least. Daz really needs to sort out his trust issues and employ a few other people to do even a quarter of the shit he pushes onto me,' she thought with a sigh.

Rose then raised an eyebrow. "Well? What're you waiting for? My permission?"

He grinned at her and said, "Well, first..."

Daz approached her and wrapped his arms around her back, wedging them between her chair and her spine.

'Why on God's green Earth is this doofus hugging me now?' Rose questioned.

She wondered if something was wrong with him though all signs seemed to suggest otherwise. 'I bet he's just fucking with me.'

He held her close and asked, "Am I negligent towards you? As a father-figure, I mean."

'What the literal fuck... Emotions are one thing, reflection and an actual conscience though? Who the fuck are you?' She sighed deeply.

"No? I dunno. We text every day. Sure, I don't see you in person for weeks sometimes but I know you, uh, care about me. Any other person may be less objective about it though," Rose answered as honestly as she could.

She just wanted the weird hug to end. It was creeping her out seeing her brother act like this and it not all being entirely just to tease her. He was being genuine which made it even worse in her mind.

"I thought so too. The system is weird," Daz answered as he finally pulled back from her.

He got behind Rose's chair and began pushing her out of her room.

"My second question," Daz said stoically, acting as if the hug from a second ago had never even happened. "It's a bit of a two-parter. Any follow-ups on those disappearances in New Earth? I need to find a Truthian and get some information out of them. Test the limits of their powers."

"Counter kidnapping with kidnapping, huh?" Rose quipped. "How Daz-like."

She did have answers for him though, thankfully. She grabbed her laptop just before they made it to the hallway and then pulled up some information.

"Your generals have been hard at work. Miller in particular. He has some pretty convincing leads that may bring you to the group behind the kidnappings. I think it's a group, by the way. Like, a cell unit or something. Not a part of the Truthian army but specialised members who do this kinda sh- stuff all the time," Rose said, almost biting her tongue at the end there.

Daz nodded, luckily not pressing her on almost cursing in front of him. 'He's finally getting laxer with that stupid shit. Maybe his Ember of Empathy has let him see how dumb he was being...'

Her brother asked, "Why wasn't I told of these leads earlier?"

"Well, for a start, you weren't meant to antagonise the Truthians further until you were ready for a full-on frontal war," Rose said in an accusatory tone. "Mr Two-time Cardinal Slayer."

"A golden chance presented itself to me, I took it," Daz defended himself.

Rose scoffed. "Fair but still reckless since we have no clue if they can trace that back to you. Anyway, the other reason is that as soon as Miller found those leads, the kidnappings stopped outright. That made it suddenly far less of a pressing issue. What do you even need to confirm?"

"A few things about the power to turn things to ash. Gotta know thy enemy and whatnot," Daz replied.

"A solid idea, honestly. I can't see fuc- freaking anything with my guesses or skills. They're shielded from it," Rose complained. "You have to be absolutely covert though. Not unless you want this war to erupt immediately."

Daz nodded again. "I can manage that I think. Thanks. Forward those leads to my cellphone later, would you? For now, we've a dinner to attend."

Rose looked up at him and gave him a funny glance. "You talk like you weren't the one who set it up."

"Haha, at least pretend to be looking forward to spending some time with your de facto parents," he requested as he leaned down and kissed her forehead.

Rose blushed and creased her brow. "I would if Vanessa wasn't going to be there just to stress me out."

"Oh," a voice she recognised said in a disheartened tone, making Rose's mind spin into a panic.

She lowered her head and looked ahead only to find Vanessa at the intersection of the hallway they were in. Clearly, she was heading to Rose's room. Probably to do exactly what Daz was doing right now.

The German teen wore a strained smile on her face. "Uh... hi?"