CHAPTER 47: HOPE

In a huge gymnasium were hundreds of minions working out, lifting weights or training in high gravity booths and some others were entering their stamina, enduring the blows of other minions.

Zack was in the second floor booth that overlooked the entire area, and he yawned as he lay in a chair designed for his body.

The chair adjusted to his size, and the metal moved, adjusting to his body and his large head, giving relief to his neck, although these last few days he no longer needed help.

He could walk, move with ease and....

*Crack*

The glass of juice shattered when he grabbed it and the juice before it fell floated and the metal glass that was deformed reformed when he used his telekinesis.

“Has your strength increased that much, young master?” The babysitter asked worriedly and, looking at him, hesitated. “Don’t you think you need to talk it over with your parent?”

The babysitter showed a worried expression as always when these kinds of insignificant mistakes happened and they were mistakes because he did not wish to break the things he touched, but his strength was so high that it was hard for him to control his body.

Although it was nothing like when he had arrived that he could not control his bowels, it was still a nuisance that he would rather overcome with time.

After all, he had no use for this puny body and the strength he displayed with his physique, he could replicate with his mind magnified a hundredfold.

This increase in strength happened after he had controlled the city and had rested for a few days in bed. When he woke up, he did so refreshed and his body had improved and physical strength was one of the biggest changes.

And another was.

“I’m fine, babysitter.” He mumbled in his childish voice.

He had to take his time to speak comfortably so that no intelligible babbling came out, but he managed it and it only took six hundred days... Six hundred days since he had arrived for him, the strongest transcendental of all, to be able to speak.

Controlling another’s mind so that he could move his body was easier than having a body of his own with all its disadvantages.

“By the way, there are several of the minions that have been sent by other organizations, and one came to infiltrate from the authorities,” Zack said. Seeing that the babysitter was looking at him, he pointed to the minions training. “Their minds reveal everything. Though one wiped his memory before he went in. Well, he tried.”

Nine minions glowed purple around, and everyone turned to look at them.

Talking was one of the advantages he had after he could get up again and for him to be able to communicate without having to use his powers was better than having an annoying physical strength that he had trouble controlling with care.

As for the minions? The reason they trained openly in this gym, even though some of them used weapons, magic and were not even fighters, was because he was in charge of filtering them out.

Those minions were caught by others on a signal from the babysitter.

“I apologize. Even though more people have come to enlist in your organization, not all of them have loyalty or professionalism,” said the babysitter, returning to pour him more juice and putting on a serious expression, he warned. “The other organizations with big supervillains have been interested in you. Our organization has two black codes... Three when you think of your friend.”

The babysitter, like him, was one of those code blacks and since his organization released the most brilliant transcendental, beating the authorities and the City Sun, the others included her in their group.

“You don’t have to worry, young master. We’ll take care of sending a message to the authorities to avoid these ‘mistakes’ now that we are at peace,” said the babysitter hurriedly and looking at the other minions, he added. “As for members of other organizations, we can always educate them not to spill blood.”

Although the babysitter had a deep darkness inside him, he was a man who did not seek to cause bloodshed and avoided killing as much as possible and also avoided him killing.

“Do as you wish with the inferior beings, babysitter. I will not waste my time with these games,” Zack replied calmly.

Inwardly hiding his thoughts that he could take care of them more aggressively if one of them belonged to those metal abominations or were like the Great Monkey and his apes.

However, he had priorities at the moment and if he got carried away easily, he would be delayed in his goal and his freedom.

Freedom... Zack was not only listening to the babysitter and watching the scenario, but in a room behind this one, the Architect was taking the final steps to free the brightest transcendental and once free, he too could be free.

If everything turned out the way he wanted it to, but... Would it?

Zack put that pessimistic thought aside and, instead of raising his doubts, he stopped his train of thought.

He had come into this world too easily, and he expected to leave it that way. This body limited him and while he was used to it, it was still a body of an inferior being.

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Perhaps stronger than normal, but one could not put the mind of a transcendental in the body of an ant.

“Young master, the Architect calls for you.”

The Donovan boy snapped him out of his thoughts and Zack instantly moved his hand and, using the mental strength of the criminals in the tower he still wore in the form of a necklace, he moved into the open room.

Zack, the first thing he noticed was the golden flash swirling around the Architect.

“The young master told me I was a half-breed of a divine being. Do you know whose daughter I might be? I was searching among the Dawn Gods for who my father might be, but no one is related to speed. So it might be another god. Do you know anyone, or can you think of anyone?”

The Golden Girl was talking as fast as ever and while she would get on the nerves of anyone listening to her, the Architect handling the cube was turning it slowly without losing her cool.

“I don’t know. Unfortunately, there are several among my colleagues who walk among mortals and have children without much thought. Others have had children long ago and those children have had their blood and have had their own family in which they manifest powers like yours,” replied the Architect and pausing to look at the golden girl calmly, she added. “Though in your case you have strong divine blood and may be the daughter of a god, though whether it is one of my colleagues, their children or another lesser god is not unknown to me.”

Zack saw Golden Girl sigh as she got no response, and he floated over to them.

He said nothing about the Golden Girl and her search for her father. He couldn’t understand her goal of searching for her ‘father’, but he wouldn’t criticize her either and for that reason he let her be and focused on the Architect.

Elurien had improved during this week since she had been released. Her golden skin glowed faintly and her square pupil eyes were quickly and sharply deforming and reforming.

“Is something wrong?” Zack asked, and then immediately turned to the side of the room and saw a figure manifesting next to him.

Mental energy condensed on the figure and the purple color took on a light blue hue, and then the figure of the woman took shape.

The figure had average height, long eyelashes and thin lips. She had a slender body and wore a light blue dress that fit her figure.

The brighter transcendental was not only taking human form, as that was something he did, but she was acquiring a human face and physique as well.

“Congratulations,” Zack said as he saw the brighter transcendental free.

This time it wasn’t an illusionary form that had come out, but the real form and who was in front of him was the brighter transcendental.

The woman smiled, and he found the smile pleasant and the happiness it expressed contagious.

Freedom felt good, and Zack couldn’t imagine all she had been through while locked up.

“Thank you,” she replied quietly.

Her voice was tinkling, soft and pleasant, but the emotions were clear. The thanks were honest, and he simply nodded without giving the subject too much thought.

“So, what are you going to do?” Zack asked curiously.

He didn’t want to make any demands of her, but he had to ask the question. His freedom mattered to him and he wanted it and she smiled brightly at him, seeing him nervous.

He was nervous at getting so close to freedom and finally leaving the horrors he had suffered in this body.

The days of him not being able to control his bowels were long gone, but the memories remained and they were not something he relished.

“Release you,” she replied and looking at him, she added. “But first I want something from you.”

Zack frowned not at the request, but at the sight of her shrinking in size from a woman to a two-year-old girl who came up to the front of him.

She wrung her hands for seconds and looked at him hesitantly until she finally took a deep breath.

“Could you give me a name?”

Zack finally realized the reasons for nervousness.

She was asking him for a name, and for beings like them, it was a big deal. Each of the transcendentals had a title they used as names.

Only one of them could be the strongest, the brightest, or the most spiteful and so on, but a name was something that mortals generally used and not natural transcendentals like them.

He accepted the name when he realized that in his current state he was not as strong as the barbaric woman... No, the barbaric woman was on a level of her own among the black codes he knew and he was likely to have to work hard to beat her.

The City Sun burned his mental power to avoid being controlled and that barbaric woman could probably beat the sun with the same ease with which he defeated it.

In a way, accepting the name for him was acknowledging an opponent where, in his current state, he could not win and while some would see it as a humiliation, it was also considered a form of respect.

Here, the name had a different meaning.

Zack received the intense gaze of the transcendental and he closed his eyes and pondered the name.

“...”

As he searched his mind, the names of beings, he knew and had seen during his existence came to him. Still, he found no name that suited her.

She was looking at getting a name as an important matter, and he didn’t want to give her a random name. So he thought about it carefully for a couple of minutes.

Opening his eyes, Zack saw her nervous, hopeful and yet glad that he was taking this matter as it should be taken, and he seeing those bright eyes so shining he had a name come to mind.

“Hope,” he muttered under his breath and, seeing that she was paying attention to him, he explained. “That’s your name.”

Hope... Such was the name, he thought, and although it seemed he chose it because she was his hope, the truth was slightly different.

It seemed to Zack that name was the right one for the brightest transcendental. A name that represented his hope to save him, but one that she had also displayed for a long time.

The brightest transcendental was locked up for years and was practically tortured, robbing her of her essence. She did not let herself go mad, keeping the hope of freedom. The hope that sometime everything would change and when she was free, she didn’t give in to anger and didn’t take revenge as perhaps he would have done.

“I am the brightest transcendental... I am Hope,” she murmured as she carefully closed her eyes.

Zack noticed. He saw how the name affected the light blue body, giving it a meaning of its own and a unique importance.

As natural transcendentals, they were mental energy and in a sense, they could be defined as a malleable and changeable kind of energy and as she accepted the name, she changed.

Her body became slightly solid and the details clearer. She was taking on a human form, and the name was solidifying that form.

Was it the same with him? When he accepted the name, he changed? What changes did it bring? Was it physical? Or was it mental as well? Even he did not know exactly what changes he underwent and at what level those changes were.

Such doubts were one of the reasons for leaving this body. Being a mortal body meant that he was bound not only to the physical changes of a mortal but also mental and, as strange as it was, mortals changed more mentally than transcendentals who were beings of the mind.

“It is time to begin.”

The brightest transcendental... Esperanza suddenly opened her eyes and her voice changed the reality of the surroundings, distorting everything in its path and in this new purple world, only they were left.

Zack saw how determined and yet how energetic she was to free him, and he was about to speak. He wanted to tell her what was probably happening and what he wanted her to do once it happened, but he couldn’t say it when he saw her like that.

In the end he let it be and nodded, closing his eyes.

Holding out hope.