Shovels In Spades

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.