chapter 69 Daniel's first press conference part 1 (work in progress)

the day had finally arrived, and on the platform, Phoebe used for her breakthrough, countless reporters and spies camouflaged as reporters had already gathered for the press conference invoked by the specter family

Daniel was now dressed in some formal clothes for the first time, and following the Sun federation traditions had a purple cloak that had the specter family emblem on it, a strange gray and purple beast that looked like an otter with scales

when Daniel saw this for the first time he remained wordless, even after memorizing in school and on Sophia's books an entire compendium of spiritual beasts and strange mythological creatures, there was nothing of the sort in his memory, and any attempt to seek information was meet for the first time with total and unbreakable silence, followed by a little smile

in the end, the family was gathered in a temporary backstage arranged for the occasion, and Vincent being the most worried about the public image of the family for obvious reasons, asked Daniel "did you read the material we sent, are you ready?"

Daniel nodded and said "don't worry, Tickles sent it to me as soon as it arrived, it's all in here" pointing at his head

vincent smiled and said "in any case, you will have a glass of water on the podium, if you need a save just take a sip, and I'll think of something"

Daniel laughed and said "don't worry grandpa, I got this"

for the first time, Vincent was not convinced by Daniel's confidence, he himself wasn't confident about misleading these pros, luckily he just had to answer some questions, the one explaining would be Phoebe that according to plan will take the heat for the existence of Daniel's armed robots and vehicles

just as the family was about to walk onto the stage, Vincent remembered something and took out a pair of vanity eyeglasses saying to Daniel "put this on and don't take them off, I had the surface of the lens covered with a formation to block the effect of your gaze, from now on remember to keep them on in public" he had almost forgotten to hide the biggest alarm bell in Daniel's strangenesses, the gaze that makes people feel like they are lost, those eyes that even when looking directly at a person seem to be looking at another 100 things simultaneously

with a new fashionable pair of eyeglasses, and some questions, as he never noticed anything strange with his eyes, Daniel walked onto the stage revealing his face to the public, and causing clamoring cheers as he was a really cute kid of a family of celebrities

people's comments were buzzing, as this was once again transmitted live to every home in the sun federation, fan factions had already appeared in the 10 seconds it took for all the family members to take their position on stage

Vincent supporters were already requesting a special about grandfather-grandson time

Phoebe's fans were already sending compliments on her public social networking profile unaware that she barely looked at it, and was completely run by the family public relation consultant

the biggest group was obviously, Joseph's fan club since apart from a different hair and eye color, Daniel was a little and cute version of their idol

there were many other groups of fans of specter family members, but this of course meant that there were many groups of haters too, and they were already trying to throw dirt on him, some just for giggles, others more dangerous were waiting for a chance to smear Daniel's reputation as a way to smear the reputation of the specter family, basically too many factions to count

before Daniel could speak a word or even introduce himself, whether it was to flatter or criticize him there were already entire articles, full of whatever the author could think off

as Phoebe took the central position she started by saying "we want to welcome all the reporters who came here, and also assure you that nothing that goes against the interest of the federation is occurring, we simply wanted to protect our child from public opinion until he was old enough, but his resourcefulness and abilities, prevented it bringing us to today's press conference, I'll start by explaining the situation, as I am ultimately responsible, and then we will proceed with a q & a session"

Phoebe snapped her fingers and a famous image of the m.a.r.u and cloudtrain on the desert planet appeared, then she started explaining "as Daniel showed interest in science we left him free to pursue his interest as being young, we didn't want to pressure him into following our footsteps, that's when things took a strange turn, after obtaining a certificate of completion in a few years, with nothing but a few mixed information he found in the library he started building technological products while studying a few technological artifact's we had lying around, and this brought the advent of the m.a.r.u"

Phoebe snapped her fingers again and an image of the first maru appeared "after seeing this for the first time, I immediately recognized his potential, but as it was, it would be useless to say the least, and Daniel too wasn't satisfied, and continued to rectify and perfect his creation"

Phoebe snapped two times showing the different versions of maru appeared one after the other of course no images took on retak appeared "that's when I had an idea, I knew of a section of the hive territory patrolled by hive princesses, and they would have been the perfect foes to test the current abilities of the maru's and a few other creations my son built, so as a test, we left them on a dead planet that had already been cleaned by the hive, hoping that the suspicious activity would attract some "sparring partners""

as Phoebe snapped her finger, a video of the fight between the hive princess troops and the mechanical army appeared on the holographic screen behind her, followed by the rescue of the soldiers, and finally, everybody saw what those soldiers ate, them included, but nobody commented on it, it was simply too much to make fun of those who risk their lives for the federation, and everybody feigned ignorance, even if a few foodies were interested in what the hive creatures tasted like seeing the relish in the soldier gazes

obviously, the info Daniel requested from the soldiers was already a military secret since he used a unique code to prove his identity, and the soldiers were further incentivized to keep the secret

as the video finished Phoebe said "but another thing was discovered on that planet" snapping a finger again the black and red egg surrounded by other eggs appeared

Phoebe looked solemn as she continued "that's why we cut this experiment short and went to retrieve the robots before it was planned at the risk of exposing our son, as many of you already know, we know next to nothing about the hive creatures infancy, this is an irreplaceable opportunity to study them and maybe find a weakness of our enemy, that's why I took the quilin v and ran to retrieve it, taking back the robots in the process"

as Phoebe snapped one last time the image behind her disappeared and having finished mixing truth and fiction in a satisfactory way she said "in conclusion, I thought and still think that these creations can be used both as cannon fodder, the same way the hive trows heaps of weak enemies at us and as scouts that would prevent risking the lives of our soldier, so I might have encouraged Daniel to follow this passion of his ultimately creating this situation we are in today"

as she finished opinions started to form, but as usual, there were those who knew more ready to stab as many raised their hands to ask their questions, and one by one these people were given a chance to ask their question

the first was a man with a bald head who said "hi, I'm Aron Steel from Sun Central News, I have a question for our President, what's your opinion about these creations, are they really as reliable as ms Phobe seem to believe, how can the citizen be sure that another replicator type situation won't happen"

Vincent laughed and said "as expected of you old enemy, this is not a secret, it's all based on the innate ability Daniel awakened, he is in constant contact and control with anything he crafts, different from other machines the ones he builds don't have artificial intelligence, they work like the puppet's some of our fellow cultivator use, that battle was fought by Daniel personally controlling those robots by remote and without him, they are nothing more than overly complicated statues, does this answer your question?"

Aaron nodded and following etiquette sat down to let someone else ask a question, even if he wanted to ask more

another much older man rose up and said "good morning, I'm Viktor Pretor from The Messanger, I have a follow-up question to the one made by my colleague, how does this ability work, the distance was quite large from the hive territory to verulus, not even the replicators could do something like that"

vincent smiled and said "that's because his a Specter, even after being negated the ability to cultivate because of the affliction he ended up awakening a super broken ability that in my opinion should be in the top ten of the irregular abilities, until now distance doesn't seem to be a problem as far as we tested, of course, nothing it's certain and we will have to check more in the future, does this answer your question?"

Viktor raised up and said "you didn't say how it works"

Vincent answered "that's because I don't know much about technology, you are asking the wrong person, next question"

Viktor sat down unsatisfied, but it was not like he could show it, and he just had to wait for a second occasion, or someone else to ask the right questions for him

up next, a young man with features resembling a certain young woman that the specter couple met many years ago rose up and said "hi, I'm Michael Teragon of the forum Tech Addict, I have a question for Daniel, the construction of advanced technology such as this requires many specialized instruments's not available in the federation, did you build your own?"

Daniel who was bored and finally got a question raised the microphone and started to play his part "this question requires a bit of background, as I am unable to cultivate I ended up doing some soul cultivation under the guide of auntie Andrea, and thanks to this I was able to awaken my innate ability I call technopathy, thanks to both of these things I managed to enter a soul bond with a small cluster of nanites I kept as a toy since the day I was born, they were originally sealed in a hazard sphere, but after many years of studying and many recommendations from friends and family, especially uncle Obelix, they were freed and became my principal work tool, from refining raw material to the assembly of the parts, does this answer your question?"

at this moment there was a collective mindblow, as it was the first time for someone to so casually drop the names of the ruling class of the federation in such intimate terms, many of the people present started panicking inside as they tried to think of what to ask next, but this even if true was all according to plan

this is where the plan to keep everyone away from Daniel's portal ability finally culminated, they separated Tickles abilities, leaving it his own innate ability he awakened, but attributing to Daniel the ability to communicate with technology at a great distance

it was impossible to verify if it was real or not, and in any case, no matter how much proof was requested, Daniel could easily provide it, added with the backing of the protector of the federation and the leader of the federation's military forces it was simply impossible to try to find faults with him

but leaving this aside the legitimate reporters and some foolhardy spies still had many questions, especially the representative of some small civilizations that were burning with jealousy hearing about Daniel's abilities