chapter 70 Daniel's first press conference part 2 (work in progress)

as the numbing effect of the mindblowing news went down, the reporters regained their vigor and were prepared to have their chance to ask a question

but now they were accompanied by the representative of external forces on verulus, the diplomats of those worthy of being allies or of those civilizations who became vassals of the federation in exchange for protection

until now these people were silently observing and waiting, if everything went as planned, they would have just shown their faces, said some perfunctory words, and gone back home

but things derailed in a moment, and their superiors back in their civilization of origin, who were watching the live of the press conference, didn't wait even for a second to send orders to ask questions for them

in the meantime, many had their turn asking questions, but these were more tabloid oriented or had nothing to do with Daniel, after all, it wasn't easy for these people to have a chance to ask questions to the Specters, and many lose the courage to dig deeper after the name dropping

but soon the word was given to a small humanoid with greenish-blue skin and a head disproportionally huge compared to the rest of his body complemented by a beard of tentacles that was floating on his seat instead of sitting

he floated a little higher and said "greetings I'm Matakas, representative of the Venetien galaxy, I have a question for the young master of the Specter family, you talked about a nanite cluster can you be more specific about their origin, and their development of a soul?"

the venetien were a race that evolved from a world with very little landmass, because of this they evolved in the water and after many years of evolution their body became mostly vestigial, they still had what could be defined as arms and legs, but never actually used them as they used their powerful natural psychic abilities to float around and squid-like propulsion to swim

even if they were little in size compared to the federation, as they controlled a single galaxy that didn't mean they were weaker, instead of allowing everyone to cultivate requiring large amounts of resources, they concentrated their resources on the more talented individuals allowing them to gather many expert's in the long run, and because of this they were allies of the federation, with a long history of trading and collaboration between the two

even if the venetien were in no way aggressive and were actually trusted allies and not one of those allied purely out of convenience, Matakas was on the long list of people Vincent was wary of, as he didn't know the full extent of those psychic abilities, and Matakas might be able to realize that the informations provided were carefully edited to their convenience

Daniel had been really bored for a while now, hoping this could end soon, at the start he thought that it could be fun to "juggle" the conference, but his idea of it had a lot more drama than the reality, after following the plan these people became too scared to ask him questions, at this point, he would prefer to go home to have his ass metaphorically kicked by those cursed batteries than stay here and do nothing

but, in any case, Daniel knew that he still had to answer and keep a smile on his face "Grandpa would have been able to explain better, but I'll do my best, during the last big battle with the replicators grandpa was able to defeat a stronger opponent, a high-level replicator, and took his head as a souvenir, but like the rest of the nanites they were formatted turning in a silvery puddle"

Daniel called Tickles making him swirl around like when he was inside the sphere before adding "after many years in a high energy environment like the Specter dimension they developed a tiny soul spark, and as soon as I reached white soul level I figured out that I could somehow control my soul energy to form a small tentacle, and thought it was a good idea to use it to look inside the hazard sphere"

Daniel sighed and said "as most of you can imagine, I ended up involuntarily absorbing that soul spark and entered a soul bond contract, I survived only because there was no will in the nanites as they knew nothing but swirling in the hazard sphere, but I'm happy because Tickles is a better help than any assistant I could have asked for, does this answer your question?"

Matakas nodded and said "I thought that nanites that worked with metal were banned in the federation"

Daniel answered "yes and no, yes they are banned as a tool as they could lose control and cause trouble, but not in this case since they were sealed in the hazard sphere after being totally formatted, becoming nothing more than a paperweight, but now they are a living thing that was technically born in a family of the federation and as such according to our laws a federation citizen, what's more, is that soul bonds are unbreakable so we are one now"

Matakas nodded and said "I see, my question has been satisfied"

the number of people waiting to ask didn't seem to dwindle, before Daniel's first answer, there were 5 to 8% of raised hands, now it was at least 60%, but these people didn't have that much time left to ask their questions

the more they answered questions regarding Daniel the higher the risk of some answers being in conflict and revealing the ruse, basically, from Vincent's point of view it was almost time to pull the plug on this event, and even prepared for it

but soon he changed his mind, as more questions that had nothing to do with daniel followed, actually diminishing the seemingly infinite inquirers, of course, even if everyone wanted to ask something, sometimes the question was the same and as more people asked questions, exponentially more withdrew

this made Vincent actually believe that everything was going swimmingly, making him wait a little more, believing that if they could end it officially, it would also put a lid on any possible doubt about Daniel's ability

after all, would people take their words for granted, of course not, in the future many will try to verify the veracity of their words, but everything was in place and if they could avoid people grasping at the "why did the press conference was suspiciously interrupted" this would give the Specter family and the federation an advantage in any future discussions

that was at least until the chance to ask a question landed on a teddorian woman "good morning, I'm Urk Tariza, representative of the Curombian civilization, I heard that the young master of the specter family it's actually much more amazing than you want us to believe, the Science Liberation Brigade operation was actually unraveled by him completing the anomaly tutorial and resisting some kind of mind erasing technology, apparently, he also found the satellite that the perpetrators left behind and tracked them down, I would really like to hear his comment about that"

even if it seemed like this woman had a death wish, this was actually a well thought political move, the moment she talked she confirmed the doubt's the family and the investigators of the federation had about the backing behind the Science Liberation Brigade

but also revealed everything for all the forces in and out of the federation to see, now if they wanted to take care of the corrupt individuals in the Curombian Civilization that backed up a terrorist organization, they could only do it through official channels, as bullying an inferior civilization was too much for the reputations of both the Specter family that had no one below the eight-stage and the Sun Federation that was a superpowerful civilization

what they didn't actually expect was for the young cuddly and cute little Daniel to honestly answer taking matters into his own hand immediately "Aaah yes, how is Gregosh?, we had fun playing together, well in any case the memory was given back to me by Tickles, I can make a backup of everything in my mind so such a thing is useless against me, tracking the satellite was actually easy just following a signal, I'm very good at it, and the one who recovered the satellite if you can call that piece of junk a satellite was actually mom, I just retrieved data from it"

Daniel started laughing, and as if he was talking about a joke said "not that any of it actually mattered it was so far from becoming an actual threat that we only realized it existed when they tried to recruit a child, it's so funny how did they even think it would bring to anything but failure"

the family and the top brass of the federation were actually surprised by how Daniel so smartly picked up the "a little organization managed to infiltrate a superpowerful civilization" and turned in "an ant tried to make its existence known to an elephant" especially Vincent was proud that Daniel had carefully studied the material he sent and salvaged what would have been a shameful stain on the Federation

but this couldn't be further from the truth, this person not only tried to shame him, but she also tried to use him to make trouble for his family, so Daniel just kept his innocent smile, as he was forced to practice but something dark was blooming under it, almost unperceptible

Tariza somehow convinced that she still had the upper hand and they had found a new backer and no longer needed the Federation protection replied "I don't know what you are talking about, I just heard some rumors that a kid with black hair and cyan eyes did it"

at this moment the public that was watching at home already managed to understand part of the truth and was commenting at all force against the shameless woman

but the same couldn't be said of the thousands of people gathered on the ascension platform watching the events unfold in front of their eyes, as suddenly the aura of a predator could be felt

Daniel smiled, looking in the direction of the brawny teddorian woman "if I don't remember wrong that useless piece of junk was actually made by you guys, it was really poorly manufactured, I hope that's not your level of technology it would be too embarrassing after gregosh talked about sixth stage technology, in any case, you don't have anything to worry about when a stray dog pee on your lawn you just shoos it away and he becomes someone else problem, you'll get to keep your head for now"

Tariza gulped and said "what do you mean?"

Daniel said squinting his eye's a little "he he he, you confirmed the curombian civilization's participation in the Science Liberation Brigade plan, what do you think will happen now, your brass could give them up and beg, but it's useless as I have known all along that they are hiding in the black-eyed galaxy, so the federation will just stop providing protection, something you surely prepared for before coming to piss on my lawn"

Daniel pointed at his family standing on his sides as he said "now disappear as fast as you can because even if they can't hunt you down because of the power they hold, I am technically a weak kid so I can, and that low fifth stage piece of junk you have hidden under your jacket is not enough to save you, shoos away as fast as you can from the Federation territory before this press conference ends and I found myself free"

at this point Daniel's eyes were glowing more intensely than usual as the woman started to run away trampling some people on the way, not noticing that after she left the ascension platform, she picked up an itchy passenger for the ride