59 A fresh star

[Sofia]

Lately, I go out more often. I usually don't go out when my parents go to buy food, but with the excuse of helping to choose, I can do scouting.

Even if these occasions weren't so many, due to their poverty and the luxury status of food, I still used them fully, looking left and right, estimating the strength, age, and personality of everyone I saw.

I'm looking for interesting kids with a lot of potential. They should be submissive enough to let me lead but mentally strong enough to hold their ground against my potential enemies.

I found one.

On a first look, she looks pretty timid and reserved, but behind that appearance, she still contested her parents' opinion and gave her own.

Despite her weak appearance, she also seems to overpower her parents, which is a good sign too. She is timid with strangers because she fears the strong, but looks down on the weak.

It just means that she'll be useful. Even if her naturally submissive nature is not enough for her to believe in me right away, her strength means she'll be useful as a henchwoman.

Her parents aren't especially strong, so her family should be poor.

One of the advantages of the seed is being able to send unidirectional waves. I'll send a soul wave to her.

-You just need to nod or shake your head to answer. Nod is to approve, shake is to deny.

I waited a bit. She seemed surprised, looked around, didn't find anyone closer to her than her parents. No one around her seemed to have read that soul wave. She nodded.

-Do you want to get stronger?

Usually, one would be suspicious of this question, but because I just ascertained my strength to her, she'll likely consider the question. Actually, sending a wave without going through anyone else is something considered impossible for anyone, and so would be associated with someone much stronger than you by default. But that's without knowing the technique that is the seed. The seed makes the impossible possible. [1]

I send her a soul wave containing the cultivation method of the seed.

Then, in a second soul-wave:

-This is the seed. It's both your test and a gift. If you succeed to cultivate it, you can become my follower and get much stronger, if you fail, don't ever think about it.

Finally, I send her a coded soul wave that can only be decoded through the seed for her to recreate later, with an attached message:

-If you succeed, come there, and you shall be my follower and benefit from it in the future.

This implies that there is more to win by becoming my follower than just the seed. That is a lie, actually, but it doesn't hurt to lie a bit to reach your objectives. I said in the future for her to not give up as soon as she knows from my address I am from a relatively poor family. I want her to believe that I have a backing that will raise my status later, my followers included. It'll give me enough time to recruit more followers, even if I have to kill her later when she'll want to leave.

Anyway, she'll show up at my home anytime soon, I don't doubt it. I can stop going out with my parents, it's highly inefficient.

Once I get my follower, I'll go out more often on my own.

To make sure my parents do not notice, I'll shift my sleep schedule so that I wake up when they go to sleep.

I received a new message from Master. It told me I unlocked a new special spell to manipulate my followers' minds. It actually is a spell I could make myself, but I doubt I'd be able to think so far as to make it on my own. [2]

[...]

One cycle, I received a faint message.

-Kawaii 1.

Here she is.

I'll give every follower I have a code, it's something I decided. If I have the Sofia code name, then my followers should have one too.

I have around two hours to find followers, and it'll be the same every small cycle.

[...]

Because we all master our body to perfection, everyone uses the exact same time to sleep. Any different sleeping schedule was naturally shifted to match the major one with the passing of generations.

There are though a few exceptions.

Orphans, bad kids and criminals.

The first never learned when to sleep at and just sleep when their bodies need it, the second and the third want to take advantage of every minute of complete liberty they can have.

We are looking for the first two. They can be useful.

During this time, I tested the manipulation spell on Kawaii 1. What would happen if she started to think about me as someone reliable and strong every time I talked? I just need to use the spell at the same time I'm sending a wave.

[...]

We didn't find anything in the end, but it was to be expected. It'll probably take several runs to find some.

At least, I had some interesting results. When I talk to her now, even without using the spell, Kawaii 1 is just staring absently at me and doing what I tell her to without questioning anything. It seems like her central thinking process is now automatically reacting as it did previously when receiving a wave from me.

Though it does seem like the residual effect is fading slowly, it seems like this natural obedience does not fade as much. Her mind seems to have integrated that she should obey me. I think that this method could be used to make her believe in me.

I don't want to lose a precious follower like her, so I'll just test it on the first kid we meet.

[...]

It's the second run, we were lucky.

We found an orphan, hidden behind the space folds of some peoples' home.

It's a male. He does seem a bit strong, but his soul is injured and does not seem to heal. I do have some experience with the soul now, so I might be able to fix this.

I get closer as he covers his face with his arms, in a desperate and pointless defense gesture. It seems like he wasn't just attacked with souls, he was also attacked with bodies.

It's obvious orphans, who do not have any use in society and just take place, would be mistreated. After all, they are just a useless weight taking place in our world.

I keep my contempt to myself and show a face as neutral as possible.

The more neutral my face is, the harder he'll naturally try to see what is on it, and the easier it'll be for me to look benevolent with the shape of my soul wave.

Most facial expressions are probably associated with incoming pain for him, so a neutral face of ignorance should be his relief.

Using the seed, I make sure my soul waves are as smooth as I can. Most people do send sharp soul waves when they are hostile after all, it mustn't be an exception when mistreating orphans.

To finish my act, I send him a soul wave:

-I'll heal you if you work earnestly for me.

Just being benevolent wouldn't cut it. By his age, he'd have understood that benevolence alone does not exist. By clearly stating what I want from him, he'll be more likely to trust my statement.

[Kawaii 2]

"I'll heal you if you work earnestly for me."

These words, said by an infinitely graceful and benevolent being, showed me the path I should take in my life.

After not only being healed but unraveling the power of seed I was graced of, my gratefulness became devotion.

[Sofia]

Once kawaii 2 came back to me after cultivating the seed, I removed the soul energy that was stopping his soul from healing using the seed.

At this moment, I felt the faith of my first believer.

[...]

A few small cycles later, my parents received a proposition.

My followers contacted me too. It seems like I wasn't the only one.

[Subject B - Anna]

After Master told me the truth of the situation I was in, I cried.

I got the power I wanted for a lifetime of servitude. Is it any different from the life I lived before? Wasn't power supposed to change it?

I didn't tell anything or show anything to my parents, who know what might happen if they learned of it? there is no way I would benefit from it. I'm just going to get backlash from both my parents and Master.

The shock of learning such truth was strong. The despair of being tasked with something I didn't have the courage to do was strong.

If it's about me, I can do anything, but recruiting? Where? How? When?

I've always been the quiet kid, the shut-in.

I don't know a single thing about other kids, be it their locations, how to convince them, when can I even get out of my parents' monitoring.

So I'll just be inactive every cycle.

At some point, I'll be forced to work, but I want to delay as much as I can.

It could even give me the opportunity to get information on about to proceed or even help from Master. Me not working is its problem to fix after all.

I thought it would at least take a big cycle.

That is, until my parents received a proposition I couldn't refuse.

[Subject A - DarkSasuke] [3]

After knowing the truth, I started preparing.

There's no way I'm the only one.

If I don't want to be eliminated, I must be efficient.

Going to recruit now might be faster, but it's only at first. Someone prepared will be better on the long run.

I trained myself to make and use spells.

It's going to give me a competitive advantage.

Most people don't know anything about the concept of getting better, but the seed opened my eyes.

People can improve. You can go further than you are born to.

For that, you need techniques like the seed. [5]

I couldn't pierce the secrets of the seed, but I created a few, more basic techniques that allow me to command the seed in a faster and more efficient way, I can also store techniques in advance like that too with a key.

By the time I was ready to start working, my parents received a proposition.

To go live at the Moar Gakuen [4], a place of social gathering for the children of the strong.

It seems like Master already made his move.

I was to be adopted too, I'll go there next small cycle.

[Moar]

Hey! Who expected that? Well about everyone, but I guess some details of it are pretty unexpected.

Using a custom version of the manipulation spell, I created several puppets among the strong. These puppets not only serve me fully, but they adopted my test subjects and created a place of social gathering for children, which is obviously my own, personal school.

Adoption, which is closer to stealing promising children, is a pretty common process among the strong. It's part of keeping the weak weak and the strong strong. It's also giving hope to the weak at the same time, preventing them from revolting or hiding strong ones among themselves. It's essentially a very good oppression technique. A lot of rules wouldn't have failed if they used such a method to do elitism.

Weak can't refuse adoption, and at the same time, they don't wish to. Using adoption to get kids to my school is a perfect plan.

No one actually cares about adopted children except the ones that adopted them.

After all, and adopted children still represent their adopted parents.

It just means that if you send a bunch of adopted children somewhere, no one cared about what they would do as long as they didn't sully the name of their adopted parents.

Which is perfect for my school.

No one would care about what happens inside as long as it doesn't get out. So I can create the perfect school to create an army in, and no one would know about it nor care about what happens to the kids inside. It might even be a good tool for them to get rid of kids they had to adopt out of the weak.

And no one will look into who is the director of that place.

I'm a genius, aren't I!

It's not a question, kiddo.

[1] She knows it is called the seed. A technique must have a name and Moar knew no one would understand why it's called the seed. Oh and actually you can really make a linear soul-wave with the seed. I won't explain again how the seed works, refer to the "A whole magic system for a trick" chapter. I'll still answer if you got a specific question because of course, I like to answer questions about magic theory.

[2] Just in case, so you know, there are differences between each seed he sent to his test subjects, so they can't manipulate each other or each other's followers. The spell's targeting system is looking for some specificities of the seed that are not the same in each seed. Moar doesn't want to get the most scheming one but the strongest one. He is already scheming enough by himself.

[3] Moar has a really bad taste for names, using jokes that are long outdated and stuff... Wait, are you saying I wrote Moar like myself so it's my own taste?

[4] I told you I would find a way to create a school in a world without schools. Moar disguised his school (gakuen = school in Japanese)

[5] He's really close to the truth. But it wouldn't have changed anything to be right on the truth. If he knew you could get stronger in other ways than through an interface, it still wouldn't have changed much, because the interface is the only efficient way he could know or deduce. Because the difference between each level of strength is so big. He did understand you can get better at using something too, so he did get everything he needs, no need to get the entirety of the concept of training.