“Master, your command?” Talos questioned once again.

“How much do you know about this world? Don’t tell me that I’ll have to teach you everything as well.” Arnold went to sit on the bed while Talos answered him. He wanted to know, how effective <Basic artificial intelligence> chip was, because he didn’t want to waste too much of his time on teaching basic things to Talos. ​​

“I have all the knowledge that you possess, master.” Talos replied in its electronic voice.

“You mean, you have the ‘all’ the knowledges that I possess, including [BASIC SHOOTING SKILL], [BASIC ENGINEERING SKILL] and [BLOODMAGE] skill?” Arnold calmly asked.

If the automatons could use the blood skills, he wouldn’t need to use [BLOOD NECROMANCY] himself and he’d be able to mass produce <Blood runes> this exponentially increasing the power of his summons but before he could dream anymore about it, Talos shattered his hope.

“Yes, master. I have all those skills but since I’m not an organic being, I can’t use any skills that come with [BLOODMAGE] knowledge. The rest of the knowledges are locked in my database and can only be unlocked if you allow it.”

“At least you can use the shooting and engineering skills, so that’s something. Do you also know the blueprint of [VINDICATOR]?”

“Yes, master.”

“Can you build it?”

“Once I learn [BASIC ENGINEERING SKILL] then I can produce it. However since I can not access the ‘elder’ anymore, I won’t be able to obtain the items from the elder. So the items used to forge the weapon would be different. Thus, the grade of the weapon would be lower.”

“What do you mean Different items?” Arnold was intrigued by Talos’ response.

“I can modify the blueprint and produce the weapon without the use of beast crystals but the grade and the damage output would be much lower.”

“PRODUCE THE WEAPON WITHOUT THE BEAST CRYSTALS!?” Arnold immediately stood up from the bed.

“Yes, master.” Talos replied in his usual voice, it wasn’t even slightly bothered by Arnold’s sudden outburst.

Talos was clueless about what Arnold was thinking. Talos’ one statement had solved many of Arnold’s problem. First, he wouldn’t need to downgrade the blueprint himself and second, he was pretty sure that even if he downgraded the blueprint, it would still require some type of beast crystal to build the weapon, but Talos could build the weapon without needing the beast crystals. Not to mention that Talos didn’t need to rest so it could work day and night to forge a weapon or even another automaton as long as it is provided with the materials.

“Hm… I want you to learn the [BASIC ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE] as well as the [BASIC SHOOTING KNOWLEDGE]. After that, try to downgrade the weapon blueprints and forge [VINDICATOR]. Got it?” Arnold ordered the automaton.

“Yes, master. Learning both the skills would take 2 hours time… Downgrading and forging the weapon would take 7 hours… Total time taken would be 9 hours… Energy consumed would be 36 points… configuration completed… Proceeding with the task.”

Arnold gave Talos the materials and the tools that he had left in his inventory.

“Now since that’s completed, let’s sleep. I have an early start tomorrow.”

*****

EARLIER THAT DAY, AT THE FLYING SWORDS GUILD…

“The pipsqueak, is getting troublesome.” The President of Flying Swords sighed. “The leader might have forgiven us but he hasn’t forgotten about the disaster we pulled off.”

“You mean the kidnapping?” Jake asked. He knew all about the relationship between the president and the leader as it was because of the leader that he and his team were able to significantly increase their powers, and they were extremely grateful towards both of them.

“Yes,” The President nodded, “The leader doesn’t trust me like before… I have to prove my worth once again.”

“We are awaiting your orders sir. We’ll happily sacrifice ourselves for your sake.” Jake replied. To him and his team, order from the president was like the order of a God. After all it was the president and the leader who gave them the powers, they had. They didn’t care if they had to battle the entire Black Family, if the president ordered them to do so they won’t hesitate for a moment.

“No need to do that. I don’t want the guild involved with the Blacks. Thanks to the pipsqueak, they already have their suspicion on us,” The President said disapproving the idea, “Contact some rogue mercenaries, but do it anonymously. The pipsqueak barely managed to hold down Bob who was at rank B so be sure to hire at least 3 rank A’s to ensure that he dies this time. That should be sufficient for now.

“Also check if they are venturing to a dungeon. If they are then have the mercenaries sneak in and kill them all. Make sure that it would look like the monsters got them. That way the probability that they’d figure out it was our doing would be much lesser. If the mercenaries have shape-shifting abilities then that would be even better.

“Tell them to make sure they leave no witness. But don’t give them the true identities of the targets. They’ll definitely freak out if they got to know that their targets, were the members of the Black Family. Make sure to cover up any loopholes, I don’t want any disasters this time.”

“Anything else sir?”

“No, you can leave.” He waved his hand.

“Yes sir.” Jake nodded and left the President’s office.

“Getting him out of the picture should please the leader and would also help me to get some recognition from the society.” he nodded, “The boy has to die.”