The next twelve hours were total hell. Michael only had himself to blame. He tried to sleep, really, but found himself unable to quell the ardent fire in his heart. He was too excited about his Mini Drones.
The fact that he had a Supreme Talent didn't help. After all, it was very easy to use magic to simply get rid of the exhaustion in his body. It was as simple as breathing for him.
So even when he tried to let the exhaustion take over his body, he naturally attracted the mana in the air and replenished all of the energy needed by his body.
He was therefore stuck in this state for hours on end, unable to do anything about it.
Eventually though, the hours passed and the Mini Drones were finally finished.
The nanoparticles revolving around the Mini Drone had finally returned back to their dormant state, sinking back into the Mithril itself.
Then, it landed back down on the bed.
It's finally done, right?
[Affirmative.]
Good, let's start the shopping—
However, his excitement was suddenly interjected by a piercing pain that tormented his brain. It felt like millions of little knives were cutting through the neurons inside his mind, mincing and dicing it into multitudes of pieces.
ARGGGHHHH!
He was wrong. This was hell. He was so excited about the Emporium that he completely forgot about the painful side-effects of obtaining new Mini Drones.
His consciousness was being split five hundred ways, all at the same time. And now, he was paying the price. If he had been able to steel himself before it happened, he would have been able to steel himself at least a little bit.
Because he let himself be controlled by his base urges, he felt the full brunt of misery. The most exciting part of his day became the very bane of his existence.
He already considered the experience of having 15 Mini Drones as a horrendous piece of torture he wouldn't want to inflict upon his greatest enemies. But now, it has multiplied a hundred times more!
He fell down onto the floor, clutching his head in pain.
This was the worst pain he'd ever felt. Period. No amount of injury, wound, or laceration would come close. He had a feeling that even if his whole body was eviscerated, the pain he'd feel wouldn't even be a fraction of the pain he was feeling right now.
He wanted nothing more than to be rid of this pain.
But the worst part was that he couldn't even think of a solution! His mind was being preoccupied with nothing but suffering and agony. Anytime he tried to think of anything other than the sharp, aching pain in his mind, it would quickly get washed away with even more torture.
[Shall I enact the failsafe protocol? Your body will be forcefully shut down until the compartmentalization process of the Mini Drones is completed.]
YES, DO IT!
His vision started to darken, with the sensation in his body slowly turning numb.
Finally, the pain was starting to subside.
The last vestiges of light he saw in his vision shifted as a violet, squishy blob of slime emerged in front of him.
"Master?"
Then, everything went dark.
…
…
…
Michael opened his eyes, finding himself staring at the ceiling of his room.
He looked down, seeing that his whole body was covered in a warm and cozy blanket.
"My mind feels… clear."
His brain no longer felt the noisy, incessant aching pain of a thousand cuts. It was fresh and clear, as if he'd just awoken from a perfect eight hour sleep cycle.
"But my stomach feels a little heavy?"
Trepidation filled his face, thinking that the pain of compartmentalizing 500 Mini Drones had now moved from his brain to his innards.
But when he looked down, he saw a bulbous violet slime perched atop his stomach, making a perfect indent on the thick blanket.
Fudge slowly arose. "Master? Are you finally awake?"
"Oh… it's just you."
The little ninja slime pursed his lips. "What do you mean by that, master?! I kept you safe while you were passed out!"
How long was I out?
[You were unconscious for 4 hours.]
That didn't seem like a long amount of time, but Michael shuddered thinking that he would have had to endure that incessant torture for four more hours. He couldn't even last a full minute!
"Thanks, Fudge."
"Hehehe, I did good, right Master?" Fudge asked, snuggling into his arms.
"Yeah."
Michael wasn't expecting any problems since he was passed out in the Nation of Reborn, but he didn't want Fudge to feel bad.
"Then, I deserve a reward right? Master, can you lend me one of those guys?"
Fudge's amorphous violet slime body suddenly turned into an arrow shape, pointing towards the corner of the room.
Standing perfectly straight along the wall like a menagerie of stone statues, Michael saw his Unity Clones lined up and ready.
[I took it upon myself to summon the Unity Clones for your protection,] ChatJK5 explained.
Of course, there was no way she was going to let him be vulnerable without protection, which Michael appreciated.
But now, it brought about a new problem.
"Can I get one, Master? Please? Please?" Fudge begged.
He had purposefully been hiding his Unity Clones from Fudge especially for this reason. The ninja slime treated them like exotic toys!
"They all use Aubility Powers! They're Maugnetics too, right Master?"
As a Maugnetic himself, Fudge sensed the GodForge pieces in the Unity Clones.
"She's different! She's cool! And she's super duper powerful too!" Fudge said, already jumping above Alpha's head. Michael sighed and got up off his bed. "Yes, she is. She has an Artifice."
He explained everything about the Artifice to Fudge, warning the little slime to keep an eye out on anyone that had an unusually cold heart.
"Oh… so they have an Artifice," Fudge nonchalantly mentioned.
Michael immediately stood up. "What do you mean?"
"It's just that I've been seeing those kinds of guys in New Sparta. They're moving in the shadows and always wearing a dark hood."