The previous Machina generation was never going to let go of Jason’s actions against their people. They would’ve always been filled with hate, so Jason knew that it was only a matter of time before they attacked Earth again, and it would’ve been difficult for Jason to ever work with them. But now that they were gone, Jason could erase that dark past and allow a new generation to take over. Jason would take these babies to Earth and allow them to grow, and in the meantime, he would build the world of the Machina like he had been instructed to by the council. By the time these babies grew up and came back to their world, rather than being enemies of Earth, they’d be Earth’s greatest allies. Jason would make sure of it.
Jason returned from the world of the Machina with the incubator pods, and he set up a new underground facility in the Monarch Guild base in America, where he kept the incubators in secret. The only people who knew about the Machina babies were Cerci, Gina, and some Gaia scientists that Jason had put in charge of taking care of the incubators and raising the babies when they come out of their pods.
Jason picked out a few hundred scientists and engineers from the construction branch of Gaia, and he paired them with about a hundred Machina subordinates so that they could all work towards restoring the Machina world to what it had once been. Once they were done with that, Jason would take charge of both worlds and use them to make humanity even greater.
....
A little while after his visit to the world of the Machina, Jason and Azrael also finished working on the interworld travel rune that would prevent unauthorized dimensional travellers from entering Earth. The entire planning and completion of the rune had been done under the radar, and it wasn’t until the entire rune was finished that Jason announced it to the world leaders and made them aware that the only way they could interact with otherworlders was through the Monarch Guild building, since that is where the Runes were carved.
There had obviously been some disagreements since some world leaders thought Jason was monopolising the interworld travel locations, but many world leaders remembered what had happened to the Supreme Leader recently, and they didn’t dare to voice their opinion. The Supreme Leader’s death was seen as a tragic accident by most of the world, but the world leaders all knew that the death was far too convenient, and most of them came to the conclusion that Jason had to be involved somehow!
By now, all the world leaders felt like going against Jason in any way would also lead them towards their own mysterious accident, so they kept their thoughts to themselves! But Jason had no idea that he had already earned such a twisted reputation amongst the world leaders, and Jason told them that if they didn’t want to use the Monarch guild to meet with otherworlds, he would remove the travel rune from their country’s location, and they could deal with any otherworlder entering their country freely. Once they heard that, there were no more complaints.
Jason had also begun training the various countries on how to manufacture Aqualith. People were still gathering gold and striking business deals as quickly as possible so that they would be able to buy enough Aqualith when the business finally began. Honestly, it felt like the gold rush that Jason had always read about in school was starting all over again, and Jason could tell that there would be a few unfortunate people caught up in the greed for gold, but Jason couldn’t protect everyone all the time, so Jason just made sure his subordinates kept an eye on the more powerful countries so they wouldn’t exploit any of the weaker ones.
But before humanity could focus on the Aqualith business, they had to first deal with the problem right in front of them!
....
Time moved very quickly for Jason with all the things he was occupying himself with, and before he knew what was going on, two weeks had gone by in a blur. In the Sahara Desert, Jason looked up at the massive Blue Gate with narrowed eyes before turning around to see the small group of people that had gathered behind him. Although Jason gave an open invitation to everyone who was able to reach the SSS class, Jason knew that not every superhuman would have the ability to rank up so quickly, and Jason was right. Out of the thousands of superhumans who had come to the meeting that day, there were only eleven superhumans who managed to rise to the SSS Rank.
All the Rulers were standing to Jason’s left, and Jason looked them over with appraising eyes. Jason already knew that the Rulers had far more potential than the other superhumans around, and the only reason why they weren’t utilising their full potential was because they weren’t diving into Gates as much as they should have. For the past ten years, most of the Rulers only went into a Gate once or twice a month, and they would mostly leave the random mobs for their subordinates so that they would be able to face the boss alone. That was a foolish ideology, and it held them back from reaching their true potential! It was like Esdath said a long time ago, conflict gives rise to strength, but peace breeds weakness.
But now that the Rulers were going into Gates by themselves and fighting to the extreme every day, they were finally realising their true potential. The only Ruler who was still a lower-level SSS Rank was Victor. All the other Rulers had risen to the higher levels, and out of all of them, the one that surprised Jason the most of all was Katarina. Katarina had an intense look in her eyes as she faced Jason seriously, and Jason felt like he was looking at a completely different person. Katarina had barely been an SS rank when Jason went on his journey a few months ago, and when Jason came back from his journey, he could feel that she was already close to reaching SSS Rank. But in the past two weeks, Katarina had pushed herself even further, and she was now in the higher level of SSS Rank! It would only take a few more battles for her to become a TITAN. Jason knew she must have pushed her gift to the extreme to be able to accomplish this.
’Katarina’s gift is similar to mine. She gains power if her subordinates kill enemies. She’s been boosting many superhumans with her gift and clearing out Orange Gates nonstop with Legion subordinates supporting her. It’s not surprising that she reached this level.’
Stragga and Helga had also grown a lot in the time since Jason last saw them, and Jason was proud of what they had accomplished. Jason gave them a nod, and Helga nodded back to him, but Stragga just clicked his tongue and turned away like a child.
Jason ignored Stragga’s reaction, and he finally faced the members of the Monarch and Country Guilds. There were seven people who had managed to reach SSS Rank in the past two weeks, and it was no surprise that one of them was Francis Luud, the head of the Monarch Alpha Squad. Francis had taken to his training like a madman, and he had gone into every single Orange Gate that he could get his hands on. Francis started to receive less and less help from his Legion subordinates as time went on, and Jason knew that Francis had done this because he wanted to grow stronger as quickly as possible. And from what Jason could see, it had definitely worked.