Dinner was something of an affair today. My employees in Niger had managed to start up the reactor for the first time, and with the rest of the compound built, we were running full-scale tests.
In a few days, I would be announcing the existence of the reactor to the public and officially laying out my offer. I would be inviting outside observers to confirm the functionality of the device and take back the base scientific principles to their home countries.
In celebration, I put together something of a fancier meal than usual.
Carving up the mint-crusted lamb racks, I plated up a portion for everyone.
As we dug in (Elizabeth far more carefully than the rest of us) i started things out with checking on how the others were doing.
Apparently, after my discussion with the Pein, Konan and Yahiko, Hinata has already been roped in on helping coordinate two large projects that Ame and Konoha have started working on together.
The first is a ninja-shipping business, using high-end storage seals to courier large quantities of stock between distant markets. Yahiko had come up with that idea shortly after our meeting and Nagato and Tsunade had decided that it would do as an intermediary option until they had found a reasonable means of completing their other plan.
Apparently, Naruto had managed to talk to Kurama that night, awakening his parents in the process. He managed to gain some respect from the fox after drunkenly bitching out his mother for torturing the fox.
Kushina admitted that she didn't really know what she could have done about it. She hadn't made the seal and she couldn't change it without killing herself so she hadn't thought about it. Minato had even admitted that she had specifically helped him in designing Naruto's seal in order to make his next prison far more comfortable for the fox.
Kurama wasn't satisfied with the response (predictably) but had decided that there wasn't really much that could be done with it.
He was, however, interested in learning more about the peace that my world had achieved.
Nagato had shared the information regarding the peace with the jinchuuriki and while not a perfect solution, the beast had admitted that the goal was quite similar to his creator's vision than anything that existed in the shinobi world.
So, he demanded that both Kushina and Minato be bound to his servitude until he was freed.
He had used this as a platform from which to create the second project Ame and Konoha were working on.
He was working both Minato and Kushina to the bone in order to implement a revision of the Hirahin that he would be able to manage once he was out, permitting him to teleport groups between select platforms in cities.
So, while Tsunade and Nagato worked on a way to safely remove Kurama from the seal (which was less of a risk now that they had the threat of summoning the Shodai to drop-kick him if he acted out I suppose) Kurama was training to manage a technique that he would be using to police the entire planet.
Or well… the Elemental Nations at least.
I wasn't too sure if that was an amazing idea, but Nagato and Tsunade had decided to go forward with it on their own ends for… some reason. So I was going to leave it up to them.
Angela was mainly dealing with the regulatory agencies surrounding the Biotic Pill and preparing for the media circus that would follow the announcement.
Raven had finally managed to wrangle the full extent of her demonic hordes towards the renovation of her kingdoms. People were being shifted between different afterlives in order to prepare the paradisical realms, other souls had been sent into the cycle of reincarnation in order to clean up relations with the rest of the union.
Ahri was on tour for the most part, even if she dis spend most afternoons with us rather than risk dealing with her fans. With a steady source of filler life force from the Biotic Font, signings and meetups had lost a lot of appeal for her.
She got enough high-quality life force during her shows that gorging on more of the stuff left her feeling greasy, almost.
She likened it to finally eating meat with something like rice and then trying to go back to trying to fill up on nothing but meat. It felt overly rich and strangely unhealthy.
So, with a lack of refreshments, she has begun to find the unending tide of humanity tiresome.
And it hasn't gone unnoticed.
The current speculation is that she had been kidnapped and was dealing with the fallout.
Not exactly a bad thing for her ratings, and her produced had commissioned a few 'emotionally vulnerable' songs in the aftermath, but it had meant that there were quite a few fans that had been more than a little surprised b the sudden change in personality.
Still, things were slowly sorting themselves out on that front.
Yang was the last one to speak up, "When are you going to kill Salem anyways?"
"Well, I doubt I can actually kill her without pissing off your gods, but we have an offensive planned in a few days to clean up the Lands of Darkness now that we've found the Domain of Light. There's enough energy there that the ritual we've planned should work and ensure that the Grimm won't be able to leave the Pools."
Yang nodded, "Ruby still wants to meet you, by the way, she managed to get that thing you told her about working, where she turns Cresent Rose into petals so that she doesn't need a collapsed form."
"Well, I suppose I can take some time to meet her before the operation." I said.
Yang grinned, "So the Grimm will eventually stop coming?"
"If my calculations are right, and the sensor data I collected during my last trip are accurate, there should be roughly six billion instances of the Grimm outside the Lands of Darkness. Roughly half of that is combat capable and only about one percent is of the class that your would consider alpha. About one point three per cent of the alphas are elders, and about zero point three percent of the elders are Aberrant. By my enstimates, that should mean that the current crop of hunters should be able to wipe the Grimm from the surface of Remnant in approximately seventy years, enough that we shouldn't see too much in the way of dissatisfied hunters causing problems for the economy as Grimm hunting becomes less and less common." I stated.
Yang sighed, "It's a little sad to think that my kids won't be hunters too, but I'd rather that then having the Grimm still be around."
"Hey, at least this means that you'll have more time for your kids, right?" Elizabeth offered.
Yang grinned, 'There is that!"
Eventually dinner started to wind down.
I looked up at the others, "Well, I have something to ask all of you."
The others looked at me inquisitively, "What is it?" Asked Angela.
"As you know, I've been working on a lot of augmentative technologies with the intent of upgrading myself, and I've recently managed to adapt the Body Theft ritual to allow me to transfer myself into a new body entirely." I begin, "So, I've started designing my new body and I need to ask you to double-check the ethics of some of my augments."
They nodded and Gwen motioned for me to go ahead.
"Well, to start things off, the new body is going to extensively physically augmented. Not only will I be integrating the strength and endurance augments I have applied to Elizabeth and Blair, but I'll be working on full-scale sensory redesigns, including better eye-sight, hearing, smell and several others."
"Nothing wrong so far, but I assume this is the basic stuff?" Ahri asks.
I nod, "The next thing I'm fairly sure about is an integrated biotic reactor. While my soul has become potent enough to work magic without aid, especially for my basic arsenal, I still use a lot of pseudo-necromancy and hancing a safe source fo life-force on tap will be very helpful."
"As long as you've tested it that should be fine." Angela nodded, "might play havoc with your ageing though."
I chuckle, "That won't be a problem. I'm planning of a few augments that should make aging a non-issue for me. The two things I'm worried about are the psionics augment, of which I do have a working prototype and the barely still theoretical technopathy augment."
"You're talking about the Thinking Cap and the neural interface biotech, right?" Gwen said.
"Yeah."
Angela leant back, "The technopathy shouldn't be an issue, accessing computer systems is a known and accepted risk among those that have them, but telepathy is another issue."
"Yeah, reading minds makes a lot of people pretty uneasy." Gwen opines, "Even for me, meeting Telepaths is a little freaky."
I raise a hand, 'That reminds me, Xavier pointed out some issues with the last mind-shield prototype, but I'll have a new version to take to him before I go see Rogue again. If I've quashed everything both the augmentation and the external mind-shields should be ready sometime next week."
She nodded her thanks.
"Still, even if we have protection, it's still a little morally iffy to just… okay giving someone the ability to look into other people's heads." She finished.
Yang shrugged, "I mean yeah, but Jon gets into a lot of fights, and having Telepathy would help him with that."
"It's not just fights though." Angela pointed out, "Telepathy is a pretty blatant invasion of privacy, without mind shields or anything like that, telepaths can just look into minds and look at your memories, that's not exactly nice."
Elizabeth shrugged, "He's nice to the people he likes, isn't he? And most of the people he's fighting against are the sort of dicks that Jon would need every edge against."
Ahri shook her head, "It's more the temptation to apply powers like that to every problem."
I nodded, "That's what's making it difficult for me, Telepathy is too useful as an ability to jus discard without a second thought. It doesn't help that the Thinking Cap provides telepathic illusions and pretty potent telekinetic abilities too."