at this moment Daniel was satisfied that he had managed to reach the atmosphere and successfully invaded Tendor, the origin planet of the Teddorian race who was the "strongest" race in the Curombian civilization
but at the same time, Daniel was heavily disappointed with his inability to hack inside the Teddorian computer systems, different from a personal device that without a password can be used freely, and a small fighter ship that had no security, to begin with, the civilian, military, bureaucratic and research systems had an exponentially increasing level of security and right now, he couldn't even access the seemingly easier civilian systems
in the end, Daniel obviously couldn't compare to the knowledge of an entire civilization that took thousands of years and innumerable lives to reach where it was today, the only silver lining was that after failing enough times Daniel was learning how to deal with it, instead of getting angry or depressed he decided to study harder before resuming his research
his biggest advantage over most of the universe was that Daniel wouldn't be running out of time any time soon, so he took out rose's tablet, the one that contains a copy of grandma Sophia's entire collection of books, and once again took his place on the recliner on the lake shore and started to read
if there was something that wasn't missing from the impressive collection in rose's tablet were the books that rose herself wrote about hacking systems both those based on technology and cultivation
at this moment, apart from that exaggerated amount of knowledge related to genetics that he received from sister chaos of which Daniel had barely scraped the surface, the only other knowledge that wasn't missing anything was in fact the one related to hacking
but Daniel didn't realize he had made a very big mistake, and that was not hiding what he had done, as not even a couple of hours later a new documentary made by tickles titled "itchy adventures in the curombian federation part 1" appeared on the itchy network and the family that had started using itchy more as it was something new and interesting soon found out about it
as Daniel was reading peacefully on the lakeshore, Phoebe, Joseph, Vincent, and Sophia gathered in the living room
Phoebe was the first to talk as she said "I'm starting to be worried about Daniel when it was on retak, he eliminated a group of bad people and that's ok, I mean their nothing but a primitive society on the verge of extinction, it was wrong to intervene that much, as a nudge should have sufficed but it was his first time, I can understand that he just wanted to help, but now . . ."
Vincent nodded and added "not only on retak, while on that deserted planet, he also fought two hive princesses, even if one was already almost starved to death, he was lucky that the other was just a weak fourth-stage, even if everything went well in the end at the time I almost got a heart attack"
Joseph sighed and said "it doesn't matter how much experience he has accumulated, now he's attacking a well-established civilization with more than 10 member races and interstellar capabilities, what's next? his gonna fight the garian monarchy? or go seek trouble with a hive queen? I really don't know what to say to him"
Sophia was massaging her temples as she said "it's not like we can punish him as we did with you two, even if we did send him to watch a tree grow for a hundred years he can do everything he wants just through his mind there are more than thirty itchy explorers spread across the universe and their number it's going to increase again soon as his ability recharges"
Vincent was also feeling a headache coming and said "indeed, I once asked him why he went to work in the lab and he said that he liked the feeling, he doesn't need to be physically present as long as Tickles is around, even if we punish him, all his going to do, it's working on his projects like his doing now"
Phoebe suddenly thought of something and mumbled to herself "maybe, that would work"
Joseph turned to her and said "have you thought of something?"
Phoebe said "well, we were punished by forcing to watch a tree grow for a hundred years, and it worked because it was boring as we could do nothing but think and watch the tree, so what if we do the exact opposite, and put him in such a distracting environment that he wouldn't be able to work"
Sophia asked "what do you have in mind?"
Phoebe replied "I have no idea, I just thought that since he liked peace and quiet, maybe we should punish him with the opposite"
as everyone was thinking Vincent said "it's indeed not easy to think of something appropriate, everything I can think of that is the opposite of peace and quiet it's not something I want to put my cute little grandson through"
in the end, they couldn't think of anything that wouldn't be considered torture, and after spending a couple of hours thinking about it, Phoebe angrily said "well that's not important now, it's useless to keep thinking about it like this, for now, we should at least talk with him, make sure that before he picks a fight with someone else, he can at least come to tell us about it"
Sophia said "ok, let's calm down, if we really can't think of anything before dinner, we will talk to him then"
with no surprises, the sunset arrived, and Daniel entered the kitchen to have dinner with his family, as a big grilled fish with some greens and bread was served on the dinner table, everyone but Alexander who had wandered off again was sitting at the table, Almony included
Phoebe turned toward Daniel and said "we saw the new documentary Tickles made"
Daniel replied "did he? I didn't pay attention to it, was it good?"
Phoebe looked at him and said "good, yes, a little bunch of tiny robots laid waste to a space station and tricked an entire fleet of ships, exciting, but this isn't the problem"
as they were talking Almony realized that something was different from the tone Phoebe was using so she cleverly decided to make her existence as small as possible and have her mouth full so she couldn't speak even if someone asked her something
on the other end, a completely clueless Daniel said "I actually made many mistakes, I realized that, first of all, I should have taken more fighters . . ."
Phoebe interrupted him and said "that's not the problem, the problem is with whom do you pick a fight, I mean you were lucky enough that the hive princess was weak, but now we are talking of a well-established civilization, how did you even manage to smuggle an itchy there"
Daniel calmly replied "well when that woman made me mad, I ordered an itchy to hide in her boot and hitch a ride, but I went easy with them, and made sure not to kill anyone, I just want to find some information about gregosh and his merry gang and maybe some knowledge on technology"
as phoebe felt that she was talking to a wall, Sophia said "what Phoebe meant is that there is a big difference in power between you and the curombian civilization, when you fight someone you should make sure to at least have a chance at winning, so we would appreciate if next time you could warn us before taking action"
Daniel thought for a moment then replied "but I don't have any intention of fighting, I actually wanted to infiltrate and remain unseen, take the info and that was the end, but indeed their scanners found the Itchy, and even if I managed to reach the planet in the end, I can't access their systems, so it's half a failure, the good news is that they think that itchy was destroyed by that last cannon blast so the infiltration, in the end, was successful"
Phoebe a little angry replied "can you just warn us before interacting with any other civilization in the future?"
Daniel became serious and said "sure, it's not a problem, if you care so much about it, I'll send a group notification next time"
everyone in the family smiled, Joseph said "good, I know you weren't physically there so there was no danger, but you must always be cautious, it's a good habit to develop, especially since you can't see how strong a person is just with your eye's, sometimes looks can be deceiving"
Daniel looked at Joseph with a clearly confused expression and said "you can't?"
Vincent looked at Daniel and said "of course, if I restrain my energy even your technological gizmos can't say my true level, this is a basic skill of every cultivator, almost everyone knows it"
Daniel still had the same confused expression as he said "I have no technology that can reveal the power of a cultivator, it's just a feeling thing"
Sophia looked at Daniel and asked "what do you mean?"
Daniel looked at her and said "well to make an example by judging both the quantity and purity of the energy, grandma should be as strong as more or less 300 grandpas, grandpa is as strong as 70 or 80 mom and dad, and even if mom and dad have more or less the same energy, mom's it's slightly stronger"
Vincent thought for a moment and said "indeed Sophia it's in the ninth stage while I'm still in the eighth the difference is big, and Phoebe and Joseph just broke through so they should have gotten closer to me, what about Obelix and Andrea?"
Daniel thought a moment and said " if I have to make a ranking it would be sister chaos is equivalent to 8 auntie Andrea, aunty Andrea it's equivalent to 1100 grandmas or 1500 uncle Obelix, then there's Alexander, grandpa, uncle white, dr bishop . . ."
Sophia thought about it and said "I never thought about it, but indeed Andrea herself said that she isn't as strong as empress chaos, still I didn't think I was so much behind her, but indeed the difference between stages it's enormous"
Joseph confused by Vincent and Sophia being so accepting said "wait, wait, are you saying that he managed to feel Andrea's energy even though she always keeps it restrained"
realizing that they hadn't thought about it deeply enough, once again Daniel's revelations brought shock to the family, even if they couldn't really be blamed for not realizing it sooner, at this point they were accustomed to his quirks