(Diper's POV)
I was in a metallic room illuminated by small lights on its ceiling, a large meeting table was the center of the room, this table had a thin glazed film, giving it a beautiful and at the same time sophisticated touch, several chairs surrounded it, but only one was occupied.
I was the only one in the room.... I had a darkened face and didn't know how to feel.... Should I be happy, maybe hopeful, maybe scared...? I wasn't sure about that.
We managed to bring all our people to a distant and prosperous planet, we hadn't built anything yet, and we only lived in large ships and camps, all thanks to that stranger who destroyed the hostile ships and stayed behind destroying the army coming to our solar system.... It certainly hurts my heart to think that we would lose it like this.... But if I had to choose between my people and my land, I'd certainly choose the people.....
I will always miss you, great mother system Galcius..... I'll miss out glorious home planet Calarar.... And the beautiful sights from my youth to the beautiful star Trais..... I will always carry you in my soul and make sure they don't vanish in the river of time.....
A sigh came out of my mouth.... After honoring my homeland with sorrow, my gaze became more determined.
I was here to meet the mysterious man by the name of Baël, deep down he had earned my respect, but even with his earlier speech saying that his assistance wasn't free, I can't help but think of the worst, it's something that Gaus made sure to teach me, and all that was the reason for my confusion. I didn't know what to expect from this situation.
There weren't guards of any kind here, after all Baël destroyed several spaceships as if they were the most fragile crystal — Our energy trackers identified those beams he was throwing as Ki, it was no helping tool that generated then, rather, his own strength.... If even the strongest warrior of our civilization can't do anything to him, what are guards supposed to do?
I smiled wryly at that, if he wanted to do something to me, he would do it instantly, I couldn't possibly defend myself, so he has the upper hand in negotiations.... But if there was one thing I was sure of, is that I would not take my friends or my people with me, that's why I was on this ship floating in the outer atmosphere of the planet we were on, if I have the slightest chance of helping them.... I will do it without hesitation.
I shook my head for a moment before smiling heavily, I was thinking too much, I should stop daydreaming about this nonsense and focus on the situation.
A relatively long time passed as I prepared to face the situation, finally a small alarm sounded as a hologram rose from the screen that occupied the entire table, it revealed a living being with a figure similar to ours, a height indicated by the analysis of 3'875 xefs (1'55 meters/ 5 feet), with white hair and two deep red eyes.
The only mechanical door that acted as an ornament in the cold and discreet room opened with a slight mechanical sound, along with the characteristic sound of an airtight closing.
My heart rate immediately accelerated, but I am the leader of a great civilization, I have been through many tests and training, immediately with a silent sigh I relaxed.
My gaze fell on the eyes of that guy.... No... It's not like that... Rather his eyes rested on me and forced me to look at him, a look similar to a primordial beast, not full of savagery.... But of wisdom and the experience of thousands of years, I felt like an open book before those eyes, as if none of my secrets were safe.... As if he was analyzing me...
A smile appeared on his pale face, cold and amused, as if he had seen a somewhat interesting toy.... The whole room seemed to lower its temperature the moment he revealed himself, my body wanted to shiver, but I just stood there, frozen....
Immediately all these sensations disappeared as fast as they had come, I realized that not even a grak (Less than 0'5 seconds) had passed, but it felt like an eternity.... Was this a hallucination? Had my accumulated stress reached such a point?
His footsteps echoed throughout the room, walking at a steady pace, this immediately snapped me out of my thoughts.
I smiled at him as he sat in the chair opposite to mine, the farthest away at the long table.
Baël:"... What's the matter, don't you plan to say hello, friend?"
He said with slight mockery, I didn't take it as an offense, in fact I wanted to make fun of myself right now too.... I was behaving in such a pathetic way....
Although leaving his mockery aside, there was something strange about his voice, he spoke in a tone that could be considered low and quiet, yet it clearly reached the whole room.
Diper: "Of course, welcome Mr. Baël, I couldn't possibly welcome you badly after what you've done for us".
The respect could be heard in my voice.
Diper: "We have many things to talk about, however, the rest of the team unfortunately has not been able to attend personally. They are busy managing the population, you see, it is a deeply strenuous task to deal with this situation..."
Baël: "Of course, I understand perfectly, since you said they would not be 'personally' it means they'll still be there, and that's good enough for me."
I nodded slightly, our conversation continued with the typical boring etiquette full of falsehood and flattery to try to ally with each other, however a sigh on his part broke it.
Baël: "Look... I'm not going to continue with this stupidity... We're both in a precarious situation, and we need help from each other, first let's debate and when all is said and done you can talk to me about whatever you want, do you agree?"
This surprised me greatly, normally the other important people would not tolerate in the least any disrespect, and would only accept flattery, but he seems to be very different.... I certainly agreed with him though, as a commoner I used to hate this etiquette.
I pressed some buttons on top of the table, after a few seconds some holograms appeared on several chairs on the side of the table, these were Gaus, Moneiba and Rayco, the rest of the empty chairs were reserved for other administration members, they weren't so important in an official way, so they couldn't be here, but they were trustworthy people.
We introduced ourselves while revealing our official positions, and without further ado, we started to discuss.
Diper: "Before we can help you, you know we need to stabilize our situation first, right?"
Baël: "Sure, that's the main reason why I'm here right now, first we'll see how to fix your situation, and then we'll get to mine."
This was the first time I saw something like this, this room was nothing short of a giant lie detector, it used lots of sensors to study your pulse, your sweat, even your expressions, actions and voice tones, none of our specialized troops could fool it, however the little earpiece in my ear said that what he said was true, this surprised everyone in the room, as he apparently didn't come with selfish motives.
Baël: "One of the main situations to fix is the food and water.... I can quickly fix the latter, but the former will be a bit more laborious.... However, I assure you that it will be long before your supplies run out."
Diper: "Can you elaborate further on what you plan to do?"
Baël: "I am a scientist and inventor, I have several methods to do it, but I won't be able to use them at their maximum efficiency unless I have help from your mechanics management team, constructors, and the materials it takes for this type of construction".
Rayco:"... I can provide skilled workforce as long as Diper allows it, however we do not have the materials to create something so advanced quickly."
Baël laughed lightly.
Baël: "Don't worry about that, I can gather enough materials to create things, I'm confident that I can make the necessary constructions and machinery to solve the water problem by myself, but the food isn't my area of expertise and I highly doubt I possess more knowledge of the matter than you do, so I offer exchanging knowledge in order to see whose designs are more efficient"
Rayco: "... In our golden age we used a lab-produced method advanced enough to not change the taste or nutrients of the food... We were using it before coming here, but we didn't have the chance to bring the necessary machines here due to the lack of time and ships, although we should be able to rebuild the laboratories before our supplies run out"
While they were talking, a complex expression appeared on my face, he was helping us with this, however, it will all cost a lot to do... Maybe he's thinking of being the owner of these water, electricity and food companies...? That's something that could harm us all, but... How could I tell him without offending him...?
Diper: "There's still a problem with that... Uh... How should I put it... Who... Will manage those companies...?"
Baël: "Oh, don't worry, I know your concerns — however, having an "owner" will not be necessary, that method is outdated, and it is only used by civilizations that depend on the money of their people, today that's no longer necessary.... I propose a radical change in the administration of the civilization that will increase the quality of life of the entire population and even the military and administrative strength of the civilization."
I was greatly surprised by this, what was he planning? To tell the truth, I never had time to think about any of that, I lived thinking only about the war... And I came to this position during it...
Baël: "Everyone will have a small dwelling with an acceptable space, including acceptable food and drinkable water, all this without paying anything-"
He was immediately interrupted.
Gaus: "Don't make me laugh! Do you know what that idea would do? Everyone would stop doing anything and live comfortably! We would have no resources to support them because we would have no workforce!"
The system he was proposing, as Gaus said, was not viable at all.
Baël laughed.
Baël: "You think I don't know that? Let me finish first, what I said is the minimum way of living, to prevent people dying in the streets from hunger or because of the weather, and that is something we all want here.... There will be a way to have a better quality of life, obviously it will be working, normal jobs will receive a regular salary, higher depending on what it is, administration jobs, for example food, transportation, military, etc., will be highly encouraged, likewise military, scientific, mechanical, labor and medical and risky jobs will be very well compensated."
If what he said could be done it would be glorious, however there was still a serious problem....
Moneiba:"... But... Even with that manpower, we wouldn't earn any real profit!"
Baël: "That will be easily fixed, we will trade with other civilizations under the name of an organization, all this to keep a low profile, that way they won't classify me as a traitor or chase you all to kill you, currently the administration jobs take almost all of the market, most jobs are done by robots and only a few jobs require humans actually working, the only needed people are someone that manages the robots and the repair team, all those people we'll have here will help us to manage the organization without any complications"
The idea he was saying was starting to take shape now....
(Baël's POV)
I continued to tell them about my management plan smoothly as they asked their questions from time to time.
They would create schools for children to learn this basic administration, then if they wanted to, or the government saw that they had potential, they would accept them in specialized schools, these schools would accept both children and adults, when they finished these they would be given a position in consideration of how good they were at it, if before passing the specialized school they saw that they had even greater potential they would be given small jobs depending on if it was military, mechanical, resource administration, etc., to gain experience, if they did well they would gain an even greater position when they leave.
The population of this civilization used to be very patriotic, this would make many adults enlist to help the civilization, also, if they did nothing they would not earn money, they could live, but the only leisure they would have would be the internet, they wouldn't even be able to buy games as they wouldn't have the money, the life they would receive if they did nothing would be, at best, mediocre. This would make parents tell their children to give their all at work, and along with the patriotism, they'd do it because they truly want to.
Many parents, even, would go to these schools in order to give their sons a better life.
I'd obviously also create schools for scientists, this way the technological progress wouldn't ever halt.
Next we would make different types of military schools, the specialized administrative one would allow creating strategists, skilled leaders and pilots and crews of spaceships, while this new school would allow to increase one's combat power, most civilizations can't do this easily, after all the ones with low base power focus on technology, while the strong ones by nature don't have good trainings.
I would use the human trainings and martial arts, which were very efficient when mixed, this way the Ki would improve the body along with the training in an almost fantastic way.... Well... In my previous world completely fantastic... I would train them in my martial arts, depending on their height, weight, and general body type I would train in a different branch of my martial arts, obviously those with administrative potential would also be trained in this instead of just the basics, this way they would be great leaders, and in the near future the mechanics and science branch would give them armor like mine, allowing them to be of use in space and not just on planets.
This whole process would be made much easier thanks to me, if the government detected someone with potential of any kind I could see if it was true or not, after having the system and seeing so many people for so long I had an idea of how this worked, traits greatly influenced how talented a person was, most would only have 1 or 2, maybe none, if they had more those people would have potential, especially if one of those traits is related to some kind of management or work, I could also see their skills, this would help greatly.
As for materials, that'd be taken care of by materials' management with worker ships, mining planets from nearby systems giving enough material to supply the population, with the rest we can further advance our technology or steal it from Frieza's army. The Calar Civilization's "organization" would obviously be operated by me, I would always be wearing my armor or something to cover me, no one will ever suspect that the leader of that organization is a general in Frieza's army, even if I advance in rank... Are there not hundreds of millions of small civilizations? In the whole universe there are too many people to suspect me, after all the armor changes my current height radically.
During all this process I received constant notifications that said that the affection with Diper, Moneiba, Rayco and Gaus increased, all of them reaching an affection level of 85/100, even if they will doubt me in some things, deep down they think well of me, trying to see the best, as for the civilization itself, after saving them the relationship reached 40.000, marked by the system as respected, after all these changes it will probably exceed 50,000 by far, reaching the maximum rank called revered, so I would never have to be afraid of them betraying me, even more so knowing that they'd respect a lot these four who are on my side.
After ending the debate, we kept talking among the five of us, increasing our friendship slowly, I could feel a slight friendship in their eyes, there was no longer only respect, probably the situation went so well because they detected that I was telling the truth... They may not know it, but I used my [Ki Mastery] in the room, I could accurately sense these detectors and meters even if I didn't have Zak's help.
In the end I left with Rayco as we exchanged plans about the water and food, in the end the conversation went on for a long time as we shared knowledge with each other, in the end when we had to leave we both did so reluctantly.
Rayco gave me a communicator, this allowed the 5 of us to contact each other instantly, it was even extremely difficult to receive the information I sent him, so Frieza's Army couldn't possibly know about this.
After all this conversation and debate, it seems that I have achieved everything I needed.... Now the only thing that remains is to wait for the internal war while I become stronger by the minute...
2.986 words.