"I will give you some time to think about it, meanwhile I will be in your shadow, if you take your decision, let me know" said Midas, ready to merge with the shadows.
"Wait, I have another question"
"What is it ?"
"Let's say we succeed in killing the king, what will happen next ? What I mean is what will happen to me, will I become the new king or something else" inquired Tom as there was no way he would risk his life to kill the king just to receive a pat on the back and be sent on his merry way.
"Well, those youngsters outside are our tribute main force, and they already think of you as their chief, so even if it pains me to know that our race will be led by a weird furless monkey-"
"Not a monkey" said Tom, cutting off
Midas.
"Okay, as I was saying, even if it pains me to know that our race will be led by a weird creature-"
"Why do you keep calling me weird ?" Asked tom, cutting off Midas another time.
There was an awkward silence as both Midas and Tom looked at each other, but eventually Midas continued:
"Ahem, as I was saying, even if it pain me to know that our race would be led by someone other than a wisemonkey, I don't really have a choice In the matter, so if you manage to kill the king, you become the new King, if that's all, I will be retiring for now" said Midas before merging with the shadows and going into his own.
Tom thought that he would feel something now that he knew that Midas would be in his shadow, but unfortunately that wasn't the case, even when Midas had already dissolved into his shadow, Tom couldn't feel anything making him understand that Midas was right when he told him that he could have long killed him if he wanted.
'Scary' thought Tom.
Now that he knew that someone was observing him from the shadows, Tom somehow felt a little uncomfortable, alas there was nothing he could do about it.
'What do I do now ?' Wondered inwardly Tom about the current turn things were taking.
As he pondered more on it, Tom realized that it was actually a good thing that he met Midas for a number of reasons, the first being that he became incredibly more powerful as Midas became his subordinate.
The second reason being that he realized that if not for Midas explaining how their tribute- and most specifically their king - worked, he would have one day stormed the tribute with his army, full of confidence before being utterly crushed by just one word from the king.
And finally, the third and most crucial reason being that, now he had Midas on his side, he could teach Tom about the etherium techniques and help him deal with the king, even if he would just provide assistance.
One could only say that he was lucky that Tom appeared when Midas wanted to get rid of the king, if he had appeared at the time when Midas was still loyal to the king, Tom shivered just from that thought.
'Ah, right, before anything let's see his status'
Tom called out the system in his mind and browsed the list of his subordinates till he saw the new addition to his subordinates, he clicked on it and a screen showing Midas status popped up:
[Name: Midas
Level 2
Race: Wisemonkies
{Astralums} : Shadows manipulation
{Etherium techniques} : {healing touch}; {force shaper};
Race Trait: Respect strength, will always serve those who defeat them]
Before anything, the thing that stunned Tom the moment he saw Midas status was the {Etherium technique} slot, he had never seen something like that in any of his other subordinate status.
'So the etherium techniques have their own slot, interesting' thought Tom before looking at the list of techniques.
'Hmm, {healing touch} ?, guess that's the healing technique he just used a moment ago' thought Tom before looking at the new technique.
'{force shaper} ? What does it do ?' Wondered Tom, he had an inkling of what it could do but didn't want to speculate, he would see it for himself if he accepted Midas offer anyway.
As he was looking at over Midas abilities, something caught his attention, or rather, the lack of something caught his attention.
'Why is the concealment technique not there' wondered Tom.
From what he could see, Midas could use this technique, the first reason for that was what Midas had said:
"If you accept, I will teach you other techniques, like the one we use to hide our presence,"
This sentence of Midas proves that he could use it.
The second reason was that Tom was sure that the reason he couldn't feel the old wisemonkey even though it was directly in his shadow was that his mastery over the technique was so advanced that he didn't release even one bit of presence.
Usually when someone used their ehterium to hide their presence there was a sort of ripples in the Etherium flux, however Tom had observed him when Midas was merging with the shadows and there wasn't any sort of ripples in the ehterium flow.
'So, why does the technique not appear here ?'
Tom pondered on the matter for some time before giving up, since he didn't have any clue, there was no need to think so much about it.
"Hey, I will cooperate with you" said Tom looking at his shadow.
A split second later, his shadow extended and Midas came out of it while saying:
"That was fast, it didn't even take you ten minutes"
"Did I even have a choice from the beginning ?" Replied Tom with an irritated face.
At his reply, Midas just chuckled and said, "now that it's out of the way, we need to start your training right away, we don't have much time".
"Wait, how about the 3rd and 4th ranked, you said that they will become my subordinates if I accept, right ? So, when are they coming ?"
"They won't come now, they will descend when it's time to kick-start the operation"
Tom nodded a bit disappointed since he wanted to have the enchantment of his strength right now, so he could have time to adapt to his new strength, but alas...
"Don't look so disappointed, the techniques I'm going to teach will be just as much useful as having an enhancement to your strength, in fact it's even better" Midas reassured.
Hearing him, Tom's previous excitement immediately came back, and he asked excitedly, "what will you teach me first ?"
Midas pondered some time before replying, "we will start with the healing technique"