"This is much better."
Zeus looked at the sharp-edged metallic disc in his hand and threw it toward the same tree he'd been training on for the past few days.
The disc launched at a tremendous speed—nearly 1.5 times faster than its previous version.
This increase in speed came from the modification to the motion rune with the intermittent movement property, which now gave the disc small consecutive bursts that increased its maximum velocity and acceleration.
The rotation speed of the disc was also nearly doubled by embedding two continuous motion runes.
The intermittent motion rune also helped boost the initial acceleration of the disc's spin, allowing it to reach its maximum speed of 100 rotations per second quickly.
This speed was enough to pierce through the tree trunk, which had previously endured over a hundred hits from the old version without being completely destroyed.
An additional feature allowed Zeus to control the disc's direction for 30 continuous seconds—this duration depended on the energy stored in the energy storage rune.
Naturally, Zeus could use just one second of energy to launch a direct hit or around three seconds to execute dodges and return the disc to him.
The energy regeneration time for the rune was 10 minutes to refill from zero to maximum.
This meant each second of usage (enough for a single simple strike) required 20 seconds of energy recovery time.
Zeus noticed the high energy consumption and decided to replace the disc's material with one that had higher tolerance for energy pressure.
He went to his sister Lily's workshop, but aside from two incomplete combat mechs and a large assortment of spare parts, he didn't find anything similar to his disc.
However, he found something even better—a set of 20 short throwing daggers.
"If I can make them fly and control them... Damn, so many possibilities—this is really exciting."
But Zeus's excitement quickly faded when he realized that each dagger could only withstand the pressure of a single kinetic energy rune.
Then a thought sparked his hope again:
"Looks like I need to take a look around the weapon stores."
Zeus left the workshop and returned to his room—specifically to his wardrobe.
"Black... or black... or more black. At least this habit hasn't changed. I guess I'll go with black."
He put on a long black coat, matching black pants, black shoes, and a pair of thin black gloves—handy for blocking out some of the chill while riding his bike.
He came down from the second floor to the first, and while passing through the main hall, his mother called out to him:
"Is that you, Zeus?"
His mother was applying makeup with the help of a maid.
Zeus wondered how she even knew it was him and debated whether he should respond or just walk out quietly.
He wasn't supposed to leave the estate, especially since nothing was known yet about the incident that happened to him. As he tried to walk on without making any noise, the maid spoke up:
"Yes, ma'am. It's your son. He's wearing his brother's old clothes."
"The black ones? With gloves?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Zeus, you're not to leave the family estate. Understand? These are orders from your great-grandmother. Also, stop wearing that outfit—your brother always caused trouble when he wore it."
"Ma'am... He already left a few seconds ago."
---
[About 20 minutes later]
"I won't stay a bird trapped in the family's cage."
Zeus's bike sped along the mountain road—the same road that always brought back the painful memory of his brother's death.
After a few minutes, he exited the mountains and entered the massive city, now the industrial capital of the Union—and once its main capital.
He stopped at a shop, bought a drink, and sat on his bike near a nearby park.
Three children ran past him, seemingly in the middle of a game.
"What's this little girl doing?"
He noticed a girl hiding behind him and his bike. She gestured at him to stay quiet, clearly anxious as she glanced around.
"She must be playing with those kids I saw earlier..."
Zeus was about to leave for the market but decided to wait a bit for the girl.
But things started to get weird when she didn't move from behind him for over ten minutes.
When Zeus finally decided to speak to her, he saw terror spread across her face—and then she suddenly took off running.
He scratched the back of his head, wondering if he'd somehow scared her.
But he quickly realized something was off when a man sprinted past him from the right, followed by another man shouting at the first to catch the girl.
"What the hell?"
Zeus hopped on his bike. In one swift move, the back wheel roared and kicked up a small cloud of dust and white smoke. The engine growled as the bike accelerated fiercely—and Zeus slammed the rear end of his bike into the first man in a sharp maneuver that caught everyone's attention.
The second man stopped and quickly drew a weapon, aiming it at Zeus.
"Who are you, bastard!?"
"Zeus Raktas."
"Raktas family!? Why is one of your people meddling in our affairs?"
Zeus observed the two men in official black guard uniforms and thought:
"This guy doesn't seem like a bad person."
"I just want to know why this little girl ran away from you and why you were chasing her."
"Sir, no offense, but this doesn't concern you. There's no reason for you to interfere."
"If you don't want to be rude, then lower your damn weapon, fool. I don't need a damn reason to protect a frightened little girl from two grown men like you."
The man sighed, clearly annoyed, but before he could respond, a woman in her thirties rushed over, breathing heavily.
"Didn't you find Sally yet?"
"We found her, ma'am. But this guy interfered."
"Who are you, young man?! Why would you do this!? My daughter is sick, and I need to get her to the hospital tomorrow. It's urgent! Why did you stop the guards!?"
Zeus felt a bit embarrassed, and the guard added:
"Ma'am, we don't have time to argue with him. He's from the Raktas family. Just let me shoot him in the leg—we can explain it to his family later..."
"Do I look that weak to you?"
"...No time for this. All three of you, go find her before she runs off and disappears again!"