Mitch woke up after an unknown amount of time, feeling refreshed and well rested. This was the first instance of respite he had gotten for a long time.
Having dedicated his very being to research, preparing for his interview and then finally grappling with the reality of his situation had left him beyond exhausted.
He looked around the now familiar white void and noticed something had changed in the distance. A brown, green, and blue marble was rotating around a bigger, yellow ball, with a gray marble circling around the former.
'So this is my new job? Watching over planets and solar systems the size of pebbles?' Though this finally answered his question about how being a Khad would work.
Surely it was impossible for him to actually manage a life-sized universe. He wasn't even sure if that would all fit inside of the white space. Turns out everything was miniature in scale.
"I have no way to tell time anymore, but I assume that it hasn't been that many days since I came here. Did I really sleep for that long? I must have been more burned out than I imagined."
With his mind clearer than ever, he thought about what to do next. He needed to do several things, but certain tasks were more pressing than others.
"I could allow KAT to turn itself back on, but I have some things I want to experiment with before I start my journey as a Khad. I don't want to be sidetracked, so let's do it alone for now. First off, how does manifestation work?"
Mitch cast an eye on his stats, as he called them, and realized that his Mynt had fallen from '100' to '5'. He also noticed something else that was different.
[Power System: Devouring—Body Strengthening (0%)]
"Fascinating! So whenever I introduce a power system to my world it gets added here as well. But why does it say '0%'. Is it based on my own progression, or that of the world?"
Something new at the bottom of the Khad skills window then caught his attention.
[Tip: Khad skills not affecting the material realm do not consume Mynt]
His eyes turned into crescent moons, and he started to smile gleefully. He felt like a child that had just gotten a new toy, or a researcher that had discovered an entirely new topic to explore.
"Let's see, how does this work? Do I just say it out loud? {Manifestation}!" Mitch uttered aloud and pointed his right palm towards the miniature solar system.
Poof
A TV appeared in place of his world, and turned on to display the miniature solar system, just as it was previously. Mitch then pinched outwards in the direction of the TV, and it started zooming in towards the planet.
He kept doing that, going past the stratosphere, past the clouds and then even more to see the creatures roaming the earth. But what he saw left him so shell shocked that he immediately turned his KAT on.
"Good morning, Khad Mitch. How was your rest?"
"Don't 'good morning' me! What the hell is this? I told you to keep their human anatomy, but you made them look like two-legged human-sized cockroaches. What's wrong with you?" This was not what Mitch had planned at all.
He thought that the KAT would simply create four-armed humans with stronger muscles and thicker skin to make them more durable, not turn them into actual cockroaches.
"Well, you told me to give them, and I quote, 'cockroach-like endurance'. So, that's what I did. I made some modifications to cockroaches, made their hind legs stronger and more human-like, gave them proper hands and gaps in their exoskeleton for joints, and voila, Legio was created!"
Mitch felt like crying. This was not what he had expected at all. He wanted human cockroaches, not human-like cockroaches. But he knew that the KAT was not to blame for this confusion.
Mitch realized that he was hasty in creating his dominant race and gave the KAT vague instructions in the hopes of quickly being able to resolve his inner conflict. The KAT simply did its best with the guidelines Mitch had provided.
"By the way, what do I call you? KAT, you, pest? Do you have a name or something which you would prefer to be called by?"
"You can call me whatever you want, Khad Mitch. I was created for your convenience, so whatever makes you feel more at ease is the best. But I appreciate the thought." KAT seemed to be back to its usual jolly self, sounding even happier than normal.
"I feel a bit weird calling you KAT. I will call you Katherine. That way others will think I am simply calling you if they overhear me talking with you on the street."
"Also, cut out the Khad part; I might have accepted the fact that I am a Khad, but I'm not happy about it. Hearing you call me that is unpleasant."
"Sure, I will stick to calling you Mitch then. Or perhaps you would prefer that I called you 'Master'? I can tell that you were interested in those kinds of things during your time in the simulation."
Mitch choked on some saliva hearing Katherine call him that, and then he started to blush.
'Turns out she has quite the mischievous side to her, good to know. I have to be careful not to fall into her tempo in the future.'
"Mitch is fine. Although you were created for the purpose of helping me, we still are technically partners, are we not?" Mitch fired back, trying to make her feel flustered as revenge for teasing him.
How naive he was.
"Yes, partners forever and ever, until the end of time! What did they say in your simulation? 'Until death do us part'?"