Early Evening - Early Summer : Arlington, Virginia | East Coast Uates
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"Huh? Alrek? What are you doing here so te?"
*Woosh* Air rushed into the room as Alrek walked inside. "I have a special t I need you guys to work with."
"Hoh? For you to say that, I'm curious who-"
Hearing her suddenly go quiet as I walked in, I looked up to see a young, well-dressed elven woman just behind a wide desk with her feet perched up on it. -She must be the receptionist.- Walking up to the desk, I was quick to reay hand. "The name's Evren."
As if dazed, she bnkly stared at my hand for a moment before jumping up, fixing her posture, and grabbing my hand with both of hers. "I-I'm Lori!" She was a bit pa first. "I-It's a pleasure to meet you, Madam." But it was only a moment before it turned iement. "So, how I be of service?"
Alrek quickly took over as he walked up o me. "Miss Lestir here is a returning merary looking to learn the basiana and aura. I've already tacted Crow, but he said he would be a while."
"Is that so?" Curiously turning to me, Lori tilted her head in fusion. "What is your css? Are you perhaps a barbarian?" She asked since barbarians didn't innately have access to magiagic-reted skills within the system.
-But...- "No, I don't have any css, so I have ris on skills, but for reasons I 't expin, I don't have any skills at all anymore. Now I o relearn how to suppress or redirect my aura."
"I-Is that so..?" Taken aback she paused to think for a moment. "So you're looking frimoire for aura trol?"
I nodded. "But I have some doubts about whether it will work for me, so it's more likely I'll need someoo teach me."
"That would be quite odd, but..." Looking down at a holographic s, she hastily tapped through a few panels. "We'll see what happens. I've requested frimoire we try to use. It's a basic skill called 'Presence Suppression'. It's pretty on, even among civilians, si help them hide if they ever enter a monster."
-A skill for civilians? Are these grimoires that easily accessible here?- She quickly tinued as I tilted my head with curiosity.
"As for having someoo teach you, it's a bit te, our instructors have all gone home, so you either ask Crow whes here, or I set you up with someone in the m."
-Ah, the m is too long...- I was quick to wave her off. "I don't care who teaches it, instructor or not, as long as they expin the most basic of basics."
"Alright, well we'll see what we do. There may be some legal issues if someone unqualified tries to teach you." ing up what she was doing on the puter, she quickly hopped up and made her way to a set of doors leading into a long, well-decorated hallway. "For now, if you'll e with me, I'll bring you to one of our training rooms and bring you that grimoire." She quickly motioned me along, leaving Alrek aloo wait in the lobby. "I apologize in advance. Usually, we would have someone more fitting walk you to a room, but most people have gone home at this hour."
"I don't mind." We idly spoke as we began walking. "Thank you for obliging, regardless."
Turning bae, she quickly fshed her bright smile. "It's my pleasure!"
Eventually finding our way to the rge room with the floor, walls, and ceiling lined with pure white tiles, I promptly found my way to a small gss partment in the wall lined with devices simir to what I saw in the mana monit facility. -These look familiar...-
Deg to tinker with it while I waited for Lori, I eventually got it turned on before suddenly being presented with a 3D hologram of the room pletely surrounded by dots of varying sizes and colors simir to the holographic map I saw previously.
They were all sensors, seemingly reading and correting to different information, using opacity to let you read it all at a gnce. -'Temperature', 'Ambient mana', 'Aura'... They have everything on here...- There were even sensors for things like moisture, wind, a.
If there was something you o measure, you could do it here. -The aura one has me curious though...-
Although I heard from the researchers in the facility in Rid that aura clouded ruhe aura sensors, seemingly meant to monitor it, picked up nothing. -I wonder if it has something to do with why people 't seem to sense my aura...-
Giving it some idle thought as I checked out the other sensors and their data, Lori eventually returhis time with a thiher-cover book in her hands. "Sorry for keeping you waiting!" Quickly ing into the side room I was in, she was simply gleaming. "Here is the grimoire." As she handed me the book, she also gave me a small bck marble. "So, in case you aren't familiar with these types of grimoires, before you put it in your iory a your System read it, you have to actually set this little artifa that divot on the cover, and i a bit of mana through it." She gently ope to show me the intricately carved, circur rune on the inside of the cover.
"Huh.. to think there would be a type of grimoire I've never seen..."
She immediately puffed up her chest with pride. "It's because they're only made here oh! When people first started ercially selling grimoires, there roblem with stealing, so we had to create utle marbles like this to act as keys. If you don't use the key, the grimoire is empty." Quickly pig it up, she fahe pages to show they were all bnk with additional runes carved into each page. "If you use the wrohe runes won't print the text properly, and it will just trash the book."
-Wow...- "So the key is like a cipher to the rune, and the cipher is wrong, it will just destroy the grimoire? How do you make a unique key for each ruhen? Wouldn't every grimoire have to have the same rune?"
She quickly shook her head. "The first rune here in the cover is purely to act as an encryptor, and the key is its cypher. Although the encryptor doesn't have infinite possibilities, if we also angle and tilt the ruself, we squeeze out a few huhousand unique copies."
-R..Really?- It was surprisingly clever. -If they know that much about runes, maybe they'll really be able to help me...- Finally following her instru, I id down the book a my finger on the key. "Hooh..." -Okay.. let's see if I i it with some mana...-
Trying to mimic the sensation of an old mana iion skill I had, I reached into the lump of energy in my abdomen and grabbed a handful of it.
But, I didn't feel a thing.
Now that I had access to more mana than I could fathom, the mana I used my old skills as a refereo move was of such a tiny volume that I couldn't eve.
But, in the end, I mao get it to work. *Glow* After several attempts to move a clump of energy out of my fihe key started glowing before suddenly crumbling to dust.
"Hooh..." I quickly let out a breath of relief as I picked it up and saw the , clear text and diagrams on all the pages. -Well.. here goes nothing...-
Following Lori's instrus, I casually tossed it into my iory a into the 'Item Information' tab to have the system read it. *Beep*
But while it beeped at me, firming it was read.. nothing happened.
There was no message, and there was no skill.
"So?" Lori's eyes gleamed with expectation, but...
"It didn't work..." Agitatedly leaning bato a desk, I pulled the book back out of my iory and tossed it on the desk. "You try it."
A little nervous, she did as I asked and put it in her iory, but her expression suddenly turning curious told me all I o know. "It.. worked fine for me... Are you sure you-"
"Yeah, I've used plenty of grimoires before." Gripping my forehead, annoyanstantly drenched my expression. -I k ossibility.. I just didn't want to believe it...- But I didn't have time to dwell on it. "Haah... Okay..." As thoughts raced through my mind, I finally looked up at the young elf in front of me. "How much do you know about mana and aura, Lori?"
Immediately tensing up, she responded awkwardly. "I-I know the basics, but I'm a notoriously bad teacher-"
"I don't care." Cutting her off, my cold gaze found its way into her eyes. "The basics are all I need for now."
Uanding what I meant, her demeanor turned nervous. "O..okay... I will try my best..."
"Haah..." -My gut is telling me I o hurry up...- "I'll give you a bunch of gold if you do well."
Finally walking out into the ter of the tile room, I sat down and crossed my legs.
"Hooh..." With another breath to try and alleviate my stress, my focus moved down to the immense, swirling sphere of energy in my abdomen. -I should have some time...-
Thinking that the military would be occupied with the evacuation efforts in Rid for some time, I figured even if the researchers spotted me with their sensors, they wouldn't be able to do anything until the evacuation was finished. -Worst case sario I probably have a few days...-
sidering I believed I had already trolled a substantial amount of my aura without any instru in the mana monit facility, I was fident even a day would be enough. -But I shouldn't test my luck...-
The issue was there was something I failed to take into at...
During my flight tton, I sank knee-deep into an ant hill, and I disturbed the .
But the wasn't humanity.. nor was it the city.
*Beep* -Tch...- Clig my tongue as my System broke my focus, I opened my eyes with annoyand looked at the pahat appeared.
WARNINGUnauthorized System Data Tamperied
ta administrator immediately...
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- Bently Horne ~
*OOOOSHH* Zipping through a crete tunnel in an underground, military-exclusive maglev, I looked at my refle in the opposing window with a face drowned with worry and stress. "Haah..." -What the hell am I getting involved in...- Anxiously g my hands together, I turned my gaze to the womao me, only to see her gripping her helmet like her life depended on it.
As things were, we were about half a kilometer underground, zipping through a crete tube at several times the speed of sound, heading straight for the colossal military base on the north end of the city called 'The Final Bastion'.
Meant to stand as humanity's st defense if it came to it, It was the rgest and most secure military base in the world, and the same military instaltion that kept the Uates from colpsing due to a surge of mohree hundred years ago.
Of everywhere I could be going, it was by far the safest pce.
But somehow, the longer we sat in silehe more my gut yelled at me.
From what Miss Hale had told me, the streak of light I saw cross the sky ba Rid was actually the apostle Jack Ricora, a man known to be one of the fastest system users in the world, after getting hit by a monster.
Even taking into at his level, I couldn't imagine a reality where he was alive, or at the very least wasn't crippled given the speed he crossed the sky. -At that speed, I'm sure his armor melted...- But what was more horrifying than anything was the monster behind it all. -A creature wearing the skin of a human...-
It was a mohat looked human, sounded human, and could even act human, but was both outside the bounds of the system and the reach of administrators.
No matter how I twisted it, it sounded like somethiirely out of our league and was something we o haremely carefully. -What if it isn't just a bit strohan an apostle? What if we just piss it off?-
But, I had no say iter. Because I was an iional hunter, I was required by w to esiss Hale until she delivered her helmet to the higher-ups, and that was it. No matter how much I wished to speak up, I couldn't. -But there may be a ce I get interrogated... Maybe then I get my words through...-
As a long-term system merary, I trusted my instincts more than anything, and no matter how I thought about it, the situation I was being ed in would be ohat my life would depend on. -But if there's anything to be thankful for.. the military base should be the safest p Arlington...-
And it was, however, I would soon e to realize that what made it safe wasn't its power or security, but rather its distance from where everything would go down.
The moment we arrived at the underground headquarters several mier, we found everyone in a plete panic, with people donning white b coats sprinting around with stacks of paper, and even military generals so famous I could immediately reize them dashing around with expressions of worry, ay, or determination.
It made my mind short-circuit for a moment. -Something bad happened... Something really, really bad...-
Eventually being greeted by aneneral, we were quickly rushed to another se of the facility where we came face to face with several globally known figures, from revered generals, to leading stists and famous meraries.
But none of them turned around as we walked inside.
Instead, they were all silently staring at a rge, bright s on the opposite side of the room...
A s that dispyed a news broadcast...
Ohat showed a sea of colpsed buildings near a spire I could reize. -Thats.. the Iional Security anization...-
It was the heart of the Iional Security District.. but now it was a sea of rubble...
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Art of Evren, as well as a new cover for TSH are on the atron's are getting updates in the discord!
Read up to 5 weeks ahead of schedule, a early access to artwork on My Patreon!
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All are wele!
