Blacksmith vs. the System 277

Despite their sparring against me meeting an ignoble end, I didn’t lose my confidence in my students. On the contrary, watching them throw themselves into training with a renewed passion made me trust them even more.

Their Ascension meant that, unlike before, they couldn’t fight for hours without stopping. Luckily, that was not needed. It wasn’t their personal capabilities that needed to be fixed, but their coordination. And, for that, they didn’t need to fight full power, but have the equivalent of a paintball fight, followed by a detailed analytical breakdown on paper.

“Hopefully, they will put on a better show next time. But, even without that, I was confident that they could handle the troubles that occur,” I muttered as I closed my eyes, about to delve deep into my connection with the dungeon, to see if I could update the skills the dungeon was offering. We needed to increase our mana alloy production without dungeon materials to benefit from our sea venture.

Building one or two ironclad ships was possible at our current capabilities … but a fleet.

But, I must have jinxed myself, as barely a minute after I spoke that, I had received a message. A letter, sealed by Rosie’s seal. At first glance, it looked like a routine report, but the numbers under the seal signaled an emergency.

The same was true for the letter. At first glance, it was ordinary, just giving a regular report. But, decoding it, I could see it was anything but a regular report.

The report mentioned that she had just detected the presence of a significant force from Drakka near the city, and asked me to sneak out to meet with her without alerting anyone, and meet me at a hidden underground outpost just at the edge of the outer ring. She hadn’t mentioned why, but she didn’t need to. Her intent was clear.

A counter-ambush.

“At least no one will be suspicious of my absence,” I muttered as I used the gate to enter the dungeon, only to use the hidden underground one to leave. There were many tunnels underneath the city, each clad in metal to not allow any easy access to a spy; with several detection spells and wards in place to alert for any disturbance.

More importantly, with my increased Wisdom, assisted by Perception, I was able to Observe and gave me perfect detection.

Opening a gate would have been faster, but it was likely that Drakka had spies capable of detecting such a move. A gate absorbed both mana and the mysterious, corrupting energy from the environment, and detecting it was not a challenge.

Not at the stage we were playing.

It meant I had to take the long way, and walk through the tunnel, but even then, I was at the specified outpost merely a minute later. “Perfect, you’re here,” she said, raising her head from the stack of paper sprawled in front of her.

“What’s the issue?” I asked.

“The results from one of the scout gliders,” she said. “One of them had detected the presence of multiple Ascended. They returned immediately to deliver the report, but it was too late. There are some signs of a patrol route, which I managed to track well enough, but the location of their camp is a mystery.”

“Multiple ascended?” I asked. “How many?”

“At least four, possibly more,” she responded. “The problem is their range of operation,” she said, and pushed two maps for me. One showed what she had deciphered from the range of movement.

The other was showing the path Maria took for patrols; overlapping with the routes she often took on her way to return.

“You suspect an assassination attempt?” I said. It was obvious, but sometimes, it was best to vocalize.

She nodded. “It is a good strategic objective. It’ll cripple our strategic flexibility and high-end power at once,” she said. “I don’t think they can take her down when she is in full power, but when she’s returning, exhausted.”

”Even then, it’s a risky call,” I said. “Four Ascended might take her down, but if they fail, they will be lost. Four Ascended, even if they are the weakest kind, are still valuable, especially since they are also suffering from the corrupted monsters. Why would they shift such vital sources against us when the siege is still going on?”

Rosie shrugged. “I don’t know. The information I can get is limited. There are some rumors about a new commander in Asterion. Maybe he’s performing even better, turning the battle into a stalemate. Or maybe, Drakka sniffed out Project Ascension, and they want to cripple our strategic flexibility before we can succeed.”

“And, taking Maria would do that,” I said. “We want to flip it into a counter-ambush.” I paused, noticing something. “If that was the case, you would have called Eleanor. Her presence alone could flip the ambush, especially with your support. You think something is wrong? A trap?”

She sighed. “My spy senses are tingling,” she said. “At first glance, everything looks good. One of our scouts got a glimpse of the attack despite their best attempt to stay hidden, and I managed to track their path. But, it relies on a single point of intel, with no collaborating source. If it were an operation against a drug cartel, before Cataclysm, we would never approve it. The risk of it being a trap is too big.”

“What do you suspect?” I asked.

“Maybe it’s a distraction,” she said. “The supposed ambush spot is twenty miles away from the city. Maybe they want to draw our forces away while they hit the city. If they hit at two places, they might create a lot of chaos, especially if they are underestimating how much you have improved after the class upgrade. Add in your students that can probably delay the second attack, it’ll fail.”

I nodded. She had a point. I had done my best to undersell just how much my battle efficiency had increased, always making sure to spend a few minutes to kill the boss monsters attacking on the surface. “That assumes they want to hit the city. What if they wanted to get rid of Eleanor and Maria together?”

Rosie frowned. “That feels too ambitious. Why wouldn’t they just target her directly if they had the ability?”

I shrugged. “Just an idea. We have nothing more than our suspicions. We need intel.”

“I know, but we can’t send scouts to canvas the area, not without alerting them. That would mean the loss of the opportunity.”

“That’s true,” I admitted. “How about the new mana detectors Spencer designed. I remember reading a report about their status. They are deployed, right?”

She nodded. “They are currently in the testing phase. I already checked the report, but it won’t help. It’s good to pick an open approach, but not when detecting the presence of people trying to hide.”

“How many of them have been deployed?” I asked.

“Just twenty of them to start,” she said. “They are easy to build, but they require too much manpower. Someone with Intelligence has to be assigned to probes to interpret the results.”

“Currently, each probe is analyzed by a different individual?” I asked.

She nodded. “No. Each operator is responsible for two of them. The calculations are too complicated for them to handle.”

“I see. And, you only have their summaries,” I stated. She nodded. “Do they keep the records of the initial readings?” She nodded. “Good. Can you sneak them away without anyone noticing?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Let me see them first,” I said. “I don’t want to promise anything before going over it. It depends on the shape of the data.”

She nodded before disappearing for ten minutes. When she returned, she was carrying a large case filled with leather-bound files, easily twenty thousand pages long.

“Thanks,” I said before I opened the pile.

“You don’t think of going through it the whole day, right?” she asked. “Even with all your stats, we don’t have the time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I checked the recordings. Filled with graphs, numbers, and a plethora of seemingly irrelevant details, including the environmental fluctuations that needed to be dismissed. This was not a project I was involved in, but I was happy to see Spencer following my advice.

While I hadn’t worked on the project, I was familiar with the working principle. It worked by sending very weak mana pulses in a thin line, alternating the nature and recording the feedback; all the while staying below the detection horizon for mages.

It was a lower-priority project, mostly because its viability was limited, only workable in environments with very limited mana, without being ruined by the interference.

The data collection was perfect. Capture all available data, and not just the thing that was being searched for. It meant I could operate. “Where was the exact spot they were detected, and at what time?” I asked.

She provided them before asking her next question. “What are you trying to do?” she asked. “Because I know they are nowhere sensitive enough to catch someone under concealment.”

“Are you familiar with radar systems developed for stealth planes,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “You want to cross-reference the different pillars to bypass their method.”

“Exactly,” I said as I started to go through the data. “Admittedly, even with my current Intelligence, it’s not something I could do in a time-sensitive fashion, not for the whole region…”

“But, with already detecting four of them in the wilderness, where no other Ascended is …”

I smirked as I pulled the map, marking the different points as I went through the data. “This is the path they picked.” Then, I marked another point. “Here, they switch to a spell, probably some kind of invisibility, with some mana flare. From there, they pick a convoluted path, double-back twice, and arrive at this location … before disappearing completely.”

“Another method, or a hideout?”

I went through the data around the location. “Definitely a hideout. There have been signs of a consent movement for the last two days.”

“We have our target,” she said.

I smirked. “How about I accompany you to pay a visit?”

Her expression of panic was beautiful.