After finishing the sparring session with Galeion, William did not linger in the training hall anymore. This time the others had come to witness their spar, including Ethan and maximus, whose eyes shone and they wanted to spar too after witnessing william and galeion fight.
William had refused them, saying that he was busy with other stuff and simply left while the others joined the spars and started going against each other.
The exchange of blows with Galeion had left him quite fresh after the whole boring day. William pouted as he returned to his room thinking about what he needed to do today.
Once inside his room, he shut the door, removed his training clothes, took a bath and changed into a clean set of garments. He did not allow himself to rest. Instead, he entered the domain of infinity.
He appeared beneath the warm sun of his private realm which dried of any lingering wetness of the shower.
Without hesitation, he walked toward the hut where Maris and Lia were residing. The grass parted softly under his steps, and before he reached the doorway, Maris stepped outside as though she had been awaiting his arrival.
She bowed deeply, lowering her gaze before kneeling.
"I am ready, my lord," she said.
William had already talked to her through the mark of the servant, he had explained to her the new mission and what she needed to do.
"System bestow on her the shapeshifting and natural actor talent."
[done] the system replied as it bestowed a lower level of the shapeshifting talent.
While the orignal talent allowed him to remain in the shapeshofted form as long as he wanted, the lowered down version had a cool down of 6 hours.
This version had been bestowed to his slaves as well and now maris too since she might need it.
He then bestowed upon her the ice affinity and the ice spells glacial bind and blizzard. Earlier, he had already bestowed darkness and light affinities on her when she was carrying out his orders in the southern forests.
He paused and thought about her Space affinity. The only spatial spell in his possession was God rank, and he refused to hand something of that magnitude into her hands prematurely.
Space manipulation inevitably drew attention, and distributing a God-rank spell would not only increase her exposure, but also, he told himself, maybe he will wait for a bit more trust and loyalty to develop before handing out big guns into his servant’s hands, although he knew that their betreyal meant death for them.
Earlier he had hesitated giving the trickster’s veil to Barash and Ronin, but the system had reassured him again and again to give it to them. The same thing happened when he was giving the veil to Maris’s during the most recent mission in south.
[They won’t betray you to be honest, you just overthink because you know they have demonic traits in them.]
"I find it hard to trust anything demonic," William muttered in his mind as he looked at Maris’s kneeling figure.
[The marks placed on them are stronger than the puny demonic influence on their minds.]
"System!! I get it, dude, it’s just difficult for me. Try to understand; whenever I am in front of something demonic, there is just this deep hidden disgust that creeps up in me, you know"
William spoke tightly, still hesitant to admit it.
[i know, i just don’t want these useless emotions to come in the way of your growth, my goal is to see you get stronger and ofcourse feast on the harvest you make but still ] the system spoke in a serious tone
"That’s the first time I’ve heard you say something so determinantly, it’s the first time I feel like you are really expressing yourself," William chuckled.
[eat shit]
"tsk"
"Fine, but for now let’s stop here, I’ve given her a big enough arsenal of spells." he said in his mind before looking at Maris
"wait here for a minute" he told Maris before dissapearing.
Next, William came outside of the domain and stepped into his room.
He had to arrange some way for Maris to get out, theoretically, he could have sent her with Barash and Ronin, but fitting two people in Trickster’s Veil was already a stretch, and sending a third one would just be a suicide.
If even a finger lost the veil’s cover, the alarms would blare and formations would activate. He had to figure out something else, thankfully, the system had a way out of it, but William was skeptical since he had zero knowledge about formations and runes.
"Are you sure this is going to work?"
[Yes, it will.]
"Fine"
William took out the array hijacking stamp from his inventory and suspended it in his room. Several halos appeared as the stamp enlarged and activated.
"This is Professor Kevin’s biggest nightmare," William chuckled, looking at the projection that showed information about all the active formations and arrays in the whole academy domain.
William noticed some really ancient arrays that stood out and looked much more complex than the other newer formations on the domain.
"I am craving to learn about runes and arrays, thankfully, they will start teaching these side professions earlier now," William spoke.
unfortunately only those who possesed affinity to runic language could follow the path.
"What is the cost of rune affinity in the shop?"
[1 billion for absolute rank]
"Never mind, I want an F-rank affinity," William spoke. He knew his talent would automatically elevate the affinity to absolute, reacting to the clash that would ensue with his pre-existing affinities.
[You can’t get that; the supreme system ensures that you can’t exploit any loophole.]
"Tsk," William sulked at the system’s words.
"Anyway, tell me what to do now," William asked as he rubbed his hands, getting ready to tamper with formations of the academy domains.
The system started instructing William. At first, they hacked the array that monitored the health and functioning of other arrays; this will make it look like they were functioning normally while he was tampering with the main formations.
Then he tampered with the spatial teleportation and detection arrays subsequently.
Once everything was done, William quickly called out Maris and gave her a teleportation scroll.
Maris quickly activated the telportation scroll and telported out of the academy domain.
William quickly moved and removed all the changes that he had made to the formations; the whole sequence happened in a matter of minutes, and the formations were again alive and kicking.
Minutes later he got the confirmation from Maris that she was out thorough the mental link.
Suddenly a thought entered William’s mind: "Is it possible that I can scan everyone through the stamp and find out demonic spies??" he asked the system
[That needs a formation that is based on anti-demonic elements like light, life, or even the sun element you have. Although the most common element is light, so the academy could have used that.]
[Unfortunately there is no large-scale light-based formation present in the academy, only small-scale present in key areas, and some of them are even deactivated right now.]
The system’s words turned William curious: "Why!!, aren’t they in high alert mode??"
[Since you are not familiar with formations, I must tell you that, to run a formation autonomously, you need energy sources and many other types of materials based on the type and purpose of formation. The academy must be short on some resources that are crucial for running these formations.]
"Hmm!! This is interesting, World Academy is running out of resources; that’s new."
[Yeah, that’s definitely new and doesn’t seem normal at all.]
William noted this fact in mind; he decided to investigate the situation further in the coming days. For now, he returned to the domain of infinite and resumed his cultivation.
***
A day later, the morning sun rose over the horizon of the Riverdale Empire.
In the capital city, people moved to their daily lives.
Recently news about the cult’s experiments had spread among the common public and had created dread in their minds.
The masses were panicked, and questions about the current rule and stability of law & order rose.
After all, the kidnappings were a result of that. The situation was grimmer since the two most affected races in this whole scheme were the humans and elves.
In the massive Draconis mansion in the core circle of the capital
"Emperor Aurelius is tense and wants to stabilize the situation before his rivals can fan the flames and manipulate the situation to show him as a weak ruler or, worse, start a civil war. He wants something to calm down the crowd. In the court, he called out his ministers and loyal men; he told them to start preparing their armies. To save his face and calm down the masses...."
The draconis butler Adam didn’t get the chance to complete
"He needs a big symbolic win against the demonic cults." Duke Rizwell completed the sentence absentmindedly while sitting on his main seat inside his office.
The House of Draconia had always been a neutral party in the empire’s politics; they showed their loyalty towards the throne and not the one seated on it.
There was a difference in both; Emperor Aurelius had a younger brother, who on the surface was supportive and brotherly, but everyone in the imperial court had witnessed the silent rivalry between them over the years.
The whole court had been divided into two factions; one was in Aurelius’s favor and one was against him, of course, on the surface they were agreeable.
"Yes, my lord, the emperor wants to do something before Minister Daniel Dalton tries anything that destabilizes his rule. The emperor seems quite serious this time."
Duke Rizwell straightened his posture; his mind had been lingering on his own son, Jaden.
The secret of his betrayal had not been revealed to anyone, and the soldiers who had been present that day, including Adam, had been sealed by an oath of heaven to keep the collusion with the Eternal Sovereign and his son’s betrayal as a secret.
But the news Adam presented still interested him mildly since the coming days will affect his house in some way or the other.
Suddenly a knock sounded, and a soldier entered the office. "My lord, there is a visitor "
The soldier moved to the table and placed aof Draconis House.
"She says she is here as the messenger of the."