Half an hour later, everyone gathered in the conference room.
Cipher sat at the chairman’s seat, arms crossed as he waited for everyone to settle in.
The executives and team leaders filed in one by one, some still bearing injuries from the fight that couldn’t be easily healed. Once everyone was seated, he nodded to Victoria.
"Let’s start with the church raid," Cipher said.
Victoria stood, pulling out a tablet. "The mission was a complete failure. Not only did we fail to eliminate the cult, we also took a significant hit to our elite forces with five dead, ten critically injured, twelve with moderate injuries, and the chairman missing. Most of the wounded are being treated now and should recover within the week."
Cipher nodded. He didn’t bother speaking about the missing chairman part, they all understood but it was a little difficult to accept. After all, he was the strength of the association.
"Good work. Ember, your report."
Ember straightened in his seat. "The attack here was coordinated by three guilds working together - the Iron Fang Guild, the Crimson Serpents, and the Black Lotus Syndicate. They hit us with approximately a hundred combatants, mostly D and E-ranks with some C-ranks mixed in, plus the three B-ranks."
"We lost ten people defending the secondary buildings, with another fifteen injured. Most of the damage was concentrated there - broken windows, destroyed equipment, and one floor of the eastern building is partially collapsed. Repair costs are estimated around two million AC."
"Could’ve been worse," Knox muttered.
"Much worse," Zara agreed. "If Cipher hadn’t taken out those B-ranks when he did..."
Iris cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention. "There’s something else. Luna was a traitor. She attacked me during the chaos, likely trying to sabotage our defenses from the inside."
Murmurs spread around the table.
"Luna?" Ember said, frowning. "Are you certain?"
"Of course I am," Iris said firmly. "She tried to kill me."
"If there was one traitor, there could be more embedded in our ranks. We can’t assume Luna was working alone." He looked around the table. "I’ll be selecting a small team of people I trust to conduct an internal investigation. Anyone suspicious gets flagged and monitored. We root out every last one of them."
"Agreed," Victoria said. "We can’t afford another attack from within. Especially after what happened..."
They spent the next twenty minutes discussing security improvements, reassigning patrol routes, and coordinating the investigation teams. Finally, Cipher stood.
"Alright, that’s everything for now. Get some rest if you can. We’ve got a long week ahead of us."
The meeting was dismissed, and people began filing out of the room.
...
Cipher sat in his office, inspecting the reports from earlier.
As the current acting chairman, he needed to think of a way to handle the situation. Now that the Chairman was dead, it would be hard to exert control over not just the other guilds, but also the association itself. He wouldn’t be surprised if the association branches overseas suddenly began disconnecting from the association banner to protect themselves from the other guilds.
It felt like everything was falling apart.
He wondered how the association had handled it before. Had this happened in the previous timeline? He sighed.
The only way he could save the association - or the world - always came back to one thing. He summoned his system. He needed more strength. If he was just as strong as the Chairman, he could hold the association together. As for the other guilds, he just needed to pick a few to make examples of, to keep the rest in check.
[Are you okay? You seem worked up,] the Heavenly Demon spoke up.
Cipher sighed. "It’s fine. I’ll manage." He paused. "I’m sorry about earlier."
[What are you talking about all of a sudden?] the Heavenly Demon asked.
"I spent some of the qi we were saving up for you," he said.
[It’s fine. You used it, but you leveled up in exchange, which gives you an even larger pool of mana. That makes the entire process even faster,] she said reassuringly. [Besides, the qi only matters if you’re alive, so feel free to spend it whenever you’re in a difficult position.]
"Thanks," Cipher said.
[Thanks for what? It was yours to begin with,] the Heavenly Demon said, sounding embarrassed.
Cipher just smiled.
The Heavenly Demon observed that he didn’t seem as down anymore.
Cipher looked at the system screen. After returning, he had killed three B-ranks, two C-ranks, and sixteen D-ranks. From this, he’d leveled up twelve times, gaining 24 stat points and 1,280 Cheat Points.
For the stat points, he put a total of ten into Agility, bringing it to 70 - just one point behind his Intelligence. He then put another ten into Strength, also bringing it to 70. As for the remaining four, he put them all into Stamina, bringing it to 64.
As for the Cheat Points - combined with the initial 3,500 he had - he now had a total of 4,780 points. He was quite rich in that aspect.
He decided to splurge a little to see if he could get something useful in the Cheat Shop that could solve his current problem.
In the shop, the cards available were Malware and Delete. He didn’t particularly need either of them at the moment. As for the packs, there was a Normal Mod Pack and a Mega Mod Pack. The voucher was Rewind - it would reset the price for rerolling to the base value.
"Base value?" He wondered if the price for rerolling actually changed.
He pressed the reroll button for the first time ever since getting the Cheat Shop. Instantly, the items in the card slots changed. The new cards were Fork and Class. Only the card slots changed - the packs and the voucher remained the same.
It seemed only the card slots could be rerolled. The packs only refreshed after a level up, and vouchers only after a major level up.
Speaking of, couldn’t he roll for another cheat?
He pressed the button and rolled for a cheat.
[Congratulations! You have awakened a cheat]
[Cheat: No Cooldown (Max Level)]
[Type: Passive]
[Description: All skill cooldowns are removed completely.]
Cipher observed the cheat. It was somewhat similar to Timeless, though this one was much weaker. While it just removed cooldowns, Timeless even removed chanting time and enabled instant casting at max full power.
Still, it was a good cheat - especially since his mana was increasing. He needed to be able to spam his skills.