At Iris’s lab, Elaine was helping Iris lift a box onto the table where other boxes lay.
"That’s the last one," Iris said, exhaling deeply.
Elaine waved her hand, causing a golden glow to cover Iris. She instantly recovered.
She looked at herself then at Elaine. "Why are you wasting your mana?" she asked.
"I can’t use it anyway since I can’t leave here," Elaine said, shrugging her shoulders.
At that time, Elara, who sat silently on the chair, suddenly got up. Elaine turned to look at her. "Did something happen?" she asked in a concerned voice.
"Brother Cipher is here," she said.
"What?" Elaine asked, but before Elara could respond, the door opened and Cipher walked in.
"Iris, I’m here," Cipher said as he walked in.
"Cipher..." Elara shouted, wanting to charge toward Cipher, but Elaine caught her.
"Stop. Cipher is going to be talking in public today. Do you want to mess up his clothes?" she asked.
"It’s fine," Cipher said, placing a hand on Elara’s head. "Elara, did you remember something?" he asked.
She shook her head. She then pointed at herself. "Me miss Brother Cipher," she said.
"You missed me?" Cipher asked with a smile. "Then I’ll come hang out with you guys after the tournament today. We can even go outside."
"Outside?" Her face brightened.
Cipher nodded.
"Outside? Isn’t that dangerous?" Elaine asked.
"Don’t worry, that’s why we’re making this," Cipher said, placing his hand on one of the boxes on the table. "Is everything ready?" he asked.
Iris nodded. "Yeah, everything is ready."
"Good." Cipher activated his Infinite Inventory and took in all the boxes. He then turned to Elaine and Elara. "See you guys later."
Elara waved at him. He turned to Iris. "Let’s go," he said, and the two walked away.
In the elevator as they dropped to the ground floor, Cipher spoke up. "Did you manage to learn it?" he asked. He hoped she didn’t stay up all night trying to learn it.
She nodded. "Yeah. Somewhat. I still can’t make it as fast as you."
"Well, mine is a unique skill after all," Cipher said. "You just need more practice and you’ll be able to do it in no time," he said as the elevator opened and the two walked out.
"So, how are we going to do this thing?" she asked once they were out of the association building.
"We’ll set up two circles," Cipher explained.
"One huge circle will cover the entire association. This will be the no-magic zone. In this circle, no one except Vex’s squad - which will be equipped with anti-magic resistor equipment - will be able to use magic."
After making the anti-magic equipment, Iris had also made equipment that could bypass this restriction so that their security could have an easy time. Still, they wouldn’t just give it to everybody in the Association as other external officials would be uneasy being around people with magic when they didn’t have any.
That’s why Cipher wanted just the hidden shadow squad to have it.
"As for the second circle, it will be inside the first circle, covering the area in the arena where the battle will be taking place. That place will be exempt from the magic nullification." He paused. "There are a few other details, but that’s mostly it. The rest we can work out later after everything is set up."
This could also work to draw out the Immortal King, Cipher thought. Although he greatly doubted the Immortal King would show himself at this place filled with high-level fighters, if he did, then the only place he could teleport to would be the arena where they’d be waiting for him.
...
An hour later, after finalizing the details with Iris, Cipher returned to his lab where he found his party members.
"Are you two ready?" he asked, gazing at Selene and Ryker.
"Yes," they responded in unison.
"Good. You can start preparing." He then glanced to the side. "Maya, follow me."
But just as they were about to leave, "Wait," Dante spoke up.
Cipher turned around. "Is something wrong?"
"I want to participate too," Dante said.
Cipher looked at him. Dante was the only one who wasn’t participating. That’s right, even Maya was participating. After her earlier display of power, he would be stupid not to show it off.
He sighed internally, from his point of view, Dante was not quite yet at the level of the others. But he couldn’t just say this as it could create a rift in the party relationships. Isolating a single member wouldn’t be good.
He smiled. "I was wondering when you’d ask."
Dante’s face brightened. He had thought Cipher would shut him down.
"Go and prepare with Selene and Ryker, and we’ll meet each other at the arena." He then turned around and left with Maya. Although Dante wasn’t as strong as those two, Cipher hoped he would surprise him.
In Cipher’s office,
"What did you want to talk about?" Maya asked.
Cipher placed his hands on her shoulders. "Maya, remember when I told you not to spam nuclear magic?"
She nodded. "Yeah, you said it was really dangerous."
"Now I want you to ignore all that. In the arena, I want you to go all out." Cipher paused. "Of course, don’t kill anyone, but make sure to give them a good scare. You understand what I mean, right?"
She smiled. "I understand."
"Good," Cipher said with a smile. He hadn’t expected things to turn out this way, but it seemed Maya was going to be their trump card. Not only would the association be seen as having just the strongest human, it would also be seen as having the top three strongest humans - that being Maya, him, and the Chairman.
And Maya was particularly important as she was different from him and the Chairman, who were close-range fighters. Maya was an all-out weapon of mass destruction. Although people would respect him and the Chairman for their strength, for Maya it would be a different case.
They would tremble at the sight of her insane magic and fear her. After all, someone at her level could nuke an entire guild out of existence. Although he didn’t like using such tactics, he needed the association to be absolute so he could begin exerting rules on the other awakeners and align their goals more toward fighting the final apocalypse.