As Nero pulled out the card Echo Location, he found it ironic that he was using the cards given to him by the army to hide from them. Nero and Gabriel quickly made their way through the facility, even using Muted self to ensure that they made no sound.
Their journey to Carin was smooth, though the journey back promised to be tougher since his corpse was far from light. In fact, Nero almost immediately began manipulating his internal aether so that their return would not be slowed down.
But the more rush that they were in, the more careful they needed to be. Although Echo Location was good, in the sense that it would allow him to see past corners, it had a limited range, which is why Nero kept his ears strained the entire time.
Their vigilance proved itself prudent when Nero picked up on a slight noise coming their way. Immediately, the two of them ducked into the closest room, closing the door behind them. Nero even used Mind's Eye to keep an eye on the corridor outside, and as expected, the two were spotted soon.
Originally, he just wanted to keep an eye out for the other two and ensure they were spotted, but his expression slightly changed when he spotted Arter and Maximilian walking by.
Nero had a habit of being observant and made sure to remember minor details. If anyone who was familiar with the two saw them right now, they would feel that something was different, but wouldn't be able to tell what. Nero, however, knew.
Arter's eyes, which were previously light blue, now carried a deeper hue than even Nero's own, while Maximilian, who previously had silver eyes, now had entirely white eyes, distinguishable from his actual eyeball because of the design in his iris. Even their hair was slowly taking on a deep colour, though it was not apparent yet since hair took some time to change.
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Nero was able to spot these details in such a clear way only because the cards he was using allowed images to be directly imprinted in his mind.
More than the changes in colour, Nero began to wonder why the changes happened in the first place. The colour of someone's hair was usually only affected if their innate ability had an elemental aspect to it, and it usually happens when someone becomes a Neophyte.
But it wasn't as if there weren't any instances of colours changing. For example, when one transitioned from one realm to another, such as from Neophyte to Initiate, the innate ability experienced an upgrade.
The innate ability could either gain a new attribute, or grow stronger in its existing effects, and which one happened was random. So when an innate ability grew stronger, it was known to produce deeper colours in the eyes and hair.
The fact that these two experienced a change in their eye colours reminded him of what Gabriel had recently told him. It was assumed that the emperor, back in his day, had experienced something that upgraded his ability to control aether. Receiving an upgrade in one's innate ability was not exactly the same thing, but it was pretty good as well.
More importantly, receiving this upgrade at the Neophyte realm meant that every subsequent upgrade would be even greater!
His thoughts remained hidden, but Nero's attention focused on the three boxes that the two of them were carrying. They were held like briefcases and were too large to fit into their backpacks.
There was no way to be certain that the boxes contained whatever was responsible for them receiving such a boon, but it was his best bet at the moment.
Nero was tempted. He was extremely tempted to find out how exactly they had received such upgrades, but now was not the time. More importantly, he did not think they would give it up so easily if such opportunities were limited.
Even in the best-case scenario, Nero saw himself needing some kind of trade to get them to reveal the details, though he had nothing concrete which was even close to such a massive windfall.
Nero needed to come up with a way to get them to divulge how they experienced this enhancement without needing to fall into a fight. Despite the fact that his relationship with Arter wasn't the best, they would need everyone's support to escape. More importantly, Nero believed that in any given situation it was better to make allies than enemies.
Unfortunately, it seemed like he was better at the latter than the former.
After the two of them left their range, they waited for a few minutes before carrying the corpse forward. It seemed like Arter and Maximilian had a specific target they were going towards, which worked fine for them.
As soon as the two left, Nero and Gabriel quickly took the corpse back to the Reeve's office and placed it inside the vault. Nero did not even take the opportunity to unlock the computer, for as much as he was tempted to learn its secrets, he did not want to leave behind even the slightest trace that he could avoid.
He was certain that somewhere, each computer that was being used was being logged. The fact that they shut down the security node was already too much evidence of Carin's existence. Some things needed to be sacrificed for the future gains.
"Gabe, did you notice?" Nero asked.
"Notice what?"
"Their innate abilities have evolved… or grown stronger at the very least," he said.
Gabriel paused.
"We need something to trade with. If you can think of something we might be able to find quickly, we can take a look. We need to find a way to convince them to tell us about it."
Gabriel still didn't speak, and began frowning. He seemed to be lost in thought.
"What's wrong?" Nero asked.
"Arter's not exactly a sore loser, but his family is different from mine. He's faced a lot of pressure from them to always be the best. Considering he's lost to us, in more than one way, he might be bitter about that. It won't be easy to get him to hand over anything like that. We're going to need pretty big leverage for him to give up something like that.
By the way, even though earlier when we entered the Vault, I put up a tough front. Don't take that too seriously. All scions from big families have more than one high-level card used on them at all times. Killing him will not be easy, and most likely, we won't survive the fallout from killing him either. Even if we manage to do both, we'll be marked for life and won't be able to hide it.
So there's no way we can pressure him into giving this up if he doesn't want to."
"I wasn't planning on doing that to begin with. That's why I said we need something to trade."
"The unranked cards are our best bet, but we can take a look around. I can't really recall anything else that would be useful. Most likely, the number of records Arter had access to are much greater than my own, so he probably knows a lot more about what to expect than me."
"Let's be quick. I don't want to take too long here. We're already pushing our luck," said Nero. The two of them quickly started exploring the nearby rooms, and while they found a number of things that might be useful, none of them were as simple or intuitive, and would require investigating through their computers, which might take a while.
Eventually, Nero and Gabriel had to stop. They had spent over two hours within the vault already, and retreating would also take some time since they didn't have Shirly to guide the way, and hundreds of other soldiers to help them fight off attacks.
They instead focused on finding the other two, which did not take nearly as long since they were also looking for them.
Yet when they finally met, both the groups paused to observe each other. Appearance wise, Arter and Maximilian had obviously undergone some changes, though without being particularly attentive someone might not notice. They were hoping that the change would go unnoticed, but their hopes were destined to lead to disappointment.
"Nice look. Deeper blue suits you," he said to Arter. "And white looks better than silver."
"Thanks," they answered together. But that was followed by an ever increasingly tense silence.
The other two didn't know how the others might react, and nothing could be said for the human heart. The prizes of the vault were enough to turn even the most loyal heart into traitors, let alone two allies by circumstance.
At the same time, while there were no physical changes in Nero and Gabriels appearance, it would be a mistake to assume they had gained nothing.
Finally, Nero sighed.
"Would you be open to a trade?" Nero asked. "We can share the details of what each of us found. If not… then we should really head out. It's not wise to linger here any longer."