Chapter 266

Ajax P.O.V.

I spent a few more minutes talking to the three guardian assassins to find out as much as I can about this incident and anything I can about future incidents that may happen.

“We are actually expecting them to happen a few more times in the next month or two now that the first attempt has been made.” the assassin says.

“Even with them being captured?” I asked, surprised.

“It's because of this quick reaction.” the assassin says as he shakes his head. “Unfortunately the information that you have [Enigma] has already been leaked.”

“How?” I questioned him, despite [Enigma] not being something that I was invested in keeping secrets there were very few people that knew it was the specific privacy skill I had.

“It’s because of an Achievement.” the assassins answers. “ The achievement is called ‘Poor Detective’, the requirements are for your first twenty uses of the inspection skill to be on different people and for all of them to be resisted. The Achievement makes it so if your attempt to inspect is resisted you know the exact skill that blocked you.”

I felt my face scrunch up at that, annoyed that I didn’t have a chance to pick up that achievement simply because the information was restricted.

“It's a lot harder to get than you think.” the assassin says. “When unlocking a skill the action usually has a massive success increase, not only that but receiving it is almost dependent on success. Those who have the achievement are extremely inclined towards the skill but they unlock its use against someone with a privacy skill that is like yours or a high ranked Epic. Not only that but they then have to resist the urge to use the skill until they have it resisted by twenty people.”

“Most people who get the achievement got their inspect skill before the age of ten and even then they received a Common version like [Inspection], they are then trained for low level spy work.” a second assassin says. “Every nation has a few of them but they never go deep undercover, with you walking in public it was only a matter of time until one of them was sent.”

“If they know I have [Enigma] why would they be trying more often now?” I stick back to the main point.

“How high is your level in [Enigma]?” the third assassin asks, I must have had quite the glare as he quickly followed up. “Don’t answer, just think about it, this guy has two Epic skills in the high thirties or low forties, even with them working together they still couldn’t break past your skill fully. This is the only chance they have before you get too many levels in it.”

When he put it like that it did make a good point, they all had a small window that was closing quickly. “Not only that but our reaction to the attempt has been seen so now they will know there is something to hide.” another adds on.

“Going forward you will still have at least two of us shadowing you but we will also get one of the squad leaders to stay close in case we need to call them in” one of them says.

I thank them for the intervention one more time before I continue making my way home, despite this little distraction there is still a lot for me to do today, not only that but this interaction also added another entry to my to-do list, I have to look into how I can get [Empowering Restriction], the skill sounds just too versatile to not pick up.

As I walk I try to ignore the dull ache that has spread throughout my body, it is specifically focused on my right arm and isn’t anything more than a mild annoyance but it clearly marks another point for improvement. I need to do something about my vulnerability to extreme mana discharges.

Using more than a third of your mana in a single moment is not something realistic for most mages but my style is perfectly built for exactly those kinds of power bursts. Mana channels work very much like other muscles and it’s clear than despite the constant pressure I put on them with my fighting style there is little in the way of heavy exertion.

The altercation earlier also has my guard up as I travel the last hundred feet towards the gates of my mansion. I am keeping track of everyone who is following me and am glad to see that one of the three assassins didn’t leave with the prisoners but instead continued to shadow me.

“How was the delve?” my father asks me as he sees me enter the compound.

“It was fine, we stuck to the second floor of the Goldmine so there was no danger for me.” I answer.

“Did you find anything for me to use?” he asks as he wipes the sweat from his brow.

I chuckle at that, it seems obvious that I wasn’t the only one to throw myself into my crafting over the summer. With my mother taking up such a big role in coordinating my sisters and grandparents merchant enterprises dad focused on his [Blacksmithing], unlike his time back in the village he now had much more challenging work and metals that he could use so his skills started improving much quicker.

“It was a jungle biome.” I say and I can see the disappointment spread across his face. “See if you can make anything useful out of this.”

His expression changes as I toss a good chunk of snake skin at his feet. “The snake could have it camouflage with the surroundings, see if you can get it to retain that aspect while turning it into a piece of armor.”

It’s still early enough in the day that my father is the only one who is home: mom, Judy, Alana, my grandparents, even Tom and Kate are all still out working. It's the perfect time for me to get started on my trials with Magnetic mana.

As I enter the Alchemy lab that I have set up in the mansion I find a nice pile of different metals all set up to one side, ‘This is all you’re getting, don’t come asking for more for at least a month” Judy’s handwritten note sits on the top of the pile. I smile as I toss the note and start setting up my first trials.

One thing I am extremely wary of is the presence of mana. I already know how it can mess with the laws of physics so I have to take that into account at every step of the process. I had initially thought I would try to run some of my own spell cenerated current through the metal to see if it would generate the magnetic effect but the arrow for earlier put that plan on the back burner.

It was times like these in my new life that made me appreciate some of the things I had considered useless or a waste of time back in my old life, more than anything however it turned out that some obscure college classes turned out a lot more useful as I still remembered a few interesting facts.

This world was both rather advanced yet medieval at the same time compared to Earth, the presence of mana greatly hindering yet at the same time driving innovation meant I didn’t have easy access to an outlet to simply plug in for electricity. I quickly started creating small discs made from silver and zinc I had so I could create my own battery. The small tower of salty water soaked cloth and metal discs should produce a low if stable current that I can then run through the metals to see if they produce any magnetic field, and more importantly magnetic mana.

My first experiment proved to be both a success and a failure at the same time. While the homemade batter worked well enough to power the magnetic piece of metal and did in fact cause a small magnetic field to appear there was no change in the mana that I could notice. At the very least it seems that the small amount of mana in the atmosphere didn’t prevent the electromagnet from forming it wasn’t enough to generate any mana.

My second test was to swap out the regular piece of metal connected to the battery and replace it with one that was mana infused. The change was immediately obvious as the power of the magnetic field increased, sadly the nature of the mana in the metal didn’t change one bit.

Creating a batter from mana infused metals I replaced my original battery and used a normal bit of metal. The power of the magnetic field increased this time as well but that was because the amount of current generated was much higher. Despite my lessons telling me that the current produced by these sort of batteries was supposed to be low this one even produced a few sparks in the circuit.

When I replace the piece of metal with a mana infused metal however I finally felt I serious change with my [Sense Mana], both the battery and the piece of metal were slowly being drained of their mana and a new mana type was being emitted out from the metal. Not only that but the power of the electromagnet grew again, to the point that I had to intercept the rest of my samples just so they wouldn’t get drawn in from across the table. It was a success.