28 - Chapter 27 - Day 1811
To say that Jason was shocked to learn the members of his crew of bandits actually held allegiance to other groups would be a massive understatement. He had recruited all the people himself, and had been confident that they were loyal to him. He was starting to realise that he had been taken advantage of again and again, not even knowing who was pulling his strings in most cases.
As he thought about it, he had been lucky that he had targeted little Miss Adya, as weird as that sounded even in his own head. She was scary and far too mature for such a small girl. Yet, the way she had treated them all, and kept her word, showed that she was actually reasonable and kind. She had even sent for all their families to be brought out of the city and settled in one of the family owned villages. Even if he had not accepted her soul mark, he would have sworn fealty to her. Now he would make the effort to ensure his former crew and all their families would see it the same way.
For Adya, this day was turning into one that just didn't seem to want to end. She knew the feeling stemmed from a combination of her physical age and significant mental fatigue. Just another hour, and she would have a quick dinner then sequester herself in her room to rest. Her mother and Parth would have to deal with the fall out without her for a few hours.
“Parth, I am leaving the interrogation of all the people we are ‘liberating’ to you,” said Adya. “Mother, I am going to deal with the four others, then going for dinner.”
By now Dexter and Phillpa had joined them. Phillipa went off to instruct the kitchen to make something hot for Adya. Dexter accompanied Adya as she went to the next prisoner.
“Dexter, two have the formations in the same locations,” said Adya, “Get them identified so I can deal with them in one go. I have a feeling we are going to get more surprises from the other two.”
Dexter went ahead to make the arrangements as Adya took her time with her short legs. She arrived a few minutes later to find all four of her prisoners passed out and stripped showing their formations clearly. Sai made sure to record the formations as part of her records.
Adya wasted no time, she quickly scribed her formations on the two with the formations on their inner thighs, and received the standard prompt. In their case she decided to override the formations and then replace the formation controller with herself.
This time Adya watched as the formation changed, it became liquid, dissolved into the body, then a new formation appeared. Ah she thought, the formation is still broken, but then uses my mana and willpower to reform with the changes in place. This gave her another clue as to the nature of willpower and its use in formations.
With the soul mark in place, the two were swiftly moved from the cell by the guards. There was no reason to keep them in jail any longer.
Next Adya decided to work on the one with the tattoo on his chest right on top of the heart. In the process of scribing the formation, she started to notice differences already. It took her twice as long and four times as much mana and will power as any of the previous attempts. She was already expecting problems, so wasn’t overly surprised. She managed to complete the formation, but felt like she had been pushing a boulder up a hill to get there. She opened the prompt, already anticipating an issue, and her anticipation was rewarded.
The person you are trying to soul mark (loyalty enforcement formation) is bound by an existing loyalty formation. The formation is ultimately controlled by a tier 10 entity.
You are unable to override or break the existing formation.
Damn, thought Adya, to run into someone with a tier 10 in their hierarchy. What were the odds? Her only consolation was that the prompt said ‘ultimately controlled’, she took that to mean that it was a tiered formation. No way this random bandit was important enough to report directly to a tier 10. The question was what to do about him. She was just contemplating killing him. That would be the safest option, when she noticed she had another prompt waiting.
Scion protocol activated.
Highest rarity class identified as tier 9. Scion protocol temporary boost applied.
Scion protocol disabled tracking and reporting associated with formation.
Options
1, Override the existing formation, replacing it with your own.
2, Break the existing formation while allowing failsafes to take effect.
3, Break the existing formation and suppress all failsafes.
Well, she had been half right, the scion protocol did provide her with some protections, and it seemed some additional information in prompts. She remembered that her mother had received a similar prompt, but had not been told the tier of the formation controller. It was only a little more information, but a lot of times, it was the small edges that led to victory in tight contests.
She decided to place her trust in the system and the scion protocol, it had done its job so far. She selected option one and received a now familiar prompt.
Override of existing formation attempted. Please select one of the following options.
1, Leave formation in place, making all its effects inert.
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2, Leave formation in place, and replace the formation controller with Adya Gurg.
In both cases the soul mark will still be created. The soul mark will take precedence over the formation in all situations.
She again picked option 2. This time even more massive amounts of mana and willpower drained out of her body. It took almost 15 minutes and a significant percentage of her resource pools before the process completed. She watched the formation on his chest for signs of change, and it started the same, with the formation becoming liquid, yet the absorption process just continued and continued. It was on when the new formation started to be put in place and the information was made available to her, did she realise how much she had underestimated the scale of the formation. Again it was made up of fine metallic wires, but the wires were spread across the entire skeletal framework of the man, with parts entering the main muscle groups. They even interacted with the nervous system.
The amount of knowledge that entered Adya’s mind threatened to overwhelm even Sai and Mai. They had to use all the available parallel processing cores, even shutting down the passive skills, to be able to keep up. Even then the information took a long time to record. They would need to spend time analysing it to get anywhere.
Two things were clear though, one had she not kept the formation, the man would have been paralysed. The formation was not integral to the normal functioning of the man, and two, her previous formations knowledge was like seeing the crude drawings made by a child at play compared to the schematics of an interstellar warship.
She still had one more man to do. She just wanted today to be over so she could get some rest and work through some of the revelations she had today. She just hoped that the next one wouldn’t be as bad as the last one had been.
“When this one comes to.” she said to Dexter, who was looking at her with a worried frown on his face. “Make him comfortable, but keep him isolated, until I can speak to him, no one else is allowed to see him. Not even my mother or Parth. Is that clear?”
The tone of her voice was enough to put Dexter on edge. “I will ensure your instructions are carried out personally,” he replied.
Adya then stepped up the hopefully the last one for today. She knew there would be a lot more in the coming days.
She forced herself to start, and found it to be much easier than her last. It was still taking a significant amount of willpower, just not nearly as bad. She was done, and looked at the prompt. She was expecting another surprise and she was not disappointed.
The person you are trying to soul mark (loyalty enforcement formation) is bound by an existing loyalty formation. The formation is ultimately controlled by a tier 9 entity. The entity has the Realm Title Prince.
Options
1, Override the existing formation, replacing it with your own.
2, Break the existing formation while allowing failsafes to take effect.
3, Break the existing formation and suppress all failsafes.
“Hey Dexter,” she asked in a weary tone, why could nothing be straightforward. “What is a Realm Title?” At least she had learned a few more things. She could break up to rarity tier 9 formations, without using the scion protocols.
“A Realm Title is a system sanctioned Title,” replied Dexter, nonplused by the question. “When you come of age and your system unlocks, everyone is given a role in society based on their abilities and achievements. You start out as a commoner, move on to an artisan if you are good at your job. Most people stop there, but if the system thinks you are worthy, it can promote you to a noble title. From the rumours that I have heard, they start from baron and go all the way up to King. I have heard people say that one of the reasons this country is so poor is that most of the nobles are appointed and are not system sanctioned, I don’t know how true that is though.”
Oh damn it, thought Adya. Complications upon complications. “Dexter, please clear everyone apart from this man from the building,” said Adya. “Take that one” she pointed to the last man, the one with the formation woven into his body, “and put him under guard. Then return with Parth and my mother. No one else is to be allowed into the building under any circumstances. Use our soul marked people to make sure.”
She picked option 1 and waited for the second prompt.
Override of existing formation attempted. Please select one of the following options.
1, Leave formation in place, making all its effects inert.
2, Leave formation in place, and replace the formation controller with Adya Gurg.
In both cases the soul mark will still be created. The soul mark will take precedence over the formation in all situations.
She picked option 2 and watched the formation melt and reform after taking its due in mana and will power. Thankfully it was a fairly standard formation, though she did learn a few new things from it. Then she sat down to wait. She was just too tired to care. She knew what she was about to do was akin to throwing a grenade and running, she just hoped her mother was up to handling it.
It did not take long for Dexter to carry out her instructions. She heard everyone else leaving the building, and then a harried Parth enter with her mother. Dexter followed behind.
“So, I am going to tell you something, then I am going straight to my room.” said a very tired Adya. “You will need to make some decisions and manage until I come out. I don’t know how long it will take, but at least don’t expect me to come out of my room tomorrow for any reason.”
“Since you are placing so many qualifiers,” said a concerned Gauri, “I am assuming this is going to be bad, worse than what we have already discovered.”
“You are right,” replied Adya. “The only ray of hope is that he is one of the bandits and wasn’t sent to us directly. It leaves execution and disposal on the table as an option.”
“Out with it already,” said a weary Parth.
“So, the one before this one, I have isolated.” said Adya. “He needs to be kept isolated until I speak to him. My soul mark took effect, that is all you need to know about him for now. No, don’t try and push for more, you are going to be busy enough with this one.” she said as she pointed towards the man on the floor.
The more she hedged the more concerned the three of them became.
“So, yes I have taken over his formation and soul marked him.” started Adya. “During that process, the system informed me that his formation was ultimately controlled by a tier 9 entity.”
There was a sharp intake of breath at that revelation for many reasons, not least because Adya had managed to break a tier 9 rarity’s hold over the formation.
“There is more,” said Parth wearily. “Out with it.”
“It also told me that the entity held the Realm Title of Prince.” finished Adya.
She didn’t even wait for them to ask any questions, and headed straight for her suite. She would get herself dinner and crash. This day was over for her and she would let nothing change her plans.