36 - Chapter 35 - Day 1825

Jarel gulped. He found Adya's full attention to be disconcerting. It was strange how a 5 year old girl, with no cultivation and no access to the system could make a tier 5 cultivator feel uneasy.

“Of course Miss Adya,” said Jarel. “I went straight to a local sect to use their communication formation. They were not happy to have someone from the council of sects show up, but were accommodating when pressed. I also secured the formation design for the communication formation.” He handed her a scroll.

Adya took the scroll but did not open it straight away, not wanting to get distracted. “Do go on.” said Adya.

“It was straight forward enough to contact the elder.” continued Jarel. “I had to wait until she was available, that took another day. Then as you said I asked the elder for an update. I asked if you had been found, or if there was any further details that could help with the search if you had not yet been found.”

“Don’t refer to me as the target of the search.” admonished Aday. “Neither of us know if that is in fact the case. Just making a slip up in conversation of that nature could cause me immense problems. Precision in everything.”

“Sorry Miss Adya.” said a chastised Jarel. He had started to think of her as the target, though she was right and there was no proof, even though he harboured his suspicions. “The elder was actually happy that I had been in touch. A lot has changed. According to the elder, something changed around two months back. The protection has changed. It no longer hides the target completely. Their existence had become widely known amongst all the tier 10s.”

Adya knew that removing the protection protocol would make her vulnerable, she just did not realise how fast it would be. She would need to step up her plans to gain the support she needed. She also needed further information. If all those tier 10s know, then does that mean unaffiliated masters are going to come looking for me, thought Adya.

“What else did the elder tell you?” asked Adya. “Does she have any idea what the intentions or the other tier 10s are?”

“She said it was more important than ever that the target is located.” replied Jarel. “She said that the elders are split into 3 groups. The first group, like her, claim to want to help the target. She is pretending to work with them. The second group, want to take no risks and just want to kill the target. She is most opposed to this group. The third group wants to capture and imprison the target and then extract whatever benefits they can.”

“You said the first group claimed to want to help the target?” said Adya picking up on the choice of words. ”Why does she not believe their motivation?”

“I asked the same thing.” said Jarel, “She said she can’t tell me. When I pushed, she clarified, she is physically prevented by the system from being able to divulge the reason. She did say that all the other elders, and other tier 10s have sent out agents to hunt the target. Though she feels that no one else would have provided as much detail to their agents as she has. She said that it was imperative the target be found and that they contact her. She said she would not be able to protect the target if any of the other tier 10s agents reached them first. She asked me to leave all other missions and focus on just this hunt. Lastly she warned me against trusting any other agent, unless they carry her token. The final warning was that if the search did not return results soon, then some of the elders are planning to send out tier 7s, others are planning to demand that the kingdoms start using local resources to support the search. ”

So this was now open season on her. If all the kingdoms were involved, then that would leave her nowhere to hide. The only saving grace was that they only had her rough age, and nothing else. She really had very little time left. She needed to implement her plans.

“How close do you think the agents of the other tier 10s are?” asked Adya. “How long before they come looking here?”

“They are already here.” replied Jarel. “Thomas was not sent by my elder. He tried to get information out of me about my search. I pretended to have a candidate and brought him to you.”

“So even though he is from the same organisation as you,” said Adya. “He is in opposition to you, so you did not feel guilty about bringing him to me? No, that is not right, what did he do?”

“He planned to kill me after confirming that you were the target,” said Jarel. “I think he was planning to kill you.”

“Well we can ask him once he comes back around,” said Adya. “This does mean that there will be a larger target group for us to recruit from. Once Thomas is up and about, I am going to send you both out. I need you both to build up a group that will allow us to capture a tier 6. If the information about tier 7s was accurate, then we will need to capture and convert a team of tier 6s. How many do you think we will need?”

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“To be safe we would need 5 peak tier 6s to be certain of taking down a tier 7.” said Jarel after some thought. “To take down peak tier 6s, we would need at least 5 peak tier 5s. So at least 3 more peak tier 5s, before we start to target tier 6s.”

“Ok, and how long do you think it will take?” asked Adya. “I assume I can send you and Thomas to secure a tier 5 each. Then send out all 4 of you again? I would rather have more than we need.”

“We can probably find another two in the next 4 to 5 days.” said Jarel, “I would say the same again for the next four. So 10 days or so before we start to hunt for a tier 6. Once we have our first = tier 6, then things should speed up. So perhaps 20 to 30 days before you have a group of tier 6s capable of subduing a tier 7.”

That timing worked for Adya too. Sai should have completed the data integration by then, and they should be well on their way to creating the mana coin machine. She would need to go back to the city. So she would need at least a tier 5 with her for protection.

She also needed to find a way to get the telekinesis skill if at all possible. In fact, why could Jarel not help with that?

“Jarel, do you know how to obtain the telekinesis skill as a general skill?” asked Adya.

“Why would you want to waste a skill slot on such a skill,” asked Jarel. “It is a really weak skill, and is only really useful for picking things up without touching them.”

“I don’t want it to use up a skill slot,” replied Adya. “I want to gain a general skill for it.”

“So you do have access to your system then.” laughed Jarel. “I had wondered.”

“I do, and you will mention it to no one.” replied Adya in a cold voice. “Also you will not try to dig out any more of my secrets. Otherwise I will stop you from being able to speak in my presence at all. There will be no further warnings.”

Jarel gulped, he had momentarily forgotten that she could control him completely. Since she had been genial with him and treated him more like an advisor, he had thought he could be clever and see if he could get her to slip up. He realised that he was playing a very dangerous game. “As you command Miss Adya.” he said in a contrite tone.

“Now tell me about any methods you know to get a general skill for telekinesis.” ordered a still irate Adya. Truthfully she was just as annoyed at herself for falling for such a simple trick. It was a good reminder that the classics were considered such for a reason. She would need to be a lot more careful in the future. These were not her friends, nor were they retainers out of choice. She controlled them, she would always need to be careful of their agendas.

Though not very likely, it was entirely possible that her control could be broken by someone powerful and skilled enough. At that point any of her secrets would be in the hands of that person. The reason she was not worried about the soul mark was that if anyone was to break her control, then they would need to know about it in the first place. If they knew already, then that at least could not be considered a secret, nor could her abilities with formations at that point. She would need to minimise what other secrets she let these co-opted agents know.

“Well,” said Jarel, “the easiest way to get the skill is also the most wasteful, it is to use mana to try and control a physical object. As mana in its raw form resists interactions with physical objects, it becomes a way to dump large amounts of mana into the environment without converting it to a spell form, then using the raw mana to support and manipulate the physical item. There is supposed to be another more difficult way, but it requires extremely high wisdom, intelligence and perception. However it takes someone with very high levels to even attempt it. Even more tier 10s are not able to do it as their stats are not high enough. I don’t know that method.”

That was certainly interesting. So people who did not have a willpower pool, or perhaps after getting a high enough stat in the three mind stats, they did gain access to it but kept it secret? Either way, then if Adya used willpower instead of mana, but used the same method, she might be able to learn the general skill. Should she try with all three? Maybe she could learn an interesting variant. It would also give her more options in the future.

She started with mana trying to manipulate her quill. She would just try to move it slightly to start. She started by injecting mana into the quill, the quill kept taking in more and more mana. As she kept injecting mana into the quill, it started to glow. At that moment she received a notification.

Mana imbuement skill learned

Mana imbuement is now level 1

Not the skill she wanted, but waste not want not. She was sure she could make use of the skill for something else. She pulled out the energy then tried with willpower. Again the quill just kept absorbing the willpower until it started to glow. She wondered why she had not attempted something so simple before. Soon she received a new notification.

Willpower imbuement skill learned

Willpower imbuement is now level 1

She repeated the experiment with stamina. It took her a lot longer to complete the imbuement with stamina due to the lower regeneration. She realised that regardless which form of energy she used the amount of energy required was exactly the same. Soon she received the third notification, followed by an unexpected notification.

Stamina imbuement skill learned

Stamina imbuement is now level 1

Mana imbuement, Willpower imbuement and Stamina imbuement skills merged into Energy imbuement

Energy imbuement is now level 1

Energy imbuement and Energy Manipulation skills merged into Energy Control

Energy Control is now level 50

Just how had she not attempted to push her skills earlier. It seemed like all she needed to do was use the skill in a different way to get new skills. She would have to think about what else she could do with energy.

Now that she had received the skill she did not try for, it was time to get this telekinesis skill.