When he arrived within the rubble, he spread his mana throughout the devastated environment, trying to sense the location of the important files. He got into a meditation position, focusing on trying to find the files as quickly as possible. While this place was located at the outskirts of the district, there was no saying if the royal guards wouldn't show up.
Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, followed by a slight grin on his face. He got up, slowly walking towards a certain location within the rubble. He arrived in front of a large piece of debris, grabbed it by its bottom, squatted his legs, and, "Heegp!" The entire boulder-like debris flipped, revealing a locked safe underneath it. "Ouh, they even kept it safe for me," he winded back, twisting his entire body. THUMB THUMB, fists rained upon the safe, however, surprisingly, it remained unmoved.
Rather than being flustered, Isaiah was quite impressed by this safe. "I'm tempted to steal it altogether," but he shook his head, "There's little time currently before the royal guards arrive. A shame."
He placed his palm on its face, soon the metal under his palm started turning orange, then red, until it started dripping, and a hole the size of his palm appeared on it. He reached his arm inside, taking out each valuable one by one and putting it by his side.
There were simply too many documents to carry, so Isaiah squashed them using his mana to hold them together as he carried them. There was also a vial which he put in his pocket. He blended with the environment; it was a little awkward due to all the excess he also had to turn invisible, but he managed.
He then left the area, going back to his casino. He picked to go from streets he knew had little to no activity. It was a struggle to go unnoticed with all the mass he was carrying, but he made it and arrived in front of his casino, signaling the successful completion of his operation.
He got in, went up the stairs, and materialized right in front of Lily. "Aghhh!" her soul left her vessel; she nearly had a heart attack. Her fear-stricken face was met with echoing laughter from her boss.
She held her thumping heart as Isaiah got into his office, disappearing from her sight. "He is so mean!" While she complained, there was a slight smile plastered on her face.
Back in his office, Isaiah laid all his findings on his table. His room had already been restored during the few hours he took to complete his operation thanks to magic. "Hmm, a few files and..." his gaze fell upon a small vial filled with boiling black liquid. In curiosity, he took its lid out, and an abysmal smell came from it, prompting Isaiah to immediately put the lid back on.
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"This seems to be the blood of a magical creature." While he was knowledgeable enough to deduce that much, to which magical creature it belonged, he didn't know.
He once again opened the lid and dipped his finger inside. HISS, a sound came out of the liquid as if it wanted to consume his finger. He took his finger out and flicked it, causing the creature's blood on his hand to launch. It made a smoke trail in the air before dissipating completely.
A smile appeared on Isaiah's face, and he dipped his finger in the blood once more. "Let's see what will happen if I do this?" This time, he covered the blood soaking his finger in mana and used extra strength in his flick. SHOO! Like an arrow, it made a trail before dissipating into the air once more.
After seeing this, his smile got wider. This would be a perfect catalyst to make an explosion formation out of. He dipped his finger once more, but this time a formation appeared on his finger covered in blood. SWOO! "Sweet addition to my arsenal," the blood and the mana explosion worked together to create an even deadlier result.
He had always found his mana explosion formations lacking, so this was heaven-sent to him. "I will name this formation 'Acidic Blast Formation,'" he nodded to himself, content with the name he had come up with.
Putting the vial aside, he licked his lips and turned his attention to the main meal. There was a reason why his target was the Green Hut Gang, and that was the wide range of their information network. He wanted to obtain more information regarding the district; they must have guessed his intentions as the tower was filled with Rank 1s, which was unusual.
He looked through the files. There was also one more thing he wished for from these files, and his eyes searched for that. Soon, he stopped flipping through the pages, a laugh escaping his mouth. "So I was right." He read the title of the paper, "Bamboo Mana Circulation Technique," he turned to another page, "Cold River Mana Circulation Technique." All the pages contained information regarding Mana Circulation Techniques! As deserving of the number one information source of the district.
He looked through the entire stack but couldn't find any high-tier technique, but his mood remained joyous. He had managed to obtain a stack full of information regarding Mana Circulation Techniques.
He had also learned the differences between the tiers and why they mattered. Low-tier techniques took in the environmental mana directly into their mana flow, resulting in increased progression speed but resulted in low inner mana quality; your strength would be below your peers.
Mid-tier took the mana the same way; however, instead, it used it to refine the inner mana flow, which while slower provided a strong foundation for the future and a glimmer of hope in entering Rank 2. It was the method most Rank 1s possessed.
High-tier was pretty interesting; not only did it provide the slowest progression, but it was also essentially the same as Mid-tier, but before you refined your inner mana using the mana from the environment, you also refined the environmental mana. This resulted in an even stronger foundation and increased higher mana quality, in exchange for slower progression. The quality of your inner mana mattered more than its quantity due to the requirement for entering Rank 2. If you only possessed a large quantity of mana but low quality due to your use of a lower-tier technique, you would forever stagnate in Rank 1.