This was the servant's entrance, so it wasn't as aesthetically focused nearly as much as the main entrance, but the security was as expected of a semi-fortress.

The gate itself was essentially a wall that went around the entire manor and guards could be seen patrolling it 24/7. The door Seth was going through was old, reinforced, completely metal and only had a little slot where the employee showed their ID then the door opened and after the person entered the door slammed shut.

Seth did have the person's ID as it was already in his pocket, and he was lucky that the person he stole from was so organised to have everything ready for the next day. Either way, he was still knocked out so even if he didn't have it on him Seth could have just gone back to look.

Seth was rather nervous, as he always was, but his Serene mind and Thief's instinct helped him stay focused and on task.

Thief's instinct was the feeling he felt when he first became a Thief and it had become noticeably stronger after his evolution. It was passive and so it was nearly constantly active, so his greed had taken a climb and he needed to calm it. Another benefit of his training was a reduction in his overwhelming greed but if he relapsed he could only hope Serene Mind would help him out.

With everything ready and Seth having his standard kit on him he was ready to enter so he knocked on the door and held up his ID.

"Password?"

Seth did not know that, but his mind brainstormed any reasonable hint he had perhaps seen from before. He thought of the Baron's personality and before the second had passed an answer escaped Seth's lips.

"Peace is liberty in tranquillity".

Seth thought back to the employee's house and it was the only thing that could be short but recognisable enough to be used as a password. Or he could be overthinking it and the game was up.

"Come in Jacob, I didn't think you'd actually remember the password."

Seth walked in and smiled at the guard, "I do try." He said trying to get a balance on how his character acted.

"Well, have a nice day; remember we got that party at Liz's' today but I'm sure you remember that, don't you?" The guard gave some weird smile at Seth like it was some hint at something, but all Seth got was that perhaps he had a weird relationship with this Liz person.

He made a note to try and avoid whoever this Liz person was as he gave an odd smile back, "Yeah, now stop distracting me I need to get to work."

The guard looked at Seth oddly for a moment, as Seth guessed Jacob wasn't the hardest worker, but he needed to leave this conversation and although it was out of character it wasn't against his character, and he would leave in a moment anyway.

With that conversation over Seth entered the garden of the Manor. This garden was no normal garden, and it grew many odd plants. Before Seth said that ranked fruit was usually obtained through dungeons but if you had the money you could certainly grow them in your own backyard.

Money solved a lot of issues and ambient mana was one of them. It was one of the reasons Seth didn't try to get hired here as the jobs here were so hard to get. Ambient mana naturally increased mana control so working here you got that passively as a nice side income so jobs here were hard to get. That's why he decided to just replace one.

Now what did Jacob work Seth wondered, he looked down at his card and it didn't say but looking at his sleek black clothes he assumed it was fairly high up in the ladder.

That wasn't great as he might have to interact with people, but Seth had a decent grasp of Jacob already. From the guard, he could assume he was lazy, and he was interested in women. He also worked out and was young, too young to have gotten a high post through just effort alone.

With all that you assume that Jacob was likely a mildly spoilt servant young master. His parents were likely working for the same person and had probably been doing so for generations and Jacob was the next in line.

Now that was one hell of a guess and Seth was willing to call himself Sherlock Holmes if not for his Thief's Instinct helping him, his clues already, and the picture he had seen in the guy's house giving some if not most of it away.

Seth still liked to think himself a genius, so he patted himself on the back for his guesswork and went back to trying to find his job.

Walking around the garden he eventually racked up the courage to enter the main Manor. Seth was still mildly afraid of the Baron's senses but considering he was 2 floors away and the Baron was supposedly not even that strong, Seth made the gamble.

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He made it into the first floor where it was incredibly busy with people moving up and down doing various jobs. All of them noticed Seth but avoided him and continued working. There were kitchens, cleaning rooms and even a waste disposal room. Seeing a set of black bags Seth wondered to himself how those managed to get here.

Plastic wasn't a thing, so Seth found that each bag was actually just weaved corn husks and since they were strengthened via skills Seth found these bags to be very useful.

Anyway, Seth got up and went back to work. Seth could not help but marvel at the inventions of this new world.

Wandering around Seth started getting anxious, he was supposed to start working around now but he hadn't even found out his role.

After a bit more wondering Seth found a sort of admin room where people were planning for the day and finally Seth learned what Jacobs's role was.

"It seems the butler in training has finally arrived." The person who introduced him was an extremely average man with the only remarkable feature being a twirly moustache.

Looking at the basic model of a villain Seth ignored his minor antics and started prying for information.

"Yes, yes because I'm always late, How smart of you to point this out. Tell you what if you are so smart you should know where I am supposed to be right now."

Mr moustache man twirled his comical moustache as his smile turned to a frown.

"Are you making fun of me?" `

`He only realises this now

"Well, either way of course I know where you are supposed to be. The main hall, probably practising your tea set up and other things with your instructor."

"A genius indeed. Well sorry to interrupt I must go now, see you, Einstein!"

Seth laughed to himself at his little inside joke, but he was excited to learn that his job was not that important. Some tea training sounded like Seth could simply not show up and plus he was here to scout out the mansion and particularly the security not mess around with tea.

So, Seth continued his wonder until he was happy he had scouted out the garden, the surrounding wall, and the 1st floor.

Sadly to go to the second floor would also mean he had to act more like Jacob and learn about tea or whatever moustache man said.

Seth decided to take the risk and wonder upstairs, and this was the floor the visiting nobles would see so it was decked out in gold from corner to corner. Once he got passed a little security checkpoint his eyes flew around the dazzling hall that made up the ballroom.

Chandeliers made of orbs of light cut down into smaller bits and then fused with the golden frame to create a light source that likely lost money every second it was on.

Luckily they were turned off most of the time as even the Baron wasn't made of money. He walked down the halls where various cleaners were on their hands and knees polishing the marble floors. Seth's shoes made a loud noise as he walked down the hall and once he walked down the hall he spotted someone sitting on a makeshift desk reading a book.

Compared to her environment she really stood out like a sore thumb and when Seth looked at her and she looked back they both stood and stared at each other for a moment.

"Jacob?"

Seth swore in his mind, that this was likely his teacher and he had only prepared some mediocre answers.

"Where have you been" She placed down the book and ran up to Seth where she jumped up and hugged him.

`Oh no... don't tell she's Liz` Seth had to confirm before anything else.

"Liz?"

She looked up at him, her orange eyes and white hair made a great contrast, and she was fairly pretty. It was easy to see why posh boy Jacob liked her.

"That is my name."

How was he getting out of this? He needed to calm the situation immediately and preferably have no one remember he even came into work today. Now he had moments to decide how to make someone forget something so like any sane man Seth went for the one-hit K/O

By that, he used a preprepared cloth to knock her out. It left far less evidence and was quieter, and better in literally every way.

With his weapon of choice, he noticed she took longer than expected to knock out but before 2 seconds had passed she was out cold.

It was weird how she lasted longer but Seth sketched it up to her being higher levelled and potentially more evolved.

He laid her body on the desk and continued his exploration.

The second floor was full of large halls and grand chandeliers, top that with paintings covering most of the walls and you had yourself a bill that not many could stomach.

This was likely the most expensive floor but sadly Seth wasn't exactly an art thief, and he had no idea how to sell the art, so they were ultimately useless.

There were a few backrooms for dodgy deals and a balcony which was actually fairly interesting. The view of the garden was great, but it was the view of a certain pipe that left Seth astounded.

Obviously, with the bedrooms on the second floor, there must be toilets and there must be some way for that waste to be lowered down so a pipe was installed and it seemed that pipe was perfect for climbing up. Ignoring the idea of what was inside Seth could easily use it to gain access to the 3rd floor, and to a quiet bedroom at that.

Other than that though, Seth found nothing of any interest inside those so with his scouting mission pretty much complete Seth was ready to leave the mansion.

He had only been there for about an hour and a half, but he didn't want to risk Jacob waking up early so he made one last look and disappeared out the back door.

The guard didn't stop and likely assumed Jacob was on break or something of the sort. It really wasn't his problem unless he left the door wide open which he didn't.

The door was locked, and Seth now had to finish up for the heist, so he returned to Jacob's home and replaced the items he had stolen. Once that was done he removed the cloth and went home.

The expenses of the heist were fairly high, but Seth managed to get full access to all of the 1st and 2nd floors and managed to completely evade security.

To be fair to the guards Seth had no intent to steal when he was inside, as he was only there to scout out so now skill detected his presence, and it was likely at least one guard had such a skill.

The perfect skill for Seth to get next was something like a ward that would block such skills from detecting him, but Seth could only worry about that after the next evolution where he would gain another skill slot.

It was also likely that the Thief magic tree had something similar, but Seth could do nothing but train especially hard if he wanted to improve that.

With nothing but training to do Seth had more than 20 days to get some extra training done before the heist deadline was due.