The sixth day, for Isaac, began before dawn.
He had the usual round of meditation as per usual. He did hear that most of the others preferred wand training over meditation in stabilizing their Manafold Circuitry and reducing the Overload Risk, but he was far too used with meditation to ever be as invested in wand.
Along with the mana-bird that continued to monitor him and a tattered hat held by his hand, Isaac left the dorm, walking down the quiet hall, quiet street, and back to the fountain of the central garden of the capital's Free Ground that he has been performing for the past five days.
He sat on one of the available benches, feeling the fresh air. He reached down. Felt something—two in number—tangible. Picked them up. Hid in his pocket.
He then revisited his calculation.
Mirage. Bubbles. Misdirection. Ultimately…
The items that he picked up were the devices which Andrias crafted overnight and left for him to take. They were adhesive and at the size of a thumbnail, which was small enough such that it would be rather easy to miss their presence without a careful observation. Their glassy appearance made them even harder to detect by visual means.
The most distinct characteristic of these two were probably the tiny "eye"-like feature embedded in the center of the devices. This would allow Andrias to visually observe through them just as how he was doing it through these mana-birds on each of the higher class's students.
"They need to make contact," Andrias had said. "Fabric, skin, any physical surface. The adhesion is immediate on contact. Don't drop them."
"And the transmission?"
"Continuous from the moment of contact. I'll be monitoring the situation to confirm the verity of your information. Everything the device sees, I see."
The goal was to attach these devices on two spies—should they show up, of course. This entire plan was made on the basis that they will show up again to observe and analyze him—Isaac Nameless—the anomaly who defeated S-rank: [Lightning Spear] with F-rank: [Condensation].
He stood up from the bench, feeling that the air was starting to warm as the sun showed itself beyond the horizon. He set the hat down with its cavity facing up.
The mana-bird, still on his shoulder with an astonishing balance, was looking at him. He knew that from the other side, Andrias was observing the situation.
…
The crowd assembled at its now-familiar pace.
By the second hour, the central park's fountain junction had its established composition—the core watchers, the new arrivals, the children at the front.
The performance ran its opening cycles. The mirage first, the crowd settling into the anticipatory register it had developed across five days. Then the bubbles, the transition that extended the crowd's engagement and produced the gaps Isaac needed.
He had positioned himself differently today.
Not noticeably different. It was simply a slight adjustment in his standing position relative to the fountain, the angle that changed his sight lines without changing what the crowd could see from their positions.
From this angle, the approach routes from the residential quarter's direction were visible in his peripheral awareness.
He formed the first bubble and released it.
The crowd tracked upward. Their eyes didn't hold the same shock and surprise as before, but they still held fascination. They weren't necessarily impressed by these visual hallucinations alone, but rather, the fact that F-rank: [Condensation] was capable of manipulating mirages and bubbles more so than the more-related skills such as F-rank: [Bubble Formation].
He used the gap.
Not the veil this time, but something smaller and more precise. During the crowd's collective upward tracking, he shifted his position by three steps to the left, the adjustment that appeared to be performance calibration and was actually closing the distance to the crowd's right edge where the targets had positioned themselves on every previous day.
They were there.
Same positions, same calibrated audience behavior. The disguise skills were running, but it meant nothing in front of [The Prism]'s perception. Isaac was able to see the reality underneath the illusions that matched what the bounty board depicted.
He formed the second bubble. Released it smaller. The ascension of the second bubble was quicker than the first. They met in the middle. Without merging, one attached to another. The crowd chuckled. The process was repeated with third, fourth, fifth, and hence on, until there was a long line of bubbles that were, altogether, too heavy to ascend. They slowly began to descend.
They simultaneously popped. The crowd responded with an expected delight.
He adjusted his position again. Two steps, the natural movement of a performer finding the angle for the next application. The right edge of the crowd was closer now. One of the two targets— the woman—was three meters away.
He transitioned to the mirage.
The mirage required him to raise his hand and direct the atmospheric manipulation upward, which produced a natural arc of movement, a gesture that the crowd had learned to track as the precursor to the shimmer. Every eye followed the hand.
In the moment the hand reached its peak and the crowd's attention locked onto the mirage's first shimmer, Isaac's other hand completed a movement that the crowd wasn't watching.
A droplet was formed—the most basic manifestation of [Condensation]. The droplet adhered to one device. Isaac then calibrated the density of the droplet, enough such that he can fire it along the device as a projectile.
He was multi-tasking on two drastically different applications. It was a feat that a person normally wouldn't have been capable of, especially in the middle of the public. However, [The Prism] truly was fascinating. His mind ran with precision and granted him the coordination that he needed.
The mana-bird, who was now sitting on the fountain's stone frame, watched his performance intently as he fired the device-holding droplet toward the woman.
Contact. Adhesion. One down.
He held the mirage for the full cycle. His awareness registered the device's successful placement through the thread's feedback—the resistance of contact, the adhesion taking hold.
The man—the second target—was on the crowd's left edge. Further. He needed another gap.
He transitioned back to the bubbles. Formed the largest one yet. People were immediately invested, and every head followed the ascending sphere as it caught the morning light and scattered it in colors.
During that tracking, his hand acted, forming a second droplet that adhered to the second device. He then moved to close the distance.
The movement was performance, a full pivot to face the crowd's left side. To them, it was the gesture of a performer engaging a different section of the audience. Natural. Unremarkable.
The droplet was fired at proximity.
Contact. Adhesion. Two down.
The task was complete.
Isaac held the next bubble at his fingertip and looked at his mana-bird. The bird looked back with the patient attention of something that had been given one job and had watched a second job get done alongside it.
He released the bubble.
The crowd exhaled.
…
The performance ran until the light window closed.
The targets left with the crowd's dispersal—the same north-northeast direction, the same competent exit behavior. Isaac watched them go without following. The devices were transmitting. Andrias was watching.
He counted the coins, and moved them from the hat to pouch. The sixth day's performance had produced less than the previous days. The crowd had been good but the adjustment to his positioning for the device placement had cost some of the performance's fluidity, and the effect of marketing was dying.
He walked back toward the Academy.
The faculty corridor outside the assessment office was occupied when he arrived.
Andrias stood at the corridor's center with the contained attention of someone who had spent several hours receiving visual data through two simultaneous mana-construct feeds and was still processing what he had received.
Beside him, Thorne had his private notebook open, pen moving, and Maren Solke with her ledger closed, which was the register she occupied when the situation had moved beyond documentation into something else.
"The devices held throughout," Andrias said, when Isaac reached them. "The transmission was consistent. We have the route they took, the building they entered, and sufficient visual confirmation of the interior for the intelligence office to act on. We concluded… that your suspicion is justified."
Isaac processed this. "What now, professors?"
Thorne was the one to answer, "The rest is up to us, Isaac."
Maren looked at Isaac with the expression of someone running an assessment that had parameters she hadn't previously needed to apply to a student. "You identified them during the performance," she said. "Before the devices were placed."
"Yes."
"How."
"Their behavior at the crowd's edge was analysis rather than observation. The behavioral pattern was inconsistent with the presentation. Most importantly, the disguise skill's surface didn't match their facial frame that the moisture depicted."
Maren received this with that of disbelief, unable to process that Isaac was able to catch the detail so small and dismissible. She looked at Andrias. Something passed between them that he couldn't read.
"The operation proceeds tonight," Andrias said. "Master Thorne, Master Solke, and myself. The intelligence office has been notified and has authorized faculty action under the Kingdom's wartime protocols." He looked at Isaac with the flat authority that had been present since the fourth bell this morning. "As Master Solke already mentioned, your involvement concludes here."
Isaac looked at him.
"You identified the targets," Maren said, with the flat tone of someone giving an explanation, "You planted the devices. The contribution is documented in the highly classified file to ensure your safety. You will be, however, rewarded with the credit worth of ten silver in this assessment."
She observed Isaac's response, before adding on, "What happens tonight requires trained practitioners with military authorization. You are a student."
It was reasonable. Frankly speaking, he couldn't care less about the credit reward. He did what he wanted to do, and it worked out.
"I understand," Therefore, Isaac said.
Thorne had not spoken. He was still writing in his notebook, pen moving with the quality of someone who had been filling a particular page for a long time and was not finished with it.
"You are dismissed. Good luck on your final day of the assessment tomorrow. I will see you in class, two days from now." Maren concluded.
Isaac turned and walked toward the Golden Repose.
…
The room was quiet at the ninth bell.
Isaac sat at the desk. The iron charm was on its edge. The mana-bird was gone—temporarily as Andrias needed to concentrate on the operation—leaving him with a welcomed solitude. Some others of the higher class seemed to have panicked, wondering why the means of monitoring was gone before the final day.
He looked at the city through the window.
The faculty would be moving now. The intelligence office's authorization was in place. The secondary outpost's location was confirmed. The interior's layout was visible through the device feeds.
He had done what he could do. The conclusion they had arrived at was institutionally correct.
He sat with this.
What is the state of the world?.
The Order of Acacia. The appearance of the Hollow King with SS-rank: [The Void]. He felt that the Kingdom was concealing the direness of the situation to its citizens, that the current circumstance was much worse than what the majority thought.
The operation tonight would apprehend two operatives. The question of how they had entered the capital still remained a question.
Isaac was still sitting with chain of thoughts when the knock came.
It wasn't the sharp single impact Camilla had used. It was a knock that was precise, measured, and arrived without announcement.
He opened the door.
Lyra stood in the corridor with a stoic expression. Her silver gaze carried the fractional brightness that indicated [Clairvoyance] operating at low output.
She looked at him with the expression of someone who had seen something ahead of the present and had come to the present to address it.
"I was passing your corridor," she said. "I used [Clairvoyance] because I could tell you were involved in something serious recently." A pause. "I saw something I didn't expect to see."
Isaac looked at her.
"You're going to be hurt tonight," she said. "In your room. Very soon."
Isaac processed this. Filed it. Looked at the iron charm on the desk's edge.
"How many?"
"Three," Lyra said. "Masked. I couldn't read their skills clearly at this expenditure level. But the intent was not ambiguous."
Isaac looked at the window. The city was dark. The secondary outpost was somewhere in the roofline's darkness. The professors were already moving.
He looked back at Lyra. "You came to warn me."
"I came because what I saw hadn't happened yet," she said. The flat register of someone who had made a decision and was not elaborating on it further.
Isaac stepped back from the door.
"Come in," he said.