Before the sun comes up the cold wind that travels before dawn hit my body as I make my way to the office building, the capital wind is really nasty. It's not because it's cold but because it stinks and its damp, I prefer not to think too much about that humidity.
I hope it's from the rain that didn't fall last night, this city really needs a better plan to get rid of the city's 'garbage'. Unimportant side streets like the one I'm passing now to get to my destination are littered with rubbish.
When I entered the building, I noticed that this building was actually a very well-made army base, despite the building's facade being somewhat damaged, this building is insulated by a layer of a material capable of isolating mana and elemental energy, before entering the building I could not easily see the runes and energy that are contained within the structure of the building.
This is the second time I see this material; the first time was at the institute when I was ambushed by the mistress, but unlike the insulating material that was in her room, the material used in this building seems to be a diluted or more impure version.
Should it be a cheaper and more convenient alloy of materials to use in a building as big as this one, I wonder how expensive this material is.
Inside the building are several soldiers with different power levels, but most are still warriors and a few mages in this building. It wasn't hard to find my unit, there were only three other groups here waiting to use the matrix.
As I gathered my team, I was silent as no one was making a noise, not a member of the units made a sound as I entered the room. I know this is not a place to be talking or drawing attention, but this deadly silence is very striking, it's like everyone is afraid to make any sound.
During the time I was waiting for our turn to arrive I had a look at the other teams that are here. The raw power level between the teams is pretty even, although they have a different formation than mine, the surface power of the team is the same.
While most of the leaders are in the mid or late stage of the green core the rest of the members of these three teams are in the late stage of the gray core but this is not the interesting part of my observation as my team all other teams have their members sharing a common element and most fighters and mages end up having a second element.
The number of warriors with one element is three while taking my team only to two more people with three elements. The part that surprised me was the fact that they actually made a team focused on the earth element, not that there is anything wrong with that element, but a team focused on it ends up not being a team that focused on not getting attention.
Even a fire elemental team that can cause massive destruction and draw the attention of anyone in the area, they still have the advantage of being able to quickly destroy their enemies, but an earth elemental team tends to be a team that would have battles won by attrition and are not very good at chasing enemies that have fled combat.
The lack of mobility of this element is an undeniable characteristic, but even so, in front of me know there's a team full of users of the earth element and among them only a warrior with a second element being the wind element. Dangerous formation to use in the situation we are in.
It took us over an hour to get to the north region and realize that it's colder here than last time, I don't remember it being winter yet.
After leaving the military complex of the city we went directly out of the city riding on level three magic animals, the most common in the region, the northern horses that are famous for their ability to carry a good amount of weight without losing their speed.
Not the best type of horse to chase, but considering that they are common and that we may need our team to carry some possible gains after killing our target, these horses are a great choice, for a group that may end up finding themselves in the situation of having to carry a large load of goods if we are lucky.
After we had left the city for about half an hour the leader Ana who was with us when I left the road and started to ride on the plain, only after we were well away from the road Ana stopped her horse and dismounted from them and started to go through her luggage.
"As you already know we have already entered the mission mode, but since this is the training mission, I will explain the protocols we will follow during it so pay close attention. Luckily you seem to have already learned the value of silence, not one of you was stupid enough to strike up a conversation with other people inside a secret base or inside the city."
"No matter how vigilant we are within a city any conversation made through sound is risky, there are many magical arts and tools that can be used to record someone's voice so you should avoid speaking out loud any details of your mission. or your plans."
The only safest places are secure buildings like the one we found ourselves in for the first time, this type of building has a very strong security to prevent our conversations from being overheard by eavesdroppers. The rooms are searched daily, the set of matrices in the buildings to interfere with recordings and to finalize the buildings are kept under constant surveillance."
"I am explaining this to you now so that you understand how important it is to keep our information secret, if our missions are discovered by enemies, we will be walking into a death trap. The second very safe place to talk is where we are right now, in mine out of nowhere in a random location away from anyone and with a clear field of vision which prevents us from being spied on easily."
"The only weakness is that one of you is a spy and is recording our conversations, but to stop that I have this little toy."
Ana takes out a small black box which is surprising, not because this simple black box looks special in leader Ana's hand but because inside it is a core of a level three magic beast of the sound element. This is the first time I see this element in person, but I can easily identify it because it is very different from the other elements I've seen. from the core to the air.
It's like a beating heart that has a lot of heart problems, the rhythm that it beats is very broken and without a defined pattern, sometimes fast and then slow. It is this element that is even easier to identify than the light or shadow element.
"This little beauty is the latest version of the realm's magical counterintelligence tool, she's a revolution, she not only emits a sound at a low enough frequency that the human ear can't hear her but it can interfere with any recording leaving her corrupted, she is also capable of destroying engraving tools right next to her."
"Passing it close to your body is enough to destroy any engraving tool made from level four or below, depending on the quality and level of the engraving tool it may even explode because of the damaged runes after absorbing the frequencies that this box is emitting. Now is the moment of truth, anyone who moves will be crushed by my fist and if he is unlucky enough not to be able to kill, he will have a long unpleasant stay in the hands of 'investigators'."
Ana only approached me with her evil box, when she approached, I didn't feel anything with my body, but I could see very well all her functioning. Ana injected her aura into the magic tool feeding the magic tool, causing it to release several waves at different frequencies that hit my body.
Obviously, nothing happened as I'm not carrying even a magic spy tool, so Ana went on to repeat these processes on the rest of the team. It was a very tense moment as everyone was ready to react in case someone is discovered by the magic tool.
But when Quinn who was the last suspect went through the black box trial without a problem, showing that among all of us there isn't even a spy. Which is very good news for everyone present.
"Well, looks like everyone is clean, now let's talk about our mission. These are the masks and black cloaks you must wear from now on, in them are runic arrangements that help keep your identities a secret. Remember to only wear the masks at times like now that we're out in the field and it's not worth trying to disguise ourselves as ordinary adventurers."
"I also think it goes without saying that you should keep the masks on at all times even when you are eating and sleeping, they are designed not to disturb you and even serve to protect your life from unseen threats. In them are runic arrangements capable of detecting the poison element."
"Each one of them has drawings that resemble their codename, engrave the masks of their companions in their memory the strategy of disguising themselves with the appearance of their enemies is not something new in the fights between kingdoms."
Ana passed the mask on to everyone, mine had some drawings that resembled a wolf's fur. A smooth mask that fits my face well and doesn't interfere with my field of vision.
Taking on a team of assassins with them must be a pretty daunting sight.