In the suburbs of Lake Bell City, Thomas and Clarisse were sneaking in the suspicious building.
"Thomas what can you see?" With her shining blue eyes under the mask, Clarisse had a look at the blueprint presented in her military-grade wrist computer than turned to Thomas who was dressed in a jet black tactical battle suit.
"There are over thirty adepts, however there is no register of them in the association database but there is something. This installation is registered as a research lab in the name of the Paragon Commerce, there is not much information about them which means it is a ghost company. The city's civil inspectors should have noticed it, but it seemed they were paid to keep their mouths shut. Look, all the workers should be gone by now leaving only the security, it should be almost now...." It rare to find non-registered Adepts, but not that much since there were cases where the Adepts would refrain from reporting to the association once awakening.
'Now!' Thomas noticed the guards were out of sight and jumped over the building, landing on its ceiling.
[I will entering through here, find a way to the surveillance room to see what is being done here. Titan out.]
Hearing Thomas voice through the communicator, Clarisse nodded and headed elsewhere. On her left hand was a small white circle of light.
As she casted the spell, she waited until her movements were silenced and her presence shrinked before trying to sneak past the guards.
Outside the building, there was a small fountain garden. sneaking past the trees as she opened the door.
"Who's there?"
Clarisse's body froze then she immediately reacted and moved behind the door she just opened. Once she saw a silhouetted walked thought the door, she reached out with a chop at his neck.
Ploft*
The male guard passed out and she dragged him to a pile of leaves and left him there.
[Flame, I have got to the elevator behind the office, where are you right now?]
"I'm close to the surveillance room, but there is five two-star adepts guarding the door, I may have to borrow her power."
After a few minutes of silence, a answer came through the communicator. [Fine, just don't cause too much noise.... Tu Tu Tu Tu.]
'The connection must have been lost since he's in the underground now.' Without wasting time, Clarisse hide right next to the five guards and closed her eyes.
'Claire, I'll be needing your help.'
When her eyes opened, scarlet pupils were revealed.
"Gustom, did you hear that?" One of the guards believed to have heard something and turned to his companions and all the cameras in the corridor had been smashed to pieces.
"What?!" But what he saw were four guards laying on the ground without a sign of being conscious. Pa! His back had been illuminated by dark red light, when he was about to turn around, a flaming palm slapped him in the face.
"Ooock" The man flew over two meters before joining his four fellow guards.
"Good." Claire nodded to herself and made sure hide their bodies before scanning the surveillance room. 'There are no lifeforms there.'
Luckly, there was no one else in that room which made it easy for her to infiltrate. Once she got inside, her eyes turned to the dozens holographic screens, or more specifically the ones in the underground.
"This is...."
********************************************************************
A few hours earlier.
Clarisse and Thomas had finished storing their belongings in the house and headed to the camp together right in the morning.
"Thomas, is something wrong with your body?"
"W-wrong?! I don't know, its has been nearly a week since I started feeling weird." It's true Thomas had been feeling fairly strange these past few days, his through was dry almost all the time and there was this heat he felt across his body.
"It's nothing. I just think you need to take a rest." Clarisse was worried about him. There must be a reason to what Thomas he feeling since as an adept they were immune to almost all sickness.
Even back in middle school, he was already studying about martial arts and all sorts of combat techniques and methods of fighting monsters.
Suddenly Thomas went back to normal as he thought of something. "Hey, I happen to be in need to some Adept points so why don't we go to find a mission to complete."
"Really? So with the all-powerful special-grade access, the great Thomas are still in need of more?" Clarisse snickered and poked him in the thigh. Unlike her and nearly everyone else that only got ten Adept Points daily to be used in lessons, food and everything else in the camp, it was funny how Thomas who had a 1000 Adept Points to use daily would dare say he didn't have enough points.
Thomas also got slightly embarrassed once he noticed it was truly somewhat asshole of his part to say something like that, but he didn't want to correct himself in front of clarisse so he simply brushed it off with a laugh. Then he replied with a depressed expression. "It's just that I have been speeding too much on materials and other things. How much did you think that Med Chamber in the bathroom costs? Or the last gen Phiskol Food Impressor in the kitchen? I only have slightly over 100 points left.
The mission building was located deep north of the camp and somewhat far from the other structures.
Arriving there, there was a terminal which they had to connect with their IDs before a huge list of missions appeared before their eyes.
Just like in the Associations, the missions were given 5 different ranks of difficulty: A,B,C,D and E.
The amount of money would always vary depending on the objective and difficulty of the mission as well the risk involved. The same goes for the adept points one would get from completing these missions.
....
[Mission 1020]
Objective: Locate an Adept's lost Weapon
Description: An Adept of Lakebell has lost his trusted Ax in the periphery of the Urdnoth Shopping. Find his weapon and return to him.(Once accepted, more information about the mission will be sent to you.)
Difficulty: E
Reward: 2 Adept Points, 50.000 Credits.
....
[Mission 0909]
Objective: Exterminate monsters
Description: A group of unidentified monsters has been spotted in the caves near the city. Find out which species of monster it is and exterminate it.(An additional reward will be given in case you want to sell the monster bodies after completing the mission.)
Difficulty: C
Reward: 100 Adept Points, 50.000 Credits.
....
[Mission 5568]
Objective: Investigate Suspicious Activity
Description: There has been a report of suspicious activity in the suburbs of Lakebell City. Investigate the source of the activity, you can also apprehend them if necessary.
Difficulty: C
Reward: Not specified.
Punished in case of failure: Banished from the Training Camp
.....
"What?!" Thomas nearly screamed upon looking at the contents of the last mission. This sort of mission shouldn't be even sent to adepts, and look at the reward! It was the only C ranked mission but it didn't tell what they would get.
Of course, for them to put this mission here, the reward couldn't be bad, yet, no one had dared try since failing would have them banished from the camp. Can this mission worth so much for somebody to risk everything for it?
Thomas and Clarisse exchanged glances, they had no idea what would happen in this mission. But only the thought of it made both slightly excited. Specially Thomas who always liked a challenge.
"Let's try this one. We can always take more later."
Hearing Thomas, Clarisse asked for Claire's opinion in her mind before she gave her nod. "Fine. Let's do this one and later we can look for others.