(A/N Big thanks to everyone for the Power stones and Golden tickets, they an a lot. As usual, please don't hesitate to comnt or drop a review. ENJOY)
Power stones people, Gim it.
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"Yes," the male Sylgrid agreed. "If you rest today, we can arrange an escort by tomorrow."
"That would be appreciated," Seris said.
The woman nodded, though her expression remained guarded.
The eting wound down shortly after. Polite words were exchanged. Arrangents implied, not finalized. When Orion, Seris, and Erevan stepped back outside, the rest of the group turned toward them imdiately.
No one spoke.
They didn't need to.
Orion shook his head once, a silent signal. Not here.
They regrouped near the edge of the Ruk, away from listening ears.
"Are we still heading to the capital?" Daenys asked.
Orion exhaled.
They needed a plan, and they needed it fast.
Getting to the capital was no longer optional. That much was clear. The question was what ca after that. Did they simply barge into the prince's elevation and force their way through? It was the most direct approach, but also the most reckless.
They knew almost nothing about the upper structure of the Sylgrid. The capital housed their top brass, and Orion had no illusion that it would be lightly defended. He was confident in dealing with anyone up to Ascendant Mid without hesitation, and if he pushed himself, even an Ascendant High was within reach. But that confidence relied on one crucial assumption—that no one activated a Concept.
And that assumption was fragile.
There was a very real chance the Sylgrid had an Ascendant Peak among them. If even one such individual stepped in with a Concept fully manifested, the situation would spiral beyond acceptable risk. Orion wasn't willing to gamble his classmates' lives on an unknown variable like that.
Subtlety was the obvious alternative.
But that path had its own problems.
They were trained well—exceptionally well for their age—but they weren't spies. They weren't infiltrators raised on deception and subterfuge. One mistake in the capital, one slip in identity or behavior, and they would be exposed. From there, escalation would be imdiate and brutal.
Orion found himself stuck.
There were multiple possible paths forward, but each one carried unacceptable risk. He refused to lose a classmate over an expedition, no matter how important the mission was.
No.
Their approach had to be precise. Their thought process airtight. Everything had to align. And at the core of all of it was the sa missing piece.
Information.
'Should we just head there and see what happens from then?' Orion thought.
There were limits to planning from this far away. Whatever was happening at the capital was thousands of kiloters removed from their current position. No matter how much they theorized, there would always be blind spots. Sotis the only way forward was to move and adapt.
Daenys watched Orion closely.
She could tell he was deep in thought—too deep to answer whatever she had asked earlier. Instead of pressing him, she waited. Orion had proven, ti and again, that when he went quiet like this, it ant he was working through sothing important.
Then sothing occurred to her.
She turned to Reina, keeping her voice casual.
"By the way," she said, "isn't it weird that we haven't encountered any of the other participants yet?"
Seris, who was close enough to hear, turned imdiately.
"Speak for—" she started.
"That's it."
Orion's voice cut through the space sharply.
Everyone froze.
Orion straightened, his eyes sharpening as the thought fully clicked into place.
'That's it,' he repeated internally.
They weren't the only participants in this mission.
That fact had been sitting in front of him the entire ti, and he'd ignored it.
He had been so preoccupied with the idea that the other groups might be playing so underhanded ga against them that he hadn't considered the inverse. It wasn't a one-sided dynamic.
He could use them.
His mind moved quickly now, threads connecting one after another. A plan began to take shape—not clean, not elegant, and certainly not moral by conventional standards.
But feasible.
Effective.
Then hesitation crept in.
Using the other participants ant deliberately placing them in danger. Real danger. Death was not hypothetical in this forest, and Orion knew it better than anyone. These weren't faceless pieces on a board. They were people—competitors, yes, but still people.
Was he truly ready to toy with their lives for the sake of a mission?
The thought lingered for only a mont.
He exhaled and made his decision.
They had all entered this competition knowing the risks. Death had never been hidden from them. Sympathy couldn't be allowed to paralyze him now—not when he was responsible for his own team.
He wouldn't go soft.
He would complete the mission.
And he would co out on top.
"You've cooked sothing particularly devious in that head of yours, haven't you?" Seris said, watching him with a smirk.
Orion turned toward her, his expression unreadable.
"It's not every day we see that look on your face," she continued. "Guilty conflict. It had to be special to warrant that."
She tilted her head slightly.
"Co on. Out with it."
The others followed her lead, their attention fully on Orion now.
He sighed.
"Rhyden," Orion said.
Rhyden nodded imdiately. A faint ripple of mana spread outward, subtle but deliberate.
Rhyden's innate spatial skill was Isolation. He could isolate a chosen spatial coordinate and selectively trap or suppress specific phenona within it—sound, light, even physical matter, though that required far more effort.
Isolating sound was easy.
The space around them fell quiet, sealed.
"Alright," Orion said evenly. "Here's the plan."
"We're going to use our competitors to further our goal."
No one interrupted him.
"We can't just head to the capital blind. Direct confrontation could turn very bad, very fast, and we're not trained assassins."
He looked around the group once, making sure everyone was following.
"So instead of choosing one approach or the other," he continued, "we'll use both."
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