Chương 57: Chapter 54: The Arcane Trickster

The moment Mike and I stepped through the double doors of the main administrative office, the rest of the family was already waiting. What followed was a chaotic, beautiful blur of choked greetings, tight embraces, and tears of pure relief. Deep down, despite their constant prayers, every single one of them had harbored a silent, terrifying fear that they would never see Mike alive again.

Once the initial emotional storm finally settled, we gathered around the office desks, everyone leaning in close, desperate to hear the story of how he had survived. Mike sat on the edge of a desk, running a hand through his short-cropped hair as he detailed the harrowing sequence of events that unfolded immediately following the initialization. As I had suspected from the start, returning to his military base had proven to be an absolute impossibility.

The command structure had locked the perimeter gates down tight within the first hour of the system prompts, and with all long-range communications completely severed, the garrison leadership refused to open the checkpoints for anyone. More disturbingly, Mike explained that within twelve hours of the lockdown, the sound of heavy gunfire and massive explosions began echoing from the heart of the base.

He couldn't verify if the units were engaging high-tier system beasts or, more tragically, if internal factions were violently fighting one another to seize control of the installation's heavy weaponry, armored vehicles, and supply stockpiles. Fortunately, Mike had followed my advice before his deployment and had opted to live off-base. At my strong urging, he had purchased a modest house in the local community at the age of nineteen, focusing on financial stability and building his credit profile.

That decision proved to be his salvation; all of his personal tactical gear, specialized equipment, and survival supplies were safely stored at his residence rather than locked behind the base's razor wire. Realizing that his unit was effectively gone and his chain of command had collapsed, Mike looked at the crumbling world around him and remembered the directive I had drilled into him since childhood: If society ever suffers a systemic collapse, pack your kit and fight your way home immediately.

With that single-minded focus, Mike loaded his heavy rucksack, secured his weapons, and set out across the state lines on foot. After a grueling day of navigating the highway shoulders, he discovered a vintage 1981 Honda CB600 custom café racer idling outside a deserted gas station. The previous owner was apparently preoccupied with looting the interior structure, so Mike made an executive tactical decision to "liberate" the machine.

The motorcycle transformed his mobility, allowing him to bypass gridlocked highways and cover massive distances by operating almost exclusively at night. He ran into multiple ambushes along the transit corridors, engaging in brutal, close-quarters skirmishes with raiders intent on stripping him of his bike and gear. Fortunately, his military training and system class allowed him to neutralize every threat, though the constant operational friction stretched a four-day journey into nearly a week and a half.

As Mike wound down his narrative, I quietly focused my mind and fired off an [Inspect] command. The pale blue text data that filled my vision caused me to freeze in pure shock: [Entity Scan Result] Race: Human Level: 11 Class: Rogue Specialization: Arcane Trickster"You're Level eleven already?" I asked, my voice laced with immense respect as I reviewed the readout.

"And what exactly is an Arcane Trickster?" Mike let out a low, quiet laugh.

"Actually, I'm right on the verge of hitting level twelve. To be honest, Dad, I had to do some incredibly dark things just to clear the state lines. When the system initialized, my baseline data rolled with significantly higher-than-average Wisdom and Charisma attributes. My starting kit granted me a passive Persuasion modifier and Dark Vision.

Since the roads were a meat grinder during the day, I slept in cover and utilized my dark vision to navigate the shadows at night, executing stealth takedowns on any raider packs blocking chokepoints." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. He leaned forward, his eyes growing sharp.

"Because I was constantly forced to evade physical traps and ambush triggers along the highway systems, I unlocked a specialized trap-detection path. Constantly cycling those specific rogue abilities under extreme survival stress triggered a unique class evolution when I crossed the Level 10 threshold. The system offered me the Arcane Trickster path, and I locked it in instantly."

"What kind of utility does that give you?" I asked, completely intrigued by the build.

"My anchor ability is called [Magical Ambush]," Mike explained, his voice dropping into a casual tone that belied the absolute lethality of the skill.

"It functions as a passive tracking modifier. As long as I maintain complete stealth within the shadows, I can select a target and instantly manifest directly behind them to execute a critical assassination strike. My core Sneak proficiency is incredibly high, and when I pair it with my class illusions, tracking my physical position becomes virtually impossible.

I can essentially teleport behind a hostile contact, drive a blade into the base of their skull, and trigger a three-times stealth modifier overlaid with a critical mortal wound status. It's an instantaneous, guaranteed kill move against standard targets." He paused, a smirk playing on his lips.

"I also unlocked an active spell called [Mage Hand]. It lets me manifest a completely invisible, telekinetic hand within my line of sight. It carries structural mass limits, obviously—I can't use it to hoist a concrete building off its foundations. But I can easily grab an enemy combatant, hurl them across a room for impact damage, or yank weapons and supply keys directly off their belts from thirty feet away. It's incredibly effective when coordinated with my stealth modifiers.

As long as a target's core Wisdom and passive Perception attributes aren't exceptionally high, I can literally lift items right out of their pockets while looking them dead in the eye. And on the off-chance the ruse fails, my high Charisma and Persuasion skill usually let me talk my way out of the situation before the guns come out."

"So that's how you managed to bypass my perimeter sweep," I murmured, cataloging the terrifying utility of his kit.

"You marked me as a target the second you breached the lot?"

"Exactly," Mike confirmed, nodding.

"All I saw from the road was a coordinated fire team advancing on my position with long guns. When your team fell back to the office doors and you started moving forward into the shadows alone, I locked my tracker onto your silhouette. My passive Perception is sharp enough that I never lost your visual signature, even though your shadow-blending trait made you incredibly hard to track. The moment you stepped near that maintenance van, I recognized your movement patterns.

I knew it was you, so I triggered the Magical Ambush jump to test your reactions and say hello."

"That is an incredibly potent, versatile set of survival skills, Mike. I'm just glad you're deploying them on our side," I said, letting out a sigh of genuine relief.

"So far, they've kept me breathing," Mike replied quietly. For the next hour, I walked my son through a comprehensive retelling of how things started for us, detailing our current layout, the looming threat of TJ's retaliation, and the critical dungeon quest we needed to execute in the western mountains. The moment I mentioned the expedition, Mike volunteered to join us without a single second of hesitation.

His face lit up with eager excitement—a stark contrast to the heavy, protective reservations I carried about placing my family back into the meat grinder so soon after the siege. I used the radio to recall Joe and Pete back to the conference room so we could finalize the operational details. Now that our five-man party was officially complete, we locked in our departure window for first light, mapping a direct route toward Dinosaur Point.

Before we broke for the night, I called Zack into the office to hand over temporary command. I explicitly placed him in charge of the school's active garrison and perimeter defenses for the duration of our absence. It was a calculated, necessary risk—another critical test to determine if the two former law enforcement officers could be implicitly trusted to protect our families when my sword wasn't there to back them up.

With our preparations finalized and the watch schedules set, the team dispersed to their respective quarters, turning in for a few hours of restless sleep before dawn.