Chương 370: Chapter 356

However, before Sam could begin enacting the truly dastardly parts of his plan, he still had a promise to keep. Reaching deep into his inventory, he retrieved a box labeled media and began unpacking it with care. Inside was a sleek container filled with modular components that allowed the device to be attached to almost any surface, and after examining the surrounding area, he selected a rock formation that looked stable enough to survive what was coming.

He secured the device in place, spent several minutes aggressively testing whether it would shift, and then carved a few simple reinforcing runes into the stone around it. The runes were almost certainly unnecessary. He simply preferred to be sure. Once satisfied, he opened the box further and removed a dozen small drones, all of them built to mimic Liz's preferred design aesthetic. After that, he pressed a small indentation located at the top of the box, fed mana into it, and spoke aloud.

"Activate." The box unfolded with mechanical precision, expanding into something that looked disturbingly similar to an octagonal satellite dish, complete with a large antenna rising from its center. The drones in his hands immediately activated, gently lifting into the air before drifting toward the central device and beginning to orbit it in smooth circular patterns. All of this effort existed for one purpose. To record his shenanigans.

The drones were officially registered with the game as media-recording equipment, which granted them unique protections that made them effectively invulnerable and functionally invisible in most circumstances, allowing players to record large events for news coverage, entertainment channels, and general content creation.

The basic versions could be purchased cheaply from the enchanting guild, while individual users were allowed to customize appearances and minor functions, which explained why Liz had turned hers into hovering miniature mascots. The tradeoff was strict regulation. Recorded footage could only be accessed after the event itself concluded, with the system enforcing that restriction automatically, and all usage was carefully monitored.

If registered equipment was used to harass players, troll others, or otherwise cause harm outside acceptable boundaries, registration could be revoked instantly, and repeat offenders could even face bans depending on how severe the violation was. Turning toward Roserun, Sam tilted his head as he studied the city from a distance.

"Yeah... I think this survives," he muttered before pausing.

"Probably." Then he activated the full recording protocol. As the drones dispersed and began calibrating themselves, he adjusted their recording ranges and focus points through a floating screen that appeared before him. Thankfully, Liz and the other smart people had put together a manual for him. Once he finished configuring everything, he closed the interface and stepped backward until one of the drones floated directly in front of him, its familiar red recording light beginning to blink.

"What's up, people! This is me, Solar, and I'm here to show you my crib!" He delivered the line with absurd swagger before stepping aside and dramatically sweeping his hand toward Roserun.

"And today I'm going to show you the behind-the-scenes process of how I built my new swimming pool. Make sure to stay tuned for the ending." He made finger guns at the camera. He waited several seconds before the smile vanished from his face. Then he nodded once. The drone flew away, joining the others as they moved into position around the city to gather pre-event footage for future comparison shots. Now it was finally time to enter Roserun.

Sam stepped closer to the edge of the cliff and scratched his chin thoughtfully as his eyes moved across the city below, identifying weak points, valuable infrastructure, defensive positions, and potential complications.

"How to do it…" he murmured. Tim's contacts had only been able to get him this far. Everything beyond this point depended entirely on him. His eyes drifted toward the vast stretch of ocean beyond the city. Then they lit up.

"Oh yeah..." he murmured.

"It's all coming together." He immediately reached into his inventory again. First came a bandolier filled with narrow slots, which he quickly strapped across his chest, followed by a handful of small metal plates perfectly sized for those slots. Then he sat on the ledge with his legs hanging over empty air and began carving runes into the plates. One by one. Each time he finished a plate, he slid it into the bandolier before beginning the next.

By the time he finished, seven completed plates rested in place, while the remaining raw materials went back into his inventory. He rose to his feet, checked the recording setup one final time – because Liz and everyone else would absolutely murder him if he ruined the footage – then gave Roserun one long final look before beginning his descent down the steep cliffs while remaining hidden within the shadows of rocky outcroppings. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Keep an eye out, Lucky," he muttered as one hand settled on his sword. At the same time, he began aggressively suppressing his mana signature to make himself as invisible as possible to any detection systems monitoring the cliffs and coastline.

** By the time he reached the coast, Sam found himself surrounded by towering jagged rock formations that rose out of the water like the broken teeth of some ancient beast, while the sea below slammed into them with enough force that a single misstep would not merely injure him, but almost certainly dash him against stone before dragging what remained of him into the depths. Arriving meant phase two of his plan could finally begin.

He first removed every loose piece of equipment from his armor that could potentially fall off, clatter against stone, or create even the faintest unnecessary sound at the worst possible moment, carefully storing each item away until he was left with only what he absolutely needed for the infiltration.

After that, he pulled out an upgraded rebreather and secured it over his face, yet another piece of equipment that had come courtesy of Liz and her increasingly terrifying engineering team, before following it up with a pair of specialized goggles that had been modified at his personal request to extend over his ears as well, providing both protection and a cleaner profile in the water.

Then came his hood, which contained a small attached application that adhered itself to parts of his head and neck, leaving almost no exposed skin visible. Once fully prepared, he selected a merchant vessel slowly approaching from the distant horizon, its massive silhouette gradually becoming clearer against the horizon, and after doing one final stretch to loosen his muscles, he raised a hand and casually waved toward one of the recording drones following him from afar.

If he died, at least the footage would be incredible. Then he carefully began wading into the violent water. He might have been reckless. But he was not stupid. There was absolutely no reason to dive headfirst into dark water when he could not even see what waited beneath the surface. Only after the water became deep enough did he begin circulating mana through his body, creating a thin protective membrane around himself that would help regulate pressure, temperature, and accidental collisions.

Then, with movements far clumsier than he would have liked to admit – because it had been embarrassingly long since he had last gone swimming – he finally dove beneath the surface. The moment he submerged, wind mana erupted around him and compressed into a streamlined bullet-like construct that wrapped around his body, and a heartbeat later he shot forward through the water with explosive speed.

He drove deeper and deeper into the ocean while his mana sense constantly swept the surrounding waters, guiding him around submerged mines, territorial monsters, and defensive traps scattered throughout the sea, while his attention remained firmly locked on intercepting the approaching merchant ship.

It took him roughly ten minutes of rapid underwater movement to catch up with the vessel, and once he reached it, he immediately dismissed the larger propulsion construct before using smaller, more controlled bursts of wind magic to propel himself upward toward the underside of the ship. The hull was disgusting. It was covered in thick layers of barnacles, strange parasitic growths, and several organisms Sam refused to identify on principle.

Unfortunately, a few of those growths had apparently evolved into actual monsters. A few well-placed void lances solved that issue quickly and quietly. Once the path was clear, he used a thin stream of void mana to carve handholds and footholds directly into the wooden hull before anchoring himself in place, one hand gripping tightly while the other moved toward the rune-carved metal plates attached to his bandolier. The runes began glowing with a soft white light. Then they pulsed.

For one brief moment, his entire body was engulfed in opaque white light, staying there as the runic circle started to work, then the light vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. And so did he. His body had become completely invisible.

He immediately grabbed onto the hull with both hands as the absence of his stabilizing wind bursts allowed the full force of the ocean to slam into him, and he instantly felt the horrifying pressure created by the speed of the moving vessel as the rushing water attempted to tear him free. A quickly shaped cone of wind in front of his body reduced most of the drag. Not all of it. Just enough to make survival realistic.

For the next hour, he remained attached to the underside of the vessel in complete silence, invisible and motionless, while the ship continued toward Roserun, his only entertainment coming from his mana sense. Above him, sailors constantly moved across the deck while the player guards seemed dramatically less disciplined, choosing instead to gather near the front of the ship where they sat around chatting as though they were on vacation.

Meanwhile, the closer they moved toward Roserun, the more underwater defenses Sam detected. There were mines layered in clusters, monster nests that had clearly been intentionally maintained, magical warning systems, and enough defensive measures to make it obvious that the Blood Army considered naval infiltration a serious concern. Unfortunately for them, they had apparently failed to study history thoroughly enough.

'People have been sneaking into cities through harbors for thousands of years, ' Sam thought smugly while forcing himself to remain perfectly still. For long stretches of time, absolutely nothing happened, and Sam eventually drifted into a strange half-focused state where he periodically swept his mana sense outward to confirm they were still heading toward Roserun while otherwise doing everything possible to minimize drag and avoid detection. Then, finally, something changed.

He felt a burst of mana moving toward the ship. Inspection magic. Sam reacted instantly by dismissing the wind cone in front of him, pressing himself even tighter against the hull, and retracting his mana signature even further so that he could barely sense anything around him anymore. For several long seconds he was effectively blind while violent turbulence battered his invisible body. Then the detection spell swept over him. For one horrifying heartbeat, he was convinced he had been discovered.

Then the spell continued onward. Sam silently exhaled in relief. The moment the spell passed, he recreated the wind cone and allowed himself the smallest possible amount of relaxation. As they entered the harbor, the water gradually became murkier, while the chaotic movement of docks, ships, and harbor traffic became increasingly apparent through his mana sense. Eventually, he detected piers. Then the ship began turning.

Another half hour passed before the vessel finally docked, rocking heavily against the harbor infrastructure as ropes were thrown and workers began to move. Only then did Sam finally release his grip on the hull. Before leaving, he carefully erased the handholds and footholds he had carved into the ship, reducing them to what looked like ordinary scratches that could easily be blamed on sea monsters. There was no reason to leave evidence behind before the real chaos even started.

But surfacing near the main harbor would have been suicide. Instead, he used short bursts of wind magic to move beneath the water toward a far less active section of the harbor where smaller personal vessels were anchored away from the larger commercial operations. The patrol presence there was noticeably weaker. And significantly lazier. Once he reached the shadow beneath a small sailboat, he finally surfaced.

'I wonder what it looks like from the outside when an invisible person emerges from the water,' he thought as he finally relied on his actual eyesight again instead of mana sense. The section of harbor he found himself in looked nearly abandoned, with cramped wooden piers packed tightly together while smaller boats constantly slammed into one another as waves rocked them in place.

After a brief scan of the area, he spotted a small ladder attached to one of the docks and calmly began swimming toward it with slow, deliberate strokes. Any sound he made disappeared beneath the endless noise of Roserun's harbor.

'Phase one completed.'